31: Lauren Auer: From the Frontlines of Criminal Justice System to Counseling, with Trauma and Self-Care at the Core.

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Narrator

Hello and welcome to Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of hope and healing. Through raw and heartfelt conversations, we uncover the powerful tools and strategies these individuals use to not only heal themselves, but also inspire those around them. Join us on this incredible journey as we discover the human spirit's remarkable capacity to heal, find hope in the darkest of moments, and ultimately live an elevated life.

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Cherie Lindberg

Welcome, everyone, to another episode, The Elevated Life Academy, where we share stories of hope and healing. And today we have Lauren, our here as our guest, and I'm going to let her introduce herself. And we were just talking and basically we're going to have a conversation, spontaneous conversation, and we're going to see where this goes. Obviously, the topic is going to be on hope and healing, and we hope that you find this invigorating, curious voice.

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Cherie Lindberg

And maybe you're going to get some new information about your own journey that you might be on. So welcome, Lauren.

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Lauren Auer

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be on your podcast. I mean, we work together and trainings and stuff brain spotting before. So I feel like a lot of times the podcast that I've done, people are unfamiliar with what brain spotting is or, you know, it's not centered around that. So yeah, obviously, I'm sure a lot of your listener base has heard a lot of that stuff.

00;01;42;15 - 00;02;19;09

Lauren Auer

So that's kind of nice to have that foundation going in. But yeah, about me a little bit. So I have my own practice. I'm in central Illinois and I open my practice in 2020, which wonderful year to open a practice. But before that I kind of got my start working in a lot of agencies. And originally I went to school for criminal justice and I was interning in undergrad at a like a juvenile detention facility.

00;02;19;12 - 00;02;51;05

Lauren Auer

And it was really eye opening for me in that environment, because all I could see was how much trauma those kids had, and it wasn't really addressed much. And if it was, it was like way secondary tertiary, like it was just very low priority. And that just stuck with me. I couldn't show for it. And so I decided to kind of switch, pass and go into the counseling world.

00;02;51;05 - 00;03;29;24

Lauren Auer

From there. And yeah, so I got my master's degree in counseling, and I worked at an agency that specialized in working with juveniles with either sexually problematic behaviors, sex offenses, as well as victims of sexual abuse and their families. And so kind of having that mix again of that criminal justice side, but in a more therapeutic role was really interesting to me to kind of see things from both sides and especially working with a younger population.

00;03;29;24 - 00;03;58;13

Lauren Auer

That wasn't really my hope and my goals going into graduate school, but that's just where I ended up, and it gave me a really interesting view of trauma from all these different lenses and especially working with like, the families and working with, you know, victims and offenders and seeing it from all these different sides and seeing the role of the justice system in some of these things, and how that can be traumatizing in and of itself.

00;03;58;13 - 00;04;33;22

Lauren Auer

And, you know, all of these layers really. It was really interesting. And then I ended up working in like a rape crisis agency with domestic violence and sexual abuse and so doing a lot of the crisis work there, like the work going to the E.R. like when somebody presents with injuries from a domestic violence situation, or getting an evidence collection kit to going to court with people all the way up to people that were just getting counseling, maybe later in life or something that had happened much earlier in their life.

00;04;33;22 - 00;05;03;01

Lauren Auer

So seeing trauma at all these different stages. And then I became the director of that agency. So then I added this whole other layer of like, now I'm working with my staff on vicarious trauma and, you know, them managing their own stuff while they're working with this population. And then I was doing a lot of trainings in the community for like law enforcement and school workers and hospital staff and vicarious trauma in those ways.

00;05;03;01 - 00;05;36;12

Lauren Auer

So I kind of got this, like unintentional crash course in trauma of like, this is what it looks like in all these different stages and all these different levels and all these different ages and lenses and all of that. And so, yeah, I kind of wrapped all that up and took it and ran with it and started my own practice where I really specialize in trauma, specifically more like complex trauma, and then using some of the modalities like brain spotting and eMDR.

00;05;36;12 - 00;05;43;25

Lauren Auer

And I recently added ketamine assisted psychotherapy is something I'm offering now. So offering things that are a little bit different.

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Cherie Lindberg

Wow. It sounds like I mean, it reminds me of my early days. You were in the trenches, right? Yeah. You're you're just in there, you know, learning at the corps level, especially at, at the crisis level. So would love to hear more about, you know, your own ability to manage your own vicarious trauma and how you helped your team be able to manage that.

00;06;06;19 - 00;06;28;24

Cherie Lindberg

They think it's one thing that's not really talked about as therapists and counselors. I mean, we know about it, but the public just seems to think like this is what we do for a living, and they don't understand the consequences to our own mental health and how we have to manage it and really take care of ourselves to be able to continue to work with these populations.

00;06;28;27 - 00;06;55;01

Lauren Auer

That is something that we talk about, things like self-care a lot. You know, you hear about it in grad school. And when I was in doing agency work, we had all sorts of mandatory trainings around self-care. And what are you doing for self-care? Which is great, but I also like being in it. I think that a lot of the way that we talk about self-care is kind of backwards.

00;06;55;05 - 00;07;21;12

Lauren Auer

And what I mean by that is, at least in my experience, from a lot of what I saw, if somebody was coming to you with, oh, they're so stressed out, they're so burnt out, they've got this and that going on, it was kind of thrown back on them like, what are you doing for self-care? Which I feel like kind of sends a message of it's a little blamey, like you're not doing enough or you need to add something else.

00;07;21;12 - 00;07;45;22

Lauren Auer

You need to have a workout routine or have some sort of a routine in place to address that. And that can be really overwhelming of like, how about you add something else to your already extremely full and overwhelming life and go do it on your own and go take care of that so that you can come back to work and be a workhorse.

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Lauren Auer

And I know that's not necessarily the intention behind those messages, but I think being on both sides of.

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Cherie Lindberg

It.

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Lauren Auer

It is how that is sometimes received. Some of wow, I must not be doing enough or people feel like other people can do it. Why am I having such a struggle with it? So I need to kind of like put on a happy face and show up to work, because there must be something wrong with me that I can't keep up when the people around me are seeming to be doing okay.

00;08;17;04 - 00;09;01;26

Lauren Auer

And I just don't think that's fair. I don't think it's realistic. I think that it really needs to be addressed in much different ways. And I think to just bringing it back, like self-care at the core of understanding, like our physiology and our bodies and how we experience things like not all self-care is created equal. So like with the window of tolerance, I mean, I don't know how much how familiar your listeners are with that or you, but just how, you know, we have kind of as humans, this threshold of what we can handle and the more external stressors or past trauma or health concerns or whatever going on in our life is going to

00;09;01;26 - 00;09;27;25

Lauren Auer

shrink that window to make it even harder to stay in that threshold of how you feel. Okay. And every day, all the time. We're constantly kind of going up and down this window of being overstimulated, stressed out, anxious, angry, whatever that is to this like hyper aroused state, to this like hypo aroused state that's checked out, numb, depressed.

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Cherie Lindberg

Or.

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Lauren Auer

Low energy, whatever it is. And so being able to understand like where you're at with that, like if you are numb and you're checked out and you're exhausted, it's not actually going to be very helpful to take a day off work and lay in bed and just like, relax and watch Netflix because that's going to keep you in that like hypo aroused kind of frozen low energy state, like physiologically like if that's where you're at, you should be maybe go have coffee with a friend, get outside.

00;10;04;12 - 00;10;29;26

Lauren Auer

Go, go do something like active to bring you back up to a more active state, back to where you have that tolerance and vice versa. If you're super stressed out, if you're really anxious, if you're just so overwhelmed, like that might not be a good time to do the type of self-care where it's I'm going to get together with a bunch of girlfriends and have like a girls night because that's like adding more to the plate.

00;10;29;29 - 00;10;50;14

Lauren Auer

That's that's when it be good to, you know, maybe take a day off, do nothing, spend some time by yourself, do something really low energy. And so I think like just at its core, the foundation of understanding that in that you really have to be in tuned with your own body and your own needs to know what's actually going to be helpful.

00;10;50;16 - 00;11;18;27

Lauren Auer

And also not looking at it from this lens of, you know, when you're depleted, you need to do something to fill that tank back up so that you can go back and keep working. But like, that's not how it works. You know, if you get back from vacation, it's not like, oh wow, everything's wonderful and you have all the capacity in the world and you can, you know, do everything perfectly.

00;11;18;27 - 00;11;38;02

Lauren Auer

Sometimes maybe that's easier for people, but it's having a more realistic understanding of, you know, you could go on vacation, you could feel good and you could come back to work. And it still feels really overwhelming. And now you have all these emails that you missed while you were gone, and now you have to care for that. So it's not like filling this tank for later.

00;11;38;02 - 00;11;52;23

Lauren Auer

It's more about like being in the moment of like, I'm enjoying this time I have now off. And also, I know when I get back it's going to be overwhelming. And so like, what am I going to do to manage that? How am I going to take care of myself through that? Like, do I need to delegate things?

00;11;52;23 - 00;12;07;25

Lauren Auer

Do I need it? Whatever it is? And having been in a supervisor role, I don't know. I feel like I kind of made waves sometimes with management because I was very much like, don't use a sick day, just like, go home. Like, take care of yourself. Like I.

00;12;07;25 - 00;12;09;05

Cherie Lindberg

Will call.

00;12;09;05 - 00;12;24;11

Lauren Auer

Your afternoon client and cancel it for you or whatever. Like it's it was always so much more important for me, for the therapists to, you know, prioritize themselves first so that they could do the work.

00;12;24;14 - 00;12;46;01

Cherie Lindberg

It's so interesting because I think about I've worked in agencies in nonprofit and, and things like that too. And I always find it quite ironic that and this is for doctors, anyone in the service industry. We're going to talk like you said about self-care. And then we're going to give you a quota. You have to see 30 clients and one.

00;12;46;04 - 00;13;17;08

Cherie Lindberg

And these are all clients that have complex trauma. And then they wonder why their own staff is burning out. I hear that you know what you're saying. And I like the idea of what you're saying about understanding physiology and choosing your self-care based on that. Where are you? Are you shut down or are you hypo aroused? Interesting that, you know, curious you like I have daily routines and for me, like daily routines.

00;13;17;11 - 00;13;41;19

Cherie Lindberg

I don't know, they're they're replenishing. And then I have the extras like getting a massage like, oh my goodness, 90 minute massage. Once a month for me is very replenishing. And it's like, if I miss a month, boy, do I feel it. So like you said, creating our own unique routines that we know replenish us. So I'm just curious, what are some of the things that you do that are replenishing?

00;13;41;22 - 00;14;11;26

Lauren Auer

Right. I think it's important to have routines in those things that kind of keep that regular care. It's kind of like if you were to wait until you were like needing major medical care, like your leg is like broken and been broken for a month and you're finally going to the doctor, you know, like if you're doing things to take care of your body, hopefully that means you have less of a chance of getting to the point where it's like a medical emergency.

00;14;11;26 - 00;14;35;21

Lauren Auer

Right? And so it's the same way with like caring for ourselves and for me, like I think especially now that I'm in private practice, I have the luxury of kind of making my own schedule, deciding how many clients I can handle and what days and all that kind of stuff. So that is something that is really important to me, and I'm just really not putting too much stuff on my plate.

00;14;35;23 - 00;14;58;08

Lauren Auer

Like sometimes on my schedule, if I see a day starting to fill up with a lot of stuff and I technically have several hours in that day still that aren't accounted for, I might go my calendar, just completely block it off. Just knowing that I'm probably not going to want that space filled that day and things like that I think are really important.

00;14;58;08 - 00;15;23;00

Lauren Auer

Also, keeping things in my life that I know bring me joy and energize me, like creativity is really big for me. So if I don't have time to weigh whether it's like write or read or do something like that, if I don't have space set aside for that, I know that I feel the effects of it. And so for me, I know it can't be an afterthought.

00;15;23;00 - 00;15;48;05

Lauren Auer

It can't be a like, if I have time, I'll do that because it's a luxury, which I guess it kind of is. But also like for me, it's it's a non-negotiable. It is it's an essential for my well-being. And then just having really strict since the boundaries around I don't take clients after a certain time like I don't respond to calls or emails on the weekends, like that kind of thing.

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Lauren Auer

I'm just pretty much a stickler about that, and I don't feel bad about it because I know how important that is for me.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, I'm hearing words like essential and necessity. Like, this is just part of your overall well-being, hygiene, like, is just part of what what you do. Do you feel like you learned all of that in the trenches? Yeah.

00;16;11;24 - 00;16;36;19

Lauren Auer

I mean, I think I had to learn a lot of it the hard way. I've just being at points of complete burnout. And I think especially when I was more in a supervisor role, I felt this need to kind of constantly be available to people. And that was a really hard balance, because sometimes, you know, they didn't need somebody to talk to or something came up that was emergent.

00;16;36;21 - 00;17;08;26

Lauren Auer

But kind of interestingly with that, because I had my second child when I was in that director role. So I went on maternity leave for, I think, three months, and it kind of forced, like I was like, I can't be available during this time. And so I put things in place ahead of the maternity leave to help people like, okay, if you have a question about this, this is the person you can contact instead or that like kind of, you know, making it.

00;17;08;26 - 00;17;28;10

Lauren Auer

So I wasn't 100% essential for these people to function and do their job. And then I was kind of like, why didn't I just do this the whole time? Like, I should have been doing this before I was on maternity leave, you know, just like because I was off, because I think it's easy to get that mentality of like, this is my job.

00;17;28;10 - 00;17;49;02

Lauren Auer

I have to do it. And even just therapist working with clients of like, well, I this person, you know, what happens if there's an emergency and they need me? That's actually maybe not a great thing for a client. If you are the only person that they can rely on because you literally can't always be available. And what what if something happens?

00;17;49;02 - 00;18;14;10

Lauren Auer

Like what if, you know, I don't know, whatever your phone dies or an emergency comes up or whatever, you need to take leave for them to only be able to rely on you is actually not good for them. And so yeah, I think learning that kind of the hard way from being so burnt out with it and then realizing, oh wait, I have the option to put these other things in place and people aren't mad at me.

00;18;14;10 - 00;18;34;16

Lauren Auer

And that actually kind of makes me, I think, a better therapist. And also, I think there were times when I realized how that could be empowering for my staff. In some ways, if they were coming to me a lot with I don't know what to do with this client, instead of me needing to like, help them and have the answer of asking them like, well, what were you thinking?

00;18;34;16 - 00;18;52;04

Lauren Auer

Like what? Let's work through this and like kind of putting it back on them, you know? Then they start saying, well, I thought about doing this. I'm like, that's great. That's perfect. Try that. Like, you didn't need to ask me for that. You like you knew that. And giving them that power back of you can trust your own gut.

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Lauren Auer

Like you don't need me to necessarily sign off on that.

00;18;56;24 - 00;19;05;18

Cherie Lindberg

It is what I'm hearing from you. And correct me if I'm wrong. And what I'm hearing is sometimes we forget and we will.

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Lauren Auer

As in our field.

00;19;07;14 - 00;19;39;12

Cherie Lindberg

We might unintentionally create dependency from our clients, or we might try to rescue them. And what I'm hearing you say, what you learned through your on maternity leave, is to use systems of support and to not only empower your staff and increase their own trust in their own intuition, but also give clients also that empowerment as well, or to support them in becoming empowered by.

00;19;39;12 - 00;20;08;22

Cherie Lindberg

Here's some other options. Here's some other resources trying to connect them with other resources so that they're not just dependent on you as the therapist, their counselor. My yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And I don't think enough therapists do that. And then a lot of therapists go into feeling guilty or feeling ashamed or all these feelings, like they have to be super responsible for solving the world's problems.

00;20;08;22 - 00;20;11;04

Cherie Lindberg

And really, you're one person.

00;20;11;07 - 00;20;32;22

Lauren Auer

And I think it's ultimately to like, if you have that mindset of like, I'm the only person that can help them or this is really essential. Like that could actually be pretty harmful for the therapeutic relationship, because what if that is the norm and then you're on vacation or something and you aren't responding like, what is that? What does that mean for the relationship?

00;20;32;22 - 00;20;41;08

Lauren Auer

Like, do they actually care? Like, you know, and people are wondering about that kind of stuff. And I feel like it's really good to just like set that standard from the beginning.

00;20;41;08 - 00;21;08;13

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, yeah. And the other thing that's coming up too, and I see this a lot in young therapists too, that one thing that they don't, I don't think teach in grad school is how to differentiate and not have attachment to the outcome. Yeah. You know, it's kind of ironic. There's like a disconnect in our feel okay. You're not supposed to fix the client and then here's our treatment plans that you have to get this person to 70%.

00;21;08;13 - 00;21;29;21

Cherie Lindberg

No anxiety by the end of six sessions or whatever. So it's there's like this disconnect. And really what we need to be able to do is not have attachment to the outcome because it's really free will of the client if they want to grow and if they want to change, I mean, we can support them in that. But our role is not to make it happen.

00;21;29;21 - 00;21;33;27

Cherie Lindberg

It's to support the client in making it happen.

00;21;33;29 - 00;22;00;27

Lauren Auer

Yeah, I remember so many conversations with staff and and even now for some reason a lot of my clients are therapists themselves are in this field. It's kind of unintentional but it just is. So like this topic comes up a lot. And I think especially when I had newer therapists or like interns of like that kind of panic of like, I don't know what I'm doing with this client.

00;22;00;27 - 00;22;35;23

Lauren Auer

I don't feel like I'm helping them. Like, I don't like I feel like I'm making things worse or like trying to plan or like, what can we do and all of that. And early on, like, one of the things I realized and I would encourage them to do too, was ultimately, at the end of the day, your job is to just make people hopefully feel like safe and heard and even if you have a client that comes, let's say for three sessions and then they you never see them again.

00;22;35;24 - 00;22;57;04

Lauren Auer

If their experience in that three sessions was like, therapy can be okay, that wasn't terrible, but I'm just not ready or whatever. Like the hope is that they'll come back when they are ready, right? Like I would always tell when I worked with like kids or teens and the parents was like, well, they don't want to come or, you know, I it's really important to me.

00;22;57;04 - 00;23;30;15

Lauren Auer

But they're just like really refusing. They don't they don't want any part of this. I would always tell them like, you know, give me a give me two free sessions, see how you like it. If you don't like it, you don't have to come back, because I'm not going to force it. But my hope is that if you give me 2 or 3 sessions, either a your mind will be changed a little bit about what this is, or it'll be an okay enough process that when you are ready, if you are ready down the road, if you are needing more down the road, you'll have a better understanding of what therapy is and hopefully come

00;23;30;15 - 00;23;52;10

Lauren Auer

back. And like really, that's all you can do. Like, it kind of releases yourself from all of that or having to plan and like trying. I just remember what am I going to do? And trying to find workbooks and worksheets and like all these activities and things and which is fine. But also now I find myself more often like if there's a client that I'm like, I'm not really sure.

00;23;52;13 - 00;23;57;28

Lauren Auer

Like what's helpful or not, I just ask them, like, what do you think would be the best use of our time today?

00;23;58;01 - 00;24;08;14

Cherie Lindberg

Well, what you're talking about is attunement and presence, right? And I think I know in my grad school that was many years ago. That was not a topic that was covered. It was.

00;24;08;14 - 00;24;11;01

Lauren Auer

Which is crazy because it's everything they did.

00;24;11;03 - 00;24;33;02

Cherie Lindberg

It is I mean, they tell you relationship, relationship, relationship and and things. But it was all more had stuff educating. I mean we, we did not talk much about the body that's for sure. And now what we know to be true with trauma work is that we've got to go into the body. And emotional regulation comes from our physiology in our body.

00;24;33;02 - 00;24;53;05

Cherie Lindberg

And so we've come we've come a long way with with that understanding. What else would you put out here for overall wellbeing or what have you learned and why? You've made some of the choices you've made to get where you're at today?

00;24;53;07 - 00;25;25;01

Lauren Auer

Well, I guess kind of going back to like the modalities in the body and all of that, you know, working in all these different trauma spaces. And all I knew from grad school really was talk therapy and CBT, you know, was the gold standard. And even like the agencies I worked for, like were grant funded and the grants wanted evidence that we were using CBT techniques in order to fund the programs, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy and no, no shade on that.

00;25;25;01 - 00;25;49;10

Lauren Auer

I think there's a space for it. But when it comes to trauma, I, I really I think like the tides are shifting a little bit there of like that's you're really limited in what you can do with just talk and trauma. And so I think that was one of the big things that I personally was running into of just, you know, doing my own research.

00;25;49;14 - 00;26;25;05

Lauren Auer

And I got trained in eMDR when I was still at the agency because I felt like that was becoming bigger, and they were letting us kind of try those things at the time. And that really opened my eyes again, just to like how limited things could be with out being able to incorporate the body. And again, like kind of talking like with the self-care thing, things like eMDR and brain spotting, it's so much putting like the wisdom on the client and their mind and their body knows what to do.

00;26;25;05 - 00;26;49;05

Lauren Auer

And I don't have to have all of the answers. I shouldn't have all the answers. I don't live in their head. I don't live in their body. They could tell me a story about what they've been through, but that's just using their prefrontal cortex where they're telling me a story. What I also know is that, you know, I work with so many clients who had been through, you know, if you wrote the story down, pretty similar traumatic events.

00;26;49;12 - 00;27;20;04

Lauren Auer

But their experience of the event was vastly different. Their symptoms were vastly different, you know? And so those things were just so eye opening for me. And I'm such a curious person, like, I just wanted to know why and like what was going on and why is it that two people can both experience a house fire and pretty much the same outcome for both of them, but like they are presenting so differently, like, my curious brain just takes over and I want to know.

00;27;20;04 - 00;27;45;18

Lauren Auer

And so that's when I really dove into understanding the somatic piece of things and seeing how that played out and, you know, getting trained in brain spotting and then just even that, like again, with like the prefrontal cortex, the logical mind. I remember my mom's best friend is a therapist and she is does brain spotting, loves brain spotting and was telling me about brain spotting.

00;27;45;18 - 00;28;06;07

Lauren Auer

You got to get train. You got to get train. And I'm like, it sounds weird. They because I don't know like I'm like, okay. Like that's kind of her weird thing that she's into. And she was so passionate about it that she eventually was like, I will pay for you to just take this training. Like, wow. Yeah. So I was very lucky in that way.

00;28;06;07 - 00;28;30;16

Lauren Auer

And I was like, you know, like, okay, if you're going to pay for it, I need some seat, use whatever. Like I'll do it. And even going through the trainings, like there's still this logical part of my brain that's like, this is kind of weird, you know, or when I'm describing it to people, I'm like, I know it sounds weird, but like it doesn't matter because the other parts of your brain that don't care about logic or whatever.

00;28;30;16 - 00;28;40;13

Lauren Auer

And, you know, obviously, you know, there's a lot of research and logic and like, neuroscience behind it, but, you know, just it sounds strange that you're going to look at a.

00;28;40;15 - 00;28;41;15

Cherie Lindberg

Spot.

00;28;41;17 - 00;29;04;29

Lauren Auer

And that's going to be this, like freaking thing where all of these things open up and make sense. But like doing it, seeing it, doing it with clients like it's you can't dispute it. Like it's amazing. And I think, I don't know, I at least for me, when I caught that bug, it was like, how do you just go back?

00;29;04;29 - 00;29;27;01

Cherie Lindberg

Like, right. We musicians, why heal at the depths that they do? You know, some people are like, well, where's the evidence? And, you know, we are working on the research on that. But I, I say the evidence is in my practice because people are reporting their lives are changed. So I, I totally I mean, of course I'm biased because I'm a trainer, but yeah.

00;29;27;01 - 00;29;38;00

Cherie Lindberg

Well, given that when you got the bug, when you, when you kind of went through that, tell me some stories of hope and healing that you have seen since utilizing some of the Somatics.

00;29;38;02 - 00;30;01;07

Lauren Auer

Oh man, there's so many. There's so many. Like, I think one of the things that I love the most is just how often. Even still, I get surprised and excited by like the things that I'm seeing. I don't need to know really, even like why it is to know that it is like you're just seeing it and you're just like, wow, okay, that's what they said.

00;30;01;07 - 00;30;03;17

Lauren Auer

They're they're experiencing one.

00;30;03;18 - 00;30;04;20

Cherie Lindberg

Of.

00;30;04;23 - 00;30;33;11

Lauren Auer

The earlier brain spotting clients that I had. And I have a lot of clients like this. I think there's a lot of health related things, whether that's like autoimmune stuff or like unexplained. They're not really sure what's going on with their health, but they're feeling really drained low energy or migraines or whatever. And I've worked with a lot of doctors and kind of found some stuff that's helped.

00;30;33;11 - 00;30;59;14

Lauren Auer

And but like, not really. And just doing brain spotting with some of those clients and kind of on the like, let's just see, what's this? I'm not a doctor, but I've seen this work with people and so let's try it and are like, okay. And I had one client that she had a lot of it was like allergy reactions, but it didn't seem like there was much rhyme or reason to why?

00;30;59;15 - 00;31;22;04

Lauren Auer

Like it wasn't like, oh, every time she eats this, she gets an allergic reaction. It was kind of random and they were really bad reactions like swelling, hives, all this kind of stuff. And she was down to like a diet of like, boiled chicken and rice because it was like she couldn't she was like afraid to eat anything, basically because of this.

00;31;22;07 - 00;31;42;14

Lauren Auer

So there was a lot of fear that she was dealing with around food and like environmental things of like everything in the house was like no sense clean like all of that because there was so much fear around, what is it? We don't know what it is. So let's just, you know, kind of take things back to bare bones.

00;31;42;14 - 00;32;11;13

Lauren Auer

And we just did brain spotting on whatever some recent situation where she was feeling fearful and it was just kind of, you know, like a, I would say like a regular brain spotting session. She had some different body sensations, was feeling fine, whatever. Okay. Kind of like I don't know if that worked or not. But then she contacted me the next day via email and was like telling me that she was having one of these allergic reactions.

00;32;11;13 - 00;32;33;16

Lauren Auer

Like she's breaking out into hives. She she the only thing she could think of was the brain spotting, like, what did you do to me that caused me to break out in the hives? Like what? What was that like? I this is it feels worse. It feels like I don't know what's going on. And so me being newer to brain spotting, I was like, oh no, what did I do?

00;32;33;16 - 00;32;55;09

Lauren Auer

And so I'm like, contacting my supervisors and mentors in this space and looking at the research and stuff. And everybody was saying, you know, yeah, that happens sometimes. Like the body's releasing this inflammation. Sometimes that happens with brain spotting. Like it's actually a good thing, even though it seems scary. But you know, just kind of trust it.

00;32;55;09 - 00;33;13;02

Lauren Auer

Whatever. And so I let her know I'm like, this is what they're saying. They're saying it's fine. They're saying it's normal. Of course. Like if you're having anything major medical emergency, you know, go to your doctor, all this kind of stuff. But they're saying it's normal. I don't know. But yeah, that was maybe a year and a half ago.

00;33;13;02 - 00;33;17;01

Lauren Auer

And she hasn't had any allergic reaction stuff since.

00;33;17;04 - 00;33;38;06

Cherie Lindberg

It's great. And it's great. And that's the kind of stuff that you will get reported, you know, from, from people. Right. Or they were in a car accident 15 years ago or whatever. And they have, you know, chronic back pain. And then you, you do six months worth of brain spotting or six sessions depending on the client. And they're like, I don't understand.

00;33;38;06 - 00;34;09;15

Cherie Lindberg

My back pain is gone. And again, we don't we can't say theoretically what we believe is happening is the improvements of neuroscience, that we know how the brain and body holds trauma, and we're releasing it out of the brain and bodies. So yeah, I love it. I love watching people heal. So as we're wrapping up here, Lauren, thank you so much for for your stories and talking about being in the trenches and, you know, the vicarious trauma and how you talk differently or express differently about self-care.

00;34;09;15 - 00;34;20;29

Cherie Lindberg

I think that that's really important to have a different notion of what that really looks like based on your own unique physiology. Is there anything else that I haven't asked you that you might want to share here?

00;34;21;02 - 00;34;42;28

Lauren Auer

Yeah, I guess I would just encourage anybody that is listening to stay curious if they feel like they're stuck in their healing in any way. I feel like I see that all the time in my practice, where people are kind of feeling like at the end of their rope or like I, I've done a lot of therapy, I've done a lot of this, I've done a lot of that.

00;34;42;28 - 00;35;06;24

Lauren Auer

And I think that is the thing that keeps me going is just seeing how often people have these breakthroughs. And I think sometimes people have this notion that, yeah, that's something that happens for other people, but that's not happening for me or it's not going to happen for me. And I definitely am a believer in that. That can happen for literally anybody.

00;35;06;26 - 00;35;16;23

Cherie Lindberg

Agreed. I agree with you. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast today, and we really appreciate you coming on and sharing stories of hope and healing.

00;35;16;26 - 00;35;20;10

Lauren Auer

Yeah, thanks for having me.

00;35;20;12 - 00;35;57;05

Cherie Lindberg

I hope you enjoyed the podcast where we discussed the early years of a healer and Lauren's journey of working with different populations where there was extreme trauma, and then her journey to understanding vicarious trauma, and also discussing how to look at self-care for providers in a different way. I think that that is essential. We need to start talking about our own physiology and learning what fills our tank versus shutting on folks about what they should and they should not do.

00;35;57;07 - 00;36;24;04

Cherie Lindberg

And just as I've said before, if you find this podcast helpful, maybe you know another therapist or another healer or even, you know, clients that are wanting to understand the life of a therapist, feel free to share. We're always looking to share stories of hope and healing here at Elevated Life Academy. Thank you so much for listening. We appreciate at.

00;36;24;06 - 00;36;43;02

Narrator

Thank you for joining us on another uplifting journey on Cherie Lindberg’s Elevated Life Academy stories of Hope and healing. If you found resonance or connection with what you've heard today, we encourage you to share this episode and consider becoming a subscriber. Please spread the word so others can live an elevated life.