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Join host and trauma therapist, Lindsay Faas for this episode tackling skills to process experiences with those in our lives. Learn seven steps to set up interactions for success in meeting your needs as you work to make sense of the things you face. Don't bottle it up, and don't dump it and then regret it - learn how to seek effective connection around the tough stuff.
Created for First Responders and Front Line Workers to tackle the challenges of working on the front lines. Dig into topics on burnout, workplace dynamics, managing mental health, balancing family life...and so much more. Created and hosted by Lindsay Faas, clinical counsellor and trauma therapist. View the show notes, and access bonus resources at https://my.thrive-life.ca/behind-the-line.
Hey front line friends, and welcome back to Behind the Line.
I’m your host Lindsay Faas. If you are new to Behind the Line, what you should know about me is that I am a clinical counsellor specializing in trauma therapy, and after years working with First Responders and Front Line Workers around issues like burnout, compassion fatigue, PTSD and related OSI’s, I have become a passionate wellness advocate and educator for those who sacrifice so much for our communities out on the front lines. Behind the Line is a place for us to talk about the real life behind the scenes challenges facing you on the front lines. I created this podcast with the hope of bringing easy access to skills for wellness – allowing you to find greater sustainability, both on the job and off.
I am really glad that you are joining me today because we are covering a topic today that I get asked about a LOT within my work as a trauma therapist – and I think it has a ton of application to where many of you are likely at right now. We’ve been talking for the last couple of weeks about what it means to process - and specifically we’ve been working on setting up tools to process the experience of being a First Responder or Front Line Worker in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This intense time has marked history for all of us across the globe, we know that it has turned things upside down for over a year now, and that we’re not done yet. For those of you on the front lines, the proximity to the reality of the situation significantly shapes you – you’ve likely noticed that your mood, your capacities and your coping have all felt harder to maintain day to day, probably in waves that ebb and flow from one shift set to another. Working to make sense of all that you have seen and been through this past year is vital to not just surviving it, but thriving as we continue in it and gradually (fingers crossed!) emerge from it.
In episode 15 we talked about what processing means and how we do it, and in episode 16 we talked about some of the supportive pre-requisites that allow us to be successful in processing well. If you haven’t had a chance yet, I would encourage you to listen to those as well to get the full picture. Today, we’re talking about how to process within community. I said a minute ago that this is a topic I am asked about a lot in my work as a trauma therapist, and here’s why: when we have faced something significant – whether it is a single specific traumatic event, or the cumulation of many relentless and persistent stressors – we struggle to how to talk about it - who we can talk to about it with, and how much to share without overloading the other person with our junk. What I find with many of the First Responders and Front Line Workers I know is that they have a tendency to feel like they need to carry the load themselves. This tends to come from some time in the work and having experiences that advise us that people in our lives who aren’t in the work, can’t handle knowing the details of what we do, or if they can handle it, they can’t really fully understand it. Meanwhile, when we try to connect with our colleagues it can also be tricky territory – feeling like we shouldn’t burden those we know are already so burdened, or finding that sharing our own stuff leads into a ridiculous tit-for-tat, one-up-man-ship situation where it is difficult to feel heard or have our needs met. You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? Meanwhile, carrying it all on your own is a recipe for burnout and compassion fatigue, at least, and can lead to more complicated challenges over the long-term. We need to know that as humans we are wired for connection – our brains crave connection. When we process experiences, it comes in layers – making meaning of bits and pieces and growing from there. Processing in community is an important layer – it gives us external perspective outside of our own heads – outside of our own personal biases and internal skews. It grants us some context we might not otherwise have, and it can help us create a more comprehensive and accurate narrative of what we experienced, how it has impacted us and what it means about us that we experienced it. Sometimes it’s not even really about the other person’s response – but just the simple act of hearing ourselves verbalize out loud some of how we are thinking and making sense of an event or experience can shift how we are processing it.
What I notice in most people I interact with – myself included – is that we have a tendency to oscillate between two extremes. Neither is ideal. The first is to bottle up – try to manage it alone and hold it all in, believing that we are protecting ourselves from others not being able to support and protecting others from being burdened by our heavy load. The other extreme is to dump – where, usually after bottling for too long, we see an opportunity to share, and we’re bursting. In this situation we will often come away from the interaction feeling like we overshared and took up too much space – often leading to regret, embarrassment, and shame – which then reminds us why we should bottle instead. This kind of sharing will also tend to yield less helpful responses from the person we’re sharing with, which again reminds us why bottling feels better. I’m going to pitch some steps today to shape a more effective kind of interaction, where you won’t bottle or dump – you’ll process and set yourself up for the best chances of success in feeling heard, seen, known, valued and supported in the midst of making sense of your experiences.
Ready?
Step one: Know what you need. Before you dive into sharing, take a moment for a bit of introspection. Check in with yourself and try to get a sense of your goal in sharing. This is going to be important for three reasons. First, it shapes step two which is about matching the need you have with someone in your life who is good at offering in that area of need. Second, it helps in step three where we are going to clarify our need to the person we’re talking to in an effort to set a frame for the conversation to be helpful and supportive. And last, but not least, it allows us to evaluate how the interaction went and feel a sense of success in the midst of it. Now, your needs can look like a lot of things as you process and make sense of your experiences – remember how I said that processing happens in layers? You may process within community in different ways and with different people related to the same story. At one point in my processing, I may just need a hug, at another point I may just need to blurt some stuff out and have the other person say something like, “wow, you are facing so much, I’m sorry it’s been so hard” (i.e. empathy). Meanwhile, at another point in the process you may need some feedback, ideas or opinions to shape how you are making sense of things or choosing to interact with it.
Step two: Be picky. Not every person in our lives is equally equipped to meet our needs. It is important to know who in our lives offer what kinds of support well. Based on this, we can then choose who we go to based on the need we have. For example, if my need is to blow off some steam and do something that gets me out of my head, I might ask one of my friends who is good at being spontaneous and fun to join me for an adventure. If my need is to share and get some empathy, I am going to ask someone in my life who I know is good at consistently offering empathy. If my need is to get some feedback and ideas, I might go to someone I feel knows me well and who I feel can offer helpful support. If I want empathy but I go to someone who isn’t great at empathy – I am going to consistently feel disappointed by what comes out of these interactions. Notice that I haven’t said that you need to find someone who has been through similar things as you. This can be helpful at times when I might need someone who can really “get it”, but it is not generally a pre-requisite. We can be surprised by the care and support we can get from people who have never experienced anything like what we have – sometime that can actually be really helpful in offering a contrasting perspective of who they see us as being because they see you through a different frame of reference. The skill the person has is going to matter more than the similarities their story shares with your own.
Step three: Pre-empt with what you need or expect. This is probably the most significant thing you can do to help set an interaction up for success in offering you the support you need. Often we have a sense of what we’re needing but we go into the interaction without making this explicit, and then feel disappointed, frustrated or unsupported when the response isn’t what we wished for. For example, when I need to be heard and have someone empathize with what I’m going through, but instead their response is to try to brainstorm fixes and practical solutions, I find that really difficult – but it’s a bit on me for a) going to a person whose skill leans more toward practical solutions than being able to hold emotional space and empathize; and b) not making it clear that my need from them was empathy rather than problem solving. Remember that step one was knowing our need, which then shapes who I go to who I know has the skill to offer that need, and then this step where we make explicit our need to that person. This helps to set the interaction up for the best possible success in actually meeting my need. Generally people want to care for us well, but they don’t have the ability to read minds, so if we’re not clear about our need they may take a stab in the dark with what they think we need but be way off base. If we lay it out clearly, the people who are invested in us will then do their best to meet you with what you are looking for. I actually do this with my husband a lot – remember that I am a therapist, so I empathize with people’s feelings all day long and then come home and empathize with my kids and husband, as well as with family and friends who have their own struggles. When all is said and done, I often just need someone to do the same for me. …This is not my husbands natural skill set, but he is the person I interact with the most and who witnesses my hard days – so very early in our marriage I learned that I could preface a conversation with, “honey, I know you are going to want to try to fix this for me and make suggestions but I need you to know I can handle it and solve it myself. I just really need you to hear me talk it out outside of my own head, and when I’m done say something like ‘wow babe, that sounds tough, I know you will figure it out and I’m here for you if you need anything’”. This was completely life-altering for my personal wellness and for our marriage.
Step four: Give guidelines and permission for them to say “stop”. One of the reasons we don’t share with others is our fear of burdening people who are already carrying their own stuff. Meanwhile, I would argue that this robs people of opportunities to show up for us in ways we show up for them which makes the relationship dynamic a bit skewed; and I think that even when people have their own stuff going on, they often have the capacity to extend care without feeling like they have to take our baggage on as their own. I often talk with people in my life about the fact that I will trust them to be their own adult and set limits with me if they need to – if they are going through something and are not currently able to hear something I need to share about, that’s fine, but I need them to let me know, and then I will seek out that need with someone else who can support it. One of the ways we can help ourselves know that we aren’t burdening others is by putting this conversation on the table. It’s ok, and actually an amazing gesture of respect and valuing toward those who care about us, to be able to request their permission to process with them and ensure that they feel able to appropriately hold what comes up in the conversations. They may have limits they need to set for their own wellness, like limiting graphic details from our story, which is fair and it’s helpful to allow them a space to set those limits before we jump too far in. I have had times where I have just felt really full and needed to do a bit of verbal diarrhea at a friend, and I’ll usually let them know that in advance and offer them room to set limits around it – I’ve texted in advance of a coffee date something that says “hey, there’s a lot going on right now, I may absorb a lot of space when we see each other, I hope that’s ok but let me know if you need me to contain that a bit if you’re needing to take up some space too” or something to that effect.
Step five: Focus on the impacts, rather than the story. Much of what you experience is hard for others to really understand, or if they do understand, some of the story may actually be triggering and emotionally activating for them in ways that reduce their capacity to offer support to you. It’s important to remember that processing isn’t just about the story of what happened, but rather the story of what happened and how it impacted you. When you are sharing with someone else working at making meaning of your experience within your community of supporters, my suggestion would be to give the amount of detail needed for them to know about what’s going on, but then focus in on the impacts – how it’s shaped your thoughts, feelings, impacts to your body and your capacity to manage… All of this is the more fruitful stuff for the sake of processing anyway, and allows your people to connect with you in the space when you’ve been impacted – which has more value than in the details and description of the events themselves.
Step six: Don’t blow off what they offer about you. Western culture is brutal about concepts like humility and it can really deprive us from allowing helpful feedback in that can shape our story through a more helpful, and probably more accurate, lens. We have difficulty genuinely accepting a compliment or believing that others are telling the truth when they say kind things about us. For many in law enforcement and corrections in particular, it won’t just be hard to take in – positive feedback is often seen through a lens of manipulation and a degree of skepticism that makes it impossible to internalize that it might be true. I hate that this is a part of how we’re trained as humans in our culture – because it leaves us questioning motivations and wondering about what others really think of us instead of trusting that we sincerely matter. It leaves us feeling separate, isolated and lonely. If you have set up an interaction where you have asked for some perspective or context or other feedback and someone who you have identified as safe and skilled offers you feedback about you that highlights your capacities, personal characteristics or other perceptions of you – let them in. Allow those words to sit. Don’t shrug them off, don’t try to negate it with some kind of stupid self-deprecating comment – say thank you, and really allow it to enter into your thinking and processing.
Step seven: Evaluate how it went and review your needs. When all is said and done, check in with yourself about how it went. As something that is likely a bit uncomfortable to try out and do differently than you’ve done it before – it might feel challenging to enact, but as you try it out take a few moments to review how it went. Did it feel helpful despite the discomfort of engaging it differently than you normally would? Were there things you would do differently the next time? Did you learn something about yourself, the other person or the process of connecting to process together? When we review we allow our brains a chance to really engage in some learning which allows them to do it better and better each time. It is also a space that allows us to sit with what we may have received from the interaction and get curious about how we choose to allow this to factor into our processing and integrating of the experience itself.
There you have it – seven kinda-simple-ish steps to guide processing in connection to those in your life who care about you and want to see you thrive. If this piece around connection and shaping intentional connection to bolster your wellness is something you would like more on – I want to invite you to check out my Beating the Breaking Point training program. It’s an online 7-part training around developing skills to battle burnout and enhance sustainability both on the job, and off. Along with topics like the brain basics of stress and burnout; resilience; utilizing and regulating emotions; and navigating healthful coping; one of the modules of the training covers the importance and skills related to connection specifically when working on the front lines and facing all that you face. There is also another module within the training around setting clear, healthy boundaries and skills to ensure that our connections are healthful. If you are really wanting to invest in your wellness, check it out – I’ll include the link in the show notes or you can find it on my website under “Learn with Lindsay”.
I want to mention that next week we are finishing up this month’s focus on processing a pandemic with an interview with ICU nurse, Courtney Jewell who received a lot of media attention when her facebook post criticizing covid-non-believers went viral. I am looking forward to chatting with Courtney about her own processing as she works through this pandemic, and I really hope that you will join us for that conversation.
As always, I hope that you are finding this podcast resource helpful and that you will share it with your friends and co-workers. The feedback and encouragement we’ve received has been overwhelming – I have had so many emails from front line workers sharing how they came across the podcast and were in tears feeling validated and supported – often these bring me to tears, because it feels amazing to know that this little idea that sprouted back in the fall has, in such a short time grown into something that genuinely matters and makes a difference for people who give so much to this world. Thank you for helping me to reach others on the front lines, your support means so much to me. Like I said, I do hear from many of you regularly about how this resource has been helpful and with thoughts and ideas for future episodes – I love hearing from you and I hope you will reach out by following me on social media, subscribing to our weekly emails that alert about our new podcast episodes, or shoot me an email – my contact info is always in the show notes. I’ll hope to hear from you, and until next time, stay safe.