An Off Switch For Neurospicy Brains with Danniel Worthen Cullumber

Trauma As A Daily Environment

0:02 Michael Mackniak: Welcome to another episode of Holding It Together. Kinda. We're gonna look today at not just the systems that hold us together sometimes. Um, and we're we're not just gonna look at where those systems are frayed. I'm your host, as usual, Michael Makniak. We uh we we talk about trauma a lot um as a as a causal factor or a result of incidents and and um illnesses and things that that we have to, it's one of the things that we have to address. We talk about it too often as if it's a singular event.

0:43 Michael Mackniak: Uh for many people out there, caregivers and families and victims, um trauma is is part of the environment. It becomes part of what you're living and breathing every single day. It's in your house, it's in your community, it's in your conversation, it's in that quiet exhaustion that you feel uh as a parent or spouse or child. Today we're gonna be joined by Danielle Worthen Cullenberg from uh Willow Medella Wellness. She's a trauma specialist who understands that healing isn't just about fixing, it's about restoring, it's about safety and connecting within the entire family ecosystem.

1:28 Michael Mackniak: Because make no mistake, trauma, grief, all the things that we talk about on this show do impact the entire ecosystem. So with Danielle, I want to discuss what trauma is, what it means to be trauma-informed, what it means in your living room, in your kitchen, and why maybe the mental health access uh is really a family-wide necessity. It's something that we need to think about on a on a whole uh looking at the whole picture. And, you know, basically, as always, how can we support those who spend their lives supporting others, like all of you listening to my voice right now.

Meet Danielle And Her Approach

2:18 Michael Mackniak: Hey everybody, welcome. Thank you uh for all coming back, and thank you to my very special guest, Danielle. Danielle Worthen Cullenberg here is here with me today. She is from Willow Medella Wellness, and I'm going to let her tell you all about herself because I hate reading intros, as you guys know. So, Danielle, what I do is I I ask people to introduce yourself, tell us what you're all about, and tell us what you're really interested in and what's got you fired up right now in your life or in your hobbies for some or interests like things we were just talking about.

2:53 Michael Mackniak: So go. It's all on you.

2:56 SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm Danielle Worthen Columber. I'm a trauma therapist. I'm an LCSW, so I'm a licensed clinical social worker here in Utah. I am the founder and CEO of Willem Adela Wellness. And my love and passion is bringing trauma healing to individuals, especially those of the unspoken, of the paranormal, and usually marginalized discussions that people are afraid to even talk to, even their therapists. And we bring in the holistic practices in. So my love is bridging that gap and bringing that lived experience to the person so they can feel complete again.

3:39 Michael Mackniak: There's so many things in that sentence that's just or that statement that just we have to we have to pick out. But so okay, so what's got you fired up? What are you excited about you have going on in life right now? Are you just juiced up by your work? And because a lot of people I get on here are. They're just jazzed by what they're doing.

3:56 SPEAKER_00: And this well, what's exciting is right now I'm just starting my last two semesters in my doctoral program at Simmons University for Social Work. Oh, good for you. While I'm doing this, I'm also integrating the most recent, up-to-date information for trauma healing and also bringing that voice and we're also decolonizing that lens of we and that stigma that the medical model has blocked us with. So we're bringing more of that holistic healing, the energy. And but we're also having to tiptoe around this sensitivity of that, those labels of diagnosis, because we get stuck in those narratives as well because of those stigmas.

4:45 Michael Mackniak: Yeah, I and I you know, I I hope that lots of people are not only listening but also watching because Danielle's face just lights up when she talks about this. She's got a big smile on her face, and you can tell how into it she is. So that's refreshing to see. All right.

The Medical Model And Its Costs

5:00 Michael Mackniak: So, first and foremost, the medical model. When I talk about the medical model, there's two ways that I talk about it. Number one, it's a it's a model that unfortunately is adopted by some agencies that I've seen in particularly the mental health arena and in your arena, for instance, with trauma and neurological disorders and things along those lines. Even in even in medical, right, meant medical meant medical model, where we're talking about people who are, you know, for whatever reason, they they have accessibility issues, they have mobility issues.

5:39 Michael Mackniak: So the medical under the medical model traditionally, it is you get up, you drive yourself to the doctor's office, and and you go and see that doctor. The other medical model that I talk about is this reactive process that we've adopted in Western medicine, where we talk, you know, you come to the doctor when you're sick rather than getting out in front of it and trying to stay well. Both of them, I think, are just our medical system being driven by big business, and it is and it's big money, and there's big responsibilities on these physicians and their staff to make numbers and pay numbers and pay the big nut to run the office.

6:24 Michael Mackniak: When you talk about the medical model, which of those two or all of the above, is that what you're talking about as well?

6:30 SPEAKER_00: Pretty much the whole the to summarize it, when I said decolonizing that lens, it is literally also the medical model of that. Because that that's the those barriers that we create. Because back in the old days, when I mean old days, in the 1800s, you went to the hospital and if you got diagnosed with a terminally uh terminal illness, they would get you dressed and send you out the door. Because numbers wouldn't pay the bills, they would get funding for how many people that they cured. And if you were on a death sentence, you were sent to the street.

7:05 SPEAKER_00: And I and it's not too still far from what we do now sometimes, because when we don't give them access to care, regardless of accommodations or not, or or even those labels, because pharma and insurance say somebody looks at it and goes, Oh, I don't want that's too big of a bill. And yeah, we have all the proof that you need this, and you we can say the approval. Some low totem person, it's like, it's not gonna be my quota. They can deny that. That creates those barriers. And as a mental health therapist, I'm not I'm not just a trauma therapist, I'm a social worker.

7:46 SPEAKER_00: I also have my background in recreational therapy. So I was working with the geriatrics and those with special needs, both physical and mental. I've seen those barriers. The accessibility is still a problem ongoing, and that continuates the the trauma of these medical models still banging against banging heads. Pretty much. And it it fires me up when I see when people need support access, and it's like, no. I I've had my own experiences where I had to go around the systems to get support for my own child who wasn't diagnosed until she was an adult with autism dyspectum disorder.

8:36 SPEAKER_00: The only reason why she didn't get a diagnosis for a couple of reasons. One, back when she was five years old, insurances were purposely, intentionally denying any potential services if that diagnosis was linked to anything. So I was like, screw this. I'm a social worker, I'm gonna use my resources. The I I was using the resources I was giving my clients, and I targeted her symptomologies like her delay of speech, her emotional disorder.

9:05 Michael Mackniak: What did they say that it was attached to to deny it?

9:09 SPEAKER_00: Well, this I I didn't get her diagnosis. That's the thing. I was seeing this consistently, and I was like, oh, we have a problem. So, well, um because the medical model, they weren't talking to people. That's the other thing is the the the systems don't talk to each other. They're getting they're trying to get better, but every time they have a way to communicate through a portal or a communicate network, it it they redo redo a whole new thing. I go in, I'm like, fill out a paperwork every time, every time.

9:37 Michael Mackniak: So and it this is oh my god. People who are listening right now are probably so sick of me saying exactly what you just said because I say it all the time, it makes me nuts. It's there is no the portals are just that ridiculous.

9:52 SPEAKER_00: And and and that's not accessible too, because people who can't see or hear in their phones, I mean, I have to wear glasses now to look at my phone. I mean, it's and and and it's it's it's it's my my nightmare. And I but going back to back in the day in the early 2000s, without that just that stigma of they potentially could have autism, doors would be shut down because they didn't understand it and they weren't willing to pay out the monies. Now they will. So I targeted those symptoms, uh, the symptoms that my daughter had, gave her skills because I had been studying it as a social worker for years, and I knew the trauma that can happen by these things.

10:36 SPEAKER_00: And then luckily she did grew up on her own, making her choice to get the diagnosis for herself. Because she also came from a lens that she didn't want the label. And that's the thing. Once we have a stamp of this terminology of autism, neurodivergent back then, it it it the doors closed. Now we can actually use it more because most of us are now finding out we're neurospicy. I call it neurospicy because we have different kinds, different flavors. Some are hot, some are not, you know.

11:09 Michael Mackniak: I like neurospicy. You are you I wish that was I wish it was one of the spice girls. It's neurospice.

11:16 SPEAKER_00: Well, that's actually probably where I got it from because that I love the spice girls.

11:21 Michael Mackniak: But but let's talk because what you're bringing in here that that is so important is not only your lived experience, but the lived experience of clients that you're working with. Because we can get trauma informed, and we're gonna talk about what that means, but we could be trauma-informed, we could acknowledge trauma as being a factor in our personality and how we move through life, and it could even it has been shown and it is proven that it impacts generationally and it impacts mental health, it impact can it can be the trigger that gives an onset to a major mental illness, but it's not something that you experience an event and it goes away.

Defining Trauma Beyond PTSD

12:09 Michael Mackniak: So explain what trauma is for those of us who don't fully have a definition of it.

12:17 SPEAKER_00: Well, this is actually the simplest way to put it. Okay, most people know post-traumatic stress disorder. And when I talk to people, they're like, I don't have PTSD. I'm like, Brian, I didn't say you had PTSD. We all have incidences where we don't respond well to a situation. And within that situation, our body and our mind respond to it, including our emotions, and that becomes a core moment to us. And sometimes we get stuck in a loop based on that event. And trauma is funny because they used to think that babies didn't feel pain or or in utero, you can actually have utero trauma from whatever your mother was experiencing or the environment she was exposed to.

13:01 SPEAKER_00: Sure.

13:02 Michael Mackniak: Yeah, I mean that's that's that blows my mind. That's one of the things I'm talking about. It can be your mom experiences something while she's pregnant. While you're in utero, you can you get a bit of that trauma passed on to you. Right. And they're saying that this can go on for two, three, four. I've heard up to five generations that trauma can be passed on genetically. It's fascinating.

13:22 SPEAKER_00: Yes, because because our our our cells mutate based on that, like accommodates. It it becomes part of the the network rhythm of what we respond to things. So if you have anxiety, well, I bet you can go fourth generations back and go, grandma had anxiety and she and she was put in in the institution. Well, she probably didn't have anxiety until she something happened, and well, women didn't even have rights and they got institutionalized, like those those fears and those ongoing stories. And and that's the other thing.

13:59 SPEAKER_00: The the generational trauma can actually be even the stories of what happened to someone. They're like, I don't want to have that happen to me.

14:07 Michael Mackniak: And then you spend this time trying to avoid something that you heard about but don't have any proof about, and and that even the tape loop in your brain exactly.

14:19 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so and that's the other thing is we also fear our end of life for if somebody becomes incapacitated and they need some support, maybe from a temporary illness to long term.

Caregiver Burnout And Hidden Risk

14:29 SPEAKER_00: We we have caregivers who are not able to regulate, and that's trauma too, because they don't know how to take care of themselves because they're worried about the person they're caring for. Statistically, the caregivers die before the person dies that they're taken care of.

14:44 Michael Mackniak: Is that right?

14:45 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

14:46 Michael Mackniak: Statistically, I never I did not hear that stat. Oh my gosh.

14:49 SPEAKER_00: That's that's I will I if I had the actual current numbers.

14:52 Michael Mackniak: That's hard hitting.

14:53 unknown: Yeah.

14:54 Michael Mackniak: That's hard hitting it and it's also tragic. Right?

14:58 SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah. I'm I I mean the sad thing is I was actually on the ground floor seeing this in real time. I I started my my stepmother here in Utah actually wrote the handbook for the training for this uh clinic certified nurses and assistants. And since then, they've probably evolved from since then, but I was trying to be a CNA and I hurt my back well before I was acting properly trained, like lifting and stuff. But I found I love for it, and I became a habilitation therapist, a recreational therapist, and everybody that kept seeing the story was the same.

15:37 SPEAKER_00: The caregiver burnt out. They felt guilt. They would get sick and they couldn't take care of their loved one.

15:46 Michael Mackniak: And they don't take care of themselves and they get sick and they can't take care of the loved ones. Exactly, becomes and they feel guilt about that, and then resentment. And it's just as right.

15:55 SPEAKER_00: And that and that goes back into that still that model, too, of if I can't do it, no one else can better than me.

16:03 SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

16:04 SPEAKER_00: And that's the then we have this lens because in some back the caregivers the care systems is getting better, but they're not better. Yeah, and I used to tell I used to tell people if when you go put somebody into a care facility, even temporarily, look for a certain book. There's a the it's a book that the states have to go in and for certification for for investigations, and they will flag any discrepancy. And then they have to do a follow-up. And they have it out front, supposedly. Technically, it's supposed to be kind of like your license and stuff of the building.

16:39 SPEAKER_00: Nobody's told to look in those. And I said, if you looked, you would have found out there the reason why your loved one died was the very reason what they got flagged for. And I broke my heart because I had to tell a great aunt's daughter why she passed away.

16:57 Michael Mackniak: And I'm even emotional to talk about because I needed stuff and I couldn't even prevent it because so so wait, explain this to people so that because I don't understand it. So there's there's a there's a manual that that facilities have.

17:10 SPEAKER_00: Yes. Okay, here at least in the state of Utah, I can say all right. So the states have to they every year they do a surprise inspection. They go through all the notes, the medication, they go through the logs, they interview the clients. And yeah, yep, that's the same thing. And they have a binder that shows what they passed on and when they didn't, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

17:39 Michael Mackniak: Okay, so it's the it's the federal Jaco reports that allows them to continue to get the funding.

17:45 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and not all of them have Jaco though. Some of them are just private residentials, and they still have to go through the same licensing.

17:51 Michael Mackniak: Yes, yes, yes. Okay, yeah. Huh. And and and if they're not good or strong and one, they they may pass, but they gotta do there's yeah, there's because otherwise they get fined. Yeah.

18:05 SPEAKER_00: So what's interesting is I will have been at care facilities that got sold and resold and resold and resold. They can put a beautiful paint on the wall, yeah, but until they fix the administrative structure and the funding, right? It doesn't work. I I've known people that stayed at the care facilities because they had more guilt of the care discrepancy for the clients, the residents, I should say, because they live there at the residence. And they won't leave because they're like no one else is gonna take care of them.

18:39 Michael Mackniak: Right. So they're staying, they're working there for longer than they should because they're just worried about what's gonna happen with their patients. And they're burned out if they leave. Yeah, God, that's terrible.

18:50 SPEAKER_00: So my background's big. I I mean, I can talk about all circuses too.

18:55 Michael Mackniak: Okay, like I've got a lot of things we gotta we gotta talk about. You'll definitely be coming back here.

18:59 SPEAKER_00: Thank you.

19:00 Michael Mackniak: But all right, so let's let's get into a couple of specific questions.

Trauma-Informed Care Means Autonomy

19:03 Michael Mackniak: What's the difference between traditional care and trauma-informed care?

19:09 SPEAKER_00: Trauma-informed care is putting this per the person that you're treating first. It's about what they want, what they're asking for, and you don't and and you're coming from a lens of compassion and sensitivity. The the problem with most care is we already come in with a bias. When we walk around, we already have a bias to something because we have these ideas, but the person who's at the center of it is the important part, and they need to be met where their need is.

19:42 Michael Mackniak: We're not starting over we have to have a client-centered approach, right? But what if the client doesn't have uh trauma per se? Or do you approach it as if everybody has trauma?

19:53 SPEAKER_00: Well, everything should be handled as if we we all have stories, yeah. And our stories have their own version of a trauma. What they think is a trauma may not look like a trauma to me.

20:04 SPEAKER_01: Right.

20:05 SPEAKER_00: We might be in the same event, and from our lived experience, that could be received differently. So coming with a trauma form lensed is knowing that compassion, autonomy of choice is the biggest trauma that can be happened for a person. When that they feel when that choice and that time is taken away.

20:28 Michael Mackniak: Got it. That's traumatic to them.

20:31 SPEAKER_00: That's traumatic. I let me ask any of your listeners or even watching, I bet you they can just a flash in their head, they could probably have a memory of a time when a choice was taken from them or they were not listened to. Even if they were wrong, they were still not listened to. That's traumatic because then you don't that trust has disintegrated, that the the relationship to healing gets distorted, and then we get these blinders on, like the Claudel horse is like this is the only way we have to go.

21:05 SPEAKER_00: And somebody else is driving the the right.

21:08 Michael Mackniak: So whether I tell you my story or I don't tell you, if I tell you my story and you just brush over it and let's just get okay, thank you very much for that. That was interesting. Now, let me take your blood pressure, let me stick a thing under your tongue and and and just move on because that's what medicine as we know it, that's what they do. They check your vitals and all that. So, in a way, that is well, that's non-trauma informed. It's non it's sort of generic, it's sort of cookie cutter.

21:37 SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. That's why it's called a model because it is a cookie cutter format.

21:44 SPEAKER_01: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

21:45 SPEAKER_00: I I I even said that I have I created coping strategies myself to help my bodies regulate that can happen within 20 seconds of just breathing, grounding something. Yeah, because I put it together because my neurospice brain needed it. I was Trying this for years with my clients. And the fact to just being able to get my body or my clients into a state where they're not in fight, flight, or freeze anymore. So they can get back in their executive function, which is I call the broth sprain because we're thinking more clearly, we're able to observe more.

22:16 SPEAKER_00: We can actually be able to talk because people shut down, they go to the doctors. They I have people go to the dentist and they're having a panic attack just to open their mouth.

22:26 Michael Mackniak: I mean, yeah. My daughter used to be like that, man. She was, I mean, she would experience a traumatic event going to the dentist, man, when she was little, little. Yeah.

22:38 unknown: Yeah.

22:38 SPEAKER_00: And there doesn't need a rhyme or reason why we have those responses. It's our nervous system activating, and and our body actually are the best regulators. It just needs some help sometimes. We have an on switch, but not an off switch.

22:52 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

22:53 SPEAKER_00: And those stressors of the day-to-day, the stressors from the day to day it's so normalized, we don't realize that's even still trauma. I mean, how many of us go, gosh, I look older than our age, and they're they're tired? Well, our bodies aren't thriving, they're just surviving.

23:11 Michael Mackniak: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love that that we we our bodies have a built-in on-switch, i.e., dopamine, adrenaline, but we don't have the off switch that's gonna kick kick in for when we need it to. I mean, it'll all you know, things subside, but we need to, as you said, and I I'll be the first to tell you, I'm not good at this and don't practice it, but we need to get into a rhythm and then the habit of creating that off switch cognitively and be proactive about it and overtly create that off switch.

How Trauma Ripples Through Family

23:47 Michael Mackniak: And that's that's huge. But when you have when you have families that are in a traumatized system, right, and and now so a trauma happened within a family, or let's let's say a major trauma, let's not say a perceived trauma by one person, let's just say there was a traumatic event, and including a major illness. I because I think a major illness, particularly an illness or a diagnosis that's going to be extended, prolonged illnesses.

24:22 Michael Mackniak: How does that manifest itself throughout the home? Not just with the person that went through it. And if you want to talk brass tax, and this is the most traumatic thing I can think of in our world is a woman being attacked, raped. I mean, I can't imagine anything that would be more traumatic. So girl comes home to her family after experiencing that heavy, heavy trauma, and she's living in the home. How does that trauma? And I I, you know, I again I'm trying to be sensitive about it. And I know that that's not something that we should even make light of.

25:00 Michael Mackniak: But for for this discussion, I'm interested in knowing how trauma trickle ripples out from the victim to the family and and how how the family has to adjust to the trauma. Now we have a trauma of our own, right?

25:15 SPEAKER_00: Right. Well, it's ironic that you brought this up because I actually have a lived experience with that.

25:20 Michael Mackniak: Oh, I did not know this. Okay.

25:22 SPEAKER_00: And and the reason why I'm smiling is because this is part of being trauma-informed, is that even though I'm a clinician, I have references of my own clients. And so when you talk about, like you were talking about the family thing, the family is an ecosystem, just like our body's ecosystem. Absolutely. When one thing goes off, it tilts. So what you're gonna notice is even with the healing process too. So when we have a family that comes in and goes, we're having problems, we have an identified client, but we could call the family the whole client, but we work around the one person.

26:00 SPEAKER_00: And as long as we're checking in with each of the family members and seeing how they're responding and how they're processing, we can actually create a healthier connection so it doesn't disrupt too much. It's still going to disrupt, but you everyone's gonna be going through a new new and like most of us, we don't like new. We like the idea of new, but we don't like the feeling of new because it's it feels unsafe because it's the unknown. So you like my own experience was because I'm a trauma-informed person and I got trained, I knew what I needed to do.

26:42 SPEAKER_00: Uh that's a rarity. I was like, I I go, I had to ask, I need these things, but I can't do it by myself. And that was those things, but there's people that shut down. The I'm gonna say the victim. The victim will internalize everything and try to protect everybody.

26:59 SPEAKER_01: Sure.

27:00 SPEAKER_00: And that's a whole nother system. But then you have the people on the outside going, something's wrong.

27:09 Michael Mackniak: The traumatic event. Everybody's going through a trauma of sorts, but the traumatic event, the actual traumatic event, that victim is trying to shelter everybody else from their own trauma and their own traumatic event. It's just mind-noming. It's yeah, the layers are insane.

27:29 SPEAKER_00: Because it's a protective capacity. Like if I have if I put my trauma on somebody else, then I just traumatize them. So they then it repeats. And so it's like kind of like a like like goo. Like a that you get sticky goo in the fingers and you touch, and everything gets sticky. That's almost how how it is. But we also but here's the nice thing is if we actually are gentle about the situation, may it is somebody's own experience. We don't always have to talk about the big thing.

28:06 SPEAKER_00: Not just are we good, talk with each other, not at each other. Don't say, if I was in that position, or I've done it a that happens so many times. We can loop and say, I would have done it better. I'm like, not unless you're in this situation, you don't have a clue, people.

28:23 Michael Mackniak: No, and everybody's every as you said earlier, and multiple different times already today, and in different ways, that is, everybody's learned experience, but and every event is different. We translate something that happens, you know. The other night I I we had an earthquake, right? First time I've ever felt one. Like I've I've heard them in a weird way, but I've never been in one where the house shook. Well, I mean, if that scared the hell out of you and you were really it impacted you, I thought it was cool.

28:51 Michael Mackniak: My dog didn't even wake up, but you know, somebody could be really scared and impacted by that, you know. So, and I want to get into that too when we talk about some of the paranormal approach.

29:02 SPEAKER_00: I was actually just gonna bring that in. It's like yeah, this kind of conversation actually goes right into the the paranormal stuff because one person can be having a full experience and nobody else is understanding it, yeah. And that's even traumatic.

29:17 Michael Mackniak: I mean, I think we have to have a whole uh folks that are listening. I am I love paranormal stories. I've had a couple of paranormal stories of my own where people that I was that I loved uh had passed away, and I know that they reached out to me only to only twice in my life. I'm not a medium or anything like that, I don't claim to be, but I believe in that stuff. I love it. I get as much of it on TV, and I found out that Danielle's really into it too, and we're gonna talk more about that. And and she uses it in her work, but before we get to that, I want to make sure that we nail down this trauma and how it looks in a family.

29:58 Michael Mackniak: How does how could it how could it manifest in a family? You know, so you have mom, dad, child, and and two kids, and there's been a traumatic event. What could that trauma just by way of examples, what what could may some of the things be of that trauma manifesting itself?

30:17 SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes you also got to look at the family before and the after. True so you actually can get a kind of a baseline where they were at before and after. And that can start showing signs of what's happening. So let's say you have one kid, maybe it wasn't the kid that was affected, but the kid is hypersensitive and hyper-aware, and maybe a little neurodivergent or a lot neurodivergent, they're going to respond quicker in the equilibrium going off because consistency is kind of like helps. But they're also the tones of voices in the body language.

30:55 SPEAKER_00: When I say tones and voice, because 90% of our communication is unspoken. How is our body language interacting with people? Are you being closed down? Are you being clean? Are you isolating or even overdramatically changed something? Like you're hyper-aware to things. And then, of course, our tones of our voices, like, how are we talking with each other? Are we being more abrupt? Are we being sharp? Or are we being more? I'm gonna say this. Moms can relate to this, so or some dads too. So I don't want to agenda type that sometimes we will up overcompensate something when we feel there's a lack.

31:38 SPEAKER_00: Like we'll over we'll start buying toys if we don't feel like there's enough time. We're not given enough time. So if the if we're traumatic, you might if something's happened, parents could actually be like, I can't let you go see so-and-so anymore. Uh, you gotta stay by me. Or oh, you've been hurt. They they start gifting, like we gotta go whole, like we gotta avoid, we we can't talk about those things. Those those hush-hush things. We no, we don't talk about that, or oh, that's a that was experience, or they dismiss it and tell them it was something else that happened.

32:13 SPEAKER_00: That goes it if it doesn't that sound like the medical model.

32:18 Michael Mackniak: Yeah, well, yeah, I mean let's blow off that, and here's the medical reason for why this is going on with you, kind of a thing. Right, right.

32:25 SPEAKER_00: So, what I'm saying is we learn from our environment. So if our if people that are supposed to help us in the medical field, or even police officers, now I'm not saying police officers aren't bad, that just to see these situations, or if a social worker came and talked at you, not with you, you're gonna bring that very same experience into your family dynamic when something happens like this. And there will be an increase in sickness as you you mentioned illness. Well, other people will get sick because the stress alone will actually cause its own sickness.

33:00 Michael Mackniak: Yeah, I I it's just fascinating to me. And and how and that impact on family. So, how do you go in and work with the families in these situations?

Bringing Therapy Into The Home

33:08 Michael Mackniak: Or do you just work with the one individual, or do you do you have the opportunity to work in the whole environment, the whole ecosystem as you call it?

33:16 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the ecosystem. Yeah, I had that Cheshire's cat smile just come on because completely. Yeah, because some of these barriers I've actually been addressing in real time right now. I actually with some people with special needs or can't amuletary, I actually go in the homes with the families. I do therapy in the home. I can meet with the client or as a uh as a whole unit. Uh, I also have individual therapy with individuals or even couples counseling. We even do family therapy without client present to help support parents and and I think that's I think there's value there for sure.

33:53 SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. So one of the things that I learned a long time ago was there's only so much you can do in office.

34:00 Michael Mackniak: Yes.

34:01 SPEAKER_00: That's one of the that's actually why I ended up becoming a social because when I did recreational therapy, I was in these residentials and I was like going, I feel like I can do a lot more. I was taking people out in the community and I was doing games, but I was the known as the diversion therapy.

34:15 Michael Mackniak: It's like what we call that ecological approach in your lingo. Is that is that what the ecological approach is? I I no, I'm serious. I don't know. I mean, I'm not a I I I'm only parroting words that I've heard my clinical.

34:29 SPEAKER_00: No, you're you're right, you're right. But but not everybody understands that that lingo. So no, no, I know, I know. So we default to what we know, but when I but in when I was working with people in the care facilities, they were still stuck. This was their environment, the whole residential place was their ecosystem and their family, in it better terms, or those who were institutionalized, I should say, too. I went and was like when I I tried working with legislations, things like that. But when it came down to it was the individual and the family, the core unit that impacts everything else.

35:08 SPEAKER_00: So if by offering me to see people in person, even by telehealth, I I think COVID, even though it was horrible, it really did push a platform for this virtual stuff so people could actually connect to those they don't couldn't talk to across the United States or even the globe, and see a doctor to get a medication prescription refill instead of just coming in and go, Oh, here's$60 of copay and gas and time.

35:40 Michael Mackniak: It really is fantastic, and it's made it acceptable and commonplace. I agree with you there. Yeah.

35:46 SPEAKER_00: So so we we are bridging finding those gaps and finding where we can actually offer that better.

35:53 Michael Mackniak: That's great. That's great. Are there are there certain tools, language, techniques that you use more often than not with with families that are struggling with trauma within the within the the ecosystem?

36:10 SPEAKER_00: Yes. I'd always walk in and say, you're we're all in an ecosystem, like a petri dish or anything. But one of the things I do is I actually when I meet with a client, I I always talk about they are the expert of their experience, their model, their body, whatever. And I have tools. So one of the things I let my clients know is I will never, ever, ever tell you what to do. I will always ask. And that's a big thing. I will always ask. The moment I tell somebody what to do, it's no different than me if somebody told me what to do.

36:42 SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm whatever. I'm gonna, I'm like, whatever. I mean, how many doctors do this? I'm like, fine. And then I put this script in like, I'm not doing it. Because I it did not help me. I did not feel validated. Me, but me asking it, I'm connecting with the person and I'm also letting them know though, even though I'm asking if there's something for treatment that I think might help, please tell me if it doesn't align or you don't want to do it. We'll talk about it because there might be a better way for me to support you.

37:11 SPEAKER_00: And me just giving them the autonomy to be able to speak, and I also also go with this a step further, is you know, those moments where you're like, let me explain this this way. I don't know how many people have talked on the street, just even just that. I'm like, hey, tell me how you understand from your lens, because I need to know from what you're experiencing, even if you don't understand, just tell me how you are your processing.

37:38 Michael Mackniak: Well, I think that's why it's important that we set out the the the protocol here to say, okay, what is our definition today of trauma?

37:43 SPEAKER_00: What is our definition so that so that that and then I go, if I have a question, I will ask. Not like, oh, just because I know what trauma looks like. That's the thing is I will also like going, hey, if I'm seeing something, I'm going to do a psychoeducation about it. I'm going to tell you why this is happening, what's going on, the biology, the process. And then once you become aware of that, you have an observation. Your body's nervous system starts to relax and then starts putting the dots together.

38:15 SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, that trauma shifts to healing.

38:20 Michael Mackniak: Yeah. Yeah. So my aware of trauma is I was just gonna say the very beginning of it is the that understanding of here's how I perceive things, here's why you perceive it, and it and you can gives you a basis of understanding to build off of, right?

38:37 SPEAKER_00: Right. Yeah, and and having a conversation with yourself, and that's the other thing is having a conversation with yourself is you need to understand what you are needing and wanting. And coming in with I don't know is still an answer. That's that's important. Starting where you're at and being aware of that. I have people that go, I had childhood trauma, I had sexual abuse, physical abuse, and all this stuff. And I'm like, but I've worked on that. I'm like, okay, we won't touch that. But then when start things start happening in their day-to-day life where they're struggling with relationships due to attachment issues, relationships to anger management, we can actually trace it back to some of the stuff that you experience from these moments and time of growing up.

Why Old Wounds Replay Later

39:26 SPEAKER_00: Because a good way to look at it, I love telling people about Eric Ericsson's stages of life. Because he's he's a theory, he's a Freudian theorist.

39:34 Michael Mackniak: And he has I remember, I remember Ericsson. Yep. Go ahead.

39:39 SPEAKER_00: Ericsson's fun to kind of look at because you don't have to go into deep look at it. You can just look at the timeline because certain things happen where we have like emphasis with oral, we're learning trust versus mistrust. And then identity as teenagers, we're like, yeah, this is totally us. But I was I have people where they're like, my spouse or someone's going through a midlife crisis, and I was putting these dots together, going, Wait a minute, this Erickson was kind of like might be onto something where if we didn't expect we haven't a traumatic event, it would do a tick mark in that timeline.

40:18 SPEAKER_00: And if we didn't learn that lesson or that need, even though we're still growing, we will bound to repeat it over and over and over again. So, like the midlife crisis is comes in, and people are like, they're acting like a 20-year-old, they're being irresponsible. They're literally playing the loop the roles of what they thought they missed out on when they were raising kids, overworking, or was raising their their siblings because parents were not available, may have been from work to being absent, whatever that is.

40:47 SPEAKER_00: And we will kind of try to play it, repeat what we missed out. And one of the other things that people weren't aware of though is that only goes so far because I when I was working with younger teenage girls in residentials, we had a lot of neuroverse brains, and those with neurodiverse brains tend to be delayed in those milestones experiences.

41:13 SPEAKER_00: So we may be mature, but we may emotionally not have had the the experience that because we they regulate in a different experience because how they process their environment. And people go, Why are they behaving this way? Well, most of us are are having those same experiences, but for different reasons. So I sometimes go, okay, where in that timeline are they were they supposed to be this, they might be delayed in this. And once we became aware of that, we can work on that, and it's almost like we can catch them up to a point once we kind of catch them up.

41:46 Michael Mackniak: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:47 SPEAKER_00: And then and so when you have that trauma, we go back in the family. The family's like told, Oh, you should be doing A, B, and C, and you're not doing A, B, and C. So you try to compensate it severely by the other half because you don't know any better. You're going from the references that you have from your own lived experience or what the you found online, but no one taught you how to do it or modeled it.

42:13 Michael Mackniak: That's such interesting stuff. And and I get I don't want to say pissy, or you know, I I I hate when we try to blame too much, like oh you know, Freudian. This is your you do this because your mother was had blonde hair, you know, you didn't or you do this because it's whatever. I it that stuff really aggravates me, but I understand like the Erickson approach more. It it lands better with me that there's a bookmark, so to speak, of when an event took place in your life, this bookmark is there, and there is another bookmark later in another one, and the way you just described it in making closing that gap between those bookmarks may help you to move beyond the impact of that event, that bookmark.

43:04 Michael Mackniak: And so I think that's really interesting.

Accelerated Resolution Therapy In Practice

43:07 Michael Mackniak: Tell us what this art is the accelerated resolution therapy. I've never heard of this one. Oh, it's it's big for your work, right? It's a big part of what you do.

43:17 SPEAKER_00: I love accelerate, yes, I love art, accelerate resolution therapy. I'm advanced trained in it.

43:25 SPEAKER_01: What is it?

43:26 SPEAKER_00: So it is a bilateral desusitation. So most people probably know EMDR by by training.

43:33 Michael Mackniak: I've heard, yeah, we use yes, right? A lot of the clinicians in my office are big fans of EMDR, which I don't really completely eye movement that concept.

43:42 SPEAKER_00: So so here's the to kind of give it in a nut this simplest nutshell. So EMDR is good for trauma work. However, the problem that happens is a lot of the clients will not finish it, and there's not a lot of control after you leave a session. It takes like six to eight sessions to work on one thing. ART was accidentally discovered while somebody thought they were doing EMDR, the founder. And what it happens is we activate the nervous system and we calm it down. We kind of get to do wordplay and you get to rewrite how you respond to the event that you're struggling with.

44:21 SPEAKER_00: It helps with anxiety, depression, phobias, PTSD, relationship issues to name a few. They're working on one for ADHD. I had one where I actually worked on my dyslexia and I found out it tied to anxiety. I was like, oh my gosh, this is great. I've I loved it because it can be used in one regular therapy session.

44:46 Michael Mackniak: And it ties into the what does that look like? What is it?

44:49 SPEAKER_00: What is it? Is it not so they both use bilateral uh eye movement? That means you're like uh tracking with a hand or an object because what happens is we actually are always trying to problem solve in our sleep, okay? And we know REM sleep is where our eyes move when we're sleeping. What happens is when we're doing that, we're accessing our back of our subconscious and it's processing, trying to figure it out. I always like to explain how when we're in our dreams, we have nightmares. The reason why we're having a nightmare is because we're being activated with our emotions and we can't handle it when we're actually trying to problem solve it.

45:26 SPEAKER_00: So we get stuck. So you're it's just a normal like a normal therapy session, you'll be talking like a normal person, but I will give you some guidelines to focus on while doing the eye movements. And what we found that if even without the ART, the bilateral, just by tapping or walking or putting points following your eyes to left to right, it actually the eye movement actually is the thing that calms down the nervous system because it's connected to our brain.

45:57 Michael Mackniak: And well, is it based on the idea that the eye movement is something that you have to do almost cognizant uh conscientiously, uh not conscientiously, consciously, you have to do it. You have to move your eyes to follow something, freeing the brain up in the back to do the heavy lifting and to the cure to the healing.

46:19 SPEAKER_00: Is that kind of what well here's the funny thing? A lot of so here's this is a truth. When we're thinking, we're already scanning, we're already looking left to right because we're like accessing things in our brain. So we naturally are unaware we're doing that naturally. We're just giving a safe container where they can process and it we let them think about it, we bring it out, and then we just kind of go, okay, and we get them to scan their body, see how they respond, how how we re rewrite it.

46:49 SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times it's just that that reactivity trigger. So we're not changing the the the what really happened, where we're we're changing the way we respond to the situation or what we perceive the situation to be.

47:05 Michael Mackniak: Gotcha, gotcha. And it's it's interesting. I've never met anybody that practices it.

47:13 SPEAKER_00: So well, it's getting better well known. They've been doing studies, and this thing was so I mentioned that I am a survivor of that uh that assault. And when I got when it's the training, we have to actually do ART training on each other. I went into a room that activated me because this this uh the situation, I was like, because I I had my coping skills, I still have it, but I still would get those moments of my body would react. And I was like, oh dear, I gotta do something. I'm gonna have three days here.

47:46 SPEAKER_00: So my first ART session was based on me, my reactivity to that stimuli that activated my my trauma response. And the next thing I know, the next time I was in a situation again, my body didn't react.

48:01 Michael Mackniak: I was like, this is talk about what those stimuli were, or is that too?

48:06 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I had been assaulted in a situation where I was supposed to be massage, and so it was I was going into a massage room, it was a massage table, and the instructor was a uh male, and I was with uh uh three other women, but it wasn't that I was alone, it was I had the table and the mail together, and I was like, oh, okay. And I knew why I did it and why I responded. And I could have gone through my coping strategies like usual, but how how better test the thing that I'm being trained in than then to use my the thing that I'm being activated the most?

48:46 Michael Mackniak: Well, that'll make you a believer quick, right?

48:49 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then watching other people heal from it. And I have worked with so many clients that they're it's it's been a game changer. It's like they come out on the other side, they're like, Danielle, oh my gosh, I go, I didn't do it, you did it. I just read a script and just created the container.

49:04 Michael Mackniak: Yeah, yeah. That's and that's pretty cool. I mean, that's holistic to me. Yeah, right? It's letting the body heal itself, let the the mind do what it's supposed to do, giving it the freedom to do that. And and there's such a place for that. And and we I think we poo-poo. I know that I do, admittedly, poo-poo a lot of the holistic things because I don't know enough about them. But recently I met a guy who is pretty pretty well known internationally for energy healing. And man, the guy blows my mind with the things he knows about me without knowing them about me.

49:41 Michael Mackniak: So actually, that kind of brings me right into what I wanted to end with with you for you know, a good five or ten minutes here as sort of a teaser, because I know that I definitely want to have I definitely want to get back on with you and talk a full hour or 45 minutes with you about this. But holistic, this this gentleman being able to know that there was something wrong in my body that he was spot on about, and identifying it also with a family member that he was spot on about. But you and I both have a a shared obsession, passion, hobby, if you will.

50:21 Michael Mackniak: Mine is strictly based on watching television, and that is the paranormal. So I'd like to know, talk to me about why you're so into the paranormal, and then as sort of a teaser, sort of let's let's talk a little bit about how you actually experience that in your work or people experience it through you, and then we'll leave it at that and we'll do a whole other talk. If that's okay with you, we could do a whole other oh, absolutely. All right, so let's hear that. This this is gonna be good.

Paranormal Experiences Without Shame

50:50 Michael Mackniak: Let's hear this.

50:50 SPEAKER_00: Okay, ready for this one? I'm actually I'm actually a paranormal investigator. I am actually a real go center.

50:56 Michael Mackniak: You're one of those.

50:57 SPEAKER_00: I love yes, I am. So, so why I love paranormal so much. Well, I was having my own experiences. I'm actually a gifted psychic medium, whatever you want to call me. I'm sensitive. And and yet I'm doing this clinical work. So I was having these paranormal experiences in these care facilities. I'd have clients that or residents had passed away, they'd come and visit me and appreciate what I was doing with the care that I was giving them. And also things I was seeing as a child, I couldn't explain. I thought I had an act of imagination, but I would be walking down the street and somebody yelled, Danielle, I'd be looking around like, what?

51:35 SPEAKER_00: Like, what's going on? So I have had these own experiences, and that's one of the things where I was seeing that there was trauma in those people that were having this paranormal experience because they they didn't want to be called crazy. Like it's all in your head kind of thing. And then there was this overlapping gap. And there's also this the part where people are like the whole family's experiencing, like they get ostracized. I'm like going, no, these things are happening to people or perceived things, and even if they already had it, they do have a diagnosis of schizophrenia or something, they could still be having paranormal experiences.

52:09 SPEAKER_00: I actually worked with somebody that always having that duality.

52:14 Michael Mackniak: Yeah, I've always thought that there was something else there. I I honestly, that is amazing. And as a therapist working with somebody in a therapeutic session, I could totally see as a medium, I could totally see where you know grandpa would be coming back and saying, Yeah, that's my granddaughter, and she's going through this because in 1865, when I was in the end of the civil war, this this this happened, and this is a I mean, I I I completely and now okay, so uh you openly uh talk to your clients, patients that this is something that you are versed in and you are you can if they're open to it, use this as part of your uh the whole thing therapy, the whole thing.

53:05 SPEAKER_00: So here's here's the delicate dance. When I talked about licensing and things like that, I cannot promote that I'm a holistic medium therapist because that is dual roles. If you're gonna come see me as a clinician, you get me for the therapy and everything else. But if you're coming to me for the holistic coaching or healing for people who are international, because I can't treat technically mental health outside of with the diagnosis outside the state of Utah without my license, you get the whole me.

53:34 SPEAKER_00: Either way, you're getting me, and I'm not always telling you that I have these gifts. But if the client says I have this, I can tell them I have references or this is what I've been trained in, or these things, we can tabtoe into those conversations because it's about the client, not me. The moment I make it about me, then the trauma work of trauma care that I bring forward is not going to be as effective because it's about the client, not me.

54:05 Michael Mackniak: You know, that that's that's really insightful on your part to to realize that. And I mean, that's so important that yeah, you have to separate your superpowers from what you want to impart upon your patient laying on the couch, Freudian euphemism.

54:24 SPEAKER_00: I actually had couches, but they only a few laid on the couches for four hours.

54:30 SPEAKER_00: No, but I I do, I can feel those things, I can do those things, but I'm also human, and I'm gonna have those healthy boundaries, and I'm gonna have that healthy client professional relationship because I'm ethical and comes down to being ethical, and that's important. That trauma-informed care is being ethical as well. And people throw this around like I'm ethical. I'm like, how are you ethical? Who's you who's your checks and balances? Who's doing this? Who's doing that?

55:02 Michael Mackniak: Well, and yeah, who are you being ethical to? Which God are you answering to?

55:08 SPEAKER_00: Right. So if a client says, I have had paranormal experiences, like, oh, let's talk about it. I've had dreams, let's talk about, oh well, I I have some experience and references on this. Let's use that. And if I don't, I will be honest and tell you, I'm like going, but I will find out and I'll let you know what I do find out.

55:24 Michael Mackniak: Yeah. Well, and that's the best thing. I mean, that's I think that's the best lesson a lawyer could ever give another lawyer is if you don't know, say you don't know, but you know how to find out and go ask somebody else.

55:35 SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I have I have resources.

55:37 Michael Mackniak: I mean, yeah, yeah.

55:38 SPEAKER_00: We all do.

55:40 Michael Mackniak: Well, and and you have a whole paranormal uh index card to call on if you have to, apparently.

55:45 SPEAKER_00: I I I do. I mean, I I some of the things that I've witnessed even in Child Wetterfeld and the homelessness and special needs. I'm like, it's actually more beautiful than scary. I think the scary part is when the trauma distorts the experience or what's happening, and that's the scary part.

56:06 Michael Mackniak: So, folks, you can hang hang on and stay tuned for when Danielle is going to come back and she's gonna talk to me about how she integrates her her psychic connectedness in in helping others, and particularly helping people in need and and caregiving. And I love it. I I'm really happy that we got to talk so much about trauma being more than just getting hit by a car or more than just a sexual abuse or a sexual attack, because trauma is it's not something that you get hurt and it and it, you know, it heals.

56:47 Michael Mackniak: It's something that's a a bookmark, as I call it, that lives with you. And I'm I'm happy that you were able to sort of flesh that out for people because it's a it's a very important distinction to understand how we do all have trauma. And even if it's a tiny little thing, like I don't know, I can't come up with something just getting scared, having an earthquake and getting scared to death over it. It's something that's impacting, impactful to you. So thank you for helping me to lay that out in a way that makes it more accessible and understandable to everyone, as opposed to, oh, well, that never happened to me, right?

57:30 Michael Mackniak: Right. So thank you. And we will certainly be talking again. And I think it's interesting and fun, and maybe it's more can be more lighthearted of a conversation than some of the normal conversations I'm having with people, frankly. Because it's it's I think the whole paranormal concept brings in a to me, it's a hope, it's a hopeful aspect of of our mortality and and our ability to treat and have our mind and body and soul sort of all inter interacting with each other.

58:08 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

58:09 Michael Mackniak: So thank you for being here. Thank you for the work you're doing for other people, and we will hear more from you.

58:15 SPEAKER_00: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Key Takeaways For Caregivers

58:20 Michael Mackniak: Well, once again, we covered a lot of ground today. The takeaway to me is pretty obvious that trauma doesn't just live in a vacuum. When one person in a system or in an ecosystem is hurting, the whole system feels the pressure. Danielle is really good at reminding us that healing is really a collaborative process and the safety, quote unquote, safety, is the first step toward real lasting recovery. To all you caregivers that are listening out there, your mental health isn't a luxury. It's the foundation of the care that you provide.

59:01 Michael Mackniak: It is the safety that will be the building block for everything else to follow. You can't navigate a crisis while your own nervous system is in fight or flight mode. And that could be the result of some of the trauma that we discussed here today. So make sure you check out the details to look more into Danielle's work. Um, and don't forget to join us next time as we continue to find out ways that we can hold it together. Kinda. I'm Michael Makniak. Thank you all for listening.