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Episode 5: Called to...Self Care
27 Plays2 months ago
In this episode, we talk about what self-care looks like for us as two mental health practitioners and we wrestle with somatic healing and its relationship to wytness.
Reminder: As usual, this episode is not meant for tiny ears.
Reminder 2: We recorded our first few episodes in batches, so our time context may not align with release dates.
Mentions: @pat.radical.therapist on Instagram. Radical Mental Health & Somatics, founder of @liberatorywellnessnetwork. Post Title: What if Dysregulation is a Form of Resistance? Dated: Jan 30, 2025.
Our Instagram is @calledtohealing. We are on Spotify, and you can find us on YouTube for our video episodes.
Patreon at: patreon.com/calledtohealing.
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Please identify (Native Land Digital) and educate yourself about the unceded lands you occupy and consider supporting whether via your loving collective support of time or financially to LANDBACK Initiatives.
Music: Calypsonian by Eshi Era (Standard License) Check out their Artist Profile here: Eshi Era
Until next time. REST easy.
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Transcript
Intro
00:00:19
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I
00:00:20
Blanca Torres, LMFT
right.
Introductions and Land Acknowledgment
00:00:21
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Welcome to the fifth episode of Called to Healing. I'm Blanca. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist it practicing in Nevada.
00:00:27
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I am Ksera Dyette I am a licensed clinical psychologist practicing in Massachusetts. And we acknowledge that this meeting, as usual, as always, is being held on the traditional lands of the Pawtucket, Nuwuvi Southern Pauite people.
00:00:45
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And we pay our respect to our elders, both past and present, who have stewarded this land for generations.
Exploring Self-Care: A New Perspective
00:00:53
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
If you are joining us for this fifth time, ah we spent our last episode talking about not answering the call to be therapists.
00:01:04
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So like, what if we hadn't do that done that? What if someone had spoken to us about doing that? And today we're going to be talking about that thing called self-care.
00:01:16
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And maybe not in a way that you would expect.
Dysregulation as Resistance: A Radical View
00:01:21
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And before we begin, as we always do for context, things in the United States, Turtle Island, are continuing to crumble.
00:01:30
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And we, like
00:01:32
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So
00:01:48
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
shared a post with you that I saw on Instagram ah by pat.radical.therapist.
00:01:59
Blanca Torres, LMFT
We love
00:01:59
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And yes, Pat is a radical somatic therapist. And before any of you think that we are throwing shade At Pat we are not. um This post that I saw from Pat caused me to struggle internally with some things.
00:02:32
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
together.
00:02:32
Blanca Torres, LMFT
oh
00:02:32
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
to this episode. And so I'll first read the post. i apologize ah for the length, but it's important for everybody to have the full context.
00:02:43
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So if you are watching the video of this, I am looking down so that I can read the post. So the first slide reads, what if dysregulation is a form of resistance? From somatic lens.
00:02:59
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
The second slide says, there is so much conversation about regulation, about nervous systems, vagal tones, and self soothing
00:03:14
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
But what if regulation, as it's so often discussed, is another colonial construct, thinking go? another rigid framework that tells us what we should be striving for?
00:03:26
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Another way our bodies are policed into fitting within systems that were never built for our freedom. Next slide.
Rethinking Regulation: From Control to Aliveness
00:03:34
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
The truth is some of us will never be regulated in the way these conversations imply. Some of us, those carrying generations of displacement, of resistance, of bodies that have been surveilled and policed are meant to pulse.
00:03:48
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
to tremble, to rage, to oscillate between grief and joy, between stillness and chaos. Our dysregulation is not always a problem to be solved.
00:03:59
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Sometimes it's an expression of aliveness. Sometimes it's the body remembering, reclaiming, refusing to be flattened into compliance. Menakem 2017, is quoted here.
00:04:12
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Next slide. Somatic liberation does not demand stillness. It does not ask us to be, quote, in control at all times. Instead, it asks, what does your body need in this moment?
00:04:25
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
What feels most true? Maybe your hands are shaking. That is movement. That is life. Maybe your breath is shallow. Your body is speaking.
00:04:36
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
What if you listened instead of corrected? Maybe you don't want to slow down. What if you let yourself be fast, be fire? Next slide. Colonialism taught us to fear our own wildness, to fear bodies that don't neatly follow rules.
00:04:53
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
The liberation lives in the cracks and the screams that were never meant to be swallowed and the shaking that was never meant to be stilled and the refusal. to be digestible. Next slide.
00:05:06
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
As Prentis Hemphill reminds us, quote, our healing is not about being soothed into submission. It is about remembering that we are meant to feel, meant to move, meant to be alive in our fullest range.
00:05:19
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
The current nervous system discourse, especially in white dominated wellness spaces, often centers self-regulation as an individual act.
00:05:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
But regulation, healing happens in the relationships. in co-regulation and the way our bodies move together. Black, indigenous, disabled, and queer bodies have long known that regulation is not always about calm.
00:05:44
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
It is about safety. And safety does not always look like stillness. Next slide. What if liberation isn't the perfect regulation of our nervous system, but in the deep embodied permission to exist as we are in movement, in mess,
00:06:01
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
in rage, in laughter, in all the things that were never meant to be tamed. Let yourself feel, let yourself move, let yourself be loud. This too is liberation.
00:06:12
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Mm-hmm.
00:06:15
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And then the last slide credits the sources for material for inspiration.
00:06:22
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So what does this have to do with self-care?
Personal Reflections on Regulation and Choice
00:06:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
For me, I consider the ability to regulate my nervous system actually as caring for myself, especially because I've lived most of my life in ah state that was anything but that.
00:06:47
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:06:48
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And for me, the ability to choose, to actually be able to choose and engage my nervous system in a regulatory way is really powerful because I didn't always have that choice.
00:07:05
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And
00:07:10
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
the thing that I struggled with was like a wariness of anything that feels too prescriptive to me.
00:07:18
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:07:19
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um And obviously, like this post can't cover every single facet of this.
00:07:45
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
engaging my nervous system is what's available to me and actually is the thing that keeps me healthy and well, especially in the face of chronic illness.
00:07:56
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And so I'm curious, you know, you can respond to like whatever you want, things that the post triggered for you or maybe what I just said. But yeah, what what are you thinking?
00:08:08
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So much. i It brings up a lot because I've been on my own nervous system journey the last couple of years.
Therapists as Agents of the State?
00:08:16
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I've been seeking somatic trainings. I've been leaving them when they weren't safe, which we'll talk about.
00:08:21
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm.
00:08:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um And I've been applying the concepts to myself and helping my clients apply it too. And when I first read the post, I was like, oh my God, absolutely. Right. If are we focusing on calming the nervous system?
00:08:41
Blanca Torres, LMFT
as a way, I think a lot about the ways I'm an agent of the state. I really do think about that, right?
00:08:48
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mhm
00:08:48
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Because if the core of my job is to help a client manage their depression symptoms so they can continue to function, am I not helping them to better their depression symptoms to continue to function under capitalism?
00:09:02
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mhm
00:09:03
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And how am I not an agent of the state in that sense? And then I started to think with this, holy crap, has the somatic stuff I've been doing also just trying to teach clients how to, you know, am I also doing it under the guise of being an agent of the state and helping my clients get through?
00:09:19
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
o
00:09:22
Blanca Torres, LMFT
and I think, as always, multiple things can be true at the same time. And so then ah while having that thought, I also had the thought, a big part of the way I work with my clients is helping them normalize and externalize their somatic experiences.
Systemic Challenges in Somatic Therapy
00:09:44
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Of course you're feeling that way.
00:09:46
Blanca Torres, LMFT
It was literally an unsafe space. And now you're not in that space, so how do we help you soothe? So I do think there's a way for this all to fit together.
00:09:58
Blanca Torres, LMFT
but i do think, like with everything, once whiteness and capitalism gets a hold of it, then it becomes what this post and what you're saying. It's prescriptive.
00:10:13
Blanca Torres, LMFT
It's maybe even a little gaslighty, right? Like, oh, you're you're you're feeling um more anxious because the government is actively against people who look like you?
00:10:26
Blanca Torres, LMFT
huh
00:10:27
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:10:28
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah, that might be for a really good fucking reason, right? And if there's therapists out there saying, you're fine, nothing's going to happen. You need to just meditate. Yeah, i have a problem with that
00:10:39
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I have a problem with that for sure. But yeah, it is. And it does seem like somatics are the thing of the moment. and and And even that, I say that with an asterisk, right? Because it's not a thing of the moment for Indigenous peoples. Like, it's not the thing of the moment for our ancestors. Like, somatics belongs to us.
00:11:01
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Even EMDR belongs to us. And it's always once it is... the clause of whiteness and capitalism grasp onto it, that we start start seeing it get diluted into these prescriptive gaslighting kind of movements, like what I think we're seeing with somatics but I might just be noticing more now because I'm on my own journey with somatics
00:11:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:11:26
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah, I guess I'm wondering if you could say like a little bit more about, you know, you were talking about how you were wondering if somatic therapy like somatic work as you've been learning it has also been in the service of the system.
00:11:47
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah, you mean for the person? Yeah. So... Gosh. Where do we even start with that one?
00:12:01
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I think it becomes a service to the state when we don't normalize the somatic experiencing the person is having in the moment.
00:12:13
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And when we tell them, oh, no. It's just your nervous system responding to the wrong thing.
00:12:19
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um
00:12:19
Blanca Torres, LMFT
All you need to do is go like this go like this or go like this and you'll feel better.
00:12:25
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And for people who can't see, what were you doing?
00:12:28
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I was um crossing. There's a somatic technique where you stack your knuckles on top of each other and gently squeeze them down. And that ah tends to... um stimulate the vagus nerve, which can help regulate your nervous system.
00:12:43
Blanca Torres, LMFT
There's another common one where you put one hand on one shoulder and then you make sweeping motion down your arm and then do the other side. These are all different types of somatic techniques. And so if we're taking someone's nervous system response to an event and we're saying, oh, it's just your nervous system response, do this to calm it, that's not getting us anywhere.
00:13:06
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm.
00:13:07
Blanca Torres, LMFT
But if we can say, yeah, of course you're reacting the way that you're reacting, that was a space that didn't feel safe for you. That was a space with someone who actively harmed and continues to harm you, right?
00:13:19
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um That is a perfectly normal response to what is happening in the world. And I do think um
Personal Health and Systemic Context
00:13:28
Blanca Torres, LMFT
a big portion of our field does tend to gaslight folks about their nervous system responses or about their responses they're having in general to the outside world.
00:13:40
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah, and I would say, like, not leave room for contextualizing. experiences because it makes me think of a conversation that you and I had and think it was last week um because I had surgery recently and we were talking about your wishes to escape Turtle Island and i i was talking with you about how I feel like
00:14:13
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I'm not even really thinking about that and like it's there but because I've had so many things happening to my body um with illness especially over the last three years and I've had like one surgery per year over the last three years that like
00:14:32
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Whether or not I'm going to like wake up in the morning and feel okay, physically okay, is actually the thing that's most present for me.
00:14:41
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And so i can come across to others as feeling like I'm unruffled. But the amount of like resources that are being directed just to my body because of illness changes how I see
00:15:03
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
like how I react to what's happening. um But it does not negate your reaction to what's happening. Right. And like we talked about that and that's contextualizing.
00:15:13
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:15:17
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Right.
00:15:18
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:15:18
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And even when a client asked me about it, I was honest.
00:15:22
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I was like, you know, it makes perfectly good sense that you are feeling more depressed and more angry and all of these things.
00:15:29
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes, yes. yeah
00:15:38
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I, they were like, I don't really feel hope. And I was like, I don't think it's needed. um i I felt what like I was in a very honest place when I said like, I feel like I can still do the work that I do and show up 100% for my clients.
00:15:59
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I feel that that's important. Right. I feel that that's important. And that's the way that I resist.
00:16:03
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:16:05
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Right. Like every single client and the way that I work with them from a liberatory frame is resistance.
00:16:11
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
But I, cannot be for me and I'm not saying this for any other therapist but I cannot be dysregulated when I am doing that work ah
00:16:27
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:16:28
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I can be angry I can have rage with my clients I can join with their experience but I personally cannot
00:16:40
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
maintain the stamina to do the work without the capacity to regulate.
00:16:46
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's how I came on my journey is obviously,
00:16:54
Blanca Torres, LMFT
maybe not obviously, but
00:16:58
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I think most of us enter into, we've talked about this in previous episodes, but becoming a therapist is the trauma response. I am 99% sure I became a therapist as a trauma response. I do not regret it. i will not, I'm not interested in changing it right now.
Learning from Past Self-Care Failures
00:17:15
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'm open to what the journey brings me, but it was working with clients that made me realize how much of my life I was living in fight or flight.
00:17:27
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And, it has been highly beneficial for me to work on my nervous system and work on regulating the nervous system. But I think, right, like what this post gets at and what we're getting at is that two things are true at the same time, that your nervous system's response to what's going on is absolutely valid.
00:17:48
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And let's fucking, let's feel it. let's we Let's sit with it. Let it, let's not judge that it's there. And
00:17:58
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'll put it to you this way. I actually had a um session with my therapist but about a week ago. She always opens with a scale from one to 10 where, yeah.
00:18:10
Blanca Torres, LMFT
and i so And I always, she must expect this from me. I can never just answer the question. I can never just say I'm a one or I'm a 10 or I'm a five. I always say, well, I think this number and this is why.
00:18:26
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And I said to her, she's she's a very She's also ah very aligned with us, right? So i can have genuine conversations with her about the state of the world and that all that. And I said, well, I'm doing okay.
00:18:40
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'm doing okay. And part of me feels like, what's the point of doing okay if the world is on fire? And then at the same time, I was like, but then again, what is the point of being in a hole of despair?
00:18:53
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And the world is on fire. And I'm not saying this applies to everybody. I'm talking specifically about me. Because now, because in 2016, when we went through this, I did not take care of myself in any way, in any way, shape or form.
00:19:06
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:19:08
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And I was in despair to the point of I couldn't act.
00:19:17
Blanca Torres, LMFT
i I couldn't do anything. um And I guess I learned from that, but it can't be, that can't be the next four years of my life for me right now, you know?
00:19:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes.
00:19:29
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:19:30
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Well, I, sorry, I didn't mean to cross, but I was resonating a hundred percent with you because i was like baby business owner when the pandemic started and I did not take care of myself was at ah at the beginning of like my, the health issues that, that started struggling with.
00:19:52
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And, um I think it was two years into COVID that I was like, this is not sustainable.
00:20:02
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:20:03
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I need to make some pretty significant changes. And it took me longer to make those changes than I would have liked. But absolutely.
00:20:13
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Like, I think the knowing that I've pivoted in ways that are meant to help take care of my body so that I can actually...
00:20:24
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
be in service to others and not feel despairing about that.
00:20:28
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:20:31
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:33
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I'm glad you used that word because there were times where I was just, I just cry. um like, I don't think I can do this, but like, what are these people going to if I'm, if I just close everything down?
00:20:37
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:20:45
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:20:45
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And some people did do that and I'm not knocking them for making that choice, but i was definitely in a very despairing place.
00:20:55
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:20:57
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:20:57
Blanca Torres, LMFT
No, Ken, absolutely Ken. And I don't even want to call it a choice. Like, I don't want to look at Blanca of 2016 and say she made a choice to be in despair.
00:21:07
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm. No.
00:21:09
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Blanca in 2016 didn't have the knowledge, the experience, perhaps the privilege
00:21:17
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:21:19
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um to not be in despair. and and And the despair I had, I firmly believe and will always maintain was appropriate.
00:21:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm.
00:21:30
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And then accept ah expected response to what I was experiencing. And not even just what was going 2016. For me, that was a couple years after ah lot of hectic year living in DC. It was,
00:21:44
Blanca Torres, LMFT
it was I think when the numbing out from my narcissistic, from my abusive relationship with a narcissist, um the numbing was starting to run out. And so i was just feeling all of it together at the same time. um So I'm not shaming the past self and I'm not shaming anyone in despair.
00:22:09
Blanca Torres, LMFT
That And I'm in a different place now, right? And I can honor that that part of that is privilege. But like you were saying, I cannot take care of my clients if I do not take care of myself first. And I still, I honor my nervous system responses to what's going on.
00:22:27
Blanca Torres, LMFT
i feel it. and And like Pat said, I like what she's, I'm sorry, Pat's pronouns.
00:22:34
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I looked but I did not see them on the Instagram account so yeah
00:22:36
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Okay. Okay. um Well, with Pat's post, I really like the part where um it's talking about maybe it's not about calm, maybe it's about safety, right?
00:22:49
Blanca Torres, LMFT
We've been calling it calm, but I think the reframe there of safety does work. i ah work really well. Just because I'm regulating, I'm working on regulating my nervous system doesn't mean I've gotten it to calm.
00:23:03
Blanca Torres, LMFT
It means I found spaces of safety,
00:23:06
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah, it's I think that's where I struggled a little bit because i can see it and also as a Black person,
00:23:22
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
only believe in safe enough spaces.
00:23:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:23:25
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I've said this for many, many years now.
00:23:28
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yep.
00:23:28
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And it's not that I don't have experiences of safety But it's not the word I go to for myself.
00:23:39
Blanca Torres, LMFT
What word do you go to?
00:23:40
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um
00:23:43
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
It's... For me, it choice.
00:23:50
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
ah And that's why I linked choice with regulation. and I linked regulation with the ability to choose. It's just another thing we can choose. It doesn't have to be a thing that's prescribed.
00:24:04
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:24:06
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes.
00:24:06
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And so that's why I said that, like, at the beginning, being able to have that when I did not have it for most of my life is really powerful for my nervous system, right?
00:24:18
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:24:22
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:23
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And that's just me, right?
00:24:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:24:26
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um But, yeah, I mean...
00:24:35
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
It's yeah.
00:24:37
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah, no, I'm with you. And to clarify what I meant in like 2016 Blanca, yeah, she didn't have a choice.
00:24:42
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
man
00:24:43
Blanca Torres, LMFT
It's not like there was a path to to this that I was like, eh, I'll just be over here. I didn't have it. I didn't have the choice. I didn't have the tools. And I do now.
00:24:54
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:24:54
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I do now. um But in speaking of, I think, weaponizing Yeah.
Experiences of Systemic Harm in Training
00:25:02
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Weaponizing nervous system regulation and and bringing back this whole idea of that how whiteness and capitalism has now gotten its claws into somatics. Was it last year a year before? you know Time is meaningless.
00:25:19
Blanca Torres, LMFT
ah But over 12 months ago at some point, i when I was on my journey, I selected a mainstream, very expensive,
00:25:21
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm.
00:25:31
Blanca Torres, LMFT
very international somatic program. I won't say their name because I don't know if I can, but I just won't. You'll probably figure it out. um But I chose them despite the cost because they had specific trainings that were for BIPOC individuals only and how this training was going to focus on supporting marginalized people ah in this somatic work taking into account, you know, systems of oppression of all types.
00:26:07
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And and It was a large group on Zoom, right? Some of us are white. Some of us have white privilege. And so there was all sorts of people on there.
00:26:21
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'm not going to sit there and go, that person's white, that person's white, right? This just kind of sets the tone. I'm not going to go through and point at people in the Zoom and decide who's white and who's not because who gets?
00:26:32
Blanca Torres, LMFT
That's not for me to do. But we break into these small groups. And it's me. um A black woman and ah an assistant facilitator who is an Asian woman. And I apologize. I don't know from where.
00:26:51
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I don't recall and I don't want to make assumptions. And then this person who looked white.
00:26:58
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Again, I'm not going to ask anyone to show me their race card or anything like that. Everyone introduced themselves and themselves. And then this woman says, yeah, I'm i'm i'm a white woman.
00:27:10
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'm a colonizer. And it's been really hard to hear you all talking about white people as colonizers.
00:27:19
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So naturally, i have a nervous system response. And it's straight up shut down. She was the last one to introduce herself. And then I was going to, it was my turn to be the practitioner in a, in a practice of somatic um experiencing.
00:27:38
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And the facilitator is like, Blanca, are you ready? And I, I remember not responding. I remember just trying really hard to breathe for the moment, straight up shut down.
00:27:51
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And then I was like, this is really hard. um sorry I'm sorry. i thought this was a BIPOC only training. I'm surprised to hear this person say these things. So naturally, the facilitator's job, when stuff like that happens, is to call in the main facilitator, who is a woman of color.
00:28:10
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I will say she is from another country, which I do think maybe at some point, Ksera be wise to have a conversation about DEI and BIPOC only spaces means for Context outside of the US.
00:28:22
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So it is an international context. I will say that. But she comes in. And I am told that the problem is not.
00:28:33
Blanca Torres, LMFT
What do we call this? An invasion? um Colonization? ah Like, what do we call it? Infiltration? I don't know.
00:28:45
Blanca Torres, LMFT
that The problem was the nervous system reaction I was having and not the fact that the space that was meant to be safer was completely and utterly ripped from me.
00:28:59
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And they tried to make me do somatic work right then and there in the small group with that woman still there.
00:29:07
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
awful
00:29:08
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I had to leave the group. leave out I I tried. i in earnest, tried. And I said, I'm sorry, i can't do this. I think I have to leave.
00:29:20
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And the facilitator was like, maybe you should.
00:29:23
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
awful
00:29:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Left, regulated myself, came back. The next day, it is not discussed. But one of my group mates was like, we can't let this stand. We need to tell the rest of the group.
00:29:37
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So we told the whole group. And then it was still made to be about my nervous system response and the response of my group mate, the Black woman. The problem is how they're reacting.
00:29:50
Blanca Torres, LMFT
This is a space for people of colors. Shit you not.
00:29:56
Blanca Torres, LMFT
We were not outing this person. We were not saying who she was. But then she then outed herself in the large group. And she said, they're talking about me. It's me. I'm sorry. i'm a white i'm I'm a white woman from South Africa. I'm a person of color.
00:30:08
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So I get to be here.
00:30:13
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I don't recall anything else that happened, but I sat on it for a little bit and I decided I'm tired of giving money to spaces that claim to be for me and that are not.
00:30:27
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And so I quit the training and then I found a much cheaper one and I got the same information. It wasn't BIPOC only, but it didn't matter because if I'm getting harmed in this space, no matter what, then why am I paying a premium?
00:30:39
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Right.
00:30:39
Blanca Torres, LMFT
To be in that space. But anyway. So when Ksera was reading me. that i'm I'm on an Instagram break. Which we'll talk about in a second. When we talk about our individual self-care. I hadn't seen that post.
00:30:48
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes.
00:30:49
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Ksera it to me. And then um when she was done. When we were done looking at it. I was like holy crap. This is exactly what happened to me at that training.
00:30:58
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm.
00:30:59
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Where the ah there was a literal. What what do we call it? Invasion.
00:31:03
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
We can call it infiltration. Yeah.
00:31:05
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Infiltration. ah
00:31:07
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I mean...
00:31:07
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Rupture.
00:31:09
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
No, I mean, this was...
00:31:09
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Violation.
00:31:11
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah. i I hesitate on the word rupture, and we could talk about why, but, like, it's not like this woman didn't know.
00:31:21
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:31:21
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Right? It wasn't like she was like, you know, I'm a person of color. a She was like, I'm white. I'm a colonizer.
00:31:29
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes. Yes.
00:31:32
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
so like, there's nothing subtle about that, right?
00:31:32
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And that's how she introduced herself.
00:31:35
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Like, and
00:31:37
Blanca Torres, LMFT
No. Oh, let me add that she introduced herself as a plant medicine woman from Peru.
00:31:45
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So are you Peruvian or are you South African or are you white?
00:31:47
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
South Africa. Right. Right.
00:31:49
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Like and you've already thrown all of these identities out.
00:31:49
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
ah
00:31:52
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
ah huh
00:31:53
Blanca Torres, LMFT
You know what you're doing.
00:31:53
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Right. And it's because the person's intent is violence. Right.
00:31:57
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:31:58
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
That is a person who was coming for violence. And yes, it will be important for us to talk about international context and DEI for sure.
00:32:09
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
For sure. and
00:32:13
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
It is also true i interface with a lot of folks internationally and other organization organizations that I'm in. And usually the thing that comes up if people are not sure is curiosity.
00:32:27
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:32:27
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Not violent speech and behavior.
00:32:30
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:32:34
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:32:35
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Usually i get asked questions. Like we don't have this in our context. What does this mean? Right? Like, so this person showed up knowing full well what they were about.
00:32:50
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I know, because we talked about this when it happened in the background.
00:32:54
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was live texting you during this training.
00:32:56
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah
00:32:59
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
There were attempts to sort of try and reconcile and deal with things. But like, It was all handled really poorly. Yeah.
00:33:07
Blanca Torres, LMFT
To this day, i have yet to receive an apology.
00:33:09
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah And the fact that like. You were. And I want to. You know. We could spin about this experience. But like. The core of this is that.
00:33:22
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Your nervous system was weaponized against you, in a training.
00:33:31
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And it shows a lack of skill. on the part of the facilitators that instead of realizing the context, like going back to what we were talking about kind of contextualizing things, they were like, oh no, no, no, the only way we can handle this is to reground it in the principles that we're trying to teach.
00:33:37
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah.
00:33:55
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yep.
00:33:55
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And none of this happens without relational context. or experiential context, which sort of the individualism of the mental health field has often been devoid of context when we were talking about Western psychology, right?
00:34:11
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:34:17
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:18
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So absolutely. Like, and I know I said awful a couple of times, but it's still like, even though I was there and I like with like on the sidelines hearing about it, it's still awful to like hear about this as your friend again, like, and it makes me so disappointed
00:34:22
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes. but you
00:34:35
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:34:38
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah yes
00:34:39
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
and people. Yeah.
00:34:42
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. And in people who, I mean, part i don't have the objectives with me, but in the objectives, that talk about it talked about recognizing the impact of colonization um and all kinds of systems of oppression into the somatic work. And this woman literally introduced herself as a colonizer. And I might add a personal trigger of mine with her is it was, oh my God, wait, I lost it.
00:35:10
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I literally lost it. Oh, the fact that she said it's been hard to hear y'all talking about white people and white supremacy.
00:35:17
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I was one of the people in the chat talking about colonization and white supremacy.
00:35:20
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
ahha
00:35:23
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And I have a personal trauma of others weaponizing my
00:35:33
Blanca Torres, LMFT
inclination to justice
00:35:34
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Your voice? Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:37
Blanca Torres, LMFT
my my intersectional lens against me in these spaces, right?
00:35:40
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah, but that is what they do. Right.
00:35:43
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So that that in and of itself alone already was a huge trigger for me, not even considering the fact that she literally said, I'm a colonizer.
00:35:52
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes. Yeah. Like, let me just.
00:35:55
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Also, baby girl, why do you think you're white in South Africa?
00:36:00
Blanca Torres, LMFT
what You are not indigenous to South Africa, baby. Why do you think you're white woman in South Africa? Take a second and think about, hmm, why am I white in South Africa?
00:36:17
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
There was something...
00:36:21
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Why are you white in South Africa?
00:36:25
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
There was something that you said um that I'm trying to remember the thread of, but...
00:36:39
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I think oh i think what what what it was was when you were talking about like the objectives, which, you know, as we know from experience, many trainings put these objectives out there.
00:36:45
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yep.
00:36:48
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:36:53
Blanca Torres, LMFT
ye
00:36:54
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
to save your face and to attract a certain group of people, but they're not actually prepared to do the work that that requires, not just from a facilitation standpoint, but from an exposure standpoint.
00:37:09
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I say this as somebody who has been like very highly visible online doing advocacy work and not as, visible not even as highly visible as other people that I interface with.
00:37:10
Blanca Torres, LMFT
right
00:37:16
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:37:20
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Right. But like, when you are putting yourself out there, you risk criticism, right?
00:37:31
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I'm preparing for a presentation actually next week. And like,
00:37:38
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
ah ah i always have a little bit of an anxiety knowing that the start of how I show up is going to be something that invites potentially violent criticism.
00:37:52
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:37:56
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And if you are not willing to do that...
00:38:03
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
you don't have any business facilitating anything that has to do with oppression and colonialism and so on. Right. Because, and that does not mean that i don't feel upset by it or, you know, whatever other things like those things happen to me, but I'm fully prepared when I signal where I'm at with these issues, that that's going to happen.
00:38:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
That does not mean it's okay for people to be violent.
00:38:30
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Oh, yeah.
00:38:36
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um Some people may hear this and have the urge to do so, right, and leverage violent criticism, especially given what's going on in the world.
00:38:47
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um
00:38:48
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And so even our choice to do podcast that at the core... has liberation as the value is something that puts both of us at risk.
00:38:58
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:06
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And so
00:39:07
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:39:10
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
want to be mindful if you had any other thoughts that you wanted to add before we sort of talk about the last piece of this conversation.
00:39:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Just because capitalism and white supremacy have grasped on to somatics and are getting prescriptive about it doesn't mean it it's not ours and that we can't do it with our lenses in mind and with liberation in mind.
00:39:44
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So I think both things are true at the same time.
00:39:49
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
00:40:04
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
especially because of what I just said about how hard it is not only to do our work, but to even do the podcast.
00:40:12
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:40:12
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Um, is when it's hard for us to take care of ourselves.
Struggles with Boundaries and Self-Care
00:40:18
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And then maybe we can talk about like, yeah, the conversation it's related.
00:40:18
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:40:23
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So however you want to approach it, like in either direction, I guess. Um,
00:40:28
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. So I do know how, when it's hard for me to take care of myself and a little bit, there's some shame um because there's a part of me that is saying as a therapist, I should know better.
00:40:43
Blanca Torres, LMFT
But that's just one part because i know that if my clients were coming to me with this, I would not shame them for it and I would normalize it and externalize and all that.
00:40:54
Blanca Torres, LMFT
But it's really hard, as Ksera was a witness to over the last seven-ish days, it's really hard for me to take care of myself when it comes to setting hard boundaries um with people who have harmed me.
00:41:10
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um I think i my people pleaser part ah really, maybe not people pleaser. I'm sure I have people pleasing tendencies because it's hard to be socialized as a woman and especially as i like as a first generation Mexican, first generation daughter of Mexican parents.
00:41:30
Blanca Torres, LMFT
It's hard not to have some people pleasing tendencies, but
00:41:37
Blanca Torres, LMFT
it's really hard for me to take care of myself in those cases, I think, because I want to prioritize the safety of the other person and the other person's experience too, um which is not cool for me.
00:41:53
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I notice it's hard for me to take care of myself. No, it's that. Cause even the next example I was thinking of,
00:41:59
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm.
00:42:02
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um related to like when the election happened, there was a day where I had Some point in the two weeks after the election, there was a day I had to cancel clients the whole day because I could not hear it anymore from really privileged people.
00:42:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I had no issue with taking care of myself with my marginalized clients. But with my people that had contain a lot of privilege, I was i couldn't do it anymore.
00:42:36
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And I really shamed myself for having to take the day off um in that case. But that's when it's hard to take care of myself.
00:42:41
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Hmm. Hmm.
00:42:44
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And then I think at a certain point, we get so low in resources when we're not keeping up with our self-care or whatever we need. that then it just becomes even harder to do because I get wrapped up in that spiral of it's my job to take care of others. And so, no, I can't, I don't have time to take care of me because I have to take care of others, which usually is a sign for me that it's time to take a week off.
00:43:06
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Hmm.
00:43:08
Blanca Torres, LMFT
A full week.
00:43:10
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:11
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah, what about you?
00:43:14
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um I mean, of course, I find it hard to take care of myself when I am ah in sort of a not great health space because the energy needed to do and keep up with those things is like non-existent.
00:43:32
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um But I also find it challenging to do when my
00:43:41
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
anxiety has gotten to the level where I'm a little bit hypomanic and I don't use that in like a ah casual way.
00:43:54
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
ah This is just like a thing that's been present in my life where like I will like be hyper productive and that is absolutely a signal that I am not okay.
00:43:58
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Mm-hmm.
00:44:08
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:44:08
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:44:10
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Because usually if i just try to, i I don't want to do anything else. i don't I don't want to read my book. I don't want to take a walk or exercise. I don't want to play my video game. Like, I don't want to talk to anybody. Don't don't talk to me.
00:44:31
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And that's fine sometimes, you know, but like, and and usually along with that is like a sense of like, agitation. like For example, someone who I haven't heard from in a while who were I consider us to be solidly professional acquaintances was asking how I was doing because they had seen my automatic email responder when I had surgery.
00:44:47
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:44:53
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I told them and We had like a little back and forth and then they were like, um oh, we should do a phone call or a video call sometime soon.
00:45:04
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I was just like, went from zero to angry at this email because I'm just like,
00:45:13
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I just had surgery for my ear. I literally just told you that.
00:45:18
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:45:18
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And you just asked me for a fucking phone call when I cannot be on the phone right now.
00:45:22
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:45:25
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And like, do you know how hard that is for me? And like, like, the fact that I have like, I'm like, now I have to explain myself. And I have like, two presentations coming up and I don't want to get on a video call with you.
00:45:39
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I barely have time for the people.
00:45:40
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:45:41
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So like, and it's partly, it's really not this person's fault.
00:45:47
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:45:47
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
But also I find that sometimes when I notice like it feels like other people are thinking more about themselves and what they want.
00:45:54
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:45:54
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I get that level of angry about it I'm like, m girl, yeah.
00:45:59
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. yeah
00:46:01
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
It's usually going hand in hand with those other things.
00:46:12
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:46:12
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um Which of course like connects back to like the whole capitalism thing, right? Like, you know, it's a, it's a learned behavior. It's
00:46:21
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah, absolutely.
00:46:24
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
a learned behavior because I'm afraid
00:46:31
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
what happens if I stop?
00:46:35
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah What happens if you stop?
00:46:37
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And yeah. Are you asking me?
00:46:41
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:46:42
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Oh, I won't get back up again.
00:46:44
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:46:48
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And that's not entirely true.
00:46:48
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:46:49
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Like I have a very different relationship with myself at this point where for the, I usually doesn't get to that point. ah But, you know, as we talked about, like, but like, as we were planning this episode, um my body has been under ah ah like a, the most stressful recovery I've had post-op.
00:47:10
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So um it's, it's been a time.
00:47:14
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:15
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
But
00:47:23
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So reading, I read a lot of fiction. So Storygraph has, I mean, I knew this, but Storygraph has been yelling it in my face with like the graph showing 100% fiction.
00:47:28
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:47:37
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:47:37
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I know that that's because I don't really like to take in reality as part of my pleasure routine so I know some people do and that's perfectly fine for them I I cannot do it and I've tried I've tried to force myself in the past and I'm like girl no and I was just like listening to another book recently and like the third part was about pandemic-y type stuff and this book is solidly left at halfway because I'm like I
00:47:52
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes.
00:48:11
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah, don't want to do it.
00:48:11
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
This is fiction, but also it's way too close to what our life was,
00:48:14
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:48:15
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:17
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah. yeah
00:48:18
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I solidly agree with that fiction thing.
00:48:19
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So.
00:48:21
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I read for pleasure, not for anyone else. I do. I will listen to audio books that are about like their like attachment theory and practice and stuff like that. i will listen to like, it's a podcast.
00:48:33
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:48:34
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um But yeah, no, my reading is purely for pleasure.
00:48:38
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Mm-hmm.
00:48:38
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um Fiction only.
00:48:40
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah
00:48:41
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Rom-coms almost exclusively. Dramione most of the time.
00:48:46
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes. And it's funny because the shame thing that you said reminded me that during COVID, I mean, besides the fact that like the actual situation of COVID and how like did not take care of myself made it hard to do any of those things.
00:48:59
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um
00:48:59
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Mm-hmm.
00:49:00
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I was shaming myself a lot because I had more aggressively entered liberation spaces than And I felt like, oh, I need to like read a lot more.
00:49:12
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right,
00:49:13
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And if I'm not, then that means I'm not like good enough to be in these spaces. And but then I wasn't reading anything because I would try and I'm like, I am like so not like
00:49:23
Blanca Torres, LMFT
right. i
00:49:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
and like I can take this in if I go to like a and you know a workshop or something but it is literally not what I want my spare reading to be so yeah
00:49:43
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:49:45
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
what else do you usually do
00:49:45
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um i Well, right now, a big one for me is being off social media.
Digital Detox and Content Choices for Well-being
00:49:52
Blanca Torres, LMFT
i'm highly at My nervous system is highly affected by social media, which is the point of social media.
00:50:01
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So I have been on a more than a month-long break right now from Instagram. I didn't go cold turkey. I took some steps. But now I'm um'm a cold turkey now.
00:50:13
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'm not going on it at all. And I have to admit that has been extremely helpful. Extremely helpful. I'm still aware of what's going on.
00:50:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'm staying informed as best I can. And I just, I will doom scroll the news and social media
00:50:34
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Hmm.
00:50:35
Blanca Torres, LMFT
All day long. I really will. It's just it's okay. There's no shame in it. But I also have to be aware how that harms me. And it harms me. um So that's been a big one I've always joked throughout my experience in work and school.
00:50:53
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Because my best motivator is time to do nothing.
00:50:57
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I love to do nothing. And by that I mean no one... and I don't have anything to do. Nobody needs, I don't have to think about anything. I don't have to be anyone's anything. Right. So for me, downtime with nothing, with no to do's is a big part of my self-care routine.
00:51:19
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um Big part. So my Sunday mornings, for example, I go to, I work out, I go grocery shopping, I throw in some laundry. But other than that, I don't do it anything on Sundays.
00:51:30
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I watch TV. I build Legos, play. I move my body. But that's about it. um What else am I doing for self-care? Pilates is a big part of my self-care routine.
00:51:43
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And for a long time, I felt a little ashamed because it was like, ugh, white woman things. And then I found out that Joseph Pilates developed Pilates with a black woman.
00:51:49
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes.
00:51:53
Blanca Torres, LMFT
So now I'm like, it's Nope. No shame. I love Pilates. It's the one workout routine that I have been able to hold consistently. And by that, I mean years. So there's no shame in it I'm going to keep going.
00:52:07
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
jealously guard my Sundays I call it Black Lady Hair Day because yeah so it's usually when I wash my hair and do all the things
00:52:12
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I remember that from when we lived together.
00:52:21
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
You know, um and when I lose Black Lady Hair Day, it is highly disruptive for me.
00:52:22
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:52:28
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um Like, no, like, you will not see me. Like, don't ask for me. And if you have getting my time, it's because no other day worked.
00:52:38
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:52:38
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Like, that...
00:52:39
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah. I remember she would be like, do you need to use the restroom? Because I'm about to use the restroom for several hours.
00:52:51
Blanca Torres, LMFT
On Sundays. I remember this. So no.
00:52:53
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yes yes black lady hair day is still a thing
00:52:57
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Non-negotiable. Other things I do for self-care that are kind of silly is my poor boyfriend. I have rules about TV. I do.
00:53:05
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
oh yeah me too
00:53:06
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I don't want to watch TV with violence. Now, of course, if I'm watching, if I, if I am in a space where I'm watching, like,
00:53:16
Blanca Torres, LMFT
what's a good example? I'm not interested in gratuitous violence. If I'm watching the story of somebody's life and there is violence in that story, that's not what I'm talking about.
00:53:20
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah
00:53:25
Blanca Torres, LMFT
But like, am I going to watch, like, I don't know, what's some shows with gratuitous violence? Because I don't watch it.
00:53:31
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Fall of the House of Usher gave me legitimate nightmares. It is a lot of violence.
00:53:35
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Okay.
00:53:38
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
a lot of It's dark.
00:53:38
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:53:39
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
It was good, but like I could only watch one episode a day in broad daylight.
00:53:40
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah yeah
00:53:44
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
like i was Because I was fully getting nightmares. Yeah.
00:53:47
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Yeah. So nothing with violence, nothing with, I don't want to hear gunshots. And that means I'm missing out on a lot of good shows, right? Like I've heard, i really need to watch The Wire.
00:53:59
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'm so sorry.
00:54:00
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah
00:54:00
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I'm not going to watch The Wire. I'm hilarious. Um, I don't watch shows that have overt, and I say overt because it's the system we live in, racism, sexism, homophobia, ah ableism, like, I'm not going to do it.
00:54:10
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah yeah i can't do it
00:54:15
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I am not interested in watching that. So I'm really limited there. Um, unfortunately, but honestly, it makes a difference. And the only time and every time I go against those, I'm reminded why I do it, right? Like, I'll never forget a while ago, I had a while ago, had a friend.
00:54:33
Blanca Torres, LMFT
You know, those kinds of friends. and we were putting on the something on the TV and he puts on bad boys or something. And I was like, I can't relax with this.
00:54:45
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Like, if you want to get in my pants, you need to change this. He did not believe me, left it on. Things moved on. And I was like, I'm sorry. Like, I'm not feeling it.
00:54:55
Blanca Torres, LMFT
and i'm and what was I didn't share this part with him, but my nervous system felt heightened. I was hypervigilant. I felt stressed. And I was like, we need to pause and we need to put something on.
00:55:06
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Like I had already told you, soothing. Fucker puts on diners, drive-ins, and dives. Five minutes, I'm ready to go.
00:55:13
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
you are hilarious although yeah
00:55:17
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
you hilarious
00:55:18
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And it's just because it was
00:55:19
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
although
00:55:21
Blanca Torres, LMFT
It was about food. that No one was being harmed.
00:55:23
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah
00:55:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And and well fun fact, Guy Fieri is like an unproblematic king. Who would have thought? Not me.
00:55:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah
00:55:30
Blanca Torres, LMFT
But he is. And so it I'll never forget it. It was about a duck bacon pizza.
00:55:40
Blanca Torres, LMFT
But my nervous system was calm. And I was able to engage like in sexual activity.
00:55:43
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:55:45
Blanca Torres, LMFT
But I'll never forget that. Because he laughed about it. And I was like, you could have just listened to me the first time I told you.
00:55:49
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Right.
00:55:49
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Not to put on bad boys. I don't care how good of a movie is. It's going to activate my nervous system.
00:55:56
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:55:57
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Because of the violence.
00:55:57
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
00:55:58
Blanca Torres, LMFT
because of the And i understand. It's contextual. I'm not shaming the movie bad boys for having violence. I'm just not. I can't watch it.
00:56:07
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah. No, I mean, I feel you like I've, I would say, like, and don't even want to use the word, like, weakened necessarily, but, like, my constitution for what I can take in changed a lot during...
00:56:23
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yeah
00:56:24
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
like the first few years of COVID, it changed a lot. And so I have a similar con, I think I have slightly different threshold, but like similar content-ish, kind like restrictions.
00:56:39
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Like ie I, love C dramas. There's a lot of violence in sea drama. Some, some of the older, like the ones where like, it's like set in a, um oh, like a Chinese drama.
00:56:49
Blanca Torres, LMFT
What's a C drama?
00:56:52
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Oh, Chinese drama. Okay, yeah.
00:56:53
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
There's like 40 episodes long. I really like the ones that are like old dynasty-esque. And so like people are usually running around with swords. And that's fine.
00:57:01
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:57:03
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um But it's not gratuitous, the violence to me.
00:57:07
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:57:07
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And so like, yeah. But anyway, yeah. Yeah.
00:57:11
Blanca Torres, LMFT
I know what you mean. I'll watch stuff like that too and it is different.
00:57:13
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
yeah Yeah, but long story short, like I definitely um have a ah different content constitution, I try to respect that when I'm consuming things.
00:57:25
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:57:27
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um
00:57:28
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:57:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And same is true with the games that I play. Yeah. I love puzzle things and um Lego is also good.
00:57:39
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
i still have 75 pounds of Lego just hanging out in my balcony closet at this point.
00:57:40
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes.
00:57:48
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Wow. That's a lot of like a
00:57:50
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah, well, I'm looking for like a nice chest to put them all in, but I haven't found one yet. We'll get there. But anyway,
00:57:59
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um we could probably talk a lot about how fun the things we do are to take care of ourselves.
Celebrating Personal Growth and Professional Alignment
00:58:07
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
But you probably get the point that
00:58:07
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah.
00:58:10
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
both Blanca and I have a plethora of things that we turn to some very, very small. um Like sometimes for me, it's just making sure that I have the things that I need eat
00:58:24
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Mm-hmm.
00:58:25
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
and
00:58:25
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right Yeah.
00:58:36
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Right.
00:58:40
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah,
00:58:40
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So
00:58:44
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
we are at our practice what we preach moment. Blanca, take it away.
00:58:51
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. All right. So let's, if it's available to you, let's take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth slowly, like you're breathing through a straw.
00:59:12
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Ksera what are some moments of joy thriving for you this week?
00:59:18
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Oh, yeah. I've got a good one, which I've shared with you.
00:59:20
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Hmm.
00:59:23
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
My moment of joy is that I have like officially, Rooted Justice Coaching Program.
00:59:42
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
for mental health practitioners who are interested in having thriving liberatory practices that feel as good as what we've talked about ah for ourselves.
00:59:53
Blanca Torres, LMFT
uh-huh
00:59:55
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
and
00:59:58
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I am very proud of this. It's one-year program. i do a lot of intensive work. It is good. based off of a lot of terrible experiences that I've had and trying to either address those for people who've had them or prevent people from ever having them in the first place.
01:00:17
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And so i work with clinicians who are either trapped in toxic practices and they want out or toxic jobs and they want out and they're ready to make that leap or maybe your practice is existing, but not working out in the way that you'd like.
01:00:33
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And it's draining and all the different things that we talked about that we have learned from over over the years.
01:00:40
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And so, ah yeah.
01:00:41
Blanca Torres, LMFT
one
01:00:43
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And I did a little coaching with you, Blanca.
01:00:45
Blanca Torres, LMFT
yes a little bit and and like if somebody wants to know more about this where how can they reach you about this
01:00:46
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
01:00:51
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes. So they can look me up on LinkedIn. ah They can also find me on Instagram. My handle there is the antiableist Doc, D-O-C.
01:01:07
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
um The Antiabliest Doc. And um yeah, those are the two main places. I do have a paper bell as well, but that's like hard to like spell out all of that.
01:01:19
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
But LinkedIn is the easiest place to find it.
01:01:22
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And there's a book online button you could get straight to my Calendly. And I do have...
01:01:27
Blanca Torres, LMFT
oh
01:01:29
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
ah Two, lower access to wealth spots for folks for whom it would be a hardship to access my program if they paid up my full rate.
01:01:40
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes.
01:01:40
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
and
01:01:41
Blanca Torres, LMFT
And we'll post links on social media for this as well.
01:01:43
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes.
01:01:46
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yes. So this is my baby.
01:01:47
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yay.
01:01:48
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I'm super excited because, you know, as we've talked about, Blanca, practice that has values aligned with
01:01:48
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Congratulations.
01:01:56
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
and takes care of you helps you actually take care of other people. so yeah.
01:02:01
Blanca Torres, LMFT
100% yeah yeah I'm very excited for you um you know for me it was a hard one but I i set a really hard boundary um and it was a really hard thing to do but there's a lot of second guessing some of us might have even copied and pasted some of the details into chat GPT and asked chat GPT if if the tone was okay and some of us it might come from trauma I don't know
01:02:03
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah. What about you? Thank you.
01:02:29
Blanca Torres, LMFT
um But I set a boundary that was difficult to set and getting through it was difficult, but the result was what I needed it to be ultimately. um So I think that was a big moment of thriving for me, being able to set that boundary and uphold it.
01:02:50
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Well, and spoiler, that boundary was also about protecting a safe space for you.
01:02:56
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes, it was.
01:02:57
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
So, which absolutely connects to the rest of that whole episode.
01:02:58
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes.
01:03:00
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Yeah.
01:03:01
Blanca Torres, LMFT
It does. it was absolutely There were so many nervous system responses happening. Some gaslighting. All kinds of things are happening. But I stood firm um and protected my peace and my space.
01:03:14
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
You did. i am proud of you.
01:03:17
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Thank you. Thank you.
01:03:19
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
And you just reminded me, i don't know, maybe we'll have an episode where we talk about AI and mental health.
01:03:25
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yes. Yeah, I know.
01:03:27
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
I'm actually giving a presentation about it in a couple of weeks. So, yeah, yeah.
01:03:31
Blanca Torres, LMFT
Yeah. Bye.
01:03:33
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her)
Well, we hope that you join us for our next episode. Until next time. Bye.