Navigating the labyrinth of our minds can be daunting, but with the guidance of Jenny Helms Calvin, we make the journey both enlightening and accessible. Jenny, whose own battle with an eating disorder propelled her into a life of helping others, returns to share her profound insights into the world of therapy and personal development. We tackle the delicate art of setting boundaries, the value of cognitive behavioral therapy in maintaining emotional health, and the dance between professional and personal growth. With each story and piece of advice, we map out a path toward self-worth and healing from attachment trauma.
Laughter and learning go hand in hand as we dissect the complexities of human interaction and the necessity of context when interpreting the boundaries within different relationships. With humor as our compass, we navigate through the awkward, the uncomfortable, and the all-too-human moments that come with setting personal limits. I offer anecdotes from my own life, illuminating the often-overlooked flexibility required in maintaining healthy boundaries, whether with family, friends, or colleagues. Our conversation is a reminder that while the lines we draw may shift, the importance of respecting them remains constant.
As we close this chapter, we reflect on the transformative power of connection, the importance of active listening in nurturing relationships, and the hopeful message that growth is an ever-present possibility thanks to neuroplasticity. Through shared experiences and candid vulnerability, Jenny and I affirm that the road to recovery, though winding, is paved with continuous learning, self-awareness, and the courage to face our emotional baggage. This episode isn't just a discussion—it's an invitation to join us on a path to a more connected, conscious, and compassionate life.
Follow her TikTok here.
Follow Jenny on Instagram here.
Her coaching program is available here.
Navigating the labyrinth of our minds can be daunting, but with the guidance of Jenny Helms Calvin, we make the journey both enlightening and accessible. Jenny, whose own battle with an eating disorder propelled her into a life of helping others, returns to share her profound insights into the world of therapy and personal development. We tackle the delicate art of setting boundaries, the value of cognitive behavioral therapy in maintaining emotional health, and the dance between professional and personal growth. With each story and piece of advice, we map out a path toward self-worth and healing from attachment trauma.
Laughter and learning go hand in hand as we dissect the complexities of human interaction and the necessity of context when interpreting the boundaries within different relationships. With humor as our compass, we navigate through the awkward, the uncomfortable, and the all-too-human moments that come with setting personal limits. I offer anecdotes from my own life, illuminating the often-overlooked flexibility required in maintaining healthy boundaries, whether with family, friends, or colleagues. Our conversation is a reminder that while the lines we draw may shift, the importance of respecting them remains constant.
As we close this chapter, we reflect on the transformative power of connection, the importance of active listening in nurturing relationships, and the hopeful message that growth is an ever-present possibility thanks to neuroplasticity. Through shared experiences and candid vulnerability, Jenny and I affirm that the road to recovery, though winding, is paved with continuous learning, self-awareness, and the courage to face our emotional baggage. This episode isn't just a discussion—it's an invitation to join us on a path to a more connected, conscious, and compassionate life.
Follow her TikTok here.
Follow Jenny on Instagram here.
Her coaching program is available here.
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. The goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:Salut tout le monde. Hi everyone, welcome to Episode 138. If you haven't listened to Episode 137, please go back and listen to it. Amita Sharma talks about women's health, particularly perimenopause, postmenopause and things that people don't like to talk about, but I certainly think that it was an important episode, so go back and listen to that. And if you want to have a returning guest, well, you're in luck.
Speaker 2:Jenny Helms Calvin is back. She was on Episode 121, and she's going to be our guest for today. I just had a great experience with her and we could talk shop and talk about therapy, how it works and stuff like that. We could have gone on for so much longer the last time and definitely wanted to have her back, and we decided that we're going to do that again, breaking again a little bit of my rules, but in the same time that sometimes we know we come up with like 14 things to talk about. Sometimes we come up with two.
Speaker 2:Me and her came up with a couple of things, I think, but knowing where Jenny and I were going in the last episode, we're probably going to go all over the place. So here is the interview. Well, hi everyone, and welcome to Episode 138, returning guest, someone I've enjoyed talking to the last one we had we didn't have enough time. We have a lot of things to talk about. We just spent about 13 minutes just going on and on like oh, we should probably press record at this point, but Jenny Helms was on Episode 121, and she's back for this episode, so welcome back.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, for those who didn't catch 121, I will tell them to go back and listen to it. For those who didn't catch it, can you give a little bit about yourself so that people know where you're? You know a little bit about you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like if I were to put it into a nutshell I, okay, I own two mental health practices in Kansas and I'm also a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist. We're actually the largest. One of them is the largest mental health practice in Kansas and across both of them we have about 85 providers and a staff of about 30, 30 people and I love it. I didn't realize I would fall in love with the business side of things, but I genuinely love both sides where you know we can get clinical, we can talk about business and how we actually serve people and make things accessible.
Speaker 3:But, my history. Moana Healer had a really gnarly eating disorder in high school and found an amazing therapist during that time which really inspired my journey into mental health therapy all that good stuff and it genuinely saved, changed my life and so, yeah, since then I've been learning about all sorts of things and I feel like the areas that, for whatever reason life you know, pulled me into as I work a lot with self-worth, a lot with attachment trauma and relationship trauma, boundaries, disordered eating yes, but it's funny how much like that was like the tip of the iceberg for a lot of people who had that attachment trauma, low self-worth, that sort of thing. So I ended up working a lot in those areas and I think that's about it. I've been creating content as well for a few years and started that during the pandemic because I saw so many really terrible sources out there that were telling people to like wait eight hours before responding to somebody.
Speaker 3:So like there was this need out there where people wanted resources, they wanted to learn about what was going on for them in relationships and really tough situations and breakups and things like this, and I wanted folks to have better resources. I wanted them to get information from therapists and our clinical experiences and what we learn. I think there's a lot of wisdom that we have, you know, as therapists in the room, with folks that never get shared to the public, and so I'm really excited to see that not only me, but there's a lot of folks putting content out there, like yourself doing that, so I think this is really cool and, yeah, I'm like I tried to make that short, but that was maybe even longer than I intended, so Well, first of all, between TikTok, Instagram and everything else that you do, you are fantastic because you put out real information and you know, I know how friendly you are and I knew that beforehand.
Speaker 2:But you know, some of the videos I tell people is like she looks serious, but she's just trying to get a point across. She's not serious in a good way, not in like. You get what I mean. Hopefully, and I've always I always chair your posts on my story. I really enjoy what you do because, especially the boundaries, which is very difficult for people to define it's something I define regularly in therapy and in my social media myself. I just think that people don't get boundaries really well. I know that boundaries is something that is a mystery to people and I certainly have set my boundaries in life and I'm still and I don't know about you, but maybe this is a good place to start. Have you set all the proper boundaries across your life, that everything is working out great, or is it a constant work for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I feel like I mean in any parts of this journey, boundaries included. This is an ongoing journey, so even I will share with folks that, as I'm teaching them about boundaries, I am still figuring out and working on the areas that I struggle with and digging it deeper, because there have been areas I don't know if you've had this experience where, like you go through therapy and you feel like you've arrived, maybe in some area, and then about five years past, and you're like, ooh, I have so not arrived, and so I've had that happen enough times in my life. Now, to where I am not going to say that I've arrived, I've had enough, yeah, experiences in life to share to show me that, like, there's more work to be done. And sometimes even in my own head, I'm like I'm here and then I, yeah, life kicks me in the butt and I'm like, ooh, except for in that area or in this way.
Speaker 3:Like a good example of that was when I first learned boundaries. I used to do boundaries without any sort of consequences, and so I was just going around being like, do this thing, and telling people like what they needed to do to respect my boundaries, and inevitably I got super frustrated because, like, without a consequence, you know, people would still cross my boundaries and they were out of my control. I couldn't do anything as far as like protecting myself, because, truly, when we're talking about consequences, it's not necessarily to be punitive, it's more about what's protective. But yeah, like I was basically just going around threatening people and being miserable, right, and I was like, oh, I'm so boundary and I'm like no, actually, I'm just like basically complaining to a bunch of people.
Speaker 3:So it's a process and like, again, through time, I've had to learn what healthy boundaries are, where they're even coming from for myself, where I'm not setting boundaries, and I'm kind of lying to myself about like being okay with things, and I think the biggest barriers for a lot of people is once they even learn how to do boundaries. It's not the knowledge issue, it's doing it and being consistent and why they can't, and so, yeah, anyway, I could go out of tangent about that, but that's just like a little nugget of like. I've had to continuously grow in that area.
Speaker 2:I think we need to continue on boundaries, because I tell people all the time that when I started off, firm, bound, like firm, non flexible boundaries was my thing, and going the opposite of no boundaries is not the answer to good boundaries. Good boundaries can be flexible at times, but they have to be firm and it can be different, and maybe you know we're talking about boundaries, like everyone knows what boundaries are. How would you define what boundaries are? How do you define them?
Speaker 3:Because it's a really hard thing for people to understand, I think sometimes yeah, that's a great point because I think we all have our own ideas of what that is. Again, like I used to think boundaries were threats, like again, I didn't say they were threats, but like I was, I was threatening people and calling that a boundary. It's so tough. I feel like the physical ones are super obvious for people, like a stop sign. That's a boundary technically, but sometimes it's the emotional ones that are really tough because, A so many of us are walking around and don't understand our own emotions.
Speaker 3:Like, first things, first do you have to have an awareness of your emotions and what's coming up in the moment, or you know, even if it's after the fact, that's okay. But some people are walking around completely disconnected to their emotions, so they're not, they're not even aware that they're upset about something or what's making them upset maybe Like they might be upset, but it's like they're not connecting it to the experience or the event.
Speaker 3:Or they might feel burned out but they don't realize it's because there's all these areas they're not protecting their energy or setting boundaries with themselves.
Speaker 3:That's another thing too.
Speaker 3:People don't realize, like, when we start this work, the first well one of the first pieces is setting boundaries with ourselves too, and people don't realize, like you got to do that as well.
Speaker 3:And so boundaries are not just these threats that we tell other people are like what's okay and not okay, like we have to have, like what it is that protects our energy, helps us to live in alignment with our values. And so how do we change? Like we're only doing classes, like a class discussion, about sharing things, about thepeace, about social housing, about the pol, the things that are getting in the way of that. Being able to have a good way to communicate what's okay, what isn't, and get really intentional about the ways that we have control over those situations and what we can do, versus focusing on blaming the world for all these other people or all these other scenarios and trying to force them to do what you want them to do. It's more about how we change and how we move so that we're no longer in those situations that we're acting out of alignment with our values. I mean, that's like I know, that's like a long way of explaining it, but there's so many different levels or layers to that right.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It's not a simple answer.
Speaker 2:If it was simple, we would have already figured it out.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think that that's the hard part for me too is that boundaries are so flexible and different for different people in different situations, and in time they change. You know, I started off my career years ago and I would not talk about myself, because that's what the book said Don't talk about yourself, just deal with what's in front of you, and it's gonna be therapy, therapy, therapy. Nowadays I share my lived experience. In order to move the therapy forward, do I go into my own difficulties and they're like oh my God, you know what? The other day my client, my therapist, was telling me about shame and I was working on my shame, and then I don't overtake the session, but I do, but I do communicate my lived experience.
Speaker 2:And I think that the other part, too, is that boundaries are not forever, and I think that that's what people have to understand. They remove that, you know, at the corner of your house to remove that stop sign, that boundary no longer exists, and so learning that our boundaries can change over time is something also that makes it very complex, and I don't know if you have any opinions on that. But, like you said, you know I can go on a tangent. Please let's tangent about boundaries. I think that's important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think that they are. Not only do they change over time, because they're going to be different things that you may realize over time. You need protection from that you weren't protecting yourself against or ways that you were getting in your own way, that you didn't know until you again were able to see it. And a big part of this is again being able to see the ways that we hurt ourselves, the ways that other people are hurting us, and again, a lot of times.
Speaker 3:The other thing that I think people get confused about is that I feel like they think boundaries is like this harsh thing and I'm like, no, it's like it's not just protection, it's just part of, and also self expression. It's also you knowing yourself and your goals and we're going and people's boundaries are going to vary because they're different and they have different values and it's not something that, like we don't get to dictate other people's values and vice versa, like when people get so offended about yours, it's kind of like you're, like it's not personal, like this isn't about you, this is about me, this is about what makes me feel good, and it doesn't have to be this big dramatic thing, but I feel like it becomes that I feel like a lot of people personalize other people's boundaries, or they have this idea that a boundary has to make sense to them for them to honor it, and I'm like why.
Speaker 3:Like unless, unless their boundary is crossing your boundaries. Like it makes zero sense to me why you wouldn't honor it. Like a lot of people, they do that in the sense of, like I'm trying to like take politics out of this, but like, say somebody, like they preferred you and wear shoes in their house and like you just didn't get it. You're like whatever. Like my shoes are not dirty, it's not a big deal. Who cares? Like it's not about you and that you think it's not a big deal, like it's about that other person. And honoring where they're at is so many people make it personal and I think you learn a lot about a person and consistently over time, they don't respect your boundaries as far as, like how emotionally safe they are, how insecure they are. You know all those different pieces. So and that's the tough part, because it's people if they didn't set boundaries prior, when they start setting boundaries, you're going to learn soon that a lot of people in your life are not super excited about it. In fact, there are some people that benefited from you not setting boundaries and again, sometimes that's intentional, sometimes it's not.
Speaker 3:You will know over time if it's intentional. You also have to set them first and be consistent to see if a person was just kind of used to it, like I give the example of like if someone did my laundry before my laundry day that I do it like every time, they just did it for me, I totally would let them and I'm not a bad person, I just that's great, that's helpful. But if they stop doing it and I'm like, alright, fine, I'll do my laundry like at first, like man, it's a bummer, why'd you stop doing my laundry? But I would get over it, I would learn it's fine. It's the people that would really push against that and demand that you do their laundry and I'm like, that's the people that you should worry about.
Speaker 3:it's not that people are bad because they let you do their laundry, emotionally speaking.
Speaker 2:Well, I also think that what you said is absolutely true and I think that what people don't understand about boundaries it has nothing to do with other people, has to do with you and your emotional maturity or emotional protection, whatever you want to call it. I don't really care what people call it, I'm not much of a semantic sky sometimes. But if I set a boundary with Jenny and say, jenny, don't ask me about my cats, and Jenny says why not? I don't know, because I don't want to talk about my cats on on air and you would be pushing it, I'd be like my set the boundary. I don't know why you push it, it's about me, but it's just cats. I'm like, yes, but this is personal and I chose that. I tell people it has nothing to do with other people and that's why sometimes I do the CBT work before boundaries.
Speaker 2:Because with CBT and cognitive distortions, the personalization, the day we realize that nothing is personal, it's the day that is so refreshing and how those boundaries are so much easier after that. But most people fight me. Or personalization Now, jenny pushed the cat, so therefore she doesn't like you know, she didn't know, or I didn't communicate it effectively or what have you. It's not personal to me, and once you depersonalize not in a psychotic way, and mean it in a depersonalized, it's not about me. It really changes how people perceive these boundaries, I think. Anyway, I don't know what you feel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:I would.
Speaker 3:I would agree with you. I think the only asterisk I would add is that if you're dealing with somebody that is really struggling with narcissism or certain personality traits, they could be intentionally doing stuff. But I also say, hey, you're going to know. Like it's not going to be, like are they question mark, this is a mystery. Like it's going to be something, that you set these boundaries several times and they never, ever are apologetic, follow them. You know what I mean. Like it's, it's, you're going to know through the patterns Versus a person. Like you said, I would agree that and I like that you start with that, because I would say 95% of the time that's what's happening is that people are personalizing stuff. So I love that you start with that, because that is the majority of what's going on. And then I just kind of reassure folks. I'm like you'll know, you will know over time. If they're not, you know they're trying to make this personal.
Speaker 2:It's not going to be a mystery. There's two versions of this. That I tell people is that if it smells like rose and looks like a rose, you don't need to be pricked to know it's a rose, and if it smells like poop and looks like poop, you don't need to lick it to know that it's poop and I think I like that. Yes, sorry, I try to be. I'm trying to be a little cleaner this year.
Speaker 3:I don't know why, but I tried to know I like it, though you're down. I mean, that's real.
Speaker 2:My clients sometimes laugh because, like, if something happens like that, I go like, so does this smell like shit and do we need to lick it? And most people laugh because they're like, you're right, and I think that that's why, like, talking about all these cognitive distortions that we set, and then, at the end of the day, you're right, it's not. And you know, I made a no one, nothing statement. That's on me, nothing's all. Like 95, like you said, 95% is absolutely true. Those asterisks, they make perfect sense. Sometimes all or nothing does work, sometimes personalization does occur, sometimes emotional reasoning does occur for a reason. But you talked about how complex emotions are.
Speaker 2:I always tell people like it's never a simple emotion and I talk about it even in, like, even in my podcast I think I said this, but maybe it's good to remind people. I'm so excited to talk to you, but I also have this anxiety of I hope I don't say something stupid and I hope it goes well and I hope it goes fast and so on and so forth, and the fear that people sometimes, if I didn't explain it properly, I missed something that we both know but the audience may not know that I missed an opportunity to explain it in that fear and people say it's that complex. I'm like nothing is one emotion. If you could figure out one thing that's just one emotion, please let me know because I'm interested. But it's never just one emotion. I don't know if you agree with that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, no, I think I mean we are complex. Humans and emotions are complex, they truly are, and I would totally agree with you. And there's, yeah, and I just wanna validate to like I've done podcasts before and you know it's funny I still always have a little bit of that anxiety too of like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna show up and just be like my mind will go blank or I'll say something silly and have to correct it or whatever. But that's part of the journey and I think for us, as part of our dialogue, I think it's helpful because it, like we'll catch things for each other and being like, and there's also this nuance, like I think it's an opportunity once you kind of like take a step back and look at it Because, yeah, like I and for some people I would also add, like maybe they need to be a little more on that bias of all or nothing, thinking around that because they've been so stuck in the other direction, right Like, maybe that's part of their healing, like so, for example, even in my life. So I have a lot of folks and they've worked really hard on this and they're still healing. I'm still healing my family.
Speaker 3:We struggled a lot with passive aggressiveness. And this relates to boundaries, because what I've seen a lot of folks do is have this idea of like people should know better, right, and so when you're talking about this idea of personalization, when people are like, like they're doing this at me or you know, whatever that is, that happened so commonly in my family and was completely silent, like no one ever spoke it out loud, like it was just what was going on internally for them. This idea that like, if someone crossed their boundary, they knew better and so I had to, I had to come up. There are certain areas I've had to like over, correct, to heal, so I'll say a good one for me was like I no longer read between the lines. That's kind of one of my self boundaries, so like, unless somebody directly comes and tells me they're upset about something, I'm not going to read into their actions Because, again, that was like all I did was have hyper vigilance and if somebody's mood changed or if they seemed like they were mad at me or if they made a comment, I'd be like what did that comment really mean? And like spiral, right and it was, and then it was bad because I would do that to situations and comments that weren't even personal, like had nothing to do with it, but because I had gotten so hyper, vigilant and quote unquote good at trying to read, people being mad at me and not telling me I just saw it everywhere, right, and I personalized all these things that were not personal.
Speaker 3:And so I know a part of my journey has been like not reading between the lines and sometimes people think I'm dense, like I remember having a conversation with my husband after like a conversation with a family member we had, and we were in the car, and he was like they seem like they were mad at you. And I was like really, and he was like, yeah, like they for sure were mad at you. And I was like, okay, cool, well, they're gonna have to tell me like directly, because I'm like. I was like I am not reading between the lines anymore and he was just like so, because he's also had some of those struggles in his path. Like he was so, like it was funny.
Speaker 3:It was like he was almost mad at me for not catching on and I was like, babe, this is something I've had to do for myself. Like if it's really that meaningful to them, they will come to me and let me know. He was like okay, but they're mad at you. And I was like okay, I'm fine. I was like great, if it's important enough, we'll come talk to me.
Speaker 3:Like. That's been something I've had to create. Even though I'm sure that's not black and white, it's been helpful for it to be black and white for me.
Speaker 2:It's not black and white, but I think that you're also kind of like maybe that's the boundary you need with your family, but you don't have what your husband, or you don't have what your friends or what have you. And as a therapist, sometimes like if I say something like well, let's talk about I don't know, let's talk about your family relationship, you seem to be reacting in a very different like. I made an assumption there, but that's a very good assumption to make. But me and you, jenny, we don't know each other well. But if we had a conversation and we met, I wouldn't read anything, anything you say or do, because I want us to just take you for who you are. I don't know anything and I'm not in a therapist's role.
Speaker 2:When I'm with you, and I think that sometimes it's reminding ourselves that our lived experience and our different roles in life are very key. Reading into my kid's life has got to be pushed back. As they were younger I had to, but now that they're 13 and 15, I got to scale it back. No, they're just moody teenagers and that's all there is. And they're not bad, they're not good, it's just what it is. I was a moody teenager.
Speaker 2:So at the end of the day, I think that what we bring to a lot of our experience including family and even in therapy, I think is our lived experience. And for me that you talk about family and I'm gonna this is not directed at anyone in particular in my family, but for me, shame was something that we used a lot in my family to get things done and I've learned through my own therapy and my own boundaries and all that, that the root of the boundaries that I needed to set was based on shame and realizing to work on that and even with my work with my clients, that not everything is about shame with them, but rather that's my own issues important, but that lived experience becomes very essential to my work as a therapist, as a human being and then everything else, do you think like lived experience is also part of what we do in therapy in general?
Speaker 3:I mean I can't speak for I mean I know we do, like us as therapists. I've found it to be incredibly impactful when used. Well, right, and I think there's. You made a good distinction earlier, actually, when you were talking about how, like, you don't like go into like what your therapy sessions are, or like what you're talking about with your own therapist or having these major dialogues about what's going on in your life. But I think when certain themes come up for folks, it's helpful when you can kind of connect with them and, like you said, like it takes the shame out of things when they see somebody that like I'm sure that for a lot of my clients, when they first come in, they're just like, yeah, well, jenny's a different person and she's got like a brain that has good biochemistry and she grew up in a great family. You know what.
Speaker 3:I mean Like they might have all these assumptions about you where, just like dude, I am not preaching from any high hill, I am so human right and just to like, like you said, like to take some of that shame out of therapy even can be so helpful. And I know even in my own journey, like the therapist I worked with, that changed my life, a big thing for me, and maybe I shared this last time. But a lot of people there were random people again, I think they had good intentions, but they told me I would never recover from my eating disorder. And so when I walked in and she was like, well, I had one and I totally know you can recover, it was like thank God, like I really needed that, because I was so freaked out about that and just even this idea that it wasn't even possible made it very hard for me to be motivated to wanna address it at all. And so her sharing that and knowing that she was where she was was so helpful because I did feel super.
Speaker 3:I felt super stuck in my own illness and my own disorder that I was struggling with. Like I felt so stuck in my cycle that I was like, will I ever get out of this? Is that even possible, and so I think for us to share our lived experience and to just say, hey, it is possible, and, even though we have totally different experiences, if I can at least give you a story or share with you an experience that is relevant to what you're going through and give you a little bit of hope and take the shame out of things, that's super helpful.
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Speaker 2:You know, I had a group of men. They're all therapists or psychologists and we get together once very regularly. They were on my show a couple weeks ago and one of the things we came up we talked about and I really enjoyed someone saying this is that we're all in recovery and you don't need to be in recovery of substances or eating, but behaviors or family or weather we were talking about weather earlier, but that's a little simpler. But at the end of the day, if you really took the scope that we're all recovering from something, including the people in front of us, that brings that lived experience and that ability to connect with someone, even like to me, deeper. I find that that's a good way to approach a whole lot of people. Whether you're recovering from a substance I've never used, or schizophrenia, or something like depression, which I can certainly relate, and trauma, which I definitely relate. I think that when you talk about recovery and lived experience, I think it's key, for I don't know anyone who's not through recovery in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's, I think, I think, the way that I've been able to see it over time is there's just different layers of recovery and I think that was something that she had shared with me too. Like, even if I so, my eating disorder behaviors no longer serve a purpose for me, but all the stuff underneath it that informed why I did that in the first place is still here and I'm still working through the layers of how that shows up for those different parts. So like I think, in terms of parts, because I do IFS work so like I have different parts of myself that I've been working through.
Speaker 3:Internal family system. Sorry, Sorry, non-therapist and even therapist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember not everybody knows I know I get stuck in that sometimes. Okay, yes, internal family systems. Very brief, simplified version of that is that we all have like an internal system of parts that come up for us and we have what we call protector parts and firefighters and the protector parts that come out are typically trying to protect us from feelings and trauma, triggers and things like that that come up and might have certain patterns for us. Anyway, long story short, I still have, like different parts that I'm healing and parts that have had different roles in my life and they look different, like you said, like you could be struggling with. It might manifest in food behaviors, it might manifest in your substance behaviors, your relationship behaviors, all these different areas, but what's underneath, that is what's still being healed, and so throughout life I've had it manifest in different ways and it's not like, finally we were talking about earlier I don't think we ever arrive.
Speaker 3:I think we just we do. We do make progress, though I want to give people hope. It's not that we're just like scrolling aimlessly, like I feel so much more at peace and calm than I did Like, so much more than when I was in middle school and high school. So so, so much more, and even college, and I think that's important. So you might be like well, of course, middle school sucks for everybody, but genuinely, like I know myself better, I feel more emotionally safe. I feel like it's informed my ability to be in the roles that I'm in. Like if you would ask my high school self if I would own a business, I don't like, I was just trying to get through the day not thinking about food, so that was like beyond something I could have imagined.
Speaker 3:So there is. It does help us in different ways and feel more security, but I don't, we don't arrive Like we don't. It's not that I don't still have areas that I'm working on and digging. Indeed, it's been cool to see that like ebb and flow of healing and then sometimes we are in maintenance mode. That's okay too. Or sometimes I'm like, okay, I need a break from therapy. Right, you need to just be for a little bit. But I've been in a season of growth personally, so I've been in therapy myself the last, like regularly, the last year and a half, and then I was in maintenance mode prior to that. But then I had stuff in life come up for me that I was like I need to get my butt back into therapy because it was manifesting in my relationships and I knew where it was from. Didn't mean that I could handle it any better without help, but yeah, so anyway, that's a long story short.
Speaker 2:No, keep on, stop, stop, stop saying long story short, because our life is a long story long.
Speaker 2:It's a long story long.
Speaker 2:I had the conversation with a client and we were talking about, like, what's the end game? And because this person was very frustrated because they would get to an end game and then they'd feel still empty and empty, I said, without sounding too corny, life's a journey, not a destination, and if you take that attitude to life, you're going to see that you're going to probably learn throughout your life different ways and your journey is never going to be a straight point to somewhere. Relationships are hard. Relationships you care for are extremely hard because you got to grow and you got to talk to them and you got to talk about conflict and people, like, want things to be easy and you know, I'd rather have a hard conversation with Jenny right now than hold it in or she holds it in and then we screw up our relationship. I know it's a budding relationship but at the same time, as friends and colleagues, you want to make sure that you have those hard conversations. I think that that's the other part too. Is that? Why does it always have to be easy?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great point because I feel like a lot of what I've heard people too when it comes to their journey with relationships and boundaries. What I see a lot of is people being so scared of hard conversations and conflict, like not liking it, and I get the origins of it. It's not that I'm oblivious to it because, again, that was my life. I also really, really struggled with that. Now that I have done it a lot more and seen that you know, when we have those hard conversations, that builds trust, that builds relationship, like when you have fights and then repair, it actually can be good and you can be unique and individual and together and disagree. And it's great when there's repair, and I know that that's like the big part of it.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people I think they avoid the hard stuff because maybe they didn't have repair so they only saw the hardship.
Speaker 3:So they're just like, okay, we have a hard conversation that means nothing's ever going to get repaired and then it's just going to continue to build. Because that's a lot of what they saw growing up in their families. And that's true for my situation too. There were a lot of hard conversations and fights I had with family members growing up as a kid, or with my parents or seeing it between them and the issue was not that they had the fights or that they disagreed. The issue of what created a lot of tension and issues in our family system was that there wasn't repair and so it was like consistently, these bad things would happen and then like there was no growth or resolution, whereas for us we're like you need things to be hard, you need growth, you need that and there needs to be repair for that to feel safe and good, to continue. Versus, like I mean, if your life is just hit with hard stuff and then you don't have repair, you don't have any sort of growth edge on that.
Speaker 2:That's, I think, when people feel like you know, they kind of blame the world and they feel stuck and depressed and yeah, and I think that the repair has also been misunderstood, like people think that repair is like I'm sorry, or it's a financial amount.
Speaker 2:And repair is not also very easy to define and I don't know if you have a definition, but repair for me is sometimes like realizing that repair is what makes you feel a little holer. I don't know if whole is the right word word, but a little more whole, and I don't know that's how I define repair, because you can give me, if me and you get into an argument and you give me 50 bucks, I'll be like Jenny, why are you giving me 50 bucks? I don't care. But if we have like, hey, I'm sorry, I really hurt your feelings because you're a Canadian or whatever, and I know she would never do that. It's a joke, people please take the joke. It's important to have that kind of like conversation and to me that's feeling holer and kind of repairing those parts. But how would you define repair?
Speaker 3:So I would define repair as when you have a conflict or a risk or a disagreement, it's not that at the end that both people need to feel like they are on the same page or agree.
Speaker 3:It's more so that they're able to both be heard and feel a sense that the other people care about them and their perspective, and to be able to say, like, even if we disagree on this thing or even if we don't see eye to eye, how do we plan to move forward? Because I know with like, especially like the parenting relationship, like sometimes the parents do set that structure, but I also think it's important that the kid knows, like I hear you and I love you and like I still think you're the cat's pajamas, even though we totally don't see eye to eye on this right, and I still want to hear. And they still actually take the time to hear their kids out, not just defend their side or try to over explain why they set a boundary or whatever, but to really just like hear a kid out and try to understand where they're coming from.
Speaker 3:Like, yeah, if I felt like there was this rule and it impeded all my freedom, I would also be upset to be able to say like I can understand why you even feel the way you do and validate that and then, even if you still, at the end of the day, have to do something different, that that person feels heard and genuinely is heard and valued, and that you know, they know they have that felt sense that you still are on their team and love them, and that's the stuff that doesn't happen a lot in families, like you know. Again, if there's that rift, it's like we'll just do what I said to do and like don't ask questions, right, like that's like, do as I do.
Speaker 3:Right yeah, or even that right or even having.
Speaker 2:I hated growing up with that shit.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I had a lot of again.
Speaker 3:I think it came from the style of parenting back then, but it was like you know, if I ask you to do something, just do it Like don't question it, don't ever ask why and that taught me to definitely not pay attention to my emotional responses to things and to kind of push them down and to deal with that in other ways that were not healthy, versus, like you know, parenting when and again.
Speaker 3:By the way, parents I am not preaching on the hill of like here's a perfect way to be a parent we're all going to mess it up, myself included. Like I literally work in this stuff and I will traumatize. If and when I have future kids, I'm going to traumatize them. So I just want to be really clear that we're all figuring this stuff out and if we're working on getting better at repair, that means coming back to stuff when we're regulated and really hearing the person out and getting curious about them. And even if it's our kids and they're saying the craziest stuff that we're like I don't get what you're talking about or where you're getting this idea, but if I can just ask questions and try to find that areas where I'm like. I see that you're frustrated. I can understand that if you feel this way, you would be frustrated.
Speaker 1:Right or.
Speaker 3:I can understand the fact that, like you're this age and so there's limitations, and that can feel really frustrating, right, because I get that. I was also a kid once, I was the youngest, and I always wanted to do stuff before I could, because of my age, anyway. So just if you could buy those nuggets to relate to people on, even your kids, your, your partner especially, that's like the. I mean, oh gosh, me and my husband have worked so hard on this this past year and it has been transformational. Like I didn't realize how much me just shutting up and listening and asking questions I therapist, like this is me admitting like because I was always like, well, I've got all my good reasons, I want to share and things, and no, I it was.
Speaker 3:It has transformed our relationship for us to both. I mean, I definitely needed to learn how to just listen and get curious and even when I vehemently or I can't even say that word vehemently disagreed with him, I just had to keep getting curious and that was really really hard for me at first, really, really hard, but it really has helped and it doesn't mean you agree with somebody just to sit back and be patient and listen. And if you can't do that, table it Right.
Speaker 1:That's what we've done.
Speaker 3:We've gotten really good about that too, being like I love you so much let's talk about this later Like I love you enough to give this space because right now I'm gonna be such about a listener, but later on I can be even much better listener and you deserve that.
Speaker 2:One of the other things I kind of remind people is sometimes listening means you're not just waiting for your turn to talk, and truly listening to what you said about your husband and saying I love you. Let's talk about this later. That's not dismissive at all. That's actually a very caring thing. You heard him, but you weren't just. You weren't waiting for your turn. You were listening to him. But this is not something you want to handle right now.
Speaker 2:To me, what I find is that we get stuck in this trap of having to resolve everything and if not, we're not, we're unhappy, and this is not going to.
Speaker 2:It's going to affect us for the rest of our lives or the rest of our days, or whatever I tell people all like and this is a book I've been reading recently.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you ever heard of the happiness trap, and I wish on you the author's name. I don't have it off the top of my head but it talks about how sometimes being unhappy for the moment still moves you towards your goals, Because you want a healthy relationship with your husband or your girlfriend or you know whatever. I'm speaking for just our company here. But at the end of the day, it doesn't mean that it's going to be always happy. It's not going to always be easy, it's not going to always be resolved right away and it's learning to be okay with that. That's key to any relationship. But you know, when you talked about your husband, and I certainly have those moments with my girlfriend, so I definitely get it, Because if we want to solve it, I remember even being married I wanted to solve everything right away and I realized like that's the stupidest thing I ever did in my relationship, among other things.
Speaker 3:But yes, I hear you on that, and I have really struggled with having an eight. Well, I've been blessed with both struggles of anxious and avoidant attachment styles at different points of my life Congratulations, that's great. Yeah, I just wanted to try everything. You know, it's really fun. Yeah, no, and I say that jokingly now, because I've done a lot of. I'm grateful that I'm in a space where I feel very secure.
Speaker 3:And that is something that has not always been there and I'm like knocking on wood, but I do, and I feel very grateful. That being said, when I was in struggles with my anxiety or my anxious attachment, like I really struggled that if I had a fight or an argument or a disagreement with my partner, I would want it, like you said, resolved immediately, because anytime I was waiting, or if they were the ones to say, hey, let's talk about this later, my nervous system would freak out Like I'd be like oh my gosh, like are we going to be okay? And like it would become this huge, huge, huge thing. And so what's tough, though, when you're in that situation, is understanding, and like having to set that self boundary, that the way to build security is to let those things happen, because the more that you have those moments that you actually do talk about stuff later and you do have repair, which are more likely to happen if you let your partner be versus trust me, I've tried to be like no, let's talk about it now.
Speaker 3:That does not work and they really can't like they're not just being jerks, like truly. If they're saying stuff like that, there is probably a very good reason that it is not a good time, and that's usually about their own stuff too right, like I used to personalize that, but really honoring that. Everyone is so different. And even if you said it yourself like I think I've had to be better about saying I'm struggling right now, so I'm going to have to get back to this conversation later. Like owning that, like not having shame in that, saying it's my nervous system. For some reason this feels super triggering and I want to be more calm. When we have this conversation and calling yourself out, not being like I'll talk to you later. You're being too emotional. Who cares it's about? Like own your stuff, move on. We're all emotional, we're all. We're all. We're all. We're all human here.
Speaker 3:But to realize that like the more that I've let that happen, the more it actually builds security.
Speaker 3:But it was hard and the moment I felt like it was like the end and my, my brain would go crazy places with it.
Speaker 3:So if that's what you're struggling with, I think you also have to like remember the big picture in that moment and even like have it on your wall somewhere or have it in a place you go to to remind yourself, because your nervous system is going to tell you it's the end of the world. And that's something that happens when you don't have a secure attachment. Once you build that security by actually taking time and coming back to conversations and having to repair what I've seen happen for me, I don't have any anxiety around it anymore, which is amazing, like night and day from what I used to be and I'm I'm so much more patient and like with myself, with my partner and I. I know that we've built security because I have that thought of like we'll talk about this later, it'll be okay, and I did not always have that thought, like that is not innate. So I want to like share that Because, again, I think it would be like great for you and your calm nervous system and I'm like, oh no, I used to really, really struggle.
Speaker 2:It is possible, and part of that journey of healing is letting it happen and letting yourself freak out and give it time and part of that journey sometimes is relapse, and what I tell people is that, as her nervous system is 95% regulated, there's that 5% once in a while that shows up there like they had. Oh my God, I got to solve this or he'll leave me, or he'll whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I certainly explained that to people is that we we, we may be healed, but just like any journey of recovery, there is relapse and we're all I don't know, vulnerable to that, for a lack of a better word. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are, we totally are, and I think, too, like if that's happening for you, that's a really good thing to bring to therapy, that's a really good thing to work on, because there's probably layers to that that you don't even realize that have nothing to do with your partner. It feels like it's all about them and it feels like it's all about you know that current situation, but it's not probably.
Speaker 2:I mean there's a reason why my ex-wife's my ex-wife but at the same time, to say that it was just her or just me is just faulty and I can't take ownership to what she, she, she get. If I can't take ownership for what she did or what she, you know, that's on her, that's not on me. I could take ownership where I made a mistake and you know my anxious attachment style definitely showed up. And whether people think that's too vulnerable it's a podcast, I don't really care. Number one, number two I've always tried to own up to my own stuff because if you just look to blame others, it's because you can't blame, you can't point the finger to yourself, and it's realizing that a lot of it has to do with you, because nothing is personal in life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, and I think for any of us, when we have these attachment wounds, I mean truly. It's not like I woke up that day being like I want to be super anxious and drive my husband crazy, like that was not, that was not my agenda whatsoever, like I really loved, you know, love. I still love, love that person and I. That's not what I was intending for. This had so much more to do with unhealed trauma that I didn't realize, like I was still dealing with figuring out, resolving for myself and things that had happened in my past.
Speaker 3:And that's how it is for a lot of relationships. We project that onto each other and don't realize that we're doing it. We really feel like it's that situation or that person and it feels that way in the moment. So I would, I would say again, it's not that like. Okay, we still have big disagreements and things that come up that are triggering, but I know that it's, we're more secure because it's and I've healed some of that trauma that led to my insecurity, because, again, I trust the process of like I remember that overall is a really amazing person who loves me and cares about me, and those are things that like again my previous self when my nervous system was hijacked. It's like all the great times and all the good things and all of the like that he was ultimately on my team if that makes any sense and so when you start to heal that, it just won't feel as intense and you're not gonna respond as intensely.
Speaker 3:It will be something where you're like I trust that we're gonna figure this out, because we've done it before and this person loves me. And to even know deeper than that. I know for myself. I have like again, I don't know if it's getting to you, but I have abandonment wounds and so I had to know for myself besides, it's nothing to do with my husband, but I had to know for myself that I would be okay If just one day, he randomly left or abandoned me. I had to know that, and it's not that I want it to happen, I don't. I think I'm so grateful that we have security and we're together and all those things, and I still needed to know that I would survive and be okay. And I didn't know that prior, Like my nervous system didn't. I logically knew it, but my nervous system didn't know it, so that was something that was super important for me. To feel secure is to have healed that heart for myself too, and a lot of people don't realize they have that.
Speaker 2:And thank you for sharing that Cause. I think abandonment issues is a very big component. I mean I can go in about trauma and our childhood trauma and how that plays a factor too. Not purposeful trauma by parents. I'm not trying to be psychoanalytic and everything is mom or dad, but there is some abandonment issues that come from that and we bring it to our relationship.
Speaker 2:And the other analogy I want to give you is we were talking about traveling before this started. I mean, do you guys take one suitcase or two suitcases to a trip? And if you take two suitcases, that means both of you bring baggage to the relationship. And if you only take one, someone takes more space in the baggage than the other and that's why sometimes it's like that and it's just how it's going to be and it's realizing that. That's what a relationship is. It's always going to be a mishmash of different things and it's. I have baggage and I bring that to my girlfriend and she brings her baggage, and it's not an attack on her or me, it's just reality. And there's days where my baggage takes over a little bit and sometimes it's hers. So I don't know if that helps.
Speaker 3:But no for sure. I mean, we both have had to work through a lot of our things and again it was funny how much like through life you're like, oh good, I'm secure, and blah, blah, blah. And then you get deeper into a relationship or even as time progresses, some of those things show up that you weren't surprised about. Or for some people it shows up when they have kids or different ages of kids. If they had specific trauma during those ages as well, they end up projecting some of that onto their kids, whether they're like over-correcting for something or what right, so it's not just like, yes, we could pinpoint it to the like parents, and then that shows up in your romantic relationships. But there's so many like different ways this can show up in our relationships. We can also have attachment trauma from relationships, so like if you have a really unhealthy relationship or something happened or you know if you're with somebody and they you know they died suddenly, like things like that that are like completely out of your control, that also can change a person's level of security On. The good news, too, is that we can also heal it by having good relationships and corrective experiences. But this is something again like it's something we have to kind of be aware of, because you know, trauma can happen later in our lives as well. But a lot of it, a lot of it, for I would say, like a lot of what I hear, it starts at least in childhood and then it kind of like I feel like the stuff in childhood like makes the things later like more rough than they would have been, if that makes sense Versus you know, we're adults now.
Speaker 3:When you're a kid you're just. Your brain is just so much in your nervous system is so much more susceptible to rewiring itself or changing. I shouldn't say rewiring itself, because it technically isn't rewiring, but changing the ways that we fire synapses. And as a response to that And- Neuroplasticity would disagree with you.
Speaker 3:for the record, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:Neuroplasticity would say yes, we rewire stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, it's really tough, because I remember someone nerdy or the me, andrew Huberman saying it wasn't exactly like that, because I think that was like the like. He was like, yes, that's a simplified version, and I was like, okay, I don't even want to know how exactly it's explained.
Speaker 2:I don't want to go into too much. I get what he's saying, I think.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, I was like yeah, I know we can't. Well, we can definitely change how active certain areas are and the synapses and how what our brain fire, like the areas that fires more in and the areas that fires less in, and that's very important, and what genes get turned on and off, right, so that's, yeah, I was like we could also talk about that, the brain science, and yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm a huge neuroplasticity guy and I know it's a simplified version. But if I ever been mistreated by a Jenny who lives in Kansas before I got to rewire my brain because that's not you and that's simplifying a big, complex issue and I know that. But at the end of the day it's realizing that we have, as one of my clients called it, learner's mentality and being able to learn different things. I was cheated on by ex-girlfriends and of the weirdest things. I have a lot of shit wrong with me and that's why I'm in therapy. But most people I've dated they're like you don't bring that to the relationship.
Speaker 2:I said surprisingly, no, I'll bring other shit up, but not that, because I always try to say you know, it was Jane Doe that cheated on me, or Frankie or whatever. I just making names up here. Point being is that it's also learning that we are not doomed to repeat our past if we address it and that's also key to moving in relationships and that's why, like the whole brain and neuroplasticity and all that, I think would be a great place for us to actually kind of wrap it up today, but maybe something we can think about talking about in. If you wanna come back. Of course I don't wanna force you to come back, but I would love to continue our conversation. I truly enjoy our conversation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, for sure, and I would. Good thing is I am in a space in life where I can say no and I have good boundaries if I wanted to. But now I really enjoy our time together, so been fun, it's been cool Brain plasticity. Where do you wanna go with that as we wrap up, like the importance of it, or you know what were you thinking?
Speaker 2:I think that it's something that we can go. Start off with the what's neuroplasticity, because, you know, 30, 40 years ago we said that your brain stops developing at 25 and what's wired is wired, and now neuroplasticity has changed that. But there's things we can't change. And why is that stuff going on? And now we can go in deeper in genetics. How you know, having a gene that predisposes us to schizophrenia doesn't mean we will have schizophrenia if there's protective factors around us, and that is part of the brain change in how we protect it or not protect it.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I think I could go on and on, because I think that's a very fun place to go, and nevermind if we start going into the human biome and our gut health and how that works. I think that me and you, jenny, I think the reason why we connect so much is we're both curious and we don't personalize if we're disagreeing on something, and I truly, from the bottom of my heart, enjoy our conversation. I want you to come back and I appreciate that you have boundaries to say no, and if you feel to say no later on, I'll respect that 100%. But I really appreciate you and I want to say thank you for the great conversation today.
Speaker 3:For sure. Yeah, we can definitely delve into some, maybe some, maybe if we can simplify some neuroscience stuff, because even for me I don't know that I could adequately define or explain the things deeper. I can point you to resources where I get my information, but I love doing what I can to simplify it and making it accessible for people that aren't neuroscientists. But there's so many cool things out there to explore and I think it also instills hope in us too, like you said, that we know that we can actually continue to make changes and heal our brains past the age of 25. And I think even now they're saying we're still developing our maturity in our adult brains until like our 30s, 35, that sort of thing. So it's interesting how that continues to shift as we learn about the brain.
Speaker 3:I think I forgot who it was. They said we only know 1% of what there is to know about the brain and that blew my mind. I was like wow, we're idiots and that's great, like we just have to. Sometimes also like part of this journey is being okay with the fact that we don't know, and to get curious and to be embraced. Like you said, disagreement and somebody that might see something differently, because none of us can walk around and say we know it all, because we really, really don't. So it's cool what we do know, but there's a lot left to explore and learn.
Speaker 2:And you meant present company excluded. We already know everything, we're just sharing.
Speaker 3:Right, right, exactly, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Well, jenny, always a great time and I will have you back and I'll talk to you soon. Well, this concludes episode 138, jenny Helms. Calvin, thank you so much for coming again. Hope to have more conversation with you. And neuroplasticity, neurodiversity, neuro everything. I think that's where we left off this interview and I think that would be a great place to start back up. But episode 139 will be my guest host, courtney Romanowski, running the show, so you won't hear my voice in the next episode. So I hope you enjoy Courtney's hosting and I will talk to you in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:Please like, subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful and, as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States.