Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (00:03.564)
Welcome to the NOS DOS brought to you by the Nevada Opioid Center of Excellence at nvopioidcoe.org. I'm your host with the NOS Bianca DeMacal and we are the fearless, the brave, the Nevada strong, just saying no to silence as we fight the good fight to confront, acknowledge, honor and heal from personal, relational and professional experiences with opioid use disorder impacting our loved ones, our families, our friends and communities.

None are exempt. And to kick off our Help the Helper series, we discuss the invisible injuries of the care work that we do. And nobody knows more about that subject matter than today's guests, as we are joined by Dr. Trudy Gilbert-Elliott, who is a therapist, a trauma specialist based in the fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. And Dr. Trudy works closely with first responders with police, fire,

emergency medical services teams, and hospital personnel. And in our most recent listening session, we talked about the realities and the frequency of secondary trauma and compassion fatigue and what it means to carry exposure to crisis over time. Now, Dr. Trudy brings such deep experience in that space and she's responded to critical incidents across the spectrum from mass shootings, namely in honoring those impacted by 1 October back in 2017.

to officer involved incidents and loss of life, supporting the people who are expected to just hold it together in the aftermath. She's trained across multiple trauma modalities and has spent years teaching and writing about secondary trauma and recovery. So when we talk about the costs of caring, Dr. Trudy understands that cost both clinically and personally. Dr. Trudy, I'm glad that you're here with us today. Thank you so much for joining me.

How are you holding up and since the listening session, what's been going on in your world?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (02:04.275)
Well, kind of the first thing that strikes me is that when you work in our field, work a lot in a vacuum. And that just really struck me after the listening session. Because it felt, even though I had never met any of you before on an ongoing basis, mean, the connection was real. Everybody's presence was real. And it just makes you realize, wow, that's.

often for us it's missing and in order to have that we have to create it because it doesn't happen organically for a lot of us unless you work on a big group.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (02:40.002)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'm so happy that you mentioned this. And this was something that, you know, it was common experience for all of us. I got to tell you, as soon as the listening session concluded, I received calls from participants in the audience, from participants on the panel, but everybody kind of just shared this energy of, wow, there was a lot of healing that went on today. To your point, the connection was real.

and so much good information. I love the fact that on this platform that we're able to bring subject matter experts from across the continuum of care. And our experiences are unique in the sense that we're bringing in also our personal lived experience and our relational lived experience. And that combined with the professional, just these perspectives and all of the nuggets that come out of these conversations.

It's such just an incredible contribution to the work that we do and to that sense of community, right? And it's especially needed to have that sense of connectedness and community, especially given the fight that we're in. And Dr. Trudy, you described during the listening session, secondary traumatic stress is this slow onset. And you said death by a thousand cuts.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (04:06.985)
Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (04:07.329)
You know, and that's such a profound realization that we're often fighting something that we can't necessarily see. So at what point does that accumulation become visible and what are the signs that helpers and systems are often missing until maybe it's a little late in the game?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (04:29.129)
Mm hmm. Yeah, and think it's really hard because unless we have some other people in our life that we've educated to a certain degree about what it's going to look like, we do have a hard time. It's like sort of like when people are losing weight and like, you know, the first five pounds, 10 pounds, depending on like, you're looking in the mirror and say, I know the scale says I've lost, but I don't see the loss yet. But if you run into somebody else and they go like, my gosh, you've lost weight. And it's like, yeah, have.

That's sort of the way this is too, is like if we have close relationships with other people, they're gonna be the first ones to tend to notice this stuff. They're gonna be the ones like notice like, hey, you're quieter or that you aren't as...

Like you don't have as much of an emotional range as you used to have. You seem to be a little bit more doled. And so if we have those safe relationships, those deep relationships with other people, and that we take the time, especially if you're working in trauma, and if you're working in addictions, you are working in trauma, whether you realize it or not. So you end up really needing to make sure that you get yourself educated and that you...

educate the people around you that you're close to that this might be what you notice and then certainly within our own psychology, it's important to realize that when you know, what is the best version of me? Like what is what am I what do I look like when I'm the best version? mean, like what does my what are my relationships look like? What does my work look like? What does my attitude feel like, you know, sort of having that awareness of self because when we depart from that, it's not going to be this

giant departure. It's going to be these little tiny steps. So if I have a vision of what I am when I'm optimized, I'm going to have a much easier time of noticing that I'm not that version anymore. So I'm going to want to do that deep dive. And I think it is really important too for all of us to have some sort of internal checklist, some way of looking within ourselves and saying, okay, do I feel like I'm here? I'm here, I'm here. And

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (06:33.669)
And obviously those trusting relationships are helpful. And when we have those, I talked about before, we end up giving them the insight, especially if we ever have crossed that invisible line and we really have had that secondary trauma experience, then we let them know what we've understood about ourselves. Because I think the difficult part in this is that

we are going to make these little micro adjustments and that becomes those little micro adjustments are what the people will tend to see. I'm not engaging as much. I'm not accepting invitations to go out as much. I'm not reacting the way I would normally react. And certainly from a compassion fatigue standpoint, you're not feeling my presence in the same way because people we're close to are gonna notice that best.

Whereas we may not even realize that I'm performing, but I'm really not present.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (07:28.555)
Yeah, gosh, internal checklists and self-awareness, those are certainly keys. And you spoke about this as well during the listening session that we internalize blame for the stress that we experience, right? And which I think a lot of helpers and especially in your spaces with first responders and with military champions in our community and high stress performers, if you will, in our workforces, we're conditioned to

liken integrity to suffering in silence. And so my question is, how do we start to shift that narrative internally and perhaps environmentally from what's wrong with me to what am I dealing with that's not necessarily meant to heal in isolation?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (08:01.15)
Mm-hmm.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (08:17.011)
Yes. Yeah. And I think, I think what's interesting about that internalized blame is most of the, a lot of the people I work with in particular, one of their really amazing strengths is that they are

regularly taking personal responsibility for things. So it's like that personal responsibility, so they're very, very proud of being a responsible person. Well, unfortunately, how that internalized blame forms is that I'm over responsible. I'm taking too much responsibility. I always see it as sort of like a responsibility pie. It's very, very rare that we get the whole pie.

We are usually, we are, we usually have a slice and that others and other entities and even in a sense cultures have other slices of that pie. And we have to get really clear about what's mine. And, and because I think it again, if I am responsible, I can change this. If I'm responsible, this will never happen to me again. And I think that's part of the incentive and especially too, when I have no responsibility.

That's that complete powerless, but I'm going to try to find a way to blame myself because that makes me feel like I have something I can change. So it becomes this difficulty. And again, that's one of those things that is so important that we have people we're close to and that we do have people because other people are more likely to hear that self blame when we articulate it. whereas I'm just up and I believe myself. So I'm having this whole conversation in my head and I completely believe myself and I'm not.

checking in with other people to say, oh, you might be a little wrong there. And that's how that, that's that's how the, and again, there's some soothing weirdness about saying I'm responsible. Cause I think I can change. I really learned that particularly when I used to work with abused kids and they would, they would be sharing these stories of responsibility. And it's like, you are, and that was fascinating to me. I realized, yeah, we all do it.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (10:11.901)
like from very young ages, even though they had zero responsibility for what happened to them, they were trying to find a way to make themselves responsible.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (10:21.581)
And you know what, as you describe this, I'm thinking we've got to feel safe in our spaces, right? To be able to challenge our own internal dialogue and to also feel safe to share the responsibility. And you emphasize psychological safety and choice and privacy. And you also named how things like gossip can actually deepen the injuries that we experience.

I'm wondering what does it take to build a culture both internally and environmentally, but what does it take to build a culture where people feel safe enough to be seen and but protected enough to be honest about their experiences?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (11:09.993)
And I think it's such a deeply difficult issue because psychological safety, bottom line, starts from the highest levels of any organization. That's where psychological, and it's one of those things that does trickle down. So if the boss is psychologically safe, then certainly it's gonna be much more likely that the people below them and on and on.

But so in a lot of these organizations, unfortunately, there isn't psychological safety. So what healthy people will do in any system that has some edges to it that aren't great is we create our own bubble. And we vet people based on what we understand about trustworthiness and safety and

people who are non-judgmental. So we're gonna create those things for ourselves. And then we're going to, I always say, we're gonna have our cards really close to our chest. We're gonna be very careful about not putting out information about ourselves that actually could end up leading to harm, which is unfortunate. But I think that's just a grownup skill that we've all had to use from time to time. And I think, I don't know that there's an infinite amount or like the perfect amount of people in your bubble, but I think as far as a workplace goes, we know about two.

So if I have two safe people, I have two people I can run things by, but I have to also have the skill set to know what feels safe to me. And for some people, that's a really long journey because they really don't know what safety is. They've never felt it before. They didn't have it in their families of origin. So that's sometimes that part of that, just that healing journey of discovering safety and being safe. So.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (12:56.791)
Yeah. And so this is great. You talk about discovering, you know, safety and really with all things kind of coming down to, this is about building relationships, right? We have to build safe relationships in order to identify, to build, to nurture, even if it's only to put those relationships that we have in our environments. And this takes, this is their nuances to this and especially

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (13:18.077)
Yes!

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (13:24.349)
Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (13:25.645)
nuances that are unique to the environments and the ecosystems that we are in. Right? And so when we talk about military and first responders and EMS teams and crisis response teams, when we talk about, you know, those ecosystems, what are some of the unique challenges to building safe relationships?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (13:54.666)
I would say probably the biggest one I notice is that when you have younger people joining any sort of system so that they haven't had a lot of experience with joining a system. We are the brand new person and so I'm going to, and especially to in this, from the standpoint of like first responder world or any of those types of places that have a lot of longevity.

enter that system and you will exit that system, generally speaking. It's a very rare person who doesn't complete their 25 or 30 years, whatever it is. you enter it and you're with the same people. But when you have that younger version of your brain where you're just developing and you're just becoming, you don't have a lot of life experience, you're going to turn to the people that are in that system to end up giving you your template for how to be in that system and how to

and how to thrive in that system. Those templates may not always be very healthy, but I'm going to have a tendency because you are doing it and you look like you're doing fine and I have no idea. So I'm going to sort of be subsumed by the Borg. So.

essentially, as time goes by, what I see with a lot of people is they start dismantling the pieces. I would say it's drinking the Kool-Aid. They drink the Kool-Aid when they're young in their careers, and then they start going, I don't like this flavor, and I don't want to drink this much. And then they start spitting it out. Now, there's going to be a certain amount that are going to not only drink the Kool-Aid, but start manufacturing it. But for the most part, as you become more mature, you're going to give yourself a lot more permission, because you can see like,

I don't have to necessarily hook, line, and sink, or believe that aspect of the culture. But I think that also takes, again, self-awareness and self-insight. And sometimes we will meet somebody who's a little bit more sort of confident in their difference. And so that we can look at that person and go like, well, they're confident. Everybody still likes them. So that gives that.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (15:59.526)
everybody else a little permission to be a little bit different in the system, as opposed to I have to be completely in the middle of this and be like everybody else in order to be safe. And I think that's part of what we do as we move through our maturing years.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (16:17.805)
Sure, Gosh, so many things I'm thinking about and I can relate to. When you talk about first responders and you talk about these fraternal systems, there's a lot of parallels with the fraternal systems and sports ecosystems. so I'm relating to this with my background. And I say this all the time, there's these cultural rules and roles that intersect. It's integrity.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (16:35.187)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (16:46.137)
and everything that you do and integrity is measured by how willing we are, what our abilities are, and to just lace up the boots and the sneakers and suffer in silence and then excellence, you know, and everything that we do with excellence being confused or having those gray areas between excellence and perfectionism. And then, you know, there's the service before self or performance before self, which usually comes at the complete sacrifice of self. And so,

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (17:06.344)
Yes.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (17:15.563)
as you're describing this journey of developing our identities based on kind of like the Kool-Aid flavors that we like from the environment, it's such an external practice, right? But then when we talk about resilience and when we talk about really confronting, acknowledging and honoring the discomfort, the pain, the challenges that we go through in this work.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (17:26.099)
Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (17:44.078)
That's a very internal process, you know? And so it's kind of like, it's almost like we're a stranger to ourselves, you know, when we go back to the internal. But that's where that permission lives, you know? When you talk about giving yourself permission, it's so difficult for fraternal organizations and sports and performers and high stress, high achieving personnel. It's so difficult for us.

to give ourselves that permission and to drink the Kool-Aid of it's okay to not be okay. Because Dr. Trudy, I'll tell you the truth. It's okay for you to not be okay. But I don't know that I've completely adopted that for myself, you know, in those moments where I'm not feeling okay. I don't know that I'm really like, yeah, Bianca, it's okay that you're not okay. I'm more so, I've got to figure it out. I've got to push through. I've got to get this done, you know?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (18:20.391)
Yeah.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (18:25.417)
Cool.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (18:40.787)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (18:43.285)
And so I just wonder in these systems, while we're so conditioned to surrender our agency to the greater good, to the fraternal organization, when we're conditioned to do that, how do we, what are some of the steps that we can take to restore agency and really embrace this opportunity to kind of

get reintroduced to ourselves.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (19:15.399)
Yeah, and think it's, I think a couple things. One is, and it's, think it's really important. tell officers and firefighters this all the time. It's great to have a couple friends in, you know, at least a couple friends inside your own agency because they became, especially once you've vetted them and they're trustworthy, they can be your reality testers. But I think in addition, we need people from several different areas. And sometimes even, you know, cause all of us do get a little bit, maybe we're a little bit more age.

centric where we're hanging out mostly with people in our same age or in our same developmental context and sometimes those people who are maybe much older than us or sometimes even younger than us can give us a perspective and certainly people from different walks of life that can give us perspectives that we haven't understood and I think it is also a process of learning how to communicate your ambivalence.

about things, like I have a lot of feelings about this and I'm not really quite sure which one predominates or how these make sense. And so being able to express that to other people and sometimes I always say it's like writing or talking, that's why you know obviously therapists we're all listening to people talk, but writing is a big deal. It's something I do a lot of because I always say once your thought process, once something becomes complex enough like this,

complex enough to go past, I always say, seven degrees of complexity. You're going to need either paper or language in order to get that clarified with yourself. Because if you think you can have all of that complexity rattle around your brain and make any kind of sense of the pattern, it might, but it's going to take you a really long time. You put pen to paper, you talk to a friend about it over and over over again, and then you end up getting like, you end up beginning to see it.

And so I think sometimes to be able to recognize, especially to, for example, some of the crews or some of the squads will often be of the same age. So you're not really getting a challenge from somebody who's maybe 10 years or 15 years your senior. So you're not getting as much of that experience. The same thing for us a lot of times is we'll have our peers and then we don't necessarily talk to people who are in sort of different stages or different mindsets that would end up like, that's, I hadn't realized that.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (21:36.606)
because we, again, we create vacuums. We don't realize we're doing it. And I think that's part of what we end up doing when we're trying to break out of some of these is we talk to people who've already partially broken out or are fully broken out. And we can see that there's a path for that. I do think there's also some personality structures in it too, because for some people they really struggle with.

being different, they see different as bad, different bad. They've internalized that as part of their psychology instead of saying different unique or different exciting or different fun. And a lot of times we admire the different person, but we aren't the different person.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (22:18.049)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and speaking of age, I'm going to speak to the younger listeners. When we're talking about vacuums, we're not necessarily talking about kind of like the robot Roombas, you know, that are going along, right? But so different walks of life. Dr. Trudy, we've got to talk to everybody. We're talking about, you know, learning how to express ambivalence, right? And to me, that requires

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (22:30.577)
hahahaha

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (22:47.969)
honoring personal lived experiences, right? And that looks differently, you know, as we look at people from different walks of life, that looks differently how we honor our personal lived experience. And I wanna shift the conversation a little bit to talk about one of the personal lived experiences that you shared during the listening session and how you've lived the work that you do in a deeply.

personal way and and if we can I'd like to talk about your response to to 1 October in in Las Vegas, Nevada 2017 I want to talk about how you Navigated and how you you know, you talked about taking personal inventory and all of these things to To be able to you know foster resilience in just a such a personal way

how did you do this while responding to One October and also navigating your own child being impacted, not just at the event or a part of the incident in that way, but was actually shot at One October. when the professional and the personal worlds collide like that, how do you stay grounded in your role

but also your role, not for just the community, but your role in your own processing of this experience, how do you stay grounded without disconnecting from humanity, disconnecting from, or disassociating within yourself? How does one do that?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (24:37.705)
You what I learned from that experience years ago about the plane crash and the mass shooting that I talked about in the podcast was that it really has a lot to do with really careful routines. And that was one of the things that I didn't have in place the first time. I didn't have careful sort of external routines. Like, what was I going to do? Like, what were the steps I was going to take? And be very intentional about those routines, because those are your sort of your scaffolding.

for all of the other difficulties. And so that was something I had in place. And then the other one was that internal checklist to make sure that I was paying attention to certain things that were going to be the ones that I was those cuts that I was paying attention to that I was because for me, there's a few of them. One is I always check in with my thinking. I was making sure am I ruminating about anybody I talked to today? Am I ruminating, especially for me, a loop?

like I'm looping about a particular part of it and I keep playing it over and over and over in my head, those would have been indicating that I wasn't doing as well, because that's what happened the other time. I also recognized that I had to do a really clean job of compartmentalizing and that was one of the careful routines is that I have a thing about.

rituals that are part of my compartmentalization. So I have like certain things I will do that are sort of soothing rituals, but also like how I open my office, for example, and how I gear up for the day, even what I wear, which anybody who knows me well would understand what I'm saying, because to me, that's my uniform. And it helps me, it helps me in that compartmentalization process. And then

every night after all of that happened, would see, I fit as many people as I could in in a day because the demand was high. And then on the way home, I would call my daughter and check in with her and see what had happened that day and see what was going on with her process. I felt that as a mom, felt really, really very proud of her because when she went back to, she's a nurse at UCLA at the time and she immediately got into therapy.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (26:50.343)
which I was so proud of her because she said she knew that that was gonna be necessary. And so she started her journey within just a few days of returning to LA. And she ended up with a really good clinician who was EMDR trained and was very aware of trauma. she ended up really having a very good outcome. Her workplace was amazingly supportive, which...

really helped me too because I felt like wow she's getting all this wonderful external support but even then she told very very few people very she did she just that was just her she she pulled her circle in and she utilized that support.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (27:35.91)
yeah, I mean, and it just goes back to your earlier point of, you know, starting with leadership, starting with this organizational culture of supporting, healing and recovery, you know, is, it's just so important and, and, thank you so much for, for, you know, sharing and your vulnerabilities, not only during the listening session, but, now and sharing kind of what that looks like. you know, when you're, switching hats.

or where you're performing one of the many roles that we all perform, right? Mom, community champion, also an auditor, right? And holding other systems accountable, you know, the other systems that your daughter's a part of. You know, these are performative roles that we kind of have to just be extremely flexible and adapt and adjust. And one of those things that, you know, we have to be flexible on

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (28:27.805)
Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (28:34.457)
is and adjust is our perspective on these types of incidents, right? On tragedies, on challenges, on adversity. You mentioned kind of, that didn't happen the way that it happened before, right? This first test of your resilience. It wasn't the way that I felt before. And so almost using kind of our past experiences and challenges as

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (28:52.393)
Mm-hmm.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (28:59.017)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (29:02.797)
a reference point as a baseline to be able to see kind of, you know, what that journey has been like, how far we've come. And that sort of forces us to shift in thinking and embracing challenges and internalizing adversity as learning lessons, right? As these are the moments that we can truly discover who we are and what we're made of, right? And so I love that.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (29:08.115)
Mm-hmm.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (29:17.321)
Yep.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (29:26.812)
Right.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (29:29.581)
Dr. Trudy, will you please tell us a little bit more about what you're working on right now? Where's your practice now and where is it headed in the near future?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (29:40.81)
Well, it's interesting personally. It's kind of funny because we end up with these little challenges and these little things that we get really curious about in our own life about ourselves because maybe a patient will trigger like, I wonder if that applies to me as well.

So I've always loved challenges. really embraced productivity. It's just been something I've always been like that since a little kid. I always loved school supplies and the little, you know, the keeper. You got to put everything on the thing. But what I realized is that in life, everything has a recovery. Everything has, and it's always an opposite. So my recovery from is always an opposite of what I was doing and what I've really been recognizing.

lately is that my recovery from overproduction is not as solid as it needs to be. And not that it isn't fairly decent, but I realize it isn't as solid as it could be. And that's something I've been writing about and I've been talking with friends about. And I also feel like part of that is

And this I think true of all of us. Our value system, I always say our value system is like really, really well-tended soil. Like it's this soil that's like got great nutrients in it and all of this great stuff in it. And that's our value system. But what grows out of that are the choices we make. And that sometimes the things that are growing are different. And I...

And sometimes we let things die out because we need to replant. And that's sort of where I feel like I'm at right now is that there's some things I'm actively trying to figure out what seeds do I need and what things do I need in order to plant something really nice in this one section of my garden. And I think part of it is too is just.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (31:31.466)
It is really about like, and for all of us, I'm sure it's like, it's really, it's embracing where you're at right now. And like you were saying, it's like just recognizing like, this is just such an interesting new challenge, or this is, this is a opportunity to growth. A lot of times when we're in the really deep parts of our growth as a person, the painful growth, we don't see that there's going to be something good that comes out of this. When we're in that change, when we're in that, in a sense, when we're in that whatever sort of like emotional three car pileup.

we don't see it as like, yeah, this is gonna be awesome soon. We don't see it that way. All we do is feel the pain. But for most of us, I know for me in particular, all of the best stuff I've become has come from pain. And so having that ability to see it, those little glimpses of like, ooh, this is gonna be an interesting one, because this is really painful. This is gonna be, this could be, yeah. And so it's on my practice. I really have been doing a lot of work about just

seeing people where they're at and letting them be seen by me, if that makes sense, because I think that's one of the things I learned super early career. worked for hospice for a year. was volunteer. I didn't get paid. So as when I was an intern and I did this year with hospice and that was one of the takeaways, it was like, my gosh. And every person, and I mean every person I worked with, I was the therapist who followed them after the death. So I would follow these families and I'd meet with them every month about after the death, how they were doing, how was the grief and all of that.

And I heard from every person I worked with, they said, you're the only person who will let me talk about this. And I was heartbroken. All I could think of is I'm the only person holding this story safely. That's not right. And I think for a lot of people, that's the big piece of therapy is that you're holding people's stories safely. You're letting them be seen.

And I think that's also a challenge for us because a lot of times we, as clinicians, sort of, we feel like we have to hide our own humanness because we don't want to like feel like, that's going to somehow slime the session or whatever, instead of saying like, no, I can share my humanness. I can be human because that gives them permission to be human. It's modeling of the most powerful kind. And I think that's something that a lot of times

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (33:55.358)
We're missing, we're missing letting people know we're human too. We're not this person on this pedestal that has all of the answers, we're human.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (34:02.583)
Yeah, yeah. Gosh, such profound statements, you know, and thank you for the work that you do today and thank you for the work that started it all because when you think about especially end of life and families, the support, the resources, the wraparound from community, it usually occurs at the time of death, but then,

soon after, you know, services and things like that, those families are alone again, right? And so just the fact that you continue the healing and also model that in your own practices. I love the storytelling from hydroponics, the horticulture to the hospice, right? And the garden, this beautiful garden that takes tending to, you know, and then also,

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (34:33.531)
Mm-hmm.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (34:50.577)
Hahaha!

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (34:58.731)
I mean, just kind of along the same lines with the language, right? There's seasons to sow, right? And to reap what you sow, you know? And it takes that space, that time to heal, you know? And to allow for the soil to reveal. And so, such incredible, incredible things.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (35:08.137)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (35:28.033)
I think to follow that up, it's only natural that we come to this moment in the podcast where you give what I'd like to call the mic drop message, right? I think that's only natural that we go here and we say, Dr. Trudy, if you're speaking to one person out there who you hope hears this conversation, that you hope that your message has really gotten a hold of today, what do you want to say to that one person?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (35:31.433)
you

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (35:56.01)
I always tell people find your people. People who are safe, people who are non-judgmental, people who see you, who understand you. Safety doesn't mean they don't tell you the truth, but the truth will be respectful and the truth will be gentle and truth always helps us grow.

And I always tell people, gosh, be careful about keeping space for people who want to keep you small and who won't embrace your growth. And your growth becomes a threat to them because your growth is holding a mirror up for them to see their stuckness. And so they are going to try to make you go back to the person you were because you're making them uncomfortable with you creating this newness in yourself. Some people are really lucky and part of the people

are biological to them so that it's like their family of origin is actually part of that safety and that support. But for some of us, we had to branch out and we had to create a family of our choosing because that was the only way we were gonna get that safety. And it was the only way that we were gonna actually have some people who help us see truth and help us keep growing and don't wanna make us small.

And so I think when we have that, a lot of other things become possible. It's really, really difficult. Not that you don't hear about some people who do this, that complete solo journey and end up someplace interesting. But for most of us, we can look back on our life and say, that person said that, and that person showed me that, and that person modeled me that. So when we have good people in our life, it's obviously sometimes the best example is a terrible example because it makes you see what you don't want to be.

But I think that's so important for us when we have that enough support. And that's going to be obviously relative to each person. Some people need tons and some people are just need a quiet few really solid people in their life and they're golden. And I think that's that to me is the the ticket.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (37:55.412)
I love it. You heard it here first. That is the ticket. Don't keep me small. Nobody puts baby in a corner. This is my savage garden. Truly madly, deeply. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. Dr. Trudy, how would one get a hold of you? For those that are listening and want to connect and continue the conversation, how do we find you?

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (38:02.95)
Yeah.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (38:17.575)
Well, it's really easy to reach me via email or text. I always tell people if you email me, I'll usually give you a substantial answer. If you text me, it'll be brief. But it'll be pretty quick. It'll be pretty soon, like usually during my breaks or whatever. And then certainly as far as.

what I can offer folks. mean, I'm really happy to be a supportive peer. I mean, sometimes those kinds of, it is hard for us, especially for those of us who are working solo. It is very hard because we may not end up with anyone in our organic environment who's really able to provide that. And so I think it's really smart when people have those connections. I do have a couple of really dear friends who are clinicians and they're the people I'm gonna run stuff by always. But I think for some of us, we don't have that consistency.

And it's not, I would love to, if anybody needs that, I'm happy to be, I'm happy to be your supportive peer.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (39:15.645)
I love it. love it. And it's great that you led with emails or detailed texts or brief. I'm still trying to learn this balance Dr. Trudy. My texts are a little long, you know, but I can't do the whole paragraph thing. I got to get with the times, emojis and acronyms and things. That's so bad. Dr. Trudy, thank you so much for being here today and for the ways that you continue to show up for this workforce and the way that you talk about

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (39:30.343)
Yeah, there you go.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (39:37.072)
Bye.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (39:44.685)
you know, secondary traumatic stress. mean, it just, the conversation, didn't feel like this, this heavy and this dark conversation, right? the way that you normalize it with your, with your language. And like I said, I love, I love the language of, of, of, soil and, choices and, and, and, and just, and the modeling, right? I love the, modeling of, of humanness, you know, and being the greatest kind of, of modeling.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (40:05.833)
Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (40:14.431)
And especially to those who have been carrying this for such a long time, you know, in the spaces that you're working in, that we've been carrying kind of this burden. And at times it's almost like self-inflicted, right? Or it's our perception that's growing the burden. And without us having the language or the support, you know, I appreciate your honesty, I appreciate your experience and the work that you're doing to make sure that helpers

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (40:29.48)
Mm-hmm.

Bianca D. McCall, LMFT (40:44.289)
Don't get lost in the process of helping others. So now I'd like to shift and thank the listeners for tuning in. If you're doing this work, whether you're in prevention and treatment, response or recovery, this conversation is for you. And I want you to check in with yourself today. Check in with your people, right? I love the peer work, right, that we've talked about doing today. And if you're in position to lead,

Build environments where support is real and it's not performative, right? Share this episode with your team, your supervisors and your colleagues. Subscribe, leave a review, stay connected. I am your host with the NOS, Bianca DeMacal, encouraging you to stay safe, stay grounded, and keep fighting that good fight. We'll catch you on the next episode. Take great care, Nevada.

Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT (41:39.626)
Good job.