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A podcast on shared humanity; discussing personal and professional perspectives. From serious to silly to sublime, coming from kindness and curiosity, it is all about connections.
Hi, I hope you are well. This podcast is a place for people to share personal and professional perspectives, talk openly and ask questions. From serious to silly to sublime, it's all about communication and connection. Always coming from a place of kindness and curiosity, we talk about shared humanity, discuss ideas, and highlight people creating a better world. We've got to keep learning, keep growing, keep being.
Melissa Shere Beek:I'm Melissa Beek, and this is Beek on being. Today's episode is Beek on being bullied. In every conversation with other parents or guests that I have had on either off the podcast or on the podcast, the same topic emerges that they themselves or their children have experienced being bullied. We discussed the impact and the tolls it takes on a person and a family, how to address it, how to handle it, what are the emotional costs, what can we do, and how do we respond in our communities. Thankfully, today we have licensed psychologist, Doctor.
Melissa Shere Beek:Carly Girnun, and licensed mental health counselor Anais Torres to educate and inform us. So welcome. I'm so thrilled to have you both here.
Carly Girnun:You. We're so excited. So excited. That was beautiful.
Melissa Shere Beek:I'm terrible when I'm reading from a script. So but thank you. I'm so honored that you both are here. So before we start, will you tell our listeners a little bit about both of you and how you got into your professions?
Anais Torres:Absolutely. Sure. Take it.
Carly Girnun:Of course. Yeah.
Anais Torres:So my name is Anais Torres. I'm a licensed mental health counselor and licensed professional counselor depending on the state where I'm licensed. I'm also a qualified supervisor in the state of Florida for registered mental health counselor interns. I really have loved what I've done. I've been in mental health now for about nineteen, maybe twenty years.
Carly Girnun:Don't know you know.
Anais Torres:More recently, I've specialized in eating disorders in the last twelve years. I got into mental health because psychology was the one course that really just embodied everything that I loved about just being a human and sharing space with other humans. And I thought this is it. And so I started my journey. I did all of my training at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Anais Torres:I did more of a medical health psychology background where I worked in both outpatient psychiatry and mental health, as well as inpatient mental health and medical liaison unit. I worked at the Ryder Trauma Center. I also worked in Ward D with the inmates. So I've had a a plethora of very varied experience. And eating disorders was never a part of it, ironically.
Anais Torres:But we know statistically it was. And so I've worked in eating disorders in the last twelve years. I just started working in a higher level of care once upon a time in residential, and I love And so now I'm also a professor at Florida International University. I teach three courses there. One of them where I will be pulling information from psychology of adolescence.
Melissa Shere Beek:Love it.
Anais Torres:We'll be talking a lot about everything that I cover in
Carly Girnun:that
Anais Torres:class, psychotherapy and personality disorders.
Melissa Shere Beek:Oh, fascinating. Okay. Good. I love it. We've got a lot there.
Melissa Shere Beek:Thank you.
Carly Girnun:I love feel like I learn more every time someone introduces themselves about what they do too. Hi. I'm doctor Carly Girnun. I'm so excited to be here today. I am a psychologist who I feel like I always knew I wanted to be a part of the mental health field From a young age, I was like a deep feeling teen and would feel so lonely in my deep feelings.
Carly Girnun:I wouldn't share them outside of the home. And my first therapist was really, like, the first place I opened up and shared that. So in undergrad, I had a professor who told me about the University of Denver and this ID program where they from the jump in the program, you get to do a plethora of every type of clinical experiences, and that's really what I wanted. So I specialize in infant early childhood mental health, really learning about that attachment piece and how that then shows up later in life, working a lot with substance use, and then worked at trauma clinics, college counseling, high schools within the Miami community. I worked at a government funded rehab facility, the Head Start program, and so really this wide array.
Carly Girnun:And currently, I kind of found my passion of working more so with adolescents, young adults, adults, and couples really looking at the relational piece of early attachment, parenting piece, friendship, peer piece, and, of course, like the relational intimate relationship piece working with both relationships and trauma. I love using more of a modality of the therapeutic rapport, so really like the therapeutic relationship being at the foundation of all of the work for my clients to feel really safe and processing those pieces while integrating other pieces of like attachment, behavioral techniques, as well as EMDR to kind of get that full rounded picture Yeah. Of my
Melissa Shere Beek:A lot of modalities. That's great. So you guys are fabulous. Okay. That's it.
Melissa Shere Beek:This is terrific. I'm so excited. So specifically today on bullying, can we start by defining what bullying is?
Carly Girnun:Do you want to go?
Anais Torres:So I think you know, one of the things that that Carly and I have been talking about in preparation for this is that bullying has really widened the scope of what bullying is. Before, you know, with with us growing up, we knew what bullying was. It was more more direct, and it was more overt. Easily identifiable. Easily identifiable.
Anais Torres:And so, you know, the kid who was physically, you know, hurting another child or, you know, the the constant humiliation, the the teasing in front of other people, we knew that. Those were kind of like the it things. Right. Now bullying has really expanded. To a point where it really is, and I use this word all the time because it really speaks to it.
Anais Torres:It's so insidious. It is everywhere. I'm a mom of two boys, ages 12 and seven, and I've seen it. I've, you know, unfortunately have experienced it as a parent as well as myself growing up. Yeah.
Anais Torres:But there's so many different avenues to bullying now. It's not just hitting the kid Not
Melissa Shere Beek:just on the playground.
Anais Torres:It's not. It's now, now they're texting one another. They're on social media. They're getting it from so many different vantage points unfortunately. And this is where we're really seeing the the crack in mental health for adolescents.
Anais Torres:We also know the unfortunate side that a lot younger kids are now dealing with major depression Yeah. As well as unfortunate suicidality. Exactly. And I think that that's really like the head of what we're talking about today. So I think the overall definition is that it's just almost everywhere and everything to some capacity.
Carly Girnun:Absolutely. And I think we can ground ourselves in because the word carries so much weight. I think one way parents or individuals who have experienced or experiencing bullying is can kinda ground themselves, and there's normally this power imbalance taking place. It's this repetitive nature. Right?
Carly Girnun:So it's not this one time event. It's something that Mhmm. Continues coming down. And I think when you're talking about this nature of it happening now all of the time, there's this huge piece of it that I think gets hidden a lot, which is that like exclusion form of bullying. And I noticed that so much with my teen clients.
Carly Girnun:We see it a lot like that 12 to 14 range for bullying and this exclusion that used to be more hidden at the lunch table now
Anais Torres:Right. You can't
Melissa Shere Beek:tell
Carly Girnun:phones. With Right. The lunch table has moved to the phone and the group chat and the party that someone can see from laying in their bed and knowing that they aren't invited, and they continue to not be too. Yeah.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. It's it's yeah. I think what you said is insidious, and I think what you said is right, power imbalance. So so we talked a little bit about the different types of bullying. There's the physical, there's the verbal, there's the social, the emotional bullying.
Melissa Shere Beek:Are there core elements to bullying that sort of go along the whole scope of it?
Carly Girnun:I would say the power imbalance
Anais Torres:Mhmm.
Carly Girnun:The, like, continual nature Aggression. Aggression, the repetition piece, and then the intent. The intent to cause harm, the intent to use that power piece to put the other person Mhmm. Down.
Melissa Shere Beek:So how does someone differentiate from, like we talked before we started recording, gentle teasing to, like, full on being bullied? Besides consistency, like, what does bullying look like nowadays?
Carly Girnun:So I think one thing it can look like, for parents that's really helpful, is we often see bullying at the age where a child, maybe a teen
Melissa Shere Beek:Uh-huh.
Carly Girnun:Starts telling their parent less. And it can be really hard to tell, hey, did you get teased today or is this a form of bullying? With bullying, we can see less school attendance. So wanting to go to school a
Anais Torres:lot more wanting to go
Carly Girnun:to school less. So a lot more school refusal Mhmm. And we can see grades start going down. Slipping. So we can actually see this piece of
Melissa Shere Beek:Right. Detachment. Attachment
Anais Torres:friends. And I would add to that the other piece that I see a lot both clinically in our work, but also just from the maternal piece is the somatic complaints. Right? And going hand to hand with the school refusal, I can't go to school today. My head hurts.
Anais Torres:My stomach hurts. Mom, I've been telling you that my stomach has been hurting for x amount of days, and it's like GI That anxiety is the one that shows up in childhood versus depression that tends to happen a little bit later in And how do kids express themselves?
Melissa Shere Beek:They manifest it physically.
Anais Torres:They manifest it physically. So then we start seeing all those somatic complaints, and it's just compounded. And over time, we're we're really seeing it in the day to day versus a quick snapshot. Right.
Carly Girnun:I love that you shared that. I find oftentimes when I'm doing the parent intake, the first thing the parent will say that their first clue was is the stomach ache before school because that's this fight or flight response saying this place doesn't feel safe for me. There's something about this that says danger.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right.
Anais Torres:Yeah. There's there's that piece. The there's the physiological aspect. There's also the piece that our children are not the best communicators, and they're not supposed to be. Right?
Melissa Shere Beek:That is developmentally appropriate. Teenage years, there's a certain sort of, like Pushback.
Anais Torres:Pushback. There's pushback. Normal. Right. They're trying to get this sense of agency.
Melissa Shere Beek:Mhmm. Their own identity separate Absolutely. From
Anais Torres:Is that then they'll start saying or thinking, well, if I pose it as a stomachache. Right? Right. Then mom will be able to secure that a little bit more versus me saying, no, I don't want to go to school because of x y and z. And so it becomes a little bit easier for them to also communicate in an ineffective way but it's what they know.
Carly Girnun:And feel heard.
Anais Torres:And feel heard.
Melissa Shere Beek:And taken care of because you know, you have a stomachache, honey, well let me make you feel better. So there's that comfort and that security that they wanted, but coming from the physical sense not from expressing it that they needed it from a mental health standpoint. Absolutely. Are there myths about bullying?
Carly Girnun:Oh, so many. I think one is and I think now it's getting more and more debunked, but still there is, like, it makes you tougher. Right? We know I work a lot with adult men. I worked a lot with adult men at rehab facilities.
Anais Torres:Mhmm.
Carly Girnun:And what we know is that early bullying, any bullying, but that early bullying, there's a higher chance later in life of anxiety, of depression. Right? And so the shame of it, especially for the young boys, be tough, be a big boy. Right?
Melissa Shere Beek:Like Right.
Carly Girnun:This is really good for you. It happened to me. This isn't good for their system. This is something our systems will actually hold on to. Right.
Anais Torres:And something that you and I talked about the other day along the same lines is we are hearing that message of, oh, it just well, it happened to me. Like, we all get bullied and it's like, yes and no, right? The bullying is But so different then it's also this nature of It's this ongoing repetitiveness. It's not just this one time
Melissa Shere Beek:No, it's constant trauma.
Anais Torres:It's constant trauma. And along the lines of trauma, it's just like when individuals endure other forms of trauma that we see in a different lens. Yes, they came out more resilient. Sure. Right?
Anais Torres:Unfortunately. Right. Right? But nobody wishes trauma upon people. Right.
Anais Torres:Why are we thinking And
Melissa Shere Beek:not everybody comes out more resilient Correct.
Anais Torres:From trauma. Correct. Yeah. 100%. And why are we almost like wishing in some way of like, oh, well, they they needed a little bit of that tough skin.
Anais Torres:They needed a little bit of bullying. Like,
Melissa Shere Beek:no. It's not acceptable.
Anais Torres:No. It's not acceptable, and it's not a necessary Yeah. Component of our development. Yeah.
Carly Girnun:Also think we're at such a tough time with technology Yeah. That while parents will empathize absolutely with everyone can remember a time in middle school they did not feel like they belonged or
Melissa Shere Beek:a time
Carly Girnun:where it really really hurt. Yeah. Now it follows them home. So this place that used to then signal to their bodies, I am safe. I get to step away from this.
Carly Girnun:Now it's in their nervous system all of the time. Right.
Anais Torres:I think that's a beautiful I think that's beautifully said statement because it it does. There's there's no It's invasive. Right. There's no parameter to it before we used to leave it at school. Right.
Anais Torres:You know, it was our belief that was at school and we went home and that was it. Right. But now we have social media. Now we have our phones. We have our computers.
Anais Torres:Yeah. And it's, you know, unfortunately as parents, we have to start looking out for these things because our kids are not sharing it. They feel like it's also a normal piece. But then when you look through messages and different DMs and things of that nature, you're seeing where they're being bombarded
Melissa Shere Beek:by bullying. It's constant. It's constant. And is it different types of bullying from, let's say, what could have been your inner friend group to maybe a tough teacher to family members or
Carly Girnun:We can have bullying any dynamic, right? So, it could be with a teacher or coach, it could be with a classmate. I think the really interesting thing when it's with an adult is this was your space that was supposed to be safe.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right. This is someone supposed to guide you.
Carly Girnun:And on the other hand, as a teen, your whole system is working towards belonging. Mhmm. So all of you, like, chemically want so badly to belong. Right. And so I think it leads to two different impacts, but two impacts nonetheless.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay. Mhmm. So what about the population? You said it's mostly sort of teenagers, preteens.
Carly Girnun:So we know the highest Mhmm. Age would be 12 to 14. Right. It's that teenage age, but I think with phones, we're seeing such a shift in it depending on maybe And whether child's we know puberty is also happening now younger.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yes. True. True.
Anais Torres:Yes. Very very good point. But we are seeing it younger. Younger. Unfortunately, we're seeing it even in kindergarten where it's like, how did we get here?
Anais Torres:We didn't experience that growing up. And to your point, the puberty piece is also really impacting that. But it's like I said, it's just it's so much more enduring now versus what we used to see.
Melissa Shere Beek:So can we talk a little bit more about that? The invasiveness that follows you home with Snapchat and or TikTok or all those things, Instagram, all of it. Is it part of the responsibility of the parent or the school to say, you know, like you said at lunchtime with the phones, maybe they shouldn't have their phones at lunchtime, Or maybe children are getting on Snapchat or TikTok too young.
Carly Girnun:I think it's so tricky, and I say this to parents all of the time because I see almost every teen I see communicates with their friends via Snapchat. And so we take away their way to communicate. Now we're putting them
Melissa Shere Beek:on disadvantage.
Carly Girnun:Absolutely. And also, Snapchat messages go away. There's this, like, safety for kids to feel or teens to feel like they can say whatever they want to say, and there's no proof of it. And so it's this both situation and this tricky situation. I would say also having at home increase in connection.
Carly Girnun:So even randomly, not even connected to it, bringing up a time where maybe you felt like you were on the outskirts Yeah. Of your friends or maybe you bring up a time where your friends were all going to dinner and you weren't invited just to open the lines of communication to make it feel safer to communicate and also maybe having boundaries around phone time depending on age. Whether that means phone usage happens in the living room
Anais Torres:Mhmm.
Carly Girnun:Or after a certain time at night, phone goes away so that Bedtime
Anais Torres:I think is another really big one that I see both myself personally, as well as clinically is that I'm having to tell parents like, this is a very hard piece to navigate, but you need to take the phone away at bedtime. Because it's not just, right, what the content that they're getting, it's also this constant connection to this vehicle that has everything, both good and bad. And bringing that into that headspace where you're trying to go to sleep is a very tricky Yeah, think the phone usage, and I always say this also, I get it as a mom, it's so hard. It's so tricky. They're at a point, right?
Anais Torres:My 12 year old is a preteen. They're at a point where they're trying to develop the sense of agency. They're trying to be independent. You want them, you wanna cultivate that for them. And for them to feel good about themselves.
Anais Torres:And then you also have to snoop. Yeah. Unfortunate.
Melissa Shere Beek:Do you? You have to snoop, okay.
Anais Torres:I do. And I have that conversation though.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right, you're open about it.
Anais Torres:I'm open about it. So I'm not going behind his back. I just let him know, hey, buddy, you know, from time to time, I am going to look through. I'll do it quickly. It's not to look, you know, item per item and text per text, but it's I wanna get a general sense that you were okay and that you're being protected.
Anais Torres:And unfortunately, I know it feels a lot of times like you know what you're doing.
Melissa Shere Beek:But you're figuring it out.
Anais Torres:Well, you're figuring it out and you're not supposed to know. And we are your parents. We have to step in and help protect you where the world sometimes may feel unsafe.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay.
Anais Torres:So I do have that open dialogue so that it doesn't feel like I'm reading through their diary Just type of a
Melissa Shere Beek:to keep the lines of communication open and be aware and make sure that he's doing okay.
Anais Torres:Because a lot of times, like, you know, going back to that insidious, like, part of bullying is that a lot of times they don't pick up. Right.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right? But the nuances. Yeah.
Anais Torres:That it's not leaving an impact or
Melissa Shere Beek:a So
Anais Torres:they're reading messages and they're like, oh, but it was just that. And I'm like, well, how did you feel after you read that? Right. And they're like, oh, I I felt really bad about myself, but I really wasn't sure.
Melissa Shere Beek:That's that's it. That's it.
Carly Girnun:That's the piece I see the most in my work is teens coming in, especially that middle school, early high school age. And they're labeling these things, things are fine with my friends, and I'm hearing this anxiety about going to school. I'm hearing these feelings about going to school. And as I start peeling back the layers and doing the real work, there's bullying occurring. And because bullying has been talked about so much more as like the kid getting shoved into the locker or Right.
Carly Girnun:These really big actions that we saw on TV shows, there's less maybe like agency to say, hey, this is happening to me. They're also wanting to be included.
Melissa Shere Beek:So Right.
Carly Girnun:Saying, hey, mom, my friends are leaving me out. Right. Well, now your mom's gonna have opinions about your friends and you wanna then defend your friends. So it's this, yeah.
Melissa Shere Beek:And I think what you said too just about wanting to be included but also having their own agency. I think kids also don't know nowadays how to pacify themselves to pick up a book or to do something creative or to do sports. I feel like they're getting that sort of dopamine hit from being involved. But I wanna go back to something about what you said about being involved and being aware. What can we say about bystanders and upstanders?
Melissa Shere Beek:So, the people who just sit and watch and maybe videotape and put that out there, or the people who actually get involved and say, hey, this is not cool. Because a lot of things that you were saying about the mismatch between what they felt and what they saw, and they dismissed it because it was so innocuous at that point.
Anais Torres:Mhmm.
Melissa Shere Beek:But so let's talk about the bystanders and upstanders.
Carly Girnun:Well, we know as groups, like we diffuse responsibility. Right? Right. We really think as a group, you don't feel that same responsibility. That's happening.
Carly Girnun:Absolutely. Happening so much in these settings. The interesting thing is it depends who intervenes. And Right. This is something I've been seeing more and more is it depends on the person's status of who intervenes.
Carly Girnun:And so actually what we know is if the coolest kid in school goes and says, hey, that's not cool. Amazing. That's going to be so reparative. That's going to feel so supportive. That's exactly what we wanna see.
Carly Girnun:But if someone who has lesser social standings or who gets picked on themselves stands up for you, it might actually feel the opposite. And that's a really hard tricky piece to navigate because we want everyone standing up for everyone.
Melissa Shere Beek:Sure.
Carly Girnun:And how can it then show up later?
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. I wanna talk about that too.
Anais Torres:Uh-huh. And I think to that kind of point is, and we touched on it a little bit, is the school's involvement. And unfortunately, I think a lot of schools, school administration, teachers, they have a little bit of that same concept of like, oh, it's no big deal. It's just kids being kids and boys being boys.
Melissa Shere Beek:So because they're afraid to deal with it?
Anais Torres:They're afraid to deal with it. Right? They don't want the liability. Right. I can't tell you how many times I've heard school administrators and teachers say, oh, well, let's not use that word bullying.
Anais Torres:No. I I could understand, right, overgeneralizing. I don't I don't let people do that either. Sometimes my my son has brought home like a simple example, and I'm like, that's not bullying. Hold on.
Carly Girnun:Like, let's
Anais Torres:really differentiate. Yeah. Great. Absolutely. They don't wanna call anything bullying.
Anais Torres:And then it's how do our kids right? How do all kids feel safe in their environment when the adults, the authority figures that are walking around
Melissa Shere Beek:Can't even define it. Right.
Anais Torres:And they're and they're watering it down. That's not a big deal. Oh, but he was your friend last week, so it's fine.
Melissa Shere Beek:But isn't that so silly to me that adults can say that's not a big deal because it doesn't matter if you think it's a big deal or not. If that person is expressing this is how I was impacted, it's obviously a big deal to them.
Carly Girnun:Right. And I think I try to tell parents, think of yourself in middle school. Think of a moment in your life where you felt like that, and now it might feel silly, but at the time, it was the It biggest was devastating. You're still learning. You all you want is belonging.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. And then that happens. I will say there have been schools I've worked with who are wonderful. Okay. And who have brought in like I've spoken to different classrooms.
Carly Girnun:They have really tried to address it. So I think it really
Melissa Shere Beek:Are schools doing enough to have these sort of educational informational sort of talks with children? Are they starting early enough even?
Carly Girnun:I I also think there's a piece of this where the schools don't know where to go with all of the technology. Right. Agreed. Schools are having students use computers, and now some of them are taking away computers. I think that there's this like new element now to bullying that we're all trying to navigate together or something we know is it's so important for a student to have one, like, either it could be someone like a counselor at the school or a teacher to have that one supportive adult at the school can make so much reparative difference Right.
Carly Girnun:For the child. And so I would
Melissa Shere Beek:say A safe space.
Carly Girnun:A safe space for the child. So I would say one thing is is seeing and helping maybe even your child identify, hey, if something ever is feeling off, why don't you step into miss so and so's office? Yeah. And to kind of help with that repair.
Anais Torres:Okay. I I feel like schools, it's a little bit of a toss-up. Right? There are some schools that are just not doing enough, truthfully. They're They're not educating themselves.
Anais Torres:They're not seeking out trainings because I get it. It really is a There's tricky so many different things. I'm even thinking, as you said, the computer thing, like even chat GPT. Right? There now kids are using AI to bully.
Anais Torres:I had one child who doctored an entire image to do bullying.
Melissa Shere Beek:So frightening because that stays forever.
Anais Torres:That stays forever and that's out there now. And so these things can be very, very damaging. And I had to have a whole conversation with this child of what you're doing is not only a terrible thing, it's also bordering on illegal. And like these are things that children just can't wrap their heads around
Melissa Shere Beek:which Yeah, concept's too large
Anais Torres:for back to, you know, and I know we're gonna talk about that as well, the parents of those that are doing the bullying.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay. So that's where I wanna head to. So let's say because some schools are really great where they have a mentor who can help them, a guidance counselor, somebody else that a child feels safe and secure and can talk to. Mhmm. And some of them don't know how to deal with it, and they sort of brush off the kids and say it's a learning experience, whatever.
Melissa Shere Beek:But to the next step, once we've identified, yes, you are being bullied, and, yes, this is the bully, what does a parent or a school do when the parents of the bully takes no responsibility or acknowledges that their child's doing these behaviors? Like, how do you handle that?
Anais Torres:I don't know that I have the full answer as of yet. As somebody who's also tried to navigate those waters, it's really hard. Trying to sit in the space of being a parent myself, If that was my kind of end of it, I don't know. I don't know how I would Obviously I would have conversations and I would try to intervene as much as possible. That's a really hard piece to have to unpack yourself of my child is being an aggressor in some kind of way or perpetrator in some kind of way.
Anais Torres:And then what does that mean about me? And I think that's always the really hard question What the
Melissa Shere Beek:parent thinks. Yep.
Anais Torres:Yeah. As a parent, like that's the ultimate kind of trepidation of like, what did I do wrong? Right. How did I drop the ball? How did I create this in some kind of way?
Anais Torres:And it's it's not about that. It's just all of us are humans and we're all navigating life and trying to be as kept together as possible, but it's a messy thing to light. It's a
Melissa Shere Beek:like it's so messy. It's
Anais Torres:messy. But I really do think that a lot of times it's touching on those pieces for a parent that feels very threatening Yeah. Of I I can't tolerate this. Right. This is somehow a reflection of me and that's not it.
Melissa Shere Beek:But they're not even addressing what's going on with the child themselves. They're bullying themselves.
Carly Girnun:I think it's so important for the parent. I said this to teachers when was working for Head Start. I'll say this to parents, like, regulate their own system first. And so sometimes that's even taking a pause. It's not the perfect parent, it's the good enough.
Carly Girnun:Right. Right. Just good enough is all the child needs. And so really taking that moment to regulate themselves, notice what's showing up for themselves. Maybe if it's a two parent household tag teaming Right.
Carly Girnun:Their partner, if they feel really dysregulated in this moment saying, hey, listen, need to take a pause. I just heard this stuff. I'm having a hard time coming up with what to say. It's okay not to know. And then I always say lead with curiosity.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. When possible, ask the child, hey, what's going on? Yeah. What am I missing? If we go into you did this, x
Melissa Shere Beek:y Shame and blame again.
Carly Girnun:And then the shame. And we know how shame shows up later in life. Right. And so really the curiosity piece. And for the parents too, because it's what they're missing.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. So
Melissa Shere Beek:what are schools doing? Because we talked a little bit about you going in and speaking to schools, you teach classes.
Anais Torres:Mhmm.
Melissa Shere Beek:What are schools doing to sort of educate and inform and arm their children? Not enough. I just looked at both of your faces.
Anais Torres:It's great. Not enough. It's not enough. Yeah. I think that's the ultimate kind of answer is that not enough is being done.
Anais Torres:And again, super messy, super tricky
Melissa Shere Beek:to But deal shouldn't we be starting like in kindergarten to let children know that whatever you feel is valid and expressing it is and then this is the proper way to deal with your anxiety or your stress or however you
Carly Girnun:want it. It is so beautiful, the schools who have people come during that kindergarten Mhmm. Age, and not all have access or resources for that. But we know if we're teaching it at a really young age to the children, but there's this other piece of maybe even like adding in more parent education. Yes.
Carly Girnun:Maybe Parent Yes. Schools where they could like a almost required like parent sessions on Required. To do. Yeah. Because that's the piece that the validating that the kid needs, the curiosity that the other kid's parent needs to do.
Carly Girnun:Right? Like, that's the tricky part. If the parents can show up and if the teachers can show up, maybe we can protect the children, like, top down versus the children having to show up in a way when their brains are still forming.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right. Mhmm. A lot of times, I feel like the parents need a a bigger education than children do. Yeah. And there's no shame in that.
Melissa Shere Beek:I don't mean that in a nasty way. Just meant that, like, they need to be more informed, more educated, and and a little bit more prepared.
Carly Girnun:There's so much work in working with especially the littles where I say you're working with the parents, you're working with the family It's so important.
Melissa Shere Beek:And parents are learning too for themselves. Absolutely. I mean, some of these first time parents, they don't know what they're doing either, so they need help and assistance. So, I we think kind of all have to work together for that.
Anais Torres:And I think to that point, it's the sense of community, right? Like we're really all in this together. I'm a parent. Before I was a parent, I was a therapist. That does not mean that we know it all by any means.
Anais Torres:We're all literally learning together at the same time. Yes. And it's all really wonky weird round.
Melissa Shere Beek:But it's all okay. But it's all If we help each other.
Anais Torres:Correct. And I think that that's another thing that, you know, to the point of trying to get more of like the parenting education, if schools could even bridge that and have like a parent night, right, where we get to talk about these things and now now we get to be shoulder to shoulder and oh, you too and me too in this sense and that sense. And we can grow in that. And even something so small, because that could play a huge role.
Melissa Shere Beek:I think it's a huge role. I also think starting in kindergarten, giving children agency. Yeah. You know, if you give them information so that they can identify for themselves and sort of take agency for themselves. Oh, this is what I think.
Carly Girnun:And permission to feel there. Yes. Right? I think when I'm working with, I see this a lot with the adult male population from a young age. They're told be tough, be the big boy.
Carly Girnun:How did you handle that? Don't cry. Big boys don't cry. Right? There's all these pieces.
Carly Girnun:And so then things show up in individuals' lives and they feel like they don't get to share because that's a weakness rather
Anais Torres:than Yeah. Their
Melissa Shere Beek:So so I wanna talk about that. I wanna talk about like how does bullying show up later, that kind of trauma? How does it show up later in life?
Carly Girnun:It's so interesting. It often doesn't come up in the beginning when I'm working with someone. So I will be working with an It is buried deep. I'll be working with an individual and they'll be seeking, let's say, validation from a partner. And they'll feel like, look, that person didn't answer me.
Carly Girnun:There's my proof. They don't like me. They don't want me. It'll show up in these patterns. And when I'm looking at their life and saying, okay, let's step back.
Carly Girnun:Where did you learn that people don't show up
Melissa Shere Beek:for you?
Carly Girnun:Right. Where did you learn? Oftentimes, it is so rare that I don't end up at a story buried from middle school, elementary school, and they'll sit there and be like, oh my goodness, I haven't thought of this in years. But their brain has, their body has, they've held onto it.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. The memory
Carly Girnun:is
Melissa Shere Beek:And they still
Carly Girnun:have this script about themselves that this is how I show up in the world. This is how people interact with me and they've picked accomplices that fit that belief. And so it shows up
Melissa Shere Beek:Reinforces it.
Carly Girnun:Mhmm. It shows up so very deep, but as soon as we can label, hey, where did you learn that? That's where the healing gets to.
Melissa Shere Beek:Is there power in in the word using the word bully? Like, just from a therapeutic standpoint, identifying that and moving forward from it and recognizing the patterns that they have, like you said, attaching themselves to people who sort of help them fit into the role they think they should play?
Carly Girnun:Yeah. That's interesting that you're asking because oftentimes, it will be the friend or it will be someone that they categorize as something else. So renaming them
Melissa Shere Beek:Right.
Carly Girnun:As how they showed up, which would be a bully Right. Can absolutely say, oh, I'm picking people who almost
Melissa Shere Beek:Play the same exact Yeah.
Anais Torres:Yeah. See it a lot in my work with eating disorders specifically. So yes, I don't see it in in all of my cases. I don't see it at the beginning. I usually see it as we're slowly And and when was the first time that curiosity, when was that first time that you ever felt like this?
Anais Torres:And can we go back there? With eating disorders, it's a really big part of the psychopathology and the etiology of the eating disorder. It's the parent, the family member that constantly comment on their body. It's the kids commenting on their body or their eating habits. Again, bullying looks like very, very different from case to case, but that's a form of bullying where you are constantly being critiqued in how to
Melissa Shere Beek:also all the magazines. All the magazines. It show you you should look like this, you should be like this. This is Yeah,
Anais Torres:nobody does. The societal piece of fat phobia and diet culture and wellness culture, right, because everything is now packed up pretty as health and wellness, and it's it's not. It's the same. It's the same thing. It's all diet culture.
Melissa Shere Beek:It's different packaging.
Anais Torres:It's different packaging, but that's about it. But it really goes back once I start unpacking and we really start looking at the roots of when the eating disorder started showing up in their lives. It's the the health class that they took that the teacher made comments about certain foods that they liked. Right. Or their body size or their shape.
Anais Torres:We're also seeing that way earlier. And we're seeing it, I mean, in children, little little children.
Melissa Shere Beek:It's so hard.
Anais Torres:So that's another layer of the bullying that really shows up in a lot
Carly Girnun:of the work that I do. There's a piece you're talking about of hearing something even maybe like repetitive hearing something from someone else. And what I'll hear a lot and I'll tell my clients is like, you're bullying your own brain. You have heard these words from someone else and now they've become your own You're in dialogue. Mhmm.
Carly Girnun:And I'll often ask whose voice is that?
Anais Torres:Right.
Carly Girnun:It's often when we're getting to the core of the work, it didn't originate from them. It's mom's voice. It's a classmate's voice. It's not their own voice who's telling them these very self critical Right. Things.
Carly Girnun:They learned it from somewhere.
Melissa Shere Beek:I was that was part of one of the things I was gonna ask you about is the internal dialogue. We are bullying ourselves
Carly Girnun:All the time.
Melissa Shere Beek:Because we are the only ones who speak to ourselves most frequently in the entire world more than anybody else does, and we're very self critical.
Anais Torres:Mhmm.
Melissa Shere Beek:And I like what you said about when you unpack that, it goes back to whose whose voice did that originate from.
Carly Girnun:Mhmm.
Melissa Shere Beek:Because that's learned behavior.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. Absolutely. And the shoulds that come with it. Oh, yeah. Oftentimes, I mean, I heard someone once say and I totally took it from them, like, you're shoulding all over yourself.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. You're creating that. You're shoulding all over You're creating these shoulds of how you should show up in the world, and it came from everywhere else. And now anytime you step outside of your should Mhmm. Now there's shame.
Carly Girnun:Okay. And when there's shame, there's disconnected. When there's shame, there's trauma or there's coping tools like substance use or other Yeah. Pieces.
Melissa Shere Beek:Exactly. Okay. So, how can children develop a sense of regulating so that we don't get to be an adult who constantly shames and disconnects themselves?
Anais Torres:Yeah. I I think that that's like another really big piece of what we're seeing. And Carly, I'm sure you're seeing. It's our our kids now that the younger generations do not have distress tolerance skills. They are so connected and yet disconnected.
Anais Torres:So they're always on something, they're always touching something, they're always doing something, the fidget toys, the phone, the video games. There's so much connection, know, quote unquote connection, but there's such a big disconnect
Melissa Shere Beek:Right.
Anais Torres:Because they're not they're not
Melissa Shere Beek:even They're not really connecting. These are little dopamine
Carly Girnun:tolerance doesn't need to be there in the same way because their phone gets to be the distress
Anais Torres:tolerance Right.
Carly Girnun:I say do little things. Also tell a teen, every time you're on an elevator, I want you to put your phone down. Every time you're waiting in a line, want you to put your phone down. So these little moments of building the distress tolerance and getting really comfortable sitting in stillness. The other you were asking about kind of like the coping and the regulating.
Carly Girnun:Right.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right.
Carly Girnun:I think building the self confidence is such an important piece. What are the messages you're telling yourself? What are parents saying? Parents.
Anais Torres:At a
Carly Girnun:young age, we know a really healthy way for parents to get to see the best in their kid and for the kid too is labeled praise. So labeling the things you see your child do Right. And you're really proud of them. Wow. You did an incredible job listening.
Carly Girnun:Right. Oh my goodness. The way you studied for that math test. Right? Really labeling these things to start also helping boost their confidence.
Carly Girnun:So when these things happen, they also know who they are.
Melissa Shere Beek:It used to be said catch them doing great. Yeah. Catch them doing good. Because instead of identifying, oh, you shouldn't do that or you can't do that or that's not allowed, just really reinforce all of the positive that
Carly Girnun:you see. I tell parents the behavior you don't wanna see, catch the opposite. Right. And you'll start seeing the opposite more.
Melissa Shere Beek:Because children only respond to what they hear. So if they think that a parent is only gonna see them in a negative light, they're just going to behave in a negative way. But if the parent keeps identifying, oh, hey, this was so fabulous, they love that. They just
Carly Girnun:feel connected.
Melissa Shere Beek:Feels so good.
Carly Girnun:We're wired to connect.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yes. I think that's a big part of it. We're wired to connect, and you talked about like all of the things that people, the fidget toys and the disassociation. I think this generation didn't grow up in the comfort of silence. Does that make sense?
Melissa Shere Beek:Like, learning to pacify themselves by doing something or just being okay sitting with themselves. Like, it's okay to just sort of Mhmm.
Carly Girnun:Be. Be.
Anais Torres:Yeah. I I oftentimes, like, think to, like, road trips as an example. Yeah. When we had a road trip, even if it was like a a small car ride Yeah. You just sat with yourself.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah.
Anais Torres:Right? You watched the tree. You watched the tree.
Melissa Shere Beek:Put your arm out the window.
Anais Torres:The raindrops. Yeah. Right? You which one would race down?
Carly Girnun:Yeah. The license plates. Yeah.
Anais Torres:License plates. Yeah. You would look so at many different things. And now kids are in the car and they're like, my iPad's not charged. My disc is not charged.
Anais Torres:How long until we get there? Yeah. And it's like
Melissa Shere Beek:Well, you knew it when the car started making them with like video screens in the back of the headrest. I was like,
Carly Girnun:oh, no.
Anais Torres:Uh-huh. Oh my gosh.
Carly Girnun:But there's so many ways also for kids to regulate their body. There's Right. Different tapping. There's Yeah. I mean, there's
Melissa Shere Beek:so much parents or from a teacher. An adult has to introduce them to these things. Yes.
Carly Girnun:And the adult has to model the thing they're wanting to see. Exactly. And that's a huge The biggest, I would say, point is I'll see the parent walk pushing the stroller, scrolling their phone. It's going to be really hard for the child to not want to do the same. They're watching their parent.
Carly Girnun:They wanna copy everything their parent does. Why does this parent gotta sit on the couch and scroll their phone, and I have to just sit here in silence bidding for your attention?
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah.
Anais Torres:And and, you know, that's that's also a beautiful point because we parents, adults are doing so much more in comparison to our own parents. And that is not to put down the previous generation by any means. It's just our work looks different.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. And there's a lot more to contend with.
Anais Torres:A 100%. And so I'm always on the phone. I'm always on the iPad. I'm doing this.
Melissa Shere Beek:Well, that's business too.
Anais Torres:It's business. It's part of our work. Right. And it's really hard because how does the child differentiate
Melissa Shere Beek:What's work and
Anais Torres:what's on her phone the entire time, and she's yelling at me for being on Roblox. Like, what do
Carly Girnun:you mean? And I'm like, great point.
Anais Torres:I'm sending emails and I'm
Carly Girnun:working on
Anais Torres:a PowerPoint,
Melissa Shere Beek:but it doesn't look that way.
Anais Torres:And it doesn't matter to them. And so I think, you know, being able to have that conversation with them and validate like Yeah. Yes. I totally understand. That's a beautiful point
Melissa Shere Beek:for you. And
Anais Torres:it's a little different. And this is not mommy gets to do something that you don't get to do.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right.
Anais Torres:Right? I know it can I'm not feeling
Melissa Shere Beek:that way. Crushes. I promise you.
Anais Torres:Exactly. Unless I am. And then I will also admit to that. But but it is trying to have again, it's open lines of communication. When our children feel heard and understood and they feel like they're part of it, because a lot of times parents think my kid doesn't need to know about that.
Anais Torres:I don't need to talk to them about certain things. I don't have to say I'm sorry. That's another big one with parenting. It's no, no, no.
Melissa Shere Beek:Why? Why not?
Anais Torres:Exactly. Like, we are the role models. Yeah. We are not better than. We don't know more that.
Anais Torres:We're learning too. We we actually might be behind ball.
Melissa Shere Beek:So I think it's okay to admit that you have made mistakes or that you're sorry for something that you did.
Anais Torres:Absolutely. I think
Carly Girnun:every relationship is going to have the ruptures. But we know because it's the repair of the relationship. And when I'm working with teens, I'll also try to highlight the things that parents did right because I often I don't have kids yet, and I always say, oh, when they're a teen one day, they're just not going to like me. Yeah.
Melissa Shere Beek:Because I
Carly Girnun:hear it all the time. But then I'll start modeling everything that they did right. So they'll say, well, then my mom did this. I'll say, oh, that's wonderful. And I'll be like, maybe it is.
Carly Girnun:Right? And so
Melissa Shere Beek:Maybe she's not as bad as
Carly Girnun:I You might not get the validation you need at that moment. Yeah. But the kid's picking up on it. Right. It'll show up later.
Anais Torres:Yeah.
Carly Girnun:Yeah.
Melissa Shere Beek:Well, you're you're planting great seeds.
Carly Girnun:Mhmm.
Melissa Shere Beek:I will say that. Yeah. It's hard. Teenagers, it doesn't matter what you say or what you do. Sometimes it's all wrong just because you're their parent.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. And it's a safe place for them to be able to let out their stress and anxiety because they know you're gonna love them unconditionally.
Carly Girnun:And we actually want to see that. I say to parents, if you're seeing the worst version of your child, it tells me you have the best relationship with your child. Tells me your child's body can literally be regulated all day at school, know what it needs to
Melissa Shere Beek:do Right.
Carly Girnun:And then come home and get to just be. Yeah. I get more nervous when a child has to be on around their parent. That tells me something really different.
Melissa Shere Beek:Dread flag.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. I want the child to be able to just let go Yeah. In front of their parent.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. Outside of parents being a safe place for their kids, are they being taught children to find other safe places? And how do they find safe places especially when schools can be a big field for bullying and all the other things going on?
Carly Girnun:So I like to do experiments with my teen clients. And this has been something that I've seen work so beautifully that now I just like across the board it's so important is like having that really trustworthy friend but really looking through okay who is trustworthy, why are they trustworthy, Do they share with me too? Do I feel like I can tell them? And having them do like little experiments. So if they're in a group and they're feeling excluded, I'll say, who else in your class do you talk to?
Carly Girnun:And there's always someone. There's one class friend, someone you smile at. Okay. Let's do one experiment this week where you interact with this person. Now let's do one more.
Carly Girnun:Let's and really starting to build friendship maybe outside of the friend unit
Melissa Shere Beek:Right.
Carly Girnun:Where you're feeling hurt, not seen Right.
Melissa Shere Beek:Bullied. Because that might not be a healthy safe space for
Carly Girnun:them. Absolutely. And then help show them what a safe space would be in friendship.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay. God, it's so hard being a kid today.
Anais Torres:I know.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay, so we talked about how bullying shows up later in life. So how can we sort of, I put here, affirm our humanity and protect ourselves from like an emotional standpoint? Because bullying doesn't happen just for childhood and teens. There's a lot of adults who are still being bullied, whether it's at work or in life, and also maybe they haven't done the homework or the work to sort of unpack the trauma that they dealt with. So how do we sort of get to an emotional safe place?
Carly Girnun:Obviously, I love therapy. Yeah. But I would say something that I like to do is really validate the need for connection we have and to validate why it feels so hard. Think I often hear people shame themselves from the hurt they're feeling from other people of like, I shouldn't be upset. And there is a should again.
Carly Girnun:But I say we're born as humans needing other humans. We we can't survive. If we were born in the hospital and no one takes care of us, we will not survive. Right. Our survival instincts We need to other be people.
Carly Girnun:Mhmm. And so to validate that for themselves when you're feeling disconnected, when you're feeling hurt, your body's telling you this isn't safe. This isn't good.
Melissa Shere Beek:Listen.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. And so to validate it
Anais Torres:for themselves. I I also use the pandemic as an example. Right? Because we we all endured that. And where I take it back to that evolutionary perspective and that innate desire to connect, we saw that during the pandemic shutdown.
Anais Torres:Even the most introverted individuals who at the beginning were kind of relishing.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. In these,
Melissa Shere Beek:they're like,
Anais Torres:okay, I don't have to leave the house and I can do a drive by birthday party. Yay. I was a little guilty of that as a mom who had always way too many birthday parties. I was like, another drive by. Like, this is wonderful.
Carly Girnun:I'll make a sign. Right.
Anais Torres:I'll make a sign, drop off the gift, keep on going. But we saw as it dragged on, and I actually got invited to to talk about the the pandemic piece as it was happening, we saw that people were not doing well. Right? We saw that the individuals that were very introverted that at the beginning seemed to be okay relatively with the the shutdown, they started itching for connection because at the core, we all need to connect. Sure.
Anais Torres:We we we need it. We we live off of it. It's evolutionary.
Melissa Shere Beek:Well, I think we all wanna be seen.
Anais Torres:Yes.
Melissa Shere Beek:And we all wanna be heard. And we all wanna be loved.
Anais Torres:And included.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. And
Anais Torres:that's, it goes back full circle to the concept of bullying. It's really, really hurtful and it's threatening to our being to be left out and or hurt by another individual.
Melissa Shere Beek:And I think it makes that imprint on a child for a lifetime.
Anais Torres:It does.
Melissa Shere Beek:Heavy stuff. Okay, so what are the most important sort of takeaways from this and also implications on how we can respond to bullying?
Carly Girnun:I'll start with the how to respond.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay.
Carly Girnun:I would say as a parent or caregiver, validating the feelings. Starting off Mhmm. Regulating themselves and saying, that must have been really, really hard. Tell me more. Or just leaning into the curiosity and the validation and really needing them when they're at.
Carly Girnun:Then pausing before solution. Oftentimes as adults, we want a solution, everything in the moment.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right. Stop problem solving models.
Carly Girnun:Know as adults, when we tell our partners Right. For example something, they try to fix it. We're like, wait, We just want to this. And so really doing the thinking, let me show that I'm listening. Yes.
Carly Girnun:Then I'm gonna pause. Now, is it two different realms? Is it mean kid behavior where I'm gonna validate and then tomorrow before school check-in and say, okay, what's our plan for school today? Right. And help fix prior.
Carly Girnun:Or is it this bigger thing where they're needing to come back and say, hey, listen. This is a safety piece. My job is to keep you safe. Right. Here's how we're gonna do it.
Carly Girnun:How does this sound? Giving the child, especially if it's more of like a teen Right. Choice around it. Right. Giving them as much autonomy as they can Right.
Carly Girnun:While you as the parent are kinda coming up with the ways we should do it.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right. Do we approach the school? Do we talk to guidance counselor? Do we do this? Right.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay.
Carly Girnun:Mhmm.
Melissa Shere Beek:I like that giving the children the choice to how do we gonna approach the situation.
Anais Torres:Yeah. And I think ultimately in in in our line of work, it becomes communication.
Carly Girnun:Mhmm.
Anais Torres:Right? So it's it's that line of communication where you're hoping to create that safe space for your child where it's, hey, I may not know all the answers, but we will figure it out together. And I also want you to be in a place where you feel like you can come to me and talk about even the most benign or what you presume is benign because that's the other piece, help sort through things.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right. And I think what you said, what's benign and what's not benign, you can help them identify this is something not to worry about, this is something that's concerning.
Anais Torres:Absolutely. Like be their fact checker in many ways. Because again, I tell my kiddos all the time like, you guys are not supposed to know these things. Right. You know?
Anais Torres:It feels like a lot of pressure, but like, let me help you. Right. Right? This is where your parents come into play of we we've gone through some stuff. We've seen stuff.
Anais Torres:It's not the therapist in me necessarily. It's the I was a human who also
Carly Girnun:went You were a child once.
Anais Torres:I was really shocked. You know, at some point. And so it's it's that communication. And I think the communication also has to widen Right. To school administrators and and teachers and, it's getting the ball rolling.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay, I'm gonna ask you further with the widening because we're talking as if the parents are not the bullies. What about children whose parents are bullies?
Anais Torres:I've seen that too.
Melissa Shere Beek:Where does that child go for
Anais Torres:help? It's so sad.
Melissa Shere Beek:Another relative, another school person?
Anais Torres:And I think going back to the school piece, this is also the disadvantage and I get it. It is really hard, but the school has a very big Responsibility. Responsibility to all the children. And I've had to navigate these waters, not just being the mom of the child that's being bullied. I have had to literally say to the administrators that the parent is the bully.
Anais Torres:What about the other child? Have you checked in? Yeah. Because this is indicative. Right?
Anais Torres:Like, these children are seeing this, learning this, picking up on this, and or they're acting out because something is happening psychologically. Absolutely. And, you know, again, a lot of schools are dropping the ball because even when they do pay attention to the bullying, they're paying attention more so to the child receiving it.
Melissa Shere Beek:By the victim. And it's
Anais Torres:not the
Melissa Shere Beek:one who's doing it.
Anais Torres:What's happening behind the scenes with the other child.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. It was happening with the bullying.
Anais Torres:Temperature check.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. Absolutely. I used to work at when I was in Colorado at a high school for kids who had been either expelled or at risk of expulsion. A lot of them for bullying or those behaviors. And it was this, like, beautiful therapeutic school.
Carly Girnun:And a lot of the work we were doing was there was a lot going on at home. There was a lot of hurt these kids were facing. There was an element of curiosity Mhmm. That they needed someone to sit and see them
Anais Torres:and hear
Carly Girnun:them. Right. And that had all of the repair in the world. And so really, like, I keep going back to that curiosity piece Right. But being so curious on what's showing up.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. Right.
Melissa Shere Beek:And where it originated. Absolutely. Right.
Carly Girnun:And how to help. Right. Mhmm.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. Because this is not something if it if you don't deal with the issues, again, we'll go back to what we said about it manifesting later in the relationships that you have when you're older or how you deal with not just, you know, a spouse, but coworkers Mhmm. Or or your own children later on in life.
Carly Girnun:And we can build empathy too. Right? We can help them understand and empathize with other people of
Anais Torres:Right.
Carly Girnun:How might this person be feeling if you were in their shoes. Right? Like, we can play the in the shoes game where we can play, you know, if it's a younger kid, some play therapy around
Anais Torres:Right.
Carly Girnun:Really Yeah. Understanding how someone else will feel.
Anais Torres:Yeah. I I use the quote a lot, hurt people hurt people. And, you know, it really gives the the idea of this is coming from pain a lot of times, usually. That's the origin. And then the pain just continues to spill over onto everyone.
Anais Torres:But again, it's not just the child being bullied, it's The bully themselves. The bully themselves. It's also enduring, you know,
Melissa Shere Beek:who knows? Their pain is originating
Anais Torres:Their from
Melissa Shere Beek:pain is there. So what is the last thing that you want your parents to know and the school and the children to know? What's the most important thing for those?
Carly Girnun:The children, I'll speak to them, that they don't have to be in it alone. It feels really lonely and isolating but that they can pick someone to share it with. And they don't have to sit in this
Melissa Shere Beek:Got it.
Carly Girnun:Alone. There gets to be growth and healing Got it. Afterwards.
Anais Torres:I'll take the parents and the schools. Okay. Good. Think it's what we were saying earlier that this is not a reflection of you. That we need to be able to zoom out Mhmm.
Anais Torres:And really look at what is happening here Right. Which is so hard to do, and I have a deep empathy in those situations. But it is not about you. There's no finger pointing. There's no blame to this.
Anais Torres:This is a collective Yes. Community piece of we're all dealing with this in some capacity and in some kind of way, and can we just work together?
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. I think you both are brilliant about that. It's all about information and communication and connection. Thank you ladies. Thank you so much.
Melissa Shere Beek:Did I leave anything out? Is there anything that we didn't address that we now, we'll think about on the car ride home.
Carly Girnun:Yeah. Exactly. Great job.
Melissa Shere Beek:Thank you so much. I'm so honored that both of you were here.
Carly Girnun:You.
Anais Torres:This is just fabulous. This is amazing.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay. Got one more fun thing if you're game for it. At the end of each episode, I do a thing called Quickie Questions. You good? Yes.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay, first question. What did you learn from something that hurt you? Because we're dealing with bullying and trauma today.
Carly Girnun:That it can help you then show up for other people who feel the same.
Melissa Shere Beek:Oh, good.
Anais Torres:Yeah, that's a really good one. Lead to connection. Yeah, and that's probably the root of why I'm also a clinician.
Melissa Shere Beek:You do what you do.
Anais Torres:It's going back to the point of we are all humans. And I say this to my students all the time, you have a human in front of you. This isn't a client or patient. It's a human who takes their own shape. And yeah, I think also the hurt people hurt people is that this is also coming from somebody who's hurting.
Anais Torres:It's not to invalidate your pain that you have suffered and endured at the hands of whoever. It's also just trying to understand that it's a dynamic.
Melissa Shere Beek:Right. Encourage empathy. Yes, absolutely. Got it. Okay.
Melissa Shere Beek:What animal are you most like?
Carly Girnun:I love elephants. I find them to be like they stay as a community. They support littles. The moms are so warm and maternal. I just have always gravitated towards them.
Carly Girnun:So I'll say elephant.
Melissa Shere Beek:Okay.
Anais Torres:Oh, that's a good
Carly Girnun:Or more so I'd wanna be part of
Anais Torres:I would wanna be an elephant. I do love elephants. I was once told that I was very much like a cheetah. And I was like, why? And I think it's because I I'm typically very dynamic and I'm I like that.
Anais Torres:Always doing a lot of different things. So I
Carly Girnun:think I'll I'll stick with a cheetah. I like that.
Melissa Shere Beek:Favorite or most used word?
Anais Torres:One of my favorite words is superfluous.
Melissa Shere Beek:Superfluous. That's a good one. Superfluous.
Anais Torres:I like that.
Carly Girnun:I would say in terms of therapy, would say it depends. Everything feels like it depends on the person.
Anais Torres:So my students laugh at me because I'm always like, this is a depends answer. There's nuance in everything.
Melissa Shere Beek:Yeah. Oh,
Anais Torres:I like that. Okay.
Melissa Shere Beek:I got two new good ones. Alright. Last one. Who or what inspires you?
Anais Torres:I'm gonna say my kids. Yeah. Yeah. My kids, they're they're so so different in just every domain. But I really get to see from different vantage points, like, how different they are and the reasons why they're so different.
Melissa Shere Beek:They're great teachers.
Anais Torres:They really are. They humble you daily. Yes. Yes. They're so inspirational seeing them just walk through life.
Anais Torres:And again, it's like the little things that they navigate, but also the bigger things when they've had to deal with bullying and their hurtful situations. I would definitely say those are my two little people.
Carly Girnun:I would say my clients and their vulnerability and their willingness to share and their hope towards healing. Yeah.
Melissa Shere Beek:I like that. Their hope towards healing. Yeah. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you.
Anais Torres:This is wonderful.
Melissa Shere Beek:Oh, good. We're gonna have more to talk about afterwards. I'm gonna do my sign off in it. To our listeners, thank you so much. So grateful you're here.
Melissa Shere Beek:Keep listening. Keep learning. Keep laughing. Keep up with Beek on being. Listen to Beek on being wherever you get your podcast.
Melissa Shere Beek:All episodes are automatically transcribed. DM us to share thoughts, ideas, or nominate a guest. Big shout out and a huge thank you to Steven Chen at Penthouse Studios. Woo hoo. Beek on being was recorded at Penthouse Studios and is a proud member of the Penthouse Podcast Network.