SoulStirred: Stories of Growth And The Human Experience

Welcome lovely listeners to SoulStirred, Stories of Growth and the Human Experience. I'm Emily Garcia, and I'm Kasey Clark. We will be your guides on this journey.

We are so glad you are here. Each week we'll come together, sometimes with other incredible thinkers, creators, and adventurers to generously share stories of

self-discovery, recovery, triumph, and what it means to live life on purpose. No matter where you are in your own journey, connection is here for you at SoulStirred.

Settle in, take a deep breath in, and let's inspire each other. Welcome to SoulStirred.

Welcome to the SoulStirred podcast, Stories of Growth and the Human Experience.

I'm Emily, and I'm Kasey and we are so excited to be here with you. Kasey, do you want to tell a little bit about what got us here?

Absolutely, yeah. I feel all jiggly inside just being here and in connection with you, Em, and inviting an audience to come into the space with us.

Me too. Emily and I are therapists at Tribe Mind Body Wellness and we are old, very dear, close friends. We go back, what is it, 20, 25 years?

About 20 years.

When did you start your career in child welfare?

Let's see. Actually, that was probably 17 or 18 years ago.

Yeah, so a long time.

Yeah.

And in the story of our relationship, which we'll share with you here in just a little bit, we have had connection and separation and connection again

and distance and connection again. It's like the universe knew that we were meant to be something, that we were meant to be together so that something could get created through us.

And here we are answering the call and inviting you to join us. And it's because of our unique vantage point of people who are privileged enough to serve as helpers

and healers to other people. We get to see, we get a glimpse into what humanity is experiencing right now. And what we notice is that it's a really hard time to be human.

It's a really lonely time to be human. And people are longing for connection and they're thirsting for intimacy. And so are we. And so it occurred to us, you know,

we have this connection and it seems like magic. And so maybe we take that magic out for a spin and see if others want to come along for a ride with us.

So we decided to create SoulStirred, this podcast channel, in hopes of creating community, creating connection, creating a place where you, my friend, Emily,

and me, Casey, and all of you, our listening audience, are welcomed and included and know that you get to be loved and you get to belong. And so this is not just a podcast.

This is a place where we hope that people will be willing to show up and be seen and share their stories, share their life stories, their real and true stories of growth

and the human experience.

And so to kick that off, we thought we'd come together today and share our story, the story of us with all of you. And we hope that you'll find something that you need

as you hear what we want to share and offer to you. And we also hope that you'll want to stay connected with us because, Em, do you want to talk a little bit about where

we hope this grows from here?

Yeah. Casey and I have had many conversations about the need for belonging, the need for community. And just as she was just talking about, people are longing for intimacy.

They're longing to be seen. They're longing to have a sense of belonging. And we don't know exactly what that will be, but we want to create a space where you can show up

and find people who are celebrating the things that you're celebrating, struggling with the things you are struggling with or anything in between and find your people,

the people who you've been looking for because they've been looking for you as well. The reason we know that's important is because of our vantage point, not only as therapists,

but just as humans, we have our own struggles.

We have the traumas we've experienced, the adversity in our lives. We've had the growth and our own celebrations. And it's so meaningful to have people who get it and want to be

there with you in these moments.

So come with us on this journey, see what it is for you. And as we go, we will figure out the best ways to support you and include you.

Wonderful. Nicely done.

Thank you. I think we should start with kind of telling our stories, our own individual story about what led us to where we are today.

And as I say that, I already feel the vulnerability of sharing.

Oh boy, you go first.

Okay.

I'm going to do it. So let's see, where do I start? Casey and I met in child welfare and the reason I ended up as a child welfare caseworker was because of my own childhood.

I grew up in a home with abuse. There was sexual abuse and I disclosed it when I was 15. My stepfather who had been around since I was three years old was the perpetrator of the abuse.

I then testified against him in court and he was charged and sentenced on three big counts and spent almost two decades in prison.

And that experience is one that I look back in my life. And it's not the kind of thing I would ever wish on any child. I would never want to repeat it.

And it has shaped me and who I am and how I see the world and the way that I have compassion for other people. When I was 15, I had to go to therapy after I disclosed the abuse.

And my first experience in therapy with my therapist, her name was Fran, was profound. It changed my life. I knew that I wanted to help other people in the way that Fran helped me.

I didn't know I was going to be a therapist at that point, but I knew I wanted to help other people. And then one thing after another led me to where I am now.

In between when I was in my 20s, I was a young adult and I was trying to figure it out. I met Casey when I was a child welfare worker.

Casey was my supervisor and she was kind and warm and I could show up in her office and be struggling with whatever it was that I was working on that day and just

fall to tears in a chair in her office. And she would just sit with me and understand and see me. It really did shape how I saw myself, not only as a professional,

but as someone who was working on healing from the own experiences I had in my life.

So fast forward, I went to grad school. I became a therapist. Casey and I were still connected through social media, but we weren't always in touch.

And then last year, I was interviewed for an article for Canvas Rebel Magazine. And the question was about the best leader or boss you've ever worked for. And I talked about Casey.

I had no idea that this was going to lead her back into my life, but I talked about her because she was so important to me and my journey. And after the article was published,

I sent it to Casey and said, I think you should read this. I was a little bit embarrassed, but I talked about you, I hope that's okay. And she fortunately was very kind about it

and said, thank you. And then there was an opportunity for us to work together again at Tribe, and she wanted to join me.

And I was head over heels with excitement about getting to work with her again. So here we are today. We know there's something bigger for the two of us and for you with us.

Casey, I'm so grateful to be in this with you. Wow. Can we take a deep breath? Yeah.

I am sitting in awe of you right now, my friend.

Thank you.

Just even what you've shared in that brief capsule is a lifetime of human growth and experience. I just want to add in that there is something about childhood sexual abuse that feels

really hard. And Casey and I talked about this before we ever planned this episode, but it is important to talk about these things because secrets fester and create more secrets.

And Casey and I both believe that sharing our experience can help other people. So we just want you to know that we're sharing because we're hoping there's at least one person out

there that this serves.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and because sharing our story, this goes for all of us. When we get brave enough to share our story is the moment that our stories stop running our lives.

And this too is, I mean, there's so many things to say in response to what you just said, but let me just pick up right where we are, which is the kismet of my story mirroring

your story only somewhat in reverse because I too was sexually abused as a young girl. For me, it occurred. I went to a babysitter's home in first and second grade because both

of my parents worked outside the home.

And so early morning commute, 6 a.m., I'd walk across the street to the babysitter's house. Well, her live-in boyfriend was a man who sexually abused me in the mornings while I was there

early and we were alone together throughout my first and second grade years in school. And for whatever reason, I don't really know what exactly was the reason,

I did not share that information with anyone until I remember the day vividly. I was in my later teenage years and I was home with my mom and dad and Marilyn Vandiver.

Do you remember her? The former Miss America was being interviewed on 60 Minutes or something by Barbara Walters.

It was a Saturday night and she was telling her story, which was that she too had been a victim of sexual abuse and she was one of the first public figures to come out on television

and say, this is what I suffered through and so did my sisters at the hands of our father. And I remember turning to my mom who was in the kitchen, like making butterscotch pudding,

which is something she used to do for me and my dad when I was little and saying, are you hearing this story, mom? Are you hearing what they're saying on TV? Because what this woman

is saying happened to her, it happened to me too. And that was like my first big reveal.

Well, for me, there was no Fran, not immediately, unfortunately. I think my mom, whom is still living and who I love dearly, responded in the best way that she knew how to respond

and she called her therapist, who then wanted to talk to me on the phone so that she could fulfill her duty as a mandated reporter and together with me call Child Protective Services,

isn't that ironic? And then they conducted something of a phone interview with me and warranted, this is like in the first 30 minutes of my first time ever revealing this news.

This is what's happening. I'm on the phone with a therapist who's a stranger to me and then with the social services system and they proceed to ask me questions like, well,

what was the weather like on the day that this was happening? And for me, it wasn't just one day, it was repeatedly, but I don't know exactly how many days or what the days of

the week were. Well, what were you wearing? Do you remember what you were wearing? No. Anyway, we go through this phone call and by the end of it, what they say is you're not able

to give us enough information for us to respond. So we're not going to do anything. So for me, fast forward from my late teens through, you know, up until about probably five or

eight years ago, my story sounded like this. This bad thing happened to me when I was a kid, but it didn't really matter and it didn't really mean anything.

And what I now know is true and I say to myself and to those who might be listening with enormous amounts of grace is that story ran my life and all of my relationships until

I was willing to get courageous like Emily and own that it was part of my truth and own what it means for me that it was part of my truth. So, you know, one of my favorite,

one of the teachers that I subscribe to in the world is Gabor Mate, a trauma physician and trauma specialist from Canada who's brilliant and has many talks. Look him up if you don't

know who I'm talking about already, what a gift to the world that man is. And one of the things that he says is, you know, trauma is not so much about what's happened to us as it

is about how the brain responds to what's happened to us. And that's what I mean when I say it ran my life. Little did I know that I was spending some of the best years of my life,

you know, hiding out in the open from myself and my own trauma, hustling for my worthiness and my love and belonging, exhausting myself on the achievement train, you know,

trying to earn or find or get something that would make me feel like I mattered. When the whole time what I learned was I was waiting for me to notice that I mattered, you know,

not externally, but like my inside conversations, me and that little girl inside. She needed me to pay attention to her and to believe her and to protect her. And that is a very

surprisingly, but short version of what brought me here to this moment on this day.

You know, I could go on and on and we will just not in this first episode, but definitely for years, I told myself a story that I was called to my work in child protective services,

which is where I found you. And so I believe it's true that I was called. But I also believe that it's true that my intention and mission to protect and save the children of the

world was because something in me needed to be protected and saved.

That child in you needed it. Absolutely.

So I, I achieved enormous success in my hustle for worthiness. And then I fell hard. And I think, I think what that was about was like my trauma, trying to get my attention.

And then I got wonderfully resourced by many, many people. We could have an episode about each of those chapters. And through my own healing journey and my therapist now,

Taylor, who I just am madly in love with. And I mean that with total boundaries, Taylor. But truly there have been times in my life where he's like the only name that has

appeared in my little square squad, the people I trust and know have my back. And that was up until Emily showed up about a year ago to say, Hey, I'm talking about you in

this article and I hope it's okay. When it occurred to me, you know, I got my master's degree in counseling.

It was a lot of years ago, but I have that credential. And maybe now, maybe now after all of the years of service, but mostly many years of healing, maybe now I'm finally

ready to sit on the other side of the couch. And that's when you posted on LinkedIn. Hey, anybody know a therapist who's looking to become part of a tribe? And I said, me,

would you pick me? And so here we are to share all of this stuff that is in the in-between of all of that with all of you. So thank you for holding us because this is obviously

an incredibly vulnerable and tender and fragile and real space. And that is what we want.

Thank you, Casey. You know, what's amazing is I knew the big details of your story, but I've never heard you tell the whole thing. And it reminded me that when I was going

through everything in high school with my own case and I was going to be testifying in court, I was told it is highly unlikely. He will go to prison. The perpetrators of

these things are on. It's really hard to prove it because generally there's not a lot of tangible evidence and don't, don't assume he's going to go to prison.

He will probably get six months of probation. Yeah. That's what I thought was going to happen. And so my case is so unusual. It really is an anomaly that he actually got 18 years

in prison because so many people don't get that. They don't get that kind of justice.

Yeah. And I know how fortunate I am to have had that experience. I wish that were the norm and not the opposite.

Yeah. I wish your situation were the opposite that they could do something when you were a child. Yeah.

What was it like for you? Like I'm, I'm over here making an assumption that that would feel like such a gift of validation to have that justice, you know, ensue.

What was it like for you? I think at the time, I'm really trying to think back into how it felt at really, I was going through the motions because I had the prosecutor talking

to me and my own child protection caseworker who was talking to me and my family, my wonderful siblings who were supporting me and all of these other people who were involved.

And I was just a kid who had no idea. And so I was just kind of like, okay, that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing. During the trial, when I got up onto the stand to testify,

it's like the typical thing where, you know, you're in, you're on the sand and they say, is the perpetrator in the room, please point them out, say what they're wearing.

And I pointed to him and said what he was wearing and he shook his head at me. And then the same thing on the day of his sentencing hearing, he turned and glared at me and shook

his head. And part of me was scared. Part of me was really scared of him. And part of me was like, fuck you. You're getting what you deserve. The anger part was really interesting

because at the time I was so sad. I was just so grief stricken. And there's a whole other part of the story that I lost contact with my mom at the time because she didn't believe me.

And we didn't talk for 12 years. My sister, Lottie, who's eight years older than me became my kinship foster mom. She's 23 and I was 15 and she went through everything to be my mom.

And so that's a whole separate story. We'll get into that another time. We'll do an episode on Lottie.

Yeah. But I was so angry and the anger had been hard for me to get into. During therapy, Fran would say, you need to get angry.

And I just would sit there crying every session. I would sit and I would just cry and cry and I felt so sad that I had been hurt. And I felt so sad that I had been rejected.

And part of it was about my mom and part of it was about him. And so it was really good for me to get angry because anger was not an easy emotion. Anger still isn't always the

easiest emotion for me.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think that people have a lot of shame around anger and even when they do get angry easily, there's a lot of shame that they do it.

And so whether you have a hard time getting angry or you get angry a lot, none of us like it. Yeah. Pretty much that.

Yeah.

So the parts of ourselves that we're most afraid of having be seen are the ones that need to be out and expressed the most. Right.

It's permission giving.

Yeah. It's really about other feelings though.

Yeah. I, I always say to people, if there is a parent and they have a teenager who they've let go out and the curfew is 11 PM and it's 1115 and they're calling that team and

there's no answer and they're not texting back and it's 11:30 and it's 11:45 and then it's midnight and the teen walks in. The parent is going to be visibly angry.

Where have you been? But really what was going on was fear. Of course. What if my child isn't okay? What if they're not coming home? And so anger so often is about other things.

And maybe my anger, my anger was you hurt me. I'm hurt because of you.

Yeah.

Yeah. You get to feel all of it and more. Right.

And that's the thing that it took me years to understand that when a person perpetrates abuse on another person in the way that those men did both of us, there was also an

emotional and an energetic exchange where they were handing us their shame. And then it becomes our work to give that shame back to its rightful owner. It never belonged to us

in the first place. That to me is partly what you're saying when it's like, fuck you in the courtroom. You hurt me. It's like giving him back his shame.

And how human of you to need a little anger to give you the fuel to get that truth up and out. Right.

Right.

Anger is fuel. Yeah. It's true.

It makes us do things that makes me move when I'm angry. And a lot of times for me, it makes me honor myself. It's too bad that it takes anger for that to happen.

And that's where the work is. Right. It's like back that up to a boundary or an assertive be assertive sooner.

And then you don't have to go shooting your anger out. And this is all part of the work. This is this is what he's talking about when he says it's about how your brain

responds to what happens to you.

This is protective gear in action. And thank God we have it because it's how we survive. It's true.

Everything, every emotion and every behavior serves a purpose.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you to the body intelligence system for keeping us alive through everything we've just shared and more. Right now.

That's true.

Your your response to what happened to you was to overachieve.

Yeah.

My response was to please.

Yes.

I wanted to please people. I didn't want anyone and I'm still working on it.

Don't want to disappoint people. I don't want people to not like me getting better.

Yeah.

But we do have a response. We have a way of going, OK, this is my survival mechanism, how I'm going to get through this. And you achieved, achieved, achieved.

And I please, please, please.

Yeah. Well, and that's where neurobiologically hardwired for human connection.

Right. And so our brains actually don't know the difference between physical pain and social rejection. They protect us the same either way.

We need each other is the point. We actually cannot isolate further away from each other or divide more than we already are and expect to survive as a humanity.

And we can't be protected and connected at the same time.

So we have to be willing to breathe and then lay down that gear. To see into the human that is on the other side of it.

So true.

There is so much research about loneliness and the impact on our health and how it shortens our lifespan. It's worse than than smoking a pack of cigarettes every day.

In fact, the current surgeon general, this is what his book is about. He has coined us right now at this time in life as we are in a loneliness epidemic.

Right. It's it's sad.

We all feel it. It's a heavy feeling. It seems for me, it feels like it started when COVID hit, you know, and we were ordered to isolate in order to stay at home.

And it feels like there was this big sort of retraction from one another, of course, because we were afraid to be in each other's company. Literally, our lives were at risk.

But does it feel to you like we've bounced back from that?

For me, it feels like we retracted and stayed.

Yeah. I think in some ways it's a mixed bag. I can say from my own personal experience, my friendships have changed since 2020.

Yeah. Things are so different in the way that I socialize and who I socialize and how I socialize with. And I, in other ways, have become more connected to myself and what I need.

Yeah. This is like a great example of that is that prior, I would fill my entire weekend. Friday night, I would have plans.

Saturday, I would have plans. Sunday, I would have plans. Monday, I was exhausted and grumpy.

Now I am connected enough to myself to go, all right, I need downtime and I need plans. I am a social being and I need to recharge alone. So that is my own experience.

And when I think about our communities, people that we're surrounded by, people are lonely. They're so much more lonely than they've ever been. Yeah. Because it's hard to connect

to other people. and I don't know if it's social media or something else, but we feel this need to show up in a certain way and not show all of who we are. Of course,

there's the TMI, like, ooh, the people who you just say hello to on the street and they tell you their entire life experience and you're like, oh, what?

I wasn't prepared for that.

Hashtag grow a boundary.

Yeah, exactly. We're not talking about oversharing. Yah, no, not oversharing, not TMI, but just sharing, just owning that we're human, that we make mistakes,

parenting is hard, that driving is stressful, that work can be something we love and sometimes it's really hard and challenging, that our marriages are up and down.

Yes.

Yeah.

That all of that is true and people have a hard time sharing that things can be hard. Right. And knowing with whom can I share and have it be held and trust that I won't

be talked about or judged. Or excluded or left out in some way, right? I think it's interesting. Fascinating to me because the very thing we

desire is also the same thing we protect ourselves from, you know? And like what we're afraid of causes us to behave in a way that attracts that, what we fear. And so it's

like vulnerability and trust, right?

Brene Brown's Dare to Lead work talks about how trust and vulnerability, they grow like a layer cake. I'm just sitting here in awe of us that we were willing to go first with

vulnerability, and that we trust that the community is going to rise up and meet us. And then together we'll create some more vulnerability, and then together we'll grow more trust.

Here we are. A really exciting place. Yeah, creating the relationship we seek. We're creating what it is we want more of in the world, which is you an dme and you an dyou and you and

all of us to really be willing to tell the truth about who you are and let us create a space where you can do that withoug shame.

With love and belonging and acceptance and understanding. Maybe through that, you know, we can start to cross the divide, fill the gap. Yes, that's the goal. We're so grateful

for anyone who listened that you have joined us on this journey.

We both felt very vulnerable today.

Yeah, we did.

The nerves and excitement were equal.

Yeah.

We're grateful to be here and we hope that you will join us more as we launch new episodes. We will have one episode a week. So depending on the platform where you were listening,

please subscribe, download, tune in each week. Tell your friends, please tell your friends. And if you wanna follow us on social media, we are on Instagram at Soulstirredpodcast.

Follow us, follow us. We look forward to hearing from you, to talking with you, to hearing your story, to sharing your story if you want. We would love to have you on the show.

Let's connect. We looking forward to seeing you, well, talking to you next time. Yeah, we do.

Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of SoulStirred, Stories of Growth and the Human Experience. We hope our stories have touched your heart and sparked refletions in your

own journey. Remember, while we are therapists, we are not your therapists, and this podcast is not a substitute for therapy. If you find yourself in need of professional support,

please don't hesitate to seek it. Your well-being is important, and there are professionals out there who are ready to help.

We encourage you to carry the spirit of growth and connection with you. Life is a continuous journey and we're honored to be part of yours.

Stay tuned for more captivating stories on the episodes to come. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other.