Episode #15 Moral Injury with Dr Robyn Walser
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 of gratitude for Maggie who sent me feedback on the podcast. She said,
“I’ve listened with much pleasure and curiosity, taking many notes, shared it with colleagues, and we’ll be playing it on repeat for some time to come”.
Thank you for taking the time to send feedback and for sharing the podcast with others Maggie, it is really appreciated.
I’m excited to introduce my next guest Dr. Robin D Walser. Robin is director of TL psychological and consultation services, assistant professor at the University of California Berkeley, and works at the National Centre for PTSD. As a licensed psychologist she maintains an international training, consulting and therapy practice. Robin is an expert in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and has co-authored six books on ACT, including a book on learning ACT. She has most recently written a book entitled The Heart of ACT, as well as a book on moral injury. She has expertise in traumatic stress, depression and substance abuse, and has authored a number of articles, chapters and books on these topics. She has been doing act workshops since 1998. Training in multiple formats and for various client problems. I had the pleasure of attending an ACT for trauma training that Robin did in Brisbane many years ago. And not only her extensive knowledge, but her warmth and generosity of spirit during that training is what I remember about her. So it is my great pleasure to welcome Robin to the podcast. And I hope you really enjoy this episode.
Hayley:
So welcome, Robin, and thank you so much for joining me on Welcome to Self ™ Caring for the Human in the Therapist Chair. It’s an absolute thrill for me. I remember coming to a training, as I was saying to just before, which might be six years ago, when you came and did a training on act and trauma in Brisbane, which was fantastic. So this is a real thrill for me. So thank you so much for joining me.
Robin:
Thank you for inviting me Hayley. It’s a real pleasure. Thank you.
Hayley:
Fantastic. So if we could just start with perhaps if you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what it was that drew you to the helping profession. And I I always find it interesting as well to sort of see, you know, other things you’ve done or what you might have done if you hadn’t become a psychologist?
Robin:
Oh, that’s really interesting. Well, so I’m Robin Walser and I’ve been doing, I’ve been in psychology now, since the 80s. So a long time. I got my doctorate in 1998. And did my first ACT workshop in 1997. And I’ve been doing those since. So I’ve just across time sort of built a trajectory in that area. And in some ways think I kind of had a bit of serendipity. Because if I’d had an alternate life, right, if I had decided to do what I first started thinking about doing, I would have become a surgeon.
Hayley:
Oh, wow.
Robin:
Yeah. So I had, when I was quite young. I looked at my mom who was a beautiful, lovely woman, but who worked so hard, and, you know, never really worked out have worked her way out of poverty. And so I just kept thinking I need to get into a profession that’s not going to keep me here in this space. And my mom would say to me, you can do anything, you can become anything you want. And I was like, I’m going to be a doctor and we talked for hours. And I would say, I’m going to be a medical doctor. And then I got into undergraduate school. And I, chemistry just kicked my butt. If I can say that. Like, I could do the physics, I could do the science, the biology, all of that stuff. But when I got to chemistry, there was something about it wouldn’t click for me. And of course, in order to go to med school, you have to have, get good grades in chemistry and I was just getting C’s, that wasn’t going to get me there. So I was taking some psychology courses. And I was working in a rat lab of all things. So I did a student study for paying for my school by working in a rat lab, I trained rats to run mazes. And I just at one point said, I think I’m going to shift because this medical thing is not working out. And I’m glad I did because years later, of course, I went to study with Steve Hays at University of Nevada, Reno and I serendipitous part is I didn’t know Steve, when I went to Reno. I, and I assume your listeners know that Steve Hays is developer of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. But I went to a workshop that he gave. And that was it, it changed my life, my whole path shifted in that workshop. And I worked with him and I shifted from the lab I was in, into his lab, and worked with him. And now find myself here, you know, years later, having become very involved in ACT and delivering workshops around the world, and writing books and all that crazy stuff.
Hayley:
You know, there’s so many kind of life changing stories within the ACBS community, sort of hear that people were on one pathway, and then something happened. And then they kind of discovered these things, and it becomes very life changing. It’s quite beautiful. But that’s quite a shift for you as well. It’s a lovely story. And I’m very glad that you did shift as well.
Robin:
Actually, I think I am to, thank you, I think this suits me better.
Hayley:
I think you know, I’ve certainly very much enjoyed your trainings and your books, and you are very highly regarded within the ACBS community, and you’re an asset to the field. So thank you for sharing
Robin:
Very kind words. Thank you.
Hayley:
So you’ve recently co-authored a book, you’ve got a number of books, but you’ve recently co authored a book on moral injury. What is it that inspired this particular book? And could you also define moral injury for us?
Robin:
Sure. So why don’t I start with the definition of moral injury, and then I’ll say a little bit more about how I got into it. So moral injury is when, by withholding an action or taking an action, you violate a deeply held value in some way that’s very impactful. And these usually occur under conditions of traumatic events, or a highly intense situation where people’s lives are on the line. And so you choose an action that you wouldn’t have chosen otherwise, given the circumstances and that you end up feeling guilty. There’s sort of moral pain that follows the injury. And then I would say that what happens is, is that people then get into the shame and pain of the moral violation, and they stop functioning well in their lives. And so that’s sort of the full trajectory of it. And since I’ve been working in the field of trauma, and have spent a fair bit of time working with veterans because I worked at the National Centre for PTSD in the States. I kept hearing stories of moral violation where veterans would say, it’s not the bomb, it’s not the you know, my life being at risk that bothers me so much. It’s the time that I had to pull the trigger when I, my gun was pointed at a crowd of women and children. Right, so they ended up wounding or killing innocent people, and then feeling very morally guilty and ashamed of being in that situation. That’s not that they just did it randomly, right? Like typically, somebody who they were after was running through a crowd of people are using them as shields or something like that. But those, that’s just one example. There’s many kinds of like witnessing and atrocity and not stopping it, or engaging in an atrocity yourself because you get swept up into the anger and the intensity of war
Hayley:
It can be the action that you take or actually inaction.
Robin:
Yes, yeah. So you witness something, and you don’t do anything about it. So and, you know, it can occur outside of War too, for instance, let’s say you’re a parent, and you’re driving and you’re texting while you’re driving, and you get in a car accident, and one of your children dies. And you, you know, you’re doing something that you is not about protecting your children, texting while driving, maybe, then this is even a harder thing, where maybe a woman is giving birth to twins, and one twin isn’t going to survive. And therefore she lets the baby just starve. Or and it’s where we’re seeing some of this kind of activity now is in the, with COVID happening, is medical professionals are having to make decisions about who gets to be on a ventilator, and who doesn’t, and who has a more likely chance of survival and who doesn’t. And decisions are being made in really challenging and difficult circumstances. And sometimes people are ending up saying, I can’t believe we’re doing this right and you can feel that it’s going against their, their values they’re having to pick who lives right. Like those are really, really awful experiences that people can feel guilt and shame over for ages. Yeah.
Hayley:
So what was it that kind of inspired the book? And how did that come about? Because there’s a number of you that are authors on the book isn’t there?
Robin:
Well, so I should give due credit to some wonderful people who I worked with in my life. And so Kent Drescher and I work together, and he was had an interest in moral injury for much longer than I did, because he worked with a gentleman named David Foy. And the, he was that I’m hoping I’m going to remember, remember this university in California, it’s gonna be on the tip of my tongue, but I, if I think of it, I’ll say it. And I want to say Fuller, Fuller university that might be. Anyway, he was on these dissertations, where they were looking at moral injury, and he and I started having conversations about it. And we were thinking about the veterans that we were treating and how the PTSD treatment just didn’t seem to be enough because it’s typically fear based treatment, right? Like, Let’s expose the fear and have new learning occur. But people were still feeling a lot of guilt and shame and feeling like that wasn’t getting addressed. So Kent and I formed a collaboration and then we brought in a postdoc who worked with us, Jacob Farnsworth, and we developed ACT for Moral Injury and we ran a couple of groups, and then Jake, left, and he got connected with some other people. And Wyatt Evans showed up, and we grew into this collaboration where we decided to put in for grant and Lauren Borgess is the PI on the grant, the principal investigator, we got funded, and we’re now looking at ACT for M I in a funded grant study. But in that process, yeah, in that process of coming together, and looking at what we were learning, we decided to go ahead and write a self help book for folks.
Hayley:
Which is wonderful. And I’d highly recommend people to read it, I read it and whilst it’s challenging and you know, I think the start of the book is confronting with some of the examples that you speak about. And the exercises are challenging because, of course, the topic of what we’re looking at is challenging, but it’s a very easy to read book. Yeah, I actually enjoyed reading it, I found it really easy to read and then like, say that the exercises were more challenging, but that would be expected. Yeah. Oh, that’s fantastic. So how might we recognise moral injury and ourselves and for our clients?
Robin:
Well, sometimes it’s hard with clients because with shame, we’re more likely to stay quiet, like shame invites secrecy. So there can be some really fascinating things that happen there, like people can be in therapy for two, three years before saying, oh, by the way, I’ve got this thing I need to share with you right. And so, I mean, some people will come for that very issue, but some will hold on to it for a very long time. And it’s not always easy to identify if the individual isn’t sharing the event. You can ask, you know, are there things that you’re ashamed of that you’d rather not say? You know, depending on the quality of your relationship and how things are going, and if it seems relevant, right. But identifying it within ourselves is, like, we all feel guilty at times, right? For little violations here and there, where we maybe we told a little white lie, or we ran a red light or something like that, right? Like that, that might be I don’t know, do you guys have red lights there, there’s, you know,
Hayley:
Yeah we have it.
Robin:
Yeah, it’s against the law to run a red light.
Hayley:
Yep same,
Robin:
Or like as a teenager, maybe you shoplifted a little something, right? So there’s, there’s those kinds of things that we can feel guilty about that guilt is good, it tells us that we don’t want to do those things. But then there’s things that we’ve all done, I would say that sort of tip over further into that place of if I did something that I’m not proud of. And so you can sort of feel the continuum, right, and that not proud of space is getting harder. And then if you feel yourself saying like, I did something that I wish I never would have done, and it’s causing me a lot of shame and grief, then you then you’re probably closer to the moral injury territory. And particularly if it happened under circumstances that were, you know, life and death or really intense, because that’s when we make some, you know, really quick split decision sometimes. And doing that is, we are more likely under those kind of, you know, very intense circumstances to be torn and but yet have to do something really quickly. You know, like, a good example might be of a soldier who is protecting a green zone. I don’t know, folks know what a green zone is, but it’s a safety zone. And you look at who’s coming towards the safety zone so that you can keep it safe. And let’s say somebody, it sends a 12-year-old child walking towards a safety zone, and you can’t tell if they’re wearing a jacket that’s got a bomb on it. And you’re yelling at them to stop and they don’t stop. You just have you no seconds to make a decision. And then you if you pull the trigger, and they’re not wearing a bomb then it can really cause people a lot of distress around pulling the trigger and wishing they had known. Yeah.
Hayley:
Yeah. You speak in the book as well of examples where the injury had, it was where people had been violated against as well. It wasn’t their action, it was action of others to them.
Robin:
Yeah, absolutely. So this can include things like being ordered to do something that violates your values, or feeling betrayed by others, like following them and trusting them. And then they something happens where your values are violated in a significant way, based on something that they did. And so yes, it can also be a betrayal, kind of moral injury as well.
Hayley:
So when we think as helping professionals, how can we take care of ourselves when we are working with clients addressing moral injury because I say with the book again, some of the examples quite confronting in the book and doing, going through the exercises for myself, I found challenging reflecting on some of the things that happened in my life. And these are the areas when we’re working with clients that are the more difficult stories to hear aren’t they? You know, my focus is, you know, how do we take care of ourselves as helping professionals, we need to keep sort of one eye on the client and one eye on ourselves. So how can we best kind of take care of ourselves when we are doing this sort of work, because this is not easy work, is it?
Robin:
It is not easy. Because you’re hearing stories that are probably the most painful stories that people will have in their lives. Especially if a life was lost, or multiple lives were lost, as a result of something you did or were ordered to do and can be very confronting and painful. And to hear them, sometimes, you might even find yourself judging them or, you know, minds will do that. It’s like part of the deal. And so the thing, quite honestly, that I have found most useful for myself, because I’ve heard numbers of, you know, hundreds, or if not 1000s of these stories. And I use ACT on me. And so I want to, I remain open in there and diffused. So I’m not, it’s not the and, I’m very present, I want to hear every word that the client is telling me. And I don’t get into a place of like telling them that my mind is having a judgement, I just notice, oh, there it is. And I let it pass. Yeah. And I really stand in that place of I am larger than, for selfless context place, right, I am more than any experience that I have, or that I hear. And so I don’t attach, I can remember many of the stories, some of them, I don’t remember because there’s been so many, right. But some of them I remember because they’re really powerful. But I’m, I’m very careful around, this is a story that I can hold in here. It is not a story that is a part of me, it’s not my story. Right? This is an experience that I’m having, not something that I need to cling to, in some way. Especially if I’m going to remain effective myself and be effective for the client.
Hayley:
I think that’s explained really well in the book as well, where you talk about the place called self. Yeah, I love that. Yes, that we aren’t, we are not all the experience, we’re more than all the different experiences we have. I know for me, one of my practices from very early in working, was coming home, and literally saying to myself, everything I’ve heard today is not my experience. This is my life. And I would look around and sort of look at my family and look at my home and think about the things in my life, to remind me that all those things that I that I take on and listen to, like you say are stories of others that I hold, but they’re not my life. And I’ve found that really helpful.
Robin:
I think that’s an incredibly helpful way to do it is like these, I’m more than this. And, you know, if we can hold those stories without clinging to them, I think we’re going to be in a much better place to assist our clients. Because then the judgments don’t carry us away or something like that. And typically, if they’re coming in the room, right, it’s because they are suffering a great degree behind what happened, they’re already punishing themselves. And so we want to sort of step away from that place and offer compassion rather than punishment.
Hayley:
And I think you make a really good point, there, raising the fact that our minds may well judge, because people may be talking about things they have done that also go against our values. And our mind is going to judge and then we don’t want to be judging ourselves for judging the client, we don’t need to get all self critical in the room of like I’m such a bad therapist because I just had these thoughts about my clients. This is normal, isn’t it? I mean this is what the human mind does. So just again, holding that all gently. It’s like, ah, there’s my mind judging. Okay, back to listening to what’s happening in the room.
Robin:
Precisely. I mean, I always get a little chuckle out of people who say don’t judge your clients and I’m like, Who do I know? You know, and it’s that that we do judge but it’s not that we’re gonna hold it right and operate on it and hopefully, but judgement will be In the room, you can’t stop that machine.
Hayley:
Yeah, absolutely. So you talked, you touched on values before, and you certainly talk about it in the book. And I think, you know, spoiler alert, I know the answer. How important are values when working through moral injury? And what are your favourite ways of helping people to connect with their values?
Robin:
I think that you cannot do moral injury work without values work. And so, because when you think about what’s happening morally, there’s some really fascinating information around this, like, moral pain and moral responses are social, and they’re shaped. But they’re also intrinsic, and come before the verbal process. Like you can get disgust before you actually start saying, oh, that’s disgusting, right? Like, it shows up very quickly. And so when I think about how we come to live our values and organise ourselves around values, you know, they seem like they’re sort of with us from the start. And then our social verbal community built on top of some of those, not all of them, some of them are completely social, and verbal. But some of them are like, part of how we have evolved, frankly. Maybe you’ve seen like, like maybe fairness in the chimpanzees with the grape and the cucumber, have you seen that on YouTube, you know, where the chimpanzee gets all upset, because he got a cucumber instead of a grape. Like, there’s a fairness thing that sort of built in, and you can, you can sort of see how that rises into our experiences more broadly, when we’re talking about values. And so when we violate those, it is the very thing that, like, when you talk about the pain of the violation, it is directly linked to the value. So you just can’t escape talking about values when you’re doing this kind of work. So if someone is saying, my shame is so intense, and so terrible, and I deserve to die, or I deserve to be punished or something like that, I might ask, you know, what is the shame tell you is important to you. And what you discover is like, the value, yeah, that I violated. So it’s just like, inherent kind of built in. And all when I’m working with clients in this territory, like something that I might have them do is to notice that very thing that we just talked about, like, what value got violated. And if you can do the things and act where you’re diffused and open and willing, you can return to your value. Yeah. Because part of what happens and like, bring it back to life again, because part of what happens is people have a moral injury, and then they shut down and all of their values sort of disappear, or stop being lived because they’re so withdrawn and pulled in or they’re punishing themselves but not realising that punishing yourself also punishes others. Does that make sense? If like, I’m always in a, I need to be punished, and I’m a terrible person. And I’m in relationships with people, them being around me is also unpleasant, if that makes sense.
Hayley:
Well, that sense of disconnecting from people isn’t i, I don’t deserve to be around others, I am bad. Kind of keeping yourself distanced and disconnected.
Robin:
Well, and I think the other thing that is hard to appreciate sometimes when you’re thinking about doing psychotherapy, is that when we’re doing this work, we’re not going in there to reduce the shame and guilt. If that happens. Great. We don’t we don’t have any sort of problem with that. We go in there to talk about how that tells you that you’re human, and that you care, and that you don’t want these kinds of things in your life. And so now, how do you get back to the other side of that injury? And that can be really powerful work for folks.
Hayley:
Like getting them back to living full and meaningful lives? Yeah. With the history that they’ve got with the experiences that they’ve had. Yeah, it’s beautiful work and it’s really I think really well set out in the book as well, I really enjoyed reading that.
Robin:
We had, we had a fun time writing it not always, I mean, writing books was not always the best time in the world. But we’re, we’re very proud of it and liked the finished product. And we hope that whoever might be suffering from a moral violation, or even feeling a shame, it doesn’t have to be that, you know, you killed somebody, but even feeling ashamed of, you know, something that you’ve done, I think the book can be helpful.
Hayley:
That was my sense of reading it that it doesn’t have to be the, the kind of extreme end of the continuum, though. There was all sorts of things to the client, different clients coming to mind different things from my own life coming to mind, like, actually, this could all be applied to these things at different levels. So I thought that was it was good. And I say, really easy read despite the challenging exercises.
Robin:
Well, yeah, no, we wanted the exercises to be challenging, partly because, you know, if you’re going to do work in this area, like psychological emotional work, it’s got to have some meaning to it. Right? And some, oomph, and so we wanted them to confront people in a in a way, but not it’s a soft confrontation. Right, but a still a confrontation. Yeah, about who are you and what do you want to do? And, and then talking about shameful things is hard. You know, like, if I said, hey, Hayley told me the most shameful thing you’ve ever done right now, you’d be like?
Hayley:
I’d be like how about no!
Robin:
Yeah exactly. I don’t think so. Right? If you asked me the same question, I’d be like, is the interview over? Are we done?
Hayley:
Have we hit stop yet?
Robin:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a bit hard to say those things.
Hayley:
Yeah. But I think you know, talking about the exercises, and you touch on compassion in the book, as well as a piece of this work. But I think, you know, the exercises are compassionate. Because compassion isn’t just all, you know, let’s sit and have a cup of tea and be kind to each other. It’s, let’s really look at this. Because if you look at this and explore this and can get to the other side of this, you can have the life that you want.
Robin:
Yeah, exactly.
Hayley:
So I think it was really gently challenging exercises. So I think, you know, in terms of anybody who is experienced a moral injury themselves, or are working with clients, this would be a great book for people to to get hold of, I’ll put, certainly put a link in the show notes to it as well. So thinking about moral injury and burnout, in terms of perhaps with clients, but more so for this podcast, for therapists working with moral injury, what are the links between this kind of work and burnout for therapists?
Robin:
Well, like we were talking earlier, it can have a little bit of a heavy toll. In addition to sort of being open to hearing them. There’s a couple things you want to do to sort of stop the burnout, because you can get into that place, right, or compassion fatigue or feeling like, okay, I can’t hear another one of these or you just sort of start feeling numb yourself and get into that place where it feels like nothing that you do matters, or you don’t have an impact that sort of burnouty place after hearing these stories and seeing people struggle and hopefully making change, but some won’t. And that can be a bit discouraging, when you’re really hopeful that they might change, things might change for them. My, like, top recommendation for like, staving off burnout, is get supervision and consultation. Yeah. And get training like those two things, supervision, consultation, and training. Actually, there’s research that shows that those are some of the best way. Because what happens is you feel more effective in the therapy room. And if you feel more effective in the therapy room, then you feel less burned out. Yeah. When we stopped feeling effective, and we’re not making an impact, and we’re doing the same thing. So another thing you can do is, like, you know, mix up your clients a little bit in terms of the cases that you see.
Hayley:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s really important point is looking at your caseload like number of clients, which, during this pandemic has been really hard for people. And even thought about that when I was kind of thinking about the whole moral injury, where people are having to turn and I’m sure it’s the same over in the US but certainly here in Australia, people are having to turn away clients constantly. Now there could be risk to some of those clients and people are feeling a lot of kind of guilt around not being able to take on everybody and I think this is having a take toll as well. So thinking about the number of clients you have, the types of clients you have and I think when we access good supervision and consultation, we don’t feel as alone, particularly in private practice where you’re in just the room one on one with your clients or one on a few if you if you do family therapy, or couples therapy, but you don’t feel as alone when you know you’ve got a supervisor as well.
Robin:
Yeah you’re like, okay, I know I’ve got somebody who I can talk to this case about. And I can get a little guidance, we can brainstorm together and think about where to go. Like, can you just feel the self-efficacy in that right. Like, okay, I’m not out here sort of dangling inside of self-doubt. Self-doubt, by itself isn’t a problem, like, you know, actually, self, to have a little self-doubt is good. But it’s when you get in those really big places, like, I’m not helping anybody. And I’m a crap therapist, and, you know, all the things that people say to themselves when they get in those drained, burned-out places. And I think you’re right, during the pandemic, it’s been incredible. Here in the US to, like, so many people seeking services and just not enough therapy to go around.
Hayley:
Yeah, absolutely. So what do you find are your biggest challenges in terms of taking care of yourself as practitioner? Because I think often particularly for, like new practitioners coming through, I think they perhaps look at people who have been doing this for longer, and they think that we’re all just perfectly fine at taking care of ourselves. We’ve got it all together, we know all the stuff, which is just not true. We’re all human. We all struggle, and we all have good days and bad days. So what are your biggest challenges do you think, in terms of you taking care of yourself as a practitioner?
Robin:
I’m a yes, person, and, right. And I say yes, to almost everything. And there’s something really good about that. Right? Like, it’s, I want to contribute, I want to be part of the community, I want to help, I want to receive, like, there’s something very nice about that. But there’s probably times when I should say no, for instance, I had, I think three emails today where people were requesting me to do something. And it would have been really good for me to say no to all three. And I didn’t. Right. So like I keep the, by the way, I love doing the podcast, so don’t worry. No, no, no, no, this kind of stuff is so easy. And we’re just here chatting is really nice. But when you’re it’s usually things like I need you, would you get this project together for me? Or would you be willing to be on this study and do these things like, you know, things that are heavy lifts. And so, and I, I think there’s sort of a funny thing about helpers like us is that we feel like we’re being selfish. If we say no, or we take some downtime, or, you know, we feel bad about not helping people. And I think we just have to, like, let that be, let that float on through. And, you know, do take care of yourself, too. And I’ve always said this, if you’re gonna live your values, you got to live in both ways, towards yourself and towards others. And so if you’re going to be loving towards others, be loving towards yourself. And what does that mean? And I’ll ask myself that question, okay, what do I do here, and I’ll get all, when I do that, I’m a little better at saying, okay, I’m going to take the time and take some time off, and I’m going to rest and, you know, shut down in the evenings. And I’ll go and do something that I really enjoy. I garden a lot, because the garden fuels me. And I love being in nature. And I guess I should mention, I have three dogs that are not in the room right now. But I have three, three dogs, and they are so joyful and fun. And when I’m with them, we just go walking and we play and that’s a great way for me to sort of back out of all of the heavy workload that can lead to you know, that I need to do self-care in those spaces. And that’s how I do it.
Hayley:
Yeah, learn from your dogs, they know how to be mindful and in the moment don’t they?
Robin:
They are amazing, like, you know, they’re happy if they have a little toy on the floor that they can bring over and show you in a really proud way or something like that. So they do remind me it’s like life can be simple, it can be simple, and joyful.
Hayley:
I was diagnosed with chronic illness many years ago now, which I see as a blessing because it actually got me to a place where I actually do feel comfortable saying no. And I do have a lot of my own self-care, hence the podcast and the work that I do now. But I was having a conversation with my husband this morning, and I was offering to make him a cup of tea before coming to do this. And he said oh but you don’t have time. I said, I do have time I wouldn’t have offered if I don’t have time, I said come on, you know me now. I don’t say yes to things I don’t want to do.
Robin:
Yeah, that’s really good.
Hayley:
I’m gonna turn something on you. It feels weird to do this to Robin Walser in a way. Robin, I wonder what it would be like, if you could set aside yourself some time to reflect on your values. And then bring that into the times when you read your emails and maybe for 2022 that could be your priority.
Robin:
That’s a beautiful, beautiful suggestion, and I’m on it. Like, I think that’s what like, when I’m looking at my emails, I need to be like, what are my values for me? What are my values for me? Yeah, I think that that’s really a wonderful thing to do. And, and all, we all should do that right? And get in there and be more aware. And I think the pressure to produce this so high these days, right that people,
Hayley:
Oh of course and particularly, particularly for somebody like yourself, I mean, you are going to have people saying can you, can you, can you please? And I think when people know that you’re somebody that will say yes, they’ll come to you because they know you will say yes.
Robin:
I need to, I need to send like a big letters, right N O.
Hayley:
So I was gonna ask, you know, if there was something you could change about the way you would work, what would it be and why?
Robin:
Well, it’s interesting that you ask, and I’m in the process of doing this, is that I’m okay with working kind of a longer day. It doesn’t bother me, I quite enjoy most of the work that I do. I do want more free time. And so I’m in the process of restructuring and thinking about how to get, I used to have a three day weekend, every like for years, I did Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and, you know, work just creeped into the Fridays, and sometimes on the weekend. So I’m moving back to the three day I’m doing some restructuring that’s gonna allow me to do that. It won’t be here for another few months, but it’s coming. And the other thing that I do, and I do this regularly, and I’ve been doing it for a long time, is I have no computer days. So I will pick a Saturday or Sunday. And whichever day it is, I do not get on the computer, I just stay away from the computer, I and some of those days, I even leave my phone behind so that I’m not on my phone so I can have a day where I’m not, you know, at work and staring at a screen. Because we’re doing so much of that these days with you know, COVID and I think the world has changed permanently that you know, around these things. And so I love the no computer day. It’s like my favourite day of the week.
Hayley:
Yeah, love that. We’re recording this now and will be aired a little later then we’ve recorded it. And by that time I’ll have aired another episode, where I talk about I recently went to an eco-retreat for a few days to really just tune out, my husband and I. And I, I have a self-confessed addiction to my phone like many people, I think social media is great and awful. And I didn’t use my phone for four days. Unless it was meaningful conversation with like my son or something. And since getting back, I had made changes around not carrying my phone around with me everywhere and actually just having times where I allow myself to check social media. And it’s been amazing. It’s really made a difference. I can feel it in my nervous system like it. Yeah. Physically, I just notice it as well as mentally it’s amazing.
Robin:
I, you should totally be proud of yourself. I think it is when we can like walk away from this. And you know, you’ve probably heard the research that people know that the phones are addictive. It’s kind of like that, hit right and they’re very aware that it’s addictive and it is just feel so healthy to me to step away. Yeah. And I’m I’m not a big phone user. Thank goodness, I kind of don’t like the phone very much. And so that’s helped me. I’ve never been addicted to the phone but I the computer, right? I’m here a lot.
Hayley:
Yeah. Yeah. Nice, what, more non computer days.
Robin:
Yes, yes, non-computer days and I leave my phone I don’t mind at all. If I hear the phone ringing in the other room, I just let it ring. You know, if it’s emergency, my brothers will get a hold of me. But you know, it’s, I just leave it alone and go, and then then I get this. Where were you? How can we do that to your phone? And I’m like, you know, I don’t have to answer the phone because it rang.
Hayley:
Yeah. I was busy living life.
Robin:
I was living life, right, exactly. I was doing gardening, I was having fun.
Hayley:
That sounds wonderful. So what would be one piece of advice that you would share with our listeners?
Robin:
You know, when I think about the thing that, like sticks with me the most in terms of what is workable is this sort of thing that I’ve been saying, and I’ve written it in books, and I’m I just really, truly think this is can be one of the most helpful things and some people will, will hear it as a, not a way I intend it. And so I’ll say what that is, but live your life from the feet up. Right? Like, when you’re struggling and suffering, of course, take a bit of time, but don’t let your feet stop moving. And when people really start to struggle, it’s because they slow down and shut down and stop moving. Or they’re moving so fast that their lives are chaotic, right. And so when I think about value, space living, I think about them, values is living in your feet. And I hope people are catching the metaphor. Right? That they’re not in your head. And so I’ll say, you know, live from the feet up, bring your head, you know, your heads gonna come along, it’s going to do what it does, bring your heart and engage and you engage with your by movement by moving.
Hayley:
I love that. I love that. And I feel like I needed to hear that because one of my things I live with chronic illness and movement can be tricky for me sometimes. And one of my intentions for this year, having spent the time earlier in the year at the retreat is to actually get out and move more. Because when I do it feels amazing. And what I noticed for myself is when I do that as well, my creativity sparks
Robin:
Oh yeah,
Hayley:
I get all these ideas and I’m like, oh now I have to kind of keep walking to get back home to write them down.
Robin:
Yeah. Life from the feet up, get out there and you know, anything. And even if it’s a small movement, just anything to like, vary your behaviour to get things going again. And for some people, it might mean slowing down. Yeah, right. It might maybe have to, you have to see what your feet are doing and what they’re pointed toward. Right. Yeah. But you know, we’re so busy here. And I think we need to think about our feet more, if that makes sense.
Hayley:
Absolutely. Even as you’re saying that. What are your feet pointed towards? Like where are you heading? Yeah. And is that in the direction of your values?
Robin:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Ah very good. I’m glad to hear it and hopefully folks who are listening will have a sense of what I mean. It’s not a get over it kind of thing and get on with it.
Hayley:
No that’s not what I’m hearing. Yeah, that’s lovely. Because it’s well, I think there are lots of people and, you know, certainly plenty of therapists and lots of people I supervise and work with is about slowing those feet down. Yeah. Slowing the pace
Robin:
Yeah. Know where you’re headed instead of like, yes, instead of that kind of chaotic pace and you know, what’s my intention?
Hayley:
Yeah. Oh, that’s beautiful. So I ask this next question to everybody. I’m always interested in the answer. So if you could meet you’re 20 years from now self. What do you think your future self would say to you?
Robin:
That is a, that’s an interesting question to ask. My mom keeps popping into my head. I think it might be something like I don’t have the exact words, but my mum said to me sent me this little saying some time ago that said something like, I don’t want to go to the grave, all tidy and pretty and neat. I’d like to go, you know, broadside full on u stop and slide in, right and said, and saying, wow, what a ride. And so I’m hoping that my future self is able to say, you weren’t afraid to do things that were risky or hard. And you engaged in this space where you can say, wow, what a ride.
Hayley:
That’s beautiful. I love that.
Robin:
Thank you. Yeah.
Hayley:
Yeah, enjoy that ride.
Robin:
Yeah, just the taste, everything taste emotionally, psychologically, like, let yourself be there to taste whatever shows up.
Hayley:
That’s beautiful. So are there any current projects that you’re currently working on that you can tell us about?
Robin:
Well, I’m writing another book with someone, O’Connell, you know, she and I just wrote a self-help book on ACT for anger. And so the folks are feeling a little miffed, they can pick that one up and read it, we just finished it. And we’re getting ready to write a book that’s a skills book for being put out by the American Association, American Psychological Association, for people who just want sort of the straightforward skills of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. So that’s a big up and coming project that I’m in. And then I just completed a very heartfelt and a project that took a lot of work, which was the course that I’m doing for practice on healing from trauma with ACT using ACT. And that one, boy, that was one of those ones where I was not going to say no, but I knew when I said yes, that I was going to be sinking a lot of energy and time into it. And I’m really glad I did.
Hayley:
Yeah, yeah. Well, they sound really exciting. Perhaps send me all the info for that. We’ll put that in the show notes as well.
Robin:
You bet.
Hayley:
That’s fantastic. So that’s the thing as well, just touching back quickly on sort of, what do we say yes to, what we say no to. Is sometimes we know that things are going to be a lot. But they’re really worth it. Yes, there really, isn’t it? Which is very different to saying yes. And feeling overwhelmed. And then thinking why on earth did I do that? You know a resentful yes.
Robin:
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Those are the ones you want to be very reflective about and consider them in the future as well.
Hayley:
Yeah. It’s not about not, you know, being open to working harder or anything is it?
Robin:
No,
Hayley:
It’s just you want to be working hard in ways that matter to us.
Robin:
Yeah. Agreed.
Hayley:
Yeah. And aren’t taking too much away from the other things that are important in our lives.
Robin:
Yeah. Precisely.
Hayley:
So if people want to find out more about you get in touch, where can they kind of engage with your work? I mean, I’ll put links in do you have the social media things?
Robin:
So I have a Facebook page called The Heart of ACT. I also have a personal Facebook page, it’s not public, but it’s also if people you know, reach out, I generally give them access, but The Heart of ACT Facebook page, and then I do have a little funny Twitter account that I run and you know, I just pop things in their little sayings now and then and then I have a website. And it’s a little lame right now because I’m building a new one, but it’s still up and running. It’s tl consultation services, I’ll send it to you and people can reach me through there and my podcasts, I’ll post your podcast there when it’s done. So podcasts and interviews and stuff like that are all on that on that page.
Hayley:
Fantastic. This has been an absolute delight Robin. I’m very glad to have been a yes.
Robin:
I’ve enjoyed it, too. This was a good yes.
Hayley:
Thank you so much. I’m sure people will find this really helpful.
Robin:
Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me
Hayley: Cheers. 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.
Robyn’s Books: amazon.com/author/robyndwalser
Robyn’s Website: http://www.tlconsultationservices.com/
Request to join the Welcome to Self® – Caring for the Human in the Therapist Chair FB group
https://bit.ly/WelcomeToSelfFBGroup
Join mailing list for podcast notices and newsletter
https://bit.ly/WelcomeToSelfPodcast
You can find Guided Meditations and my Compassionate Prompt Journal here https://drhayleydquinn.com/shop/
Don’t miss an episode, use this link to be notified when each episode airs
https://bit.ly/WelcomeToSelfPodcast
Disclaimer
This transcript may not be an exact representation of the audio
