Episode 147

we’ve built this cohesion and we’ve built this understanding of each other and being a team and utilizing each other’s strengths and picking up where we see weaknesses because they found that a mentally healthy employee is the best employee you know yeah i mean I can’t process anything if I’m constantly distracted if I’m constantly entertained [Music]
hey everybody and welcome to another amazing exciting and of course with yours truly Chris Burns enthusiastic episode of Finding Peaks i am so grateful to be here and really honored to be joined um by our clinical director Dr prince thank you for coming on the show thank you for having me absolutely it’s always a pleasure and one of our amazing talented uh primary therapists Andrea Yoko and she is a licensed professional counselor candidate let’s go couple months being an LPC mhm yeah it’s so cool having you both on the show you guys both do tremendous work down on campus i’ve been back on campus over the last week and um I’ve heard each and every one of specifically you two your praises from clients that I’ve had the opportunity to sit with hang out with i always ask people “Who’s your therapist m do you love them you know or who’s your favorite therapist is it your therapist and um people speak about you guys in pretty high regard and so I’m grateful to have you on the show to talk about what it is you guys do why you do it and what keeps you moving so um Dr prince a lot has changed since you’ve been here january of last year right uh April oh you were a month okay april of last year end of March is when I was hired and I came my first day was first day of April
i think I was actually when you just said that I was thinking I was like who is the most amazing person I’ve ever hired i think it might be you thanks yeah absolutely well that’ll carry us into like what have been some of the things since you’ve been here in the short time you’ve had a tremendous amount of change but what have some of the things that you’ve kind of been a part of uh clinically that you’re really really proud about that you guys have been able to institute or insert into the organization clinically that you’ve really seen kind of help settle clients walk them through their recovery process and ultimately heal yeah so our clinical team we have Andrea um and one other individual Alyssa and you just heard Andrea’s been here about a year and a half um they are the OGs of the clinical team that’s cool because as we walked through um with some changes to clinical documentation and things like that we got a new team um so Alyssa being almost 2 years in August and Andrea being a year and a half they are our original my at least my original um team members from when I got here um so that’s the biggest change but we had such a diverse clinical team um we have male therapists we have different um modalities that our our team really specializes in um one of our therapist is um advanced trained in personality disorders oh no way we have ex existential therapists who have advanced training um Andrea herself uh does does really well with DV and has advanced training in that um so that’s huge one of the things that we’ve done clinically is we’ve built this cohesion and we’ve built this understanding of each other and being a team and utilizing each other’s strengths and picking up where we see weaknesses and it’s beautiful yeah um you go to the garage uh I my office isn’t in the garage in our RV garage where our therapists hang out um but I go in there and it’s so interesting that our therapists are talking well Andrea knows this well uh let’s ask Andrea um even in the group curriculum Andrea has very specific days that she runs and sometimes when she needs a vacation she’s not there but she’s there training them before she leaves um saying “Hey this is how I run it.” They do very well they respond very well to this so that’s huge we’ve also done some changes to the curriculum that have the therapists have they’ve implemented their own ways and modalities of doing things and it’s worked and it’s worked great uh for the most part some we’ve ran a couple of weeks and said it’s this isn’t nice okay um Andrea who has advanced knowledge in narrative therapy that was one of the things that we tried and uh Andrea was ready she was excited and then she came back and said that didn’t go so well and we have to change that say the clients will let you know yeah for sure like you can tell right we’re like this is not working and we wrote everything down over the last few months so we have systems in place now instead of us just guessing and saying well we I do it this way and somebody else it’s it’s very aligned now and and everyone has access to that and so it takes the guessing and questioning out of our day-to-day experiences i love that and I love that you talked about cohesion and um you know what you guys work on on a daily basis and how that shifted because the curriculum I think is really really important and I remember when you came in and I know when you came in as well our curriculum was really heavy you know it was grief it was um identity and purpose it was shame and guilt was these really loaded modules that appeared to really weigh heavily not just on clients in primary care but the team um and and for whatever reason I think in the past it created an inability for people to have what you talk about now so clearly like this multidisciplinary approach to treatment you know and it’s something special that I’ve seen over the last year is like everybody feels on the clinical team I think for the first time in our company culture potentially seen valued and heard and you’re all in alignment like moving together which is really really special and how has that been for you Andrea since you’ve been here because I know when you got here you know a lot of change was happening a lot of necessary change but what has it been like for you over the past just over a year kind of transitioning into Peaks and really coming to fruition to be one of our stronger therapists and obviously one of our most um seasoned yeah um it’s interesting i love that you said like Alyssa and I are the OGs i always like to say I’m the bridge like I feel like I’m the bridge between old peaks culture and new peaks culture and I feel really privileged to have come in at the time I did of kind of change and upheaval and and had that flavor and I understand what that is um but also coming in knowing what I could see the future would be um and being able to bridge between those two things and carry parts of that culture forward that were helpful and maybe letting go of some that weren’t um some of those being like you know not having boundaries between work and personal life and things like that because I think the core of Peaks is always that our clinicians like truly really really do care absolutely about the guests and and that can be a lot right and so you talking about like cohesion on the clinical team it it’s not just like you know conceptualizing together it’s also a humility and knowing uh where your skill set is and where you need to hand somebody off to somebody else um knowing how your own stuff comes in the room i always say as a therapist like that’s that’s our job right is to know like how my trauma is coming into play and you know I need help with this or can you do this right and at the core of it too is like I genuinely really love everybody I work with like we just like on days where we’re all there and we get to have lunch together it’s like the best it’s the absolute best and there’s no way you can do this job um without having a team like this i always say go this is a weird job this is this is not a normal job and the only people that understand it are the people you do it with and you have to debrief with them um but in terms of what you’re speaking about with the curriculum you know all these things with like it being really heavy like I feel the difference is those elements are still there um but we’ve learned a way to time them where it’s not like boom boom boom and we’re kind of processing in between and we’re tying things in like something I’ll often say when I’m running groups is like “Hey you’re going to hear me say this in grief week and then you’re going to hear me teach you this lesson again when we talk about codependency.” And when you talk about this there’s like this common thread of see how this comes through right which in therapy is always when I’m telling people I’m doing what I’m listening to you I’m listening for the theme like what is the common theme in all these struggles you’re having and I feel like the curriculum is is being formed in this way where that’s what we’re doing we’re kind of keeping with this theme right of like oh look how you are sacrificing yourself over and over and neglecting self seasonal yeah yeah different times your life that’s really really cool what do you find you you guys both said it I think differently than like Pax Peak Pass Peak Peak’s culture too is like this boundary thing and I think it’s really really advantageous to our clients but how do you how do you speak to you know you can’t just go in and be like hey you need to do your work you know but I kind of need you to do your work whatever that looks like or just take great care of yourself how do you inform that Dr prints in clinical culture without telling people you know and and work doesn’t necessarily mean everybody has to go to therapy it might mean get some sunshine might mean go for a walk but how have you been able to inform this thing where you say “Hey in your personal life take really good care of yourself because to Andrea’s point this job can get a little weird um and a little disconnected at times so how do you do that?” I make myself available and how can I support you right um we built rapport um I’ve and I’ve built rapport with all of my team members um and that’s where it started so they have that comfortability to come to me and say “Hey I need a break.” Okay um I’m okay with running groups but could you lower my case load and then the team because they are a team they start to notice too and so they’ll start to come hey we should check on this person and I don’t mind taking a a an extra person if they need a break and so it’s very beautiful and they and that’s how they’ve been for the last year yeah just kind of this open door communication where people can come in and say “I’m struggling.” And not get penalized right professionally for it that’s really really cool we were We had a guy in here we did a podcast and gosh I’m forgetting his name right now but he had a company where it’s he wanted to develop a shamefree workplace for folks who struggle with mental health to where like it was built into the HR component where you could come and say “Hey I’m struggling with my mental health and you’re not going to get like axed or you’re not going to get reprimanded or two weeks later you’re not going to lose your job.” they actually have resources inhouse because they found that a mentally healthy employee is the best employee you know and it’s really really difficult in our field because Andrea each and every day you’re facing your client it could potentially be one of the most important days in their life and one of the scariest days in their life and so what do you do Andrea to just for the viewers out there because I think this is a really important topic like what do you do to make sure that you can be where your feet are when you’re going into these things on a daily basis that are really really heavy and really valuable yeah I think I mean that’s a really good question right in terms of if I am struggling in my own life then all of a sudden here I am maybe assisting someone with clinical support and detox where they are in like the darkest moment of their life and so for me what I’m always reminding myself is you know we always have to like kind of leave our stuff to the side compartmentalize for a minute but like just really being in that moment with them like entering their world and we always use that term holding space but that’s literally what that means is I’m going to put my stuff here right but then also have awareness of that and one thing I’ll say about peaks in terms of is because so many people that work in mental health right or therapists and we’ll tell people like watch out for burnout it’s against our code of ethics to be practicing when we ourselves are not doing well right like there’s a saying which is you’re you can help your client as long as you’re just one shade healthier than them but there might come a time where in that moment that day I wake up I’m not one shade healthier than my client right and so that’s my responsibility to have that self-awareness and to know that and one thing I’ll say about Peaks is you’re right there are places you can work where they’re going to preach this and say “We don’t want you to go burn out and ask for help.” And then when you do you’re going to be penalized and that is not true here right like I just took three weeks off because my mother’s on hospice um and I knew that and leading up to it not only was I communicating this and feeling safe and it’s psychological safety i have psychological safety with my leadership team to say like “Hey just so you’re aware,” I think I’d said to you months in advance I go “Hey just so you’re aware this is happening in my personal life.” I’m like probably going to be a thing in the near future and then PMA you know who was our wonderful director of family services she was like encouraging me she goes “No.” I said “I need to take like a week off.” She goes “No you need to take a month you need I have never in my life worked somewhere where a supervisor would say no we want you to take a whole month you need a whole month and we’re going to give it to you.” Wow right and so how can we do that like what does that look like you taking some time off and how much do you need um and and that’s really the truth and the checking in with one another and knowing one another like me being able to maybe go to Marissa and say “Hey I noticed this clinician struggling at home and and they’re becoming tearful more often when I’m talking to them at work and they’re having a hard time compartmentalizing their own stuff right or like this client they were assigned we didn’t realize would trigger their trauma and maybe they’re not the best fit for them right now that’s all part of us also providing quality care to guests at peaks as knowing our own stuff that’s really rad i had no idea about that and I’m sorry about your loss oh thank you um but it’s I think it’s really cool that you know we’re going through grief week and we’re talking about grief we’re talking about pro processing grief and it turns out that you were allowed to do that yeah so I’m super grateful and that hasn’t been synonymous with our past and so I kind of the I call it kind of peaks 2.0 new culture it really seems like in the clinical department that you guys have each other’s backs and that’s like that’s really valuable to know especially when you take some time i’ve I’ve had work situations in the past where I come back from a long vacation and I’m like did I do something wrong did I miss something because you know you leave and everything they’re like documentation and this and that oh like resentment that you took time off or like Yeah like all of my holes showed up when I was gone you know and all the stuff I didn’t do somebody else did and so it’s nice to know that we’re creating an environment especially for clinicians when your job is freaking tough and you’re going in and you’re connecting with these really really difficult and deep stories that when you’re having a tough time or you’re within a deep story that we allow you to process that wholeheartedly and frankly like clients can feel that you know and they can feel they can definitely feel when you love your job when you’re feeling supported when you’re mentally healthy and um I think that’s really really enriching to the client experience so I appreciate you sharing that yeah of course i was going to say too in terms of this idea of boundaries in in work uh right it’s it’s a different job than in a different profession where you might kind of hold your personal stuff a little closer to yourself because it’s important for my team to know at least on some level what’s going on with me you know where the other day we had a client that got a really awful diagnosis um and had to be transported out to the hospital and that was triggering for me based on my own stuff and to have Logan be able to say to me in that moment he goes “Oh buddy this is kicking up so much stuff for you.” Right and the only way he was able to do that for me is because he knows me right and and having that safety that we know each other yeah so that’s really like really fortifying too just enough people have your back you know when you’re going through it um and and you talked about it uh Dr prince how do you all decide when somebody comes in how do you decide like you know I know you split up the groups with respect to you know clinicians or more advanced in these areas or these modalities or have training in this and the other thing how do you assign clients to individual therapists i learned my therapist was was the first thing um that I did and what they prefer because there are preferences um there are individuals who prefer female uh clients or male clients or and I also learned their specialties and so when we have we just recently had an individual enter treatment well I guess not recently but severe domestic violence severe domestic violence and there was no question who that individual was going to go to they were going to go to Andrea um because she is the best in that area um the same thing with uh one of our clinicians Holly she’s a social work candidate if there’s sex related issues they tend to go to Holly because she is the best on our team at that um and so I learned my therapists what they specialize in what they prefer and so as individuals come in I read their paperwork and then I divide them up to the best available therapist that’s cool yeah you really to know like your team and engaging with them and not just like in this like oh we do supervision and we do this thing but like personal professional lunch whatever it is really get to know the ins and outs so that we can ensure when somebody comes in it’s a you know it’s not always a perfect match right for sure but we do our best to to get them there that’s really really but it’s I think it’s pretty rare they ask to switch even yeah it doesn’t happen often no so you both talked earlier about like a common thread bad when Andrew you spoke about it pretty clearly with respect to your clients kind of a question that I have is you know there’s a lot going on in our environment there’s a lot of intensity cost of goods are through the roof everything’s really expensive there’s more unpaid mortgages anytime in the United States since 2008 and so you have a lot of intensity coming in a lot of professionals a lot of young adults have you all been able to see in your work maybe over the last year or two that there’s somewhat of a common thread based on what’s going on in our environment and how do we speak to that and I guess what are you seeing what’s going on in our environment yeah is it is it you know mature adults are they coming in is it uh you know leaders of their household is it mothers is it you know what is there a common thread that’s happening just since the like in the pandemic there was a very common thread coming in in the pandemic young adults were getting kicked out of high school or colleges and they were coming in they had this kind of disposition of like what why does it all matter the adults are going crazy you know and so there was a very common thread in the pandemic from 2020 to almost 2023 especially with young people coming in have you seen environmentally informed like just because it’s intense right now you know we just had an huge election anytime there’s an election there’s a huge shift um you know one way or another and not to mention like just from an inflation perspective and just the way everything costs people are losing things in our environment i mean two homes went for sale in my neighborhood the other day um and I don’t think they wanted to move and so there’s just a lot of pressure out there are you experiencing that with your clients yeah when you’re saying this that as you’re talking I’m thinking of different themes I’ve noticed over the last 18 months working at Peak specifically um that kind of present themselves again and again um and so one in terms of kind of what’s happening politically and on a larger cultural scale that I’m seeing specifically clients in their early 20s right where we’re entering adulthood we call that developmental stage emerging adulthood and what I’m seeing a lot of that comes in from mental health is this overwhelming feeling it’s kind of like a disillusionment or a loss of innocence of like oh my god what’s happening with Gaza and Israel and what is this and oh the world’s a terrible place and and as a therapist not wanting to invalidate but I I had a client where I was trying to say to her like this has always been true you know and you were just now learning this for whatever reason maybe parents sheltered too much or somehow they weren’t paying attention as an adolescence and so this wasn’t spoonfed to them in tiny doses it’s like all of a sudden they’re getting it like a title wave and I remember her just sobbing and saying to me like “Well if that’s what the world is I don’t want to be part of it right?” and becoming suicidal and also having a lot of them having this real altruism of like I need to help right i’m not married i don’t have kids yet i don’t have a career launched i’m in this period of my life where I can get involved in activism or do something and the pressure becomes so great that it’s the whole like oxygen mask thing of like say you’re in residential treatment right now put your mask on this is we need to help you we need to get you healthy and then you can go out in the world and help but you’ve become so overwhelmed that this is crippling for you so I see that one that makes a lot of sense yeah i was going to say then we see people entering retirement i’ve worked so hard for this retirement and now I’m here and I realized my identity was my career ah and who am I see that one yep yeah and then the other one I’ve been seeing is um people early 20s um that grew up either you know upper middle class or affluent um that just seem to have some distress intolerance is what I call it and and what’s sad is often the parents are self-made where they didn’t grow up with the same privilege and I’m on the phone with dad going “Hey so you got a lot of money let’s talk about how that affected your kid.” Yeah right and they’re like “Ah we tried so hard to give them like normal struggle and like learn these lessons and you know kind of how that presents in our early 20s.” Um kind of a floundering of like “I have this purpose i feel I’m not fulfilling my potential but also no one’s pushing me to do so i’m too comfortable.” Yeah right for some of us like we never do anything until our feet are held to the fire right and that’s not true for everybody but for some of us it’s like we’re just going to stay comfy as long as we can yeah yeah it’s interesting how those common threads appear kind of like almost generationally or every 5 years or so there’s these new these these new things that you have to battle and and potentially you didn’t think you were going to have to face that in your counseling sessions yeah I was going to say I remember in grad school and they they had like a list of reasons like general reasons people come to counseling and one of them was turning 40 right like and so I always remind people that sometimes we just need to go in for like a little defrag as we transition through different phases of our life and and that’s normal why and you you said it you know middle class upper middle class affluent you know I grew up thinking for sure if you don’t have money you’re not happy and for sure if you have money you’re going to be happy and not to mention the American dream is to I’ve said it before race to the top of Pikes Peak to get the pot of gold and realize nobody’s there right and so how do we how do we work with people to see that they are more like I find myself saying a lot it’s not important but you are how do you get them to go like this and like come inward to really begin to focus on and foster something that has a lot of shame in it or is depressed and like how do we how do we transition people inward like it seems so difficult because I was so hyperfocused even in my recovery it’s like I started out working in a gas station like let me be a house manager is everything’s so externally driven and people in today’s day and age culturally or otherwise seem to be so externally focused and so we have the gift of having them come on campus we turn down their volume we take their phone we give them an iPad and we say “It’s all about you.” Probably for the first time in their life it’s all about you how do you navigate that i’m I’m laughing because it’s deeply uncomfortable it’s what we see right for sure well I mean how many times a week is someone asking for their phone and and and raging about why can’t we have phones even though they knew they weren’t supposed to have phones or the other thing we get is you know sometimes there’s not enough activities after group like there’s no hike or they cancel the hike because of weather and what am I supposed to do i’m like ooh sit with yourself yep yeah and in longer term recovery you’re like “Oh my god I got moment by myself.” You’re like “This is so nice.” Yeah yeah no kids nothing it was just me i don’t turn on TV you know that kind of thing but I felt to your point I can remember when I was in treatment absolutely not wanting to sit with myself and anytime I had to sit with myself was wildly uncomfortable absolutely and so I love what the clinical team does partners with the activities team and I know you guys are creating a new schedule that just kind of get people moving and grooving but I think there’s some efficacy to our programming and people sitting with themselves and I’m certain that most people that are sitting there don’t not have something to do you know but that’s got to be difficult yeah i mean I can’t process anything if I’m constantly distracted i’m constantly entertained you know when you’re talking about this external focus that I mean that’s exactly what that is right that’s a coping mechanism to not look here just like codependency and focusing on others is because I don’t feel worthy of focusing on me or I’m deeply uncomfortable with who I am right and so that’s a question I often ask people is like do you enjoy your own company what did you say earlier about talking to yourself and making jokes and you go I like me like I like hanging out with I I like myself a lot yeah Marissa is great she laughs at her own jokes a lot which I think is really endearing right but like that’s an example yeah someone laugh all that matters is I laugh like I’m a great time right but like how many people don’t feel that like how many people’s core belief is if they really knew me I’m boring um if I’m not of use to them I’ll be discarded right and so I have to focus externally all the time because this is painful and so that’s yeah it’s deeply uncomfortable it’s I call itchy and that’s where substance use comes in it’s like I get home after work I have nothing to do I’m by myself like what do I do i’ll get drunk and watch a movie and then I don’t have to think about me right right yeah why um Dr prince why is the youth suicide rate in affluent family systems more than double that of poor kids why do you think like in your Yeah absolutely and I would see this I was in higher education for a long period of time and uh just my opinion has to do with what Andrea kind of mentioned is that they’re not being spoonfed this information they’re not being spoonfed uh disappointment where we see um our our children in poverty having to face struggles and maybe a little bit at a time whatever that is but it’s building resilience every time mom can’t afford Christmas so we’re going to get one gift that kid gets a little it’s hurtful but they got a little bit of resilience each time but when our kids are given everything when they are so protected they’ve never had to experience the hurt um the same thing with grades we are all equal so we have removed grades from a lot of private schools um we we all are on the same playing field there’s no resilience building and so when the world comes at 18 19 20 years old and it hits them they haven’t built little bits of resilience to be able to deal with big issues when we’re 19 18 19 20 years old first heartbreaks right oh I was so protected we didn’t date so I never had a girlfriend they go through an experience where they got a girlfriend at 20 and the girlfriend breaks up with them and they don’t have the ability the coping skills the toolbox that could have been built younger to say “Yeah I my girlfriend broke up with me for this reason but I’m okay because I like to sit by myself i enjoy my own company i’ll go to the movies i’ll go to this festival.” Whatever that looks like that’s That’s spot i can actually relate to that you know growing up it was like my mom gets a large pizza and there’s like 12 of us i’m like I want my own large pizza right you know but there’s a lot of resilience building in that like you don’t get a large pizza and you don’t get two of these Salisbury states TV dinners either you only get one you know and there’s these certain things and it’s interesting you you say that both of what you guys have said because when I first had kids I wanted to exclude the struggle that I walked through like just get it out of there so anything that costs money I got you mhm food toys i mean I don’t do it anymore because I’ve learned a lot in the 10 years I’ve been a father but I mean I look at some of the younger pictures of my kids and they got Yeezys on and these Burberry i’m like what is going on here you know what I mean and thank God I have a really good counselor and just great people around me and great parents that inform um not overextending to your kids and showing up presently and what I learned throughout that process is my kids didn’t want all that they actually wanted me to put my phone down and spend 15 minutes with them on the floor and that was better than the Four Seasons in Maui like that’s cool right but anytime my kids are like “Hey mom like do you remember that vacation?” He’s like “Dad what I remember about it?” Oh I remember i remember when you were sitting on the beach with me and we were sitting there and we were talking about turtles and that turtle came out of the beach and it was just me and you and the sun was setting and daddy wasn’t that cool you know it makes me emotional because it’s like those times together connected in presence and I think that’s what you all are showing the individuals that come into care is like you know we may have got this part a little um intense or wrong or whatever it might be but this this this path can be yours and you can curate it alongside the people you care about and you can have a new experience
that’s rad yeah it’s connection yeah i want to acknowledge too how hard it is when you do have the resources to provide your children everything and and for them not to struggle how difficult it is to not provide that yep it’s so difficult and and I can remember uh knowing that I needed to correct course when my son was about three or four and he had broken something and his response was immediately oh we’ll just go buy a new one at Target yep and I thought he daddy will just give me one on the way home from work uh oh oh yeah yeah yeah let me just buy another one right um and so that’s one of the things I joke about about my divorce is I was worried that they wouldn’t struggle enough and then and having parents I get divorced where I go you’ll be fine he’ll be fine just give them a little toast and as I’m sitting here today my 13-year-old is at work for his dad today doing like hard manual labor so I’m like all right we’re going to be all right right right it is really hard still sometimes to not be like “Yeah I can buy you the $150 shoes.” Cuz I remember getting bullied for my shoes and I don’t ever want you to feel that pain i know yeah i want you to look cool cuz I remember going in there and they be like “You look dumb.” I’m like “Yeah.” So at least you look good you feel good right yeah like if I can just remove that element of shame or or you know feeling less than for them right but then also the question being like well what did I take away from that experience in my life right yeah and and I’m sure you both have worked with you know affluent families who have the boundary thing right and how powerful that can be you know they’re going to show up they’ll show up but it won’t show up in this room you know monetary stuff and we’ve walked with a lot of people who I think parents have done a good job with that as well and it’s really cool to see that happening those boundary systems anyway you know what would you say Andrea is the favorite part of your day oh my favorite any day during the week what is it and why oh morning coffee morning coffee yeah always yeah i I always joke like as I get older I’ve become like an old man you know i’m like I get up before the sun comes out you got a black cup of coffee i have black coffee and the paper and a smoke you know i wish you know Logan and I always joke like if smoking was healthy he’s like “Oh man all day i’d be smoking all day.” I’m like “Yeah.” Uh but yeah like that morning meditation like especially if no one else in the house is awake right yeah yeah that’s really cool i’m going to pop what is your favorite part of your day it is the same thing so all teams at Peaks um pick on me a little bit oh yeah because I am in the chats at between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning um because I am up but um what they don’t know is that is the time for myself so what I do is I I put our schedule in the chat every morning and then unlike Andrea I do drink my coffee and smoke a cigarette yeah I love it um and watch Tik Tok and um I do that my children are asleep my husband is asleep um and that is my time to ground and then uh about 30 minutes later I say “Okay I can go inside now and get dressed.” And so I start that morning routine but um that is that time for myself um me and Andrea have a similar amount of children similar amount i have a large amount of children i have four um but one is an adult now so three and a half going into grad school at 18 or whatever um yeah so um but they take up a lot of time during the day and so just to have that time to relax um is amazing I love your both of your responses because I think what you just responded with is what we’re trying to get our clients to anchor into it’s like me first today and then all the other stuff in the valuebased component like if I take care of myself in the morning and I give myself the time it’s a non-negotiable well it sounds like it’s a non-negotiable for both of you too like this is my time this is my cup of coffee this is my thing and it helps fortify uh my resilience my mental health to go face and show up for presently people in that have serious needs so I think that’s really really cool i would have thought I think most people on the show would have been like “Oh it’s it’s when I get into work and I start doing therapy.” And I know you guys love therapy and I know you love what you do but that routine in the morning I think speaks to the recovery process that we’re trying to embody and kind of hand off to our clients one day at a time that’s pretty cool yeah well and I think it’s the routine too of being an early riser and you talking about ground grounding it’s so important the work we do i can’t be running in late right you know like oh I overslept and that’s not a thing I can do like I need to come in and like be present and ground into that space before I can actually like be with someone one of the things you guys ground speaking of grounding you guys ever ground like just go outside with your feet oh yeah yeah and do it it’s so good merc you i’m not an outside person craig we just need to get We need to get you like a cut out a square in your house to where it’s like just dirt so you can sit there in a chair and put your feet in it we always joke that my children they were raised in the suburbs but they’re country Louisiana girls at heart because my children do not wear shoes i love it half of the time we can’t get them in clothes either so they do all of the grounding for me outside mud like my kids are those feral children are you forced into the wilderness to retrieve them no stan’s really good my husband is really good at like he takes them on the hikes and dirt and dirt in the hair and they have very curly Andrea knows this they have very curly hair so then the dirt in the hair like the Oh yeah is like it’s never coming out so I have to like shake them out the scalp you get in there i was on campus on uh well I was on campus earlier but I saw her yesterday and the day before there is a client we have that doesn’t wear shoes oh yeah we have one at I thought it was so cool mhm so I don’t like to wear shoes either but certainly in professional settings people you got to kind of wear shoes so she gave me the green light the other day i was like I’m not I’m not wearing these and I was like I’m not are we good she’s like grounding earth i’m like yes you know Brandon was actually the first I’m going to put my shoes on um Brandon was actually the first person to show me that documentary Grounding Earth and I went right outside and I stuck my knees in or my feet in this the grass and you got to do it for 15 minutes and I usually lay there you guys would love this so I get done i get out of the sauna and I have my underwear on and I go out in my backyard and I just lay down like this and I put a pillow and I just face the sun for 15 minutes there’s no fences in my neighborhood mhm there’s no privacy sometimes my wife will come to she doesn’t wear her underwear but and I just often think like what do these neighbors think of this dude this guy’s just lit fuds man you know but I’m out there i’m just like oh my god they probably think you’re the coolest they might maybe they’re just like there’s Chris yeah oh yeah so I always run out in the morning so when I run out of my house at 6:00 a.m I run right out my front door and I run out in the road and I do a spin move and then I start running backwards d and then I run backwards the end of my road and then I go Mhm and I just wonder like you have to rev up yeah yeah yeah like like winding it up
yeah and then I go and I just wonder sometimes I’m like who’s watching me right now you know you’re getting caught on someone’s doorbell camera they’re enjoying it yeah and I won’t let cars we have 36 homes in our neighborhood so I pretty much know like facially like who everybody is and if I’m I always walk in the middle of the street it’s early in the morning but if you want to get past me you got to wave you got to wave i’m not moving till you I’m not moving till you wave and I will literally “Happy Monday.” And they’re like “Chris get out of my way.” I’m like “Nope happy Monday.” and they’ll just go like “All right clear go.” You have to run me over without a wave anyway just talking about early morning process you’re inviting them to set their tone for the day you’re doing You’re saying “Let’s start it this way.” Exactly let’s be happy turn that frown upside down and it’s interesting too because I don’t and I’m sure you guys don’t do this either i think maybe some people believe who are struggling with their mental health like “Oh you know they wake up they feel good and sometimes it’s a battle you know it’s a conversation and it’s like I want to go for my run or I want to do my meditation but I’m like I’m only going to do 6 minutes today cuz I got things going on then I’ll say no I’ll do eight or no I’ll do a half mile cuz I’m tired and then I get to half I’m like yeah but it’s downhill i’m like I’m going to do the downhill and I’ll circle back because I’m tired this thing and it’s a constant battle absolutely and we just move through it because I know that part of my day is going to create the most value for me and the people that need me to show up for them you know so I love that you guys have that i think it’s so so important um before we end the show today I wanted to chat with both of you about maybe your favorite client story or outcome or interaction since you’ve been at Peaks and why start with you Andrew oh there’s a lot of them i’m trying to pick one um oh jeez I’m trying to think i have a few i’m trying to think what is most important well I was going to say there’s a client that um I feel like we all shared last summer who was highly suicidal highly suicidal and there was definitely time I mean on and off M1’s going to PHP coming back to residential back into the hospital back um back and forth all the time and this particular client had started buying Lego sets and building things um and kind of one by one coming to the clinicians and saying like “Oh I made you this.” Huh so we all have them in our office but what I knew when this person came across the parking lot and handed me a bonsai tree um was that it was a partying gift right that they were giftgiving because they plan to end their life and when I accepted that I didn’t say it out loud but in my head I thought if you die I’m throwing this in the trash like don’t this is not going to sit in my office as a reminder right um and it sits in my office today and they’re thriving and doing really well you taking good care of them yeah well no it’s a it’s a Lego bonsai okay okay i’m like bonsai are so hard to take care of and so a client this week said to me “By the way what is the deal with the Lego things in everyone’s office?” Oh you got to tell a story yeah and I said “Yeah that’s from a client and they’re alive and they’re doing really well and I’m so glad this Bonsai is still in here.” Yep that is really cool have an orchid you have an orchid yeah I have an orchid yeah i always wonder what everybody else has that’s a really cool story i like that how about you um I think mine was from just after summer and um it was not a client that I uh personally was the individual uh clinician for but I worked very closely um with Holly holly was the individual clinician and this individual came in um experienced a lot of hopelessness around what he what he was experiencing and no one’s going to be able to help me no one is going to be able and a lot of shame about what his addiction was and um at at one point wanted to leave AMA um he ended up staying and uh completing Holly did wonderful work with him i met with him throughout his treatment um and just recently um you called and followed up with me um and Holly was so excited to hear how well he was doing so that’s cool that’s it’s always wonderful um I do a lot of the clinical screens um for people to make sure we’re a good fit we can keep people safe before they get here um and that’s a question that I often is anyone like me m can you help someone like me um and the answer is usually yes um because that is part of the mental illnesses that we see that not that I’m grandiose and I I’m unique and special but this is so severe and so debilitating to me that no one else is going through this no one else can go through this because it’s so hurtful and when I tell people over the phone “Yes yes we can.” And they come in and they see that there are other people that are suffering like them they often it gives them a sense of relief that this this is something I can get help for this is not something I have to live with for however long I’m here on earth so that’s why we do groups that’s rad yeah that’s why group’s so powerful that’s so cool and I I have like such a privileged view of like our alumni i stay in touch with handfuls of them and they get in touch with me and you know I got a year I got two years I’m in recovery I’m doing this and um I think I it was a couple it was in the pandemic i’m going to share my favorite story now okay and it has to do everything with what you all do and not of what I do but uh certainly I get to reap the benefit of hearing the experience and it just lights me up like a Christmas tree but there was a guy in care who had been to multiple programs but specifically like behavior modification programs he was at a program called Prescat House in Arizona um which I’m very very familiar with but it’s an all men’s program oftentimes centered around sex addiction and compulsive gambling and they come in and they’re very very rigid shame based in my opinion they make they make every one of them wear a bike helmet they have to wear these shitty they have to drive these shitty bikes and then when they don’t that when they don’t have their bikes they’ll take their bikes and make them walk to meetings and they only have certain areas in town they can even be in like they draw a circle around it and if you go outside of that you have to sit on tables tables is eight hours you just sit there and like write lines out of the big book you can only get up to go to the bathroom and so very people still refer to this place and you know I’m sure they do great work but this individual had come to our program and I was a little worried because I’m like oh this is like kind of a little more laidback you know a little bit more um thoughtful a little bit more present a little bit more caring and sometimes that’s difficult for folks that are struggling with substance use been in these programs but I had uh this gentleman in my circle peer peer group and I asked him I said you know he was finishing up the program and I said “What is what did you get out of this program you know how was it?” and with like tears in his eyes he said something that I’ve heard so many times before but it just like hit me and I’m like “That’s Peak’s recovery man.” And he said “I just learned that I’m perfect the way that I am.” And I’m just like “Buddy let’s go.” You know and that was everything for me and I know the work that you all do on a daily basis with individuals procures that response for a lot of people i’m grateful for each and every one of you i’m grateful for the team i’m grateful for what you all have created in the midst of some chaos and some intensity um and you all really mirror I think what the client experience can be and will be if they stick to their recovery one day at a time so thank you both for coming on the show we’ll have to get you on again soon until next time thank you peace [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]