Episode 85

hello and welcome to another episode of Finding Peaks I want to acknowledge that today is December 25th so merry Christmas happy holidays if if that is more appropriate um I am here your host Jason friezma Chief clinical officer Peaks recovery I’m filling in for Chris Burns who uh got a little case of the covid um so he’s unable to do here or be here joining me uh is Beau Wilder um our intake specialist and Lauren atencio Clinical Director um and we were talking just a minute ago uh we are kind of the Old Guard here at Peaks yeah we have been Bo how long have you been here uh it’ll be seven years in February Seven Years in February I’m eight years in April right six years six years right wow I know so amongst us we have been here a long time yes uh and so we are here today to talk a little bit about um how to kind of manage your own mental everybody’s mental health uh around the holidays that can be a challenging thing uh I know last time Chris was on with me anyway uh we talked with Madeline uh pity about how challenging the holidays can be uh for people in recovery but I think um the holidays can be challenging for uh all of us and so we’re just going to have a discussion it’s going to flow uh or well I guess we’ll see um but anyway so um
I was in all seriousness talking about how laughter is actually an important part I think of walking through the holidays and so maybe we’ll say funny things maybe we won’t um but Bo maybe starting with you uh when we talk about kind of mental health around the holidays what do you what do you do for yourself maybe we could start there um well I lost my father back in May and um all the support and all the tools that I’ve gathered since then um one of the things that that we’re going to do as a family to get through this this grief and the mental health stuff and the sadness and things like that is going to be to take a tradition that my dad used to do you know and everybody picks one and we’re going to implement that we’re going to bring that to our Christmas celebration this year so um to be honest with you just I’m just going to be where I’m at yeah and I’m just going to embrace my family and my work family at Peaks and um we’re just going to try to make it through you know at this point yeah definitely what a great way to honor your father too yeah really creative plan there yeah that’s awesome I think it resonates with me too um I lost my grandfather recently and these holidays have been a little bit more heavy and so I think for me something that I’ve been doing kind of like what you’ve been saying is just being really intentional about my relationships about my own self-care being able to just check in with myself frequently is so huge around the holidays because they’re me myself I am I can go into people pleasing land really really quickly and especially during the holidays right I’m very concerned I want everyone around me to be feel good I want to get gifts for everyone I want everybody to feel loved and I think with that a lot of the time I forget about myself and so with moving into these this holiday season it’s been really important for me to be intentional and just be really present with myself to know what do I need and who do I need right now exactly um especially celebrating a holiday without the loved one becomes pretty heavy and I think you know a lot of our clients kind of are going through that as well as they’re in treatment you know they’re sitting in treatment during Christmas and it’s hard and it’s lonely and it’s probably a little scary but it’s also about being intentional about what you’re doing that day quickly so I totally agree with that yeah and I think you know it’s just interesting you know you both talked about loss and I just recently very recently lost a very dear friend of mine as well and um any you know obviously the holidays are this time of of reflection and of introspection um and and usually I think about the holidays too as a time of transition especially these holidays like as we think about heading into the new year what do we need to change what do we need to address and adjust um I think that that feels um important thing to reflect on as well I know I’m sitting here doing it like like we’ve been talking as a clinical leadership team about what how we are going to take care of ourselves differently and hold each other accountable for that yeah you know I think the biggest thing with that is that self-care doesn’t have to be these big things like today if you celebrate Christmas whatever holiday that you and your family celebrate maybe that morning you wake up and it’s just a quick meditation to remind you to be present right just being very again intentional about the small things we’re doing to take care of ourselves and not thinking that we have to do these big things at such a kind of sensitive time exactly yeah and I mean when I think about self-care I think about um just a small just a quick little story about my dad okay so every year he there was always a present under the tree from himself and it says to jot from my very best friend and all I’m like who is this friend you know and so about I say about six or seven years into sobriety I said dad you have to tell me who this best friend is he says well I eat with this this person every day I never have lunch or dinner without them everywhere I go I take them with me and I’m like is I’m thinking Uncle John I’m thinking you know you know what I mean no doubt he said he said my very best friend and I honor myself every Christmas I honor myself every day you know and that changed the whole scope of what self-care meant to me yeah you know and so as I grab those memories um it’s really really helping me to find my new Norm you know because you know he’s gone so now I gotta I gotta shape and mold some stuff you know what I mean and so that self-care is about um
how let me just say this self-care starts internally yep and once we get so once we self-care is about self-love self-care is about um how you talk to yourself self-care is removing yourself from unhealthy situations self-care is about treating yourself the way you treat your best friend I mean would you talk negative to your best friend you know what I mean yeah no I wouldn’t the things that we say to ourselves but we do that to the people that we love to our best friends yeah so respect yourself that’s another part of self-love uh to reach out for support when you can’t pull yourself out of a depression or you know isolation or whatever have you to be able to reach out to have that social network and that’s what I have with Peaks family you know um and I cherish every person in this company because we just wrap around each other you know and that is a huge part of self-care yeah what do you guys think yeah no I think I think you hit it right on the head 100 yeah like finding finding that worth inside of ourselves that we deserve self-care yeah yeah can certainly be a challenge at times and especially Lauren you talked about trying to take care of everyone else like I think that’s a pretty typical thing that happens around the holidays is trying to make everything else perfect everything around you perfect how to make sure everybody’s experience um is great for them meanwhile not taking care of oneself or putting oneself last like that is it that can be a challenge absolutely well and I think there’s a part of it too of like what do I deserve during the holiday season and when we start asking ourselves what we deserve we start questioning our worth in a big way and so being able to say no I deserve love during the holiday season I deserve to be seen I deserve my community during this season you know no matter how hard it is I know that this is what I deserve because I’m inherently worthy of the love because I’m a human being yeah and so being able I really love how you said that is just like being your best friend even in your darkest time yeah but it Maybe not maybe the holidays are your favorite time of year which is also amazing Embrace that as well stay present in that right um but I I think you said it beautifully Beau
only the other thing that we were talking a little before the show too is we were honestly scrambling to figure out what we’re going to talk about we did talk about um seasonal affective disorder um or or just pretty much feeling depressed this time of year um which is a real thing for sure uh there’s obviously way less sunlight out and sunlight available and I know I drive to work mostly in the dark and drive home certainly in the dark and um and that can be difficult to kind of walk through and not feel depressed and um yeah you know we’ve had we’ve had Dr elardi on this show actually a couple times and um certainly talking about working through depressed like taking steps to work through feelings of depression whether it’s what we eat or trying to get sunlight on our face or using a Light lamp or um um yeah just those sorts of things I think are really important and I think it’s pretty normal like even if you don’t have even if people don’t have the actual uh seasonal affective disorder it is pretty normal for this just kind of be kind of a quieter more down time I think for for people yeah absolutely you know and and what we bring to our clients you know during this time when they’re you know in treatment for uh substance abuse mental health uh issues is to you know trying to disrupt that system that they’ve they’ve functioned in for so long you know and I think us having different activities our curriculum and uh the self-care and and and thing and challenging them to find uh things that they like about themselves you know what I mean I mean when I was in treatment guys I had to learn how to like something about me and it started with my big toe it was so serious I haven’t noticed your big toes yeah yeah I was like okay I like that toe yeah you know and and my therapist had me decorate that toe wow I made it look real fantastic you know what I mean so and everything that you know from that point that I found uh that I liked about myself I would dress it up and I would showcase that and after a while you know I just felt like okay I think I’m all right with me you know so you know just looking at it from a different Avenue and that’s what we do at Peaks we um we we’re we’re outside of the box you know and what we bring back in the box is helpful to our clients and um and then we practice we do our best to practice what we’re teaching and to practice what we’re asking our clients to do yeah I think it’s what I wanted to kind of highlight too is not only the clients but the staff I think you know um we serve a population that is very high risk for you know death or hurting themselves or any of these things and I think it does take a toll on us as clinicians on us as a staff even for medical to residential we all carry this weight we carry this weight of you know I we’re serving those around us who desperately need love and attention and then we sometimes forget about ourselves we don’t really give back to ourselves in that way we we tell the clients this is how you become your best friend this is what you need to do and sometimes we get a little lost in it and so I think even for professionals out there anyone who is working in this field during this time of year just really being intentional about what your self-care looks like exactly what am I doing for me as I’m helping people move through the loneliest time of their life being in treatment on a holiday is hard it’s very hard and so how am I making sure that I am not taking everything on and then I’m being weighed down as as well and I think that’s such a huge thing to mention is that we as professionals are humans I think there are times when clients or other people are like oh you do this beautiful amazing work you’re so great and it’s like I’m still a human I still hurt I still get bogged down I still I I still struggle just like anyone else so being intentional about showing up for myself has been so huge around this holiday season because I know I can show up for the clients but I can’t show up for the clients unless I show up for myself first for yourself yeah right yeah that’s exactly right
the other thing I thought of is as you guys were talking is um
we’ve all been with Peaks for a long time now and um I wonder if you guys have any memories of working on a Christmas day or a Christmas Eve or or whatever what with clients and what that was like like what what do we do for them and and how do we help them kind of navigate a day that they’re likely doing their own reflection and and all that because I know I mean I can think of how many clients like this is kind of a time of year where we don’t have as many people in our program because it is the holidays and people want to be with their families obviously but we’ve had I can think of many clients who have said this is the best Christmas I’ve had in a very long time um but I don’t know do any any memory specific or just kind of in general um I can remember like when I first got here I was working with in the women’s program and um I can remember just you know challenging them to think about the things that they liked about previous Christmases and then we made that dream come true um whether it be playing board games or dressing up you know or doing self-care or whatever whatever it was but it was good to see them interact and actually
reinvent the things that made their holidays great let’s let’s say before trauma or you know in a specific time of their lives where they really felt supported bringing those good memories to life and showing them that it’s not forgotten and it’s not gone just because we’ve experienced you know trauma or our addiction has taken it it hasn’t taken it we just put it on the back shelf now we gotta pull it off and dust it off yeah and re-implement it into our lives you know so I can remember that really easily yeah yeah I have spent more Christmas as it Peaks than I think I have with my family at this point I mean I I but you know what as we force you to yeah I’m forced everybody I’m just kidding um no I it for me it is a day of just giving and receiving love within the community we have I remember one year we did and I think we’re doing this this year too is we do white elephant gets gifts on Christmas and I think one thing that we really really really try to do is make the day as meaningful as we can because we understand you’re not home with your family we understand that this is a really hard time for you and so how do we make this as meaningful as we can whether that be gingerbread houses decorating ornaments we do white elephant we’re gonna go see you know the light show and I think for me my favorite part of it all was watching we had talked about this before is like watching the clients just laugh together watching them just be present and open their gifts and steal each other’s gifts and I remember this one client we had got a onesie as a gift and pretty sure he wore the onesie the rest of his treatment episodes yes he did and it was it’s just a time where as much sadness and heaviness is there it’s actually really beautiful because they feel loved they feel seen they feel connected to each other they want to laugh they want to do these things and it’s just like that’s all it is it’s just about being there I’m another human just being with other humans and we’re trying to make the best out of a day that is a little hard for us in treatment but yeah I the laughter on Christmas Day is my favorite a hundred percent it is it is a I mean I think it’s something pretty magical I think that Peaks does is because it is a day where every like it kind of flattened things out a little bit like everybody’s celebrating Christmas together it isn’t just you know giving people a celebration it’s actually celebrating Christmas with them is kind of what I hear both of you describing on the on the holidays and I think that really matters celebrating the holidays yes together yeah and I think I think that um you know working on the intake team being on the front line and uh myself and my team Landing our clients you know and making them doing our best to to love them to wrap around them to to create a safe space for them and then especially around the holidays if we can create that safe space that we can really tap into that genuine laughter that genuine joy and I believe that most of our clients feel that safety yeah you know and if they don’t feel the safety in the entire you know their peer group I know that there are more than five people that they do find that comfort and that safety in and so that right there just opens up the flower to to start to bloom so um yeah yeah even letting go of some guilt and shame of not being home right like we have clients who are home or in treatment who have kids at home who have you know their families are home and it didn’t but the biggest thing that we teach is that like this is an investment in you yes you’re missing this Christmas but think about all the Christmases you get to go to next time exactly think about all the other holidays what whatever is celebrated within the season you get to now show up as you at those holidays you don’t have to show up as this person you’ve created in order to survive in a environment that was unsafe to you at some point no you actually get to spend the rest of the Christmases with your kids as you and I think that’s one of the coolest things and one of the things that I definitely pushed during this time of year is that this one Christmas is worth all the other Christmases you get and all the other holidays you get totally I think we also get to demonstrate too that that we all have family and then we also can have family of choice and like yeah um and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive like you can have both you can have people that you love and cherish in your family and people that you love and church outside your family to celebrate um in that way as well um so I as we as we kind of wrap up I do I do want to just thank you both uh you know like I said this wasn’t really planned but like um it is fun to have those of us who’ve been doing this for a minute like we’ve known each other for a while now and um and I’m honored uh to know you both and to be on kind of this journey uh you know this this work family is it’s kind of family-ish um it’s good uh and I really enjoy it but but I do I thank you guys for coming on here uh today and and with that uh I we are going to bring this episode to a close uh feel free to follow us on uh Spotify I think in apple podcasts and uh probably Facebook um some tick tocks Lauren I think went viral recently I did thanks to you maybe he’s not full viral maybe a cold or something I don’t oh sorry um and then uh
please follow us uh you know so don’t hesitate to email in uh questions or comments we’d love to respond to those as well and with that uh have a good holiday