Resilience In Action: On Healing Trauma And Embracing Purpose With Dee Dee Woodman

 

Trauma can either break you or shape you into something stronger. Which path will you choose? In this powerful episode, Dee Dee Woodman, Licensed Professional Counselor, shares her inspiring journey from an unconventional childhood to becoming a renowned trauma specialist. A two-time cancer survivor and a leader in the mental health space, Dee Dee opens up about her experiences, including her work during the Columbine tragedy, and how these moments shaped her path. From tackling trauma to embracing resilience, Dee Dee offers deep insights on healing, mentorship, and finding purpose through hardship. Join us for an emotional and inspiring conversation that showcases the power of resilience and faith in overcoming life’s toughest challenges.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Resilience In Action: On Healing Trauma And Embracing Purpose With Dee Dee Woodman

My guest is Dee Dee Woodman, who is a therapist to the stars. She’s our family life saver, a leader amongst a lot of amazing women, a follower of Christ, and a trauma specialist who was on the scene at Columbine. We’ll talk about that a little bit. She’s a two-time cancer survivor. She’s an absolute queen. I’m super honored that Dee Dee is here. You rock. Thank you so much. You are the best.

What a privilege to be here.

Bad Ass Mavericks is the name of our show. A maverick is someone who thinks unconventionally and independently and doesn’t necessarily think or behave as others do. That’s the name of our company. When I say things like unconventional or don’t think as others do perhaps, what does that make you think of?

Myself. When I first was in grad school and training to be a therapist, I kept saying things like, “You are not going to cry with your clients. You need to keep a healthy emotional distance.” I was like, “I’m going to have a hard time with that,” because I’m all in when I do something. People who’ve been to other therapists and then come and see me are like, “You are different from anybody I had seen before,” because I show up differently. I love this and this is right up my wheelhouse too.

Dee Dee’s Story

As much as you are comfortable, it doesn’t matter if it’s 30 seconds or 25 minutes, go on as long as you like, but can you tell me your story? I have had some from you, some from Anetta, but in your own words, whatever is in your heart, tell me about your story. From wee little to whenever. Whatever you are comfortable with.

 

 

I grew up weirdly on a Navajo reservation. My dad was a doctor with a public health service. Very unconventional childhood. I didn’t realize it. Kids don’t know. My mom, I didn’t realize, also at the time was very mentally ill. She had three of us by the time she was 23. My dad was doing his residency so he was not home a lot.

There were a lot of things I recognized when I got into therapy in my 30s. I had traumatic events growing up. I had to grow up fast. I didn’t feel safe, loved, and protected. It’s a setup for either you’re going to not do well in life or you are going to be resilient. Thankfully, I landed more on the resilience side. That was a setup for what I truly feel is my calling.

I was not a Christian growing up. It was mean to Christians. I was harsh and cussed a lot. I look back now and God kept sending people into my life that were like, “Jesus as your lord and savior.” I will be like, “I don’t give a crap about Jesus.” One particular guy who I loved was a friend of my brothers. He and my brother would party together and do drugs, drink, and stuff. He came to know Jesus. We were all in our late teens. We were 19 and early-20s and he would come over and he wasn’t fun anymore. He’s going to talk about Jesus all the time. He would look me straight in the eye and be like, “What do you think? Do you think God has plans for your life?”

I’m like, “I don’t care if God has plans for my own. Why does that matter?” He was firm about it. Whenever he was around he irritated the crap out of me. I didn’t like him. I don’t want him around, but God was using him to plant some seeds. We didn’t grow up knowing the Lord but I had a grandma who was a very strong Christian and she saw me going down a bad path.

We went out for lunch one time and I ordered a margarita when I was sixteen because I had a fake ID. She drank a margarita with me but she said, “I’m praying for you every day.” I’m like, “Good luck with that.” I don’t care, but I look back and God put people in my world that he wanted me. I feel like that now. I did come to know the Lord weirdly in premarital counseling with my first husband who was also mentally ill and an alcoholic but it’s not like my picker is broken. He seems fine to me, but I did come to know the Lord then which was very cool.

What age range?

Twenty-one. I got baptized and it was profound. It was like Saul to Paul in Damascus, came to know the Lord, and was transformative in how I thought. I still was me. I still had a potty mouth for quite a while. It’s how it was. I got married very young and had two kids. I was sitting in a Sunday school class and a lady came in to be a substitute teacher. She said, “My name is Janine and I’m a professional counselor.” Not audibly, but in my heart and spirit, I heard the Lord say, “That’s what you are going to do,” and I was like, “I don’t even know what that is.”

I went up to her after and I was like, “What is that? What do you do? How do you get there?” This is my late twenties and we were living in Dallas at the time. I went up to her and she turned into a mentor for me. I ended up going to the University of North Texas where Dr. Phil is, a great program. She told me what classes it takes. She led me through the whole thing and it is such a huge gift.

We are going to talk more about mentors. That’s very yeah appealing to me and hopefully for a lot of folks. That’s in Dallas and that was the beginning.

That was the beginning of feeling a strong calling. Every semester I had a crisis of I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t have any brain cells left. I stayed home with my kids. I had a lot of opposition from myself.

Are you working at the time also?

No. I was a stay-at-home mom. In school full-time with kiddos and a hard marriage. He was in bad shape most of the time but I loved it. I loved the whole learning. I had always loved school weirdly. That was the beginning. We lived in Dallas for five years and we were transferred to Denver in ‘95 and started a private practice.

It started with an agency and then the guy ended up turning the agency over to me, which was weird. He didn’t know how to run. He was not a businessman at all, and I was. I knew this was a ministry but this is a business. He’s like, “I feel like you could handle this.” I know. I got that within. I realize I’m a terrible boss. I’m super bossy and I’m not super kind to other people. I expected them to be on their game and work as hard as I was working, which was unnaturally hard because of childhood stuff, shame, perfectionism, and all the things. I had an office in Littleton and in Wheat Ridge, which we still do when Columbine happened. It’s been 30 years since I was a therapist.

Value Of Mentors

Looking at the totality of that. We have known you for the majority of it. I told you I wanted to talk about mentors a little bit and that this is an old business coach. You and I have talked a lot about my coaching world and things like this. You and I have had this exact discussion. His take was you should have a spiritual coach like a pastor. You should have a marriage coach like a counselor, a physical coach like a personal trainer, a business coach, finance, and this type of thing.

When it comes to that piece, who knows why I was lacking in a lot of these things then, but I have reached out to a mentor and am on a warpath for everything. I want to get better spiritually, physically, and mentally, in my marriage, and all of these things. You are the queen on the mental piece. How do you relate to that for somebody who likes to grow, learn, and teach as you do? How do you relate to some of that?

I couldn’t agree more as you know, and I have people in different areas of my life. My goal in life is to be a lifelong learner and not be so arrogant to think that at 64 years old, I got it all figured out. I’m the queen of the mental health part so I don’t need anything else. We need every aspect of it. The thing I love about mentors and I told you about Jenny Boil as a mentor, but I had a professor Dr. Byron Medler who was the ultimate mentor to me in grad school.

He said, “The greatest thing you will ever offer someone is yourself in session. Not some wisdom or technique.” He poured into me and that’s what I love about mentors. They will call you out. They will encourage. They will see you. They will challenge you. They will love you when you don’t feel lovable. He’s one of the reasons I honestly believe that I have been very successful in private practice as a therapist, speaking, writing, and working on a book that’s taking forever, but he called it out on me.

I was brand new wet behind the ears. They are filming us terribly. The living room is all over the place. I was like, “I suck.” I was mortified when I saw it played back. I’m like, “It’s awful.” He said, “You are going to be amazing. You are going to change people’s lives.” He called that out in me at the very beginning and I was terrible. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing.

That brings up an interesting point, which I didn’t even think to ask you about or put down here, but talk to me a little bit about that growth in itself. If you were to, “I have got this thing,” where it doesn’t matter where you are or where you want to be. I put a post out there that I’m trying to be a little more authentic in looking at things that I have been struggling with. You are one of the first people who told me, “Get out and go for a walk.” Put one foot in front of the other. It doesn’t matter where you are right now. It doesn’t even matter where you are going to be. Just get started because it’s improvements. Interestingly, people fixated on where we are versus where we want to go instead of realizing how much growth can be in between. That’s the magic.

I have heard both. I have heard the 5% rule and I have had the 1% rule. You make a 1% change in your life. Your trajectory is completely different.

Have you ever heard the analogy of if you are in an airplane or a ship and they change 1 degree, how different it is?

I know this. We can be our own worst enemies. We can shut ourselves down. I know you are doing 75 Hard right now. You are doing such a great job. You look at that and you are like, “No. That’s impossible,” but that’s one thing at the time. That’s reading ten pages. Forty-five minutes outside. That’s what it is. We can defeat ourselves by saying, “I’m looking at the end and there’s no way I can do 75 days of that.”

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That’s a great analogy because people think that.

I watch people every day in my office and talk themselves out of something.

Back On Track

That brings up my next question and your point is how do you help people get past that point of like, “This is too hard.” It worked for me. You’ve done this with me thousands of times. I don’t know the answer but when people start to get off track, what advice can you give them to get back on track?

I have such a privilege of people going deep in session with me, so it’s not a quick-fix type thing. It’s let’s look at where that voice comes from. Where did this critical voice come from, this “I learned helplessness” voice? “It’s too hard.” We can start digging around a little bit and pull up. When I was a little kid, someone spoke something over me and it shot me down. We can process through that and say, “How old are you now? I want to honor that. That happened when you were 10, but let’s say now you are 50.” What is that limiting belief? What is that doing for you? The other thing is to get off your ass and go do something.

You don’t even know how many times you come in and you are talking about a book and I don’t get it. I was like, “This worked for you.” Be a lifetime learner and don’t reinvent the wheel. I didn’t know about finances. I have an excellent guy who’s helped me with finances. I’m in a great financial position now because of that.

We can’t know it all.

No, and even working out or even food.

Neuroplasticity

Do you know much about brain plasticity? There’s a dude that I have started following a little bit by the name of Dr. Chris Palmer. The head of psychiatry and metabolism at Harvard. He has this whole thing about food. He’s big into depression-type things. He’s like, “There are some things you can’t fix. If it’s schizophrenia, you can’t necessarily fix that.”

Not only from a mental standpoint but also want to talk about a physical standpoint. I go back to brain plasticity. What is doing something hard like learning to play the guitar, learning a second language, or something physical? There’s something about doing something hard that makes your brain grow and if you don’t, it shrinks. Talk to me about that.

We call it neuroplasticity. It’s brain plasticity and neuroplasticity. I remember taking training and EMDR for addictions and they were talking about if you do something hard or you work through an addiction, you decide, “I’m going to deal with my early trauma. I’m going to abstain from alcohol and drugs,” or whatever. He was talking about like, “Here’s your brain. We have these neural networks or these pathways. The addict pathway goes to the pleasure center, but it’s a sick place. It’s not a happy place. It’s like, “This is where I go to get a dopamine hit. This is where I go to get a hit to feel good.” He was talking about how when you do something hard, to use your expression, you start building a new neural network. It’s a new pathway that makes you feel good. Not a hit, but you feel good.

That’s why 75 Hard is a great example. How many days do you need to do that for it to become a new habit, but not just that for the neuroplasticity to form a new neural network? He said your brain will choose the best path, but you need to have a path. Let’s say you are sober for 1 or 2 days. You are celebrating. You are sober for two days, are you going to bed? You are like, “Now I have only been sober for two days.” Let’s say you are sober for six months. People are like, “I have been sober for five days.” I’m like, “Give me six months and your thinking will be different.” Everything will be different because you’ve got a new pathway for your brain to go that is choosing that. That’s true with food as well, drugs, or anything like shopping.

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I have started 75 Hard multiple times. I finished it one at a time other than this year. I went right back to where I was afterward. It fizzled. I got done with 75 days. If nobody knows about 75 Hard, look that up. There’s a wonderful podcast out there. There’s a good book. For a lot of people, it’s easy to look at the physical side of 75 Hard. I was down 15 pounds or whatever but the mental side is not measurable. It’s hard to share.

I started 75 Hard on January 22nd. I finished it. It took two days off to start over. I did 75. It took off about 7 to 8 days somewhere around the 4th of July. By that time, by two of them, I was still doing a lot of the physical stuff. I was still eating the same but I wanted to party a little bit. It’s 4th of July and we have friends. As soon as they left, I was on run for another day 20, 21, or 23. You are talking about the ending.

This coming from a mentor, a coach, and a friend of mine. He’s like, “You don’t understand. It’s mental. Don’t look at day 75 like, ‘This is hard.’ Do one day at a time.” He’s like, “I’m doing it four.” I’m like, “Are you crazy? No, I’m not doing it four times.” Ten minutes later in the conversation, he’s like, “This is our new routine.” I can tell you. Two times done. A third of the way through round three, and I’m different. I am sharp as an attack.

Food: Medicine Or Poison

It has to do with food so that’s the segue. I want to get your opinion on when I met with this farmer. I purchased hardly anything in stores. I order everything. Everything is organic. I eat a lot of meat. A lot of red meat, grass-fed or grass-finished, and all this stuff. I met this dude and I know that you will like this segue but he’s like, “Food is either medicine or poison.” I want you to get into that a little bit based on how you’ve helped your crew and also personally.

I had no idea the poison that food could be until I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 58. I had no other issues. I’ve always been super healthy. I went to see a natural medicine doctor and he started asking me what I eat. I’m like, “I eat pretty well.” I did. I wasn’t crazy but I was starting the day by making a juice and he’s like, “That’s 28 grams of sugar to start the day.” I was like, “That’s natural sugar.” He’s like, “Sugar is sugar.”

I’m realizing that I’m a total sugar addict, and so I pretty much stay away from that, but nothing organic. We would eat out a lot. He said, “Just the water you drink is poison.” Get Arrowhead water and get something that’s spring water. Changing my diet and taking some supplements shrunk a pretty good-sized tumor down to nothing. That was mind-boggling to me. I used to make fun of my stepdaughter for buying organic. We are like, “You want to pay three times the price for chicken?”

I feel like a weird hippie type because I’m so into it at the moment. I eat a lot but I don’t eat crap and it transformed me in 6 or 7 months.

I saw that too. You are trying to be sharper and have more energy and not have that crash in the afternoon when you have to eat something with sugar or caffeine. It’s amazing and your body thanks you for eating like that. It responds well to that. Even I went off gluten and dairy. I’m super strict. I do some gluten and some dairy now, but I can feel it if I have a lot of gluten. I have a sensitivity. I don’t have an allergy but it feels sluggish.

Have you tracked or looked at anything like this from a mental health perspective?

Yes, for sure. Some questions I do ask is, “Tell me about alcohol intake.” I’m looking for sugar. Sometimes not always. This is mean of me, but if I have leftover candy when we do an event, I’ll put it in my office and I had a guy in there one day. I’m not kidding. He sat there and ate fourteen candy bars mindlessly. I started counting because I’m like, “Gosh.” Guess what he struggled with. Depression and anxiety. It’s the same with alcohol. Alcohol is pure sugar. People are like, “It helps me relax at night.” I’m like, “Studies show that it increases anxiety hugely. It’s also a depressant. It also then is something that makes you feel crappy.”

Especially, if you are off of it for a little bit.

If I had a glass of wine and I don’t drink it all anymore, I would feel awful the next day. I feel hungover. There’s a huge correlation. People always wonder why I’m asking that but I don’t want to stick somebody on medication at the first sign they show depression. I want to look at it holistically, “What’s going on in your world? Are you working out? Are you working out harder?”

Doing hard things.

That’s transformative and then we see ourselves differently. You complete something like that. I remember that I have only done one fourteen or that might be my only one. I did it with some 30-year-olds. At the time I was 50 or something. I’m like, “I’m in pretty good shape.” “No, you are not.” I crawled to the top and got to the top and I was overwhelmed that I did it. I was like, “When are we doing another one?” We haven’t but that’s okay.

That’s fun stuff to think about. I know you. If I can say breast cancer through it. It’s life-altering if somebody can finely do it. What I’m trying to do is help anybody. I’m on this mission as part of my whole growth. It’s to try and help people. I’m hoping that somebody tunes in to this and is like, “I didn’t realize that’s the way I feel and my body and everything else is probably,” even if you think it’s healthy. Let’s have a conversation and let’s go talk about that a little more.

I want to interject this here. A lot of times, people come in and I’m getting their lifestyle and they start saying, “I stayed at home pretty much. I eat a bunch of crap or we have Taco Bell every night.” I don’t ever want to shame anybody. That’s not the point. I don’t want people to be like, “I suck.”

That’s how people like us are built. If we are trying to help people, there’s no judgment. The 1% thing. We have talked about that. Let’s get 1% better tomorrow and compile that over 2, 3, or 4 years, and all of a sudden, you can beat breast cancer, write a book, or who knows? Do podcasts. It’s going to be fun.

Warrior Princess

We talked a little bit about part of your why and your purpose but I want to go add to that a little bit. I have known you for close to twenty years. You have saved my wife’s life multiple times. You’ve helped us personally. Everybody in my family has come to see you. Everybody adores you, but I want to talk about your Warrior Princess group. I don’t know if you set out to build this amazing thing that you did. It’s part of your purpose. Give me the story of Warrior Princess and your vision for that and where you expect that or hope or pray that will go.

Humble beginnings because I had no idea what was going to come from it. Here’s how it started. I love to speak. I have a drama background. That’s part of me. I love to speak. Over the years, I was asked to lead retreats or speak at events. I was doing these women’s retreats and I remember being in the middle of one and it was fluffy. They weren’t going deep. The women were fake. I was like, “It hit me wrong.”

I started praying about it and I’m like, “I don’t want to lead someone else’s retreat. I feel like I could do this.” No idea what I was doing. Nothing. It was literally, “Where do I go? What do we do? Who do I talk to?” It started with me putting together a little small retreat with twenty-some women, the first one, where I had a lot of things I knew worked therapeutically.

Dealing with lies you believe, dealing with body image, dealing with negative thoughts, and dealing with spiritual warfare things. The hodgepodge, you put it all together and it was successful. We had too many women for the number of leaders which was me. It was like 23 women. I invited Jean but she wasn’t specifically a leader then. We regrouped after that.

It’s life-changing for a lot of women. It was exhausting. We stayed up super late. We didn’t have the structure for it, but after that, we brainstormed and were like, “We could do something like eight women maybe for a weekend.” We started praying about getting a mountain house, which you come into this story because you guys miraculously got us some mortgage for a mountain house. For several years, we called it Warrior Princess because I felt like we were warriors and we also need to understand that we are a child of God and we are royalty. We are princesses. That’s something that took me a lot of therapy to uncover in myself. It’s worth, who I am, the gifts, and also being different. It felt unconventional.

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That started in 2012 and we did that for several years this is a weird way that it evolved, but one of the girls who was a leader was speaking at a moms’ group, and I missed it. I was listening to it. I was sitting on my sofa with my eyes closed listening to her speak. I could hear her walking across the stage and speaking. People are laughing. She’s a good speaker and I felt impressed that we are going to take it to the next level.

I’m like, “Who are going to be my leaders” God was like, “You have trained them up. It’s every woman that went through your intensives.” I’m like, “I don’t want to do a big thing,” and you start making phone calls. You are like, “We need space.” I’m a queen of networking and you cannot overestimate how important it is to know people, call people, and be in a relationship with them. I called a couple of churches.

It’s like when you are building a podcast and like, “I need some guests. Hello, Ms. Dee Dee.”

Anybody who knows you loves you is like, “I will do it.” I started talking to different people and people got excited because they were like, “Nobody is doing this.” We had the curriculum which I call curriculum loosely because it was things that were formed out of years of doing it. I kept folders and whatever. I have always done that. The first one we did was set to take place on March 14th, 2020, the day the world shut down. We caused it. We were that important.

No. It was such a massive disappointment because we had put in all this love, time, and energy, but we ended up doing it in September which was amazing amid COVID, masks, and all the things. Here’s what was born out of it, and your wife has been a huge part of this. The leaders would meet to plan for it, but then we would not see each other. We did it twice a year.

Jean and I were talking I’m like, “I miss everybody. We need to have time where we get together.” Inspired to call it Fight Club, we started meeting monthly with these women and I will tell you the depth and you know this from your beautiful wife. The depth of relationships of walking side by side, the number of health things I have gone through where all I have to do is shoot out of WhatsApp, and I have got 25 people praying for me immediately. You know when there have been things with Annetta and things with your family. It’s been amazing.

Where it’s going, I hold on loosely to it. Although periodically, I will have somebody be like, “Would you ever bring it to Kansas City?” “I don’t know. Maybe.” We are working on a book right now, which is a never-ending story but we are getting there. We have two more chapters. These are stories of healing and women who have come through boot camp. I have worked with them in therapy. Stories are so important. I would much rather hear a story than a lecture. I am more changed by a person’s testimony and story.

I don’t know all the stories, but I know my wife’s story and it’s an ongoing story. I don’t know if it’s got an ending. First of all, do you know when and where your book is going to be published and can folks get copies of it somehow through here?

I do not. We are in the putting-it-together phase and still doing interviews with the last couple of girls that we are going to feature. A cool side note to the first person that I asked to interview and be a part of the book is Linda who passed away. We got her story in there and her life was cut short but what a warrior princess that girl is. We are all in the process of progress.

We alluded to this a little bit before we started rolling here. You are a trauma expert and we have talked about that. Share with me a time when you’ve almost most needed that specialty or that skill.

Columbine

Hugely, when Columbine happened, the irony of that is the event itself was so traumatic for all of us. It wasn’t like I put on my expert cap and my therapist jacket and wandered in there. I walked in there traumatized.

Is this on scene the day of?

It was about an hour after the shooting had started. This is back in the days when I had a pager. My pager was going crazy and I interrupted a session and I said, “I don’t know if something is going on,” so I called for messages. I’m like, “There’s a shooting,” and my office is about a mile away from Columbine. They said, “We need you at the library.” Not Columbine library, but nearly the elementary school. The library was there and then they transferred us over. They put a little therapist named tag and slapped it on me and I ended up in the room. I didn’t know at the time but all the parents who couldn’t find their kids. That was all the parents whose kids were killed. That was a game-changer.

Going back to my mentor Dr. Medler, I offered myself. I wasn’t like, “This type of drama.” We were all raw and I was there through the night because they didn’t release there were actual casualties until they could check it all out. I looked this up years later, I had ended up working with 500 families over the next two years from Columbine. It was crazy. I’m still in contact with some of them whose kids were killed and watching them. You never recover but you do. You’d go on. Some of the most incredible people I have ever dealt with. That was one where I desperately needed all those skills, but that day, I offered myself and ended up in that room of people praying for them.

Right place, right time it was for you.

I have several people in Dallas who said, “I feel like God just moved you to Littleton, Colorado because of that.” I’m like, “That’s awful but amazing.”

They are lucky to have had you.

It was a huge gift.

That’s probably a little tricky to talk about so thanks for sharing them.

Thanks for asking about that.

Helping People

I want to get your take on why you like to help people. Let me give you the backstory about that a little bit. There’s a dear friend of mine. Her name is Jane Floyd. She’s in Tampa, Florida. She’s a former coach of mine, a real big dog in my world. You would love her. I love to figure out a way to connect the two of you. I talked to her pretty frequently, a couple or three times a month and she’s on a mission. I love this and this helped calm me a little bit in terms of like I don’t want to say aggressive but calm down a little bit.

Alex is adopted. Some of this which you’ll love. Anyway, her whole thing was to help somebody every single day of the year. That’s her mantra. Whether it’s a tiny capacity or a large capacity or whatever. There are no strings attached. She’s trying to reach somebody to pick them up. I have adopted that. I’m trying to help people in any capacity. Is that part of your story? Did you have a desire, a poll, the universe, or whatever? Is that the main part of it?

It is but there’s an interesting backstory that I see with a lot of people who go into the helping profession, which is that was our role as children to help a parent who was either mentally ill or had addictions. There’s this like, “I’m going to help people.” I remember in grad school, when we first class and sitting together as a new class, and the professor said, “How many of you want to help people?”

My point is that you do it every single day without being asked which is admirable.

What he uncovered in me was motivation. God broke this out so early on with me when I started therapy. It was very much revealed to me that that’s a way to avoid your feelings. If you are this codependent, I’m going to help. It’s like, no. Help yourself first. I went to a university that had an excellent training program where we were forced to do therapy ourselves. I was like, “I think I’m fine,” and the professor was like, “You’ve been watching your mind.”

Being able to tap into my woundedness around being a helper and understanding once I got some healing from that, then I can be available to help but I don’t save anybody. I understand my limitations, but I am also way more free to enter. The world is not getting better. You notice that for sure. Those of us who are in lightened and I don’t say that with any pride at all, that came at a high cost as did yours. Every day, I ask God to show me where I can bring you glory. It’s not even about my journey, it’s about what would Jesus do. If you study Jesus, what a guy. What a helper.

He was talking about a quote from a theologian who said, “What’s one word that you would use to describe Jesus?”He said, “Relaxed.” He knew what he was here for. He didn’t go crazy. He did what he was called to do and everything he did he said was to bring glory to the Father. I’m like, “That’s a cool perspective.” It keeps me and you engaged not egocentrically like, “How does this make me feel when I help this person?”

My favorite way to help is when nobody knows what I have done. I’m sure that’s true for you as well because you loan somebody, or it might not even loaning. Giving somebody money or listening to what this person needs and how can I be a game changer in their lives even if they don’t know me. It was a double-edged sword at the beginning because the professor was like, “You think you are codependent. You are avoiding your own story by helping everybody else. Until you process your own story, then you are not even available to help people.

You're avoiding your own story by helping everybody else. Until you process your own story, then you're not even available to help people. Share on X

Did you know that at the time? You are in school. You are doing all these things or meeting these wonderful professors, mentors, and everything else. Did you realize in the moment that maybe you did have some things to deal with or did that not come until a little later?

That came when I started doing therapy. I started grad school in ‘90 so I was 30, and immediately started therapy and was not a fan initially. My first therapist was one of those who stared at me. It also gives anxiety for me. I already have anxiety. I got in with another therapist who had such a hard personal story. She was married to a pastor and found out he was addicted to porn and a drug addict. She ended up divorcing him and then she found out she had cancer. What a story and she was a freaking rockstar. She was unafraid. She was our group instructor. She would set up things for us. We are like, “Nobody wants to do this,” like where you got so vulnerable. That was where I got so much healing.

I have modeled a lot of my practice after her fearlessness but she was phenomenal. That’s when I started digging deep into what it’s like to have a mentally ill mom and what it’s like to not have a mom. It’s how hard that was. I had no idea the Pandora’s Box that was opening up. When I sit in session even 30 years later, I’m so thankful. I went to the depths so that I could take someone else there. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid to go deep with somebody.

Connecting With A Therapist

I’m not figuring out the right way to ask this but if somebody feels like everything’s okay, up until you were 30, you thought this was normal. It’s okay, but if somebody has maybe got some a block whether it’s their physical being or work or relationship or whatever the case is, is it fair to say it’s okay for everybody to have a therapist or need a therapist? That’s what I’m not asking the right way. If we can’t figure out how to thrive even that 1% better, is it because we have potentially got trauma in our past that we don’t know about?

Possibly. There is something so special when you connect well with a therapist. My first one, I would not have done any healing so I stopped seeing her but I feel like there is room for every single person. Let me say that I showed up at 30. It’s not like I didn’t know I had problems. I was hiding. I was having panic attacks. I was struggling with depression. I was a total sugar addict and shopping addict and I didn’t have any money at the time. It’s hard to shop when you are broke. All credit cards are helpful.

Maybe not every single person needs to go through trauma therapy or whatever but there is something so special about having a person that is 100% safe. They don’t have any agenda. You can talk about your family. You can talk about your past. You can talk about your hopes and dreams. You can talk about your bad moments in life and have that reflected.

The most special thing about therapy is when it’s working. It’s a great relationship especially if you can do it over time, which we have had the privilege to be able to do and I have a lot of long-term clients. They are not in all the time. Having somebody journey with you that has a skillset. The feedback I get sometimes from people who don’t want to come to therapy. “How can a stranger help me?” That’s such an odd thing to say. The doctor is a stranger. He gets to know you. I believe you touched on me being a lifesaver for Anneta. My therapist was a lifesaver for me for sure. She scooped me up out of a dark place and my dark place was hidden so that’s dangerous. I was pretending like I was okay which is not recommended for mental health.

Take it from the professional. This has been mind-blowing. I do a lot of this stuff but it’s to hear it in this setting. The roles are reversed where you are listening to me and scooping off whether it’s good, bad, or ugly, or whatever the case is. A couple of my big takeaways were your approach to Columbine and being there to help 500 families and still in touch with some of them. That’s a huge resource for folks who are dealing with that thing. I have experienced my piece of the food being medicine and poison, but hearing your story with breast cancer and wellness and stuff like that is insane too. Are there a couple of resources that you could give folks? Is there a podcast you love or is there an Instagram page that you love or anything like that? If anybody is looking to potentially find some resources, do you have a couple of thoughts there that you could share?

Adam Young is a phenomenal therapist. He talks a lot about neuroplasticity and trauma. His podcast is The Place We Find Ourselves. He’s phenomenal and he has the full gamut of science but also spiritual. He does some spiritual warfare stuff. He’s a go-to for me. What I like to do on my hikes or walks is listen to different sermons. Sometimes Flatirons, sometimes Red Rocks. We go to Lifegate Church. The reverend there is phenomenal.

I don’t do a lot of podcasts because I have an addictive personality. I was like, “Who would have called that?” I’d be obsessing because when I first got on Adam Young, I obsessively listened. Now, I pick and choose. Just paying attention and asking other people, “What are you reading? Are there other people that you admire their stories?” I’m an avid reader. I read two books a week, but we are up in the mountains sometimes. That is key to me to feel like I’m staying in the loop, but also there are some brilliant people out there that I want to learn from.

I love that.

 

Important Links

• Dee Dee Woodman
• 75 Hard