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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.
It's really for me a lot about power or agency and seeing around the world how many cultures, it's a universal thing as well, where people either relinquish or their power is stripped from them. And when we don't have that, I find is when we get stuck. For me, somehow it always comes back to a loss or a lack for stripping of one's power and self agency. And so my work revolves around trying to get folks to help them to reclaim that and to do it in a intentional or conscious way.
Corina:Hi, my name is Corina Teofilo 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 going bring you into the therapy room with us.
Mariana:Today is 02/07/2025. The three of us are living in Chicago right now. Well, EvanstonChicago, the Illinois area. And in the current world climate, we are approximately three weeks into President Trump's second term in office in The United States and continuing to see the effects that that is having on the communities in particular, the queer communities, the trans communities, and the communities of color in The United States.
Corina:I would just add how fast it's all moving, and that's something I've been noticing since we started recording the podcast that between when we record and when the episodes come out, which is only weeks, how fast things are changing. So it's hard to even know exactly what'll be true by the time the episode goes live.
Chaaze:I'm still, I guess, in some sense playing catch up because I've been out of the country for the last month. So I've missed all the fun that's been happening. But one thing interesting, and maybe it'll come up later, just the impact that America has around the world and Trump in particular. A lot of people asking me how I am in terms of what's been going on, and I like, actually, I noticed some shit happening over there, but I'm trying to stay unplugged for the moment. I'll deal with it when I get here.
Chaaze:I can't say it's felt fast. It's actually felt slow for me at the moment.
Mariana:Well, I'd love to introduce you also. So here today with us, we have Shaoce Roberts. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist of sixteen years of experience at the Family Institute and Northwestern University, where he serves as a clinical lecturer and supervisor for the Masters of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy program. He recently launched his private practice CPR Counseling Ltd, providing therapy for individuals, couples, families, adolescents, and groups. Chaaze specializes in adolescent and men's issues, particularly life transitions for emerging adult males.
Mariana:And his culturally responsive approach is shaped by extensive global travel and clinical work with diverse populations, including cross cultural couples and international families. He has a particular interest in working with people of the African American community of which he is from. Shaoze, welcome in. We are so excited to chat with you. Is there anything that you want to add about who you are?
Mariana:Maybe how we all know each other?
Chaaze:Good to be here. Thank you all for having me. Yeah, I guess we all know each other from the Family Institute. It's the cocoon or the womb or something of where we all originated and have branched off and doing our own things. I'm happy to be here and kind of share what that's been like for me and how it shapes me and where I'm at today.
Corina:Yeah, thanks for coming, Jazay. There were a bunch of different questions I thought I could start with. But since you just got back from traveling, I'm sort of inspired to ask you if you feel comfortable talking about the ways that traveling and spending time in different parts of the world has informed who you are as a therapist. And then anything you want to share about what you were hearing specifically this time around as you were traveling about the impact of The US and our decision making on the world. I'm super interested in that too.
Chaaze:My West African name is Kofi Mensa. Kofi means Friday born and specifically from Ghana, West Africa. So Kofi is the name given to you if you're born on a Friday. Mensa means third born son specifically. Twenty years ago, around the time when I came back from my first travels around the world, did a rites of passage program in the Khan tradition.
Chaaze:And part of that was the continuation of my journey of self discovery and learning more about who I am and my African roots. And I learned about Kofi. Actually, I was in Ghana, I learned about Kofi and I was named Kofi when I was there. And then I came back home, did this Rites of Pastors program, kind of like the star signs, Aries and Capricorn and this and that and the other. I guess it's somewhat similar, their parallel kind of thing.
Chaaze:And so Kofi carries some energy. Friday born person carries energy depending on when you're born. And part of the energy that Friday born Kofis carry are adventurers or wanderers. We are nomadic in a sense where we go where life is. We move from place to place.
Chaaze:And so traveling, I think, is part of just my makeup even beyond something that I enjoy doing. But on a spiritual level, movement, travel, connection is, I would say, ingrained in me. So traveling for me is my, I guess my sanctuary in a way, how I continue to grow and develop and learn about who I am. And as I continue to learn about who I am, that helps to inform how I show up in this work as a therapist. That part comes first.
Chaaze:The therapy part comes comes after.
Corina:Chaaze, that's really cool. And you and I haven't talked about this specific piece about the ways that you in getting your name got access to another way of understanding something that was already true about yourself. That's really cool. And because you and I met first in the community program at the Family Institute, and the Community Program is a place where we go to the people. I'm just curious, even before you were in the community program at the Family Institute, you did work in the community.
Corina:And was that before you had this name?
Chaaze:No, that was after. Before I had this name, it was a whole different chassis. I'm the namesake of my grandfather. My legal birth name was Charles Patrick Roberts the second. And when I traveled overseas is when I acquired the name Chazay.
Chaaze:You know, there was a part of me when I decided to leave to travel the first time, was really about journey of self discovery, trying to figure out who I am, what I was about. I was very unfulfilled, I guess would be a nice way of saying the life that I was living prior to traveling as Charles Patrick Roberts. And no one called me Charles, that was my grandfather was called that. Most people call me Chuck or Chucky. And that person was very different than the band you see before you today.
Chaaze:Not necessarily in bad ways, but it different in where I was at in my growth and development. When I decided to travel, at some point I was feeling a discontentment in what I was doing. I think it was that longing to adventure, to move on. Because even growing up in a two parent family, probably middle to upper middle class, stable kind of household, I had one of five, a middle child of five. My dad's career moved us around quite a bit.
Chaaze:So I was used to moving around and not kind of staying in one place at the same time, growing up from as far back as I can remember. Never remember living any place more than like five years at a time. So actually, Evanston is the longest I've been anywhere in my lifetime. So just as I was kind of reconciling where I was at working in corporate America, kind of living, I guess what would be the American dream, especially as a black male, know, the opportunities that I had, I almost felt an obligation to take that route, to get my education, to do better for myself, to like uplift my family, my family's name. And I still think that was all good, but just that wave wasn't for me.
Chaaze:Corporate world, which just wasn't my world, soon became pretty apparent within about three years I was already fading fast. And it was around that time I decided to travel and trying to buy into Logan, Doctor. Logan, we embarked on this journey around the world with the intention to find self, to really figure out who I am and why I am. I did that through culture, through, I guess, what I would call inward journey of self reflection throughout that experience. Now, I'm just going to tell you right now if I start talking about traveling you're going to have to cut me because I'll be all over the place.
Chaaze:Make sure you get the questions in that you want.
Mariana:Well actually I was going to say I am intrigued and I am surprised by the parallels in between our experiences, Chaaze, that I did not know that we had. Evanston is the longest place I've ever lived in my life. Also being from a family that was traveling a lot and it's interesting to hear you say that now in the stage that you are in your life, travel was an essential part of learning who you are and understanding yourself in new ways. Because for me currently, having moved around as a kid and growing up, by the time I was 19, I found this new confidence and power in choosing to stay in a place and having that decision be in my hands instead of in the hands of my family. And now that I have been in one place for six years, which is the longest I've ever been anywhere, I have started to understand.
Mariana:Yes, there are lots of things that I am learning about myself and who I am because of having to establish myself as a person that exists in Chicago and isn't just like the new kid or the outsider but really starting to feel like part of the almost like in group within Chicago and as I'm doing that I'm also coming to learn that I have always been a traveler. I've always come to understand myself through the perspective of being somebody that has existed in various different spaces with lots of different people. And I think that that has in a lot of ways impacted my decision to be a therapist. Seeing that the thing that brought me the most joy everywhere I was was connecting with people, learning about their stories, learning about them and in that even understanding myself better. And I'm curious how this life of traveling both as a kid and with your family and now has shaped the way that first you do therapy and even just the decision to be a therapist, if it has at all.
Chaaze:First and foremost, I never in a million years would have thought I would have been a therapist. It was not like a lifelong goal or vision or anywhere close on the radar in the early parts of my life. So ironically, and believe me, there's no connection, but I was a psych major when I was an undergrad. And if I'm being honest, because it was a little easier than when I was trying to be a doctor, I'm like, this is ridiculous. Biology?
Chaaze:Like what? I was failing classes for the first time. It was nuts. And I took an introductory psych course and it was intriguing and kind of pulled me in and I ended up getting a liberal arts degree, bachelor's degree in psychology as my emphasis. But to kind of jump more into the question of how therapy, why therapy, not really even so much therapy per se.
Chaaze:I think in part of my travels, in particular as an adult, kind of like you said, as a kid, I didn't really have much of a choice in the moving around. But as an adult, what I've learned in particular traveling overseas was the notion of serving and service to the community. And I didn't know what that was going to look like. To me, therapy is a way to do that, is a route or vehicle to do that, but that wasn't my initial kind of thought of how I would serve my community. Really initially started when I came back as a nonprofit that me and Doctor.
Chaaze:Logan started called Soul Creations, where we were doing arts and education with our youth and teaching about culture. And specifically, we use West African drum and dance as the vehicle to teach them about themselves. So all kids, it wasn't just for black kids, all kids could be a part of it. And it wasn't so much about us teaching them how to do drum and dance, West African drum and dance, which we did by the way, and they were amazing. But it was about the journey towards that.
Chaaze:So we called it the soul experience, was the name of the program. Soul, which is also the name of our nonprofit Soul Creations, is an acronym, s o u l, for spirit of universal love. That embodied that experience for me overseas, and that traveling and that kind of cultural soul journey was wrapped up in that one common thread that transcended culture and was universal was love, the spirit of love. And serving and giving back kind of came out of that. So when coming back, that was the push.
Chaaze:How do we give this back to the community? How do we bring this experience to people that would not typically have access to it, that would not have the privilege to be able to like even save money or have the thought to travel overseas. And we were gone for almost four years. So this wasn't just like a two week vacation. This was a journey.
Chaaze:And so the therapy part kind of came a little bit later because so we were doing these programs. They were very comprehensive for the kids. After school programs, we were teaching them life skills, perseverance, communication skills, respect, self determination, humility, all these different life skills we were teaching them through the process of teaching them drum and dance. And that was the jam for a while when I first came back. But that jam was very hard to sustain financially in terms of making a living, even though it was fun and it was very rewarding.
Chaaze:We had formed a nonprofit organization, 501c3, I think it's a nonprofit one. We were very well embedded. That's why I'm so embedded in Evanston and that I know most of the social workers at the schools and most folks, we were in every school in Evanston at some point. Over the course of that, I don't know, maybe ten year run, hustling, I was substitute teaching also at the same time, I was working at Sam's Club, I was, you know, running Soul Creations. There was so much to run that organization and it was a bit much.
Chaaze:But because we were so kind of well received, I met an interesting individual along that journey named Carl Hampton. And Carl was the one who told me about the Family Institute because one of the things he was seeing was that the work that we were doing in the community wasn't unlike some of the work that I could do as a therapist, because I was already doing home visits before I even knew what a home visit was. I was working with systems. It wasn't just about working with the kids. We realized that if we were gonna try to instill these values into the kids, the parents needed to have some buy into it so that they could be reinforced at home as well.
Chaaze:So home visits had started, working with family systems, working with the social workers, working with the teachers, everything that was around the kids. So before I even had the terminology and knew what any of that shit was, we were already doing it. And so Carl had kind of peeped that out and was like, we're looking for people of color to come to the Family Institute. We got money. And back at that time, they actually had real money to come into the program.
Chaaze:My understanding is that shit's been watered down quite a bit now, but they had the Harris Scholarship covered more than half of my tuition. Ain't no way I would have been at Northwestern if not for that, because I didn't have that kind of money and I didn't want to be in that kind of debt. And I still had debt coming out, but I figured it seemed worthwhile and I was looking for something more stable. I thought it was a wise business move in terms of legitimizing the work that I was already doing and getting the credentials for that. And that would help with us in terms of funding and grants and stuff like that.
Chaaze:So it really ended up being more of a strategy therapy to really enhance what I was already doing in the community, not so much that I would be doing what I'm doing now. That vision wasn't even then when I first came to the Fannie Institute. It was still, alright, I'm gonna use this thing, you get the credentials, get my license, and then just take it back out into the work I was doing with Soul Creations. But that all came from travel though.
Corina:This is great. I am realizing this time, and I realize this every time I get you to talk about yourself or we get you to talk about yourself. It's been thirty hours listening to you talk about yourself, and I would still learn new things. But one of the things I'm wondering is how would you describe what it is to be a therapist today? I'm thinking about what you said about travel and finding self.
Corina:And it occurs to me that I I feel like I've witnessed you cultivating space for for people to find self. But I would love to hear what are your words that you would use to describe what it is to be a therapist or for you to be a therapist from within your identities.
Chaaze:You know, I really had to put a lot of thought into that question, not form so eloquently, but as I was trying to think about who am I in this work when I was deciding to go into private practice? And what is it that I'm trying to help create and hold as a therapist in serving the community? And also, I was trying to think of a way to use my initials because I like my initials CPR, And I thought that I could do something catchy and cool with that. And I initially thought about, well, CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, bringing folks back to life, blah, blah. But I thought that was a fun play of letters, but that didn't feel like me.
Chaaze:I don't feel like that felt like harsh, like this harsh kind of like electrical shock. Everybody's jumping into life. And I'm more chill than that, I think, a little more subtle in my approach. So I was trying to think of what else I could do or say that kind of captured it. And a big part of it goes also back to my group work and retreats and working with men.
Chaaze:It's really for me a lot about power or agency and seeing again through my travels, seeing around the world how many cultures and people, it was a universal thing as well, where people either relinquish or their power is stripped from them. And when we don't have that, I find is when we get stuck at some point. Whatever diagnosis, condition, issue you want to, however you want to label it, for me somehow it always comes back to a loss or a lack for stripping of one's power and self agency. And so my work revolves around trying to get folks to help them to reclaim that and to do it in a intentional or conscious way, which is where the C becomes conscious, P becomes power, and R is reclamation. So conscious power reclamation, that's that kind of it captures my approach to therapy around helping people to reclaim parts of themselves that are lost in a very deliberate and conscious way.
Mariana:When you were describing the type of therapy that you do in the little bio that I was able to read out, one of the terms that you used was culturally responsive therapy. And I think that I see that emerging a lot over the last few years and how people are sort of like putting their word out there in the type of therapy that they do. And I'm curious what specifically culturally responsive therapy means to you, as I think that a lot of people have taken it to mean various things and I think that that's a complex issue in itself. But I'm curious what place culturally responsive therapy has in the way that you work and in your creation of CPR?
Chaaze:Being completely transparent, it's just one of them flipping buzzwords that folks use to catch people's attention. And it does. But for me at the end of the day, I can't step in front of anyone, whether it's in therapy room, on the streets, traveling without kind of taking into context your cultural context and responding to that. Whether I know it or whether I don't doesn't necessarily matter. But recognizing that I might not know or might not be aware or connecting from that place of awareness, from a cultural place, you know?
Chaaze:And so to me, it's just responsive is the word, you know? It's responding in a way that's appropriate to culture and gives honor and pays homage to who we are in culture. And it's also, I think, particular, even like when you're traveling or travel like me or someone who identifies as a Black American male and how I can be perceived by the outside world, I have to be culturally responsive when I'm in cultural spaces that might not be safe, for example. Culture, I'm not talking about race, I'm just talking about how you grew up, what your life values are, what your day to day, what part of The States are you from, where do your values come from. I think that level of responsiveness is not important only in the work that we do, but at least from my perspective, life just in general, especially in such a diverse world and diverse place that we live in, that doesn't necessarily mean we're getting access to that.
Chaaze:But for somebody like myself that puts myself in the midst of it, I don't think there's any other way that I can navigate even without knowing that term, even if I had never heard of that term before.
Corina:Chaaze, I'm thinking about how you're describing your work with helping people get in tune with their sense of agency. And it's interesting because I'm not surprised that there are, like, parts of the way that you do work that are similar to parts about the way I do work. But it's interesting because agency feels so central to the work that I'm doing these days, especially. And in particular, in the work I do with white women, a lot of what I'm doing is helping white women notice the ways that we have been socialized to forego our sense of agency and to see ourselves as and not to say it's never true, but to see ourselves as sort of vulnerable to the circumstances we live within And that can lead to, you know, passive aggression, resentment that can come out certainly again, people of color in particular, but often I see is an indicator of not being attuned to a sense of desire, interest, preference, longing, want, and then a sense of agency. And so it's just really interesting to hear the ways that while you and I may sometimes work with the same populations, but often work with really different populations, that those same themes are showing up in both of our places.
Corina:Stacey Abrams has this podcast, and I was listening to it recently. And she was talking about how when fascism is on the rise, fascist entities don't even need to actually do all of what they say, although this one seems pretty intent. But they don't even have to do all of what they said they're going to do, because what they do effectively is scare people into giving up their agency, scare people into submissions, scare people into hiding. And so it feels really timely to me to hear you talking about the work of connecting with and understanding where our own agency is paired with what you also said about like being culturally responsive and acknowledging when it is or isn't safe to do that.
Speaker 4: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 ww.liveoakchicago.com.
Corina:Jose, looking back, you and I have known each other for fourteen years. Is that right? What year did we start supervising? Do you remember?
Chaaze:02/2011,
Corina:Yeah, that's okay. Fourteen or fifteen years. And so you and I both been clinical supervisors for that time. Certainly you've been teaching people for many years before that. How has being a supervisor changed or informed your work as a therapist?
Chaaze:And this is something else I would never have really considered for myself or the Charles Patrick Roberts version of me as a teacher because part of my work and part of my journey when I decided to leave corporate America and and travel overseas was I could not see my light, if that makes sense. I had relinquished my power in ways I felt value for myself, but I didn't see the value that I necessarily would have for others. And so that's what I mean when I say like my light, to shine in a way that would benefit others, that others would really care about. Again, not in a negative way, but just like, why would anybody want to know like my story per se? And so to know that I'm teaching and supervising and working with young minds and old minds and just minds in general, it almost feels like, I'm not gonna say unreal, but it just it's not something I would have pictured.
Chaaze:I didn't really picture it. So supervising for me is part of my own work to continue to grow. As I'm trying to help others along their journey, I'm not even secretly, I'll tell folks, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna sit back and listen to y'all because I got something to learn. And something about supervising and teaching, it just it forces me to stay sharp and stay on top of my game. As a result, continue to grow and continue to learn about who I am and my purpose and what I can continue to provide.
Chaaze:It's kind of a corny cliche, but to me, it's all about the journey. It's not about trying to get to some particular destination. And supervising teaching is really an amazing, amazing vehicle for me on my journey. I love it.
Corina:It's almost hard for me to imagine a Chazay that's not deeply entrenched in teaching, mentoring, cultivating the youth and elders among us.
Chaaze:Yeah. Me either. I'd be getting tired sometime, though.
Corina:Yeah. I'd love to hear about being tired.
Chaaze:You know, I think as I mature in this work and in life, trying to continue to stay active and vibrant. Mariana, you may or may not remember me using the term often in class around energy and my relationship to energy, but it's managing and navigating energy in a more effective way. As I kind of grow in years and experience in maturity, it's more about that. And, you know, I have to keep my excitement level, my emotional kind of level, and my brain pattern in sync with just kind of where I'm at in terms of energy output capacity. Like, I'll give you a prime example.
Chaaze:So Corina, you know, I think I may have stopped when, Mariana, when you were at Fam but I used to do the intramural sports at the Fam Institute. I did that from the time I was a student and then brought it into TFI, the larger TFI. So where it was staff, it was students. So it was like a TFI thing. It was a way to kind of create the bridges between the county psych program and the T program, upper management, lower management, support staff, like, come on, y'all, we're trying to put together a team.
Chaaze:Let's go out and compete for TFI. And it was great. As each year went by, we were getting older and the students that we were competing against were staying the same age. So I remember, and I was a pretty active athlete. I still am, but just not, and that's the thing I have to keep remembering in my mind.
Chaaze:I'm an athlete still, but not like I was twenty years ago, twenty five years ago. And I might be forgetting that, but my body will remind me real quick. So remember this one time, I played flag football. When I was in high school, I used to play defensive back. I don't if you all know football.
Chaaze:Defensive back is kind of like the last line of protection before the offense can try to score. So if they're throwing a pass or something like that, the defensive backs and safeties are the ones that handle the long distance protection. And usually those people are fast. I used to be fast. And my mind thought I was still as fast as I used to be.
Chaaze:And when I saw this person catch the bar and slowly slip away from me, I was like, holy shit. Cause my mind was like, I'm going run him down like that back in the day. But then in my legs were like, Oh hell no, better chill bro. It's just better managing and adjusting with time and being smarter about how I use my time, how I use and manage my energy, where I place it, how to disperse it in a way that's healthier for me and allows me to, frees me up to do more of the things that I enjoy doing. I mean, I enjoy doing a lot of what I do, but I enjoy the work that I do so much.
Chaaze:I need to break from that even. I'll be talking about that shit all the time. That's like, yo, bro, you gotta take a break even from that that you love so much.
Mariana:Yeah. Corina and I have often talked about, I think, something that we share, which is that we enjoy wearing different hats in life and how much putting energy into different things can almost be renewing and refreshing. I often get the response from people in my life of like, Oh Mariana, just take a moment to slow down, do less, it's okay. And I think that what you're saying is the key as to like why that outwardly looks different to other people but inwards feels really renewing and refreshing to me and it's that I am choosing to put different parts of my energy into lots of different buckets whereas like maybe there is somebody else that is putting the same amount of energy that I put into just one thing and that just to me isn't as exciting as renewing because I find myself enjoying moving around and doing different things and using different parts of myself And I do have to sometimes remind myself to like slow down and as you're saying start to understand the shifts in who I am, the shifts in the energy that I have, while at the same time acknowledging that I'm always going to be somebody that wants to be wearing those different hats and managing energy in different spaces.
Chaaze:I see we are kindred spirits Mariana, I didn't realize that.
Mariana:Yeah. Despite the fact that I experienced you as one of the professors and the supervisors that was very much bringing your whole self into the space and I think you, from what I understood, were bringing a very personal approach to teaching. Like I really got to see Chazay. The fact of the matter is that you were still my professor in that time, and so there's lots of things about each other that we didn't get to learn because of the inherent power differentials there that I'm excited to be learning more about you even just in these few minutes that we've gotten to chat.
Chaaze:Vice versa. For sure.
Corina:Actually, that specific offering really connects with what I'm thinking about right now, which is that, Chaaze, I feel like in the time I've known you, my experience has been that maybe over the past couple of years, you've been a little bit more open about your life. You've always been open in terms of giving yourself. That's my experience of you, but a little bit more open about the story of your life. And I wonder, does that resonate with you? Does that feel like intentional?
Chaaze:Not sure if it's intentional or just more natural flow. There's a feeling that, you know, like you said, when it comes to doing the work and being in the work, I'm completely open, transparent. You know, you're gonna what you see is what you get. When it comes to more of my private personal life, I'm a little selective. Maybe it's probably always been that way to a certain degree.
Chaaze:There's a part of me that I was able to get more access to when I was traveling. Because here's the thing, back to what I was saying earlier around kind of like the first version of my deeper work in terms of not being able to see my own light in a way that made sense, like who's really gonna care? It was just kind of more of that energy of not again that I it was a negative thing for me and myself per se, but it's just who wants to hear about my anything? I'm just no better, no worse than anybody else. Why is mine so much more important?
Chaaze:I had to learn how to get access to that. So now it's more, okay, who needs to hear that? And why am I sharing that? And does it make sense in terms of our relationship and what it is that I'm trying to accomplish here in my like quote unquote work? I think it's an ongoing, it's still part of my journey in terms of like and I mean, I'm also being honest, I mean, Corina, I've felt strong connection with you and probably had you asked me directly or if we were working, if we were just like kind of one on one, I wouldn't have even thought twice about opening up, but just kind of generally on GP, students or in class, I'm probably a little more reserved when it comes to some of those things.
Corina:Well, to be fair, in the dynamic of the two of us, me and my ADHD white lady energy, I offer a lot without it being requested.
Chaaze:Oh, okay. I can see that.
Corina:And looking back, I can see that I missed some opportunities to be more curious. And so I've really, really loved this and other opportunities in the past few years to get to know more about your story. And I'm really grateful you were willing to do this with us today.
Mariana:I would love to close this off with asking you if there's a piece of advice you find yourself giving clients over and over again, or even giving yourself over and over again.
Chaaze:I'll share a quick story in answering that question. So I run men's groups, and when I was a student, I came into a men's group that had been established maybe for a year or a year and a half, and I was a second year student. This was in like 02/2008. And I don't know if you, I don't know, Mariana, if you know David Clough, but he was running the group. He didn't start the group, but he was running it at that time.
Chaaze:So the group was on Wednesday nights from seven to 08:30. And I started doing that in 02/2008 with him. Then he eventually went into private practice on his own and I continued to run the group at the Family Institute and then was running it after I left the Family Institute a little over a year ago. Or no, last spring, I stepped down from facilitating the group and I brought in a former student Jonathan Moore. So Jonathan was running the men's group for me since last spring because I wanted to get my Wednesday nights back.
Chaaze:One of the nice things about being in private practice. That's an energy thing too. I mean, love the group. I love all that, but I just was tired of getting home after 09:00 every Wednesday night for the last flipping sixteen years or whatever it was. I had Jonathan to to take over the group, he was doing a really good job.
Chaaze:But I think energetically, it was starting to fade. And my thing was, well, you know, maybe Jonathan needs a fresh start and to keep it going, but to start it more under his energy and his kind of putting the group together. And the last three members decided that they weren't gonna continue. And so we, in essence, closed out that group this past Wednesday. And so now that Wednesday group is over, from two thousand and eight and before, that's been how long it's been running.
Chaaze:One of the members there, and this was the first, I've seen so many things that I could do a whole podcast on that men's group, but one of the members I saw was a newer member, but newer as in maybe I think he came in in '21. So I do a checkout ritual when anybody's gonna leave the group because one of the things is men in particular, but people in general, we tend to come and go out of each other's lives with no real beginning or closure. So when somebody leaves the group, I do a ritual around checking out, being able to say what you need to say to each other, having an actual goodbye, we do some drumming and give like a little energy stones and it's like a whole candles and incense and all that kind of stuff to close it out. So I did that for all three members that were remaining in the group. This one member in particular, as he was checking out, you you go around and you speak to each member, whatever it is you want to say, including the facilitator.
Chaaze:When he got around to me, he just burst out in tears and was just talking about his transformation and all the life changes that he's had and just everything that the group had done for him and me holding that space. It was very emotional. He's in the midst of transitioning from male to female. He was able to be on that discovery path within the context of the group. She was so grateful and told me something that I had said, which I say often.
Chaaze:I don't necessarily think it's going to hit people in the way that it does, but it was very validating that she remembered there was a stand in your truth. Whatever you do, just learn to stand in your truth. And that was the epitome of his journey, being able to stand in his truth and then their truth and then her truth to make that final transition. And I say that a lot, I even say it to myself, because sometimes I'll get stuck in my head of, oh, well, you know, maybe I should or, you know, it's gonna feel, that person's gonna feel a particular way, or this person, or it's gonna impact, It's like, nah, man. Stand in your truth.
Chaaze:I mean, what's the worst that could happen? But that can be really difficult for folks. So I guess that's what I would say.
Corina:Thank you, Chaze. I'm so grateful. This is really lovely.
Chaaze:Thank you. Thank you
Mariana:so much for
Speaker 4:being here.
Mariana:It was great to connect with you in a more intimate deeper space.
Mariana:Next time on Lessons From The Couch.
Mariana:A lot of the times that urgency for me comes from anticipating other people's needs which I think is so much about people pleasing. Most of us that become therapists probably have some layer of people pleasing within us that we can heal, and that probably also makes us well suited for this job. We are so eager to anticipate other people's wants and needs. Just because we want to take care of somebody doesn't mean that they need our care specifically. We need to trust also that somebody will tell us they need us.