UNPACKING THE THERAPIST MATRIX WITH STEPHANIE KORPAL, LPC | EP 61

[DAWN GABRIEL]
Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, your host of Faith Fringes podcast, recording live from Castle Rock, Colorado. I am a licensed professional counselor, owner of a counseling center and a sacred space holder for fellow therapists. This podcast is for those who want to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. I create intentional space to explore your own spiritual path, a space that allows doubt, questions and curiosity without the judgment or shame, a place to hear another story and dive deeper into how to have a genuine connection with God.

For my fellow therapist, listening, I will often pull back the curtain of our layered inner world that comes with our profession. I bring an authentic and experienced way to engage your spiritual journey in order to connect you with your deepest values for true renewal and soul care. But really this podcast is for anyone listening who’s desiring a deeper and genuine connection with God. For those of you wanting to engage your spirituality in new ways, Faith Fringes is for you. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello, welcome back to Faith Fringes podcast. This is Dawn Gabriel, your host. Today is episode 61 and I am going to be talking more specifically about the therapist matrix. You’d probably, if you’ve been listening to me for a while, first of all, thank you. I appreciate it. You’ve probably heard me talk about the therapist matrix, but I’ve never really fully gone in and described it. Well today that changes. You are going to hear actually the origin story of when I developed the term with my friend Stephanie. We are going to talk about how it came about and just peel back the curtain and share a little bit more about our lives and how we discovered this theory and how it interacts in our life personally. It’s just a such a fun conversation.

I met Stephanie actually a few years ago. We were actually in a few Zoom meetings for Practice of the Practice. We had ended up being on a few Zoom meetings and for some reason we just connected and we would message back and forth. Then we just started to be friends. You just meet some people sometimes that one stands out in the crowd and for me, that was Stephanie and we just instantly connected and we laughed a lot. Then we just started becoming friends and now we’re actually in a group together, a mastermind group. It’s just been really fun to get to know her and actually it’s really helped me grow my business. It’s helped me my personal life and so I am very excited for you to listen into our conversation today. Full of fun, full of deep thoughts, and you’ll get to hear how we develop the therapist matrix and where it is now and how it started.
[DAWN]
So let me tell you a little bit about Stephanie. Stephanie Korpal is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of Missouri and a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in the state of Illinois. She is the owner of Marble Wellness, a group mental health practice offering therapy services to residents in St. Louis, Missouri, and also has a growing office in Chicago, Illinois. Stephanie and the therapist and her practice work with kids, teens and adults to help set them up on a path of living more fulfilled, calm and happy. Stephanie, welcome to the podcast.
[STEPHANIE KORPAL]
Hi Dawn. How are you? It’s so good to see your face.
[DAWN]
You too. I’m so excited to talk to you. You’re one of my favorite people to connect with.
[STEPHANIE]
Oh, thank you. You too. Honestly, I have had this on my calendar as, I can’t color coordinate my calendar in Simple Practice, but if I could it would be bright pink or rainbow colored because this is just, I’m so excited for this conversation.
[DAWN]
Yes. Actually I’m so excited because you are the one I was talking to on a fun level and we developed, like you said the words therapist matrix and I went crazy with it. So do you remember the conversation? I was trying to recall it.
[STEPHANIE]
I remember where I was, which was the office I was subleasing before the one I’m in now. So that would’ve put us last fall somewhere. I think it was sometime maybe around October. I can’t remember if I said I was thinking about our most recent conversation, which was this whole, we have so many roles to play as therapist owners and it gets complicated really fast. I do a lot of work with moms in my therapy work and I use the Eisenhower Matrix for them a lot. So I was like, oh, that’s what makes sense to me but it’s so funny I’m not getting a little long-winded, but you and I envision the Matrix differently, which I didn’t even know for two or three months after we came up with it together. So it’s so funny we were on the same page and simultaneously reading separate books.
[DAWN]
It was so true. But then you explained your book to me and I started reading your book and it helped on like a deeper level so much more.
[STEPHANIE]
That’s so interesting. So no, I love this conversation so much both for, well, so many reasons, really just because of how much conversations you and I have with so many other practice owners who are still doing therapy work or even those who aren’t doing therapy work. Just you’re still always a therapist.
[DAWN]
You can’t take that hat off.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, we all struggle to just really verbalize the struggle, I think and so being able to have the terminology around it and then be able to extrapolate out of that a few more layers that people can resonate with or then regulate is just so helpful. So it’s a topic that I love you’re talking about and doing something with and starting to be able to push out there more people I hope.
[DAWN]
I think the thing that I love is, for those of you don’t know, Stephanie and I are actually in a small group of four therapists and also group practice owners and entrepreneurs. We started this group because we really wanted people who get it where we’re at. That’s when I started really diving into you, really need people who are on the same page, not only as a therapist but a group practice owner. There’s just some things that go with that. Like you said, use the word layers and that’s the thing or even our friendships that are deeper or even in social situations.

That’s when I first noticed it like years ago when I was actually a new mom and I was going to an event with a bunch of moms and I just felt like I was out of place because I didn’t know, like I’d hear a mom say something and in my head I knew some deeper stuff going on just by being a therapist and I didn’t know if I should go there or not. I always felt like I was awkward socially, even though I love being social. I just didn’t know, like they’re not paying me to say deep things and so do, where do I fit in this social world? So that’s when I started thinking about it but then just being a group practice owner has really put another layer on it. I think when we talked about it, Steph, I think you had a therapist on your team had just left in a not helpful way.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, this is now sounding familiar, yes. So I think, and that’s when it came up in the conversation of as therapists and as practice owners we’re then struggling with where to pause because this is something I need to evaluate as this is a me problem or this is triggering me because of X, Y, and Z experience. Or no, no matter who you were, this would be the emotional response you were having. So the difficulty as someone who thinks like a therapist, but then being a business owner slash a boss, where you have to tell your therapist self to get out of the way but also where your therapist self can be hopeful and maybe even help you level up and how that constant double think or triple, quadruple think gets exhausting or complicated or slows decision-making or responses. I think you’re right with that. Yes, that would’ve been where it came from.
[DAWN]
You’re making it, you’re explaining it so well because we do, we overthink things and we have too many roles and we’re like, which role is this? It’s all of them and it sometimes is overwhelming and makes us freeze or flooded.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes. I know you are very good at pacing for me. Some of these challenges will last forever but also when you’re new to being a group practice owner, so much of it, another layer is it just my first time going through this so I don’t know how to do this. You haven’t sorted through all of the elements of your identity as a practice owner, especially if you’re also the supervisor. So one more layer. I’m your clinical supervisor and I’m your boss and I’m a therapist and I’m a person with my own stuff. How do I sort through all of that in a way that the practice and ownership of it can feel good to me but works for other people and yes, how to balance all of that. So you’re right, that is where the conversation was born out of. Especially since you’ve been doing that work for a while I think you were able to say yes, this is what I’m talking about all the time because I was coming to you guys with where do I go next? This is blowing up in my face.
[DAWN]
We’re like, and now you’re a group practice owner.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes. Then also I know you and I have had the conversation too about the level of self-awareness.
[DAWN]
Say your favorite quote, I quote you often with this. It was in a text. We were just like on a friendly conversation and you said, do you remember?
[STEPHANIE]
Yes. If I was three to 5% less self-aware, my life would be much easier or much happier or much less anxious.
[DAWN]
I laugh so hard, but it’s so true. I have a group of girlfriends, the five of us go out a lot and get deep and talk and there’s one of us, three of us are therapists and two aren’t, but the one is like definitely not. She’s like, I don’t even think about that stuff. You guys are, what are you talking about? Just calm down and don’t be so deep.
[STEPHANIE]
My mom teases me all the time that by the time I pull up to work, whether it’s 8:30, 9:30, she’s like, “You have had a full day by the time you start work given all the things you do in your head before you get to work. You have a slightly less good night of sleep and you review your last month of activity, exercise, nutritional intake, things that are bothering you, potential things coming up that might bother you to figure it out.” Most other people would just be like, didn’t sleep so good.
[DAWN]
Me at Starbucks. I know we’re, let’s add another a couple layers. I’m going to add two more layers to that. I am going to add a spiritual layer of and how is this working with my soul and spirituality values? Then a second layer and then how can I make this a webinar once they figure it out?
[STEPHANIE]
I’m getting capitalized on what I relate to and what I know.
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh.
[STEPHANIE]
It’s so funny because I took off two days two weeks ago to slow down and then at the beginning of last week I took three days to not have any meetings and not see clients and just do business owner work. I kid you not, I think it was either Friday afternoon last week or Saturday morning, I was like, I’m sketching out a burnout webinar.
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh. I know. It’s like I have to have boundaries on myself, but when you slow down you get more creative and it’s hard. That’s why with the soul care retreat, I was like, try to leave your phones off and people freaked out because by the end though we were all talking about work stuff because it was so creative. But I thought it might be helpful to read a couple definitions I looked up of Matrix after I realized, for people who don’t know, my view of the Matrix was actually the movie The Matrix. Are you going to take the red or blue pill? Once you take the blue pill, or I don’t even remember what color it is, but the pill of being a therapist, you can’t go back to seeing the world the way it was.
[STEPHANIE]
So funny.
[DAWN]
You know that you’re in the matrix and what’s real and what isn’t. That was my version of self-awareness. But Stephanie had a much more like clinical view of it. So I started researching what the Matrix, so what I wrote, I got from some definitions like the Matrix, an environment or material in which something develops a surrounding medium or structure, which would be like the therapy world, like as a therapist. That’s how we’re created, we’re trained to think. Then the second one was an organizational structure in which two or more lines of command, responsibility or communication may run through the same individual. That’s I think what we’ve been talking about, with the layered awareness of therapists.
[STEPHANIE]
I actually like those both and I actually like using them simultaneously, because again, talking about those layers, I mean it’s the organizational structure within the environment we grew as professionals. Also to the complicating or additional factor of that is therapy obviously draws a certain personality type. So I get really annoyed when people are like, “Oh, you’re being such a therapist right now.” It’s like I’m being me. That’s what drew me to being a therapist. But you do, you just think in such a different way and then when you’re surrounded by people who operate like that and it’s constantly, “Oh well, how is their interaction with this during formative years or what was their exposure to this in utero or?” Things like that. That’s the environment, but then it’s also the roles we play at any single moment and how you just really can’t tease those out. So it’s the chemical reaction of those identities, but also housed within this microcos at any given time. It’s just really complicated. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s hard.
[DAWN]
I actually, I’m thinking what would be helpful is I’ll share a story of what this looks like in real life. Then I thought maybe you and I could brainstorm what are ways we can combat the negative effects of this and give some tips on what can we do to offset that overwhelm flooding feeling. So I’ll share a story which you know well. My listeners might not know well. I had a really strong therapist who had been with me for a while who was actually in a leadership role step out and leave, which is fine, I’m totally fine with that. But the way in which it happened wasn’t the best. There was a lot of factors that went in there and in the midst of that I started, it was like rapid processing in my head on all these levels because I knew, we were close for four years, so I knew my own triggers, I knew her wounds and her issues.

So I knew when I was triggering her, I knew when she was triggering me, but I also was a business owner and I also had been her supervisor. I had also been like, it was so many layers and it was so hard. Then I also was like, what would Jesus do? I want to be true to my values because that wasn’t my initial feeling, my instant feeling was screaming and cussing and crying. So I didn’t want to act in that of course and so I had to calm down and be like, well where am I feeling God in this all and trusting that he’s in control and not me, but in the midst of it I’m still freaking out? It was all these layers of this is too many lenses and roles To look through. So I thought that might be helpful to use that as. What can we do in those moments? I know what I did, but it’d be, I don’t know, is that helpful to go down that path?
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, and the fun thing is going to be doing therapy with another therapist about this because I mean my brain’s just going straight to how I would talk to a client right now about this, but —
[DAWN]
Try to go more personal because you have all, don’t think, because all the people listening are therapist and group practice owners.
[STEPHANIE]
I do myself. Counselors know themselves. This is really where I feel operating from a lens of personality typing values and also problem-solving strategies is just really helpful. So if, and really just take a breath, because especially as business owner therapists, problem-solving becomes what we activate to almost immediately. Who needs what for me right now? How do I need to triage? So when it’s just ourselves having an emotional reaction, I mean even your story, you’re talking about, what did I need to pick? What emotional response do I go with? Do I go with what Jesus would do? Do I go with the screaming and the shouting? Do I go with my values response? It’s, why do I need to pick any of those right now? So if we buy ourselves 30 seconds or three minutes, what can be reduced from the flooding by simply, and it’s not even pausing, it’s active reduction of the flooding. That’s what I feel is the biggest helpful thing for most of us is just slow down. Just stop.
[DAWN]
I would add in there, validating. Like all those feelings, all those roles are valid. You don’t have to have any of them go away right now. Just don’t make choices in the midst of all the emotion.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes.
[DAWN]
Slow the flooding down.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes and I would even, my first instinct is always to call or text someone like can you believe or help talk me off of a ledge. But what that does is intensify the situation and underscore my initial reactions, which for me, and this is where counselor knows myself, comes in, I go back to my Enneagram type or whatnot, what’s being triggered in me? But if we just take that breath, we can get a lot of our answers. We know these things. But just sitting in it just, it’s going to reduce on its own by letting it have room. It’s like a candle that will burn out if you give it just enough space instead of adding oxygen to the flame.
[DAWN]
Yes, I love that. I think I would say another step, I know you said sometimes we can text people be like, can you believe what happened? But I do think there’s a difference between, hey I need to be validated in my spinning versus hey, actually I need to process with someone who knows this world well. And I feel like that’s what the three of you in my group is. It’s funny, my husband, when I was telling him all this, he was feeling overwhelmed too because he was close to this person. He even said you need to call your therapist friends. Like he knew that. He was like, you got to talk to them because there’s so many roles that I don’t understand and to have a group, a small group of trusted people who can talk you off the ledge.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, but I even think the timing of that reaching out can be factored in in a way that can be harmful or helpful.
[DAWN]
Absolutely. Say more about that
[STEPHANIE]
In harmful, but harmful, I don’t actually mean harmful, I just mean, again, therapists, I’m going to maybe make the therapy world a little angry here, but therapists have very different degrees of self-awareness
[DAWN]
Oh, so true. Preach
[STEPHANIE]
And very different spectrums of healthy functioning. So there are times that, and even healthy therapists have times that they are not functioning as healthy. So depending on where you are in your life or where you are in your self-awareness journey that timing of reaching out could be you underscoring your stress and just getting amped up and things like that or you don’t know what questions you’re asking for or what validation you’re needing that is actually going to be helpful. Or what’s just going to be aiding and abetting the part of you that just feeling nasty and you don’t want to get stuck there. So that reaching out, I agree and knowing what support system you need at what time, but being pretty aware of when that needs to come.

For some people it might be pretty quickly so you don’t spiral really fast and then have to come out of a deeper spiral. Or for some people it’s, I just need to take a beat an hour a day and then reach out. Those answers will always vary and it might depend on the situation and things, but I have a feeling that for most person the knee jerk reaction is to call or text right away. For almost everyone, even just a couple minutes before doing that would end up being more self-serving in a positive way.
[DAWN]
It’s almost like saying, I can’t handle these emotions, I don’t want to feel them. I’m going to have somebody else validate this more shallow part of me, for lack of better word, where really just feel the emotions. Like what does DBT tell us? Ride it out. Ride the wave out. This might be a tidal wave, but write it out until you can see the deeper, until it settles and you can know what’s really going on. I think for me, you might enjoy this, I’ve been really pondering this last few weeks. I’ve been rereading a book that, it’s by Larry Crabb and it’s talking about true spiritual community. It talks about as people who are spiritual and believers, it’s like they’re living with two rooms in their home, like their internal world has a lower floor and an upper floor.

The lower floor he explains in this book is about it, we’ve bought all the furniture, we’ve arranged the furniture, we can rearrange it. We’re really comfortable there. The pillows have our grooves from where we’re sitting in it but yet even when we’re sitting there, there’s still this deeper longing that this is quite not our place. We don’t feel a hundred percent comfortable and that actually the upper room is more likened into our spiritual world, in our spiritual self, like our worthiness in that. And other people might call it the flesh and the spirit. In this book, it’s talking about how we need people to draw us up into that upper room and with like a holy listening. Like, what might God be up to in this moment? What’s the real, like first things first, the deeper meaning here?

Because when you were talking about when someone reaches out, it’s like I need you to rearrange this couch here, or it’s dirty, someone just threw up in here and I need this to be clean and smell good. That’s not really the situation. Like what is the, how can we look from a spiritual lens and what is the bigger purpose outside of ourselves even? It might not have anything to do with me or that person who is leaving my practice. It might be bigger than that. So yes, that’s what I’ve been really pondering is what friends can draw me up into that or I mean, can handle both rooms?
[SOUL CARE RETREAT]
If you’re a therapist and you are feeling burned out or just needing a break and being around other therapists who really understand what you’re going through or if you are feeling like you just need some space to connect with God and get grounded back into what really matters to you and your spirituality, I would like to invite you to come to a Soul Care retreat for therapist, exclusively for therapist. I host Soul Care retreats for therapists and I just love holding sacred space for you to just reconnect with yourself, reconnect with God, and connect with others who are in the same profession and have probably experienced similar things as you have.

So I’m inviting you. My next retreat is September 23rd through the 25th, 2022 in Colorado. We will have about 10 rooms to ourselves in this little beautiful retreat center in the Black Hills Forest. We have three hot tubs. There’s trails around there, we could see the mountains, it’s so peaceful there and I just want to invite you to come. Come and just experience what it’s like to have soul care. We do some guided exercises as a group. We also do guided exercises as individuals. I have a workbook that can help walk you through what do I do with all this downtime because I know even though we are longing for the downtime, sometimes it’s hard to get there. Sometimes we get anxious when we’re there or sometimes we get scared.

So I will have a workbook that helps you walk through that, that gives you exercises to connect with God and figure out what’s really going on inside you. We also have, there’s great food here, we have great conversations and there’s plenty of time to connect with one another and we have a lot of fun. If you’re interested, send me an email, dawn@faithfringes.com. I only have 10 spots available for this retreat. We like to keep it small and intimate. Again, it’s September 23rd, 25th and that will be in Colorado. Reach out to me dawn@faithfringes.com to find out more information today.
[STEPHANIE]
So here’s a question for you that plays into all of this, so in this Matrix that you have, especially where you’re talking about two or more lines of command and I know listeners don’t have the visual that I have, but you have listed out five different elements of someone who is a therapist and also owns a group practice and it’s therapist, boss, entrepreneur, personal and spiritual. My question to you related to this Matrix and the story you told is do you think people can have different values within those that aren’t necessarily competing but my values as a boss might be different than my values as someone operating in my personal life might be different than my values, like a therapist?
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, absolutely
[STEPHANIE]
Okay. That is something I bet not many people have done. I don’t think, I think I could do it quickly, I could do it on the spot right now, I think, the self-awareness piece. Understanding that you do have different values and then recognizing from where your action needs to come in those times of distress and leading with those values, but validating the other values could be where you can decrease that flooding. So in those times of overwhelm, like yes, oh am I’m being flooded right now because of my personal or my spiritual or as a boss, but in my relationship with the situation that is causing the overwhelm, I need to step forward as a boss or I need to step forward as a therapist.

Because I think values-led decision-making clarifies so much for people and grounds them so much, I think it’s one of the single best exercises anybody can do for themselves to lead a just more capable and fulfilling life. Getting really clear on those and just being able to lead from a values based place could help with that, so much that flooding, that period of indecision, that mental chaos, emotional chaos. Because then it also allows you to say, well I’m upset over here and I’m validating that, but I still need to move forward over here. They might not necessarily conflict, but they might compete a little and how I get clarity on how to do that in a way that I feel comfortable with and confident in.
[DAWN]
Absolutely. That’s what I think the overwhelm comes for me at least, is when those intersections feel like they’re at opposite ends of what with one another. But when I have time to sit and process and think and feel like I can work through it pretty fast. Because for me, I go back to, again, my spirituality is more the grounding one for me and it helped me make a decision in that story we were talking about where I had to be a boss and I had to, and there was some hard things I had to say, but I could say them in honesty and not snarky and not undercutting. And I could say I also was very aware of the triggers going on and I didn’t want to manipulate or use those. I wanted to honestly speak into it, but, but then I also knew I had to let some things go and not go there because she was not going to hear it well. I mean it wasn’t, she wasn’t capable of going to certain places.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, yes.
[DAWN]
So it was, it was using all of them, but ultimately what are my values as how I want to show love and kindness, even if that means saying a hard truth and having someone stay committed to what they said they would do. Whether they choose that or not I’m going to lay that out there.
[STEPHANIE]
So for you, where do you find the conflict comes up the most for you as a practice owner? I think for me the, yes, I have the hardest time with therapist and boss.
[DAWN]
Okay, say more about that.
[STEPHANIE]
So if I am in a hard place as a business owner, as a group practice owner, actually not as a business owner because a different business I think, but being a group practice owner, when I am having a tough time with the way things are operating in the practice or I have a situation with an employee, I think sometimes I lean into hard to the lens of a therapist and that prevents me from being a boss/business owner.
[DAWN]
Okay. I see what you’re saying, yes.
[STEPHANIE]
That might stunt my decision-making or slow my timeline to implement things the way a boss could or should and it’s really because it’s, as a therapist, I’m, oh, is is this a problem for me because it’s triggering me? Or is this because of their X, Y, or Z and I need to consider, oh they’re grieving or they’re going through this transition or is it that I didn’t communicate and set up these expectations? So how am I able to sit here and say I need this from you when I never clearly communicated that? And really, it’s like, no, just be a boss. Just sit down and say here’s the expectation. Go for it. So for me that that has been, at least in the year and a half that I’ve been a group practice owner where I find myself struggling the most and getting the most exhausted is those two competing identities.
[DAWN]
Yes, I would say it’s definitely when I have to be a boss, it’s probably the hardest because I think my team and people are so used to me being the therapist and personal, like I’m super personal in my work. Obviously, the name of my center is Authentic Connections, but it those, that gets me tripped up. So when I have to be a boss and make a hard business decision, that’s the hardest for me because it’s not my, I have learned how to do that. I have taken many, I’ve gotten trained in that, but that’s not my initial personality, is more personal and therapist.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes. Well and then here’s the Matrix. I’m hearing myself say that I’m evaluating, when I have to have a boss conversation, I’m evaluating the therapy part of it, but then I am going to a personal part. So I’m thinking about, okay, well why am I struggling with the anger here? Or why am I a little reluctant to just go ahead and say this or this? Oh, why are my emotions coming up? Why am I avoiding this? So, again, it’s not even that I can say, oh it’s me as a therapist. Now it’s me as a person, but I’m still, and here we are, just —
[DAWN]
I don’t think you can separate it because even then, like I know how your mind works stuff. You’re like within two seconds you’ve processed, this is triggering me because I’m conflict avoiding or people-pleaser. You’ve already labeled and it’s all personal, but you’re doing it with the therapist lens enable to get, that’s what I’m saying, that’s the therapist Matrix. It’s like, just calm down. We need to just be normal sometimes. We can be normal, but again, it’s like don’t make decisions while that’s all wrapped up.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes.
[DAWN]
Wait till you’re back in a safe place to make the decision.
[STEPHANIE]
Right.
[DAWN]
I’ve had to put boundaries on myself because when I get worked up, mine is when I wake up at three in the morning with the to-do list, like your mom said. I wake up and I write a to-do list down or write 10 things that I had just dropped into my head at three in the morning. So I have made myself promise to never send emails before 8:00 AM and or text. I just don’t touch my screens until it’s a workday because otherwise it’s either too rushed or it’s too intense for my team and I shouldn’t be working that early anyway. So part of it is just learning when to act and when not to.
[STEPHANIE]
Right. Here’s another question for you. How do you feel the therapist Matrix shows up in your personal life? You had started to reference conversations with friends and or in meeting new people how to show up and participate and or start relationships and you’re like, Oh, do they want to hear me go deep? They’re not paying me for this.
[DAWN]
I’m actually going to throw it back to you because we had this conversation on the retreat. Steph went on the soul care retreat as a beta tester and we had this conversation and it ended up being like 10 of us were talking about it because my theory —
[STEPHANIE]
I love this conversation
[DAWN]
I know we should probably pause and do another podcast on this, but my theory was that mostly my closest friends are therapists because they can go to that level and Steph was like, “No, I have some really deep friends that aren’t therapists.” We were just all checking in with each other about that. That sounds like total snob. I don’t mean it like that, I just meant because of the Matrix, sometimes it’s easier. So I’d like you to answer that question that you asked me.
[STEPHANIE]
Well I think I have, the older I get, I think the luckier I realize I am with friendship.
[DAWN]
Yes, it was a core value of yours and how you grew up and your college experience.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, and part of the conversation we had in Colorado was also me talking about how my family operates. So that really just gave a bent to how I operate in the world is just, those kinds of conversations have been normal to me my entire life. So then going and participating with friends, I never thought it was weird because that’s just how I operated in my family unit. Also because I went to religious, not religious school necessarily, but I went to Catholic schools my whole life, I think being around people, even if they practiced their Catholicism differently than I did, that they grew up pretty similarly, their parents were taking them to church on Sundays. They were exposed to certain things at school. They were hearing the same lectures from their principles before dances.
[DAWN]
What was ours, horizontal desire from vertical too close. I forget what it was. It was hilarious.
[STEPHANIE]
Ours was always just room for Jesus.
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh. That’s hilarious.
[STEPHANIE]
But yes, so in high school I had really good friends and those were friends that I went to school with and also friends that went to other schools. Then in college I had, and those are still my best friends, my family. I mean it’s just how we talk. It’s just what do you believe about this? What is the sociological implication of this whatever and what are the political implications? Have you stopped to consider the psychological ramifications of society participating in that? But where does the individual come in? Is just, so it wasn’t really until I got into my, I think later twenties or mid-twenties and I was struggling with this doesn’t feel as good that I maybe started to awaken into like, oh, not everybody does it like this. Then I’ve been called intense more as I’ve gotten older and I could never understand that because I never understood having a different conversation than what I was having.
[DAWN]
That’s true.
[STEPHANIE]
I disagree. Really it comes down, I think I’m getting way too far in the weeds, but anyway.
[DAWN]
It’s what you grew up with. I would say for me in my twenties and young thirties, because I just realized I’m like 10 to 15 years older than you, but my relationships back then weren’t all therapists and they were deep too because I think like colleges especially, like more of a spiritually-based college, it really fosters community well and it set up to foster that. So I had, and then I worked at colleges. That was like the best job of my life as working in student life. That was like some of the best teamwork I’ve ever experienced because it did. Nobody was a therapist. So it was, that’s what I say, I feel like community is a cornerstone and it’s a value of mine.

It just happens that I am with a lot of therapists now because I’m so passionate about it. But I do think, and I’ve tried to create community, I think the stage of life I’m in has made it hard when you have little kids and it’s been harder to have people commit to the level of intensity and community that I was used to before. So I think I went through like a desert time experiencing that. I was thinking about that later but I think both of us were raised and brought up in community as core to our values.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, yes. I think too, in a way obviously being a therapist allows you to do relationships in a way that I think is probably much more wraparound and deeper, wider and deeper, that people can appreciate to a certain degree. Some people pull away from because it’s “too intense.” I have questions for people about what it’s like to be friends with a therapist.
[DAWN]
So true.
[STEPHANIE]
Especially because I wonder, and this is where I think the type of therapy you practice and also some personality typology comes in, but being in friendship with a therapist, how much do they feel like they help?
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh.
[STEPHANIE]
Because, and I say that because I’ve been recently getting feedback that I am not vulnerable and not open enough. I’ve obviously been ruminating on this for about a month or two now, and I often say just because I’m not talking about it with you doesn’t mean I’m not talking about it with other people. I have this history of good friendships, so I might be a little bit more locked in with somebody who’s known me for 16 years, than someone who is six months new to me.
[DAWN]
True. No, it’s true. I think that’s funny. I was going to go that way. I do feel like therapists do have a harder time being vulnerable. Keep going, keep going.
[STEPHANIE]
Well, or is it that I’m just like, I can just read my notes, obviously not just read my notes, but, or is it, I feel just I know how to acknowledge the emotions and I do know what I need. I know that I need to wake up tomorrow and get outside for a walk, do some gratitude journaling, read a leisure book and just start working and this will pass within 24 hours that I don’t feel I need people or do I struggle with vulnerability. So that’s the place I’ve been stewing in with this therapist Matrix in the back of my head.is it a vulnerability issue or is it just a perception issue that people, of other people and they just happen to be voicing it to me not knowing the impact they’re leaving me?
[DAWN]
Do you want me to give an answer or what I think?
[STEPHANIE]
Oh, for sure.
[DAWN]
Well, no, because I feel like this does totally go into the therapist Matrix because I started noticing I wasn’t being vulnerable with people. Because that, and I’m going to put it up with God too, I don’t know if you’ve heard me say this, but I noticed my relationship with God got really different when I got super clinical and started teaching all these groups and all these coping skills and I was working in a hospital and I realized, well, I know how to get over anxiety. Here’s the five skills you’ll use.

I know that depression, I just need to make sure it’s not more than 24 hours. It’s less than two weeks because then I’m not bipolar and I know I’m in a funk. We’re going to call it to funk. We’re not going to actually call it depression. I know I could probably take this medication too, , you know what I mean? We know everything, pat on the back, but that’s different than felt experience. That’s why I’m so passionate about soul care because it’s felt spiritual experience with God. That’s very different than knowledge, head knowledge. So what I hear you saying is I do think we struggle with vulnerability. I’m saying me, not you. We struggle with vulnerability with the average. I don’t mean average person, even with a therapist, other therapists. We, there’s a layer which we can show what looks like authenticity and looks like vulnerability, but there’s still a layer that people aren’t getting past unless they’ve earned it.

I don’t need that person in my life because I’m stable and I have my friends. What I noticed it actually was when I went through grieving my mom, I lost a lot of friends just by weird circumstance and I had to start over with friends here in this town and I was closed off. That’s when I started noticing my lack of vulnerability because I was always in this role of, “Well, let’s ask Dawn, she’s the therapist. What does she think about this?” I was sick of that role and I needed someone to be so raw with me, but yet I wasn’t willing to go there.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes, just so I can make sure I am operating from the same standpoint as you, how are you picturing, defining, using the word vulnerability?
[DAWN]
That’s actually funny because I just, I think it just went live this week that my episode with Cindy on vulnerability with your team because she wasn’t sure where do you draw that line between vulnerability and authenticity? I said, well there’s layers to that too. I’m not going to share with my team everything, but I do want to model vulnerability with them. So for example, I might share with them when I’m feeling, if I need to show them in models to them, I’m insecure about a client firing me or something and just processing with them how I went through that. I feel like that’s a level of vulnerability and modeling and just being honest with I don’t have the answers. This is bringing some stuff up in me. And how do I like let them in on the process. I think that’s appropriate vulnerability but yet I have closer friends who get my raw, raw stuff. That to me, again, it’s almost like you need like one or two in that level but then there’s some levels of vulnerability you can still do. Then I still think there’s this whole other level of spiritual, when you feel spiritual nudge, like that person needs you to be vulnerable and God’s asking you to step into your weakness to show his strength. That’s a whole nother level.
[STEPHANIE]
Oh that’s going to give me a lot of pondering.
[DAWN]
I know.
[STEPHANIE]
I can have a five-hour conversation with you on that.
[DAWN]
So we won’t go into that now, but we’ll talk about that later.
[STEPHANIE]
Interesting. I mean already again, here I am being a therapist. I’m also thinking about, I’m evaluating my decisions about being vulnerable and where I’m hesitating and where I believe I should push myself and where I actually feel completely fine with not being vulnerable with X, Y, or Z. But also is that because it’s just more convenient or is that because it is appropriate and it’s just again that therapist matrix will wipe you out?
[DAWN]
Yes, and that’s why I say stuff, for you, I would offer you some space, sacred space to enter in if we were doing like a soul care moment, I would have you enter into with God about that and ask him to feel those nudges because I realized I was blocking the Holy Spirit out. I was not sensitive to the Holy Spirit because I was in control and I had a plan and an agenda whether I would call it that but it really was, it was my goals and my myself, it was self-centered, not God-centered. Like that lower and upper room thing. So I’ve been learning and I struggle with it so much, but I’ve been learning what if this is like a divine appointment that I need to be more attuned to and get out of my own way?
[STEPHANIE]
Interesting. Also, being a complete therapist. No, you can’t even completely see me. Obviously, listeners can’t, but I have my hands jammed into my jacket right now. My legs are completely crossed, my whole body is tight.
[DAWN]
I love that you shared that though. So that’s appropriate vulnerability on a podcast.
[STEPHANIE]
Oh gosh. In the, I know you’ve done years of research around the therapist Matrix and you think about this a lot and I think the exhaustion that comes from it is a big piece for therapists period but then therapists who are group practice owners. So what is your tip for doing this authentically but not in a way that you are just drained all the time because you can’t turn it off. The Matrix will always exist. It’s about entering into it in a way that you can ride the waves but also thrive at it, feel abundant, feel secure. So have you come across any of your own theories about that or research that can help guide people in a way to stay in a healthy place for this or an energized place?
[DAWN]
It’s so funny, this is one of my favorite things about you, I just love how you think and how you sum, you’re just so good. I’m like, that’s a perfect way to end this too. I didn’t even, just so the listeners know, I did not plan this. We’re like, let’s just get on and talk about therapist Matrix. We know this will be great. But that is why I created Soul Care. That’s the zoom out overarching soul care. What I mean by that is on a deep level, truly knowing how to connect with your spirituality as the grounding value because all the other stuff compete but if faith is important to someone and I do feel like that’s the answer is stepping in or dropping into that spiritual place to slow down like to the flooding and to really make value-centered choices, but also to connect with God and have the truth and the worthiness be from him in that spiritual place so that you can make a better decision or you can make an informed decision and listening to the nudges of the spiritual world, the divine within you.

I think so much of me growing up was more religion of how to do 1, 2, 3, X, Y, Z and not so much a relationship. Like what am I experiencing? What if God is wanting me to share this with Stephanie right now, and what if she needs it and it has nothing to do with me? That’s vulnerability and love. That’s what we’re called to do as believers, is to show Christ through our relationships and how often I push that out because I’m the expert. That’s a long answer, but the short answer is spirituality and soul care. I feel like connecting more on that is, and it also helps avoid burnout on many levels of the therapist Matrix.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes. Yes, I agree. Just because I know so much about the work you do there and the work you’re growing in there. I agree with the way that you see all of this and that being the antidote too the hard part of it, or the exhausting part of it, or not part of it.
[DAWN]
The second one would be authentic community, like with people who can sit there with you.
[STEPHANIE]
Yes. I think you would even argue that a person who is spiritually based, an authentic community has to be born out of that spiritual likeness, spiritual value being similar enough, et cetera. So even the secondary thing comes from the primary one.
[DAWN]
Yes. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I know we could go on for hours but I am going to have us end. Anything you want to say in closing or thoughts? I know you’re really good at processing and wrapping stuff up, but —
[STEPHANIE]
I just appreciate the opportunity. I love living in this intellectual space so much and no, it’s just I think a very valuable conversation that can do a lot for our sector and is a very worthwhile thing you’re pushing out that I hope so many people can flock to and utilize and just use to stabilize their foundation to keep doing the hard work and being thriving people both professionally and personally.
[DAWN]
Thank you so much Step. I love talking with you all the time.
[STEPHANIE]
Thanks Dawn. So good to see you.
[DAWN]
Thank you for listening today to the Faith Fringes podcast. For those of you wanting to take a deeper dive into your own faith journey, you can grab my free email course, Spiritual Reflections on my website, faithfringes.com. If you’re a therapist and would want to work with me, I offer sacred space holding for you through my consulting as well as my soul care retreats. To find out more, go to my website or email me, dawn@faithfringes.com.

I love hearing from my listeners. Drop me an email and tell me what’s on your mind. You can also connect with me on social media. I’m on Facebook and Instagram at Faith Fringes. As always, if you’re enjoying this podcast, I would love it if you could show it by your reviews. Go to Apple Podcasts and leave your review so that others can find this podcast and get curious about their own spiritual journey. Thanks again for listening.

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This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.