105 - Kathryn Greenberg-Bringing Hope And Healing to Survivors of Trauma.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe

Ruthless Compassion is a podcast about people who've turned their emotional shit into fertilizer for success. It's about seeing our darkest moments and opportunities for growth and transformation.

Kathryn Greenberg is a certified life coach specializing in mindfulness trauma and addiction. She shares her journey of healing as a way to show those who may be struggling that their life is worth living. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Greenberg moved to Sarasota, Florida in 2013 and she wonders why she waited so long. Kathryn's unique approach is informed and inspired by the time she spends working with people in very different circumstances, jails and courts, homeless shelters, residential treatment centers and human service agencies. Kathryn discovered that within those individuals living in terrific pain and struggles, lie a story of inner strength, which when mindfully accessed, can liberate them from the darkest of places. In addition to managing her practice and continuing her work as a tireless hope evangelist, Kathryn serves on the boards of the Salvation Army of Sarasota County, Lighthouse, Vision Loss Education Center and Purposehouse Transitional Homes. She attended Boston University and Marymount University, and she holds a degree in developmental psychology. She is also a member of Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology. She loves dogs, dessert and anything crafty. Her gratitude for each day is off the charts.

Welcome Kathryn Greenberg to the Ruthless Compassion podcast.

Thank you so much. I am thrilled to be here.

Well, it's always fun to meet new people and talk to them. I always say that I feel privileged to have this podcast because I get to have conversations with people who I otherwise never would have had the opportunity to meet. So it's always fun for me.

Ditto

I always like to start with getting my guests to share a little bit about themselves, what they do and how they came to do it so that the listener has a good sense of who you are.

Okay, so I suppose by label, by title, officially, I am a certified life coach. I specialize in trauma and addiction, although I think those pretty much always go hand in hand. But I suppose I really am at heart, a hope evangelist. I'm quite sure that I'm still alive because I am meant to use my journey of healing as somebody else's survival guide. So, that's how I try to live my life. And every day, I make it a point to touch somebody else's life.

That's a very interesting word, hope evangelist. Do you want to elaborate a little bit on that?

So I don't necessarily mean it in a religious sense, but from a spiritual mindset, I think the weapon of the future is love. And along with love comes a lot of hope. And so when we can spread that when we, I don't know, confetti. You throw it up and it lands everywhere and it stays in your hair and it sticks in your clothes and you find it months later and seat of your car and you think, oh, my gosh, remember that time and you typically associate joy. That's what I want to be. I want to be one of those people who is just light and spread that around as much as I can because I also know what it's like to live in quicksand and to feel like you can't breathe and to feel like you can't see. And what is your purpose here? And so when I make that choice to live with intention, I find that hope and love come along with that. And that's my job, to share that story and try to get people to come to the light side.

Yeah, we sure need that these days, don't we?

We do. We so do.

How did you get from where you were to where you are today?

Well, I'd love to tell you, I teleported, but that would be a lie. It was a daily practice. It was learning a new language. It was building a new muscle or muscles. And it was not even close to doing it on my own. We are not meant to go through this life alone. We are wired for connection. And there were so many people in my life who just refused to give up on me again and again until I was able to hold that and decide that I don't need you not to give up on me. I cannot give up on me. And I learned how to save my own life and then live it.

I think that community thing is very important.

The fellowship of other humans. And I think when you find like-minded humans, and that's what I did ultimately when I moved to Florida, where I live now, and found other people with similar morals and similar values and similar interests. I mean, you're most like the five people you spend the most time with, so choose very wisely. And I did, and I do, and I'm grateful every day for the tribe I have.

So what made you decide to go to Florida?

Well, I grew up in Washington, DC, which is somewhat frenetic, a tad judgmental, bit corporate, and I never really felt like I fit in. I was told that I looked like I fit in, but my heart felt like it was breaking constantly. And from the age of nine, there was a heaviness in me that was ultimately diagnosed as severe depression, recurrent, and a host of other diagnoses, severe anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, et cetera. And ultimately I decided I didn't want to live anymore. And I began to cut myself. And at the time in the 90s, very little was known about cutting. And so it was assumed I was suicidal. And at the time, I didn't realize that it wasn't that I wanted to die. It was actually that I wanted to live, but so differently from how I was living. And out of the terrific roaring pain I was in. And then I did go ahead and try to end this life. And that was the first of six residential hospitalizations from the age of 14 to the age of 35. And when I walked out of treatment for the last time in 2011, I said, that's it.

I'm done. I'm choosing a very different life. And that meant a geographical move, because I do believe that it is very difficult to heal in the place where you are hurt. And every time I drove around Washington and drove by my high school and saw people I knew and landmarks, it was just a gut wrenching pain. I wanted to create a reality that I didn't want to escape from.

Right. We spent a lot of time planning our escape. When is the weekend? When is the next vacation? When is this and how long is this going to be? I thought, how do I get this to be my reality? And I did, and I packed up and I moved to the beach.

I want to go back with this self-cutting, because one of the things I was thinking about with the self-cutting is that with my patients who've done it. What I saw is that they had all this pain, and then what they did in response to their pain is they shut down emotionally, so they felt numb or dead. And so then they cut themselves so that they could feel something or they could distract themselves from that pain. So it wasn't a real wish to hurt themselves. It was a wish to change what they were feeling.

I think that's a beautifully accurate description. And I think the more literal part of it is, cleansing something your lifeblood is flowing out of you. And as women, we tend to internalize more. And that's what I did. I took it and I put it inside. Well, it had to come out, and I didn't know any other way. And it felt like a relief. What was something that is meant to hurt ended up feeling good.

It's like those old bloodletting rituals, old days, right?

Exactly. Yes. In the leeches and you get a high. And when we act on that negative emotion, we strengthen it. And that's what I did. And it became an addiction. And ultimately, it turned into a very severe eating disorder. I switched addictions and I applied to a treatment center and they said, we are so sorry. You're too sick to come here. So as humans, we, I think all struggle with addiction, whether it's sex or sugar or drugs or shopping or whatever it is. And the idea is, I think, is to take that energy and channel it as productively and effectively as we can. And I did not have the skills to do that.

Right. And you also didn't have the awareness of what was really going on. If you don't know what the problem is, it's very hard to find a solution.

You said it, sister.

It's interesting. You were talking about how you switched addiction. My very first nonfiction book was called Emotional Overeating: Know the Triggers, Heal Your Mind and Never Diet Again. And it was all about trauma. It came out of working with women who had eating issues. And I was looking at the dopamine response. So any kind of intense stimulation causes the dopamine to rise, and then that increases the craving. So the more you do it, the more you are physiologically inclined because the dopamine craves more you cut the dopamine goes up and it wants you to cut some more, and then you get into this vicious circle. So it's really not only a psychological thing that happens, but it becomes physiologically embedded. And then it's very hard to stop because you really are physically addicted to this activity.

Exactly. And there's your mind, body spirit connection. Right. We tend to separate mind and body when in fact, we need to be looking at the entire being or we can't heal. It's the same as wanting something. Right. When we want something, we generate more want, but when we choose, we're making a choice. And that's the subtle difference between wanting and choosing. Yes.

So you moved to Florida, and how old were you when you moved there?

I moved here in, let's see, 2013, and I'm 45 now, so you can do the math. That's not really my strong point.

38. Thank you. So you are still fairly young in your practice, so you probably have really established yourself professionally in Florida.

I have I really hadn't prior to this because I was sort of known as someone who was sick and fragile and that was associated with being weak. And I had no idea what I could do. I had no idea what kind of wings were tucked under there and buried under so much muck and crap, you wouldn't believe it. And so I really came here and began to clear away the muck. And aside from the sun and the water, the softness of life here is almost magical. There is a gentle way of living that I had been yearning for in a way that I didn't even realize. And I settled into this life and became someone who really has evolved so hard that I've had to get to know myself again. And so has everyone else around me.

That's always a good thing, right? Shake up of the identity.

Hell, yeah. Absolutely.

So you were talking about how you were this fragile person, and then you just were determined to take the dark times and to use them as your motivation to bring light. And I was thinking about how so many people in healing professions have all this trauma that is unacknowledged and it interferes with their ability to help others. And it also they keep wounding themselves because they keep coming up against their own trauma. But if you've got your trauma acknowledged, if you know that you've had trauma, if you know what the trauma is and you've done the work, then that actually becomes a strength, don't you think?

I could not have said it better myself. That is 100% accurate. Absolutely. I can't think of anyone with whom I work that is not experiencing unresolved trauma or traumatic event. Right. I mean, there's trauma and then there's a traumatic event and how much they carry in their body. I work in the jail and I work with women in the jail, and I cannot think of a more backwards approach to trauma. We are punishing someone for hurting. So the world is going to judge you on your behaviors, but we judge ourselves based on our intentions. Right. So what the world sees, what law enforcement sees is a junkie is a drug addict is some negative adjective. Right. But the question we need to be asking is, what is your story? What happened? What kind of pain were you in that led to this behavior? So if we can meet the need rather than treat the behavior, we'll change the whole freaking world.

Yeah, absolutely. I really agree with that. It's that we have trauma and it makes us make choices that are dysfunctional. These are strategies for coping with our loss or pain or wound. And they're not logical strategies, of course, because they're coming out of the wound. And then we get punished for doing our best to cope with the wound. And if we're overeaters or let's say shoppers, we don't get the same kind of societal criticism as if we are like taking drugs or shoplifting. Right. So depending on what are a workaholic, we get praised.

Right.

If we're taking crack, we are censored. But it's coming from exactly the same place.

Absolutely. And going back to the workaholism, we have the definition of strength really twisted. Somehow, we've associated strength with working 24 hours and pulling all-nighters and powering through. And I'm pretty sure the opposite. When you are a highly sensitive person or you've experienced trauma and you're still alive and you get out of bed every morning, that's strength when you decide you need to rest, when you're exhausted, that strength.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a funny way of people seeing things. And I think the world really needs to wake up a little bit to the reality of trauma. And a lot of the people I've been interviewing on this podcast are talking about it. And I'm hoping that the message keeps being spread that trauma is at the root of a lot of these dysfunctional behaviors. It's not that we're lazy or weak or criminal. It's that we are wounded and we are making choices from our wound, trying our best to get better and maybe failing at it. But we're trying. And if we can only help people get a better way to heal, then that's the answer. Not punishing people.

Absolutely. Because we're just creating more pain and shame. Right. Punishment creates pain and punishment creates shame. And they're already dealing with so much shame. That's at the heart of pretty much every addiction. Right. And if we don't treat that, but we say to them, we're going to put you in a cell and we're going to remove your humanity. We're doing exactly the opposite of what needs to be done.

When you think about who's in prison, it's people with trauma and people who have intellectual deficits. The people who are the most vulnerable in our society.

Exactly. The people who are the most vulnerable, who need the most support and to understand emotional regulation. They're the ones where. Yes. What you said.

Yeah. It's unfortunate, as you said. Also there are so many people who have trauma, and a lot of people don't want to acknowledge their own trauma. So they become very judgmental and standoffish to people who are exhibiting dysfunctional behaviors because maybe they're being reminded of their own buried pain and they don't want to be reminded. It's threatening. And so they reject or they criticize the person who is more obviously demonstrating their pain through these socially unacceptable behaviors. And they can feel superior. They can look down their nose while they're having the same pain just manifested in a less societally dysfunctional manner, maybe dysfunctional for them and their happiness, but not obviously dysfunctional to society. So they can judge they could be in this position where they feel superior, but really it's just because they don't want to face their own unacknowledged pain. Right.

I think that is such an amazing point. Right. I mean, whatever we react to in somebody else, we're strengthening in ourselves. And that's typically what's unhealed in us. Right. I mean, judgment is like a mirror. And when you realize that judgments come from emotional pain, one, but two, when you're judging someone else, that's really based on whatever is not healed in you, if that's one of your triggers or one of your modifiers, then that's really an indication that that needs to be looked at in your own heart.

Yeah, absolutely.

Right.

So tell me about the populations that you're working with. What kind of work are you doing with these people?

So I work with a lot of adolescents, a lot of adolescent females, which is challenging and heartbreaking and rewarding all at the same time. I work with women who are in jail. I work at a residential treatment center. It's a diversion program, trying to keep them out of the criminal justice system and give them rehabilitation instead. And so I run a group there that really is based on emotion regulation. Right. We know that when you grew up in such an invalidating environment, it's nearly impossible to develop in a healthy way. Children develop based on how their caregivers react to them. But when you don't know what you're going to get or your household is abusive or neglectful or generally dysfunctional, they're not going to develop properly. And so their models have been not ideal. So everything I do is based on mindfulness and emotion regulation. And we discuss judgments and forgiveness and guilt and shame intentions. We talk about what an emotion is and how important it is to label it and name it and learn how to manage it. Right. We know that if we can't label it and name it, it's very hard to manage and even harder to change.

I also serve on two boards, the Salvation Army here and Lighthouse, which is an organization for people who are visually impaired or blind. And because my father is blind, that's very close to my heart. And then I have a private practice as well. I love working in a group setting. I love running groups, and I love working with women because I suppose in my mind, to be an advocate and an ally is the biggest blessing I could have in my life. To be, not on the other side, but to show them that they are loved exactly as they are, that they are enough exactly as they are, and that their worth is not tied to their value. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. How are we not sharing that with everyone? We tend to associate what we do with who we are. And they're completely different. They're not addicts. They're not selling. They're not anorexics or schizophrenics. That's not who they are. Do they struggle with that? Sure. But who they are is light and love and grace and kindness and goodness. They inspire me every day.

That's lovely. It reminds me of somebody I was talking to earlier today. We were having this conversation about something that her mother used to do. Her mother used to demand perfection. And I had this little AHA moment when we were talking. And I said, you know, it strikes me that your mother didn't want you to be perfect. What she wanted was for you to fail, because in failing, you would make her feel better. And she was addicted to making you fail because she kept thinking that putting you down would bring her up. But of course, she got addicted to that because of the dopamine. And she just kept pushing you to fail and pushing you to be perfect, knowing that you couldn't be perfect and hoping that you would fail and feel bad so that she could feel better. And my patient was like, wow, that's a very sobering thought. I'm going to sit with that for a while. Perfectionism isn't possible. And even the people who want you to be perfect know that you can't be. That's not why they're doing it.

That's correct. And I suppose I would say that perfectionism is an emotion regulation issue. It's really more of a symptom than anything else.

Yeah. Because who needs to be perfect? We are lovable. And I even reminded her that the people who love her, love her for who she is, and the people who can't love her would never love her, no matter what she does.

It would never be enough. Right. And it sounds like her mother was so wrapped up in her own shame legacy. I mean, she passed that down because she didn't know any differently. That's someone in your life that is such a teacher. In that case, I would say thank you so much, mom, for showing me exactly how I don't want to be. I will bless you and release you with love.

Yeah. Perfectionism. And needing to be this person to get somebody else's approval. Right. That's a big piece of I'm sure you're buy and tell it's a huge piece of it.

I mean, because we know that people-pleasing is one of the effects of trauma. Because you grew up trying to predict your parents mood, well, you're going to end up learning how to do that. And when parents criticize their kids, the kids don't stop loving their parents. They stop loving themselves.

Oh, that's such a good point.

I see it all the time. Yes. Everyone says they're resilient, and that's amazing. But eventually they will internalize that and they will begin to believe that they are not worthy of love.

Yeah. And that's where you come in, right?

That's where I come in and completely rock their world and flip that script. And we work really hard to unlearn. And these are tangible skills with a dialectically based, you know, the dialectical behavior theory. I use that as a DBT informed approach. Right, and the trauma informed approach and using that language and helping them understand that's how we separate. And that's what we pass on to the next generation. Because it is absolutely their choice to break that cycle. I'm so sick of hearing generational curse. No, it stops with you. It stops today, right here, right now. And I will stand up for you. I tell them I will work as hard as you, but I will not work harder. As soon as you begin to work harder, then it doesn't work anymore.

Absolutely. And I've said that I've actually said the same thing with the buck stops here. We're going to change the trajectory of all the future generations right here.

That one at a time. Right. We save one life. We save the world.

Absolutely. So tell me a little bit more about for the listener what dialectical informed therapy is, because a lot of people have heard the term, but maybe they don't understand what it means.

So dialectical behavior therapy was invented, if you will, by Marsha Linehan, who is just so amazing. And it was originally created for adolescents who were struggling with suicidal ideations and self harm. And it has grown and grown and is really applicable to every human in the world. And they used it to treat people who are struggling with borderline personality disorder and found that it is so effective because it is all based on mindfulness. So in my opinion, misery is going to come when you are living anywhere on your timeline, but the present. We have a natural tendency to attach to outcomes. Right.

We think something should be a certain way and we expect it to be. And then when it isn't, we're crushed. And so they are very tangible skills, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation about how to manage your day to day life. So your wound wasn't your fault, but your healing is your responsibility. And so how do we work with what is not what we wish were? You're not going to change the shit that life throws at you, but you absolutely have all the magic to change how you respond to it. If you're willing to practice this and it will work, it will change your whole life.

So I'm going to ask you a question now, because this is something that has happened with me in the past. So I have encountered on occasion, not often, but on occasion well, actually on a few occasions, a person who will basically refuse to do the work because part of them just desperately wants me to rescue them. Right, they believe that because they were not cared for as children, that they need an adult figure, a parent figure like me, to fix them, because that's what's really going to do the trick. They are absolutely convinced that they need me to do it for them and that will heal them. And so they are sabotaging their own process waiting for me to do it. And I keep, of course, kindly telling them it's not my work to do. This part is your part. I'll do my part, but you got to do yours. And they're not necessarily conscious of it, but even when I remind them of it, they just keep defaulting to that place of, no, I need you to rescue me. Have you ever encountered something like that? And if so, what have you done about it?

So interesting. We see it often, even in a jail setting or a residential treatment setting. Right. It's that slip up or that fail. That's not enough to get them kicked out, but it's enough to either add time onto their stay or require extra support. And it's often right before it's time to go. And every time I look at it, what I see behind it is terrific fear. And if you can unpack that fear and figure out what the root causes, because the self sabotage is a behavior. Right. And we know that underneath that behavior is a feeling, but underneath that is an unmet need. And so if we can meet that need, we see less and less of the behavior.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense just to get to the fear.

It is often fear. I think our earliest addiction typically is anger because of the adrenaline it provides. And then we tend to muddle the definition of anger and aggression, and we confuse them. There's room for anger if it's used productively. There is not room for aggression if there's an injustice, then use your anger. Anything amazing that's happened in this world is because someone got angry and did something about it. But I think when we see people who are self-sabotaging, there is potentially anger about their story, but has likely been taught to clamp it down because anger is not acceptable and anger is not allowed. And what if I do get angry? Will it stop? And how will I stop it? And what if I can't stop it? And what if it's rage and all of this? And underneath anger is fear and sadness. And so I think it's looking less at the behavior and more about trying to get that need met.

And something you said earlier, you were talking about how you're just getting to know who you are right now because you've changed so much living in Florida. And I think that for you, obviously, you're comfortable embracing the transition and changing who you think you are. But I think for people who have a lot of trauma, like some of your clients, they might be very frightened about changing their identity from someone who is maybe a victim or someone who is shame bound or someone who is, quote, unquote, a criminal or an addict is someone who is happy or healthy or free, because who am I if I'm not that person I used to be? So they might hold on to it. Right.

It's familiar. Right. And that's the cognitive dissonance. It's going back to what we know. There is not going to be any growth unless it's on the other side of resistance. I can't think of anyone who made any sort of change because they were comfortable, not one. And so forgive the colloquialism, but you're going to have to sit "in the suck". It's not comfortable. And that's okay because we have this aversion to discomfort. But what if we didn't mind being uncomfortable? What if we embraced it? What if we leaned into it? What if we got really curious about it and realized that on the other side of all that resistance, with all of your growth?

Yeah. It's the difference between what's uncomfortable and what's bad for you. And I think people need to understand that if something's uncomfortable, it doesn't necessarily mean it's dangerous.

Right. And we have to separate the perceived threat from an actual threat, because when you live in survival mode for that long, when you're raised on survival rather than love, you certainly look at the world very differently. So how do we explain the difference from your survival brain thinking everything is a real threat versus perceived threat. You're not actually in danger, and it feels that way. But you're going to use your brain to tell you differently. It feels like your brain is in charge, but the opposite is true.

For sure.

Right?

Yeah. It reminds me of our times right now. We've been in pandemic for almost two years.

For 100 years.

Yeah, exactly. People are under siege. They're feeling under siege. And I'm noticing a lot of people are getting into that kind of crazy survival mode where they're really digging down and they're not really in that conscious place, but they think they are right. They think they're really with it, but their behavior is so irrational, right?

So irrational. And the vitriol and venom that seems to come with topics that are benign, really. And I think that's a great example of how we're not as humans, responding to an event or a circumstance. Our brains make an automatic interpretation of the event, and then we respond to what we think about the event. But it's not the pandemic we're responding to. It's what we think about it. And the beauty is you can choose your thoughts. You're not your thoughts. You're going to have, I don't know, 70,000 thoughts a day. They're totally powerless without your reaction. So are people.

That's a really nice reminder for everyone that we don't have to be attached to our thoughts.

No, you can't get offended without your consent. It's really rarely about you anyway. It's not the other person.

Yeah. I always tell my patients who are so afraid of being judged. I say anyone who's reasonable isn't going to bother judging you, and anyone who's busy judging you isn't worth paying attention to.

Right, because that's their own insecurity and their own fears coming up. And so if you can separate yourself from that, you realize really nothing is personal.

Where do you feel like you come up against obstacles in your work or in your life? Because obviously it's not all smooth sailing. So where do you feel like you kind of bang up against the obstacles for yourself?

On a personal note, I believe I struggle with the notion that I can save everyone, and that's just not true. I can't and I hate that I can't because I want to and I burn to. And I'm also very mindful that I am an empath. I am a highly sensitive person, and I need a lot of rest and restorative time by nature. I am also energetic and effusive. And if I'm doing something, I will do it with everything I have. Right. If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. And so understanding the boundaries, I think for me has always been a struggle. It's that fine line we straddle between enabling and compassion. I think for me, that's the biggest struggle I deal with.

But you're right. I think a lot of people who are empathetic, they identify so much with those around them that they feel they almost feel their pain. And so it's very hard when you're feeling like when you really get the pain that the other person is in, it's like you really want to help them. And yes, there are limits, right? There's only so much that we can do and we can't save the world. And as much as we would like to, and we have to tolerate that. That's something we have to tolerate. We have to accept. We have to surrender and go, all right, there's only so much I can do.

And that's enough, and that's enough, right? It's enough. And it's likely ineffective for the client if we aren't setting boundaries. It does them a disservice as well as us.

Yeah. I remember early on in my practice that I had to take a step back and stop trying so hard because I felt like my patients would get a sense that I was overly invested in their progress, and then they would feel that they needed to please me by getting better and that they would be disappointing me if they didn't. And I realized that my investment in their process was actually interfering with their ability to have their own process. So, I needed to care about them like you talked about, that dispassionate compassion. So I had to take that step back and say, okay, this is your process. I would really like it if you got better, but I cannot be attached to it because it's yours alone. And I can't be invested because then it becomes about me and it's not. So, yeah, I realized that early on in my practice that it was not helping me for sure, and it certainly wasn't helping them.

What a keen observation, though. I mean, to have that awareness, that's incredible. That's very helpful to hear. Thank you for sharing that.

It's so very true because we can make it about ourselves. I need you to get better or you are free to get better if you choose. It's a little different.

It's a lot different. And it's funny because I have a tendency to say that in groups, but when it's individual, it's much more different. And I think that the women in group tend to learn from each other as well. But when it's one on one, it's a much different environment and energy.

Yeah. Because in the group there's much more support among the members. And when it's one to one, we're the person.

We're the person. And I think that's also empowering and gratifying for us, too. So it's important to be mindful that we don't get carried away with that, too. We're humans. We are doing the best we can with what we have at each moment in time, for sure.

It reminds me, you might think this is a funny example, but I've been doing cat rescue for the past 18 years or so. And there are cats that I've been able to save, and there are cats that I was not able to save. And some of them died because they were sick and they just were not even trappable. So there were like a lot of successes and a lot of fails, a lot of very tragic things. I remember one beautiful cat, we got him neutered, we released him, and the next day, we saw him run over. Things like that.

Oh, my gosh.

I know horrible stuff. But in 18 years, we've also rescued just a ton of cats and neutered and spade, a ton of cats and rehoused tons of cats. We've done a lot of good, but there's definitely been failures. There's been disappointments. There's been sad things. There's been cats who are very sick and cats who are very feral, and they couldn't get them into a home. And going through this, watching this whole thing unfold over the years, when I look back, it was such a lesson. And I really am grateful to the cats because they've taught me so much about that kind of, I call it Ruthless Compassion.

Right. I love it. What a great title. It's so good.

Yeah. Because I have to take that step back and be tough and go like, look, I'm doing what I can do, but I can't do it all. And if it's a fail, it's a fail. And I can cry and I can grieve, but I can't stop just because I have these disappointments, because bad things happen, because bad things are going to happen because that's life. And so the cats have really helped me be a better psychiatrist. It's very real with them. It's very life and death, and it helps me be less invested in the outcome because you just can't control it, right.

I love that example. When you first started talking, it makes me think about someone said to me once. I had given a talk somewhere and a woman had accused me of something, and I was so shocked. I thought, my gosh, I'm the furthest person who would ever do something like that. And a friend said to me, she said, you are looking at the one person in the room who is not clapping. And I thought, oh, my God, she's right. And so I'm thinking about your cat, that tragic story. You could look at the cat who got hit by the car, or you could look at how many cats you were able to save. And as humans, we sort of have a tendency to quote unquote, the bad stuff is easier to believe. And so when we make a mindful choice to fake it, to make it, if you will, when you act like life is a blessing, it becomes one. You're able to flip the script. That's such a great analogy. Yes. I love that.

The other thing I try to do is I try to just really make more space inside of me for the sad stuff and the disappointment. And so that becomes just part of the experience. So that all the joy and all the happiness and all the pride and success in helping these cats. Kind of like a raspberry ripple. There's a ripple that goes through it of the other stuff, and that just creates a richness of experience. It's not all happy, happy, happy. Right, and so when the happy things come, they are really happy because there's that contrast, right?

Absolutely. Because if we don't sort of memento Mori, which is knowing death is going to come. And that's really important to remember because otherwise why would we live so hard? We want to live hard. Life is long and we can make that choice. Right, happiness is always going to be a choice. It's not the result of something. It's not going to come to us. It comes from us, right.

I'm laughing because I'm thinking of a patient I worked with years ago, and I used to say. You have a choice.

And she would get so mad and she kept saying, I don't have a choice. Okay. All right.

I said that to one of my girls in jail. I said, is it your choice to be here? No. I said, really? No. You think I chose to be in jail? I said, well, let's back up a little bit. Did you choose to stick a needle in your arm? Did you choose to get in that car, et cetera, et cetera? Well, yeah, I guess if you put it like that. And it wasn't a judgment, it was a chain analysis to help understand the root cause before the consequence. Because your brain doesn't respond to negatives. Right, so if you're sitting there saying, don't overeat, don't overeat, you're going to overeat. But if you're looking at all of the food and saying to yourself, will this be effective? Will this add value to my life? Will this be a good thing to have done? That's what your brain will respond to. But if you tell yourself not to do something, it's like an adolescent. It's like, woohoo, I'm totally doing this.

Absolutely. Abosultely. Yeah. Don't say that swear word. So all you can think of is that swear word.

Yeah, exactly. Don't think about the pink elephant in the room. Well, okay, great. Of course, absolutely. Our brains are incredibly powerful, but we get to decide what that power looks like. And it just is important to understand that because it often feels the other way around. And so your client is saying, I don't have a choice. Well, we can't argue with them, but at the end of the day, we do. We always do. Every single thing we do is a choice whether we choose to get up or make our bed or eat or get dressed or go out. They're all choices or live or die or choose to live differently or choose to get treatment. And I'm not talking about diseases or things that are hardwired, but you have a choice with what to do with them. I'm very spiritual, and I think that God is not in the events. I think that God is in the response to the events, and that is sort of along the same lines. Right, God will show up and whatever view your chief spiritual officer, whether it's a doorknob or the sea or God or Allah or Jesus or whomever, I think that events happen and then the response comes and they're different.

That's where you have the power.

Correct.

Well, I'm going to ask you two questions. So I'm going to ask you what is the worst thing about your work? And what is the best thing about your work?

Oh, my gosh. What is the worst thing about my work? That I cannot clone myself because I would like to be in several places at once. Is that a cop out answer?

Yes.

Okay.

I want a brave answer.

All right. The hardest thing about my work is when I lose someone,

Okay.

And right now, it is the realest I've ever seen it. And people are dying every single day. And I take every death personally. And sometimes it's intentional and sometimes it's an accident. And either way, it hits hard every time. And I look at it as a failure or I look at it as I didn't do enough, or could I have done more? Or I find myself bargaining. If I had only right. And that is the worst part.

That one I buy. That one I buy.

Okay. Because I'm selling it. And it is really tough. It's really tough. And there are days when I feel like Sisyphus, right. I'm rolling the rock up and rolling the fuck up. But the best is probably the other side of that. I have worked with some of these women for years, and I have met them at their absolute most painful spot in jail in an orange uniform, damaged and gutted and just not wanting to live. And then seeing them going to court and fighting for them and saying, this woman doesn't belong in prison, please let's get her into treatment. And the judge saying, let's do that. And getting her into treatment and walking with her through treatment and then transitional home and then finding a job and getting apartment and having a partner and getting her children back and returning to her life and years later running into her in the city somewhere. And this hug of hugs and you think, oh, my gosh, thank you so much for this incredible reminder of why I do what I do. And sometimes when you are having a day where you're wondering that and you do see someone and you realize you've played such an incredible role in their story, that is absolutely the best part. And reminding myself why I chose to stay alive.

Yeah, those are good answers.

Yeah.

It's quite a long time talking. It's such fun talking with you. But I want to transition again to a little different thing now. Is there a new or current project that you're working on that you'd like to share with the listeners?

My fiance says that we're going to have to move to a different house because my soapboxes have taken up our current one. So I tend to have lots of projects going on. But right now it's actually related to mental health. But my parents have opened at the Johns Hopkins University. They have created the Sanford and Susan Greenberg Center to end blindness. And it is years and years in the making. And it's a real culmination of my dad's work and my mom's, oh, my gosh. Both of them. Both of them. I just could not be more proud. And so that's the current project to figure out what that looks like and how do we end blindness. And so what I want to look at now is the trauma that comes with losing your site caretaking. What do the family members have to learn? How do you adjust to that life? It's different if you're born blind or you go blind later. And so that's what I'm looking at with the mental health aspect in tremendous amount of trauma and grief that goes along with vision loss, not just for the person who lost it, but for all those around him. So that's what I'm working on right now, among other things. But that's what I'm trying to cultivate right now.

That sounds like an amazing project.

Thank you. It's informative, but it's heartbreaking. And it's very hard from a personal response to see that and deal with my own trauma from it. For Sure.

Well, that's the raspberry rifle I talked about.

There you go. Thank you rasberry ripple. Absolutely and that's why I feel like it's even more seminal work, because I really need to look at this. No pun intended.

Yeah. It's your experience personally.

And I haven't been able to up until now, I really have not done anything with the blind community. And this is the beginning of me looking at it differently and understanding it from a trauma perspective, and from a mental health perspective.

We always avoid the stuff that's really personal. Right?

Exactly. So time to move through that and sit in the sock.

Yeah. I call it the squirm factor. If there is no squirm factor, it's not really happening.

I love it. Can I borrow that? Absolutely. Love it. That's so true.

So where can people find you if they're looking to find out about all the things that you do?

Well, I have a website, Kathryngreenberg.com. Kathryn with a "y". And I'm on social media. I'm on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. And if you come to Sarasota, I love to have coffee. I'm pretty much everywhere. You'll find me somewhere, but I'm here and I'm available. And if you do need help, please reach out. If I can't help you, I will connect you with someone who can.

Very nice. So just before the end, I always ask my guests for a call to action.

We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. I am asking everyone to please listen more and talk less. I'm asking you to please understand what trauma is, what trauma informed languages, what trauma informed care looks like. And to understand a complete definition of trauma and how it affects everybody. And I would also ask that you judge less on people's behavior and instead look at their intention.

That's just like an opening of the heart which goes with opening of the ears.

Yup, I talk a lot. Believe me, I invented the concept of talking too much but I think even when we're listening we're preparing our response or we're thinking of something else we're going to say. And we miss what somebody else is saying. And what I believe is going to unite society is empathy and the ability to understand where somebody else is coming from.

I'm with you there. Well, thank you so much, Kathryn Greenberg, for coming onto the Compassion podcast. It was really a pleasure talking with you about all these really important things that you're involved with.

The pleasure was all mine. My gratitude is off the chart. Thank you for your time and for your mission and what you're doing and it's been such a privilege. I have been looking forward to it. Enjoy the journey but remember to come back to the present as often as you need to.

Wonderful. That was the amazing Kathryn Greenberg and I'm Dr. Marcia, Sirota, if you like this podcast please review it wherever you listen and you can sign up for my free biweekly wellness newsletter at Marciasirotamd.com where you'll also learn about my online courses and my YouTube series on coping with Covid.