Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to "Lessons from the Couch", where we invite you to pull up a seat and join Corina and Mariana—two marriage and family therapists based in Illinois—on a journey through therapy, life, and everything in between. In each episode, we have honest and engaging conversations with therapists and non-therapists alike, exploring their unique experiences in and around therapy. Whether it's the story of a therapist navigating early career challenges or a non-therapist sharing how therapy changed their life, our goal is to show just how accessible and transformative these conversations can be.
We also dive into the diverse career paths and personal journeys within the field of mental health, from seasoned professionals to those just starting out (like Corina and Mariana, who are at opposite timelines of their own therapy careers).
If you're curious about therapy, mental health, or simply enjoy meaningful conversations, "Lessons from the Couch" is for you. Get ready to think, reflect, and discover new perspectives one conversation at a time.
Follow Lessons from the Couch on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts to listen to new episodes.
Co-Hosted by Corina Teofilo Mattson and Mariana Reyes Daza. Show art by Jae Avilez. Music by Brandon Acosta.
If you're interested in therapy services, either in person or via telehealth, and reside in Illinois, visit www.liveoakchicago.com to learn more.
I didn't even consider there was an option to not go right into school. And then even I remember I did take a year off between undergraduate and graduate school, and that was extremely controversial with my family and my father in particular, who was like, you'll never go back if you take a year off. You'll never go back. And now I wish everyone would see that there's space. There's time and there's space and there isn't a need to rush into or rush out of or rush through anything.
Corina:Hi, my name is Corina Tiefela Mattson.
Mariana:I'm Mariana Reyes Daza.
Corina:And we are the new co hosts for a new podcast called Lessons from the Couch. Throughout this podcast, you're going to find us having intimate, deep conversations. We'll be talking to therapists and probably some non therapists, and we're gonna bring you into the therapy room with us.
Mariana:Today is November 15, 2024. When you are listening to this podcast, it will likely be around January or February. Last week, we had our big election here in the United States, so that is something that has changed since our last recording and will likely be in effect by the time you're listening to this. And then in terms of where we are all coming from, to my knowledge, we're all coming from Illinois today from our separate spaces to be here chatting with y'all.
Corina:We are all, I think, even in the city of Chicago. I'm Corina. I'm really, really delighted to get to do this episode with my very good friend, Jeff. I'm gonna let Jeff introduce himself, and then throughout the course of our conversation, I'm sure we'll talk about how we know each other.
Jeff:Hello, everybody. My name is Jeff Levy, and I am a a licensed clinical social worker, here in Illinois. I'm also licensed in Florida, and I have a solo private practice here, although I'm doing almost exclusively virtual sessions right now. And before I was a clinical social worker, I was a recreation therapist. So my bachelor's and 1st master's degree is in recreation therapy, and I practiced as a recreation therapist for a number of years before going back and becoming a social worker.
Jeff:And I've been a social worker now for about 30 years.
Corina:Would you be willing to answer what you think of as the difference between your practice as a new therapist versus your practice now?
Jeff:It's interesting because I was just talking today with a friend about what it was like when I first graduated, and I was working in a residential treatment facility for children and adolescents in Champaign Urbana. And at the time, it was the only freestanding psychiatric facility for children adolescents state facility in Illinois. And I was practicing as a recreation therapist, and we were just chatting about, like, how our practices were different back then versus right now. And one of the examples I gave was I remember when I was working, I was doing, like, shift work with children and adolescents, and the youngest was probably 5 and the oldest was maybe 14. And in those days, people stayed in residential treatment for quite a long time.
Jeff:So a lot of the young people we are working with, you know, stayed there 2 years or longer sometimes. And the relationships became very almost familial in some respects because of the longevity of the relationships. Like, when we would put kids to bed, when we were tucking them in at night, which was really one of the kind of most intimate moments that we we would have with little kids, especially, and I was just thinking how what a relational moment that is and how we would never be able to do that now, of which I understand why and everything. But I think in some ways, there was it's almost an innocence back then that over time, I think sort of shifted. That would make me actually kind of sad that there are things that we lost from back then that we were able to do, which I understand why we're not able to do now, but sad that we're not able to kind of have those moments.
Jeff:And then that also broadened into just talking about, like, even my practice as a social worker and thinking about, you know, what I felt like was okay for me to do when I started. Now this is almost a flip because I think when I first started as a social worker, I was much more, like, traditionally boundaried. And again, remember, this is like 30, you know, 35 years ago, don't share much about yourself. You try to provide as as little information as possible. So so who you are isn't necessarily interrupting, I think, a client's process or, you know, I remember back then just being very conscious of the people ask me direct questions about myself or my background or my relationship status or any of those things, finding a way to not answer those questions or to explore the motive behind those questions kind of ad nauseam.
Jeff:And now I think I see boundaries as very, very different than I did back then. And so when people ask me questions about myself, I answer them. And then I might explore what was behind the question or if there's anything else people wanted to know, but I I feel like as much as I can right now, I'm aware of trying to really diminish power differentials as they exist in the room. Of course, you can't ever completely. But back then, I think it was almost like power differentials are almost accentuated by those kind of boundaries.
Corina:I love that this is the direction that you've gone, the direction of changes in intimacy and disclosures and power. Because I actually entered the field through working at a group home for folks with co occurring developmental disabilities and mental illness. And so I was in a home with 6 people, and I would sleep there at night on a couch while while everybody else is sleeping upstairs in their bedrooms. This was in the early 2000, let's say. And there were ways in which that scene could feel familial, but that the power imbalance was in some ways accentuated.
Corina:And one of the things I remember is that the particular group home I was at, the folks who ran it and owned it, they prioritized ensuring that the folks in the group home were eating in accordance with, like, traditional ideas around healthiness, which I don't think at the time I understood as bad or good. But later when that group home was sold to a different organization, that centered and prioritized individual choice of the people who live there, I understood kind of in retrospect that this value is being imposed to a certain degree on the people who live there, and that the new organization had an understanding that this is their home and these folks should be able to make choices about things like the food that they wanna eat. And like you, my entrance into the field had this way of accentuating difference, but also creating a context for a lot of intimacy. I mean, I was lit literally in people's homes with them. And when I was a new therapist, I also did in home family therapy.
Corina:Now I don't typically do in home family therapy, but I have moved like you in a direction of seeing the boundaries that we used to have in the field as pretty artificial and as reinforcing the notion that our clients are the only ones who are experiencing mental health, period. And now I think it's understood that the people who come to us for therapy and we bring our histories, stories, etcetera, and both of those realities create what becomes the relationship between us rather than this kind of really sort of absurd now in retrospect notion that it's only one direction and that everything that's happening in the room is about the the client's history and not our own. And in those changes, I feel so much more spaciousness in my body to be more of a full human with with always coming back to this question of especially for me as a person with ADHD, why am I asking this question? Who is it for? And sometimes it might be that the questions that I ask have something to do often with my own history and knowing, and I don't think that that's irrelevant.
Corina:But but I try to say to myself, like, is this for the benefit of the work that we're doing? And that's a grounding thing rather than just generally saying to myself, I'm not gonna say anything that's about
Jeff:myself. It makes me think of even shifts in language. 35 or 40 years ago when I started work, clients were they, and then there was me or I or we. Even how I use language has shifted, and it's when we experience trauma, when we experience pain, when we experience depression, really trying to universalize kind of the human experience and not have it be so much so that there is someone who knows and someone who doesn't know.
Corina:I'm thinking about where I was 2 weeks ago versus today, and I noticed my energy is not the same as it was 2 weeks ago. And I wonder what you've noticed in yourself and in the work over the last 2 weeks in particular.
Jeff:Oh my god. That's that's a huge question. Right? Because I think we could have even started today with what's the difference between your practice 3 weeks ago and your practice today. And I would have a zillion things to talk about in terms of how it's different.
Jeff:Again, I think it sort of speaks to even the idea of boundaries and what the political being the personal or the political being the psychological. And it's probably not a secret that I'm very liberal, and I voted for Kamala Harris. I think that after the election, I had made a decision about how much news I was gonna allow myself to consume and just in order to sort of protect my own mental health and anxiety around the unknown or maybe kind of the scary known. I'm not sure at this point. But one thing I noticed is I could set that boundary for myself.
Jeff:Like, okay. I will allow myself to watch x amount of news or to listen to x amount of podcasts or whatever my choice of consumption was. But I did not have that ability to set those boundaries for my clients in terms of what they wanted to share with me. So what I what I noticed is, yes, I was clearly trying to figure out what helps me feel kind of sane during these rocky ish times. And at the same time, my clients were sharing the struggles that they were having with the results of the election.
Jeff:So I found, especially within the last week, I realized, oh my god, I'm so tired at the end of every day. It's so hard for me to keep my eyes open. Why am I so tired? I don't understand. Feel like I'm sleeping how I've always been sleeping?
Jeff:And I just realized sort of the end of this week that why I'm so tired is because I'm listening for 6 hours to people's fear and pain and sadness and just reactions to uncertainty. While we always sit with that, I think as therapists, I think it's so punctuated by the results of the election for so many people. Of course, there are many people who politically don't believe as I do and probably are very happy, But those are the people I think that I'm seeing in my practice right now.
Corina:I really relate to that I have been thinking about how I learned through the experience of 2016, that I don't want to put myself in the position to have the experience I have that time, which was to be, 1, out in public, and 2, surprised or shocked by something that, like, in retrospect, I can see was not shocking if I had been sort of paying more attention is what I'll say about it now. So this year, I decided on election day to not look at my phone, be at home, and try to be with my family and be in the moment. And then when I became aware of the situation as it was evolving, it was my my daughter was following things much more vigilantly, and she let me in that it looked like Trump was gonna win. So this was, like, at night on Tuesday, and I was so surprised that it was becoming clear so fast. But there was something really helpful about that for me, and I can sort of feel it in my body even now in my throat.
Corina:It's like this ball in my throat. But it was helpful to me to have that happen at night because I remember in 2016, waking up in the morning and being so so surprised. I think part of my trauma response to that is not wanting to wake up in the morning and feel that way again. And so I had the night to kind of process it. But what's been interesting to me that that aligns with what you're getting at is every day since the election, I have had this awareness that I must have been dreaming about themes that are connected to the pain of having an uncertain future.
Corina:Because I wake up not always remembering what I dreamed about, but knowing there was something about uncertainty, something about unsureness that came with me in the morning. So last week, I had planned in advance of the election that I really wanted to be available to my clients, and so I had a lot of sessions. And then I also had planned to do some on-site support for communities that I'm part of to be in community with people, all of which was great. And, actually, I was very glad to do it. But this week, I've noticed exactly what you described, just feeling so tired, so depleted.
Corina:I've learned over the past few years that I need to understand myself as a resource, and I don't mean that as, like, exclusively for the sake of other people, but what I mean is it is a limited resource. My body, my energy, my capacity is limited. And so I've been thinking, okay. I'm gonna look ahead at the next few weeks, and again, check-in on my boundaries, check-in on my plans, and say, does what I have on there work for me or not? Do I need to make any changes about how I'm available to clients or people or friends or whatever in order to make room for myself?
Corina:And I wonder how has your relationship with your own limited energy and capacity changed over the course of the years of your being a therapist and social worker? I mean,
Jeff:that's a big question. I haven't done this recently, and this doesn't specifically relate to the most recent current events, but I occasionally come across my old appointment books from 30 years ago, you know, when I started practicing social work. And I'm still very old school, and I still keep a paper calendar. So that hasn't changed. But when I have looked at my appointment books from 30 years ago and I looked at how I was scheduling myself, the number of people that I was seeing, the times that I was working, evenings, weekend days, and, like I said, the number of people I was seeing, I look at that.
Jeff:I'm like, how did he work like that? Why did he do that? And I'm being facetious by calling him him as opposed to me. But I look at my calendar these days, and there it's just very, very different. I'm so much more conscious of how I'm scheduling, who I'm scheduling, how many I'm scheduling, when I'm scheduling breaks in.
Jeff:And not just for me, but I think with the with the intention of doing it in a way that I can be the most present for the people I'm sitting with and talking to. So I think I'm just so much more aware of being a resource, I think, as you said, and and a limited resource and figuring out how to best use the limited resources I have in a way that is respectful of myself, but also respectful of the relationships that I have with my clients.
Corina:I love that you said that. This is making me think about the trajectory of our knowing each other and the ways that Live Oak, the organization that I run now, that you used to run, and who we are today stands on the shoulders of you and the work that you did to make it with what it was and what it has been and what it is now. Because specifically, I'm thinking about the humanity of each of the therapists central criteria or important point of consideration in making decisions about the people they work with, the people who choose to work with them, the hours people have, that it's, like, central in a way that I think you and I both didn't necessarily, I would say, in one way, have the privilege to do at the time, and also maybe my journey has been to understand that the fields orienting or teaching of us came at the expense of our humanity in some ways, and that I feel like you and I together went on a journey of, like, learning that our own humanness needs, etcetera, were, like, valid important parts. But I would love to hear your thoughts about what has changed in the field and even your experience in Live Oak about your own humanness getting room or not.
Jeff:You know, when Live Oak started, we were really Bruce and myself, just the 2 of us for a little bit, and then shortly thereafter, one other person and then a few more, a few more as we grew over time. But when we started, there were not a lot of out queer therapists and there were very few, if any, other out queer practices. So when we started Live Oak, there were the big not for profit LGBTQIA Organiza oh, then LGBTQ, maybe even just LG organizations out there, and then there was us. Like, when Bruce and I started talking about starting Live Oak, it was really in the midst of the AIDS crisis, and there was so much stigma in general around not only mental health, but certainly being gay and what it meant to be gay and at that particular moment in history. And we were really wanting to respond to that by creating a space that was going to be safe for people.
Jeff:I think people who held some of the identities that Bruce and I held in particular and just based on our own experiences of kind of marginalization and shame in our lives. And I also think the field of mental health was really very different back then, too. There was a lot more stigma associated with accessing mental health. As we were talking about before, many more boundaries around what you shared, what you didn't share as a clinician. And I think it was sort of like the Internet hadn't really taken off.
Jeff:For sure there were no smartphones. Maybe it was a time when cell phones were just kind of starting to be used, but the access to information was very different. So there were limited sources. People were still getting information from paper and pamphlets and those kinds of things. So business cards, absolutely.
Jeff:You know? Yeah. All the things that a 13 year old might look at and say, what what what is this? But the other thing I think that was different is because of some of the other things I just mentioned, like people's access to information and how people would find us and there weren't as many practices out there. And because Bruce and I started with our own resources, both our own human resources and our own financial resources, I think I was approaching things from a much more, like, sort of survival mentality.
Jeff:Like, how are we gonna make this work? Pouring my own resources into it to to try to make it work and having there be some fear associated with would we have enough resources. So very much coming from a survival limited resources kind of perspective. And I think that definitely affected certainly how I ran the organization, worked with other people. Now I mean, I see what you've done with the organization, Corina.
Jeff:I think you've done such amazing things. And I think now I wish I had some of the knowledge then that I had now to be able to approach things not from such a survival, like limited resources perspective and really be able to to hold that differently. Because back then, if something happened to the organization, it meant it was happening to me personally. That also, I think, affected how I meandered my way through the organization.
Mariana:Live Oak Chicago is a primarily queer trauma informed therapy practice located on the north side of Chicago, offering both in person and virtual therapy consultation and workshops. We are committed to the practice of becoming a model of a community of diversely identified humans working together to transform the emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being of individuals, families, and communities beginning with ourselves. To access therapy, training, or consultation, please visit www.liveoakchicago.com.
Jeff:I
Corina:think about the privilege I've had of running an organization that I didn't create, and, of course, there are benefits and drawbacks to that. The benefit is getting to watch many years of it being ran before I was running it. Genuinely, I feel like I stand on the shoulder of all the things that I witnessed. I think also a strength of mine is to kinda take in data about what's happening and say, oh, okay. I can do this a little bit different.
Corina:I can do that a little bit different. And witnessing yours and Bruce's experience, I really had a sense of, okay, I wanna do this on my own when we started to talk about it for a time because I think it's so challenging to negotiate for myself multiple people's preferences. It's so hilarious because now we're on this journey to for specifically considering becoming a coop, which I feel like we're totally ready for at this point in time, but at least in the beginning, navigating specifically economic anxiety. I just had this awareness that given the power attached to this role and having seen what it was like for you, I thought that's something I for now, until I find my my, like, traction in it, I, like, need to navigate on my own because I can see what a heavy burden that is. And I didn't know how to do that, how to, like, learn how to do that, stretch into it without really putting it on to other people.
Corina:And even now, actually, I still have a lot of direct conversations with the folks who are in the closest leadership roles to mine about how I'm talking about economics and how it lands on their bodies and what that's like to try to be accountable for the power differentials. But I also think I perceived you and I as having this common quality. I think I have a lot of capacity for things that are interesting for me and also for things that are in service of the business, and that I can lose track of my own need for rest and respite. And I think that was especially true the first two years, the first several years that I was here and even running the business. And I think probably it means that I was at risk of reinforcing some of the urgency that you experienced, and you were probably likely to reinforce that in me as well.
Corina:My learning around disrupting white supremacy, that's one of the biggest things for me is learning to disrupt urgency and to say almost nothing is urgent. And I feel like I did I did not know that for a long time.
Jeff:I agree with you. I think that that is something that we had in common. As As you were talking, I was just thinking it was almost like it was like, who could respond to an email the fastest Yes. And make that decision the fastest. You know?
Jeff:And that that was seen as the right way or the the, you know, the the good good in quotes way to work and not realizing the forces that were reinforcing that both, like, in a larger kind of political sense and from a a race and culture perspective as well as from an individual perspective. Because I remember growing up and maybe this comes from being grandson of immigrants. So my parents were 1st generation born here. My grandparents were very poor. They lived in tenement houses in New York City in the Bronx.
Jeff:And my parents grew up during the depression. And so it all it was a very much a climate of there's not enough, and you never know when what you have will be taken away. Even though I think my parents tried very hard not to instill that in me, it still came through. And so I think that coupled with being gay and feel growing up always feeling less than meant having to work harder, faster, more to make up for some of those deficits, like in quotation marks. So it did take time to realize I don't need to do that.
Jeff:You know? And, Corinne, I may have told you this story, but when I think about how I want to live now, like, I remember coming home and showing my mom my report card and I had all As, you know? And and she looked at it and she goes, oh, Jeffy, honey, this is great, but I wish you would just get a d.
Mariana:Oh. You
Jeff:know, she was just trying to instill in me that I that's not how you need to perform. That's not how you need to move through the world. That it is so okay to be slow and imperfect and human. She wouldn't have said those words back then, but I think that was definitely what she was trying to tell me. And I think I carry that lesson now.
Jeff:I try to think so much more consciously about that and about my response times and how it is okay to slow down and to be thoughtful and to wait and to understand what are the influences that have influenced me historically, how do they continue to influence me, and how do I wanna disrupt some of those? Whatever those influences are, whether it's economic, whether it's racial, whether it's ethnic. I mean, all all of those things, I think.
Corina:I love stories about your mom. I love them.
Jeff:And she was a great person.
Corina:Yeah. You telling that story reminds me of aspects of my own socialization that made us great fits and also, like, really likely to do exactly the things we're talking about before. My dad's parents were both born in Italy. My dad was the 2nd youngest of 12. Literally, in his family, by the time that food was eaten, there was the risk that there wouldn't be enough for him, especially being the 2nd youngest of 12.
Corina:His dad died when he was 8 turning 9, and so he was raised by a single mom. And he had a lot of love and he and he would he would absolutely say that still to this day, but very few resources. And being Italian American on that side of my family, dad's family experienced xenophobia overtly, and xenophobia also limited their options to a certain extent. And now for my dad's generation, I would say he and his siblings have done really well, and that's attached to some of the themes that we're talking about. This sort of, like, there's nothing we won't do, which is not really different than anybody else, but that my family had access to the privileges of whiteness eventually.
Corina:And certainly my dad's generation and and certainly my own generation, having access to spaces that will allow us in because we are now perceived in whiteness. And so one of the things that I've learned, especially at Live Oak, especially as someone running the business, is that my body has so, like, internalized that urgency that I end up reinforcing other people's notions of not being good enough because of my habits of urgency. Like the email thing, like you said. I schedule my emails now so that they
Jeff:will come
Corina:out during normal times so that's to not give people the sense that they're supposed to do things on the weekends. Because I like the flexibility to do things when I want to, but I don't want to tell other people that that's normal.
Jeff:Totally. And I think that wasn't even something that was on my radar. They're seeing that I'm working at 1 o'clock in the morning, and then there's this implicit message that, so you should be too. Like, if if I'm answering this at 1 o'clock in the morning or on, you know, Saturday afternoon, that's my expectation of, quote, unquote, what good employees should look like. Like you, I I'm not saying that I still don't send emails out at 1 in the morning or something, but I think I'm I try at least to be much more thoughtful about how is this gonna land for someone else and and scheduling it so people don't have the expectation that because I'm writing something at 2 in the morning that I have any expectation that, you know, that's something that they should do too.
Jeff:But like you, I like to have the space to to do it if I'm there, but I don't wanna I'm aware of not wanting to impose that onto other people.
Corina:Totally. And I think that's just one of a 1000 things that I learned, especially when you and I were on this journey together around the influences of power in places I didn't even notice. Because for me, at the time, I would have said especially because this was before scheduling emails where it was an option. I would have said, well, I'm just I'm just getting it done. You know?
Corina:I'm just, like, getting off my plate. And I had that energy of, like, no. There's no time for resting or respite or whatever. And on my mom's side of the family, my mom, she was the oldest of 5 children. She did not get advanced education.
Corina:Her highest education was high school. It's so sad and painful because she didn't believe she had skills, which to me is just, like, heartbreaking. She was as much of a counselor as I am. People leaned on her when she died. The amount of people who said I Mary and I were best friends, and they all felt that, and I believe that.
Corina:And a lot of people just felt and experienced her. I feel like our moms were kinda similar, Experience her as a resource. And so her message to us, especially her daughters, or the way I heard it, I can say, was to prioritize your education so that you know you're you'll be fine. So you can trust that you'll be okay. Because her sense was that if something happened to my dad, what would she do?
Corina:And to me, that's just, again, so wild. My mom died really young. But I could imagine a different world where she could have gone on to a later life education, become a therapist. She could like, there's so many things I know she can do because I see myself through the lens of strengths. And so I understand that there were so many things she brought to the table, but she didn't know that or believe that.
Corina:So I think that also was within me, that some of the urgency that I had was about something about economic independence, and making sure I'm okay, and making sure I can do it on my own. Sometimes in ways where I really, like, did not lean into community or supports, or or what was available just out of this existential anxiety about being able to do it on my own. And I now see that I was cutting off connection and community and access to support in a way that reinforces the idea that everybody is supposed to be able to do it on their own, which is not even accessible for everybody.
Jeff:I think some of that rings true for me too. Neither of my parents went to college, and there was a a high value placed on education. And I think I even have a letter that my dad sent me. Might have been 1980, like, right after I graduated from college. And it was this letter.
Jeff:It was it was very loving, but it was all about, like, be your own boss. Work for yourself. Don't be in a position where you're you have to report to somebody. Work independently. Because I think for him, it was a message of sort of that's what you can control.
Jeff:I think for him it was like, oh, there's less uncertainty. You're not having to report to someone. He had the experience where he did have to report to people and he had experiences of losing employment. And so I understand where all those messages came from. And at the same time, they reinforced ways of working that just weren't good for me personally, weren't good for me and the people with whom I have relationships.
Jeff:And certainly then when it comes to, like, starting a business, they just really supported kind of what we've been talking about in terms of, like, a work ethic and what that looks like.
Corina:It's interesting. This conversation's reminding me that when I was so does in college, my mom died. Before she died, she had all this anxiety or inner anxious energy about me finishing college. So it's it which is interesting because it wasn't even on my radar to not finish or to leave college, which is also interesting. My high school counselor tried to convince me to go to college a little bit closer to home, because my mom was already sick during my senior year.
Corina:And I was I felt sort of committed to going to the place that I was gonna go, which is like 7 hours from where I was from. And it wasn't even on my radar that I might take time off. And when my school counselors, after my mom died, suggested that I drop a class I did eventually drop a class. They suggested that maybe I take this semester off. It was so not on my radar as an option, or it was, like, so far from close to what I was thinking about.
Corina:In a way, my mom had completely and effectively supported me at being committed to going to school. And I wouldn't say I see it through the lens of regret, but I look back and think there were other ways, and I feel that about a lot of things, like, having been so focused on work, I could have prioritized being a little bit more available to family as you sort of alluded to earlier, available to my relationships. And I think maybe things could have been okay even if I had flexed just a little bit more.
Jeff:Yeah. I think that I didn't even consider there was an option to not go right into school. And then even I remember I did take a year off between undergraduate and graduate school, and that was extremely controversial with my family and my father in particular, who was like, you'll never go back if you take a year off. You'll never go back. And now I wish everyone would see that there's space.
Jeff:There's time and there's space. And while, yeah, going straight through is the path for some people, it doesn't need to be the path for everyone. And however much time you need is an option as well. Yeah. I feel like maybe going back to the very original question, what are the differences in being a therapist when I first started to being a therapist now?
Jeff:I even would expand, like, what's the difference between being a human then and being a human now is just the idea of allowing for I'm not always good at this, but I strive to to be mindful of there being time and space, and there isn't a need to rush into or rush out of or rush through anything. I say that even as I'm getting older and realize, oh, maybe there is a little bit more of a rush to get get some of this stuff done because
Corina:Right. I don't know. Time is limited.
Jeff:Time is limited.
Corina:Yeah. Both things. It's so both things. Jeff, I have loved this conversation, and I would love it if you'd be open to coming back because I feel like you and I could talk on an unending number of themes for an unending amount of time, but I'm so grateful for this time today.
Jeff:Likewise. I feel so honored that you would invite me and that you would include me in this work that you're doing. Because as I said before, I have so much admiration for you as a person, as a human, as a leader, the direction you've gone with Live Oak. I'm I feel there's a zillion words going through my head right now. Just grateful to continue to be in your life and to to be included in projects that you you choose to invite me into.
Jeff:So thank you for having me.
Mariana:Thank you both. It's such a gift to be able to listen to both of you talk so much about the evolution of yourselves and Live Oak, especially as a newer member of Live Oak. When you all were talking about the email and everything, I feel so much room to sit with emails and not respond immediately. And I am just feeling grateful for you all's responses to the time and place that you have been in your career and how much that has built the stepping stones for the career that I have now. And I can't wait for 5 years from now, 10 years from now for people to be looking at these conversations and be like, what are they talking about?
Mariana:Like, we're doing things a completely different way now, which is interesting to think about just, like, how everything feels right for the time and place as we continue evolving both professionally and personally.
Jeff:Mariana, as I hear you say that, I I just also feel how important it is to also show ourselves grace and kind of be gentle with ourselves because we can only operate with what we have in the time and the place and in the relationships in which we exist at this moment. So I think it is really important. I'm not always good at being so graceful with myself or gracious with myself. I tend to look back and go, I wish I would have been able to do this back then. But it is important to recognize that we do the best with what we have.
Jeff:And then I think the challenge is, like, can we learn then? And can we can we evolve as the time and place and and as we change?
Corina:I'm actually so grateful for this piece that you're both getting at because, Jeff, something that you did when you were in this role and that we did together, and that is now, I I think and I hope embedded into the culture of Live Oak is that you created room for seeing ourselves, for, like, witnessing ourselves and being witnessed. And it was, like, bumpy and uncomfortable and painful and hard, and it's now become, I can say for myself, a central tenet to how I approach this role is, like, the cultivation of a a culture where feedback is central. I thought in 2020, after George Floyd was murdered and there was some energy behind changing cultures of organizations, and thankfully, Live Oak had been on that journey before that. I thought that there was, like, a community agreement, like, that we understood that this is what has to be in order for us to change the world. And, truly, I'm that grandiose in my aspirations.
Corina:And what I've seen and been so pain to see is that that is not a communal agreement, that that that a lot of people, humans, organizations have deprioritized being seen, being observed, making change, and something that you really helped cocreate was was a culture where people could give feedback and let us know where we were getting it wrong and help us make change. And I'm just I am so grateful to you for that.
Jeff:No. I appreciate you saying that. I think I have tried to always value discomfort and see that discomfort is really the point where we grow, and that's not always been an easy thing to do. I think sometimes as humans, we run from discomfort or we conflate discomfort with lack of safety, and they're not the same. And I think being able to tease those apart and know that you can be safe and uncomfortable at the same time.
Jeff:And in fact, that's the the ideal, you know, to be able to create a space exactly where it is safe enough to wade into discomfort and grow and change as a result of that.
Corina:Ariana, I welcome the dog into the session for what it's
Mariana:worth. I could see her. She was about to bark, so I
Jeff:was like,
Mariana:you come here.
Corina:You're like, we'll just snuggle. It's alright.
Jeff:Well, I had to tell Bill before the we recorded. I said, okay. Take we have 3 dogs, Mariana. I said, okay. Take these dogs to the opposite corner of the house so that when they start to do their thing, it doesn't
Corina:intrude into the bottom line. Thank you, Jeff. I love you very much. I appreciate
Jeff:you so much. Too, Mariana. Pleasure to meet you and and wish you all the best at Live Oak. I hope you have a great experience.
Mariana:So great to meet you.
Jeff:Well, thank thank you thank you and happy holidays to both of you too.
Mariana:Next time on Lessons from the Couch.
Alissa Catiis:Human beings have such a capacity to harm each other. And at the same time, we have this immense capacity for love. I am a person that believes that love is endless. Time and energy and finances are more finite. Love isn't.
Alissa Catiis:And so I I view my job as helping people to talk about hard things so that they can keep love in their lives.