- Pain is inevitable, but
suffering is optional. - And the fact that even though
I went through all of that, all of these bad things, I'm still here and I'm still resilient. And I am taking the time
to make my life better than it has been. And that gets people to change. (upbeat music) There's a part of an
article I'd like to read. I read it when I was
preparing for this interview. It's by Shawn Ginwright. "The Future of Healing: Shifting
From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement." And one of the things that stuck out to me is Shawn said, "A
healing centered approach to addressing trauma
requires a different question that moves beyond what happened to you, to what's right with you and views those exposed to trauma as agents in the creation
of their own well-being, rather than the victims
of traumatic events." We're not saying the trauma didn't happen. We're saying you have trauma
and you experience this, but give them the hope of the future and not letting them only
identify as a victim of trauma. - I really liked that,
the healing centered because at the baseline of working with trauma
survivors is really that cause you have to empower
them to wanna be healed and to find that healing within themselves and in their lives. So how do you do that? I think taking part of what
you said, this author said, which is focusing more on the person and the LMS that they
already have within them to heal themselves is a good way to do it. But sometimes it's a matter of reframing, reframing, okay, you
see this as I've failed in life this many times, but to reframe that it's but look at how many
times you've succeeded, look at how you've succeeded in this. Look at how well you did in this and to reframe it into
so that they then look at their wins and not their losses. - Yeah, yeah. We have to get people to
learn from their losses, but feel the joy of their wins. - Yes. - And I think people
feel from their losses and discount their wins. - Yes, I worked with a
psychiatrist years ago when I was first in graduate school. And he said something that stuck with me all these years later, which is pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. - I like that. - Which means that we all are going to experience
pain at some point. But it's how you deal with that pain and if you choose to suffer, which is what separates the
winners from the losers. - Yeah, for many people I think to truly feel resilient, you have to feel that there
is hope for the future. In fact, now that I'm
saying that out loud, that could almost be the
definition of resilience is believing that there
is something ahead of us worth sticking around for
and worth fighting for. So if we know that the feeling of hope can build our resilience, how can first responders
and health workers inject hope into these
interactions with patients? - That can be a more, the
more difficult part of it all because one of the core features of major depression is hopelessness. - Yeah, right. It's the opposite. - Yes, so if you're dealing
with people who are hopeless and they don't see the hope in it, you can come in and try to offer
them ways of reframing that and looking at that situation differently. But then, like you said before, if you go back to the same
environment, the same house, that reeks of hopelessness, then there you are,
you're back in that space. So sometimes for therapy, working with a person
and me being an outsider and me having the hope is enough to model the
hope for my patients because they see that, okay, this person is
knowing my whole story and this person still has hope. So sometimes that's
enough to give them hope. - You equipped your clients with resilient practicing strategies or strategies to help them
build their resilience. What are some of those strategies? - Mindfulness is a way
for patients to center in and be aware of the surroundings
in a current moment. So an example of a mindfulness technique might be for them to check
out their five senses, pick out five things in the
environment that they can see and then go down a list, four things that you can
hear and so on and so forth. Because what that does is let's
say you're in a traffic jam, everyone gets stressed
out by traffic jams. If you're sitting at a traffic jam, you're focused on why am I not moving? Am I gonna be late for the next thing? But if you can get a person to focus in on the things around them in that moment, it tends to calm them down. - Yes, yes, okay. So mindfulness is a big one. Something that everyone
can do, anything else? - Other things to help
with resilience is support. And I think the research says that for a person to have support around them. So friends, families,
maybe coworkers, neighbors, anyone that can be a support
system to that person is a big way to help them be resilient. Because those people around
us are going to remind us of how strong we are, how we've conquered other things before. Hey, come talk to me today, if you need to go out for
a drink, let's do that. So support system is also a good component of that for resilience. Another thing for resilience
is really therapy. That can help because
sometimes the therapist is the only person in the person's circle that lets them know that
they can overcome this and to inspire them and to push them. Everyone doesn't have that in their lives and in their circle. And I think a lot of people
take that for granted. Sometimes I even take it for granted. Sometimes I wonder like, I think this person can
really do this on their own and they don't think they need
to come to therapy anymore. I think we're good. But then I look at the
support in their life and in this lacking. So maybe I am it. - Right, there's a
reason I end every series and almost every other
video we do at MedCircle with you got this, because it is for those
people who don't hear that, what a shame. - It is a shame.
- What a shame to not hear that from your
friends and your family. Wait, if you're only
hearing you don't have this, you'll never move past this. When you hear different versions of basically you are your trauma, that's the wrong message
to send to people. That message does not get
people to the next level. - And if you add onto that, sometimes the recording and the script that's going on in a person's
head is that already. So then if you add these
external factors to that that are negative, they don't have a good chance of recovery. So sometimes therapy is the one thing that they need to continue for years in order to stay on track. - We're getting two
sides from the therapist, from the patient's perspective. We're getting the validation that I actually did experience trauma because maybe I thought, what you consider trauma
was just normal life. And so you're validating some feelings that I probably have around
something I went through, but then you're also giving me a attitude to model of hope and resilience, and then tools to take with
me outside of the office, including mindfulness and disconnecting, disengaging, and centering myself. When we attack it from all of those ways, I feel very hopeful for people because I can see that we're taking a more holistic approach
at their mental health. - Yes and it is what you
said, it's very holistic. I don't know a lot of therapists that only look at things one way. Usually we look at the
whole system of the person. So it could be that most
of a person's trauma and their anxiety, that's
a result of the trauma is really due to a lack
of diet and exercise. So what if I don't live next to a gym? What if I can't afford a gym membership? What can I do to then exercise and get the serotonin and
endorphins moving enough so that I can feel better. So sometimes it's a multifaceted approach that involves lots of different things that may not be psychological in nature, but can be effective. So like I said before, though, sometimes giving the
patient hope and saying, "well, I see your situation. I know you're strong and
I know you're competent and I know you're resilient and I believe that you can overcome this." And this is what makes me believe that, sometimes that's all they have. So sometimes if they hear me say that, they're like, "You know what, I'm okay." - Sometimes that's all they have, sometimes that's all you need. - Sometimes it's all you need. So you can feel hope
vicariously from other people, because sometimes they'll say, "I don't have hope, but your hope will make
me do this this week and then I'll be back." - Yeah, it's really good. When you said to make sure
that when you're dealing or speaking with a patient
that we, that you say, I believe you can do it. And I think there is hope for you. In that room with a
therapist, a psychologist or psychiatrist, we focus
on the problem so much, what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong. And it's so nice to hear what's
right with you, you know? That gives you such a spark to go, yeah, I did come here cause I
had a laundry list of things that I'm mad at, that I'm angry at, that I suffered from that I didn't deserve but I also got a little reminder about the amazing things that I did. And the fact that even though
I went through all of that, all of these bad things, I'm still here and I'm still resilient and I am taking the time
to make my life better than it has been. And that gets people to change forever. - Yes, hope. - Oh, huge. I thank you for watching this series and joining us for this
wonderful, wonderful conversation around community-based violence
and what to do, what to do. I hope you found that valuable. I'm Kyle Kittleson. Remember, whatever you're
going through, you got this. Thanks for watching. Check out the links below
for more information on how to access this full series and subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch new mental
health videos every week. Did you like what you heard in this video? If you wanna ask a MedCircle
doctor a question directly, you can learn how by visiting the links in the description below. (upbeat music)
