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The Place for Connection
Welcome to The Place for Connection, where I believe that connection is the CURE – the podcast where soul meets science, and healing takes centre stage.
Hosted by psychologist, breathwork practitioner, and all-around vibe curator, Melissa Beaton, this podcast dives deep into the art and science of connection – to yourself, your community, and the big beautiful world around you.
Each episode is a juicy mix of expert wisdom and heartfelt stories from healers of ALL kinds: psychologists, bodyworkers, doulas, yogis, spiritual guides, and even the ones who heal with music, art, and a bit of magic. We’re here to inspire, uplift, and get real about what it takes to live a connected, purpose-driven life.
This isn’t your average self-help podcast. It’s a space where radical authenticity meets practical tools, where curiosity replaces judgment, and where the real work feels less like a chore and more like a calling.
Why listen?
Because you’ll leave every episode feeling seen, heard, and ready to take the next step in your own healing journey. Whether you’re a professional, a healer, someone seeking growth, or just here for the good vibes – this is the place for you.
Want to work with Melissa?
Reach out via the website contact page at www.zensohouse.com or instagram @zensohouse
The Place for Connection
The Journey from Trauma to Transformation with Michelle M May
What if the stories we hide are the exact keys to unlocking our healing?
In this episode of The Place for Connection, I’m joined by the incredible Michelle M May—author, psychotherapist, Chair of the New Washington School of Psychiatry, ISTDP trainer, and trailblazing thinker—to explore a question that could change your life: What happens when we stop hiding and start telling the truths that set us free?
Michelle shares the raw and deeply personal journey behind her book, What I Couldn't Tell My Therapist: The Truths We Told to Heal Ourselves. Born from her own medical trauma, her story unfolds into a powerful narrative of collective healing, touching on the universal threads of pain, resilience, and transformation that bind us all.
We talk about the courage it takes to share stories wrapped in family dynamics and secrecy—and the liberation that follows when we let go of what weighs us down. Michelle dives into the heart of healing, exploring how honest conversations with loved ones can break cycles of silence, nurture connection, and spark collective growth.
One of the most eye-opening moments in this episode? Michelle’s metaphor of "puppet strings"—the unconscious patterns that pull at our lives. Together, we uncover how recognising these strings can lead to self-compassion, freedom, and genuine transformation.
This episode is a must-listen if you’ve ever felt held back by perfectionism, guilt, or the weight of untold stories. Let’s uncover the messy, beautiful path of healing, one thread at a time.
🎧 Listen now, subscribe, and leave a review to help other women discover these life-changing conversations. Your voice helps grow our community and spread the power of connection!
🔗 Links & Resources:
- Follow us on Instagram:
@zensohouse
@michellemmaylpc
- Visit our websites:
www.zensohouse.com
www.michellemmaylpc.com/
- Buy her book:
www.michellemmaylpc.com/whaticouldnttellmytherapist
Thank you for joining us in this journey—hit subscribe, share with friends, and connect with us online to keep this supportive conversation going. 🌞
So I guess, on that note, welcome to the Place for Connection podcast. My name is Melissa Beaton. I'm a psychologist, a breathwork facilitator, mother to two boys and just in general life enthusiast, and I've been on my own quest I guess I'd call it for healing for the last 20 years, if not longer, but probably really seriously in the last seven, since I've discovered ISTDP Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy which I know you also use. So welcome to the podcast. This is Michelle M May.
Speaker 1:Michelle is an author, she's a trainer, speaker and psychotherapist. She's also a chair of the new Washington School of Psychiatry she probably wouldn't like to relate to herself in this way, but somewhat an expert on intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy, which is the method that I study. And she's just written the most amazing book which I was fortunate enough to read and just finished. It's called what I Couldn't Tell my Therapist the Truths we Told to Heal Ourselves. And yeah, she's just an amazing human. I've been an admirer of you for a very long time, so I'm super excited and trying not to fangirl too hard. But yeah, welcome Michelle. I just wonder if you could start by telling you know the audience a little bit about yourself and what led you to write this incredible book so, um, like you said, um, you know, I teach at the washington school of psychiatry.
Speaker 2:Um, I do supervision to um people like us who want to become an expert in istTDP and have a private practice in Washington DC and Virginia and have recently. It's quite an amazing and weird thing to add author to the list it's something I'm still getting used to, but an author of this book and so I. What made me write it? What came to me to write it was I was sitting in a trauma therapist office, not an ISTDP office. It was actually after I had ended my ISTDP treatment as a client and I was sitting in my trauma therapist's office and this is actually in the book.
Speaker 2:As you saw, like there's actually a little bit of an overlap between writing the book and all of this. But she said that you should write a book and I very dismissively said you say that to everyone. And she said to me I actually don't. And I said, well, everyone has a story. And she was like well, not yours. And I had always thought about writing a book in my life but I always hated the idea of just writing a book. To write a book if you don't actually have a good idea, a good story to tell, and I realized in that moment that I had the makings of a book. So that's that's how that started. But I wrote a totally different book before. I wrote what I couldn't tell my therapist. So it was quite an evolution it was. It's been quite. A last five years have been like an odyssey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I wondered what, what kind of came through that had you shifting from the original book, cause my understanding is that was about your healing journey through your chronic pain, which, if, if you wouldn't mind just chatting a little about, would be really helpful just to contextualize the book for the audience. But yeah, I also had wondered what happened such that you then went and rewrote the whole thing, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my first book was because my trauma therapist it was to help me heal from medical trauma, from all the surgeries and procedures and all of just to be in a chronic headache for that amount of time right causes a lot of trauma, and so I thought that's what I'd write about. I'd write about you know getting help. I'd write about what it's like to feel lost in the medical system.
Speaker 2:I'd write for those people that had chronic pain and were lost. Um, and I thought you know, maybe I'll also write about my relationship to opioids, but I'm not sure um, and so, yeah, I asked for all of my medical records from all of my doctors, from that entire time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like had this stack yeah, um, and read through every single page and like spreadsheeted out what happened and when, because a lot of it I couldn't remember because I was so, in so much pain and on a lot of medication, yeah, yeah and so, yeah, and then I just like wrote it up, kind of like the story of and then this doctor's appointment, and then this procedure, and then this is what they did for this procedure. And at the end of it I was like no one wants to read this. This is not like I don't even want to read this. Like this is a like this is an arduous read, like this yeah okay, right, yeah, it's just, it's just too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Without, like it was really more for me to I realized later to to learn about what had happened to me, because I didn't really realize what had happened to me, and so that helped me realize what had happened to me in regards to my head pain and my headaches and the medication. So then I kind of sat there and I was like, well then, what's my book? Because I know I have. There's a book, there's a book in me, there's something in me. What is the story I'm trying to tell? And then I realized the book can't be about me. I'm not trying to tell everyone. I'm trying to tell me a story about me. I needed to know. But I'm not trying to tell everyone else a story about me. I'm trying to tell everybody a story about we.
Speaker 1:This is about we.
Speaker 2:And so I realized in that moment I was like, oh crap, I'm going to have to tell my real full story and I don't want to just tell mine. I want to weave it together with two other people so people understand this is a we thing.
Speaker 2:And at that point, oh my gosh, it just became a whole new monster, because I then had to face like wait a minute, my story involves other people's stories who don't want these things shared um but then I realized that, well, part of the reason I had headaches is because I kept everything inside yeah, and it was time so yeah, that's how what I couldn't tell my therapist actually how that formed well, I've got goosebumps, like, I think, in reading it.
Speaker 1:There's just so many moments in there where you can see your vulnerability and I don't know why it was. I just noticed as a reader and maybe it's because I'm a fellow, you know, imperfect human who's also, you know, had her own challenges and difficulties um, you know, and could particularly relate to some of some of the difficulties you've had um, just your honesty in really kind of conveying them in a really loving and gentle way, you know, towards yourself, towards your clients and also towards your family. Like there wasn't a time where I read that and I thought, oh, michelle's being really harsh or being like it felt like it came from a really loving place, and I think that can be a really hard thing to do when they're your feelings right.
Speaker 2:Well, I cannot tell you how much that means to me to hear, because I didn't. This writing about these things can be easily seen as kind of like a revenge move, right, and it was really important to me that none of that was a authentically happening in me, right, that that wasn't an ulterior motive, but that it also came through with all of the complexity, that reality really held and there is love towards every single one of my family members. And, of course, you know we're mixed feelings experts, right, that's what we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was just so important to me that the reader can also learn to hear their story with that same complexity. So hearing you say that that was my number one, like when I was going over fears in my mind when I was reading that I can't actually say it's my number one fear, but it was easily in my top three, yeah, yeah, Top three fears of. I hope I'm conveying this in the way that is very authentic to me. But that's again why I kind of sweat through the entire writing of the book is because I was just challenging myself at every turn yeah, yeah to just be as honest as possible.
Speaker 2:So this book is how honest I could be with myself at the time of writing it yeah, yeah, yeah, hold the book up again.
Speaker 1:So. So this is the amazing book um that Michelle's just written what I couldn't tell my therapist. This book is in such high demand that I ordered it last I don't know a long time ago, and yeah, literally. But you can get it on Kindle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and now you can actually get it everywhere. Again, it's back in stock, so you can purchase it anywhere. Yeah, thank goodness, amazing.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, just been really popular. It sounds like more popular than you expected, but just such a valuable read, I think, for people who want to understand themselves better, want to understand their emotions better, and also therapists or healers who perhaps are just seeking to understand whether it's intensive, short-term dynamics, psychotherapy better or perhaps even just alternative methods of healing. I mean, that's something that I'm really passionate about is seeing that there are different tools for different problems and that you can utilize different tools for different problems and that that's okay too. Like not one thing has to be a fix all. What was it like for you, stepping out as a therapist who's the chair of the New Washington School of Psychiatry, like to write such a bold book? Like how did you overcome, you know, all the kind of mental barriers that must have come up for you in that process.
Speaker 2:I'll start to answer this question. By when you asked that my mind flashed to publication date. So it was October 8, less than a month ago, and it's finally out, end of the day, after like a lot of in, flooding of love and support and just so many wonderful things, um, and all day I have just been having flashes of how hard it was to write the book, because this book was, um, it was excruciating to write Like it was. It was actually too hard. My body, my body took a hit. You know, I could, really I had to fight so hard.
Speaker 2:And so I remember I was lying on my bed and I just started sobbing and I said out loud to myself I, I, I and I don't normally talk out loud to myself in this way. I do when I'm like doing normal things, but not when I'm crying and I just started sobbing and I was like I'm so sorry you did that to you, but you had to do it. Okay, I'm so sorry, that was so hard, it was too hard. Like I, just I'm so sorry was so hard, it was too hard. Like I, just I'm so sorry. I just was like apologizing to myself because, um, there were so many hurdles to write this book. I mean, writing a first book is hard enough. And after that moment with me on the bed, no more flashbacks to how hard it was, like I could tell, like it was time to okay, just celebrate you've gotten here.
Speaker 2:Um, so that was the first thing that went through my head when you first asked me that question was like you know that that moment of acknowledging like no, this, this, this was way over your threshold, like you've been way out of too far out of your comfort zone for too long.
Speaker 2:And it has paid off, because I feel like this book was my fifth therapist, like it really challenged me to get to where I am today, where I feel like talking to you like comfortable. There's no like we were talking, you know before. He started the introduction about like just talking and we're human and there doesn't have to be mistakes and I don't have to be right. So it really did help me get to like.
Speaker 2:It helped me get to myself like capital s self yeah, wow so beautiful thank you, yeah, but it was too hard, it was like too hard on the road. So so to actually answer your question, I know I'm, I took it in.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, it's okay, it's okay. We're not in therapy, so I'm not going to.
Speaker 2:There's no time on this. Yeah, yeah, the, the. The hurdles were can I even write that? Like. The first hurdle was like can I even write that much? Oh, I can write that much. Oh, okay, okay, can I actually put it into the form of a book? Okay, I think I can. And then it was wait, that's not my book. And then it was like, oh, this is where the real challenge started was am I allowed to talk about my family? Because to really talk about how my symptoms formed, I have to talk about why. And if my story overlaps with someone else's story, what of the? What rights do I have to tell my story if it intersects with someone else's story that they might not want to share? And that question had been plaguing me since I was I don't, I mean, I can't even remember, but the book ends up being about healing from that.
Speaker 1:Healing from the feeling that you're not allowed to tell your story because it will make you bad yeah, yeah, yeah, it really reminds me of that, that section in the book that you write about, the post-it notes that's exactly right yeah, and, and, and, I guess for the, for the audience, it was really, I guess and this is my interpretation of what you were expressing but that that need from the family system to like keep all these secrets, yes, and relate to yourself in a specific kind of way so as to maintain that secrecy, right too, and and then being able to see how relating to yourself in that way was ultimately kind of a lot of the cause of your suffering, right?
Speaker 2:that, yeah, exactly, yep exactly, and and it's part of where the title comes from, you know part of of what where the title comes from. And and that that struggle that we have to protect those that we love. But what do we do when it's at the expense of us? And that's really the core of the book is how does protecting those that we love and trying to remain bonded actually end up doing violence to ourselves? And how can we find ourselves when we've lied to ourselves for so long?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a pretty. I guess in reading this it also speaks to the enormity of that process, that it's no one single process and I guess, like you describe in writing the book, it's like how do you work through sharing your family's story too, and I'm sure there was a lot that you kind of didn't share so as to protect their privacy, but also there was a lot that you probably needed to share and, yeah, and I wonder what that was like for you and the conversations that you would have had with your, with your family about that must have just been so incredibly difficult for you, it was and it was so incredibly difficult for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, because I knew that by doing this, every everything was going to be shaken up. Yeah, this everything was going to be shaken up. But yet I knew, for the sake of my own healing and liberation, and hopefully even for the liberation of others in my family, even though they might disagree with that yeah, that finally telling some of this in the way that I did would help kind of heal more than just me. Um, you know, and even even things like an interview like this you know there were questions after it got published of like you know, what can I, what can I say? And, um, I realized, well, you have to, you just have to keep being honest about your story so that others can find the courage to tell their own while still being loving to all right, without splitting projection, evaluation. You know all of those things that think that can come into the picture when we've been deeply wounded over and over and over and over again. So, yeah, it was a series of many conversations over four years.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah it was. It was like multiphasic, because the first phase was like like hey guys, I think I'm writing a book and then watching.
Speaker 2:You know I won't go into too much details here to protect the privacy of some family members, but yeah, but to. But, to kind of put it lightly, it was not easily taken it. It was devastating to some not to all, but to some and so then we had to process through that, like for years, while I'm still writing this book, and it and it did. It shifted the dynamics of my family, it did shift them.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, no wonder you talk about it taking you over threshold, because I guess for lots of our clients, when we meet them, you know, even having one of these conversations is a lot right when we've come from a family system where we've had to keep secrets or maintain, you know, a facade or a way of being, as a way of, like, keeping the family intact, right, um. So then, to do this like in a repeated, genuine, curious, inviting way, would have taken a lot of self-regulation from you and I imagine also from them too, and I guess we have the benefit of having done the work ourselves, right, but, um, but also I think our families, you know, haven't always done that work, and I notice in myself I have to really remind myself of that sometimes like that just because I've done the work doesn't mean that everyone has, and we've all got different thresholds, and it's like, how much can I love that person just as they are and and accept that without betraying myself in the process?
Speaker 2:yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, and you know the the kind of um dynamics that I wrote about in the book didn't always lead to the clearest thinking where I could answer that question until the end of the book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then of course, the one that it was kind of like a snake eating its tail, right, because the me that wrote the book was the me at the end of the book. And so, um you know, I, as you could see, towards the end of the book, like I really screwed with myself, like I really did a number on my sanity, I could not trust what I was thinking. It felt so real that I was a horrible, horrible person and I just had to figure out how to fix me, I mean, and so it's very hard to problem solve in that mentality and it's impossible to write a book that's honest in that mentality.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know that then, but I came to know that through this whole process. It was really. It was a rebirthing, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I really love that notion of rebirthing because, like you, I've also had some brilliant ISTDP therapists and been really fortunate and am currently finishing up with one in this current phase of where I'm at and in the book you describe a number of your therapists and just the loving care that they held you in and the full acceptance of you in all of your complexity.
Speaker 1:Um, and and I love how you write this about how you also do this for your own clients in the two other stories, because there are two other stories that are intertwined into your story in this book but I really enjoyed your reflection on how, when we are truly held in such a genuine scene way, how we can unfurl a lot of this kind of I don't know shitty ways of like relating to ourselves that have just been there since the beginning of time, because there were all these conditions on receiving love, like, yes, in terms of I guess there are some passages of the book that I would love you to read, um, but I'm also conscious of you know, in terms of like, your own experience of having that with a therapist and being able to really see the lies that you told yourself and how these kind of kept you entrenched in these kind of same patterns in all your relationships, like what do you think is something you wish you knew back then, that you know now that may have really helped you.
Speaker 1:At that time, you know, as you were dealing with chronic head pain and using opioids to cope with the chronic pain, which, it sounds like, was both like necessary right exactly yeah, but also then developed into some kind of coping exactly yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So so noticing that both are true, right, that that right paradox yeah, yeah, and that was another thing of complexity.
Speaker 2:I was wondering, like, can the reader accept this kind of complexity?
Speaker 1:and so, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like if you could go back to that time, perhaps when you met with your first psychologist, dra yes, you know what do you wish? You knew then that you know now.
Speaker 2:That may have been helpful for you back then so, so, so, so, so, so many things like countless things, right, pretty, I mean. The simple answer is like everything.
Speaker 2:I know now right, but but realistically speaking, um, I wish that I knew that it was okay to not know as much like to not know, right, I wish it was okay. I wish I knew, hey, there's so much you don't know, it's all good, you'll find it out. You're not stupid because of that, you're not inferior because of that, you're not weak because of that. It's just how humans are, and so that that would have helped me out a lot, right, because I know me and a lot of my patients. This notion of an unconscious life is terrifying.
Speaker 2:And if we were raised to know everything, which most of us were right.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, especially our generation, right, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that's one thing that I wish I could have deeply known, but there was no way someone could have told me that at that time and I could have internalized it, which is one of the reasons I wrote this book is because this book is is a demonstration of that rather than a telling of that. Yeah, so that people can say, hey, this is just how we work.
Speaker 1:And then we is me yeah, I really like that like when I think about, you know, my own journey of healing.
Speaker 1:I also relate to that idea of like needing to know facts or knowledge is like a and I think it was a bit defensive, like it was like a control, a way that I could control how others perceived me and how I operated in the world, and it was just such a load of crap really, like um, and and I'm just very honest about what I do and don't know now but I even remember at uni like I would be afraid to ask what a word meant, as though, like I was meant to just know what all words meant.
Speaker 1:And and I think this is a really common thing, right, our clients come in and they're like, um, mel or Michelle are going to expect me to like know all these things, but the reality is we don't know. And like for people who I guess aren't kind of across intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy or don't know a lot about psychology, who might be listening to this podcast, like what do you think is kind of a simple way to explain, like the difference between consciousness versus, like unconscious processes that you write a lot about in this book and that that you write about as the cause of our kind of suffering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the one way that I'd start to do that is for anybody listening that is new to this concept of what we're aware of and what we're unaware of take a moment to notice how your body is moving. Take a moment to notice were you fidgeting, grinding, was your foot tapping? Take a moment to notice was your mind somewhere else? And then ask yourself were you aware of that right before I said it? And, of course, the answer is no. So that's an example of an unconscious process.
Speaker 2:You're doing it, you're in control of it, but you were not aware of it. Yeah, and so to deepen into that, it's like, okay, sure, like a foot tap or like a way you were breathing, or even the fact that you were breathing Right.
Speaker 1:Cause that's an unconscious process too.
Speaker 2:It's really, as I put it in the book, there are invisible puppet strengths pulling along why you answer in a certain way, or why you had anxiety that you're not aware of, but you can become aware of with the right help. So that's how I would start to explain it to someone that's like what do you mean? I know ever. I, I know all the things right I know what I'm thinking and why I'm thinking it and why I do what I do. I know I get it yeah, right is that?
Speaker 1:there's no one on this planet that can say that, and they're correct yeah, yeah, yeah and, and there's like an infinite number of puppet strings right as well. It's like we think we've got all the puppet strings and yeah, and then there's like so many more, and I love that notion. I think it's also a good analogy for psychotherapy in general, whether it's ISTDP or any other psychotherapy, which is really based in the client and the therapist relationship, where we're building a healthy relationship so that the client can kind of get to know themselves in the deepest and most honest way that they can at each period of their lives. Like when you think about that notion of like puppet strings, I guess, in terms of its links to psychotherapy, would you say that that the puppet strings are like all of the ways that we learn to cope with situations, or the ways we learn to cope with feelings, or the ways we learn to cope with feelings, or the ways we learn to cope with anxiety.
Speaker 2:You know, is that kind of yeah, the, the strings are kind of, if you think about it, so the string. There's a string from a stimulus to a feeling right and that we can't do anything about.
Speaker 2:But then there's a string from feeling to anxiety and from anxiety to defense, from feeling to anxiety and from anxiety to defense. So it's like if I pull on this trigger, right, like if you bring up, for example, my family's reaction to the book, right, that just pulls on a string and then with it comes my anxiety and then my defense pops out. If I still have that lineup, so that's an example of a puppet string where, if you pull this up here, so that's an example of a puppet string where, if you pull this up here, this actually moves, mm, hmm. And we don't often see that connection, that that string connection, where here's another puppet string.
Speaker 2:When I that I just disconnected recently, when I go into a doctor's office now healed, my headache will start because it's like a learned association, so it's like another kind of puppet string that you can learn to to cut and disconnect, but if you don't know, there's a string there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You're kind of blind, right? Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay so so part of the process is really gradually opening our kind of field of awareness to to these kind of puppet strings and how they have us doing or saying things or getting anxious in different ways, and and I guess what I've noticed about some of the best therapists that I've worked with or seen work is they tend to do this in such a loving and gentle and compassionate kind of way, and I think that's really described throughout your book about how, even when you're working with your clients in the book I think it was around something Emma said you know you had to really check. Was it her wish for this or was that your wish?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, constantly. We must do that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So so I think this is also something that's important for people in general to understand is like, whilst we have control over our own um ability to seek help and and and and get tools, that that perhaps other people need to come to that decision on their own and and and. If we can just allow that and hold space for that, that that can also be healing too. When, when we can step back and allow that. Yeah, yeah, if it's okay, would you be all right with reading some passages?
Speaker 2:I'd be definitely Just guide me where.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would love it if you would read page 41. I really like this because I think it describes um some things that you learn early on in your own therapy, um, that that might also make sense for an audience who is like considering oh, is this something that I want to dabble in or not? Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, if you want to start it at at the time like I didn't know, sure, at the top and then I'll um, yeah, maybe I'll go to the middle of page 43 at the end of those seven points. Yeah, sounds great actually. No, there's more important stuff after that. We'll see, we'll see how long?
Speaker 1:yeah, see, finish. Finish when it feels good, finish when it's okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So this is um again, from what I couldn't tell my therapist. Chapter eight, walter. Uh, the question no one asks. What feelings are coming up toward me? I asked walter after his body became tense and his nausea subsided. Walter was hovering around the threshold at which his anxiety was too high to explore his feelings, but in this moment he was tense. Therefore, we could help him face what he had always avoided.
Speaker 2:I know feelings have a bad reputation. What's the point of being in touch with feelings? Don't they get in the way of reason? Aren't emotions for weak and needy people? Aren't we supposed to hide them? Can't we think them away? The positive ones might be okay, but we certainly shouldn't avoid the bad ones. Or we certainly should avoid the bad ones right Wrong. Devoid of emotions, our passage through life lacks a guiding compass. Feelings serve as our guide, leading us towards desires and away from aversions. Feelings are the glue that creates connection and intimacy. Bonding with others hinges on understanding and embracing our feelings. To nurture healthy attachments, it's crucial to be conscious of our emotions and urges, finding a balance between acknowledging them without impulsively acting on them or suppressing them. Feelings are an antidepressant. The belief that Walter could get rid of his feelings and be alive and well was a pipe dream. He was barely living proof, so I think that's the main part that you were thinking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just just like as I was reading it, just that experience, I imagine, for Walter of really being able to do something like completely different and face feelings that he hadn't, and and then how that also moved him towards you know, his own guilt, yes, for what he had done in the relationship with his own son.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then how that guilt helped him actually work towards a repair right Like that. Actually, that was the very necessary experience to have so that he could give his son what, what he missed from his own father exactly, yes, uh, thus under ending this generational cycle of emotional neglect yeah, and I think, doing his best to do so because some of the damage was already done, of course, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But I think what I love about guilt is that guilt can be so reparative even late in the piece, right, like even you know, like I have a lot of clients I'm thinking of one in particular that I had this week and they have a very difficult relationship with their mother and you know, I would just think how transformative it could be if that mother could then take responsibility for their behaviors. Yeah, and just how powerful that could be.
Speaker 2:Healthy guilt could heal the world. Healthy guilt I and I've gotten in the habit of calling it healthy guilt rather than just guilt, because it's so misunderstood. Right, we think guilt means ruminating cons, you know constantly on how we hurt someone's feelings. Right, we think guilt means punishing ourselves or thinking that we're bad. Right, we really don't understand guilt at all. Right, guilt is the most loving and brave of all of the feelings and if we could do it, it would change everything.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so powerful. Yeah, I know myself. I had this moment. I was telling my own therapist a couple of weeks ago. I was in New Zealand and I was running around the lake and I was listening to Gabor um Matej's book.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's amazing, Um, scattered minds and and I had a lot of guilt come up about my own parenting of my now 15 year old and, but it wasn't like a mean harsh, it was just like an honest, loving, sad, heartfelt. And then I just felt compelled to apologize and and and to kind of share, you know, my own regrets about the limitations that I had when he was little and how I was unavailable, and I think you know I even feel like that, that grief coming through now. But it doesn't feel nasty or harsh, it feels very generous and open and, um, and I agree with you, I think the more we can hold our guilt, our anger, our love, all of that complexity like, the more we heal ourselves and the more we can also invite others to do the same right, because there's like this generous spaciousness inside of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think everyone listening is wishing you were their mom right now, because this is such right, this is, this is what we, we crave, right? We, we, we not only crave it from those that hurt us, but I think in the deepest of ourselves, we crave our own ability to do that without anyone getting hurt.
Speaker 1:Uh, so it was just so lovely to hear you say that I mean, that's the kind of energy that can change everything yeah, yeah, and I I think when I read your stories of your work with your clients, I really feel that you hold that spaciousness with them too and that love and care and really invite them to face their demons without judgment or harshness, coming in and really like as a therapist. I guess, if you don't know the method, that we're talking about intensive, short-term, dynamic psychotherapy I'm saying it a lot of times because the acronym can be terrifying people like.
Speaker 2:What is that? But?
Speaker 1:it's? It's not like a weird thing, um, it's quite structured, like if you were explaining what it is to a lay person who'd never encountered this model. Like what do you think? Because this is something I actually struggle with myself, so I'm kind of picking your brain here but like what's? What do you think is kind of like the simplest way to describe the process of ISTDP in therapy for people who don't know what it is?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's not the kind of therapy where you're given skills or homework necessarily. It's not the kind of therapy where you talk about your weakness necessarily. Everything deserves a little asterisk by it, of course, because there's always exceptions. Necessarily, everything deserves a little asterisk by it, of course, because there's always exceptions. But it's the kind of therapy where the barriers that you put up unknowingly that create your problems are immediately addressed, based on the individual's capacity to tolerate the truth capacity to tolerate the truth, and an ISTDP therapist is ideally highly trained to monitor your body's capacity to handle the truth, aka anxiety, and has a special set of skills. I feel like I'm Liam Neeson from the movie Taken.
Speaker 2:I have a special set of skills to help you learn how to increase your body's capacity to take in reality so the short term is a little misleading, because treatments can be quite long, right, and it's not meant to say you need to chop chop. It's meant to say I deeply respect your time and I'm going to do the best I can to not waste it and yeah, it's a very I mean it's been one of the most humbling things I've ever learned, because I was always someone who could learn facts very easily.
Speaker 1:Like, you give me facts, I'm going to learn it. And then suddenly I was in a space with all these people who, like, were doing more than just learning facts. They were like embodying facts. And I was in a space with all these people who, like, were doing more than just learning facts. They were like embodying facts. And I was like this is just way too hard. And so many times I've just wanted to give up. Like so many times I was like I can't do this. This is way too hard. I'm not cut out for this. But yeah, it's also given me so much personally and professionally. But yeah, it's also given me so much personally and professionally. And so it's kind of like this kind of chicken or egg thing where I'm like oh, do I? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like it really brings out as a learner and I as TDP, and the thing I see, saw within myself, see with my students and supervisees, is all of these defense mechanisms from like this learning trauma, right, the same thing about like no, you need to know exactly what this means and you need to know exactly how to do it. And if I told you once, you have to remember it and you know all of these like built in assumptions about what learning means, there's so many defenses around it, like shame and like what you're saying hopelessness, helplessness, you know all these kinds of things and it's it's so difficult to learn that I believe and this is something that I do in my teaching and I know this is kind of off the subject of the book, but just to really help the students like notice how they're treating themselves during the learning yeah, that they can just take in hard information without making it harder on themselves.
Speaker 2:So, yes, yes, it's um. It's the journey of a lifetime to learn this therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and um, well, I think it kind of parallels.
Speaker 1:You know your client's experience in that. You know, like as students or as practitioners, you know it's the we again, like we're, all you know, imperfect, we're all learning, we're all you know, we all have some kind of trauma that we carry with us. It's just like how okay can we be with showing up with ourselves? And a lot of that will be based on our attachment history, right, like how, how okay our family was with us being that way and, and so I think it all kind of leans back into the book in that sense, because my understanding of the book was really that there's a real humanness and that it seemed like through telling your story of your chronic pain, you know, caused by physical health problems and for audiences who haven't read the book, michelle had eight surgeries on her brain.
Speaker 2:Two on my brain, six on on my. It's very strange so it's like two were brain, yeah, um, but six stayed outside of the skull and therefore were not brain surgeries. So it's very strange, but yeah eight surgeries for that at least for sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and and so you know that there were these kind of physical issues that were causing pain, and then also emotional causes of this pain too, and and I think this is kind of the interesting part of our work is like partialing out what's what like when we do our own healing what's physical and what's emotional and what's kind of a mixture it's maddening to try to figure it out, yeah, yeah because, because often you really can't, yeah, yeah, right, I mean, yeah, I could have never known the psychological causes of my headaches if my brain abnormality hasn't been found.
Speaker 2:Like there's just no, there's no way. So, um, it's, it's. It is something that people with you and i's training are more uniquely suited to figure out, but even then, it's, it's really really hard, and so, yeah, part of this book was to give those people hope too, because, oh, my goodness, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh look, I will be recommending it to all my chronic pain clients, anyone studying ISTDP, anyone who just wants to understand the unconscious better. It's a really brilliant book, michelle. You should be really proud of what you've achieved. Thank you so much. As someone who's working in this space and practicing, I just see it as such a useful tool to share with clients as well in terms of normalizing this process. You know, you're not weird, you're not abnormal. This is a very human thing to go through and in a way, we're all going through it in different degrees. It's just how much love and compassion can we hold for ourselves in that, in that process? Right?
Speaker 2:Very well said yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that's exactly why I wrote this is because I wanted you know. My clients would say do you have a book where I can understand this process more? Or my mom is asking about it, or my sister, or you know, gosh, this therapy was so helpful for me and I know they my. My mom can't see you Can I give. Is there a book she can read? You know those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:So yes, I'm very much hoping it trickles down and reaches all those that need help. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, um, I really would love you to finish off with another passage of the book. Um, and I'm I'm really struggling to choose because there was like so many parts that I was just like, oh, that is just so brilliant. Um, oh, look, I'm like I'm wondering if we could end with your reflections. I don't know if you see this as a bit ruining for the book or, um, I think it's paid on the kindle. It's page 272 and it talks about with the opioids out of your system oh yeah, it is a different page number okay, okay than the physical book yeah, yeah, let me see which.
Speaker 2:Do you know what chapter it is?
Speaker 1:um, it's, I think it's your last chapter. Sorry, if I had it, I'd be able to tell you um yeah, no problem, my last chapter.
Speaker 2:I'm getting there, okay. So um chapter 39 Michelle projective identification and other potato drops. Yeah, do you want me to start from the top, or is there another part here, if you? Say the first line of the paragraph. I could probably find it.
Speaker 1:It was with the opioids out of my system.
Speaker 2:With the opioids out of my system.
Speaker 1:I can definitely find it Do-do-do yep, got it, yeah, and then, um, yeah, it looked like it was a few pages, but just anywhere that feels good for you to stop, that that makes sense for you to stop sounds good with opioids out of my system and more insight into my minimization and self-neglect.
Speaker 2:I could listen to my body's reaction to being told to sit still. Since I listened to my body, I could take care to my body's reaction to being told to sit still. Since I listened to my body, I could take care of my body. I reached out to Dr J for support and together we helped me face what my body had been through to let it feel safe again. Then and this is the part you're talking about right- this is the right part, okay.
Speaker 2:Then, after my body healed, I could see the other ways in which I was brutal to myself. I could start to see how something deep within me wasn't right. Dr M served as an honest mirror that helped me reflect who I was, guiding me back to myself. When I felt the truth of being me, I could accurately reflect myself to myself. I didn't have to gaslight myself with defenses. Only when I was honest with myself could I be honest about the gaslighting by other individuals and systems A family system, a medical system, a cultural system, a societal system.
Speaker 2:With my new understanding of what was me and what wasn't, I realized how hard I'd been trying to be what I wasn't. I tried to be the daughter who wanted tulips and unicorn texts. I tried to be the daughter who never remembered anything bad. I tried to be the daughter who never found her mother's post-it notes. I tried to be the daughter who put her mother first.
Speaker 2:The daughter who didn't have feelings. The daughter who wasn't insulted when she insulted me or talked behind my back. The daughter who wasn't insulted when she insulted me or talked behind my back. The daughter who wasn't hurt when she commented on my body. The obedient daughter who agreed with her. I had layer upon layer of being mean to myself. I said to Dr M, not wiping away tears, there were obvious ways I was mean to myself and then there were less obvious ways and I'm still working on many of these defenses. It will be lifelong work. I had to get through all those defensive layers to understand what I'm seeing now, how I swallowed my mother's projections and opinions of me and how I've been choking on them.
Speaker 1:Makes me cry, yeah, yeah, makes me cry, yeah, yeah. I just when I read it I was like I, I can see how much work you put in to protecting your mother back then and how much you know it's clear you love and adore her right and also the cost and nothing that she did on purpose. You know like, yeah, but then the impacts that this has on us and I think what I really like about the book is it speaks to what happens in our early experiences that then shapes how we go on to have relationships later on in life. Um and and I think a lot of that is is unconscious exactly in these early relationships.
Speaker 2:That's when we are inadvertently tying that puppet string from feelings to anxiety, to our specific defenses In my case, people pleasing perfectionism, repression, somatization. And in our work, the kind of work we do, it's like we're learning look, this connects to this, connects to this, connects to this, that's one of the major things. And then we're learning look, this connects to this, connects to this, connects to this, that's one of the major things. And then we're learning untie or cut, untie or cut, untie or cut. And um, like you said earlier, there are numerous puppet strings. I still have them. There's no way I'll go to the grave with them, right?
Speaker 1:that's.
Speaker 2:It's just how it is, but hopefully not enough, where I notice or something or not enough where it you know, and even so, that's probably won't even be the case. But yeah, this, this book, is to acknowledge that we can come out of hiding, whether it's out of hiding from our defenses and letting our feelings throw in a safe way that doesn't hurt anybody, or letting our opinions be known, or finally coming out of the hiding of the of the den of secrets that so much of us are stuck in.
Speaker 1:So many of us are stuck in thank you so much for sharing this incredible book. Um, I, yeah, I, I absolutely loved it. I expected to like it. I didn't know if I would love it, but I really did. And, um, yeah, it's, it's just such a gift and and I and I appreciate what you went through to to create this um, it's probably not something I would, at this point in my life, brave um.
Speaker 1:So I have just so much respect for anyone who's willing to do that um in with the purpose of really giving um something so generous um to other people who perhaps don't don't necessarily know um's going on for them, but would like things to be different somehow. And I think it does give a lot of hope. And I think in both of the other stories in your book, what both people talk about is that sense of hope that it can be different, that I can be more gentle, that I can be more loving with myself. And yeah, yeah, and maybe that's hard right now, but I can get there, yeah. So thank you for coming out of your den of secrets to unlock it all with us. And, yeah, I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1:I remember when I asked you to come on and I was like, oh my gosh, she said, yes, I never expected that. So I'm so appreciative of your time. I imagine just how difficult it is for you to put time aside for this kind of thing, so really appreciative and I'm really hopeful that this conversation will also help you know, some of the audience members to open up perhaps some of these dens um, you know that that they haven't quite journeyed into but but may benefit um from doing so, like if, if anyone in the audience wants to connect with you, wants to access your resources or books, what, what do they need to do to kind of, yeah, find out more information about you, michelle?
Speaker 2:uh, you can find me on instagram at michelle mma lpc. That's michelle with two l's m may like the month lpc, as in licensed professional counselors. So again, that's michelle mma lpc. And then, uh, the same is my website, wwwmichellemalpccom, so you can find resources on both those pages. Yeah, even getting on Instagram was another hurdle that I had to do for this book, because I wouldn't be on. Instagram otherwise, and I'm so glad that I am.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's where they can find me, yeah, yeah, I can fully relate to that Instagram kind of um, yeah, yeah yeah, um, and I just say too uh, I mean, it is so uh, I'm so thankful that you did have me on. It is so clear that you have such a command of this content. Um and um, it would be my honor to be on again. If you ever wanted to dive even more into anything specific, I'd be happy to do this uh, yeah, please, I like this.
Speaker 2:I feel like I only just um, yeah, because you, you clearly have such a knowledge and a depth for this material. Uh, it's been so fun, like so fun to talk to you and, yeah, I definitely could do more well, I feel like I'm pretty obsessed, you and, yeah, I definitely could do more.
Speaker 1:Well, I feel like I'm pretty obsessed, um, with ISTDP. I think there are a few of us that start studying it and we're like become kind of like, oh, it's an obsession, absolutely yeah yeah yeah, my husband often jokes and and says when are you gonna leave the cult?
Speaker 1:and I'm like I'm not going to like it's, um, it's, and I guess you know like it's like anything. When you study something so deeply, then it it just um tends to then operate in all these other areas of your life too. It's like, I think, when it's a therapy, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't like just separate learning this from other areas of your life.
Speaker 2:It is, it is kind of that thing that, yeah, it does you, you can't, and, and you know, one of the things if you don't mind me swinging around to something else for a second is like in the book, you know, I, I visit three therapists and only one of them is an ISTDP therapist, uh, and so it really speaks to like and I really needed each of those people in their unique you gifts, but there were things that one couldn't give to me, that another one could, and so you know, the uh, hopefully that quote unquote like cult of ISTDP, right, is really like this group of people committed to people's healing, no matter what type of therapy you call it right.
Speaker 2:Cause. Istdp offers a way of thinking that's based on actual data in front of us. That's really what ISTDP is right. It's like I'm so good at tracking what I'm seeing that you know I can do my very best to help you face reality and feel better, or face, not feeling better in a way that's better for you, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so yeah, that's better for you, right, yeah, yeah, um, so, yeah, that's that's really. You know, our commitment and what I'm putting words in your mouth, but, like what the two of you, but the two of us, are obsessed with is like helping people face the truth in a way that helps them and everyone around them and I like your links to other therapies because, like, I've found a lot of benefit in ISTDP, but also the therapist who I see also uses internal family systems, ifs and I've found that the combination of the two has been really beautiful.
Speaker 1:Sorry to any ISTDP purists who might be listening, I promise I won't personally potentially do that, but yeah, just been so helpful in terms of helping me to access parts of myself that I don't know I would have been able to access in traditional ways. And then also things like breath work, yeah, also interested in other healing modalities that you know we can't explain away, and I think one of the things I've come to accept, also through access to self, is then how that is just an energy in the body, and then I have more trust in the things I can't understand as well. And then an and an okayness with just letting them be, which is kind of the opposite of what I've been raised to do. Right, we're like a family of like um, we look for facts and we do things properly. So, yeah, just just really interesting, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are so many ways to help somebody heal, yeah, and we have all these different tools at our disposal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a relief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's really cool. I think we're living in exciting times and I just want to thank you again for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is my pleasure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of Michelle's contact information will be available in the description below on YouTube. The podcast will be available on Spotify and Apple. It's called the Place for Connection. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, write a review, leave a comment. I appreciate any support that you can give me with these early episodes. And yeah, thank you so much, michelle. I would absolutely love to have you on again, so anytime. Yeah, joaquin, please, please. That would absolutely love to have you on again, so anytime. Yeah, you're keen, please, please. That would be my honor, all right, oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Oh, my pleasure, Thank you.
