In this episode, Lori and Christina chat with mental health expert Mandi Pierson about Trauma Informed Care and the importance of creating safe spaces for individuals (and ourselves).
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Mentioned in the podcast:
Window of Tolerance Dan Siegel. https://drdansiegel.com.
A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. https://a.co/d/8yyqqGN.
https://porchlightcolumbus.com/.
Liturgy of the Ordinary. https://tishharrisonwarren.com/liturgy-of-the-ordinary.
In this episode, Lori and Christina chat with mental health expert Mandi Pierson about Trauma Informed Care and the importance of creating safe spaces for individuals (and ourselves).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mentioned in the podcast:
Window of Tolerance Dan Siegel. https://drdansiegel.com.
A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. https://a.co/d/8yyqqGN.
https://porchlightcolumbus.com/.
Liturgy of the Ordinary. https://tishharrisonwarren.com/liturgy-of-the-ordinary.
Welcome back again, or hello if this is your first time listening. I am Christina here again with my good friend and podcast partner, Lori. We are especially glad that you are here to join us and listen today. Lori and I are joined for this episode by Mandi Pearson and although she and Lori go way back for the long term, we are, we invited Mandi to have a conversation about the intersection of her expertise in liminality and thriving in between, but first a short background and some bio on Mandi. Although she studied ministry in College Mandi attended graduate school pursuing a degree in social work, and during that time, she interned for a local Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center which focused on treating trauma of the entire family. This highlighted again, an interest and an ability for holding safe places for people which then birthed a career. Beyond the individual and group counseling, she is dedicated to teaching, mentoring and creating dynamic programming. Most recently, Mandi held a clinical social worker position at Mount Carmel Crime and Trauma Assistance Program, where she was an integral team member serving trauma survivors. She has traveled and trained others in trauma-informed care, substance use disorder, relationship and community building, human sex trafficking and resilience. Currently, you can find Mandi in Columbus, Ohio as a clinical director at Porchlight, which provides welcome, warm acceptance, and presence in whatever form that looks like to those in need. Welcome, Mandi.
Mandi Pearson:Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
Christina Willman:Glad you're here. And since I don't feel that I did it justice in the intro... Can you tell us a little bit about Porchlight?
Mandi Pearson:Sure, yeah. So Porchlight, we started and we opened two weeks before COVID. So we had an interesting start to our story, but we founded Porchlight out of a need to continue doing good trauma work in our community and having a real commitment to survivors of sex trafficking, as well as others who have experienced pretty severe trauma. And the other part that we really value, unfortunately, is really being present for those of us who are in the same field. Initially, we were noticing that people were burning out very quickly, in about 18 months or so. And that's detrimental for them. It's detrimental for the folks that we serve. And so, you know, I feel really committed to staying healthy myself and providing a safe space for someone to talk about how difficult trauma work is in particular. And then of course, we do a lot of community training and a lot of speaking wherever we're invited. It's fun to have seen that grow from, you know, like-minded social work kind of spaces to being in court systems in Ohio and Columbus, and teaching others about trauma-informed care, and also now starting to get even into businesses that you might not expect to be thoughtful about that. And so we're just really excited to sort of broaden the view of what trauma is and how we can respond to each other.
Christina Willman:So also tell us about the work you've done and you're doing now in the mental health profession.
Mandi Pearson:Sure. So I spent a long time about eight or nine years or so, working specifically with survivors of sex trafficking. Columbus it is a huge problem in Columbus but also we have a really big and innovative group of responders for that. And so, within the court system and other things, we are set up to get folks to treatment as quickly as possible and kind of serve the whole person. And specifically for me, that looks like doing trauma therapy for folks and just kind of learning a lot about complex trauma and responding to that therapeutically. And then, since opening Porchlight, a couple of years ago, I still serve some folks in that community in that space. And that includes complex trauma and drug and alcohol addiction, but also have kind of a broader range of clients now than I did previously. So still doing the same work and just kind of expanding the folks I get to work with.
lori taylor:It is so fun for me to see your development over the years from when you were an intern with us in student ministry, still in college, loving kids. Already, then I think it showed up that you had an attraction or an openness, an interest in walking with those kids that struggle the most, where so many, so many workers with teenagers are so intimidated by the kids that are struggling the most. And so often those kids are the ones that get the least amount of attention because they're hard. They're just hard to work with. So to watch you go from showing your first signs of that, to seeing what you're doing now, it's so incredible. I'm so proud of you. I'm excited to talk with you and to see how what you're doing is intersecting with what we're doing. I am fascinated by it. And I want to ask you about just how you seen the development of trauma-sensitive care and a more expanded vocabulary, I think for us across the country. I don't know if that includes around the world but we're paying so much greater attention to what the effects of trauma on our mental health and on our responses or behaviors or relationships. I mean, it just plays itself out at so many levels of our world or of our lives. And you're you're the expert on this and we just want to dig into that a little bit specifically where it connects to people who are entering into or are finding themselves in a season of being in between. There's so much connection there. But let's start with the simplest question. Well maybe not a simple question, but a basic question is, what is trauma-informed care?
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, that's a great question. So I think initially, it was often used to describe mental health providers who were trauma informed, trained in what trauma was and, kind of operating from that space and now we're seeing it expand into, you know, I say all the time that any place can be trauma informed, you know, the dentist offices, the courthouse and you know, all of the places that we go, and really what that means is that we assume, which normally is nothing is not good, we assume that everyone has experienced trauma of some kind and so then in our responses to people, we hopefully approach them more gently and we're more curious than judgmental. And, you know, when you see somebody kind of losing their cool at the grocery store, we don't assume there's something bad about them, but we assume there's more under this. There's something else going on, how can I instead of apply more pressure, how can I make this a safer space for this person or this situation? And it's just a way of responding to each other out of kindness. I think it's particularly interesting when we start to say not only do we respond to the people we serve with kindness and gentleness and consistency, because it's not about being soft, but it is about feeling safe. And it is also how we respond to the people we serve with. So my colleagues and my boss and my you know, all of these people, it's this broader perspective of responding well and and being safe.
lori taylor:I love it. I love it because it is, it touches on something that I found in myself a little bit, happening as I pay attention to my own experience through liminality through entering into a season of in between, is that once I start paying attention to the signs and I start looking deeper beyond what people might be speaking in their words into what they're actually describing in their experience, and I begin to see people that are in a liminal time, even if they don't know it, they might not be able to say that's what's happening. But I can hear it now because I've paid attention so much to the language of it, and the signs and symptoms, if you would call it that. And that sounds very similar to trauma-informed behavior where we start to listen with different ears to each other and to the signs of the seasons that somebody's in and can identify that. But so oftentimes people don't know it themselves. They don't know what they're in. And so I think that's part of what we wanted to talk about today is how can a person identify for themselves, like self-assess when their responses are a trauma response, you know, or something that they need to maybe dig a little deeper into, because this is showing something else is going on?
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, that's such a good question. I'll make some references. And I would encourage people to like Google and look it up because I know we won't have enough time to cover all of that. But one thing I would reference people to is a"window of tolerance." So we each have a space in which we feel safe, and connected, and that we can hear people who disagree with us, and it just doesn't feel like a personal attack. It's just a difference in opinion. And I always joke that the window of tolerance on social media is so tiny because we see people right instantly so angry. But we also see people who respond by going internal so starting to go very quiet, staring out the window disengaging or you feel like they are not fully present and are not catching on to what you're saying. And I always say that whether someone is like, angry and everybody feels a little nervous around them or they're shutting down. The root of that is that I don't feel safe. And sometimes that just looks like being very stressed out or being irritable or disconnected. I tell people to look for you know, do tiny things make you feel really overwhelmed and irritable and if it's gone on for so long people might or we might assume that's just who I am. That's my personality. But really, if we're constantly feeling anywhere from a little bit, a little bit unsafe to all the way threatened, our body and our system is going to feel that way and respond out of that.
Christina Willman:On that topic, in terms of kind of the flip side of someone who can see themselves in that way I start to notice, Lori and I have mentioned multiple times and it would be good, feels important for us to, not being professionals in the mental health field, to spot some of that and see that when someone may need more professional therapy, professional help than us talking with them or someone who's just being wise counsel speaking with someone and noticing and realizing and saying you may need something a little higher up than that where we're at something more professional. So can you give us a response or something that we would notice as a as a friend or a person in a non-professional and where we point someone in the direction of needing more professional care?
Mandi Pearson:I think the first one is if you're if there's a part of you that says I'm worried about their safety, that's the number, that's the first indicator like if I walk away from them and my concern is not just for me and I hope that it's better for them but like I did not like how I felt to have to leave them alone. That's a good, that's like number one indicator. As you know, this might sound kind of negative but if you notice, when you see a text from them or a call from them and your first responses, like you're kind of bracing yourself, that's just an indicator that this might be bigger than when I have the energy and space to sit with. It's not necessarily how we feel about the person. But we all are just like helping human beings, who sit with people in difficult spaces, and often I think push ourselves farther than what we have capacity for; so noticing how do I feel when I'm with this person is probably a better indicator than what do I see in them and paying attention to our own energy.
lori taylor:Okay, so let's back up just a little bit and talk about this definition of trauma. And I know this is a difficult definition to pin down. But you and I've talked about this before and I want you to talk about it again, where we talked about it being different than just a list of behaviors that you're looking for. You can't just put things on a list and if a person acted this way, this way, this way, then that's an indication of trauma. How would you define trauma and this is just for ourselves as well, not just when we're looking at another person, but when we're identifying for ourselves, have I faced something that I really need to dig into? What are the, what's the threshold where you would call it trauma that needs special care and it's just something hard or something that it feels like suffering or something that's difficult to go through and you need some support on. Can you identify that a little bit?
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, that's a good question. So the very official definition would tell you that trauma is an event or a series of events that impacts you physically, emotionally, spiritually, cognitively. So, all that to say it affects every area of our life. If I have a chronic stomach ache, if I have constant muscle aches and you know things like all of the physical ways, I'm constantly exhausted, you know, paying attention to some of that. But a softer definition really is that trauma is not what happened to me. It's not a list of events that I can check off like none of those were in my life. But noticing that how the events of my life impacted me? Do they keep showing up? Are there things that I'm ruminating on, there are things I can't get past or themes in my life that show up over and over? Or do I have an emotional response whether that's tears or irritability? Over a specific area? And oftentimes, we see so many people under reporting their trauma by saying, oh, yeah, like that was just a tough situation, or they were a tough parent, or they had really strict rules and you know, and, and there's just a lot of shame that's embedded in that about not wanting to talk about it as well.
lori taylor:Yeah, and this idea of not having a list for ourselves that says, well, the things that have happened to me don't merit the label of trauma, and instead of saying, the way that I'm responding to this, the way that I have struggled with this merits, some special care around this, this event, this thing, and I feel like so much of what we see with people who are listening because they are in a season of an in-between, the thing that took them there was a traumatic event or it was a catastrophic loss or even small losses. We talked about that picture of mourning as being a companion to a liminal time because what puts us there's always a loss of something, a loss of identity. A loss of a job, and sometimes those job losses, they are traumatic because they were unexpected or there was great upheaval. Now you're left in this place of complete vulnerability, where you have no structures anymore. And there's there's a difference, I think sometimes with saying, you know, well my life is in some upheaval, and actually I need to process through a traumatic event that brought me here.
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, that's right. And Lori, when you said that I thought, you know, there's something about finding out a bad thing is actually possible. That feels traumatic if you had your job for a long time that you work and then you show up and do your work and especially if something is outside of your control, or unexpected and you are now finding out I can lose my job. That's a big deal to someone when their security is wrapped up in that and most of us have some security wrapped up in that. Yeah.
Christina Willman:I want to ask Mandi, in your in your experience and clinically dealing with individuals, have you, can you now identify fairly quickly, someone who has dealt with upheaval and somebody who hasn't? How they walk through it and how they just talk about it and how they even come to you in the first place? Are you able to see that now fairly quickly? And clearly, having done this having talked to a lot of different people.
Mandi Pearson:Uh, yeah, I think I can see it pretty quickly. In
Christina Willman:And how about then someone who purposely comes my office. I think the first thing that I noticed is that someone comes to me with a lot of diagnoses. So they might come in and say I've seen a handful of people and I have depression and anxiety, bipolar disorder and they'll name off a bunch and in my head I'm already like swiping erase and I'm like, in to you with a whole bunch of diagnoses per se versus when my mind, this is all trauma if you've gone you know all around and received a little bit of care here and there, you know, when we see our and this is not a critique necessarily of our doctors and nurses, but often we go to our doctor and we say here are my symptoms. But how many of our doctors are saying well, can you're talking to someone at a Starbucks getting coffee in you tell me the story that happened before? Like, that's so rare, and so they're giving us something to help with our symptoms, but without digging into how did we get here, which our medical model was not set up for very well. So that is one thing. I've also just kind of kind of come to notice and, you know, it could get me in trouble with colleagues maybe but I think we've all experienced trauma of some kind, something you're like, Oh, interesting. That is an interesting story that overwhelmed us in everything we had to cope with it. And then we had we were like at the end of our rope with that and didn't have, like what is next? This is still going on for me. I've done all the things and that is sort of where I think trauma really shows up is nothing that I'm accustomed to worked for me. that actually probably needs more talking.
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, and I mean, I think I refer people all the time to different places because it's certainly, I think I am a magnet when it comes to that. When you said that I was like, Oh, you're talking about the barista! Like whoever I've encountered, right? I'm like, oh, there's a story. Right. And yeah, so I think it just shows up in a lot of, in a lot of ways. And, you know, being a safe person, I think more, more and more people will share with you too.
Christina Willman:Yeah, I was gonna say that too. And you're kind of talking about just your, your, your life and your career and I feel like it's a gift that is special that you can see that in others and that as I know everything we have walking around in our interactions and dealings with someone at the store who's probably having a great day we have a lot of people oftentimes are so busy and doing so much themselves. And so there's so many things going on in my own life that I don't see and respond in a gentle softer way than I probably should to someone who may have just lost their mom in the hospital across the street or something.
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, to be honest, I mean, I have my days too where I'm like, Okay, that's enough and like, move on. But yeah, I mean, I think when I find myself to be really stressed and overwhelmed and knowing like that is coming from myself, and I can pause and be you know if I need to take the evening away from people or if I need to just kind of come back into my own like well-being rather than living in my stress, to just take a moment to do that for sure. Because I have to be mindful of that as well.
Christina Willman:It's that promise of the comfort or comforting with the comfort that then we can comfort others which is one of the gifts that sometimes takes a longer time to notice. Whether we're able to give to someone else because we've suffered or gone through something ourselves and can realize that.
lori taylor:Yeah, so that leads me to a question that I think you'd be so good for us to hear from and that is how you you've dealt with some people with really catastrophic trauma, the kind that a few of us, we can't even imagine what that seems like, more than probably have said, there's more people that have experienced it than would have ever said that they've experienced it, but how do you give the kind of hope that is needed for that time without being you know, the toxic positivity that that's what we've heard lately, and I think it's true that there's a toxic positivity that's just wants us to all say, Hey, we're gonna be fine. And this is especially for Christians. We're believers that feel guilty if they can't have hope or be positive. And so I'm not asking for that kind of fake Christianese hope, you know, we all know there's hope for life after life. You know, we have that solid, but what about the kind of hope that says, These responses that that are driving me into the ground that I can't get a handle on that, you know, I feel so destroyed every time. What is the hope that you can give them?
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, that's such a good question. And it's so tough. I think that we're all learning how to not be toxic positivity people and to allow someone to be where they are, I think is the first bit of it, like I don't have to cheer someone up. But one concept in therapy is that one huge piece of what helps people change is they call it a shared hope, which means that I you and I have a hope that we share. In some days, I'm able to hold more of that than you are. For me that means in my field, I have seen 1000s of people now recover and do something different. And so my hope is like an informed hope because I've been able to witness it. And I think we have that in our spirituality as well. But we can't skip to the part where I instill that but but because there's power in sitting with someone who will just sit with me, right and like, sometimes that doesn't even have to come with words, which is good news because we get to let ourselves off the hook for having the right words to say. For me when I have this sort of temptation because I do want people to feel good. And I don't want to I don't want them to live in their sadness, but I have to stop and ask myself before I respond, do I want to feel better here or because this is uncomfortable for me? And if so I need to rein that in and just sit still and be present with them.
lori taylor:Yeah, Christina, I would really like you to say something really about how you've dealt with the trauma of your diagnosis that it is every day creating a response out of you every day you deal with the upheaval of being in a wheelchair and your body having basically rebelled against you and become your enemy in a lot of ways. And what have you seen other things that you've heard Mandi say about being trauma-informed even about our own selves, but you know, even being trauma informed with other people, like how do you respond to that, but what's going on for you in your own response to your
Christina Willman:Yeah great. Yeah it's interesting. So it's story? related but maybe not. So I pulled up off the shelf to kind of go through and we're gonna have this conversation getting ready for it called A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. And it is almost difficult to even get through the first few pages because he talks about his own catastrophic loss. But early on in the book he talks about, like what is the point and what is the meaning, what does it mean and what does it look like to compare our losses? Why, why is it so important for us to say, Well, my mine was worse and yours is worse or better. So for someone to say like, Well, I had a rough day but like, not as bad as you like, as much as I like I don't Idefinitely don't don't feel as bad as you. So in some sense, it's talked about in there also that a loss is a loss is a loss and like we all have losses, and we all can recognize each other and sit with that. And so, that has helped me not have to qualify my own losses versus someone else, maybe having a more traumatic or catastrophic loss. He talks about losses, being like a broken limb versus an amputation and how a broken limb is going to heal, and then the amputation is like, it's cut off. It's not gonna come back it's irreversible and it's never going to be there again. And so I think as far as for me, I've been able to view my losses even though they've been significant but for longer, maybe it hasn't been like an amputation versus a finger falling off and then a toe falling off and your elbow. It's helpful for me to see myself transcending the losses in terms of it's okay. You don't feel like doing that right now. And you struggle with this specifically, but you're, it's okay. And that's okay. That I can still do some of the things that I want and realize that part of my life has been amputated, and then I can still transcend and that that's, that's enough and that's okay. Yeah. And I still, I still go through times when I feel like it's a catastrophic loss and who I used to be, but I have to and want to look forward and again, transcend the suffering I'm feeling I'm transforming and growing and dig into that and lean into that more than I want to focus and sit and dwell and contemplate these, all these tiny little losses when I daily wake up, I have a choice. I can focus on all that specifically and get down and dig down into that or say, I want to spend time with my girls snuggling in the morning because I don't have to rush off to work. I don't have to be gone before they even wake up. There's other little things that I can sit with and be so thankful and grateful and choose to enjoy that has been really helpful for me in my own growth in my own struggle and, and that I've transformed in a lot of ways in that I would have never even expected or seen. And I feel like I was all over the map answering that question. That was free flowing conscience that came out.
lori taylor:Now, I think it's an important part for us to tell even our own stories, we can talk at the clinical level or at the philosophical level about how to deal with loss and liminality and being in between and in trauma, or we can talk about it but the story of how we actually live it is also meaningful, it gives hope. I think that that's really what we desire to do is to give hope into practice practices, like the disciplines that we can practice that say, Hey, this is working for me, maybe this will work for you. Maybe not but let's work together as a team as a community to encourage each other which is what Porchlight is doing with people to be to be a support system. If nothing else from all of this, we just have to be willing to reach out to a support system. And especially maybe even more so for those that find themselves withdrawing. If your response to the the struggle and the upheaval is to withdraw. That's even more important to offset that with reaching out and being in community. That's not to say we don't sometimes overdo ourselves with community and lean too much on the community and don't do the inner work that needs to happen. But yeah, Mandi, I want to come back to you about that idea of shared hope but with what Christina said as well that she's talked about how the the gratitude, the little practices that she puts into a day has helped her transform. And I wonder how how you've been able to walk with people through transformation when it may feel like at the beginning, there's no chance that this is this person's ever going to be happy again or ever going to be healed. There's too much damage or there's you know, they're too far down the road on life choices in response to what's happened to them. How do you maintain a hope for that and then where do you start walking with a person to see transformation?
Mandi Pearson:Oh yeah, that's a good question. My initial response, you know, obviously they know a little bit about what they're getting into, well sort of, when they come in. But my initial response and I think this goes for everybody is just I always say to ask the question, "do you mind if I sit with you?" Like there's no expectation of our time together? And I know that that I'm going to actually be asking you to share like the deepest, darkest things you've not talked about with anyone else, and you've been afraid to talk about it. So let's take our time and get to know each other a little bit and to, for you to feel safe and comfortable with me. I kind of joke, and my friends will tell you like women especially when they come in to see me often will sit with their purse in their lap. Even young women. I associate that with like older women, but they'll stay with their purse in their lap and when someone puts their purse down a few sessions in, I'm like, Okay, we're going to be okay. Like they're starting to sort of physically relax a little bit, right. So yeah, I'm not sure if that answered your question, but just to sort of begin really small and make a lot of room for them to ask questions of me if they have them and and to kind of dig in at their comfort level and just leave plenty of space for them. It also relieves me of having to have the right thing to say if I am just allowing us to get warmed up to one another.
lori taylor:You've talked to me before about the power of expectations, and how some people might come in and tell you that well, they've been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and they've been in therapy for years and years and years. And they really just want maintenance at the level that they're at, you know, they just want kind of that person to continuously care for them at their level of discomfort without the expectation that there is a point where you shouldn't need this anymore. If the work is being done, if the healing is happening, and I'm fascinated by that and what you think about that, like when, tell us about how you see the power of expectations when it comes to processing through difficult space. And I'm asking this really for a liminal audience as well. Because I think the power of expectations when you find yourself in that dark in-between season you know it's unimaginable. We our expectations really determine how we get through this or if we get through this with some sort of growth and transformation and life and energy and so on. So, I know I just spoke a lot of words there just make some sense of that.
Mandi Pearson:As you were sharing, I kept thinking about the word balance right because the expectation if we're caught in the expectation of an outcome, we're going to be frustrated. Every time. But if we have an expectation of attributes like Hope and Curiosity and Change and Grief, I mean with like all capital letters, right, but that we might get to an outcome we couldn't even imagine. But if the expectation is a very narrow, it has to be just like this, then we're gonna be we're gonna have a hard time. Yeah, yeah. And I think we also get really accustomed to suffering in a way specific to us. And when someone else who maybe is familiar with people but not familiar with you, can say I'm noticing this way that it looks like you're suffering. And maybe never dawned on you before. Yeah.
Christina Willman:Yeah, that's an interesting point. That I feel like oftentimes, people don't realize that they're suffering and they're struggling at all, and that goes back to what we mentioned before, like, Well, I mean, it's, it's just a regular day where my parents were very strict, and you tell someone else's story. They're like, What! That happened to you as a child?, Oh my goodness. And so this also goes back to us being able to talk to someone and recognizing and then assessing in themselves that they have, they have experienced some some trauma and in their own lives, and they're able to see that in themselves. And so, to keep tapping to piggyback off that, do you find yourself having to or how do you feel about struggle having to struggle or suffering transforming people? And a person's own vision of that do, do you often find someone having a positive I guess, more or less positive outlook on struggle or transforming them in a way or the vision of suffering and struggle just like bogging them down and being such a burden versus having an outlook of, of growth and transformation, if someone you're dealing with stuff that's like again, like Lori mentioned, sometimes an unimaginable for most people that how someone could come out on the other side saying, Well, I really feel like that person. Yeah.
Mandi Pearson:I think the first thing that comes to mind is often when we, especially if we are new to doing internal work. We categorize our suffering as stress and by that I mean you know, my clients will come in and say things like, "my kids are out of control," or "my finances are, are really hard and can't make ends meet," or, you know, like life stressors. Like what we would call adulting. Right? And so they're suffering in this really constant buzz of those things. But what happens that what I see and what happens for a lot of people, I think, is that if that buzz gets quiet, and things get a little, almost boring, then I'm left with what does my real suffering look and feel like? So the distraction of all the stuff that keeps us stressed, so to speak, it's like a tool we have to avoid the pain, right? And so when my clients come in and want to talk about like, a really simple conflict that they've had over the week, that can go on and on. And sometimes I'll have to say, Do you want to set a time limit for that one so we can get to the reason that you came here, right? I tell a story about I used to work with clients who all work or live together in a communal setting and they had huge fights over waffles, huge fights, and here these folks have been through just believable trauma. And I would set a timer like you can talk about the waffles for five minutes and then we're going to move on, to not hear about the waffles, right? But it is hard to say we're going to go a little bit deeper because the stuff that worries us every day is going to start to dissipate and not feel the stress if what if we can get to the depths of what suffering you have been in.
lori taylor:And it's so relevant to to the work that we do with people in in revision. There's revision that needs to be done in an in-between space, when you set aside the structures that that defined you so well and you don't know what's next. And so you don't have that holding you up and we can get caught in the middle of just surviving, you know, just all the daily stuff. But it's easy to miss that that is a perfect time to revise the way you think about your life and your vision of your commitment to the world and yourself and others, your commitment to God and who God is and we can ask all of those amazing transformational questions. If we'll get past the low grade buzz of everyday life, and that's, this is the time to do it. Yeah, we've got to get past the waffles. And what I find happening is that people don't want to because that is too scary. And what I love about the work that you're doing is you are not only helping to get below that layer, but providing a safe space. Like that really just stands out to me I would want to be a person that is so safe for somebody that when I'm talking with them or we're in a group setting or even listening to a podcast, they feel like they're heard for the first time maybe or at least for the moment and feel safe enough to say I am not doing well with being out of control. And I realized I had a lot of things to ask myself about this season that I'm in and I don't know where to process this and I want to be that safe place that people have. So that's where I see a connection with what you're doing. And I imagine that a lot of the clients that you have come in there they are in a liminal place. There's a lot of connection to you know that they're not just struggling with something but that struggle has hit a moment of crisis that has sent them into your office, and they don't know what it looks like on the other side of managing this crisis. And in the in-between is where all the work gets done. It's so beautiful and it's so gut wrenching at the same time. But the bottom line is hope, right, that you're offering safety and hope that there is there's a way through this and it might take sitting in it for a while but on the other side of it is going to be growth and and thriving. And in the meantime, you're safe here as long as it takes.
Mandi Pearson:I love that you mentioned as long as it takes because there's not a rush. You know if you've had 40 years of trauma, like let's give it the space and give you the space to just breathe a little bit and even to begin to take stock of everything. I think that space and and being safe and all of that just begins to have a big transformation. I might be skipping ahead a little bit so stop me if so but, you know, people who have suffered trauma have an inability, it's a symptom of trauma, an inability to plan for the future and inability to imagine a future. And so I think for them, I was thinking about this as in preparing for today that liminal space feels like death. Because I haven't thought that I would get this far. I can't tell you how many people who've suffered any kind of trauma will tell me I didn't think I would live this long. And so their liminal space, their one thing it doesn't feel like well, what's next? It feels like it just ended. I mean, that's a real bit of fear, right when we're like, Well, that's all I knew about; that's all. I was surprised to get this far.
Christina Willman:Wow. Yeah, walking with someone through that it can be really heavy.
lori taylor:You know, that's not skipping ahead at all. I mean, I'd love to hear you say more about the connection between trauma and symptoms of trauma and connection to the liminal journey.
Mandi Pearson:I think, you know, one thing I tell people, especially people who are in recovery from substance use, is we all have a lot of tools that we use, and I joke that half of them we would be willing to tell our doctor and the other half we just don't want to mention, right, so we have all of the healthy tools, we have a lot of the tools and we have a lot of more destructive but they make me feel okay in the moment tools, and the process of recovery is never that we're taking anything away from you. Because even if something has destroyed your life and destroyed your relationships, there is a component of it that helps you. It helped you to get this far, it helps you to not suffer, it helps you to not die a young death, whatever. And that's sort of tight grip right and that's certainly fits into the liminal space, especially like having a tight grip on something that is not good for me. It's so scary to let go of that. But if we can say to them, you've had that tool for a really long time. I cannot take it from you. But I do have all of these other things that we should do in addition to, and that thing isn't going anywhere. If you ever have to go back to it. It'll still be there. But there's all this other stuff that we can offer and talk about and my clients look at me like that is a wild idea because they're trying to stay sober right, but but I think there's someone out there that she's not, or we're not trying to take one more thing away from somebody.
Christina Willman:That's an interesting perspective. Maybe even my own children would be like, That doesn't seem like what happens when, like now we're gonna take that away from you when I'm playing with anymore. We're not gonna do that. But to give someone a freedom to may have not ever felt that because it felt like someone was gonna rip it away from them but to to have a choice to say let's hear somebody may be healthier and help you grow into the person who wants to become you don't you may not even realize who that person is yet. Very profound.
lori taylor:Because our motivations for change, doesn't it really tap into how, you know, moving forward and growing and changing, it can't be for someone else's sake. It can't because someone's telling you"no" or that's bad, or at some point, we'll come back around to it again. What we've talked about that, really, there has to be an internal, and this is this is where as a believer I know that I can't act out my faith because anybody is telling me this is how it should be done. I have to act out my faith because of the relationship I have with Jesus. Because it is so motivated by that internal appreciation for His grace and love for for what he's created me to be and who he is that that I don't want anything else. I don't I don't want it for any other reason. Because, if I, and this is where I've seen a lot of church trauma happen, is that there were such strong expectations put on a person that felt very much against what what came natural to them; it was not based in relationship, that it became oppressive, an oppressive system that you know, then we have to backtrack and say there's there's nothing in our faith that should be done to please a human being. It should ultimately only be done to please God. And I think that's sometimes the reason why, you know, if God is ever the one that sends us into a liminal time, it's because we've been living too long, with all our trauma responses and all of the oppression and all of the external motivation for doing things. And God wants to say I want something new out of you. And I'm I'm going to send you into a dark time to look deeply at all of those parts of yourself that are that have been motivated by all the wrong things and to reinvent that within you. But wow, the kind of work that that takes to have somebody with the insight to sit with you and say you've been doing it that way and for that reason for a very long time. And I'm not going to take that away. But maybe there's another way, maybe there's a better way and give some hope that another way is going to be better for you.
Mandi Pearson:And I think when we're sharing about how much our relationship with God, and with each other changes when fear is not the driving force and when like I want to be the best version of myself in relationship with God or the people in my life because it's flowing from love rather than fear and rules. It's just it's an entirely different experience.
lori taylor:Do you find that sometimes clients want to do things to please you though, which is another way like they transfer that external control from whatever it was to you as the therapist?
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, yeah, we definitely have to be careful about that and try to sort of dissipate that quickly and, you know, show up as my human self and you know, that time is never about me, of course, but I have to be thoughtful of my safety and their safety emotionally. And everything. And just kind of reminding them like this isn't for me. I don't need your homework. I don't know. Yeah.
lori taylor:Well, are there more connections that you feel like you wanted to make for us Mandi, just the broad overarching question of what is the connection between trauma and trauma informed care and the people experiencing a liminal journey?
Mandi Pearson:I think just sort of when we are kind of like, pushed into that space, and we feel like we were pushed into that space, and it feels like a crisis. And we want to respond to crisis by fixing it as quickly as possible, rather than sitting in it, and I don't know, I think, you know, either of you can probably say this a little bit better. But sometimes we might even get a get to a better place. Like maybe we get a job after we lost our job. But the liminal work isn't done yet. Because, like the problem got solved, so to speak. But there's still so much work to do. And I don't know if either of you have read the Liturgy of the Ordinary.
lori taylor:I habe it, I haven't read it all the way through. It's not one that you necessarily read straight through, is it?
Mandi Pearson:I don't think so. It's like here and there. But I'm thinking of this chapter that stands out to me about, she loses her keys. Have you read that chapter? And she talks about like, she goes to this awful self-talk about herself. And then she, while she's scrambling for her keys and then she finds them and goes about her day and later, she was like, What did I just say to myself for half an hour and just drag myself through the mud? And is that how I'm speaking to myself in a liminal space or when things are not going how I want or need them to? Reflecting on all of that instead of just jumping in the car, I found my keys and I can go on now and I think it's hard to even be a little bit retrospective and you're thinking, well the problem feels like it's solved and you're kind of back to that adulting place again, I just had to go in and get it done.
lori taylor:Yeah, that's so true. We talked about that, how you know, going back into structure, we can so easily shut down all of the amazing processes that we went through, that are so important to us, and it's so easy. I've even seen it happen from when we went through COVID and quarantine experiences that actually were good for us. For some of us. You know, even though they might have been mixed with a lot of suffering. There were some things about that, that were good. And then once we're all back to work, we set all that aside, we didn't we didn't carry it through with us, right. We stopped spending the extra time with our families. We stopped getting outside and going for long walks because that's the only thing we could do. You know, we we stopped all the stuff that was renewing for us because we went right back to all the chaos and busyness and it's amazing and you know, not to say anybody would want to stay there. You don't necessarily want to stay there. But I say that about liminal space so you don't want to stay there. You do that in the process of walking through trauma with someone you don't want to stay there. But it doesn't mean that you only use the tools you find there and then put them on a shelf and don't need them anymore. Once you've entered a structured, healed place, they actually become a part of you if we're conscientious about it. But it's very hard, we have to be intentional about that, don't we? We we have to decide we're not going to leave them behind because something about our human nature just wants to move forward. Forget what's behind, you know, press onwards ahead. And we think we're being biblical, but we're actually being short sighted, we're actually being more like the person who looks at themselves in the mirror and then turns away and forgets everything they've just seen. That's more like what we've done. That's the faith without living on a day to day basis. So I don't know I can see it being important to even if you find yourself on the other side of the season of suffering and and trauma work and grief work in liminal work, to have check-ins you know, to come back around to it. I've loved that about the online class where we have people that have been through the class that take the class again, a year later and then take it again a year later because we need to keep adding reminders to our tool belt even as we've moved into new things.
Mandi Pearson:I always call it scraping the bowl with my clients like you, there's always just remnants there and if we, you know are taking a closer look at our lives, we probably don't see a lot of different patterns we've probably see three or four that keep emerging for three or four pain points that keep emerging and showing themselves as representing themselves as ways that we need to be healed. And I've even COVID is a great example right that we have this new lifestyle impressed onto us and then there was no end, nobody said it was time to be over and then we're just stuck in this life and you know, that can feel a little jarring I think at times as well. And also a little confusing for our brains to go
Christina Willman:In a lot of ways we weren't the same people. through that.. So how do you walk into a new season when it's supposed to kind of be the same, but it's not the same and I'm not the same person that I was before I walked into that space. Whether I did a ton of work on myself or very, very little. I'm still something as new. So how do we, how do we talk to a person about that, that they can remember and take that with them into a new space?
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, that's true. Even thinking about just the collective trauma of that experience and you know, I said earlier in our conversation, finding out that something is possible. I would never have thought the last three years was possible prior to ithappening. And so just thinking about how we're affected by that and how we, we hear stories differently and watch the news differently and everything. It's a lot.
lori taylor:I don't think we're done processing through. Certainly I know it's still affecting high school kids, you know that we're middle schoolers then. And it's affecting those kids that I think kids, young adults that are in college that missed the last few years of high school and they're it's a collective trauma, you know, that we're still seeing the results of but it's like an experience and I think what you were mentioning earlier, Christina about how having suffered and having gone through something difficult. And seen healing and gotten to the other side. There is a level of resilience and tolerance for adversity, your your window of tolerance expands, it gets bigger because of that, and you can't say that to yourself in the middle of it like well, this is going to be good for me. And I'm gonna be so thankful for this suffering on the other side. I mean, you can but you don't necessarily feel better about it. But I do know that part of the hope is that and I remember this happening when, when my sister died and just processing through the grief for our family of her loss. There was a point where I felt like I needed to say to myself, I will not waste this pain. I don't want this suffering to be for nothing. Therefore I will come out of this with a greater compassion, a greater understanding of people who have lost family, I will come out stronger with a greater understanding of, of how God works and where my hope comes from and how to deal with sudden unexpected pain. Because otherwise, it's a waste. What a waste of a life that could have transformed people and doesn't and the like the value, the only value in that is when there is something good on the other side that's redeemable and I always want to be a part of that when it comes to that my own experiences of pain.
Mandi Pearson:I think Lori that's so important because I often think about grief as a companion and so you know we've done whether it's the church or mental health industry, we've all done a pretty terrible job at acknowledging what grief is and what it looks like and how it affects us. And it's not it's more than sadness, which i think we confuse it for. And like the loss is profound and material as not our only companion but a companion that causes us to be more grateful. That causes us to be gentle with people if we allow it and more maybe more importantly, to be gentle with ourselves if we allow it and we don't have to hurry it off because it's not going anywhere. It does get better, it does. The days are not overwhelmed by that. But some days aren't even far out like from the event or from the loss that we can allow ourselves to feel overwhelmed because we're human and and it's okay and expected to feel that way. Rather than giving into"I'm not supposed to feel that" or "it's been too long" or "it was wasn't that bad" or whatever it is we're telling ourselves.
Christina Willman:I've returned specifically, that reminded me Mandi of something I've just read in the book I made reference to, the Jerry Sittser book, that he stated and I know it was helpful for me and made a huge impact on me and just like for anyone, I learned, he said I learned to live and mourn simultaneously. That initially was very difficult for me that I didn't even realize that I wanted a yes or no. I could do both-and. I wanted it to be I'm crying and I'm dying and I'm mourning and I'm gonna sit here in a ball or I'm happy-go-lucky, going to have joy. I couldn't see how I could do both at the same time. How can I live and mourn at the same time? And so I think that just like you mentioned and Lori was alluding to, how do you be a person who can do that? And she had said it before, how can someone have cancer, have something in your life, suffering and trauma and be, be for good? And then this kind of goes back to that when I was talking about choosing, you can choose to be a victim and let it change your life in that way. It's kind of Eoyore it, or choose to live differently and to choose to live open and and have that and know that there's something that has a purpose or something.
Mandi Pearson:Allow it to be, right?
Christina Willman:Allow it to be and allow it to for other people and to recognize it for it to be okay. Just like you've done a great job of creating a safe place and that's what I know Lori and I want to do through this too, to create a safe place for someone to just be, whatever that means and forever how long that might might might be for. Like she mentioned someone taking the online class three different times and there may be three different experiences in three different places and I've gotten the job, but but there's still there's still more and that's important to want to walk with someone through that too.
Mandi Pearson:Yeah. I always think about you know, I don't know if either of you or both of you had this experience that maybe we were taught not to trust our feelings, that feelings were bad or they were they were sinful in some way. And then I think about like at least my understanding of how Jesus was and allowed feelings and had big feelings. And and we were created with feelings. And so rather than just squash them down, because they're not going to work, it turns into like whack-a-mole right? And allowing ourselves and allowing others to have that and just to be in that space and not rush ourselves or others out of it.
lori taylor:Yeah. There's so many layers aren't there to walking with ourselves and walking with people in in these kinds of healing experiences because there is allowing whatever feelings are there and being safe with those. At the same time, there's a way to still function with with hope and joy even at the same time you're feeling destroyed. And there's also you can feel like you want to move forward without being in a hurry to move forward. There's so many, there's so much tension there between I want to get better, but I don't want to rush it but I want to grow and I want to get to the other side of this, but I don't, I don't need to determine how long that's going to take me and I want to be settled in the sadness that I feel but I don't want to sit there day after day after day until it becomes a place I can't function in any other way. You know, there's such paradoxes there of this healing process that we cannot, if maybe there's one thing we can say about this, we cannot put it in a box. We can't say trauma hits the things that are on this "list." It has these specific responses. And here's the five steps that you take, and it'll take you this amount of time to get out of it. All of that is out the window. We only have this loving space that says whatever this is, however long it takes whatever work needs to be done at the right time that that work needs to be done. We will do it and we will do it together with people who who walk with us through it.
Mandi Pearson:Yeah, it's great. When we try to contain it in that way. It's like it's so silly when it's not you because you watch someone you're like, you really want to have a say so in this process because it feels so unknown and unsafe. And I get that because I do it too and being able to let it breathe a little bit and not try to quantify it in some way or give myself 30 days to get over my grief or whatever. And then chances are it's just going to be a much easier fight. If you just let the expectations, we're back to that right, that is expectations of your healing and your growth. To just be able to what I can do, what I can with whom I can, however I can.
lori taylor:Well, we've covered a lot of ground a lot is the beauty and agony of this process. I would hope that the people listening and I certainly feel the hope. I hope people feel hope that this is a beautiful journey as much as it is a journey of a lot of pain and a lot of tears a lot of unknown. And I would say if I could sum something else up from this conversation is the absolute necessity of finding safe places and safe people to walk with you through this when we have to be advocates for ourselves for that and be vigilant about finding those places and recognize that not everybody will be safe and that we might actually get burned by the few people that we hope are safe and that we think they are and they don't end up being. But it's worth it to keep looking for the safe places where we can. What did you say about being it's not about being soft? You know that? It is it's a gentle place so a person that can say you're safe here, you're safe, you're loved here, there's there's space, there's time, there's no hurry, there's no expectations and and I think you had said this to me earlier Mandi about how your outcome does not affect me. Therefore, I can give you whatever time and and space you need for the outcomes you need. Because I'm not going to push for a particular outcome.
Mandi Pearson:I think that's so important. We think about looking for people to walk alongside us. It's not just oh, my family can help me. Well, they are helpful people. Hopefully they're helpful but also it matters that you are okay so they can feel okay. I want people to get well and you all want people to to heal in their process for them. And it's not a coldness. It's noticing that your your well-being is a little bit different for me, and I want it for you and it isn't gonna matter how my day goes. So again, sounds cool, but it is like that means it's even safer for you to work with somebody and not be like man, I owe them this or I have to do it for them. This is for you. And we don't get a lot of that time. It's best for us. So looking for those safe people. And Lori, I would add to that as well, to encourage people to make their own judgment. If you don't feel safe, find somebody else. People that make you feel safe. You don't have to identify why something doesn't feel good to you. If the relationship feels like I don't, I can't put my finger on it. It's okay to move forward and find where you do feel safe because we're always going to hit a ceiling with our process if we feel a little tethered or we're not safe where we can't be open. We can't be honest. We're always going to be limited in how far we can go.
lori taylor:So good. Yeah. That's a great way to wrap up. Yeah, Christina, do you want to add anything to take us out?
Christina Willman:Well, I for sure want to thank Mandi, thanks for being here to talk with us. Because I think it's an important conversation that bridges a couple of really important topics that just like we have felt more recently maybe liminal space isn't talked about, but mental health isn't and how can we bridge that gap? What does it look like for them to coincide? They do a lot so thank you so much for being here. And informing us about trauma informed care. They were just kind of sitting with us and holding that space to have this conversation. So thank you. As far as like, more specifically, we are thankful for those who participated in our online class that recently wrapped up so thanks for everyone for that and so we are going to be holding another online class in the fall, which the culmination will be an actual live retreat where we're going to hold a safe space for people to participate in and be together and tell some of those stories and just sitting on one side of them. So that's kind of what's coming up for us. As usual. You can find us on our social media. We got email us currently at lifeinliminalspace@gmail.com And Mandi, if we're looking for you is Porchlight the the website basically to to find out especially if we live in Columbus, Ohio? If you're listening from Columbus, Ohio and you want to get a hold of her or need to see her clinically and or have her come and talk to your group or others about trauma-informed care and just learning more and learning more from those who you work with either. That'd be great.
Mandi Pearson:That's great. So is that the best place? Yeah, of course, porchlightcolumbus.com is our website and feel free to reach out if you have questions. I appreciate you all having me today. Thanks so much.
Christina Willman:Thank you so much. Like we usually say at the end, let's thrive in the threshold.