What our Kids Really Need (and us, too): Moments of Healing {EP 53}

Robyn: Hey, again, I'm Robyn Gobbel. And you've stumbled onto the Parenting After Trauma podcast, where I take the science of being relationally, socially, and behaviorally human and translate all of that for parents of kids who have experienced trauma. And also, I think the audience has grown actually a lot bigger than only parents of kids who've experienced trauma. It's a community of parents who are parenting kids, maybe with really big confusing behavior, or maybe parents who are parenting kids wanting to do so from this brain based, heart centered, mind focused lens. I'm a psychotherapist with over 15 years of experience working with kids who've experienced trauma and their families. I'm also a self diagnosed brain geek and relationship freak. I study the brain kinda obsessively, and have even taught the science of interpersonal neurobiology in a certificate program. We're wrapping up a series on strengthening the foundation of the brain. So if this is the first time you're here, you are definitely want to go- gonna go back and check out the previous episodes when this one is over. But don't leave yet! Listen to this one. And then you can scroll back and see what you've been missing the last, about six weeks or so. I started this podcast on a whim with the intention to get free accessible support to you as fast as possible. So the podcast isn't fancy and I do very little editing, which means you're likely to hear a cockadoodledoo in the background. If you love this episode, add Parenting After Trauma to your favorite podcast player so that we can hang out every week. When the episode’s over, head over to my website, see all the great reso- resources I've created for you. You will definitely want to download my free ebook that I had put together for you all about the brilliance of attachment. Readers have told me that not only is it beautiful, but it teaches attachment in a completely new way, one that makes it understandable, shame free, and finally useful in your everyday life. Get the ebook at RobynGobbel.com/ebook 

Robyn: Today's episode is sponsored by The Club, my virtual community of connection, co-regulation, and of course a little education for parents of kids impacted by trauma and also even the professionals who support them. Right now in The Club, we are finishing up a deep dive, embodied exploration of attachment so that finally everything you've ever learned and known about attachment can become truly useful in your life. Club members are telling me that they've never explored attachment quite like this. The Club is full of the most amazing parents and professionals, they continually blow my mind. The way they bravely show up for each other and themselves has honestly exceeded what I thought was possible, especially in a virtual format. It's been really amazing and hopeful when I think about how we can use what's available to us at our fingertips to reach more families around the globe, and not just reach them but make a huge, huge impact. If you need to feel seen, to be gotten, and understood, we would love to have you. The Club opens for new members approximately every four months now. And The Club doors are open now from September 28th, 2021. Until October 5th, 2021. If you head to RobynGobbel.com/TheClub, you'll be able to read all about The Club, the connection, the community, the unique way we support one another, and then you can immediately join! No waiting list. It's open now September 28th through October 5th 2021. From October through December 2021 in The Club, we’ll be taking the concepts that had been introduced on this podcast: the strengthening the foundation of the brain series, and we'll be making them actionable. Yep. The monthly masterclass is the learning the experiential way that we dive into the information and the ways that we support one another in the forum are going to all center around the practical ways that we can strengthen the foundation of not only our kids’ brain, but our brain, in everyday moments in everyday life. RobynGobbel.com/TheClub after The Club closes on October 5th 2021, I don't anticipate opening our doors again until February 2022. 

Robyn: In today's podcast, as we bring to a close this strengthening the foundation of the brain series, we're going to look at how we can harness what I've been hearing Dr. Perry call moments of healing. He talks about these moments of healing in his new book, What Happened to You. And I had the great fortune of hearing Dr. Perry speak at a keynote at a conference where I was also speaking back in June. And this idea of moments of healing has just really landed on my soul. It's- it's so easy to get discouraged, and hopeless, and overwhelmed with your career, like mine, or when your everyday life, like yours, is dedicated to helping kids who have been hurt the worst kids who have some of the biggest, most challenging even the most dangerous behaviors. Their parents and caregivers are, understandably, run down exhausted. Those services that families need to give their kids what they need. Honestly, all they literally just don't even exist in the world yet. Let alone are they accessible. Maybe this is why I've been so drawn to the science that explains the mind and the heart of being human, being hurt, and healing from both. There is just so much hope. And I find it hard to argue with the science. At my core. Honestly y’all, I'm just really an optimist and the hope of relational neuroscience helps me stay really connected to families when they need it the most. 

Robyn: I remember super early in my career, wondering how in a week of 168 hours, how my client could get lucky enough to schedule an appointment with me during the hour that they were in the mental space for therapy. I wondered if something like magical happened as they walked through the door to the office and just, poof, here they are ready for healing in this one hour that we randomly scheduled, right? I mean, like what if they were having a bad day or a bad hour or simply were just really not in the mood. You know, what if therapy could happen in the moment that the client was open and ready for it, instead of at some predetermined time on the calendar that we agreed to because it just happened to be the hour that was available to both of us. It always felt like we were just leaving so much up to chance. Now, as I understand more, the neurobiological mechanisms and therapy and why therapy works. I'm aware that, no, it's not exactly magic. And yes, there actually is something that happens when clients walk through the door or, now, click on their telehealth appointment or open the Zoom meeting, right? That does indeed help them move into a space where they are open for connection and healing, some of the time, right? I wonder how much percentage of the week therapy takes up? Well, actually, I wondered that before I started recording this episode, and I did indeed do this really quick calculation. So one out of 168, there's 168 hours in the week. So one hour out of those 168 hours. That's 0.6%. So in 0.6%, 0.6% of someone's week, we're supposed to create radical change. Y'all for real, like, I'm a therapist, I've been a part of therapy that makes unbelievable changes in people's lives: my own therapy, people in my life, and my clients. Without question for many, many people that hour a week of therapy model is working, it works great. But you know what? For many, many people, it doesn't. Not to mention the fact that we are literally smack dab in the middle of a mental health crisis where we don't even have close to enough therapists for everybody's seeking therapy. Not. Even. Close. 

Robyn: When I trained to be a therapist who works with kids, guess how many hours of training I got in working with parents? Or honestly, y'all even in working with families? If you're a child therapist, you know the answer. The answer is essentially, none. I became a therapist because I love kids, I'm great with them, I get them. I told my own therapist once that kids just make so much sense to me. And luckily, my first good professional mentor was 100% committed to the truth that parents don't sit in the waiting room, they're in the office with us. I gotta tell you, that seems really scary to me at first, but being negatively judged by my new mentor seemed more scary. So I started bringing parents into the office because I really trusted him. And that's what he said needed to be done. And you want to know what I discovered? That I love, love, love, love, love working with parents, I actually just basically adore them. And they need to be adored, just like their kids. 

Robyn: Also, it seems pretty obvious to me that kids would benefit from having all 168 hours of their life be a little bit different, not just the one hour that they were with me. When I work with parents, and I bring them in, whether that be I'm bringing them like literally into sessions, or they're very actively involved in the treatment in some way. What that means is that parents are learning new ways of playing with their kids, new ways of responding to challenging and sometimes even out of control behavior. Because yes, the out of control behavior would come into my office, sometimes. Parents were learned- learning how important they are in their child's life. And this was a big one, right? Like, I think, unintentionally, I'd like to think it's unintentional. But in the mental health community, we have turned ourselves into who's most important, right? I'm the therapist, I'm most important, I hold the answers, I will help your kid, send them to me to one hour a week, and I will do this magical thing with them. And it's just really not true. The truth is who's most important in their kid's life is their parents. Right? So parents learned from me when they came to work with me that they were the most important person in their child's life, not me. And that I believe they are truly amazing. I mean, I am head over heels for the parents as much as I am for the kids. Parents when I was you know, when I bring them for closer into treatment, they learned explicitly and immediately that I was on their team. And they learned new ways of being with their children, not just doing new things with their kids, but being with their kid. Because that's way, way, way more important than the doing anyway. And if you're interested in the clinical research, it does indeed show that kids make faster progress in therapy if their parents and caregivers are involved. Having parents actively involved in the process means they learn new ways to offer their kids moments of healing throughout the week. 

Robyn: So what even is a moment of healing, a moment of healing, and this is my definition. I am not speaking for Dr. Perry. So I'm using his language of moments of healing. And then I'm going to tell you what that has meant to me. A moment of healing happens when a child is beginning to get dysregulated. And then the parent takes a breath, pauses, looks at their child with new eyes. Eyes that say “you're struggling” instead of eyes that say “you're misbehaving”. That's a moment of healing. A moment of healing can happen when a parent implements an idea for a rhythmic, repetitive, relational, somatosensory experience that helps a child transition from let's say tooth brushing time to PJ time.

Robyn:  A moment of healing can happen when a parent sees their child struggling with homework. And instead of saying, “if you could just concentrate and do your homework, this would all be over now”. And hey, y'all, I know that phrase because I've said it a lot to my own kid. So you know me, we do no shame, no blame. We're all just humans doing our best and trying to get through life, right. But instead of saying, “if you would just do this, it would be over by now”, which like I said, I've said, a moment of healing happens when a parent maybe says something like, “hey, I'll bet you can't beat me in arm wrestling”, and then assumes the left arm wrestle position, or they give their kid a double bubble gum to chew on. Right? Focusing on the regulation, instead of the behavior. That's a moment of healing. A moment of healing happens when parents feel empowered to meet their child's needs, because I've been so clear with them how important they are to their child. When a moment of healing happens because parents get from me what I know they want to give to their children: presence, attunement, compassion, capacity to hold and welcome all of their parts. 

Robyn: A moment of healing happens because when parents and kids walk through my door, they understand, implicitly, because something just feels different in my office, and explicitly, because I actually have word art that says these things, that every single part of them is welcome in my office. That all true selves are lovable. And because parents begin to believe this about themselves, they begin to stay more regulated for their kids. And then they begin to believe this about their kids, that all parts are welcome and their true self as lovable and worthy of love. They begin to see their kids a little bit differently more of the time. And they begin to respond a little bit differently more of the time. And they do this in 167 hours a week, the 167 hours a week that I'm not with them. Right? So now I have a kid, and frankly, the grownups too, because they matter just as much to me, who's getting 1000s of moments of healing throughout the week, not just a couple of moments that happen in one hour, once a week. 

Robyn: So I decided to change the way every mental health provider in the whole wide world does therapy. Well, I'm just kidding. I mean, I'm kind of just kidding, right? This one hour a week of therapy model is probably beyond my capacity to change. But you know what I can change? I can reach more parents outside the therapy office and give them what they need, so that they can give their kids moments of healing. This is truly y’all become the greatest joy of maybe my entire professional life, to have created something that I can see how the culmination of all my experience training, and yes, extreme privilege and good fortune, have allowed me to create the structure for a thriving virtual community of parents all over the world. Parents who now because of The Club have more capacity than they did, right? Because they're getting the connection and the coagulation that they need to give their kids now the moments of healing that they need. Right? And these parents are also believing that these moments of healing matter, right? They're learning because- they- I'm sorry, they have learned because the mental health community taught them that they don't really matter. Right? We taught them that when we didn't include them in meetings, in the therapeutic process itself, in a treatment planning, right? We accidentally, I'd like to believe it was accidental. I know it was accidental on my part, right? We accidentally, we unintentionally have been teaching parents that they don't really matter that much. That me, a stranger, matters more and their child's healing, right? And so I've decided that maybe my job isn't to change the way we do therapy in the whole wide world. But it might be my job to unteach parents that therapists are more important than they are. And maybe it's my job to teach therapists that therapists are more important than parents are. Parents hear me loud and clear: you matter, and you matter completely. And you aren't meant to do this alone. Right? 

Robyn: So you know what else I can do, I can encourage professionals to bring parents closer, teach them how, to inspire them, empower them, help them grow their own window of tolerance so that they can hold more energy in the room. Give them the skills to connect with even the hardest to connect with families. The kids who are the hardest to connect with, are usually the ones who have been hurt the most by connection, and therefore need connection the most. And y'all, the same is so often true about their parents. I had an ah-ha moment when I was attending the Rising Tide conference earlier in the summer, back in- in June. And not only did I have an ah-ha moment, but it was basically the best three days of my entire summer. So if you have a chance to go to a Rising Tide conference in the future, go, go, go, go. But, y'all, here's my ah-ha moment, and it wasn't really an aha moment because I've obviously known this. But I had an ah-ha moment in the way it like, all kind of clicked in together. And then I could take a step back and see, like, what's happening in The Club. But the ah-ha moment was like, Y'all, obviously, parents need these moments of healing, too. Right? Like one benefit of having parents very involved in their child's therapy experience is that parents would get what I would call this like weekly dose of co-regulation every time they came to their child's appointment, and they'd have opportunity to connect with me. Like there, they were coming to their child's appointment, but they were getting- the parents were getting this weekly dose of co-regulation from me, right? A week is a long time for a parent of a kid with big baffling and maybe driven by trauma behaviors to have to go at it alone. You know, a week is a long time to navigate the extremely challenging behaviors of a child, in addition to just navigating regular, everyday stress, right? So by the time the next week or so an appointment would roll around, parents really, really, really needed me to welcome all of their frustration, all of their overwhelm, all of their anger, all of their hopelessness, right? They needed me to give them moments of being seen, felt and known. They needed their cup of co-regulation to get filled, then they could go back out into the world and give their kids what their kids needed for a few more days. And then we'd do it again the next week. 

Robyn: And it was lovely. I loved my work. I love my work. But I really got to thinking like what if parents could get that more? What if they could get that more because there are more therapists, more coaches, more helpers, more healers trained to give it? So y'all I promise, promise, promise I'm working on that. I'm working on how do I get involved on a bigger scale? For there to be more therapists, more coaches, more helpers, more healers, who give parents what they need? Right? What if parents could get that more? What if they could get those moments of healings for themselves more because there was a place for them to receive it more than just that once a week therapy space? So like, what if both could be true? What if there could be more therapists, more helpers, more healers, more coaches who could give this to parents and this once a week like intimate one on one way? But what if there is also a place for parents to get that more often outside the one on one, you know, therapy, hour experience? 

Robyn: I know there are a lot of you who are getting that, getting that more because you're listening to this podcast. I know this is true because you write me and you tell me these things like you've literally written to me and told me that you're getting your daily dose of co-regulate by popping in your earbuds, listening to this podcast, going for a walk, going for a run, walking the dog, taking a shower, you know commuting to work, whatever it is that you're doing. And I know a lot of you that are listening, are getting these doses of, moments of co-regulation in The Club. Those of you in The Club are also giving those doses of co-regulation to everyone else in The Club. And you all know what it turns out that that's actually a super important part of this process, the giving, and the receiving moments of healing. 

Robyn: It makes so much sense when you think about it, right? Of course, we all need moments of healing, sprinkle- sprinkled all throughout our lives, just our regular every day life. And yeah, therapy is awesome. I'm a big fan of therapy, right for myself? For my family, for everybody who has access to it. But not everyone does have access. And many of the people who do have access, honestly, they need more than an hour a week. They need as many moments throughout their week as possible. And they need moments of healing throughout the week because another thing that's really important that Dr. Perry talks about is that in between those moments of healing, we all need moments of rest. And there's only so many moments of healing and moments of rest, that can happen in an hour. But if we pull back and we look at how many moments of healing and moments of rest in between those moments of healing can happen in a week? Wow, y'all, wow. Moments of healing, it's moments of healing that's changing kids, and moments of healing, change their parents, and moments of healing change the helpers. It's time to just reconsider, and reframe, and recreate how we're doing all of this, how we're helping kids, how we're helping parents, how we're helping families, how we're helping the helpers help parents and kids. Moments of healing will be what changes the world, and already is what changes the world. So we can just get a lot more thoughtful and deliberate about how we're doing. 

Robyn: So those of you listening to this podcast, thank you for receiving moments of healing with me. And thank you for offering the moments of healing that you are getting from me, you're giving them out into the world, I'm confident in it, it's coming into the way you're with your kids, it's coming into the way you're with all people, right? If you're ready, then, to join a community where we are explicitly giving and receiving moments of healing to each other, so that we can give it to our kids, and to ourselves, and to all the other important relationships in our lives. And y'all, I mean, not even- even the unimportant relationships in our lives, right? Like, it starts to impact who we are. And then this impacts how we are with everyone, the people at the grocery store, the people at the bank, that people were driving by on the road, right? When we're inside a community where we're explicitly giving and receiving these moments of healing, it starts to change all of us in all of our relationships. And if that sounds amazing to you, it should because it is amazing! Oh my, oh my, oh my like, if there's no way I could figure out how to share this with everyone I would. But for now what I have is The Club. And I'd love, love, love so much for you to come and join us in The Club, you know, or tell other people that you know would benefit from it to come join us in The Club. Doors are opening for new members, September 28th through October 5th. And then we'll be closing because we open for a short period of time and we close down to then just focus on each other, focus on really creating a deep resonant community. Right? And then we'll open again in,I think, probably February 2022, which is a little bit longer than usual. I've been on an every three months cycle and I'm going to I think start stretching it out to opening it up to every four months. 

Robyn: If you have questions, if you're curious, if you're not sure, don't hesitate to shoot me an email or you can DM me over on Instagram to my Instagram is @Robyn.Gobbel. So if you have any questions just don't even don't even hesitate to reach out. Y'all. I just can't even express my gratitude that you're here. You love kids this much that you've listened to this episode. You love kids that much. You love yourself this much. What we are doing here together, me, and you, and everyone who's listening, pause for a moment and imagine everyone who's listening all around the world in this exact same moment as you but also not in this exact same moment. People are going to be hearing what you're hearing right now at other moments, which I think is so cool. It's like weaving our web of connection, another layer deep, and it's changing the world. So let's just keep doing it. I'll see you here next week.