Episode #14 Becoming Safely Embodied with Deirdre Fay
Hi, this is Welcome to Self ™ Caring for the Human in the Therapist Chair, and I’m your host, Dr. Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, clinical psychologist, supervisor and trainer. Welcome to Self ™ is a place where you can come and learn ways to elevate your own care and compassion. A place to rest, be soothed, and at times maybe gently challenged to think about yourself and your practice. A place to remember that you are human first, choose the helping profession is just one of the roles in your life. My aim is that this is a place of soothing, comfort, nourishment, growth and nurture. A place where you can also welcome your self.
Hayley: Hi, and welcome to another episode. I’d like to take a moment to thank Maggie for her beautiful feedback on Facebook. Here’s what Maggie said.
“I listened to your podcast here in the UK at 4:30 in the morning, when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. What a beautiful poem wrote by Amy, and you read it so respectfully Hayley. Your consistent wisdom of reflecting ways to rest and digest, taking care of ourselves through slowing down, noticing and asking ourselves, what do I need? Not always so helpful. I’m going to give the pyjamas day a go for sure. The meditation was so soothing. I was resting well and soon went back to sleep for another hour. Appreciation as always for your time and creating and sharing these podcasts. Thank you so much Maggie for your lovely feedback. It really is appreciated. I hope you’re sleeping better and I’d love to hear about your pyjamas on purpose day”.
Maggie was referring to episode nine, where I talk about building a compassionate practice and take listeners through a guided meditation. If you find the meditation helpful, there are more available for purchase on my website.
Hayley: I’m excited to introduce my next guest, Deirdre Fay MSW. I met Deirdre in New York at the first annual compassionate mind retreat and Summit hosted by Dr. Dennis Tersh and Dr. Laura Silverstein-Tersh. I learned from Deirdre and also had the pleasure of spending time together. I even managed to take her in the wrong direction on a car trip we took, she was very gracious about that. Deidre is a thought leader with 35 years of experience exploring the intersection of trauma, attachment, yoga and meditation to point out a radically the positive approach to healing trauma. Her quest is using trauma as a modern day body that for training to transfer suffering into compassion, where healing is not an accident by the shore result of consistent and persistent practice. To develop a solid, steady, secure self. Her third book, Becoming Safely Embodied, became a best seller before it was published. As well as being an accomplished practitioner, trainer and writer, Deirdre is an absolutely beautiful human being and it’s my pleasure to call her my friend and welcome her on to the podcast.
Hayley: Hi, Deirdre, it’s such a pleasure to have you on Welcome to Self Caring for the Human in the Therapist Chair. I’m really thrilled about chatting with you tonight or this morning for you over in France.
Deirdre: Always glad talking to you Hayley.
Hayley: That’s really lovely. Thankyou. Be nice when we can catch up again in person hey. So to start with, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what led you to a career in the helping professions.
Deirdre: Gosh, you know wanting to work with myself. I think it was really a clear path for me that I felt like I wanted to change and grow and develop, wanted to heal. And I wanted, I remember there was one moment I was living in an Ashram at the time and I remember thinking this is so hard. If I’m going to do all this work, I’m not going to just do it for myself. I’m going to figure out how to make it easier for other people. And that was, I remember exactly where I was in the hallway when I had that thought. I was in a conversation with somebody, it was like, no, this is just not. this is too hard. So how do we make it easier, and I’m going to use my life for that purpose.
Hayley: Because being human is hard hey.
Deirdre: Being human is hard. It is hard and I work specifically or more have, mostly worked with trauma and attachment warning. And I know very well, that impulse to I want to get better. My therapist at the time, asked as to Well, how long is this going to take? I want to be done, you know, in good therapist fashion she said, well, how long do you think it’ll take? Just skipped one beat and I said, well, I’m an Aries, I got I got strong will, I can make this happen, let’s say six months. You know, then multiple, six months, multiple, six years in there. Now it’s been 30 years, 25 years, something or almost 40 I can’t even count anymore. And this takes a long time and somewhere along the way I realised, this is not, it’s not about getting somewhere. This is the process. What I love about compassion focus therapy, learning about compassion, and all the ancient western traditions. We’re meant to use this life to grow and develop and transform. In western traditions, there’s an idea that bodyfast as somebody who deliberately chooses to transform their suffering into compassion. Healing Trauma really is the modern day training, if we want to take it on that way. And if we do, and, it’s not like life gets easier. It certainly, what’s the word.. It gets um, we see ourselves transforming.
Hayley: Yeah, yeah. I think I felt so beautiful that piece around, if I’m going to do all this work, if I’m going to learn this and I want to upskill for myself, why would I just keep it for myself, and wanting to share that with other people. But then also this realisation that this isn’t something we kind of go for so many sessions, and then we’ve done it. Because I think we grow.
Deirdre: We wish it were true!
Hayley: Isn’t it, it’s like, I’ll just have 10 thanks. And then I’m done. But it’s that thing of you know, as we go through different changes in life, different things show up for us. And as we age, different things show up for us. So it is a process. It’s not a have I got there yet. But a process of that. That’s beautiful,
Deirdre: And how do we create and I know this is your way of being to Hayley, how do we create an environment of encouragement that we, like you said, it’s not just 10 sessions and we’re done. Like this is, this is the path. Exactly it’s the path, we might dip into therapy, we might dip into coaching, we might dip into other, we might do things for extended periods of time. But the whole idea is to use our life. Become, not just a stagnant.
Hayley: Yeah, I love that. You’ve been learning and teaching and writing about trauma and yoga spirituality and compassion for a long time. What have you found most personally helpful about it?
Deirdre: Probably this idea of a modern day body suffer training. It inspires me and keeps me going you know, because we all fall into the dumps and I certainly have been there many times. Helps me to realise this is the transformation process it’s not back to back. So I’ve been looking a lot at the healing cycle of life, which is, if we allow things to rise crest and fall inside of us, things move. Every thought and feeling, every body sensation, every life experience will change. But then, as I looked more deeply at it, I realised the transformational process is an inverse. Joseph Campbell says, we descend into the poop of life. And we feel stuck. We feel trapped and we feel like there’s no way out. If we relax into it, actually breathe and use all the practices we’ve been teaching. Something opens up, a new way opens up. I was listening to the bird this morning, I was just waking up and they were just like tweeting away and what are you teaching me right now? What do you telling me, about slowing down and the more I slow down, the happier I am. But that’s so, that’s such a strong personality, I can keep moving. But I slow down there’s like a doorway or window that opens that may be small as I breathe into it, that allows me to flow in a different way. So grateful for that.
Hayley: Yeah, I think that’s been for me, one of the biggest learnings is the slowing. And when we slow we can access wisdom that we just don’t hear when we’re busy. And we’re in drive a lot. I love that. Just listening and asking the vote, you know, what are they trying to teach me right now? I think it’s those moments, isn’t it, that we take them, we can learn different things, we can connect to parts of ourselves that we really don’t pay attention to in our everyday life or can not pay attention to in our everyday life.
Deirdre: That’s really true. And I, you know, part of what I love about what you’re doing Hayley is, it is about slowing down, it is about fighting, and what is self care? What is it like to take care of ourselves first, right now I’m just reading a lot of research about how burnt out therapists are. Everybody’s practices booming, and they’re overwhelmed. It’s like what do we need? What do we need right now? How do we slow down enough to get nourishment even if it’s a direct, even if it’s a drop right now. So that we can carry that forward.
Hayley: And that’s the thing I like that sort of image of just a drop and I’ll often talk with supervisees around you don’t need to wait for the end of the day, to try and make space to take care of yourself. It could be three breaths before your client walks into the room. It could be a hand on heart and asking yourself, what do I need in this moment. And then listening to what that is. Because I think that otherwise can become this thing of like, self care. That’s something else to put on the to do list. I haven’t got time. I’m too busy. I’m already exhausted.
Deirdre: Right. Exactly. Exactly. And yet we need it so much.
Hayley: Yeah. How can we bring them in as drops? Like a little drip? Like being on a drip, I can have my self-care drip with me during the day. And what would that look like.
Deirdre: At least for a while in the deserts of New Mexico and Santa Fe, there’s zero escaping. So so that there’s not, you don’t abuse the water. And so they’re these little you know, I don’t know, call them hoses, and the hoses just drip out little water. And it’s like that it’s not like a big gush. It’s like by just saturate my system with that over time.
Hayley: Yeah absolutely. That it’s constant and regular. And we’re not feeling like we need to make large amounts of space and time for it. Because I think that’s where a lot of people like you say, practices are extremely busy. Practitioners feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work, that the thought of having to set aside chunks of time is, is too difficult. So what’s been your own journey of self care, what’s that looked like? And what strategies that you teach your clients and students have you found most helpful?
Deirdre: Great question. I think that one of the main things was I had to leave, I never really knew how much place mattered. And I lived in Boston, and where I was for 20 something odd years. And it was a powerful learning experience but it was very strong drive a very strong drive environment. And I don’t know if it’s unbeknownst to me, or it hit my pattern and aligned with an old pattern I have of trying hard and working hard and it’s something in me my heart. I don’t know what else to call it. Something in me wanted something different. Yeah. And my husband who’s also my partner in my business also want more balance. And I was like I don’t know how have that, you know, it’s like I didn’t know how to not do this old pattern. Yeah. And so, there’s nothing clear about why we left or where we ended up in the South of France, but a different pace here, a different sense of balance, and life is very different than I was used to in Boston. And that’s helped a lot. Just being in a different environment, allowed my system to call. But you know, because I work with people in different spectrums of the healing cycle. So much about learning to breathe and slow down. That’s what people say all the time in my courses. They forget how to slow down in a way, the real practical bits of mindfulness, somebody just told me about something I’ve written, that this is the most concrete example of mindfulness she’s ever seen. And she said she edited a book on mindfulness and I was like, so what is it, that happens. I also know that there’s fitting an environment of safety is really important that people can lower their protective garments, so that they can be more connected to their own inner wisdom, because that’s really what I’m interested in. And that’s what guides us. Not that I or you have the answer, but that we open up a space for people to know what’s right for them.
Hayley: Absolutely, like helping people find that inner voice. And again, for me, it’s that slowing down, it is almost like my experience of it when I slow down, it’s like turning down the noise volume. And then that wisdom kind of shows up. But I’m curious, you sort of said, you know, there was part of you knew there had to be a change. And certainly my experience of living with chronic illness and knowing I needed to make changes, that wisdom would be there like knocking gently on the door. And I’d be like, I can’t hear you. And then it would keep knocking. And then it would keep knocking a bit louder. And it’s like, okay, well, if I don’t kind of listen to this, now, I’m going to be in all sorts of trouble. I’m curious if that was the same for you, when you started to notice that you kind of have this wisdom.
Deirdre: You’re right about that. And I say to people and remind myself that I got into every transformational cycle, kicking and screaming. Like my first reaction is not to be like, oh, bless you. I’m ready. No, I’m like, I don’t want this, I don’t want to change. I don’t like this. And yet, somewhere in there, I begin to listen more, or hear. I’m not sure what it is, the pushing and I think I’m grateful for you know, I lived for years in a yoga ashram. I did a lot of meditation over the last you know, since I was in my 20s and I’m so glad that I have that daily practice of letting go. Just surrendering, processing that there’s something more that wants to occur because then when I think back about the cycles of transformation have been I don’t think I would have trusted anything. That okay, this is falling apart. Something will emerge trusting like always emerges. Remember reading a National Geographic as a teenager at the time. This is when Yellowstone’s fires were going and they when it first started years ago and people were saying let it burn. And there was like other people saying you can’t let it burn, you can’t let it burn. But what they began to see over time, is that the burning will allow new growth to come. Yeah. That always stayed with me. It was only when I was like, if that’s what’s possible in nature, let myself be burned to death. Something emerges, I’m not gonna die. You know, we’re all afraid to die, and a bag ladies and something bad happen. It’s like, okay, I’m thinking about it even now, because I’m gonna have hip replacement surgery. I know, they’re gonna take this stuff out of my, these bones. They’re gonna take my bones, they’re gonna, what are they gonna do? So I talked to the surgeon, and I said, you know, I want you to give me my bones. And he is a young guy, but he put his hands on the desk and said, what do you want me to do with that? I said well put it in a plastic bag and give it to me. I didn’t want it to just be thrown away. He said, we went through the same, they can’t do that and all kinds of reasons. I said well okay so give me the physical thing, how do I spend time now being grateful for this hip that has taken me hiking in the Himalayas and bicycling and, you know, being active and running and all the things I did, I want to just be grateful now. So that there can be space in my body for this new thing to come forth. And yeah, so it’s going to be physically thrown away by I thought okay, but I don’t have to psychologically throw it away. I know I’m a lot more gracious and grateful for what happened there.
Hayley: I can only imagine that that gives you such a different outlook on your upcoming surgery as well.
Deirdre: I’m hoping so. I don’t really know what’s gonna be you know, but I feel like I’m psychologically and emotionally prepping myself.
Hayley: It’s almost, rather than that sort of fear response that so easily shows up for us all. It’s a very different way to look at things isn’t it with this air of gratitude and grace.
Deirdre: I remember once, I worked with Bessel Vander Kolk, at the trauma centre, I was a supervisor there. One of the things he talked about that now that I’m having surgery I’m remembering, is how people would remember when they were, you know, under anesthesia, they would, they would actually their consciousness would take it and be imprinted by what was going on. And so how do I do, how do I imprint now that that’s going to be a healing experience. Forge that away yet. So that it happens. You know, if, if apparently, you know, some of the researchers that are surgeons, I mean, he’s doing five surgeries that day, mine is gonna take an hour, and it’s very mechanical and cut and dry. I’m sure they’re gonna be talking about what they’re doing or did on the weekend, he’s just going to be back from vacation, they’re going to be chatting about all this stuff. And I’m going to be like, I want it to be a sacred moment. So if I can’t have them make it sacred. Yeah, you know, how do I create sacredness inside myself? So that my body gets cut open, but I’m not getting cut open. And I will say this is all the prep work I’m doing.
Hayley: Yeah. It’s all that sort of essence of care for self though isn’t it? How can I care for myself in this process? It’s beautiful. I really, really love your attitude to life. I really do. And I remember meeting you in America and having that opportunity to just hang with you and spend time and it’s just been really lovely.
Deirdre: Fascinating, so much around the same environment they’re in, right.
Hayley: And I think it’s really important. You know, you said before, whenever a transformation comes, you go into a kicking and screaming like, I don’t want this, I don’t want change, because let’s face it, as humans, we don’t like that do we. We don’t like uncertainty, we like things to be how they are. And I think it’s really important for the listeners to hear this stuff that we do kick and scream with this stuff. It’s not easy. You know, being human is not easy. And having that trust, like you say trusting that something else is coming. And having that ability to really let go.
Deirdre: I think about it, even with climate change in the political environment that some people live in. It’s horrible. What about Haiti or Lebanon or Liberia? You know, what is going on in the world? How do I trust that like the Yellowstone fires. Now granted, I’m not in it. So what can I do to support others? As Paul Gilbert often says, how can like, motivate us toward compassion. Yeah. Versus, you know, being stuck in my own small world. But you know, for me, it comes down to how and I think for you, too, it’s like how do we use our lives to help other people.
Hayley: So what do you find are your biggest challenges if you’re happy to share those that you face in taking care of yourself as a practitioner, and generally as a human being?
Deirdre: I think that’s the biggest challenge is being human. I don’t, I’m tired you know, it’s like, oh, I’m in the same spot. That’s the biggest challenge is overcoming my own fears, blocks and resistances. It’s been very helpful for me with my soothing teachers that say, don’t let life roll around you, instead of getting the buckets, the blocks. And so you know, in CFT, we look more at that, fears, blocks and resistances. Where from the ancient wisdom traditions, we look like, how can I be softer, and take it easier so that I don’t, I can flow more with it. Without being crushed by the fear, blocks and resistance. So that’s been my own personal practice and working with people is okay. There’s this big problem. How can I slow it down, soften it, make it more granular, get to know what my thoughts are. My feelings are, my body sensations, work in my body, slow my body down. So the threat response isn’t there, so that I can move more gently to the world? But it’s a challenge.
Hayley: Yeah. And yeah, I love that. My biggest challenge is being human. It’s like okay, we need to work with that then. And I think that’s the thing, the stuff I love around the CFT stuff is the, you know, understanding our humaneness, understanding the tricky mind, understanding the fears, blocks and resistances. And going yeah, well, maybe our biggest challenges being human, and we have to work with the fact that we’re human. So how can we do that, with grace and ease and care. And, again, bringing it back to that slowing down, I’m totally a proponent for that. So you have done a lot of work, I recently read your lovely book Becoming Safely Embodied. I have to say, it was a really gentle read as well. That’s probably one of the things I liked most about it. It was full of really great information. But it was just such a gentle read. Which made me want to just keep picking it up. There was like, well, yes, I can engage with this. This is more learning. I don’t necessarily see it as work. But it’s that sense of you know, I’m not reading a novel or watching a movie. But I’ll happily pick it up, because it’s a gentle read. So thank you for the way you wrote it. I thought that was really lovely. Can you tell us a bit more?
Deirdre: I just heard that last night at the consultation group. And I was like ohh isn’t that nice, you know, that it’s kind and gentle. Well, maybe that’s just because we teach what we need to know the most.
Hayley: Because there is so much learning as helping professionals and you know, books to be read or courses to do. And I think when they are a light touch like that, it just makes it so much easier and more enjoyable. So well done on that. But could you tell us a bit more about your safely embodied work, and how we might use that as practitioners for ourselves, particularly during challenging times in our work? I think a lot of the time we learn all this to use with our clients. But I always like to try and get practitioners to think about, well, how can you actually use this for yourself when you’re in session as the human being in the chair?
Deirdre: I love that. Well we’ve done a lot of research on our list, which is about 50,000 people. And what we find is that the people who are connected and use our work, they fall into three categories, either their clients themselves, or they’re working for their own purpose. Their therapists that want to learn from their head. And there are people who want to do their own work so that they can help other people. And the greatest majority I think was 68 72% of our population are people who actually want to heal themselves so that they can be more supportive of other people like you, like me. And so the BST skills literally came out of my own healing journey. That’s and I, my trauma history came up when I was held in the safe cocoon of a yoga ashram. And it was a totally unexpected, I had been, I would say probably dissociated, numb and blank before. I remember looking, I was working out at the gym we had there and I looked in the mirror and I said, me, like, this clear moment where like this body here was that that. I don’t think I ever knew that. Like if people said, well what was going on inside, I had no idea. I didn’t know who was in there. I didn’t know what it thought, felt, wanted to do. If I was out on a date, and somebody said, what do you want for dinner? I wouldn’t know. You know, I had so discounted myself. And yet, at the same time, I was very capable of sitting for hours meditating. I, we did multiple retreats, long term retreats, and both in the ashram and the I would do them on my own different meditation groups. And, you know, it’s like, oh god, it’s all when everything opened up, I thought. What do I do, you know if the ancient wisdom traditions of yoga says we are all one, and the body is a temple of the soul. But how do I even get back to a little piece of that? And I didn’t know. And so that was my work of looking at well what do I do when I meditate? What do I do? I went from being so active. We did multiple hours of yoga, a day and meditation, I was training for triathlons. When my trauma opened up I ended up just wanting to stay in bed and hide. I was teaching for large groups of people. Every other week, I was teaching on my schedule 150, 200 people, and I was like, couldn’t do it anymore. What happened here? And how do I put myself back together? The Becoming Safely Embodied skills were just what I started working with. Bethel asked me to start leading a group and I was like, okay, what do I do? And I thought, well, I’ll do what has worked for me. And then I took the groups out into my own private practice. It was literally like trying out. This is what happens. This is what happens. And I remember, when I was doing my training, I had just left the ashram, it was maybe a year afterwards or something. And I was at a training hospital, somebody had been to one of my programmes, and invited me to teach it that on the dissociative unit, inpatient unit. So I started doing like, what do, what do I do with these people? And realising like, what was normal, for me was way out of their range. So then it was like, how do I keep breaking it down into smaller and smaller bits. So that somebody can take that next step without it being effortful, or without any of the fears, blocks and resistance. So that’s where I’m truly like, how do you take a concept and make it so small and easy that is the next step. Yeah. And I remember when I first started doing these skills and teaching them, I was a little embarrassed because I thought they’re so simple. They’re so simple that, you know, in our world, in our therapy world, everything is complex. And some of the ideas take me years to try to figure out what they mean. And what you know, it’s all in the head. So how do I break it down into small bits? And the same thing happened when I wrote my attachment book, I’ve been studying with attachment theory with Tina Brown, who totally changed my experience and my understanding of what happens with trauma. But it was all like, I got the literature, I understood the theory, I was all like, I know how to theoretically do it. Like I was still not changed in five, so how do I change it in my body, and make it again, so small and specific, that I can change my orientation, my internal working model which Bowlby talks about. So the BSC skills were these very basic skills. You know, first I started, I start a 12 week rule then people wanted more. So I did 16 weeks and then 24 weeks, and then they wanted another year. And then Janina Fisher, my friend and colleague was sending her clients there because they wanted to get better at seeing her clients get better faster. So what are you doing? Oh, she came in she actually called the groups with me as a way to learn and so we did multiple layers every year these groups and that’s really where I was I kept innovating and seeing well how do they do it? How does it make it so possible for people and then the book is really just what are the essential, what helps the most of all those years, broken down into small bits so that then people can do whatever else they want to do with that.
Hayley: That’s wonderful. Just like you say the using your own experience, and coming back to, you used the term granular earlier, when we were talking, I love that, like, how do we make this really granular so you can just take one small piece, and move with that, so people aren’t getting overwhelmed. And I think you know, when we think about, a lot of helping professionals also have trauma in their history. And when we’re working with clients, things get triggered to differing degrees. And one of the things I always try and encourage with people I’m supervising is to be really aware of that stuff that’s showing up for yourself and how we can take care of that in the moment. So, not so we push it aside and ignore it. But so we can hold it gently and then tend to ourselves after. I’m just wondering, in terms of some of the sort of BSE skills, what would be some things perhaps, people could do when they’re in session, and they notice that they’re getting triggered by a client’s story or something that’s happened in session?
Deirdre: Oh, great. And I love what you said about how do we hold it separately, so that we can tend to it later, on one of the consultation, I have a group that’s getting certified in the BSE skills right now. And we were meeting yesterday. We started talking about, it’s not like there’s an end goal, but it’s the process. So if you’re getting triggered, if I’m getting triggered, it’s like, okay, so let me just pause even though somebody else is talking about that, can pause. What just happened in me? What were the thoughts I was having? What you know, because you’re really deconstructing the trigger, you have to take that knot and like, hold it apart. What are the thoughts, what are the feelings, what are the body sensations. So those are the basic building blocks of everything. Out of that comes movement, and the next thing and the next day, so get to that baseline, let’s slow my body down. And I separate out what we do in the BSE skills, and in all practices, and what are the facts are going on right here. We are so poorly of human beings, like, the fact is, you and I are talking from here, you’re there we’re talking. And that’s it. But we embellish and we layer on associations and interpretations. And by the time we’re done, it’s like, we’re freaked out. How do I get back. But with a client, if a client is there, and they’re talking and I’m triggered, I could say okay I’m triggered, I’m triggered, or I can say, they’re talking, I don’t even have to be listening, I don’t have to take in, I don’t get to the, we talk about this in meditation, how do we get to the most bare piece of it. And then our body says well, ahhh and then we can choose what we want to do. You know, we land, we look at it from a parts perspective, all those parts separate, then I can have more access to my compassion-self or self-energy in the interpreting system. They’re all the same thing. How do I just back up, as an access my heart, my soul, whatever it is. And then choose. So that’s, that’s so much of what I believe in is how do I hear so that I can choose?
Hayley: Absolutely. It’s that slowing down, isn’t it? Slow it down, be present. And then make a choice.
Deirdre: Like who do I want to be?
Hayley: Acknowledging as well that it’s going to happen, we’re going to get triggered in sessions with clients. And the more we can accept that for ourselves, and learn ways to be with that, then it’s not going to be interfering in session. You know, I think if people get a bit caught in like, oh, no, I can’t let my own my own stuff won’t come into my therapy session. It’s not about me, it’s about my client is that well, it probably will. Because you’re human. But there’s things you can do.
Deirdre: And we want it to come in in some way. Yeah. I know I tried to be so clean and tidy. There was that nothing ever happened. But the fact is, most of our relationship and the patterns of our relationship, are going to come up. You as my client are going to activate me and I’m going to activate you. But how do we treat that as a good thing? Yeah, again, it’s another way to grow, develop and flourish. If we look at it from an attachment perspective, that’s what we want is we want not that we want to activate each other, but how do we be in it, so that we engage in the complex enough that we repair it, and transform it, so that we learn and gain trust in that relationship to actually get better. They don’t fall.
Hayley: Beautiful.
Deirdre: I also want to add to that. You know, because I’ve also had experiences where we’ve needed to say no, and then I don’t want to engage in this way. It’s another case of self-care. Like, I’ve had clients who felt like they could come in and just be, dump all their stuff on me violently or loudly, or say whatever they want, because they think, well, I’m supposed to be a blank wall. And I’m like, no, that’s not therapy. That’s not gonna help you. You need to know that when you’re being this way, this is what happens in me. I’m not going to put up with that. It’s that needing them, so it’s not, I really don’t believe in the blank slate model of therapy, we have to be able to speak up for ourselves, as self-care and say okay, this doesn’t work.
Hayley: You know, we’re two humans co-creating a relationship aren’t we? Like you say there’s things going to come up and it’s how we manage that so that it is a place for growth and transformation. And so we see that as a good thing.
Deirdre: Right.
Hayley: Yeah. Humans in the room. So if you if you have a piece of advice to share with our listeners, what might that be? Apart from slow down?
Deirdre: So, it was one of the things I learned from the terrarium. My office is I would sit there by, the master gardener, Murphy gave me this terrarium. And I had it in my office, beautiful smell and fragrance and leaves. And I would turn it around every morning. So it would face me, by the end of the day, it had turned back toward the window. Like it was talking to somebody, I thought, oh my God, that’s us, how do I guide toward what’s nourishing instead of staying in my gonk? And every moment we can do that, you know, every moment we can say, okay, I’m upset about this, by calling the attachment language, protesting against them. But okay, but what do I want? You know, like with the surgeon, I could protest that he’s just gonna throw away my bone. Or I could be like, okay, so that’s reality that I’m living in. What do I want to be? How do I want to be? How can I turn this into a more nourishing experience. If we do that over and over and over again, and I find that a better way to live.
Hayley: Absolutely. Isn’t it marvelous what the nature can teach us. Very lovely. So it’s really that acceptance of our reality, or our experience as it is. Not as our minds want it to be? Yeah. And connecting with values. Who do I want to be? How do I want to be as I’m walking this earth? And how can I care for myself in that process? How can I turn towards the things that nourish me? That’s beautiful.
Deirdre: Surround ourselves with people that nourish us.
Hayley: Yeah. You talked earlier about, you know, the different environment and the importance of place. I guess not all of us can. Well, I did I move from England to Australia, so but not everybody can sort of say, well, I’m just going to leave the country and go live in the south of France, although that would be rather wonderful. And I think my husband would not object either. But I think we can really look closer to home and say, well, what if I’m in a work environment that’s quite toxic for me. Is there a way I can move out of that? Or even going back like you’re saying about the granular. How is my chair in the office?
Deirdre: Right!
Hayley: Am I leaving with a bad back, because I’m sitting in a chair that’s not suitable? Or, you know, is there a way of letting in some more ventilation or light? Or do I have anything around me in my space at work, that when I look at it, I feel soothed or feel joy or something. So I think that’s a really important point about environment and it can be the larger okay, maybe I need to move completely and have a sea change or a tree change. And maybe it’s about I’m going to take that thing that when I look at it, it gives me joy, and I want to put it on my desk.
Deirdre: I love that you’re bringing that up and making it that granular. Because that is what it really is. How do we, I was thinking about that in terms of, like how we change our internal model, how we change our attachment representation inside and it has to be that granule. People will often says, well, I can’t imagine something else. Or they can’t even imagine compassionate, my own compassionate self, whatever it might be. Yet, if we haven’t taken the small ways of comfortable, what is that like, but with that feel like when you smile at me, what happens inside my body? Do I feel good or bad? Into the three flows of compassion. What’s it like, if you’re flowing compassion to me and I’m resisting? Okay, so what can I be like, just take one percentage more of that compassion. What would that look like, feel like, smell like, tastes like, inside of me and outside of me. And I start training myself in those small ways. Beautiful example, if you gave up the chair. What is it like for me to just be like, okay, I don’t have to be in pain all the time? What would that be like? What would it be like? Find something outside the window that I like to look at? What’s it like to just smell something different? You know, it’s like, how small can we make it? And then how much can I let my body, train my body to receive that? And I think that’s what’s so key is, not just get it in my head but say, okay, this is the experience I want more of. I do this a lot with, I want more ease. You know, I was going from this long drive and I was like, no what is it like, let’s ease, like in my body. I was like, I know. What would it be like to let my body ease? I’ve done so much meditation and yoga, but it was like, was it always from a drive getting somewhere place. And I trained myself, this is the experience I want more of.
Hayley: It’s an ongoing practice, isn’t it? It’s an every day, every moment. And that’s not to say, you know, we have to constantly be thinking about the practice all the time, but it is an ongoing practice that we can give to ourselves.
Deirdre: It’s that, healing is an Olympian endeavor. You know, I read about these Olympians who are just working, they’re single minded about their experience, and people who change whether we’re conscious or not, we are single minded. We know, this is not, so if I want self-care. I want to heal in some way, what do I need to do? You know, protest arises in me, how do I meet it with compassion or kindness or whatever might be more nourishing in the smallest way.
Hayley: Talking about meeting, if you could meet yourself 20 years from now, I ask this to everybody. What do you think your future self would say to you?
Deirdre: Well, that is probably part of what propelled me, is I want to have contributed, I want to have contributed the betterment of the world we live in in some small way. I don’t even really always know what that would be. But some way of like, you can be your best self, you can be, I want to have contributed in that. That’s what keeps me from retiring. It’s like, I want to participate in the world and make it a better place.
Hayley: I think you absolutely do that Deirdre. Absolutely. I don’t think you need to wait 20 years to hear that.
Deirdre: Well, then there’s the next piece, you know, how do I just, but that’s why we’re joined together Hayley. That’s, I love that, that you’re doing this, that we’re doing this, that there’s so many people who are, feel like there’s a consciousness rising where people are part of a tribe of people that want to live in a better world and create a better world. Amidst all the complications of it.
Hayley: An absolute pleasure to be in this world with you. I have very fond memories with you.
Deirdre: And with you my sweet bean!
Hayley: Yeah. So if people want to find out more about you or get in touch, where can they find you and engage with your work.
Deirdre: So one of the ways is just on my website, which is just dfaycom. We also have a PDF. And it’s free, called the safe guide. So the dfay.com/safeguide. If you want to find out more about your relationship profile, we also have dfay.com/profile. It’s based on the attachment theory, and it goes through looking at what might your relationship profile be. And what are ways to change that.
Hayley: Done much work on attachment. And I’ll put these, these links as well into the show notes on the, on my website with the episode. And I’m sure people will gain so much from this. You’ve got so much to offer. You’ve done so much amazing work. And it’s been an absolute,
Deirdre: Hayley we’re in the suit together.
Hayley: We certainly are, and it’s an absolute pleasure. And I’m so glad that you joined me on the podcast.
Deirdre: Thank you for doing what you do. We need you
Hayley: You to take care and I will speak to you soon.
Deirdre: Thank you, my dear.
Hayley: Thank you for sharing this time with me today. I hope your time here was helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you have found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. I’d also love it if you’d like to leave a review wherever you tune in. Reviews really helped to increase awareness of podcasts, meaning I can spread helpful information more widely. All reviews are welcome and much appreciated. As I know they take time out of your day. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join my mailing list. Music and editing by Nyssa Ray. Thanks Nyssa. I wish you all well in your relationship with yourself. And may you go well and go gently.
Deirdre’s Website: https://dfay.com/
Deirdre’s The Safe Guide PDF: www.dfay.com/safeguide
Dierdre’s Relationship Profile Quiz: www.dfay.com/profile
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This transcript may not be an exact representation of the audio
