On this episode of Supervision Simplified, we are talking all about capacity in seasons of chaos, in seasons of calm and in seasons of confusion and all of the in between.
So I will be sharing a little bit about my capacity journey over this past year, which has felt like 10 years long.And we will be exploring the different ways that
Having to navigate capacity in our personal lives can actually be very beneficial in showing up for us professionally and also helping with leading our teams and leading our clinicians, whether that's in a clinical supervision capacity or just as a leader of a practice.
Welcome to Supervision Simplified, the podcast that's here to rock your supervisory world.
Our mission is simple yet powerful, to educate and elevate counselors, social workers, and psychologists, empowering them to serve their communities at the highest level of fidelity and service.I'm Dr. Amy Parks.
I'm a child and teen psychologist, a group practice owner, and a supervisor in Virginia.
And I'm Valerie Harris, a trauma and attachment specialist, group practice owner, and a supervisor in Tennessee.Let's make it simple and dive right in.
Hello there and welcome to Supervision Simplified.We're so excited to have you joining us for this episode today.I'm Dr. Amy Parks.And I am Valerie Harris.
How are you? Is that a loaded question?Yes.
On any given day, it could be up, down, around, backwards, in a ball, who knows?
Absolutely.I totally get where you're coming from.And, you know, so we chatted a little bit before we started recording today around
The things that are happening in our world right now, we're actually recording this episode the day after or two days after the election for president in the United States in November 2024.
And so we want to have a little chat about that and the experiences that we had with our teams and our supervisees around that.
But on a more personal level, you've had some losses, the United States has had some losses, there have been some gains from that too.
And we thought it would be a really valuable conversation for our listeners to really have an opportunity to lean in and listen in on our own struggles for maximum capacity and figuring out where we
need help and support, how we hold space, you know, that kind of thing.So you want to share your good, bad and ugly?
Yeah, yeah, I'll share the elevator version of 2024.And I can't remember, I said this on a prior episode, so if I did, they'll hear it twice and some people may have missed it.
But I have focused a lot on capacity, capacity management, and the idea of that was
you know, it came out of seeing like the moms in my practice who, once they became moms, I saw the capacity struggles hit them in a different way and saw moms as clinicians struggling with the idea of like, do I raise my children or do I have a career?
And I was like, I don't really feel like that should be a question unless it's your personal question, but it didn't feel like it ever was.It felt like it was more of a forced position they were being placed in.
And I often felt placed in that myself at times. While I didn't always navigate it perfect or whatnot, the whole idea for me was that I wanted to be able to really support them in a new way.
And I knew that they were not the only ones probably struggling.So I was like, let me just study capacity.So before we go on, tell us the definition of capacity.
Because we use the word sort of now pretty freely.
Yeah.So I mean, I look at capacity as your own internal working space, so to speak. Um, and it's your, you know, and so do you have space to, you know, show up, um, to show up embodied.So like for us, radical authenticity is a core value.
You should not have to leave a part of yourself to come in, work as a clinician in our practice.People with trauma can sniff that out. Do you have capacity for the roles that you're in?Do you have capacity for the tasks within those roles?
So it's not just the space, but also the energy, the stamina, the engagement.So it can be all of those things.It's about being able to
do those in such a way that's healthy and that doesn't require you to be in some form of trauma bonding or trauma repetition or self-abandonment.
And so it's really an act of alignment within yourself and to those around you and to the things that you've agreed to do or the roles that you're in, if that makes sense.
It does.And I imagine that this capacity can expand and contract on any, depending on lots of different factors.
So what you're saying is you noticed that this was a bigger concern when people added the role of motherhood to their already existing role of clinician.
And so capacity became a question, and they didn't know what the question that they were asking, but you were observing that.
Yes, and so for as a practice owner and supervisor, my. A lot of what I would hear, not just from them, but just in the clinician community and what's being kind of touted is this whole, well, you just need more self-care.You need more self-care.
You need more self-care.My clinicians were doing self-care.I'm over the whole self-care.We're all doing self-care.None of us were getting capacity from the show.
And so to me, I started thinking and, you know, I looked at the different ways that trauma shows up and numbing is like a very common thing.So I hear people binging on Netflix and I'm like, that's probably numbing.
So it just came to me of like, wait a minute, self care should either be protecting your current capacity or expanding it. And, and if it is not, it's not self care.
And that's very nuanced what does that for one person on one day may not do it the next day and so it's a it's a, it is something that is nuanced and something you have to continually walk in.
So that was where the interest came in because I kept thinking less works not the answer. They're taking time off and they come back and they still don't, they don't feel engaged to do the work.
So the answer and all of these really ridiculous, I don't even like the term self-care anymore.No, I don't need more.We were changing schedules.We were looking at ways to, so then I got really curious about.
What systems do we have in place and task management and things?And, and you know, like, how can we see what things are? are actually extracting more capacity from them by engaging in them.
So that led me to creating this dashboard which I'll talk about at another time but like, so it just became this multi level curiosity for me and my challenge to myself was that I was not going to take a vacation for six months.
so that I could maximize my own capacity to feel it and then apply either what I thought would work or try some different things or the research that I was reading, which there's not a whole lot on that, but I was looking into different things.
So that was my goal in December.And then in January, I had a medical emergency with an ovarian torsion, which then had me have emergency surgery, which then put me into surgical menopause.
Um, that was followed by, um, a separation, um, and divorce after 22 years of marriage, which then led to a move into a new space.Um, and then just last week, um, a few days ago.Yeah.Okay.It feels like a year, but it's not. I was so excited.
I went to a great business conference, which we can talk about at another time, because it's really good resources for clinicians.And I was probably the only clinician there.
It's all over the country, by the way, so I can go to the one here.
Yes, it was so good.We'll talk about that.Call the Spire when it wants to go. Yes.Um, aspire, but on the way home was just feeling so pumped and motivated.
And then bam, a, a buck out of nowhere hit my car and I'm dramatic cause I'm a Leo, but I thought it was a 300 pound buck.I couldn't have seen it if I had even tried because it came right off a guard, guardrail by the time it hit me.
It, like, I didn't see it.It was just right there.So the airbag came out, the hood went up, but I think the scariest part was, like, I feel like it was four minutes, but it was probably, like, two seconds.
Felt more like a very long four or five seconds.I could not see.So I could only see this little slither on the passenger side, like, between the hood and the, where the hood had popped up in front of the windshield.
So all I literally kept thinking is, oh my God, I'm going to be hit by someone.I'm going to die.I'm going to die.This is like, I'm going to die, which was terrifying.And then another car hits me.
Like, and they left the scene and then another car, but, you know, I'm a faith girl.I'm a Jesus girl.I believe that car hitting me actually pushed me over the other lane quicker so that I could get to the shoulder.
I didn't realize that till like later that evening, but I was like, I think that car actually helped push me over.Um, but then another car swerved and ended up hitting a guardrail, but they stayed, they were very kind.Um, so.
I've lost my home, which I chose to lose when I left my marriage.But then now I've lost the car that was paid off.And, you know, it was my dream car when I was a teenager.So it's just a vehicle, but it's more of the meaning of all the things.
And I got to practice the capacity stuff right there in the moment, you know, because you you go into survival mode.So I smell smoke and I'm like, I don't think anything's smoking.
So I'm like hitting my watch that had three percent battery left, pinging my phone, trying to find it.So I crawl down and find it and I crawl out because I didn't want to get out on the side of the interstate.Call nine one one.I'm like, I'm good.
You know, and I go right into action.Right.Because that's what we do as a prepared, I think, trauma therapist.I'm like, I'm good.Uh, nothing's burning.I didn't hit my head.My spine is good.Like I'm intact.Um, I know what time it is.I'm grounded.
This is great.Here's where it's at.I'm just a little shaken up.It's going to be okay.This is just first world problem.I'm literally outwardly coaching myself and therapizing myself on the phone with none.
And then I get off the phone with them and I wait on them and then. in perfect fashion, the way our nervous systems are created, the sensory motor process happens and you know what goes up comes down.So then it's like all the shakes.
And then all of a sudden that's when I'm like, I'm alone on the side of the road and people hit and kill the TDOT people sometimes and they have lots of lights.We're in the dark, it was at night.Yes.And I'm like, I just need a hug.
Somebody give me a hug. I'm like, you can hug yourself.You can hug yourself.I'm like doing my box breathing and I'm going, it's going to be okay.You're all right.You have skills and resources.I'm calling people that I know.
And I'm like, Hey, can you come get me?Like, I just need a hug.Can you just tell me I'm going to be okay.Just tell me I'm all right.Just tell me it's okay.I just need some co-regulation right now.
Of course, of all people, like most people would be like, can you please come pick me up?And you're like, no, no, no, just show up and give me a hug.
Right.Right.My son was like, I'll come get you.And I was like, yeah, well, you have schoolwork.He's like, it's fine.I'll come get you.So I was like, okay, you can come, but just for a minute.And then my employee, because she's amazing.
She came to get me.So I held it together while he was there.And then as soon as I saw her, I was like, I'm going to get my stuff.And when I get in the car, I'm just going to cry.And she's like, okay.
And then, and then I came home and I think I just sobbed like, for what felt like an hour or an hour and a half, just a lot of sobbing.
So those in my life who are close to me are like, I won't say their names, but they're like, I don't think you're sobbing about your car.I think you're sobbing about things you haven't let yourself sob about.And I was like, no, it's my car.
I think, yeah, you've had a year.There's no doubt about that.And at the same time, you know, you are a person that has established capacity.
And that's really kind of the focus here is that, you know, yeah, coaching yourself through some things, which was really helpful.
You probably denied yourself some support by not, you know, really being authentic with everybody at the time of the scene.Just give me a hug.It's all cool.You have homework to do.Don't come.
You know, but I think one of the things that I that I'm taking away from your story is how much we need to ask for help when we when we notice it and not maybe when we think we need it, but when we notice it, like it doesn't.
And if we struggle with that, because I have many times, then you need to do the work on it and you need to figure out why.
I know why, I'm not gonna share it on here because it's not, I'm just not, but I know that there were times in life where asking for help
Like many of us, we either ask for help from people that were not safe and we thought they were, they didn't show up and we thought they would, or they did show up and then turned around and used it against us or showed up or they showed up and then made it about themselves and or almost questioned your need for help.
Um, and they probably didn't know that's what they were doing.I don't think they intended to do it.I think it's their own wounding patterns that they haven't addressed, you know, and I'm.
But my experience is still my experience and so I have had to and that's 1 of the things I said in the car and Jill is. I really struggle to ask for help.I just kept thanking her, thank you for getting me.I know you didn't have to.
She's like, stop, stop apologizing.And I'm like, I just really have a hard time asking and accepting help.She's like, and you still deserve help.And it's fine.And you would do the same for me.And I know that.
The point I think is important to emphasize, and this is, again, this will take us to a conversation about, about managing your capacity in other kinds of circumstances where bigger traumas are happening, either personally or maybe around you.
And so we'll get to that.But I think the thing I want to emphasize is the people that you ask for help, the people that you have identified that are the helpers in your life, they are healthy enough
to provide you help, and they are equally healthy enough to say when they cannot provide you the help.
And that's a really key distinction because what you've done in the past, and what we've all done in the past, is ask for help from people who didn't have the capacity to help us, and either got pissed off because they couldn't do it, they couldn't help us, or were hurt because they couldn't help us, or our expectations were not met.
And the reality is, Or they did it anyway and then got resentful for it.Exactly.
They didn't know how to say they didn't have to pass.
And the reality of it is, is that we need to recognize that if we ask for help and that person is resentful or angry or unavailable or throws it back in our face or, you know, whatever, any of those scenarios happen, that's about them, not about us.
Right.And so, you know, I kind of want to want to segue to this conversation about the election, because I know that both of us have group practices and we both as leaders are essentially not allowed to not show up.
I asked one of my clinicians yesterday, I said, because we had a staff meeting that was preplanned last night and we went ahead with it and we didn't really have the meeting so much as we just had a meal together and sort of were together.
And our practice, we have a very diverse practice who was negatively impacted by the election.But I said, if I felt dysregulated as the leader of this practice, And this is true for supervisors who are leading interns and residents.
If I felt dysregulated and I sent you a message that said, I'm a mess.I can't handle the day.I'm going to stay in bed.I'm canceling the meeting.Peace out.How would that make you feel is what I said to this clinician.
I said, how would you feel that your boss, the leader of the company, was such a wreck that they couldn't show up to work? Would you feel stable or unstable?
Like, how would that make... He said, oh, I never really thought about it, but I would feel very worried and nervous and wondering, what's wrong?Is everything falling apart?Like, what do I need to be worried about too?
Like, that's about co-regulation.And if I go into it freaked out, then I can expect the people who will work with me to also be freaked out.
That's right. That's right and and, like, you said, you have a very diverse staff.I have a very diverse.
Staff in terms of, like, political lines, like, we have some, we definitely have people who are part of groups that have experienced a lot of oppression and. and definitely don't have safe spaces all the time.
And we work very hard as a team and as a practice to try to continually navigate that and make sure that we could show up for one another while also being authentic, you know, and understanding that, you know,
We, we have people from all walks of life like on our staff and sitting across from us, and it, it is, it is not easy because we're all navigating different pain and and.
things that may not make sense to the person beside us, while also trying to understand that other people are carrying pain and wounds of things that maybe I've never walked through.
And no matter how much I can try to logically understand the thing, I'll never understand it because it is not personal to me in that way.
But yet it is personal to me in the way that there are people around me that I care about and love, and I know that they're hurting. And how do I show up for that?And how do I also have that be communicated to those who aren't aligned in that way?
But that doesn't mean you're hated.It doesn't mean you're hated or you're hated.It just means that I actually have capacity to sit
With this person in pain, who may be all the way on the left and sit with this 1 in pain, who may be all the way on the right, or maybe was in pain last year for something that may not make sense to this 1.
And so it can feel a little rag doll ish at times, but that. That's not even about me.That's more of like, that's what I signed up for.Because I do think that I have the privilege, the access, resources, and the capacity to do that work.
And so why would I not show up and do that work, you know?
And sometimes in doing that, I'm curious how you experience it, but sometimes in me doing that work, I feel like those around me inherently think that I'm going to expect them to show up in the same way and do the same work.
And that's definitely never what I'm saying, you know?
Yeah, I don't think... Thank you for sharing that.I don't think that I sense people have... know from me that there's some kind of expectation.But I do have one very clear expectation and that is I need you to have an awareness of you.
Particularly for clinicians.I'm not asking this of clients, of course, because that's the whole They're there.If you're a clinician, especially if you're one of my supervisees and or you work for me, I need you to have an awareness of your capacity.
I need you to have an awareness of what activates you.I need you to have an awareness of where your boundaries need to be and For that reason, I need to know that for one really important reason.Well, two, actually.
One is so I can know how to show up for you, but also so that I know how you are showing up for our clients.Because if you're not managing your own stuff, I mean, we have this conversation about family all the time.
If you're not managing your own stuff, How can you help somebody else?It's the whole, you know, like airplane, airbag, face mask thing, oxygen mask.
If I can't manage my own stuff, how can I expect you to get into a room with a client who's dysregulated or experienced trauma or is completely, you know, combative with their parents or whatever they might be experiencing?
How can I possibly... You can't fake that.And I know I'm here. Clinicians, students in general sort of have the impression that they can just go in and just fake it.They can put on a fake day, fake mask.
They can just like suck it up and get through the day.And I do not believe that is possible.
Yeah.I, well, I believe it's possible, but not without abandoning yourself and landing your, accelerating your rate of burnout.It's not possible with fidelity.I mean, like, come on.Yes, exponentially.
And so what I do think, but what I think that the reason I think that people get into this very black and white space, and that's what it feels like for me, it feels like a very, It feels like an either or is a better way to say that.
It feels like a either I have to suck it up and I just fake it till I make it or I have no capacity.
I'm activated right now and I can't see any clients and I can't do anything and I just and this is not happening in my practice so I'm not speaking about anyone in particular and I want to be very clear about that.
I'm not speaking about any one person that I personally know. I'm speaking about things that I see online a lot in these spaces.And it's very concerning because
I don't, I don't know how the, I think the either or happens because we don't talk enough about how to do the both and, and the both and will not be prescriptive, it can't be the both and for me will never look like it is for you, it will never look like it is for a clinician of color.
It will never look like for like it is for a clinician who is in the LBGTQ community who may have absolutely no support from family like there's so many different things.It'll never look that way for maybe somebody who is a Christian and.
feels like their church has turned on them or someone who is a Christian and feels like their church hasn't and can't understand why other people are.So that's, I feel like that's the hard piece of it.
And when I've tried to show up in some of these online spaces and kind of like bring context to that, not supporting this side or this side, but almost just kind of like mirroring the similarities, the parallels in hopes that the curiosity will catch and they'll go, huh, okay.
I think that's when I get, I get secret messages.I say they're secret.I get DMs that thank me, which I appreciate people taking this time and space to share that it was helpful.
But then I get, I think others feeling like I'm attacking how they're doing things because I can do it this way. it's more or less me going no i'm just an nfp like the P really gives me the ability to stretch like that, I know that other people.
It is a lot harder for them to get to that place and I respect it and we need those people because i'm the person that's going to let somebody trample all over me over here and i'm going to have jays around me going right nope.
So we need both, but I think, I think it's not knowing how to do that middle.
So it's not knowing how to sit with the client and say, you know, I'm having a lot of heaviness, or even if it's not safe for them to share that with the client, what they can do in their physical body.
Like Janina Fisher talks about things that you can do in your physical body in session with people who are opposed from you just to send your nervous system a felt sense. that you are present with that resistance.
I love that material.I loved reading that.And I really align.I physically align frequently.I'll move in the room.
I'll interact in the room in certain ways to make sure that my calm energy or whatever energy I feel like is necessary at the time will sort of permeate the room.Our bodies emit energy up to three feet around us.
And so, you know, it's pretty easy to sort of pick up on energy and have energy meeting each other.
I do think it's just, you know, kind of this bigger question of, you know, I'm not challenging anybody's belief system or anybody's opinions about things.I just think that mental health care is so unique in its responsibility.
You know, if I worked at any, you know, McDonald's or whatever, you know, a company that made widgets, you know, it would have been easy for me to just not show up.It would be easy for me not to show up when things are hard.
and being a frontline worker and not even, and this is no shade to medical providers and other frontline people that are firefighters and all of those people are critical to our world and essential and brave and incredible.
But like as a mental health frontline worker, it's just different. It's just different because you just can't see what you don't know and still you are there in the moment and you do this energy exchange and you have these conversations.
It's just so unique.Like I can almost feel like myself.I could go into a medical, you know, I used to be a paramedic and I could go into the ER and like set a broken arm. And I didn't care about the broken arm.It didn't matter to me.
It wasn't hurting me.I was sorry for the person, but that was it.I didn't care.Because you saw them then and you probably wouldn't see them again.
That's true too.But I can fix it and then move them on.But mental health is so much different.There isn't an auto shop mentality where you fix it and leave. And, and it's the relation.
Everything is a relationship.So how can you not love and care for your client?It's so weird to me when people are like, you cannot love your clients.Okay.Well, I love my clients.I love my staff.
Some people will disagree with that and say, that's unhealthy.I still have boundaries with them for God's sake. That's right.I still have boundaries, but you know what?
If I'm supposed to, to me as a believer, if I'm supposed to love my neighbor, why would I not love the people I serve?You have to love them as humans. Absolutely.What is unconditional positive regard?Like, is that not love?Like, love is an action.
It is a choice and there are different types of love.And so how can I not love and care about my clients, you know?And when, especially when everything in trauma work is attachment wounding, you know what I mean?
And so you're, you're helping to create that consistent responsive nurturing and showing up in that way consistently so that they can embody that and have an internal working model for themselves.
And so how can I show up in that way if I don't have an internal working model or I don't know how to get into my internal working model?
And I think we're in a unique position as group practice owners or as group practices because I clinically grew up probably a lot like you did, like I clinically grew up in the only options were agencies, treatment centers and hospitals.
So all of my clinical work. was not in an appointment set basis where you can just cancel.Like you had people who are fighting for their very lives with severe drug and alcohol addictions at Cumberland Heights.It didn't matter if it was snow.
It didn't matter if there were riots.It wouldn't have mattered what was happening.You have to show up.People need treatment.Same at the psych hospital.You've got people with schizophrenia.You've got a staffing that they have to meet at all times.
It did not matter.You had to figure out how to get in your capacity.And so kind of like alcoholics find that AA in the group become their higher power for a time.And that gives them that sense of
Ability to like stabilize and engage and get that foundation and that anchor I feel like as a group practice owner that is my role, I feel like it is to foster the team and our culture in such a way that when the world is falling apart.
We, as we the collective, we the people can create the capacity.
That may mean that I need to show up with greater capacity one day because two of my clinicians are really struggling and they might need me and need Jill to flex in a different way so that we can help hold that space for them.
And then maybe there's something I go through or someone else goes through and the team flexes and they shift and adjust to support me Not that I asked, but they do that because they've seen it done.
And because we have such great leadership team in place.So that, I think that's where I'm at is it's almost like, I feel like as a industry, we have such power together.Like we, the people, we are the most resourced.We are well-educated.
We have amazing communication skills and none of that invalidates the pain or our emotions or our. permission to express them, sit in them and feel them.It just hurts my soul when I feel like we turn on each other.
Like that's been the really hard part for me is just it getting so tense that, that it, it, it, it interrupts relationships or it's, you know, like,
I feel like we have the opportunity to have the world's largest family meeting publicly sometimes and really show the world what it looks like to navigate these things.And not that we have to do that, because some of us shouldn't.
Some of us need to rest. And that is the best they can do.
But for those of us who know that we can step in those spaces, I feel called to do that to help support those who can't so that they can rest and don't have to do that work if that makes sense.
you know, regular corporations, just like regular people, not mental health people.But I often think about, you know, what is allowed and or provided in those environments?Because I know how hard we both work on that flex.
And I love that story that you told around that.But I know we work really hard on that.And that's a huge commitment I mean, I'll admit I was at work at 7 a.m.yesterday morning and I didn't get home till 10 o'clock.
I was at the office all day doing the flex.And I came home, I literally walked in the house, put all my stuff down and went to bed.But I think to myself about companies that are not like, don't get this, don't do this, this isn't their work.
You know, how are we harming humanity, you know, by not being available in this particular way to hold this space?So anyway, that's something that I'm thinking about.I had class yesterday, it was very funny.
So I think I've mentioned before that I teach the Counseling Theories class at George Mason, or at least I am this semester.And you'll laugh because we were studying, so yesterday's theme was Glazer's Reality Therapy.
And so we had a whole conversation, you know, well, we started the class with some real intention and a little mindfulness and stuff and spent like half an hour sort of giving space for conversation.
But then we went into talking about choice and reality therapy and this, you know, the idea that in Glazer's strategy or theory is that, you know, like everything we do has a choice, you make a choice.
And it comes from what you're talking about, your inner sort of world that you've created, your definition of how you want to function in the world, what serves you.
And when a choice isn't working, then the question is, well, you know, or when you come across the opportunity to talk about something that doesn't feel OK, the question is, well, how's that working for you? Yes.
And so, you know, I'm kind of as Dr. Phil 101.Right, Dr. Phil, exactly.So I'm really thinking about, as a supervisor, sort of that same kind of thing, you know.
So you, you know, you, this wasn't, this didn't work for you, or you're not feeling competent working with this particular client, or you're not able to be in this space because you feel activated, or whatever is happening, like,
How is that working for y to change that?And I th responsibility.Well, I d I know, I know we have a to teach that, to really teach capacity building and really teach.
And we'll have this, we'll have another episode on this for sure, but to really teach this idea of, it's not about bubble baths and it's not about going to the spa and it's not about sleeping more and it's not about, you know, making sure you have Saturday and Sunday off.
I mean, all those things are valuable, but at the end of the day, none of those things are good.
Yeah, but those are your normal, like,
Care goes to be, yes, exactly.So much deeper than shaving my legs.
You know, like so much more than catching up and binging on Netflix, way more than that.And like you said, with the choice theory, I, I always ascribe and I use a lot of like Adlerian therapy, you know?
And so like all behavior is driven to meet a need every single time.So when I see people even run into the polls for.
You know, our, our now new president, I won't say the name because I do realize that for some people like that's a lot for them to hear, you know what I mean.And so I'm just not even going to say that name for right now.
I just feel like timing wise, I'm just going to leave it at that. even for those who run and support him, it's driven to meet a need.And I know that it doesn't make sense to so many people.
And yet so many people have never lived those people's lives either.But I also understand that the vast numbers that showed up alone is very scary for a lot of people. But I grew up in the south I grew up around a lot of these people.
And the only context I know to give is, is. They don't get it either.They don't get what the other side feels like they have.They're very disconnected from that.They don't understand it.The messaging that comes out about it.
Usually further confuses them and makes them feel defensive and it's not intended to and I think the same happens for the other side.So. You know, I think it's just, again, all behavior is driven to meet a need.
So even looking at, okay, what is the need right now?Like, what is this that we're trying to do?What is the secondary gain?You know, and is it value aligned?Is it something you need to do for you?Is it something you're doing for someone else?
Is it something you're doing because you feel like you're obligated or you have to? You know, so I think those are all really good questions for our clinicians.
Yeah, absolutely.Considering all of those parts of it, you know, while you were talking, I was thinking about, you know, why don't we just pay attention to everyone's basic human rights?And yet, you know, for centuries,
that hasn't been the focus of many, many, many, many, many, many people.And certainly me, one little person in Northern Virginia is not going to change that.
But from my perspective, that is an awareness that I'm noticing, something that I'm trying to notice and trying to be more conscious of.And I can't make anyone do anything different.But when I think about my capacity to hold space and my
vision for myself in the world.It's about that, like recognizing that you can vote for whoever you want.It's your opinion.You can feel any certain way.That's your opinion.I think it's sad when we take things away from people that
our basic human rights.And yet at the same time, there has to be a reason why you think that that person doesn't deserve that.And I want to know more about why you consider that.So anyway, lots of really interesting things to be thinking about.
And we really wanted to share with our audience today sort of where we were emotionally and where we were sort of as leaders and supervisors in the field. I appreciate you sharing, Valerie, some of what you've been experiencing.
And like we said, like losses and gains for individuals for States for our country.And, you know, we're all figuring out kind of how to who to call and say, you know, I need a hug.Yeah.
Yes.Yes.For where our safe spaces are.And I don't mean that in the safe space way that often gets tore down and belittled or condescended.And I mean, just really just knowing who who's your team, like who can you call, you know?
And so it's I know as a as a
white woman, I have been very privileged to have some spaces with some black and brown people in them who are always able to connect, who have shared and shown up in ways to help me understand and grow when that was never their responsibility.
They didn't have to do that.But in my own trying to do the work, they're those people that I know can add context and And can say yes here or check that resource or do that.And so I just would say that, like.
It's important for all of us to be able to have. a variety of people in our circle that are going to tell us hard things that are going to challenge when we need to be challenged, who are going to say, Hey, it's okay to just rest right now.
That's all right.Um, or you're not going to understand this, but I know you're trying and yet you just need to accept that you're not going to get that.
And, and that's enough, like, that's enough, you know, so that you're not taking space from those who need to just be, you know what I mean?So like, don't make it about you not understanding.I've had, I mean, I've had those conversations before.
And at first I'm like, wait, what?I'm just trying to do the right thing.But then when you add the context, it makes. Oh, okay.I see.I don't need to get in the middle of that.I need to just not take up more space.I just need to be there.
Just sit and be, and you tell me what you need.
What a super, super valuable lesson, not to take up space when it's not necessary and just ask for what do you need.
Yeah.Yeah.And I think so many don't even know they're doing that.And because maybe they don't have people in their life to say hard things and help them understand that.Um, so I just say, you know, wherever you're nervous, trust your nervous system.
Cause that's, what's going to tell you when you feel a felt sense of safety and you feel that co-regulation, even if it's a person you just met.
Like on the side of somewhere, like I feel like in those moments, that person is there to to just help regulate you.And that's OK, even if it's a short moment or even if they become a friend for the next 10 years.
Noticing those.Thank you so much for this conversation.It was really fun and I really want to. Thank all of our listeners for tuning into this episode of Supervision Simplified.Remember that the revolution about supervision starts here.
We hope you'll subscribe to Supervision Simplified, and more importantly, share it with your friends and colleagues.We also want your comments, your stories, and your feedback, so we can be sure to be talking about what interests you the most.
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Please feel free to comment and until next time, keep on simplifying and elevating your supervision game.Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Supervision Simplified.Remember, the revolution starts here.
We hope you'll subscribe and that you'll share it with your friends and colleagues.We also want your comments, stories, and feedback so we can be sure to be talking about what interests you the most.
Until next time, keep on simplifying and elevating your supervision game.
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