Normalizing Trauma Responses: Navigating Grief and Family Relationships | MC McDonald

Hello, my friends, welcome to the Life Shift podcast. I am here with Doctor MC McDonald. Do we go by MC? Is that what we're saying? MC is great. Yeah. Thank you for being a part of the Life shift podcast. We connected, through one of your connections and reached out about you had just written a book and about your experiences and your knowledge in the trauma area and how we can process that. And so we'll talk a little bit about your book today, but I just want to welcome you and, as part of this podcast, because this is what I like to talk about in this weird, weird way. Like, why would someone want to talk about trauma all the time? Right. I don't know if you feel that way as well, but oh my gosh. Yeah. Right. It's like, I think honestly, I think the trauma that I've experienced and since processed a lot of, I feel like it makes me a more well-formed human being, right? And that I understand various assets. 

I understand where I can break down, and I understand how to process that moving forward. So in some case, I feel that the trauma that I've experienced has made me a better person. Yeah. I, it's, it's beautiful that you've gotten to that position because I think that is in the, or the story arc for many people. I certainly feel that way as well. It has been, and I wanna be careful with the language here because this is just how we're beginning. But, um, it has been in a lot of ways, a gift because it has brought to my life incredible depth and empathy for other people and understanding of, of situations that I wouldn't have had access to. 

Otherwise, I think if we can think about trauma and, and that point of healing as possible, then we can, we can enter into the healing process with a lot more hope than with this understanding that if you have trauma, that means you are somehow like marred or broken or, you know, and I relate to going back to what you said a minute ago about like this is what you love to talk about. They sort of nicknamed me as a sarcastic joke at my first teaching job. Doctor Sunshine because I was studying um mourning and child loss and death and then moved on to trauma, combat trauma, sexual assault, and suicide. And they were like, what are you gonna study next? Doctor Sunshine. It, it, it is, it's interesting and I would say that maybe more, more so now, but I don't know that a lot of people in the world gravitate towards that, at least in a positive way because I don't look at it as, as a sense of like, I want to get sad or I want to get really deep and emotional about it. I want to look at it and how can we learn and grow from that experience. In a lot of cases, the trauma is something that was external, right? And so like in my case, my trauma, I mean, it manifested into an internal trauma, but it was started from an external trigger, right? And so I couldn't control that, right? And uh then I didn't have the tools to control the internal trauma that was happening because of it. And now after processing, I think that I have more of those tools and I can acknowledge them and I can publicly acknowledge them so that maybe other people that are going through something can be like, oh, I'm not the only person to experience this because sometimes we feel so alone in it. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And then we get stuck and think that our experience is the only, you know, no one has had it like this. 

Nobody could understand me. And then you end up with a very small life. I think that's so well said, yeah, I think I love having this, this podcast, and this platform to be able to just bring it out. I've always told people that my goal really truly. And this sounds so small, but so important for me is that each episode finds the ears that need to hear it the most. And even if it's just one person that doesn't feel so alone in whatever they're experiencing, they're like, oh, someone else has gone through this, and look what they've done with it. 

Maybe that's possible for me, that's kind of my goal, you know, and I think that what you're gonna share and the story that you are going to shortly tell us all about and kind of how you got there and how you got past it and what you've learned from it. I think that a lot of people, it will, it will, a lot of people will relate to what you have to share because I don't know that it's super uncommon what you experienced, you know. So I think we're gonna hit the goal. Yeah. Yeah. No. And you said, you know, you said that that was kind of a small goal. 

I think that's a beautiful, huge goal because when, you know, hopefully we've all had that experience where something meets your ears at the exact right moment and you feel less alone and like there might be a reason to go on and that there are things to hope for and people who can understand you. It's true. I think I say it's a small goal because I think if you look at it from a podcasting perspective. People will be like, wow. Wow, why would you only want one person to listen? And it's not that only one person is listening, but if it hits the right right ears at the right time, then, then we win. 

And, and before we get into your story, I just want to just say one more thing about that power of storytelling. It's not just for the listener. Right. Oh, The guests will come on and share a story that they've never shared before. They'll share it in a way that they've never, you know, said out loud and it can empower people, power storytelling. Oh my gosh, I love that. 

That's actually how I started out studying trauma was in looking at the way that the human psychology is structured by story and what happens when something shatters the story. And so that brought me into study, moving away from grief. Um and, and studying trauma. And um one of the super fascinating things about telling a story is that every time you tell your story, you're forced into an external perspective. So for me to talk to you about what happened to me, I have to kind of stand back from what happened to me in order to tell the story in a way that's coherent. And every time you do that, you're signaling to your brain that what happened is in the past and you are in the present and that can really help you, you know, categorize the memory, recognize it as a memory and stop having some of the symptoms that come up when we have an un integrated memory that comes forward as you know, an instance of reliving instead of remembering. So you're absolutely right. It is super powerful to tell your story. And I love that you use the word empowerment because that's exactly what, what I imagine David Denbo talks about um taking a riverbank perspective on your life when you're, when you're narrating. And so what that means is that if you imagine your life as the river that's flowing and you're standing in the middle of it, you can get knocked over, you can get really disoriented, you can lose your footing, you can feel dizzying. And so when we narrate, we step back and we get this river bank perspective where we're standing on the river bank. And we're like, OK, I see the arc. 

I see how fast the current is going. I can make decisions from a stronger place, you know. Yeah, that's fascinating. And I love the idea of that shattering that it really resonate. So, you know, let's, let's jump into kind of your story. What I love is when a guest can kind of paint the picture of what life was like leading up to kind of this moment. And what brought you to that, that what we feel is your specific moment that changed everything for you Yeah. So I grew up in a, in a small town with a big family, um, MC stands for Mary Catherine. So you can imagine that we were a Catholic family. So I have five siblings. 

Oh, so, you know. Exactly. So I had five siblings and grew up very much in the Catholic church. So I had AAA very unified family system and a set of beliefs about the world that said things like, you know, bad things don't happen to good people. Um And if you pray, you will get a miracle, right? 

Some of these things that get sort of spread through the institution were my, sort of, it was my scaffolding for how I understood and navigated the world. My um household was a little bit chaotic and I was very sensitive and my parents did a wonderful job. Both of them came from places where from households where uh there was a lot of chaos and no, no ability, no coping tools, no help with your emotional life. And so, you know, they did an amazing job given where they came from and um emotions. I, I grew up in a house where emotions were supposed to be managed and kind of felt on your own. And the, the best sort of um metric about whether you were OK is if you could present yourself in public and keep your emotions sort of like tapped down over here, tamped down. Um And so that worked I was pretty bad at that growing up. 

I was a very sensitive kid um and had some stuff going on that was, that was pretty intense. And um I, so I arrived in, in young adulthood at, at 24 very high functioning. Um I was in graduate school, I had a full time job. I was doing very well in everything. Um And everything was going sort of as plan, my coping mechanisms that I had learned in childhood were working. I was able to keep my emotions tamped down all the time and always just be moving forward. And then in 2005, um my dad had this cold and it wouldn't go away. And at Thanksgiving, he had this cold, he had it, I think in like October wouldn't go away. 

Thanksgiving, it wouldn't go away. Now he had some back pain. And um my, my father was just, had an incredible work ethic and was a very cheery, joyful jovial human. So to see him not feeling well, was totally new. And so my like spy senses started tingling. Um And I started being like, should you go to the doctor? Like, what's going on? Um And it was sort of like, no, no, it's just a cold, everything's fine. 

Your body tells you when there's something seriously wrong. And um it turned out that he had a very late stage colon cancer that didn't have obvious symptoms because of where the tumor was and so he went over the course of 10 days, went from like, being at work and being pretty functional except for not feeling super well to dead. Oh, wow. And so, and his, he, he died on Christmas morning in 2005 and he loved Christmas and it was just this, how can this be happening? Was the first and only thought for so long, how can this be happening? Like what? Yeah. And, and also just, yeah, like you were told your whole life or trained, I guess your whole life to, to put the emotions aside, deal with it. 

Figure it out present. I'm OK. Were you still in that moment or like was there a battle between that loss, not loss? I mean, loss of your father but loss of like you're lost because he's now gone. And now how do I present and, and perform to the highest? Because I'm also assuming that your, your upbringing forced you to be a really good student and to do a lot of good things and be successful because that was how you earned whatever exactly made you feel good. 

Yeah, you get it. Yeah, totally. And so I it's interesting that you ask about a battle that my old coping techniques worked for about six months. And then there was this rupture where I started having um really intense panic attacks. Um and I had struggled with anxiety since I was a kid. But the um the anxiety was really breaking through and it started to get in the way of my work, which then threatened exactly what you just pointed out. Which is that OK? 

If my metric in the world for how I'm doing is how well and how much I'm producing as soon as that starts to suffer, I will break down. And so I spent a couple of months in really acute pain and fearful for my life. Not because I didn't want to go on, but because I was so gripped by panic that I was worried that I would do something to make it stop. Mm Because nothing would make it stop. Right. Do you think that was that um was that anxiety that anxiety probably stems from that earlier upbringing of just not being able to process things or not being allowed, I guess maybe is the better word. And so that kind of manifested into this and totally relate just on a side note, it totally relates to the idea. 

I talk a lot to people about this checklist life, which it sounds like you kind of were living as well as is that society gives us this checklist and we have to graduate high school and then we have to go to college and then we have to get a good job. And if a promotion is available, we must take it. We must, we must, we must, we must and then it creates that what happens if I can't, who am I? I? Right. Right. And who's gonna love me and who's going to accept me? And will people see me for the person that I've created for the world to see or will they see? Did you have a fear of people seeing like the real version of MC? 

Like, that's a great question. Yeah, I think, um, I think initially it was just so shocking, like the panic was just so shocking. It definitely started when I was, when I was growing up because um I was taught that I was too emotional and that, that so there was this belief that like if I had to express emotions in front of another person, this revealed that there was something wrong with me fundamentally. And so, you know, panicking at home is one thing having anxiety and not being able to sleep when you're by yourself, that's fine. But when you're at work or when you're on the bus or public transport on the subway and you're having it happening everywhere everywhere. 

Yeah, a very visible panic attack and, and other people have to help you, you know, um that's, I mean the word horrifying comes up like, right. So it's, it's like that was my biggest nightmare was to have that piece of me be revealed. And then also like on top of that, I was like, who, who am I like, what is happening, right? Because you didn't have the understanding of where it was manifesting or what was because it's so, it's, I've only had panic attacks a few times in my life and they were out of nowhere. I mean, I kind of knew what the trigger was but I didn't know what was physically happening and why I couldn't just stop it. And I can't imagine this in, like, in public. Were you a fairly independent person at the time as well? Oh, yeah. I was living alone. 

I worked full time. I was in graduate school. Like I was, I was a New Yorker. You know, I went from, like, living in a very small town to living in Manhattan. And so I had had this very, like, couple 33 years of very, like, empowering, you know, I am, I'm an adult like I'm doing it, I'm paying my bills. 

I have this job. I have these coworkers. I'm doing well. I keep getting promoted. I'm doing well in school. Like hitting the checklist, hitting the checklist. Exactly. By the way, I don't think I mentioned this. 

I was studying grief. Oh, in my master's degree, which was hilarious because I was like, again, this is so indicative of like who I was at the time. I was like, well, you look at emotions academically is what you do. You know, like you, you look at other people's emotions from the 18 hundreds in this very, like, cold and calculating way and you lay them out and then you, you know, put your work out there and then you know how to be and it, uh it, none of it, I mean, it was incredibly helpful for me to be able to do to, to have that background. But also it was um it was just kind of further proof of how disconnected I was from my own lived experience and my body and I think however horrifying the panic was, and it was, I mean, I remember the first panic attack like it just happened. And as you mentioned before, you know, you are, I was in my apartment, everything feels normal. 

You're like walking across the room and then it hits you like a train and most people assume that something catastrophic is happening physically. Like you don't even necessarily know that it's a panic attack. You're like, I'm gonna die like I'm having a heart attack or something awful. Yeah, it's, it. I can't explain it and I can't actually, thankfully, I can't remember it for me. I remember the, the, I don't know, not the experience, but I remember like it happening and like the way I felt in like a nebulous sense like, yeah, but I don't remember the physical like, I don't remember any of that. 

Thankfully, maybe I pushed it down. It's fine. But no, I mean, I think it's important. I think it's interesting that you were studying grief but also experiencing it. But also probably there was still kind of like some kind of wall in between those two parts. Huge disconnect. Yeah. And I made this hilarious phone call to a therapist who, like, if, if I, we, we, we worked together for the whole rest of the time I was in New York, I could probably call her today and she would remember this conversation, but I left this message and I was like, you know, um, I've had a recent loss in my life and I, uh, everything was fine for about six months. I'm grieving. Well, right. Checklist. Um, and, uh, but recently I've been having some panic attacks and it's now getting in the way of work. So I'd like to come in for like, you know, six sessions maybe and, and knock that out, you know, and she was like, oh, great. Can you give me the list of things to do so I can process? Where's the checklist? Yeah, exactly. Well, and, and here, here's the thing though. 

I think that this is a product of our parents not having the tools and then we're absorbing that living to the standards of our parents, not having those tools, not to their fault. Just society wasn't giving them the tools. People weren't talking about it. You know, in the same sense when my mom died, my dad didn't know what to do. This was like late eighties, early nineties. He and his mom didn't have the tools because she's from, you know, she was born in the thirties. And so they didn't talk about like, to your parents, like they didn't talk about this stuff. And so, you know, we're just doing the best that we know how to do at the time and for someone that's high functioning, like you wanting to be successful, I could see you wanting, like, just do you have a pamphlet that I can just kind of follow like a recipe book maybe for, for getting through this. What did she say to you? 

I mean, she said, I think I can help. And so I came in and I cried for the entire first session. 50 straight minutes could not even, like, speak, which was horrifying to me. But, but again. Exactly. Right. Right. And, and then she's, you know, I think that was, that was probably a very important foundational experience for me trusting her because at no point in that 50 minutes, did she say? Ok, pull it together, you know? Yeah. Like you felt safe. I felt safe. Yeah. Was that your first time kind of breaking down in front of someone in which you felt supported and safe? 

Yeah, I think so. I had gone to therapy before in college. There was a couple, there were a couple of things that, that were going on in college and, um, but I approached it as, again, like here's this thing that happens. Um, it's kind of getting in the way. Help me fix it, you know. 

And, um, I think those clinicians probably saw how closed off I was but you can't get to somebody if they're not willing to, to go there, you know. Um, and so I was really surprised at how different that experience of therapy was because I was like, well, this is just how you go, you go for six or 12 weeks, you get a tool, you move on with your life, you know. Um or you say the thing to someone who you can't say to any, anything else about that, you can't say to anyone else. And then, and that's the work, you know. Um, but this was, and I think she recognized really, really quickly and didn't tell me thankfully that we were gonna need to figure out a totally different way of being in the world. And so, um, that, that was the beginning of the work and, you know, you talk about these pivotal moments like that was, that was a pivotal moment and I think two things are so merciful. 

One, our symptoms show up in the way that we need them to. So if I had had symptoms that weren't getting in the way of my work, I probably wouldn't have paid attention. And I think that's fascinating, like our bodies know how to get our attention. Um And the other merciful thing is that I had no idea how much I had to rebuild and why do you say that's, that part is merciful because it would have been overwhelming. Yeah. If, if, if she had said to me, look your way of being in the world is untenable, we got to start from scratch. 

We have to go through your entire childhood. Everything that's happened to you and, and, and learn how to be in your body and then navigate the world in relationships in a completely different way. I would have been like, no, I'm good. You know, you start drinking well, I mean, sometimes it just feels insurmountable and so you just don't do it. Like that mountain is too big. I'm not even going to start climbing it. Right. And it's just easier to pretend I walk around the mountain, it'll still be there, you know, it's not going anywhere here or sit down or whatever. Do you feel that that the moment of you, like, actually reaching out for help was kind of your moment that changed your life or did it get worse before it got better? And there was another moment that kind of really changed it because it's, it's always interesting to see, like, was it a phone call? Was it a, an email kind of thing? 

That's a great question. I mean, that was an incredibly pivotal relationship. That phone call was very important. I remember where I was. I remember like I, I was, I could be standing there right now where I was in my apartment, you know, and what I said and um but I think there were 1000 moments. 

Yeah, after, you know, I remember um that because it's, it's happening in therapy and then it's also happening in the rest of your life. So you're having these conversations in therapy and then you're having relationships and coworkers and, and stuff like that. So you're, you're healing and doing, you know, doing work all the time. And so I think there were 1000 pivotal moments um because I think also like the image that I'm getting is that I was really rebuilding and it was like, you know, brick by brick, like, OK, here's this moment and here's this moment and some of those moments were humorous moments and some of them were healing moments and some of them were moments of being seen and some of them were moments of like relational failure, you know. Um So, but I'm also picturing, you know, as you paint this picture since I asked you to paint a picture like a cinderblock wall. And this is me just making assumptions here. So welcome to my podcast. Uh But the Cinderblock wall that you have because for some reason, I'm picturing a cinder block wall weirdly and it's gray and it's no paint or anything. And that phone call was like that he like broke the first cinder block at the top starting to like we gotta, we gotta to take down this wall and we can build like a garden or a greenhouse or something else. But that was like, maybe that first thing because I think, you know, there is some kind of like precipice that we get to. 

Totally, that makes us want to like, ok, it's time like, you know, and maybe this was a subconscious thing that you, you finally, I mean, you said you had gone to therapy but you weren't really like, you weren't ready for it. Maybe this was the time you were ready for it and you were ready to absorb what needed to be in that phone call. It's kind of just that first. Chisel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I love that image because I think it's like, you know, everything shatters your whole belief structure shatters. So I'm picturing a sort of like apocalyptic scene and you just go run and hide in a corner and you block yourself in, you build these walls around you because everything feels dangerous. Right? And so, yeah, and that's not a tenable way to live in the world. And so when someone comes in and helps you, you're having to knock those, those blocks out and to see the world again, you know. 

Well, and for someone like you growing up in a very, what's the word sheltered in a way society, especially with a high demand religion and something that is, I don't, I don't know if you're still a part of that, but I'm not. And, and there are a lot of things that people are taught in high demand religions or in just re organized religions. I should say that maybe are not real world, like, real, like, I mean, they're nice thoughts. Right. But I don't know that there are actual things that you can go through. And so for the first time in your life you were like, I need help and, and maybe that's ok. Right. And, you know, like I can't, I thought I could do it all or I pretended that I could do it all and be very successful, but maybe I can't. And I think we've had those, I think you're right about, we all have little shifts, you know, that, that are pushing us in different directions. But sometimes it's that one if we never did it, like, what if you just kept surviving and trying to do it? Where would you like, what do you think would have happened? 

I think I would have, I would be an addict. Um There's a lot of addiction, a lot of alcoholism in, in, you know, in my extended family. And I um there's a reason, right? You know, um addiction often comes from overwhelm and, and when folks are using it's often because they are trying to numb. And I think on, on some unconscious level, I could see that path, you know, like it's like these three paths like appear to you, you could check out completely, you can do this really hard thing and go up this mountain or you can take this third road where you're numb a lot of the time. And, um, the kind of alcoholism that runs in my family, in my family is high functioning. And so there's that tie with as long as you are keeping it together as long as you are going to work. Um, you're fine. So that's, that's, I think the road that, that I would have taken, which is, would it be weird to say that maybe you were already addicted to burying for what you were doing and, and being a high functioning addict on whatever that is, maybe it wasn't a substance, but it was for sure in action. And I, I still struggle with that honestly, like the things that have come up in the last handful of years have to do with workaholism and I had a therapist sit across from me and, you know, I was running through some list of ridiculous things I had going on or I was doing and he said, you know, um, your workaholism is gonna ruin your life. And I laughed because I thought, oh, you know, some people, sometimes people use that word, like I'm a workaholic. It's like a funny thing, you know what I mean? And he's like, I mean, it, and, uh, so I've been trying to, you know, it's kind of funny to put it in this way. 

I work on that a little bit. Um, which is hard. But I could, because I can feel the compulsive pull. Right. If I totally, totally. And then, like, safe space. Right. Exactly. And it's such a good, it's such a, it's such a, um, it's intoxicating to be producing and to be working and be really, I was talking to somebody about this yesterday. Like I had, I really struggle with, with being finished with something because that feels like free fall. 

I like to be in the middle and really like bogged down because there's something that's intoxicating about that. You're, you're really taken up by that by that external thing. Oh, and you're taken away from processing other things in your life and the trauma and those kind of things. So what did your journey start to do for you? Like, what did you start noticing in your life that, that started changing now that you've like taking down that wall and figuring out how to build a new version of you in this existence? Yeah, that's a great question. And the first thing that happened was that my relationship with my mom became uh you know, put under the microscope. Um My mom, I sometimes call a benevolent terrorist because she was um you know, she grew up in, in a, it's so important to see our parents in a both and situation, right? Like she, the things she accomplished in her life were miraculous given the chaos that she came from and she was absolutely ruled by fear. And so she ruled by fear. And I found her to be very terrifying and really constructed. 

My entire identity kind of in opposition to her, not out of conflict, but out of like adaptation. If I can fly under the radar, if I can manage myself, then I, then I will be safe. And I had never seen that. I had never considered it. I didn't realize the force that she had in my life. I didn't know how to pull it apart or understand it or what I was, what I was like carrying on from the way that she was in the world. Um But as soon as my father died, that relationship with my mom became a critical part of therapy. And then my mom also died really quickly, you know, very soon after my father. And so, um then it was about like, you know, number one, I feel at sea, I've lost my anchors. 

My anchors now are very confusing when I look back because I never thought about anything critically from my childhood. But I'm realizing that the way that I was raised and the set of circumstances that have happened have set me up for this total shattering of self. And so what pieces do I even want to, to include as I move forward? And I think a lot of healing has happened in relationships, failed relationships in particular because you see all of your dynamics and how much fear is involved in your, relating to other people. And I think, I don't know if you've had this experience too but when you've had catastrophic loss, connecting with other people is a different thing than people who haven't. So, yeah. So, learning how to, like, connect to other people and feel safe and, and to learn how to rest or celebrate or feel joy, like all of these things were, um, were part of it. But I think it's gonna be a lifelong path. Yeah. Well, and I think too I can certainly relate to, you know, it sounds like our parents were different but in the sense that like you were high functioning, you were achieving, you were doing these things because you didn't want to upset your mother in a way. 

You didn't want to be in that the danger zone if you will, whether that's tamping down emotions or the other side of it, like I'm doing all these great things. Look at me, look at me, I'm in the safe zone. Safe zone. Right. Not, don't, don't, don't go in the middle. Yeah. You know, and when I, when my mom died and I was eight, I subconsciously did, did that out of fear myself that I was going to be abandoned by other people because in an eight year old's mind, my mom dying was her abandoning me, not on purpose. 

You know, I didn't but it was an abandonment. And so I felt that if I didn't get straight A's, if I didn't do this, if I didn't do that, I put it all on myself. No one put it on me. But if I didn't impress other people or let them know I was going to be ok, then they might leave too. And then what? And then who am I? But then I got just like, you kind of got, you know, it just became an addiction in a sense of like, I just have to keep achieving and at some point it gets exhausting and you just can't like, is this all there is just me on this hamster wheel that keeps rolling up this hill? You know, did you ever, I mean, I know you said you're still working on that but have you broken that down a little bit in, in your own life and the way that you approach work and the things that you love to do? And yeah, I think so. 

I, I have so many questions I want to ask you to, I don't know if that's ok. Um, but I think um I'm very closed off. Please don't ask me questions. Just kidding. I, I think I at least have much more awareness now of how much of my identity I've tied up with work. And I think for a long time, I thought, ok, well, if you do a lot of things, then your identity can't be tied up with work because you're doing a lot of different things and you're putting your energy in other places. But what I realized um I had a job that was very meaningful, meaningful to me that um we lost our funding. It was a research project and we lost our funding really unexpectedly. Um And I had put so much meaning and so much effort into this project that was all of a sudden just like done that. 

It, that was a huge, like splash in the face, not just because it was a loss of that meaning, but because I saw really, really vividly like you are engaging in this in a really unhealthy way. And um that was in 2019, that was right before the pandemic. And so, um this is really recent work for me where I'm like, OK, what's the balance between being really involved in things that you find meaningful and also having, you know, some other things in your life and not tying so much up with one project or three projects where if they fail or something happens or whatever, you lose pieces of yourself, you know, um because it's like, you know, having an addiction to work, I've never talked about this out loud. This is so interesting. Um Having an addiction to work is um is tricky because you can't just stop, right? You can't abstain. And so what you have to do is figure out how to dance with it in a way that's less compulsive and less about control and less about tying your identity up with things. 

So, um, and that being said, when I get really, when things, you know, in my personal life are, are tricky, I immediately go back into overwork and it's, I'll, I'll be a month in of staying up until 11 o'clock every single night, getting up at seven, sitting at the desk the entire day before I realize that I'm doing it. And so it's like, uh you know, here we are, are you someone that throughout your life, whether before times or current times are you someone that has celebrated achievements of your own? It's just what's next? Yeah, it's so funny that you say that, that exact phrase because I was a huge um West Wing fan. I don't know if you ever watched that show? I didn't, but you know what it is, right? So the President, you know, this was always the thing, there would be this huge drama that was going on and usually by the end of the episode or sometimes twice in the episode, it would pan over to the president and he would say what's next. And I love that because it's so like, what's next, what's next? 

What's next celebration feels really foreign to me. It feels like dangerous. It feels like this is when something bad happens is when you pause and you have the arrogance and the audacity to say, wow, I did a great job. That's when you get taken out by the knees, you know. Um So, no, not a lot of celebration. 

I challenge you to do it. I am someone as well that, I mean, it goes back to my thought on this checklist life that I was living. It was very much I did this. So what, what's next? OK. It's the next achievement. Ok. Great check mark go on. And just recently, I've tried to take a step back kind of that river bank feeling of looking at. 

Wow, like I just did an, an additional graduate degree because I was bored, like there's something to celebrate there and the old version of me wouldn't have. But it took me saying publicly, I like to dump my feelings on social media as much as possible because who knows who needs to see it. And I was like, you know, guys, I'm almost finished with this degree. Should I go? I don't think I'm gonna go. 

It's just like 30 seconds on a stage. And I got so many responses saying you need to go, you need to celebrate. This is big. You've done X Y Z, you worked a full-time job. This was during a pandemic. And so when I got that feedback, I was like, you know what, I need to do a better job of this. And so with the podcast, I try to take a moment and reflect on what I've done over the, over the time and, and what kind of achievements have come from that. But it's hard. And so I see a lot of the way I operated and still operate in what you're sharing as well. And so that's kind of where that question came from. 

We, you need to, you, you should try, try to celebrate those big wins because, I mean, one just happened. I know this episode is coming out months later. But, you know, you're, you just released a new book, I think you have other books as well, but you just released a new book in March of 2023. So maybe you can kind of weave in how your journey fed into that or does it at all? Yeah. No, absolutely. It does. And I um you know, the book, it's, I'm kind of laughing as you're talking because I've been sort of frustrated like I don't have time to celebrate the book. 

I don't, you know, so there's something coming up where I know that there's a need to pause and celebrate. But I think it feels very, you know, there's this word in, in Neuroscience, Allo stasis. Have you ever heard of this? Our systems are, are they, they want homeostasis which is just equal blood flow and electrical activity across the cortex or the system or whatever. Um But when we have chronic stress, uh this system, does this adaptation called allo stasis, which is, which means it levels up to meet the level of chronic stress. And so the result of that, even though it's an amazing, beautiful adaptation is that things like rest or celebration actually feel like threat to the system. And so knowing that plus, you know, plus this new information that we're just talking about here is like, OK, how can I, how can I walk my nervous system into celebration in a way that feels safe to my body so that we don't because the thing is, I don't know how you felt on that stage when you, if you did go to graduation, but I did go. Oh Yeah, good. Um That might have felt really scary or like, oh, I don't, yeah, that everyone's telling me this is a good moment but like, I feel kind of like tense. Like, what was that like for you? It was, I mean, if we're being honest, it was exactly like I expected it to be. It was it my 40 years of not celebrating was very much the same. Like, why am I here? Why am I doing this? Looking back though? Reflecting on it. I'm glad I went, I'm glad that I took and I made a mark in the sand as that was. 

This is how I celebrated that that's complete. Now I move on. Uh But, you know, graduations are not exciting, just, just in general, they're kind of boring for most people, you're on the stage for 30 seconds. So, you know, but it was, yeah, exactly. It was August in, or in Gainesville, Florida. 

So, it was hot in a polyester gown thing. So, um, yeah. So, you know, it, I'm glad I went. I'm, I'm glad I did it. 

I'm trying to lean into reflect or at least pausing. Right. Pausing and reflecting on how far a certain project has come or how far, you know, I've developed or whatever that may be. I mean, I should go back and listen to my first episode of the show just to see how I, you know, have I developed. So, but back to you, tell me about, tell me about your book and how that came about and kind of what it's all about because I think it's related to your journey here. Oh, for sure. So, um the book is kind of a culmination of all of the work that I've done since I started graduate school in 2004 when I was doing my master's degree and then went on and did a phd and have been studying grief and mourning and trauma in lots of different ways ever since. And also um started a coaching practice in the middle of the, of graduate school. Um So you can see the coaching work on trauma. Yeah. Um Life coaching. Um And so I um I had all this work from these different places. 

I'm also an in an interdisciplinary scholar. So I pull in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience together because it's my belief that when we have the disciplines in conversation with each other, we actually get a holistic view of what we're looking at, which is much more helpful when it comes to treating and understanding than if we're looking at it from a siloed place. Of course, the silos are important because you need neuroscience to do neuroscience and psychology, to do psychology and all that. But when we pull them together, we can look critically at what's going on and also build something that's more um multidimensional. I call it like prismatic where like all of the, the pieces line up. So I had all this interdisciplinary work. 

I had this work with clients and then I had this personal experience and I've been publishing in academic in the academic world since I finished my dissertation in 2015. And that's, that's its own thing, you know, and, and academic publishing is really interesting because you put all this work and you have to, you know, people are like, they're like, basically, you know, you talk about a hamster wheel, it's like the hamster wheel's on fire. And if you don't keep running, you're gonna, you know, burn. And so um you're publishing and publishing and publishing and doing all this research that feels really important to you, of course, and nobody's reading it. It's not having any, it's not impacting anything or anyone um except for these tiny little, you know, places, these little circles. And so I thought, you know, I kind of wanna go rogue. I wanna write a book for everybody because I have a really unique set of pieces of knowledge. And if I can put that together and get that out, it will help people understand what trauma actually is versus what society has been telling you it is and how you can actually become empowered to um to recalibrate your nervous system. And so I started with this idea of Brokenness because so many clients that I was talking to and so many people in my own life and I certainly felt this way, feel like there's something wrong with them when they have these, these symptoms after a traumatic experience. But if you look at the science, what we see is that the trauma response is a set of default responses that exist to keep us alive. And so they're actually proof of the opposite of Brokenness. 

When you look at it from a scientific perspective, now we have to separate, of course, between the, the default responses and then the symptoms they cause which, which are distressing and need to be addressed. I'm not saying that the symptoms are, you know, happy, you're right. Exactly. But I think when we look at the, the, the foundation of the trauma response from this place, that isn't a place of shame, then we remove a huge barrier, that's too often in the way of healing. And that once we start there, we can start looking at our nervous systems tuning into what's going on in the body um and learn how to have some of empowerment over those responses when they happen in spaces when they shouldn't if that makes sense. Mhm Yeah. Is it, do you do structure the book more as like a help guide or is it more like stories? Parables research? How, how is it structured? Like who's your, who can pick this up and read it and how will it help them? 

Yeah, anyone can pick it up because um I wrote it to be um totally accessible. So you'll learn a lot about neuroscience, but you don't need to be a neuroscientist. And so the book is structured, each chapter has um a composite story which is uh you know, a group of um situations and symptoms that I've kind of put into one person so that it looks like one person. Um And so you read a case study and then there's um some explanation of what's going on there. So either some history of psychology or some neuroscience to be like, hey, this is why this symptom is showing up in this way. Here's how I helped this client. And then at the end of each chapter, there's one or two tools that you can practice and use uh in your own life based on what you're struggling with. And so the goal was to really make it a book that was easy and actually fun to read. But also gave you a bunch of information because I think a lot of people turn to books like the body keeps the score, which is amazing work of genius, um super dense and doesn't have a lot of like, OK, if this is you, here's what you do if this is, you try this, right? So there's not a lot of like um like humanness in that book. 

If that makes sense. Have you ever read what happened to you? Yes, of course. Yeah, I did actually a book club on that one. We had, I had a another guest earlier on. 

He recommended both of those books and actually the body keeps, the score has been recommended multiple times by people that I've talked to on here. Uh some that ventured into Cilia Cyb to try to help cure chronic PTSD. Another uh the E MD R I believe, is that another one was kind of influenced by that book to try that out and, and both successful in what worked for them. And so what that tells me is that when someone's ready, just like therapy, just like anything else, they can pick up these tools, whether it's your book name of it is unbroken. Yep, unbroken. The trauma response is never wrong. So they could pick up something like yours. 

They could pick up, you know, whatever book that's there. When they're ready, that book can help them because we all know you could read something till you're blue in the face. But if you're not ready to absorb that or to internalize any of that, just words on a page. Yeah. And I think the one of the reasons why I crafted the composite stories, the way that I did is because I think it's really critical that we see ourselves in the stories and can relate to pieces where you might not have had the exact experience. But you're like, oh man, that really resonate needs and that's missing from, from a lot of books that are more sort of textbook or dense because they're trying to get a ton of information across which of course they do well. But I think when we see ourselves in my own memoirs in the book as well, um a little bit and so uh a little bit, a little bit, not this workaholic stuff that's, that's in the next book. But I think it's, I think it's wonderful to take what we know personally. But then in your case, take what you've studied for years and years and years and find a way that you can help others through your really tough times. But also the things you know that you've learned question for you is putting this book together. 

Did it help you heal more in your own journey by kind of crafting this book because, I mean, writing a book, not that this is like your first thing you've ever written, but writing a book like this and putting it out there like this doesn't seem like what the younger MC would have done because it exposes you more. So how did, did it help you heal in any way? Yeah, that's a great question. Absolutely. Yes. Um, because also, you know, when you're writing composite stories, you're, and also when you're talking to clients, just like when you're talking to people, you're, you're also talking to yourself, you know, and it's, and it's, of course, you know, there's a lot more nuance in that. 

But, but you, I think clients appear and people in your life appear almost as you need them. You know, and we view sometimes like a therapeutic relationship that the only person who's getting a benefit is the patient or the client. And I think often we totally miss the fact that it's the other person is also getting a benefit because when you hear yourself telling someone that what they're feeling is totally ok. And you really believe that then it starts to impact the way you view your own emotions and, and self and you start to peel when you're helping someone else peel away shame, you start to peel away the shame in yourself. And so, um you, I think when you're writing these stories, you're also putting yourself into them if that makes sense and so it was healing in that way. And then also writing about my, the experience of the loss of my father and, and, and also my relationship with my mother. Um really, it helped me to take that river bank perspective to really stand outside of it. 

I've done a lot of work in therapy on those things. But writing about it for someone else, for a different reader, a different audience is an entirely different experience. And when you render something into story form, especially written story form, again, you're, you're, it's not that you set it in stone, but you, you, you have this, this, this empowering experience of deciding what it means for you. And um so being able to do that was really therapeutic and also frankly being able to write non academically was therapeutic because for someone to actually read for someone to read. And also that I'm not writing like in anticipation of my critics, you know, which of course there will be critics to this book too, but it's different than when you're writing a paper and then you're gonna go present it at a conference, you're doing that and, and, and, and you're, you have your critic in mind as you're writing and you're trying to anticipate their argument. And so to write in this way, felt much more free. Um I started writing when I was little to, to, because I had to, to like understand myself because nothing was making sense in my brain. Um And, and that kind of writing felt very grounding and freeing, which might sound like a contradiction. But this returned me to that. 

Yeah, which was great. Speaking of critics, uh you mentioned early on that you grew up in a small town in a big family. Has any of your family read this book or, or looked at it or given you any feedback on it. Um Two of my siblings have read it. I don't know about the other, about the others. Um And I don't know about, I know I got a note from an extended family member the other day who had just gotten it. And I was like, oh, let me know what you think, you know, because it's, it's revealing, you know, and not in any kind of like exploitative way. But um when I'm telling my story, which is my story and it's my, I'm allowed to tell it, but it also involves other people. And so it's funny that you ask that because I'm kind of waiting for the, you know, that's interesting to me because like on this show, um one of my episodes, I flipped the script and I had my first guest interview me. So I could tell a little bit of my story and it's different when you're telling your own story to someone you don't really know or you're just kind of like relaying how it is from that river bank perspective. It allows you to share things that maybe you wouldn't if you were face to face with your siblings or your extended family members. And one of the best things that came from, that was the ability for my father to sit independently and listen to me tell that story to someone else because he lived that experience with me. But he saw so many of the experiences in a different perspective because one he was in, you know, this this fight or flight mode trying to protect an eight year old who just had a parent die now becoming a single parent. 

My parents were divorced already, but you know, like that wasn't his sole responsibility. My mom was my primary caretaker. And so he saw a lot of those experiences differently. And what happened is he was able to listen and then we were able to have a conversation about it about how certain moments we didn't realize the other person was feeling one way or the other again, a product of the time period and people weren't really talking or sharing or those kind of things. But there is a value in that there is a value in sharing our stories and then letting other people hear how yeah, that story was for us because your siblings may have experienced a different, different right? And as you know, in a family system, people grieve differently. And that can be really confusing because everyone's got the job of grieving to do that they have not signed up for, but now are tasked with and uh what we need can be really different from each other. And that's sometimes because again, we live in a agree phobic society. 

There's not a real, we don't have a narrative or a way to, to navigate that out loud. And so often we just come up against each other's different accounts of what happened and what things were like. And, and that's not even just true with grief. That's also just true with like being in a family, right? Different siblings have really different experiences of the same parents. And that's not because one of them is lying. 

It's because we, you know, we have different experiences of the same thing. And so yeah, I'm curious if you don't mind me asking like, what was that like, did anything come up that was that made your, your father defensive or like was super surprising for either one of you. I don't think there was anything that was dramatic. I think that because it's been so long. Um this year, it'll be 34 years since my mom died. And so there's been a lot of growth in both sides, you know, and just how we've talked about stuff. I think it was just interesting for him to hear it laid out as a narrative because I think when you normally have conversations with people, it's just little segments, right? 

You're not talking like, here's what happened all the way to, to the point when I watched my grandmother die, you know, like, and that whole breath of stuff, he understands my, my grandmother part because we had developed, I was an adult and we had talked about a lot of things he didn't necessarily understand because for both of us, the time period when my mom died was very much a fog. You know, we, we were just trying to survive at that point. And so nothing, nothing crazy. And there was no, I think there was a lot of apologizing from my father, which was unnecessary in my perspective because I truly believe that everyone that was around me, whether they did a good job or not were doing the best that they knew how to do at the time with the tools that they had. And I can't fault people for, for just trying to do their best, even if we look back on it. And it doesn't seem like it was the best thing to do, you know. So there was a lot of apologizing and I was like, that's unnecessary. 

You don't, I'm not faulting you for any of them who would ask for this. None of us, you know, we just tried to survive. And, you know, I think like we started out in this conversation, these moments made me this version of me. So all the struggles that I had, all the things that I went through created this version of me. Had I not done that. Who knows where I would be? 

Probably wouldn't be talking on this call. You know, it's just, I'm grateful for all of that and that experience. So I don't think anything crazy. Oh That's good. That's good. So I always like to wrap these up with a question of kind of like looking back. And so I'm thinking this version of you, you just released this book out here in March 2023 you've kind of processed, you've put your own stories within those composite stories. 

Is there anything you could say to that version of you that still hadn't picked up the phone to call that therapist about like what you know now and what you've processed since then. Hm. I love that you asked this question and it's like one of my favorite parts of your podcast. Um I think that I, the thing that comes up whenever I think about myself in those moments is just like, oh, honey, like you're OK, everything that you're feeling is ok and it's normal and none of it is gonna take you out. And if you can just see this as a wave, let the wave hit you, you will get up again and you will keep moving on and the waves are coming from everywhere. And so sometimes they're gonna come from behind you and knock you over and that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong, your job here is to figure out how to keep standing up. 

Yeah, someone asked me that the other day I was guessing on a podcast and I was like, wait, you're not supposed to flip the script here and ask me this question. And it's mine would be very similar talking to that eight year old version of me. There's nothing I could say that would make his life any better in a, in a way of like you just lost your mom. So that whole your whole world is going to be different now. But I would want him to know that however he felt at any moment in time was a ok and it was, there was no need to be sad all the time, not feel like you have to be sad or if you have a great day, that's ok too. And that, that all of it is ok and that, that you'll, you'll find your way. But I think if I had known if I had permission from, not that I didn't have permission. But if I had a verbal permission to feel, however I was feeling at any point in time, I think that would have changed some things in my life. So it sounds like yours is very much the same as like it's, it's all gonna be ok and this is all normal and you don't have to go to war with yourself for having a feeling, you know, because this is already hard. And so why go to war with yourself about it? Yeah. And I think, you know, we are trained in this world that, or at least in America in a sense that there's a lot of shame, I guess to put on feelings if you and I don't, I no longer subscribe to that. 

It's not something that I believe in. And this show allows me to, to ask the questions that I've always wanted to ask, you know, and, and, and feel the way that I want to feel and see how others are feeling and, and dissect that. And so I just appreciate you coming on and, and sharing your story and kind of how you knocked down a little bit of that wall and started building up this version of you. 

I really appreciate it. Oh, I, I thank you so much. It's been great to be here and I, I so appreciate your podcast and what you're doing. It's really important. Thank you so much and uh we will link to your book and we'll give the information to everyone. So if you want to check out M C's book and uh check out any of your information or your coaching services or whatever comes along with, with what you offer to the world, we'll have that information in the show notes and they can reach out to you and connect with you and learn from you and challenge you to celebrate your wins. Like I did and to stop working so much or so hard all the time. So thank you for that. Thank you. And if you're listening and you enjoy this episode, we all know ratings reviews. Those are wonderful. We also don't know if they do anything but they make us feel good when we see them. So if you want to make me feel good, please give me a five star review. I got a, I got a three star once and I didn't like that one too much, but I made a shirt out of it. So it, it worked out in my, in my favor. But yeah, if you're listening and you enjoy, please rate and review super helpful, especially on Apple podcasts. And with that, we'll be back next week with a brand new episode of the Life shift podcast.