Head Inside Mental Health
Todd Weatherly, Therapeutic Consultant and behavioral health expert hosts #Head-Inside Mental Health featuring conversations about mental health and substance use treatment with experts from across the country sharing their thoughts and insights on the world of behavioral health care.
Head Inside Mental Health
A Model for Transformation with Marla Shaul
In this story about alignments and synchronies, Todd Weatherly sits down with Marla Shaul, Clinical Lead at Guest House Ocala, to uncover a remarkable tale of transformation with an unexpected revelation.
Through chance or fate or the conspiracy of the Universe to draw us together, we discover that Marla had been a client at Four Circles wilderness program at the time when Todd served as CEO. Though their paths hadn't directly crossed then, mysterious forces brought them together as professionals creating a powerful full-circle moment that highlights the transformative nature of recovery.
Marla candidly shares her journey through addiction, incarceration, treatment attempts, and relapse before finding lasting sobriety. With over 10 years in recovery, she offers profound insights into what makes transformation stick. "Once you know what sobriety feels like, and then you relapse, it feels so much worse," she explains, touching on the moment she finally surrendered to the recovery process.
Beyond clinical insights, Marla shares personal wisdom about authenticity and boundaries that resonates far beyond the treatment setting. Whether you're a behavioral health professional, someone in recovery, or simply interested in the human capacity for transformation, this episode offers hope, practical wisdom, and a reminder that our greatest challenges often become our greatest gifts to share with others. Join us for this remarkable story of re-discovery in reflection on the journey.
Hello folks, thanks for joining us on Head Inside Mental Health, featuring conversations about mental health and substance use treatment with experts, advocates and professionals from across the country sharing their thoughts and insights on the world of behavioral health care. Broadcasting on WPBM 1037, the voice of Asheville independent commercial-free radio. I'm Todd Weatherly, your host, therapeutic consultant, behavioral health expert, and with me today is someone who I've just recently met and we share a pretty cool story is Marla Schall. Marla is a licensed mental health counselor and she is the clinical lead at the Guesthouse Ocala, a premier trauma and addiction facility in Florida. Marla received her bachelor's degree in psychology in 2010 from GSU, georgia State University, and her master's of science degree with distinction in clinical mental health counseling from Capella University in 2021. Marla is a licensed mental health counselor in the state of Florida, a level three certified trauma therapist, member of the American Counseling Association, the Florida Counseling Association and the National Society for Leadership and Success. She has worked in numerous levels of care to include residential outpatient and the Department of Corrections. She has trained under Judy Crane, a leader in trauma treatment and the chief executive officer and co-founder of the Guest House of Cala. Marla was recently interviewed on 10 Tampa Bay to discuss trauma treatment at the Guest House of Cala.
Speaker 1:Overcoming her own struggle with unresolved trauma and addiction, marla believes in helping others explore and resolve the core of their hurt in order to find healing. With more than 10 years sober, she has a direct and nurturing approach that invites those in need to be a participant in their own healing story. When she's not working in the field, marla is a horror enthusiast, loves reading horror novels, watching scary movies. She enjoys playing the cello, writing, exercising and spending the day in one of Florida's theme parks. She also has a penchant for traveling with her husband and often dares to go with him on new adventures. From swimming with the sharks on the coast of Florida to snorkeling with killer whales in the Arctic waters in the fjords of Norway, she's always up for trying something new. Marla, welcome to the show and thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited and thank you for being here. Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm excited, and you know you and I just met only a few weeks ago now, and so I think this field is full of these little experiences, these little synchronies that show up, that you end up walking into someone that you have a connection with and you had no idea before arriving. And you know I'm going to tell the story a little bit, but then I want you to tell the story from your side, if you will. I am, you know, I would call myself neurodiverse. I would call myself neurodiverse and I'm also like social groups are. They're interesting to me. Sometimes I jive with them and sometimes I don't. I'm not a big fan of large groups and lots of new people. So I tend to do one of two things, and that is I either find my nice corner in the room where I can feel comfortable or I take charge of everybody. I kind of do one or the other, and since one of those is not really appropriate in the setting that we're in, I chose to go find the corner in the room where I felt the most comfortable, and that happened to be sitting right beside you. Um, I just like I'm going over there. Those look like the cool people. I'm sitting beside her and we're going to have conversation. And so, because that looks like the place to be, um, and so I sat down beside you and it's like hi, what are you doing? And you're sitting with a bunch of staff having, you know, we're a bunch of visitors and you guys are a bunch of staff over there having staff conversations. And I completely planted myself in the middle of it all, um, and I'm like who are you and what is your name and why are you here? I say all the weird and awkward things that you can say to make people laugh, and you and I start talking and it's like well, how did you get in this field? Well, how did you get in this field? And we start sharing the story and then I'm like, well, I was the CEO of Four Circles, a wilderness treatment program in western North Carolina, and your mouth kind of dropped and you did a brief gasp win, and it turns out, um, and at four circles.
Speaker 1:At the time, of course, um, it's no longer with us, but the uh, the men's campus was kind of was kind of campus, like where a lot of the clinicians and offices were and everything else and where my office was and kind of base camp for the men, and then women had kind of their own campus to kind of keep everybody the genders separate, and so I didn't see a lot of the women clients who were coming through, the young adults that were coming through at the time.
Speaker 1:Um, I would see a lot of the men, but I didn't see a lot of the women because they were on their own on campus, so I didn't recognize you.
Speaker 1:But you were in our care at the time when I was CEO, so we were circling each other and then things happened and years passed and I meet you now, serving as a clinical lead at one of the premier trauma treatment centers in the country, having gone through what it must have been an amazing journey from that point forward, and I was just overcome with joy that we had had that little synchronous moment to join with one another and learn and like, just like, wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:And so I have invited you on the show today because I would love to hear part of that story, and maybe you experienced that differently than I did, but that's why I wanted to have you on the show, not to mention the fact that you're also doing incredible work there at the guest house, which is an incredible treatment center for trauma and Judy Crane is a widely celebrated trauma expert in the field. He's a, you know, widely celebrated trauma expert in the field, and so you've got it's not just because we have a, we have a connection. It's also because you've got credentials of your own, which are important and I want to hear about as well.
Speaker 2:So, if you will tell me a little bit about your story, so I will agree that when you walked over, it was just like, okay, here, here comes this individual going to sit down and you just made yourself comfortable, and I loved that, because I can relate to that feeling of crowds and you find kind of your little place in your corner. So I have to say, though, that moment, when you said you were the CEO of Four Circles and it was the same time I was there was just one of those moments, and it was just meant to be is the way that I felt, and at the time, I was at Four Circles for about a week, I think, and this was back in 2014. I was not done using, and I was pretty feisty, and so I AMA'd, and everybody there tried really hard.
Speaker 1:Those has ended.
Speaker 2:Yes, those, they tried really hard to keep me and were very kind about it. But I had, I had been struggling for a while with addiction and some pretty heavy heavy drugs as well, and a lot of pain, just emotional pain, throughout the years. But at the time I left and I went back to Atlanta and I continued to use for about another month or so. And my story gets a little bit even crazier than that because I spent and I'm going to just be really open I spent a few stints in jail. After I left, you guys, I actually came from, I actually came from jail to four circles and then you were not alone.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you know straight out they. They had a lovely gentleman escort me and I remember all I wanted was McDonald's. Uh, after I got out, so after I left you guys, though, I just wasn't done, as I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that feeling, and so I just went back out for a while and my family Did you do some more research?
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 2:I wasn't finished I thought I was, because I was really sick but I wasn't and so I needed to go do some more destruction and I did for about another month or so until my family actually staged a I guess it would be like a sort of an intervention, but it included detectives and police officers and I went back to jail for another few weeks after I left Four Circles.
Speaker 2:But I still remember that moment of being dropped off at your local gas station and the lovely, the lovely knitting crew. I ended up at a knitting shop and one of the centers and they were so sweet to me and they fed me and they made sure I had a way to charge my phone and I made my way back. But after jail, the second time I ended up, they said I needed to be somewhere far away where I couldn't really escape. I guess I'm called a flight risk, as we know and I ended up in a place Judy Crane's original place, actually in the forest, called the Refuge, and I ended up there and it was quite an experience, to say the least.
Speaker 1:That was still 2014,.
Speaker 2:Right say the least, I. That was still 2014, right august, so august 2014 to october 2014. I ended up in the refuge, so I think I was at four circles around july 2014, I think, if I can remember correctly, got it. Yeah, and then I did. I did intense trauma work for two months. I cried, I snotted, I wailed, I tried to leave. At one point I acted out All of the typical things that we see now like as my role, now that when I see a guest acting out angry, I understand what's going on, like we are hitting all of those trauma buttons. And so I did a lot of my work.
Speaker 1:For the purpose of our listeners. A guest is a person who's there in treatment at the guest house. They're called guests, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. Yes, we refer to them as guests. And I did my work. I did, I went in, I did sober living, I did a step down program and then I relapsed. So about six months I relapsed. I thought I could be my own sponsor. That is not how it works, that's what I'm told. Yeah, I did that and I use that as a cautionary tale when I'm working with guests. Now it's not going to work that way.
Speaker 1:Oh, it'll be fine, I'll be my own sponsor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought that would work, so I did. I relapsed for about a month and the really interesting thing and I feel like people can relate to this is once you know what sobriety feels like, and then you go and you relapse. It feels so much worse. You relapse. It feels so much worse. I felt terrible in that one month because I knew how beautiful it could feel to not be under the influence of something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had a horizon to look at so I got back and I went to a meeting. I picked up another white chip and that was 10 years on. June 12th was my 10 years of sobriety.
Speaker 1:Wow, congratulations.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. The meantime, though, to go from that to the clinical lead at the guest house, I started out as an overnight house manager or a behavioral kind of like a behavioral technician here at the guest house, and I was underneath the supervision and the care of being trained by Judy and and Tom Pekka, and so they kind of helped shape me into a house manager, and then I went to school and they trained me in trauma I mean, these are people who are really truly experts in the field of trauma and so they just nurtured and guided me to a place of being a therapist and then to where I am now, which is just trying to help lead and take care of guests and help them walk through their journey. It's been wild. It's been a wild ride.
Speaker 1:So, you know, over the course of 10 years you decided to like work in the field, got your degree, got your license and, you know, ended up working with the people with whom you started your healing journey after getting sober, which is kind of cool I wouldn't call it unusual but it doesn't happen all the time. You do see people who have found recovery end up back in the field. There's a lot of those have found recovery end up back in the field. There's a lot of, there's a lot of those Um, and then there's a lot of other people who are not necessarily a cover and they're just good at being with people through their process. Um, I have a statement that I make to clients all the time and I I want to um ask you whether or not you think this is true One year of sobriety will get you two, two will get you five, five will get you ten.
Speaker 2:I mean, I agree with that. I do. And it's amazing when you, I reflected at 10 years and I was like, has it really been a decade? How is that even possible? It's just this moment of like, what happened, but it did, it just turned into a decade.
Speaker 1:Right, and there's another. There's something else that occurs to me working with folks who are struggling with struggling with addiction and struggling with trauma which usually will very often walk hand in hand, as you know is that there is a. There are a lot of techniques out there. You've got 12-step, you've got other methodologies, you've got people doing their trauma work and everything else, and even you had this experience where you did a bunch of work and you relapsed, and some might say that that's part of the process, and I've seen people that talk about the 13 months and a lot of people will relapse on the year anniversary. You got people that'll put work in and're in.
Speaker 1:I think we're all in our own form of recovery, right, but I didn't have to go to treatment for substance use specifically. There is this. There's the. The work is like I can do the exercises and I can. You know, I can do the life review and I can reconcile with people that I'm I'm able to reconcile with, and I can do a lot of the and I can dig into my trauma and I can do all these things and and it's not that it's not real, it's not that that it it's not that they haven't done the work but it doesn't yet abide, and I use abide as a like. They haven't taken full ownership of what the work actually means.
Speaker 1:On the other side of doing that work, and some of what makes that, some of what makes that real, is to relapse and be like, you know, to really get a view of it. But primarily it's the. It's the being able to take all the pieces that come out of doing that work and put them into something that makes that like, is greater than the sum of its parts. That and and lives inside of you as a way of being. And that's just my observation from afar for people who've gone through pretty brutal recovery processes. What would you? What like? Does that resonate with you? Would? Would you correct it? What would you say as a person who's in recovery and has a decade under her belt?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean that makes me when I hear you talk. It makes me think of it is integrating all of the work together. But there's also, I think, where I my relapse, there was a level of surrender that I didn't integrate yet into the process, or acceptance.
Speaker 1:And more about surrender.
Speaker 2:Well that I thought I could do some controlled use and that was not the case. So I had not fully surrendered and I'm stubborn and I like things my way, right, this is all the stuff I've had to look at. And I had not fully surrendered and so it wasn't until it was like okay, so I've done trauma work and I've been working the steps, but I did not have that full surrender moment. So I had to go back and do the steps and integrate all the pieces together. And then it was like a year, two years, three years, a decade, and yeah, it just. It's amazing how it kind of it just clicked right, when did?
Speaker 1:it how do you know? Like what, like what's the moment? What was the moment for you?
Speaker 2:that's really hard to answer, actually, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I mean it is I mean you know what I mean like there's, is there a moment?
Speaker 2:I don't know if it was, or maybe it was just several moments back to back because there were some struggles right in that decade. It has not been all I mean.
Speaker 1:Let's just, let's get real with it, it's great nose and flowers sprouting out of the walls no, it's tough.
Speaker 2:It's hard, it's ongoing therapy, it's crying, it's looking, taking, you know, doing steps again or um, I mean, it is all of that in those 10 years. So I think it's, but it's always about showing up, it's about being honest and I have an amazing group of women around me and sobriety. It's a small group and they have been the anchors throughout that decade and I cannot recommend that enough.
Speaker 1:Yes, Small amounts of community, connection, people that support you and love you and accept you for who you are, all your warts and everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they'll call. They'll call me out on stuff and sometimes you want to fight them because they are open and honest, but it's what you need.
Speaker 1:Right, right. I don't like hearing that, but it's true, exactly, and I need to listen. Right, right.
Speaker 2:I don't like hearing that, but it's true, exactly, and I need to listen.
Speaker 1:Right, and do you see? You know, at this point you get to watch a lot of people go through their recovery process, go through their trauma, work, work, do you like is there? Is there a thing? Do you see a parallel like, do you look at your process and watch other people going through theirs and and see some markers that are common for everyone in recovery and and and? When I say recovery, I mean recovery from trauma, not just substances but like trauma, you know.
Speaker 2:So I feel like I can answer that for a good portion, because I've been doing this long enough now where I feel like I have a pretty good read on the patterns, especially in this level, this high intensity trauma treatment. A lot of the times what I've noticed is, especially with trauma, that people feel like they don't have trauma. They feel like if it happened a really long time ago that it can impact you or they have no connection to their body. So I see that almost almost with everyone. I usually see that first initial I don't need to be here, I don't want to be here, I'm angry, this isn't working for me. That whole anger, frustration piece I want to leave. So I just sit back at this point because I know it now. I just sit back and I'm like okay, do your, do your process, We'll be here when you're on the other side of it, Usually by day 45, because we really are a 90 day program. Usually by 45, you start to see a shift. It seems to be something around day 45. I don't quite understand.
Speaker 2:The six weeks, aha moment, things are settling, things are clear. And then they'll use the rest of the 45 to really integrate, metabolize all of the information and start to have it as a way of life, so that 45 is a magic number.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's that's been around for a while too, and I mean, even at Four Circles we had like research outcomes, research that we were doing, and they had pinned it down to 42 days. And, you know, give or take, that was the, that was the mean, that was the average, right. So, but 42 days was when they start seeing people like, really engage, really take on ownership of, you know, their process, their trauma, their, their fallibility, um, their sobriety. Uh, then and and start to make moves towards integrating practices for themselves and showing up. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So, uh, I think that I don't know what it is about 45 days. I mean some of it is. It is, you know, there's all this like how long does it take to make a new habit? How long does it take to break a habit? How long does it take to integrate new life practices? There's, there's a lot of social science, that kind of, you know, in numbers, that we could probably feed into why 45 comes out, but six weeks seems to be pretty universal.
Speaker 1:On the other side of that, you guys are watching people go home and and, and I know that to a certain extent, like hey, you know, checking in on people and doing some follow-up and doing the outcomes and those kinds of things. When people do. You know, let's call it 45 and 45, right, you know, let's call it 45 and 45, right? What are you seeing in the outcome on the outside, like, what is the? Are there themes to transformation that you're able to witness? What are the most salient themes in transformation? Because that's what it is right, it's transformation that you see when you get some of that data back, that feedback.
Speaker 2:I think that, well, I feel like this is and this may not be related, but I've noticed it is the ones that have decided to stay for maybe the full 90, they usually end up in. We have an alumni group that we do virtually, and I actually run it on Thursday nights, and we have another therapist that does it on Tuesdays, but we get a lot of them back in there. They have built that sense of community or connection, the ones that have really kind of invested in that full treatment program. There's also, to me, a level of surrender that comes in. That is that they've decided for themselves to stay longer. They've decided themselves to invest, and I think that even speaks volumes.
Speaker 2:I always find it to be more helpful to silence, if we can, any outside influence on how long they're here, but really get them to decide for themselves what is best, and what is best is for them to stay longer. Then we usually get that feedback coming back. You know, after they leave, that this was a life-changing experience for them. While they still have struggles, they are able to navigate the world in a new way. They feel they're connected to their body. They ask for and so I worry when it's 30 days at times, because it's like such a quick blip and it's you know. That makes me a little nervous.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like you know what you're seeing on the outside is they have a connection to an ability to surrender to things. You know it, they own and it belongs to them. It's and they know how to utilize it in their life. And they have other behavioral, they have other strategies that exist for filtering the world. You know what I mean. Like I think that's anybody who's maintaining good emotional health is probably doing a pretty good job of filtering the world, setting limits in relationships that may or may not be healthy, like um. Being able to engage in healthy practices in the relationships that you want to sustain, uh, in the world that you know prevents you from running into influences. You know you're going to struggle with um and you know the best way not to best way not to binge on things out of your kitchen is to not buy them in the first place. And so know, engaging in habits that support a healthy lifestyle, not just sobriety, because you know sobriety is just a.
Speaker 1:Sobriety is a. It's a component. We know that it's a component, it's an important component, but we I, you and I both know miserable sober people.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They're a joy to be around.
Speaker 1:And they are, yes, and sometimes you wish they would just start drinking again Because maybe that might go better, because this is not going very well. Whatever it is, they've got going on because they haven't done the work Right. They haven't done the work and you know, I I the other thing that that I see for people who engage in transformative processes, um, especially when they have had it, you know, they do the 90 days with you guys is they have a model for transformation. And that's a question I have for you.
Speaker 1:Like, clearly, you know, you went to treatment, you went out and did some more research. You, you know, you went out and got a little more pain and then you did a bunch of work and then you experimented with use and realized, like, there are all these moments, these markers in your moment, but and it's hard to pick out which one of these was the one moment that's transformed, that was transformation. Because now you have a model for transformation. What is your, what is your model for transfer, for your own personal transformation? I mean, you know you don't have to speak for everybody else like, what is your model for transformation?
Speaker 2:oh, that's a good one. I know I was immediately thinking here what is the model of transformation? But if I go back to myself, I think it's just being in touch for me, like I have to be in my authentic state and I have to know what that is. So I have to know who I am and I have to stand in that empowerment. I think that's been a huge part of my own transformation. Continuing to check in, though, with myself on and that's one of the harder things I will say, because how many people really like to own when they either are reactive or they've said things that are not helpful and they've navigated situations in a poor way? I mean, nobody wants to. I don't speak for everybody. I a lot of times do not like to own that right, but that's also been. I a lot of times do not like to own that Right, but that's also been. Transformative is to say you know what? Yeah, I really messed that up. I really could have done that better Wait a minute Own what?
Speaker 1:What are you talking about?
Speaker 2:I don't know what you're talking about yeah, just own my bad behavior at times, or just things that could be different.
Speaker 1:So I think that's been it. I don't have any bad behavior. I don't. Yeah, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2:You have none.
Speaker 1:None.
Speaker 2:Seven zero None we like to call denial.
Speaker 1:Dang it, I knew there was something, yeah, standing in your authentic self, I mean I think that's been important, it's constant.
Speaker 2:Yes, and boundaries, if you ask people here. I love boundaries, I think they're so important Boundaries for your energy, the people around you. You have to take care of yourself, but in order to know what your boundaries are, you have to know that you deserve them. You also have to be in touch with your authentic self, and I think that has been a really important part of my transformation and what I try to work on, too, with guests.
Speaker 1:Here are those components the obvious ones, you know, not one of the ones that are early recovery ones. Give me one recently, where you either set a boundary or stood in your authentic self, and it was difficult but you did it. And then, like, give me an example.
Speaker 2:I think anytime.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think of a most recent example. Yeah, I mean, I've had, I've had a few over the last few years, but I think that, without giving too much information but some of them are, you know, work related is speaking my truth and being okay with whatever that outcome is going to be. Or setting very specific boundaries. And this goes back into even if people want to spend time with you, or family members want to spend time with you, or people want like in this field, and you might be able to really relate to this.
Speaker 2:In this field, it's constant right like. It is constant movement. It's constant issues, crisis going on, so we have to protect ourselves. So I think the most recent kind of boundaries I've set in place for myself is I have to take care of my energy so that I can show up for others, and that might mean I can't answer a phone call right now. Let me get back to you at a later time. Or let me just do my own self-care for a little bit and let me show up then for you at a later time. I'm working really hard on that because that's imperative.
Speaker 1:I think that that probably that speaks to me. I resonate with that because, especially as you get older, I might have a couple of extra years on you. You, um, as you get older, and the one just as you say, like, you've got a, you got to be able to preserve your energy and and and be present with people. If you're not, if you're not being present, if you're not kind of 100 in this game, you could be doing terrible harm, like, like, and so you know that's a, it's kind of an ethic, if you will. Like, I have to preserve myself so that I can do the work that I do, and a lot of that has been around.
Speaker 1:You know how I choose to spend my time, who I choose to spend my time with, how much of my time I'm willing to spend outside of you know my home or my circle or my whatever.
Speaker 1:Like, you know, because, especially, I might get this a little more than you do, because I travel a bunch and connect around the country and do all those things Like, hey, do this, hey, you could come over.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're having a thing, and there's always a thing. There's always a lunch or a dinner or a golf tournament or a travel experience to engage in that revolves around our professional field and you could run yourself ragged doing it all. And I have to be very cautious about it because I also I noticed one of the things that I noticed when I, when I got home, like just recently, returned I was gone more or less most of two weeks, I had a brief stint home and I found, like the brief moment I had home, I found, like the brief moment I had home, um, I, I feel like, um, I feel like a pumice rock that's been thrown into water. I come home and I start, I start absorbing just my, my home and my place and my toys and you know, and just being in my space and being in the place that I've I've crafted as a sanctuary for myself.
Speaker 1:And you know, just being in my space and being in the place that I've crafted as a sanctuary for myself and I realized it's like, oh wow, you know, when you're away from this, you're sustaining that somewhere inside yourself, and for long enough till you get home. So be careful with where you go, where you choose to spend your time and all these other things, and it's it's become more and more important to me as time has gone on and it's a practice, because part of me is like FOMO.
Speaker 2:we got to do it, all you know, like whatever, it is, and I think that's a daily, truly a daily practice is that boundary I have a saying that I give a lot of my guests and I use it for myself is I will be fiercely protective of my energy. And on the flip side of that is I have to be okay with if others are disappointed by my boundary, if others are upset or angry with my boundary, that that is okay and I've had to learn to sit in that because, again, I have to take care of myself. We have to take care of ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that you know there's a lot of pressure from the world. Mm-hmm, you know there's a lot of pressure from the world and it's an, it's a. I'm curious, I'm interested to hear a little bit about your experience with the dynamic that is wanting to be liked. You know, because, for, for a person who's in in this line of work, therapeutic alliance is important, right? Trust building, trust, building a connection those are important things. Now, most of the folks you're working with translate that into being liked, yeah, and then they project it onto you. It's like, you know, you're present with me and you're a real person and you're authentic and this is a wonderful experience and now we're friends, right?
Speaker 2:Wrong.
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't mean I don't care about you. It doesn't mean that the authenticity that you experience from me is not real. That doesn't mean that the authenticity that you experience from me is not real. It just means that you're looking for something I'm not here to provide. I'm here to provide something else for you and I'm glad to fulfill that role. But you're going to leave and our time will come to a close, and you'll need to find out in the world what you're going to leave and our time will come to a close, and you'll need to find out in the world what you're looking for and kind of what you're doing. When you're doing all this, especially in this work context is setting an example. It's like. This is what authenticity looks like, and it doesn't necessarily mean that this connection goes any further than that. There are some connections that look this way, and you want those to be authentic too, so fix your picker.
Speaker 2:So I say my mind was broken.
Speaker 1:So many pickers are broken these days. You know and I mean I, you know, we're, we're, we're stumbling our way into a territory. It's like trauma, care, identifying it, being able to work through it, surrender, finding your way to your authentic self and, as a result, also surrounding yourself with authentic relationships and authentic experiences, surrounding yourself with authentic relationships and authentic experiences. You know, if you're not doing those things not necessarily in that order, but they have to all be there you have to have an idea what authenticity is in order to go find it in others, in order to have experiences or relationships where they are authentic in nature. And if you haven't sat still enough, long enough, gone through the work, enough to really at least have a scrape at the surface of what authenticity is, all the rest of your life can, has the tendency to be inauthentic, and that has tends to cause a lot of problems, I notice.
Speaker 2:Just a few.
Speaker 1:How do you crack that shell? Like, how do you like, in your work with people, how do you like bring them along you know you don't have to go into all the techniques Like, how do you bring them along to the understanding of how important the fabric of this is, Not just this moment or this breakthrough or this whatever, but there's a, there's a fabric to this whole thing. Like, how do you get people to kind of let's step back and look at it and be aware that it's, that it is a fabric and it's a connection and they're woven together? How do you do that?
Speaker 2:I think that I mean the to start, that I won't go through the whole process, but the way to start, that is, when they get here, like a sense of safety. Some of our guests have never felt safety, so that is like step number one.
Speaker 1:Maslow's hierarchy right.
Speaker 2:We got to get them safe. Sometimes that takes a few weeks, it just depends. Everybody's process is so very different. But I'm a big advocate, really true big advocate, of inviting people into their work and that brings a sense of empowerment.
Speaker 2:So, as they're doing their trauma work, inviting them into being scared, inviting them into being emotional, inviting them to seeing the depths of their sorrow and their pain and I think that that is a really big component of this work is and letting them know that they can feel those things. A lot of times they feel like they're going to start to feel and it will consume them completely. And so I think, with the invitation to show up for themselves, gives a sense of empowerment and then also slowly starts to help them get into their authentic state. We do the trauma work with the substance use work together and I think that that is a key piece to you call it this fabric, but like this key piece of like, where do I want control and where do I need to surrender and acceptance and where can I start to shed the shame and the guilt that I've been carrying that maybe was never mine to begin with? And then we kind of put that all together and there's a shift.
Speaker 1:They live together. They should be treated together Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, yeah, and yeah together, right, yeah, absolutely, yeah, um, yeah, and I mean I guess it might be the 45 days, right, the 45 days when they start to get a look at it. I mean I like the fact that you said that we got to start with safety, because no one does any of this work without feeling safe. Yeah, they don't feel safe. They just run around getting that need met.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, so that is truly if we can get them to that place. Or some of them never even knew what a healthy relationship looks like or a healthy therapeutic relationship looks like. So giving them that kind of structure and support has been also, I've heard over the years, a really important piece. When they leave, they're like been also I've heard over the years, a really important piece. When they leave, they're like that, like wow, I had no idea what that even felt like. So, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a, unfortunately, um and I was just talking about this with, uh, somebody else in your area, dr Rubin Um, there's a lot of ineffective we won't call it bad, we'll call it ineffective therapy out there, because there are folks out there that are just limited in practice and it's because they haven't been exposed to other kinds of work and it's not taught in schools. There's a lot of conceptual work that's being done, like I'm going to introduce you to this concept, but you don't learn how to do that work and you sure don't learn how to do it for someone else, like facilitate that work for someone you know there's the basic skills and everything else and unless they, unless the therapist gets exposed to some pretty intense treatment and care, they're doing advanced level, reflective listening and it. You know that's like being on a gerbil wheel.
Speaker 2:You couldn't put it better myself. I think that's you're so right. I actually had that conversation with somebody the other day too, somebody who was in school, and they're like, what I learned here versus what I'm learning in my school are so different. You know it is you need that actual experience here at the guest house. I got a lot of trauma, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, um yeah, and when I you know Judy's got, she's got some books out there. Got a couple, you know, maybe, maybe they should be having those books in the therapy schools.
Speaker 2:I know. I think there's a few key books that are really important, especially when you think of trauma, the nervous system and the body. That's a big component of trauma healing and just overall mental health. For everybody is how do you heal your body and your nervous system? It's so dysregulated. Social media, all of these things that just can impact your nervous system.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, sometimes without you even knowing it, you know you're sitting there as this kind of this antenna for all this stuff and not aware of it, kind of having the impact on it, on your life that it has, which is why I think it's you know, another value of mine, and something I think is a great tool, is just getting out to green spaces, which is part of what your campus is. Your campus sits on this lovely property with lots of beautiful nature around and lots of serene places where a person can experience quiet, which for some, quiet is not quiet in safety.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's an important piece. Yeah, and before we go, my last question for you is what's next for you in this journey?
Speaker 2:Oh goodness, I ask myself that.
Speaker 1:More years worth of work, and then I'll figure it out, right. You know what is next for me, goodness? I ask myself that more years worth of work, and then I'll figure it out, right, you know I.
Speaker 2:What is next for me? Well, I, what I do know is that in this field, I mean, there's so much to know and learn. You could literally never stop learning in this field. So I am open to thinking about different somatic work, body work. I really don't know, I'm kind of leaving it open at the moment. I do a lot of reflecting, a lot of journaling to try to to see. I do know this and you mentioned it in the the intro is um, my, my most recent kind of goal is to try something that scares me, like anytime somebody asked me to do something new. Instead of my immediate no is yes. So that's my answer for right now is whether it be again swimming with orcas in Norway, or um, being interviewed or doing things that make me nervous and stepping into a place of fear and doing it anyways. That is that's my, that's my goal right now.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Well, I uh, I hope this hasn't been too bad for you.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I love this, and the way we met was just. I mean, you're talking 11 years later to have that moment was just. You just can't make that up.
Speaker 1:You can't make it up. Well, I'm glad to have shared a synchronous moment where we're now. We're bonded for all time now and I'll I'll for sure, get that back down to the guest house and come see you folks here at some point in time. But, marla, it's been great to see you and have you on the show and talk about your journey and helping other people in their journey. This has been Head Side Mental Health. Todd Wetherly.
Speaker 2:Marla Shaw has been our guest. Marla, thank you so much. Thank you, I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found. Thank you, outro Music. I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home. I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home. I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home. I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home. Find my way home.