Episode 51

empathy is knowing your own darkness

without that connection you don’t have

anything what’s the opposite of

addiction just freedom

hello everyone welcome to another

episode of finding peaks uh i’m jason

friesma chief clinical officer at peaks

recovery centers joining me uh founder

president and uh director of tick tock

chris burns let’s go and uh i’m really

privileged to invite another clinician

on this week lauren atencio

and really after our episode a couple

weeks ago

that we did with morgan mckinley

we really wanted to continue to bring in

the clinical experience that we provide

at peaks and

and really kind of how we are engaging

our clients and engaging kind of this

integrated care where we treat

both people that are primary mental

health issues and primary substance use

issues kind of all

with one curriculum and and really where

we left off talking with morgan was

about uh grief week

and

kind of the impact that that has uh in

in our milieu like grief week

with how we have our curriculum set up

people tend to do it toward the back

half of their treatment episode with us

and they have an opportunity to kind of

begin to walk through

uh and learn the process uh of grieving

things like we had talked about a couple

weeks ago but

um

lauren maybe starting with you could you

maybe let’s start with what we talk

about like from an educational

standpoint on on mondays and what we

kind of begin to go over with our

clients

yeah um you know i think

society kind of stigmatizes grief a lot

in this way of like there’s this certain

way you need to grieve the way that i

kind of explain it to clients sometimes

which is a little silly but

um like if you’re watching a dateline

episode and the commentator’s like well

he didn’t look like a grieving husband

right and that

directly tells people that there’s a

certain way to grieve

a grieving husband can show up in so

many different ways and i don’t think

it’s our role to tell people how to

grieve

and so that’s kind of what we go over in

that monday psycho-education piece is

what is grief what is loss um

really kind of diving into kubler-ross’s

stages of grief and what those look like

i think another common misconception

about grief is that you move through the

stages and you’re good um but the

reality of it is you are consistently

always moving through grief and you’re

bouncing back and forth from you know

anger to bargaining to depression

these different things and um so it’s

really about kind of identifying how

grief affects us but also how it affects

our mental health how it affects our use

of substances and

um

i got the opportunity to kind of work

you know with jason and a couple other

clinicians

in 2020 around grief and a big part of

grief is when we go into anger we want

solutions

and so we we do things that make

solutions right whether that be drug use

whether that be relationships

whether that be food these different

things that we try to do

to avoid the depression part of it

and so

on that first day we really kind of

talk about how important the depression

part is

to kind of explore the pain and identify

the pain

but at their own pace right i’m not

going to just throw them in to the

wolves and hopefully they get through it

it’s really about kind of meeting them

where they’re at but also helping them

get into that place to process

yeah i love how you put that and i have

talked to

uh when i’ve done some of those lectures

i’ve talked about how um

there are a lot of right ways to grieve

and kind of a very few wrong ways to

grieve and i think you are right like

where

we do find especially when people come

to a program like peaks like usually

they’re pretty jammed up in in

either anger or just trying to skip

straight to resolution and not having

kind of gone through the the depression

was kubler-ross put it

and so i do think like talking about how

people move through the

you know maybe denial or anger or

uh whatever but all in this

work to avoid kind of i think

kubler-ross’s fourth

stage in that which was uh that that

depression well uh before resolution

and

the other thing that i talk about too is

that when people kind of skip that

depression well and go straight to

resolution it leaves like an infection

it’s like it’s like a band-aid and it

looks like it heals up over the top of

it but um but really there’s these

things usually that still need to be

kind of excavated and kind of worked

through yeah what do you what are you

hearing chris yeah do you find and i

asked morgan a similar question last

week but i’m just interested from your

take is do you find with specific to

mature adults and young adults as they

go through that process is there any

specific stages that you see

mature adults maybe get more entrenched

in than young adults and vice versa yeah

absolutely

you know i think you know morgan touched

on it last week a little bit but i do

think there is

a big gap with how

older adults are allowed to feel and in

younger adults they really do have

permission to feel right and older

adults never got the opportunity to feel

and i think

what i notice is that

and i don’t even know if it’s younger

versus older um i would even go to kind

of female versus male a little bit

in this way of like

men

anger is very acceptable um anger is the

emotion that men can show and they’re

not going to be judged for it

and i think it becomes really

comfortable for our clients to go there

right so i see a lot of our clients both

younger and older stay with the anger

because they don’t understand what’s

underneath it

and i think that’s what grief freak

really does is it starts to explore

what’s underneath that anger for them

and

um it is harder sometimes with the older

adults who are so like set in their ways

of i am not feeling emotions you know

whereas the younger

adults are a little bit more open with

emotion so i think that’s the biggest

barrier but i do think it boils down to

anger like they are allowed to be angry

nobody’s going to judge them for being

angry

um but the real hard part of it is

dipping into the depression well you

know and being able to identify actually

this anger is just a lot of pain

um

so i do see kind of that difference with

them but again with with females and

males too of males aren’t really allowed

to feel emotions

so yeah and i find i was actually

talking to jason about it this morning

and thank you for that um just had an

experience at home the other night where

i was sitting in some sadness as a

father

and i my brain kept trying to pull me

right out of it and get me into anger

and be like no it’s her fault this goes

over here you know but and i had to talk

to cass about it and i said hey there’s

some sadness is coming up for me and i

want to go to anger but i really just

need to sit in this yeah so i really

like that part and i can’t tell you how

many crime shows i’ve been sitting

around he’s guilty

crying yeah

but i think that’s that’s so real is

like

anger’s so acceptable i mean for anybody

and so it’s easier to stay there and

when i always explain it to clients as

like

you’ve had 20 years to practice anger

and we’re asking you within this hour to

practice depression and pain so it’s

hard right

and

it takes so much practice to be able to

stop myself and say yeah i’m angry and

what else is going on down there

and it is it’s a lot of practice

redirection um

it’s a lot of mindfulness really so it’s

interesting too for mature adults i bet

you know


vulnerability and authenticity and

that’s kind of the inflection point with

what we do it’s like we gotta find

vulnerability and we gotta find that

authenticity yeah so and i’d love to and

i think we talked about a little bit

last week how the young you know the

young guys can actually be

a major influence to the mature adults

and vice versa in different different

weeks different modalities and things

like that so

and i think one of the most beautiful

things about our program is that you

know a 75 year old man walks in and a 20

year old man walks in and they get

together and they realize hey we’re

actually really similar

um and they connect and and that was my

fear moving out of the young adult realm

right is that how are they going to

connect with these

younger

individuals but it is just the most

beautiful thing to see this you know

very well established man who has done

so many things with his life

be able to connect with this younger

adult who’s just starting his life

yeah that can be so powerful i do

remember having that discussion like how

we

we just thought the campus would split

or whatever and really

it’s brought it

uh incredibly close uh when people are

able to relate to one another like that

and and i think it can be really healing

like

like for

young adults to to kind of grieve with

older adults and vice versa like it can

just be really

uh powerful when people are relating

like that

so i do think lauren um

well how our how our curriculum is set

up is uh

i mentioned monday we kind of do psycho

education and we introduce a topic and

we have these six weeks of uh uh

intensives that we offer

and so monday we kind of talked about

what we do on monday for grief week but

on tuesdays uh i’ve been really excited

to talk to you about this um

what do you do for tuesday for grief

week like

yeah

i’m smiling because i

i mean this

grief week and being able to be there is

is one of my favorite parts of my job um

and

so um what we kind of do is

on monday we set each client up with a

task to write a letter

a grief letter to something they’re

grieving and i think

again going back to the stigma of grief

is

um and i think morgan touched on this

last time too is like our younger adults

being like well i have never lost anyone

right i’ve never

i’ve never grieved like i’ve never had

to grieve and

i think

what’s

the most beautiful part about the grief

process is that

loss is so universal that like yeah you

have lost things so let’s figure out

what that is

um so we tasked them on monday to write

a letter to the person the thing the

object the feeling whatever it is to

um what a letter to them right in the

sense of this is

how you’ve kind of impacted me and this

is what i need to start to let go

and then moving into tuesday

we start to move into more of an

experiential

process

there is

a treatment modality kind of related to

fritz pearls it’s gestalt

which he integrated this concept of

empty chair um

and

exactly what it sounds like right

we usually have the client and it’s

interesting because like we’ll have all

of the other clients sitting around

right and then we put

the client right in the middle of the

circle with their peers and we put a

chair in front of them and

we sit with them

and

kind of start to process the letter and

what that looks like is

you know i was just telling chris

i

have found that

there’s a special way to allow for the

client to kind of get into themselves

and their emotions especially for those

who aren’t connected to their emotions

right

and so being able to have them i’ll

usually kind of sit at the very edge of

my chair and very get very very close to

them and i make sure that my tone of

voice is very low

kind of like a meditative state

allowing them

how i start is kind of tell me about

what you’re grieving tell me about you

know let’s say mom your grieving mom

tell me about your mom tell me about

what she looks like tell me about what

she does tell me about your relationship

with her

and so then they’re kind of thinking

about it the wheels are turning and then

i kind of stop that and allow for them

to

feel their body i’ll ask them kind of

what are you noticing in your body

is it anxiety is it fear is it anger

and really focusing on okay well the

anger is in my chest okay bring bring

focus to that right

help yourself identify with the anger

understand the anger be with it

um and then after that i will kind of

move into this place of all right so now

let’s put your mom in the chair in front

of you

um continuing to have that low voice in

that meditative state and um

like i’ll be like

you know what is she doing in the chair

is she nervous to talk to you is she

angry

is she looking at you you know all of

these different things in order to make

the space

a place where they can just be

vulnerable and safe with the thing

they’re grieving the most

and then we move through that and

my favorite part about grief week is

that

usually the letter that they’re writing

is not to what they’re grieving right

and so we’ll move through the process

they’ll read the letter and i kind of

pick things out of the letter i’m like

okay so tell me tell your mom more about

this

and then it might get to a place of like

no actually i’m really grieving my

childhood

you know like i’m actually grieving what

i didn’t get

and i’m grieving the child in front of

me that inner child in front of me i’m

i’m sad for him you know and i’m i’m sad

that he didn’t get these things and

being able to just show compassion in

that way is just so powerful for clients

and

it again like i said it’s my favorite

intervention because

it allows for the clients to really just

let go of what they’re holding on to so

i mean tightly you know

and it allows for them to just release

and another thing that i was saying

right is that

sometimes the clients aren’t ready to go

certain places and that’s okay i think

what this gives us is an opportunity to

hold space i’ve had a client in the past

who sat in the chair for 10 minutes

wasn’t willing to read his letter

all he was willing to do was sit there

and cry

and i just sat there and i held that

space for him because it was too much

for him to hold on his own and he just

needed a little bit of support with that

um

so yeah it’s really cool

i love that it reminds me of my last

trauma intensive

it’s just really unique what we do here

because you hold space

you set the stage you create safety

we’re going into the limbic brain we’re

getting a lot of work done in that what

feels like hours but maybe just 15

minutes

and i remember when i went

to one of my other favorite treatment

programs the meadows and we sat up there

in a lecture on a monday and they were

like you’re going to get two years of

talk therapy in this week

and so that’s what the viewers can

really expect is when you come into

peak’s recovery and go through our

six-week curriculum i mean each week has

that same intensity

that same safety and that same

intentionality that really moves people

through their grief their loss their

pain and their shame in a really

exceptional way and so i always find

myself telling families i was just

talking to one before i got here and i

get a lot of hopelessness on that side

and i’m like just be patient we’re going

to take it 24 hours at a time and let’s

see where this goes

because you watch people day in and day

out i come back a week later and it’s

like who are you it’s a new person and i

just love the way that you guys set up

the safety for our clients because

that’s one thing i was just in group

this morning running circle and

everybody in that group is safe they’re

not hyper vigilant they’re not worried

about where they’re going to eat where

they’re going to sleep what’s going to

happen is a lot of them have been for a

number of years they’re

they’re set in the chair and they’re

like feed me yeah you know that’s

special and i think that’s another thing

that’s so special about our grief week

is that we do it in a group setting

so they’re not alone through this you

know like sure i’m there but

all of their peers who see them who’ve

seen them at their lowest who’ve seen

their most vulnerable parts are sitting

there just holding this for them

and i think when you’re seen it’s so

much easier to let things go

yeah

for sure it’s that empathy thing it

totally is

when i think you know if you

we can always tell when it’s grief week

on our campus because like it’s a little

quieter yeah it’s a little well and a

little routier a little yeah a little

bit rowdier in spots for sure but uh

there’s

something settles on and i do think like

our chef tries to cook some comfort food

sometimes during grief week which is

really kind of her and i think

um

but there is this this tone and this

camaraderie and

and it is usually when i when i’ve done

grief week just recently actually i i

had the privilege of doing a friday

session and like

that’s where the guys were like this is

the best experience of my life this is

the best

treatment of my life this is the best

experience of my life and the most

life-changing experience of my life and

and that is so powerful and and to your

point chris it doesn’t take months and

years to kind of dig in there it takes

some intentionality

and we kind of do it in a week and

really

you know

to kind of round out the week like when

we go to thursday that’s where we do

like crossfit and you me with the guys

and we do um some yoga and then the

auricular therapy or the the accu detox

and um

just to really help people’s nervous

systems settle because

it’s pretty activating um when people

learn how to kind of dig into the depth

of their depression and all that like

that can be pretty activating and

stimulating

and then friday

that’s where we do work to kind of

continue to relax

the system a little bit but also talk

about the integration of it

and i know when i talk about that uh

during grief week i talk about how like

we have we grieve all the time and like

this is a process you’re learning and it

doesn’t actually

take therapists and all of that to to

learn how to do a process

um

my hope being as as people lead peaks

that they know how to like okay i can

i can feel my daughter for instance

leaving for college i don’t know

anything about that but uh i can feel my

daughter leading leaving for college and

i can feel the sadness coming up and i

can feel almost bargaining and i can

feel myself working through these stages

and then

you know sinking into the sadness of it

with the recognition that like i know i

can move through this and i know there’s

another side of resolution and

and you know even you know just to

continue this uh completely hypothetical

situation i know

you know like

if she were to like come home on a

holiday or whatever like i get to go

through little mini grief cycles as well

every time

and so just learning how to like

trust that process too and not block it

to let it kind of flow because i do

think that’s what our grief week does

like people end up really log jammed and

like

you know i didn’t grieve my grandma

passing and then my dad and then my

marriage and then my kids don’t talk i

have this stack

of things and frequently people write a

letter and they’re like i want to write

another one can i do it again

i need to do it again i’ve got more i’ve

got to work on

and um

i don’t know do you have anything to add

to kind of the end of the week i not

necessarily the end of the week but i

just have something to add to that um

maybe the end of the week right is

something that i really try to like let

our clients know is like hurt is

inevitable right and we we spend so much

time trying to get away from it whether

that’s self-sabotage whether that’s

substance use whether that’s you know

high anxiety we spend so much time

trying to figure out how do i not get

hurt in this situation

but the problem with that is her is

inevitable and we’re all going to get

hurt at some point or the other

and so what this really does is it

teaches clients how to deal with the

hurt how to not let the hurt consume

them and control them but instead they

get to kind of control it and i think

that’s probably one of the most powerful

things and like you said integration

that last day is being able to say like

you did it

you this one thing that you never

thought you could do you did it like

it’s such a cool thing to be able to

give them hope that they can move

through it again at some point or

another

yeah i really love what the what the

curriculum speaks to because it is like

really tangible next steps when you get

out in the community

i’m going to have to reap certain things

i’m going to have to find my identity

i’m going to have to you know action

orient my purpose and have to understand

my mental health i’m going to have to

understand my substance use history you

know i’m going to have to walk through

relationships how to keep those how to

grieve those and i think you’re so right

too it’s because when you finally hit

that grief button it’s like

here it comes you know i found myself

experiencing some sadness around an old

friend that i hadn’t talked to about

five years ago and

i’m just starting to experience that in

the last year or so and so when you open

up that channel this authenticity and

this vulnerability you can just be sad

and not have to move away from it and

something that i’m really anchoring into

and really loving to be a part of in my

recovery

so

yeah i think that’s incredible and i

as we’re sitting here talking through

all this too i’m thinking

you know like if if somebody’s watching

this that is contemplating coming to

peaks like this might sound kind of

scary

like i don’t know if i want to go to a

place where like

i got to do this hard work so

lauren how do you how do you think we

prepare clients for this

um

yeah you know i think

um with our curriculum we definitely

don’t just throw them into grief week

right away

it’s definitely a process right we

within individual therapy within group

therapy we allow them to kind of

know themselves more and just be able to

get to know themselves more get to love

themselves more you know i think

something that’s always stuck out to me

chris that you said i don’t even know

when you said it but

um this is the most one of the most

special times of any of our clients

lives right they’re loved they’re seen

and they’re actually getting the

opportunity to love themselves and so as

as scary as this all is it is the most

relieving feeling to be able to let some

of this go

and be able to look at myself and say

like

i did this you know like i moved through

this and

and i think

there is a lot of fear with treatment

and therapy in general

um and and i’m guilty of it too like

first time i went to therapy i was not a

fan you know like it was

you’re gonna ask me to stay here and

talk about all my stuff like no thank

you

um but the hardest moments are the

moments where you’re healing the most

and i just try to like lean into

our clients with that and i and i i said

this yesterday to kind of one of our new

clinicians is that’s the beauty of

treatment is that

we create safety right we create an

environment where you can feel that and

you don’t feel like you’re just going to

crumble

but instead you feel like no i know that

she’s over here he’s over here

to be able to support me through this

but i do think the curriculum is a big

part of it is we prepare them yeah to be

able to process some of these emotions

and i think too that is beautiful and i

think too also with you know people that

are potentially coming in or thinking of

calling peaks they might think we’re

coming in and i’m doing this alone right

yeah but it’s completely the opposite

and you’re like i’m gonna walk into

strangers and within 72 hours you know

we’re calling these people our best

friends because we’re sharing in the

opportunity that is vulnerability and

authenticity for the first time and so

you watch people come in like this then

when in 24 hours it’s just like that

yeah yeah totally and that’s the peaks

environment and that’s the peaks culture

and that’s the ability that we have and

especially people coming into the

program to counter balance what is some

significant adversity yeah in early

recovery so

thank you for that yeah yeah i think

that was really insightful and i and i

do think

the link

another link between kind of primary

mental health and primary substance use

is people are really lonely they’re

detached from their relationships

and they can be surrounded with a lot of

people but um

but they’re doing all this alone

truthfully yeah whether they can’t get

out of bed because of depression

um or they’re just alone in their

thoughts uh

uh you know ruminating or obviously

alone and using and so coming into an

environment like peaks like

it’s what we immediately do and chris

you have set the tone uh since 2014 that

this is about building community and we

have changed a lot of aspects of

everything else about this program but

like that piece alone uh is the threat i

think that has pulled all the way

through and i think it’s it is what

makes grief week not this uh

week of like i gotta figure all this out

on my own it’s a it’s a we thing and you

did a great job describing the circle

around the

the clients as they go through this

process so um and something i value

about our program sorry is that

i tell the guy the clients this all the

time is our program is probably 60

percent your peers yeah like you your

connection your community

is going to get you through this when

we’re not there you know and i think

that is

one of the most beautiful things i see

in our program yeah

i mean i feel like that’s a whole other

discussion too about how

uh

we are just the conduits of all that

right like this isn’t about anybody’s

ego and like

you know this i you know the therapists

have to be the most amazing people in

the world even though i think we are

i think but like we don’t have like we

try to set a tone the entire company

every department tries to set the tone

that like we’re just building the

structure for the healing to occur

within i think um and in providing

little things and prompts and

uh pushes here and there but i i think

you’re right a lot of it is the

community yeah i’d say the recovery

ecosystem at peaks is some of the best

in this country as far as i can see yeah

yeah i think so too

all right well lauren i really

appreciate you coming on and doing this

deep dive and chris i always love uh

your perspective and your questions and

and you sharing your own journeys you

kind of have

uh walked your own path especially over

the last few years and gotten to this

place where you can hold this

conversation with us i really appreciate

it that would have been uncomfortable a

couple years ago

no grief yeah

so anyway uh that’s it for this episode

of finding peaks find us on mainly tick

tock uh that’s the best place

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until next time