From Vulnerability to Connection: Therapists Sharing Personal Journeys

Telling your personal stories to the world helps people to know, love and trust you!

This week I am interviewing Jennifer Nagel who came to the House of Influence in May with 8 other therapists to work on a book about the reciprocity of therapy.  It was an incredible group of therapists that were willing to dig deep into their stories and how their patients inspired and helped them on their own healing journey.

How do you come up with the idea for a theme for a book?

In a conversation about stigma that is sometimes attached to the idea of “needing” a therapist, Jennifer was talking about the therapist that she knows that talk about how their own patients help them.  Often the therapist is seen as someone who is “above” the need for their own healing, and yet, they are often inspired by their patients.

What kind of stories are featured in this book?

Bonnie the Therapist Becomes More Human

Bonnie Lee offers a humorous, yet reflective glimpse at her own process of becoming a therapist. Along the way, she discovers more than she anticipated, and she must confront her own negative self-talk and imposter syndrome. She discusses how her continued work of “becoming” through tending to body, mind, and spirit is impacted and encouraged as she guides her clients along their own paths of self-discovery. Through becoming more aware of her own struggles, Bonnie learns that she can be enough for her clients just by showing up as an authentic person.

How telling the story of adoption with gratitude led to Tami finding her blood sister

Sometimes miracles happen when you recall with gratitude your own life story. Tami writes of faith and unconditional love when describing her transition from orphan to a cherished member of a compassionate family. After raising her own children, she attained her college degree became a social worker assisting couples in applying to foster and/or adopt children to complete their families. This work brought deep gratitude for the faith, trust, and courage her own family exemplified in adopting her.

Rather than believing the notion of rejection by her birth mother and family, one little boy’s adoption enabled Tami to accept her own adoption as a true gift from God.  When she wrote about this at the retreat, she had mentioned that she was ready to “give up” ever finding her “real” family.  When she returned home, she had a message from 23 and Me that she had been registered with for over 20 years that her real sister, Amy, had just registered with 23 and Me and was given an immediate match with Tami as her 100% blood sister!

Intergenerational Healing

There were three therapists at the retreat that worked with indigenous clients and talked about the trauma that is passed from generation to generation.  Often people are not aware that we carry the trauma of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents (and beyond).

Lyla shines a light on a pattern of intergenerational pain and abandonment within Indigenous communities which is a result of the colonization experienced by generations of students in the Indian Residential School system. She delves into how this       pattern impacts her own personal healing journey.  It is said that it can take as many as 7 generations to heal trauma and many of the indigenous people in their 40’s are still suffering from the trauma of residential schools that their Grandparents experienced.

Madeleine shares her personal story of how she was confronted with her own shame and subsequent self-forgiveness around her use of alcohol when working with Indigenous survivors of multi-generational trauma and neglect. She did not plan to write about this very sensitive topic, but she thought it was important to talk about her own journey of giving up alcohol completely.

A therapist with a brain injury learns to share her journey with patients with brain injuries

When Nancy shared her personal journey of living with and healing a traumatic brain injury with a new client, Jean, who also was grappling with the effects of a traumatic brain injury, Nancy experienced one of the most profound life-defining moments as a therapist and as a human being: the reciprocity of healing between healer and client.

What happens now these therapists have exposed their vulnerability?  Won’t that affect their relationship with their patients?

To the contrary, many people think that when they tell their “secrets”, this will affect their relationship with their patients and clients.  This cannot be further from the truth!  Today, many wellness professionals and entrepreneurs know that their clients buy from people they “know, love and trust” Telling your personal stories to the world helps people to know who you are “as the human” and encourages them to do business with you!

Jennifer Nagel is the Director of Training for the Satir Institute of therapy.   She was so happy with this book that she is going to be holding another retreat in February 2024 for book 2 in the series!

If you are a wellness professional, life coaches or therapist interested in participating in the next book in this series, more info can be found at

https://www.houseofinfluence.mx/retreats/wellness-book.

Here is a YouTube link for a short conversation between Julie and I about Book 1 and the upcoming Book 2 retreat:

https://youtu.be/EjcukEjjAdc

Early Bird rates available until the end of August. For Puerto Vallarta residents that would like to attend the training and book writing for the week, without accommodation, there is a special discount of $1000 USD, bringing the price for coaching, editing, publishing and book launch marketing to only $1997 USD.

This will be a weekly column where we will be inspiring writers and featuring local authors that live in Puerto Vallarta.  We will be giving you an inside look at the purpose of their writing and how they crafted their story to have an impact on their readers.

Julie Ann is the founder of Influence Publishing Inc, corporation from Vancouver, Canada.  She has lived in Puerto Vallarta for 5 years and is the owner of the Mexican Corporation, Casa de Influencia S.A. de C.V. which is a retreat and event center based in Old Town, Puerto Vallarta.  She hosts writing retreats and writing classes at the center. Opportunities to be a contributing author in one of the many Anthology book projects she is publishing can be found at www.casadeinfluencia.com