Family dynamics in the office with Laura Reagan

Laura Reagan: 0:00

When a child lives in a chaotic environment, children sense and feel more than they, they don't have their cognition online until they're at the level that adults do. And it starts around 10. So before that, they're walking into any situation and sensing and feeling with their body and with their sensory system. Is this safe? And what do I need to do to be safe in this situation? So when you have a chaotic person who's leading your home, that person who has the most power in the home is unpredictable than your little radar? Sensors are constantly individually? Yeah, yep. And you don't even know it. Because this is the way you've always felt. So you don't know that there might be a calmer way that you could feel? How would you know that? If you've never even experienced it, or when you did, it was so brief. You didn't even take note of it?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 0:54

No, and welcome to unset at work, I'm your host, Katherine Stagg Macy, and I'm an executive coach and team coach, I am curious and interested in conversations that we don't have at work. And one of those is trauma. Did you know that unresolved childhood trauma can affect your work life. That's what we're gonna address on this week's episode, which is really a primer into understanding how trauma shows up at work and what trauma is. So let me tell you about my guest who's going to help guide this conversation. My guest is Laura Reagan LCSW, who is an integrative trauma therapist in the US and owns a group practice, the Baltimore Annapolis Center for Integrative healing. She's also host of not one podcast, but two. The first is therapy chat. The second one is trauma chat. And he's also a founder of the trauma therapist network, which is a website and great resource for more information about trauma and finding resources in Canada and the US to help you if you've had trauma. I came to Laura via her podcast therapy chat I've been listening to it for gosh, must be over well over a year, and she's interviewed some great people I really admire like Maura glatzel, has been a guest on this podcast in series one, and Irene Lyon, who's one of the great teachers in the space of healing trauma in the body. So when it came to finding someone to talk through this idea, this notion that I have one of these unsaid topics, which is trauma at work, Laura was the first name that came to mind, and I'm very grateful that she could take time from her busy schedule to be here with us today. What you're gonna get from this episode, I hope is a better understanding of what trauma is, it's probably a bigger definition than what you think it was certainly my case, I felt really bad things happen to me. So therefore I didn't have trauma. And it turns out that that hasn't been the case. And also a perspective on how it shows up in the workplace, like What's the link between childhood trauma and how you show up in the workplace. So we talk exactly about that, how that affects you in a professional setting, we look at competitive dynamics and alliances in work and how they sort of mirror family dynamics. Look at attachment wounds and understanding the impact of childhood attachment experiences on adult relationships, and also psychological resilience, the the role of support and resilience in overcoming traumatic experiences, whether you're new to the topic of trauma, or have some insight into your own childhood, and how that crafted who you are today, there is something in this episode for you. And this episode is going to touch on difficult topics. And so if you aren't feeling up to hearing about that, then please skip this episode and get take care of yourself. And before we dive in, I have a simple ask. And that is to hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform, that's Apple podcasts or Spotify, wherever you're listening to this, by subscribing, you're going to be the first to know if there are new episodes that are released. And make sure you don't miss a chance to engage in these conversations. And if you never review, it's also a powerful way of showing your support for the show and helping me reach more people like you who could benefit from our content. Your views are going to provide valuable feedback and also inspire others to join our community and participate in these unsaid conversations. So with that out the way, thank you for being in listener, and let's go drop in. Laura, welcome to unset at work, this is a conversation I've been really looking forward to

Laura Reagan: 4:25

me to Katherine, thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:30

And we're going to talk about the difficult topic of trauma in the unset work world where we don't talk about this is such a big topic and I had to find the you as a qualified therapist to talk to us about this. We completely marginalize this conversation. So we're excited. But let's start with a bit about you and your journey to being in America as a psychotherapist that the title you have. Yes,

Laura Reagan: 4:55

that's one of them. I'm really I'm a clinical social worker, but umbrella term would be a therapist or psychotherapist got

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 5:01

it. Lots of varying terms in the UK here as well. What's been the journey? It's like did you wake up going as a teenager? Is this what you wanted to be when you grew up?

Laura Reagan: 5:10

No, I? Well, as a teen, I didn't know the word therapist or counselor. I didn't really know, psychiatry, I didn't really know I grew up in the 1970s. I didn't know what those things were. But I did in high school. I always wanted to figure out what do I want to be, I would do all these aptitude tests that the school gave us. And then the thing would say, you would be good at anything you try. And I'm like, that's a nice compliment, but not helpful at all for helping me narrow down what I want to be. But I went to my school guidance counselor, which would be technically a form of counselor. And I wanted to talk about can you help me figure out what I want to be? I said, I'd like to be the kind of Doctor Who people come to and tell them about their problems, and they help them feel better. And this is a what not to do. The counselor said, oh, a psychiatrist, not with your grades. And by the way, that's a lot more school. You're talking eight years of school after you graduate from high school. And I was like, Oh, no way. I don't want to do that. So I immediately said, Well, that's not it. I still don't know what I want to do. Do I want to be a dentist? Do I want to be a hairstylist like I just Yeah, because I did want to be a therapist, but I didn't know what to call it because I never had any therapy. When I was a child. I just didn't even know it was a thing. So then I had a very winding path. To find my way back to that that was what I wanted to do. I was on my own early I was I left home when I was 17. Close to 18. But I was still 17. I had graduated from high school. And I had the opportunity to go to college, which I was fortunate. But I didn't really have any guidance. So I started college. And I was like, I don't really like this. And my dad was paying for it. And I said, I think I want to stop. And he was like, okay, so I just literally, this is how I had no guidance. I just stopped. I didn't go to the advisor and say how do I drop my class show us stopped going? I was like, Well, I guess I'm like, That's I'm not gonna do that. Maybe I'll go back sometime in the future. Not even thinking about a report card. Yeah. Like, well, I level of maturity at the time. So then, of course, I did receive a report card that said EFS, all apps. And they said, you're on academic probation. And I was like, oh, gosh, well, sounds like college isn't for me. I guess I'm not good at this. I thought I took it as like, Oh, I'm not a good student, which, wow, look back, you didn't go to class you didn't. Exams. That's why you failed. Yeah. So then I was working minimum wage jobs and just struggling to do whatever I had to do to pay my bills and couldn't even think about college, then because I was just making like, at the time, maybe$3.50 an hour. But that was enough to kind of barely scrape by back then. So I eventually found my way to working as a legal assistant, because my sister was an attorney. And she basically said, You can be my secretary, and I'll teach you. And by then I was married and had a baby. So I brought my baby to work. And I was like, whatever. Sure, I'll try it. And I was 24. Now it's like it's better than what I've been doing. But I really liked it. And it was intellectually stimulating. And it was a way of helping people. Eventually, I stopped working with my sister and went to work in a larger law firm. And we were helping a lot of people who had minor to major criminal charges, things where they might have like, up to a year in jail, not prison, I would feel good when we could help someone to get the court to see oh, I had a drug problem. And that's why I was using drugs. And that's why I had these drugs that I got arrested with, and I'm gonna go to rehab and I won't do it again. But then they would do it again. And I started to feel I wish I could find a way to help people. Not like why are they doing why? I know it's not just because they're a bad person, or they're messed up in some way, what is driving them. So that's when I decided I would go back to school and pursue becoming a therapist. So I still, by that time, I had kind of taken classes here and there and I had about half of a bachelor's degree. And in the US, you need a master's degree to be a therapist. So you have to do the four years of undergraduate and then the two years usually, of graduate school to get a master's. So I just very slowly worked my way to that with a family and working full time and everything. But the big turning point For me in my career path was that my husband who had a degree in psychology, and in the US, you can get work with a bachelor's degree in psychology. But it's not the more highly paid professional jobs, there are professional jobs, but it's more of like the entry level positions that you can get. So that's what he had. And he wasn't working in the field, he was working as a furniture store manager. So he said, If you want to actually go into the field, you need to get some kind of experience like a volunteer position or an internship. So I sought out a volunteer position. And I found one at our local YWCA doing sexual assault crisis work, they had a hotline, and the volunteers would staff the hotline. And they had a hospital accompaniment program where we would go to the hospital and meet survivors there when they were going to have an exam forensic exam done. And we would provide advocacy and crisis counseling. So it was a really deeply involved training process, it was a 40 hour training process. And the whole training process focused on how sexual violence and gender based violence are part of the patriarchal system, and also how they are traumatic experiences, and how even people who experienced sexual trauma and childhood, maybe they were five years old, it could be still affecting them when they were 5070. You know, we learned about post traumatic stress disorder, even though we weren't in the position to diagnose anything, we learned how that works. And I was deeply fascinated. And that's where I immediately started focusing all of my interest in school, on violence in the world of children, gender based violence, domestic violence, with a focus on trauma. And then when I went to grad school, even though my school didn't have a trauma track, every paper I wrote every group project, it was always about trauma. And so that's been my passion ever since for 21 years.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 12:16

I think your story is a great story of the circuitous road that we often take to the work that lights us up, and that the patients sometimes required and finding that path, the look back, you can see the steps that took it to the next step. And without that you wouldn't have ended up in that advocacy program. Which led you here. Yeah.

Laura Reagan: 12:35

I know, it seems totally random. And at the same time, it's probably really not coincidental, because I didn't understand then how you mentioned patience. I would say it did take a lot of patience. But it was also passion and drive and almost like I had to. And I think that was because it was coming from something inside myself that I didn't understand then. But I do now.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:00

Doing a bit more to that on that. Sure. Yeah.

Laura Reagan: 13:04

I mean, one of the things when I, even when I went to grad school, when I was in undergrad, and I was focusing on violence in the world of children, I was just like, Oh, it's so terrible that people do these things. And kids don't deserve this. And I want to help people not abuse their kids. And I was focused on one family member who was a child who was living in a home where there was a family violence, the child wasn't being abused. But there was the mother was being abused by the Father. And our family knew this. We tried to intervene, but we couldn't really do anything about it. So my drive at first was to help kids like that kid. But really, I think deeper, it was really more about wanting to save my younger self in some way, even though I didn't identify with being a trauma survivor at all at the time. But when I went to grad school and the human behavior classes, I just remember, because my undergrad was focused on sociology. So it was social problems, group behavior. And then I majored in social work for grad school. And so when we were taking human behavior, I'd already had the beginning psychology classes and child development. But I really was just so deeply fascinated, why do people do what they do? What makes people the way they are? Why, why why and I was so stuck on that question why, which even when I think about it, that's like a child always asking why. And the parents go because it's blah, blah, blah, and the kid goes, but why? No. Cheese. I just explained that. But I think what it really was is I wanted to understand, like why I felt the way I did, but I was so ashamed of the way I felt about myself, that I was kind of disconnected from it. Even though it was driving me that I wanted to understand myself. I also didn't want You know, how much I really didn't love myself, and really thought that something was wrong with me. So it was like a secret I was keeping from myself, I think I felt it very acutely when I was younger. And then I learned how to somewhat how to block that. I was like, thank goodness, now I can get through life and I won't be crying and scared all the time. Because of that, it was like, what was driving me was in my unconscious. What I was curious about, I really thought it was for other people. But it was really for me.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 15:35

i So resonate with that I, as a teenager, I read Jonathan Clemens books. His hero was Alex Delaware, who is a psychologist who would help track serial killers like do this or the profiling part. And it's exactly my, if I look back at it now and go, Well, what was my obsession? Then I wanted to become a psychologist off the back of that. And it's like, Why did I have this burning need to understand why people behaved because I had trauma as a growing up as a child, we can get to what we mean by trauma. And there was my part of my soul going, why, like, why did they behave like that? Why did they do that, to me? Why that was the only rational my awareness could just about cope with. You want to be like Alec the hero in his books, and go save the world, because it's very dramatic. And he always finds the kid helps them find the killer in the world a better place. And you're like, that's a one dimensional story that I want to be part of, because it has a happy ending,

Laura Reagan: 16:31

right? It's like a feeling of having what you didn't get, which was the angels worked out. Okay, and everyone's happy and loves each other. And you're like,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:42

yeah, yeah. And I wasn't this I wasn't broken. I wasn't the bad one. I wasn't the whatever story we've made up, you and I seem to have similar stories. So let's do a little definition of trauma. Because when my therapist said to me a few years ago, you experienced trauma as a kid, I'm like, no one beat me. So I think there is a language around this, can you help us understand the current view on how we hold trauma and that the definition of trauma?

Laura Reagan: 17:07

Yes, I have something written that is a quote, I'll read this, because it captures really what trauma is better than any other definition I've heard. And this comes from Bonnie Badenoch, who wrote the book The heart of trauma. It says, any experience of fear and or pain that doesn't have the support, it needs to be digested and integrated into the flow of our developing brains. Hmm, I'm just sort of digesting that. Yeah, yeah, I'll say it again, just give people another chance. Any experience of fear and or pain that doesn't have the support it needs to be digested and integrated into the flow of our developing brains?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 17:52

I love that. Yeah. That's an amazing definition.

Laura Reagan: 17:55

Yeah. Because it's, you can be a child and have your house burned down, and your whole family gets out. And your house is gone. And it's a terribly awful thing. But let's say the whole community comes around you, and everyone supports you. And they care. And there's so much kindness given. And it doesn't change the fact that yes, your house burned down, you lost your house, and that's terrible. But you also experienced the support that you had the time to go, Yeah, this was terrible. I'm saying you could cry

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 18:24

or be again. Yeah, he wanted to there was space for you have all your emotions as a child in that they were welcomed and not shut down?

Laura Reagan: 18:32

That is it because I've worked with people. I've worked with a couple of people. And I mean, a couple I've probably worked with 1000s of people, but I've worked with maybe like two people who did experience abuse, let's say they were sexually abused by a neighbor, which is a really awful trauma. Yeah, but when it happened, they trusted their parents to help them enough that they were able to tell their parents Yeah, then their parents believed them. They took it seriously. They gave the child a chance to feel what they felt. Think about how they wanted to it to be addressed. You know, the parents didn't just go and confront the neighbor and get in a fight with them. And then the child felt, you know, afraid. So, the parents supportive response, it did not change the fact that yes, the person did experience sexual trauma. But it wasn't a traumatizing experience that affected them their whole lives because they had the support. So maybe it did come up another time where they have their first romantic relationship and they feel they're having some flashbacks or something like that. And then they have a short term kind of trauma reaction, get the support they need and they're able to be resilient to it. You know, when people talk about resilience, it often kind of makes it seem as if some people are more resilient than others. And I don't think that's true I, unless you look at it as some people may be more resilient, but why are they? Because they got what they needed? Yes, when they were younger,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 20:10

there's a lot of shaming around resilience, like you need to work harder and be more resilient. Like it's a point to achieve. I almost

Laura Reagan: 20:17

feel like it can be a spiritual bypass thing. It's like, oh, resilience. So go right around that trauma just be resilient. It's like, well, that'd be great. I mean, that's what we all want to do. Nobody's trying to get stuck in something. But the thing about, and I'll, I mean, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but what you said about the psychologists in the story, and that idea of that, like experience that you're seeking, what happens in trauma is that something happens, let's say an adult, a parent is yelling at their child because they failed a test, and the child is scared, but the parent is telling them crying or something, the one with more power is interrupting the one with less powers, ability to have the reaction that is natural to the situation. Another example would be if you were in a jungle, and you saw Tiger, and you wanted to run away, but you didn't want the tiger to chase you. So you just freeze. So there's an action that needs to happen. And it doesn't get to happen. Because whether in the first example where it's a parent and child that's in service to the relationship, the child has to not show how they really feel so that they can keep the stay in relation parents esteem, approval, or avoid more disapproval or more anger. So for a child who experienced trauma in childhood, like your situation, the stories are like that completion of the action that something horrible happens, unthinkable. But then someone comes along and is able to stop it and make everything okay, that's the completion. Yeah, that most of the time we don't get with trauma, because most experiences that happened during childhood, because of the way, especially Western culture is, we don't let people express their feelings about it. We tell them just to move on. Keep calm and carry on is a great inspiring motto when things are awful. But if you never let yourself feel what you felt about what happened, then where does it go?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:26

Yeah. How do you see? Because you don't want probably being triggered here. And part of the reason having you on here, so what how does it people may be thinking interesting, but not relevant to work? No, it is. Yes, it is.

Laura Reagan: 22:39

Very much.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:40

So how do you see the trauma of being triggered some childhood trauma that I think I've buried away and dealt with? Or isn't an issue anymore for me, because I'm growing as a 50 year old woman, but it gets triggered in the work context? How is that showing up? Like, what are the behaviors that we might be seeing?

Laura Reagan: 22:55

That's a great question. And I think what you said about we've put it away, it's in the past, just like when your therapist said you have trauma, you're like, what? Me? What do you mean, and I was the same way. But I'll give an example from myself, I had one job. Before I was in grad school, I had one job where there were a lot of women in the workplace. And the people who were in positions of power were almost all women. Pretty much there weren't any men there. There was a female empowerment organization, mostly run by women. When somebody in that organization came to me. And I was a program manager, they came to me with a problem. And at first they approached me kindly. But then like, a few days later, they screamed at me. And I was like, I was so taken aback. My logical part was like, this is unprofessional to yell at someone at work to scream at someone, this person seems out of control. But another part of me was like, so scared. Because one, the person that I thought I knew, behaved in a way that was so unexpected, and scary to me. Like my younger parts, just didn't know what to do. And what happened for me is that I really kind of shut down and I felt incapable, I felt something was wrong with me. What can I do to make this person not get angry at me again, but I had no context in my mind for why I would have that reaction. So that's a perfect example of how this can happen.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:34

Your responses are disproportionate to the context.

Laura Reagan: 24:39

Right? Yeah. And you and then I was judging myself for that.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:42

Yes. And also here, like there's a version of going offline like, you're no you don't fully have the normal resources available to you like you feel a bit shut down.

Laura Reagan: 24:53

Absolutely. It's basically like you're having an emotional reaction from your trauma responses. I'm in your brain. And your logical mind just doesn't know how to make sense of it and you can't access your problem solving critical thinking they can. Yeah, yeah. So you can't say, What's this really about?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 25:13

Any personal development of self awareness you've ended up with at the same time. There's a part of equal pros and Penguin. Yeah. And I go frozen Penguin, less so now. But it used to be around potential violent disagreement, like anger, any potential of anger. And it happened once in a work situation. I was facilitating a team coaching situation, it got a bit spicy. I just went online. I didn't say anything. It was like a time warp. I don't know how long that I don't know how long it took. I just, they sort of resolved and came back. And somehow I found I kind of scrambled my way back online. But I went home and the sort of shame of like, the hell happened, and where did I go and why. And no one raised their voices. But I grew up with a very violent, unpredictable father, with violent outbursts. Never at me. But yeah, how did I ever know that as a kid that it wasn't going to be directed at me, that was my first experience of like, oh, here we are.

Laura Reagan: 26:08

And grandkids area, sharing that great material for read example. And what you're describing there, you said that there was no raising voices, but your body sensed is that there was tension and conflict and children's bodies. That's how a child who lives in a chaotic environment, which is really hard to identify yourself, as I grew up in a chaotic environment, I would never have called it that ever. But it was, and I'll say more about that in a second. But when a child lives in a chaotic environment, children sense and feel more than they don't have their cognition online until they're at the level that adults doing, it starts around 10. So before that, they're walking into any situation and sensing and feeling with their body. And with their sensory system. Is this safe? And what do I need to do to be safe in this situation? So when you have a chaotic person who's leading your home, that person who has the most power in the home is unpredictable, then your little radar sensors are constantly individually? Yeah, yep. And you don't even know it. Because this is the way you've always felt. So you don't know that there might be a calmer way that you could feel? How would you know that if you've never even experienced it, or when you did, it was so brief, you didn't even take note of it.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 27:37

And my vision of of that experience, which I'll share in case resonates with listeners is completely abandoned yourself as a kid, because as the younger child, it feels like your life depends on keeping the adults balanced, not kicking out, like whatever it is, you're trying to orchestrate against your 100% attention is over there. So like how I feel, or what I need, or what I want, like I had to wait and close 40 before I understood the language, even to access some of that internally. And that's it, there's a result of trauma.

Laura Reagan: 28:10

Yeah, so much. And I agree it is self abandonment. But I want to say it's not intentional, not conscious. It's normal. Because we all have a drive towards connection. And children are literally dependent upon their parents for survival. For years, I mean, a 10 year old can think, and they can do math, and they can write a story, but they can't go live on their own. They don't know how those things work, they don't have a way to get money. This might sound strange to some people's ears to think that for survival, we had to abandon ourselves. But it is for survival. Even if your parents were never planning on killing you. They never had any intention to hurt you at all. So for me, I did not relate to having any trauma because nobody ever hit me. No one ever called me names. But I had a lot of disruption. There was a lot of change. There were people mostly going not coming and going mostly going unexpectedly. I realized now that I never really knew that I was going to be okay consistently.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 29:26

Yeah, why would you have known and if you think of work just being a place of relationships, why are we surprised if we think about it for half a second that that all the anxiety and the fears of that we had as kids is playing out? Today, even after all the work I've done people who are cold to me in the word context, like a new project sponsor who's like very, very matter of fact doesn't talk emotions. I haven't I can't read them. I have to do a lot of work to like to ground myself and to kind of stay with myself and not go how can i What's going on with you okay, or have I done something wrong? Hang on, can I check in with you and like completely over over index? And that's the old little part of me going, Oh, this doesn't feel safe doesn't feel safe. Yeah, your younger

Laura Reagan: 30:09

parts are saying, I can't feel you, where are you? If I can't feel you, then you could be a threat? Because how would I know? Yes. And again, that's not just you. I think that's the thing we all are children walking around in grown up size bodies, because what wasn't addressed for us and what we weren't helped with when we were kids, because that just wasn't, our parents didn't know. Nobody did it for them, either. It just wasn't a thing. That's why people drink and rage. And because they don't have ways of saying, I feel scared, I'm sad, I'm overwhelmed. So at work, just like everywhere we take ourselves and our relationships and the way we do our relationships, we take them with us everywhere. It's not like you're at home and you do family. And then you go to work, and you're just like this robot, although that's what capitalism would do. Yeah.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 31:06

Yeah, it's really

Laura Reagan: 31:07

just not possible. And I'm not just talking about for those of us who identify as female, it's for everyone. When you have trouble feeling confident at work, when you second guess, your own decisions, you have a lot of inner criticism about your performance, or you expect the best of yourself and everyone else, and you will only accept the best. Those are some examples of ways that people can be at work, when they do have some kind of unresolved trauma in their background. And really one of the things we're talking about too, even though we haven't said it explicitly, is attachment. So attachment wounds are the things that didn't happen, that you needed, traumas are usually the things that's thought of as the things that did happen, that you couldn't deal with. But attachment wounds are Did anyone tell you you're safe? Did anyone notice when you were scared? Did anyone help you feel better? When you were sad? Or when you were crying? Not by saying, don't cry? But by saying I can see something's wrong? What do you need? I'm here. Are you okay? What happened? Just giving you the

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 32:18

validation? Yeah, I've seen and validated for you experience,

Laura Reagan: 32:22

and then teaching you how to express what it is to because, again, children can't make the connection between emotion and thoughts. They don't, that's not how their brains work. Their brains are more just in the emotion and the sensing until the left brain comes more online. But then you have to have both. And if you don't have both sides of the brain talking to each other, you have either an overdeveloped left brain, which is what we see at work a lot where, you know, people who are just like, I do my best, and I expect everyone to do their best. And if you can't do your best, you don't belong here. I don't know why you can't get it. And it's like, no, that's not going to motivate people. I'm sorry. Good luck.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 33:05

When you say attachment wounds, is that the same as attachment styles? Like avoidant attachment?

Laura Reagan: 33:10

Yeah. It's kind of it's like, it's related to the same concept. So attachment styles are, there's sort of an older idea of attachment styles, where it's about like, my attachment style is this based on the way I was parented. But the more current idea about attachment styles is that we have ways that we were attached with all of our primary caregivers, it could be a daycare provider, one parent, your other parent, your older sibling who took care of you a lot. Your grandparents, one grandparent, the other great grandfather was an alcoholic grandmother was sweet and nurturing. So you have a secure attachment relationship with grandmother and insecure with Grandfather because he was scary and you didn't know what to expect. You know, attachment wounds would be where you didn't get what you needed. So it's a little bit more general than identifying specific styles. But from a parts work perspective, if you think about, like you said, the frozen Penguin, this is a part. Yes. So the parts of ourselves I might have a part that securely attached with my dad and a part that's insecurely attached with my dad. I might have a part that's securely attached with my mom and a part that's insecurely attached with.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 34:26

Yes, it's much more nuanced than I'm avoidant attachment style. Yes, attachment style. Got it. And I think other examples that people might resonate with is I'm the first one out any group I'm the first one at the door. I didn't like sticking around and saying goodbyes, I hate it. And I've got friends who like who will be the last one leaving the party or the event or the like, do we have to go let's go for coffee. How

Laura Reagan: 34:50

funny is that to me, okay. Let's see after party. I want to go home yet. We're still having fun

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 34:57

on the person who goes to Catherine go I'm gone. And it shows, we can laugh about the party thing. But it showed up in a client gig where our contract was coming to an end. And we caught it, fortunately. And he'd said to me, I felt that you were done with me. I'm like, No, I wasn't. Yeah, it was coming to an end. And I didn't want to assume that you wanted to continue. And we had a really rich conversation of, and then me realizing that I didn't want to be rejected. Right. And so it's an interesting, it's like a gave off the vibe. I mean, it was it was more than just the vibe. Like I think I genuinely felt that in a relationship that we had gotten well, with. We had no and it just sort of snuck in there. And fortunately, we had such a solid relationship. He called it out, and we could laugh about it. And I could own my side to it. And we could move on. But there are small sneaky things subtle, so

Laura Reagan: 35:48

subtle. And yeah. And again, that's he sensed it. He sensed in his he were pulling away. Maybe he was more like me, doesn't want to let go, Yes. And you were more like, Okay, well, this is ending. So let's go ahead and talk to him. I don't know

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 36:03

if you know, I'm fine. On my own. Thank you. I'm an only child as well. So that kind of compounds that I get by.

Laura Reagan: 36:09

But yeah, that's very true. And one thing that I think is helpful for people to conceptualize about the way that this shows up at work is if you think about, who do you get along with? Well, in your office, if you work in a, like a corporate environment, or some kind of group environment? Who do you get along well with? Who feels good to you to be around who feels bad to you to be around? And how do people respond to you if especially if you're in a position of leadership, I can tell you probably every job I've ever had, who's like my dad, who's like my mom, who's like my sister, because those are the primary players in my story. My sister was kind of like the parental FIDE child who was a stand in parent for me. And then my mom left, and my dad was there. But you know, had his own ways of, he was very quiet. So kind of like what you were saying where he was hard to read. And if I was emoting, and he was just being quiet, I took it that he didn't care. He probably was shutting down because he didn't know what to do. Yeah, he could do. But as a kid, I needed him to attend to me and be nurturing, but he didn't know what to do. So, you know, he did what he did. And if I have a supervisor, a male supervisor, who's quiet and doesn't engage with me, at all, on an emotional level, I'm not going to feel comfortable. Yeah, feel safe. Right? Right. And if I have a female supervisor who's dismissive towards me, or she's not reliable, I can't count on her to show up consistently. Because my mom left, that's gonna trigger something for me.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 37:53

The buses I've had the most problem with have all been female, just came to me now. I'm like, That's really interesting.

Laura Reagan: 37:59

Yeah, so one of the dynamics in a family where there's a person who's kind of overusing their power, is that there's another person who's under using their power, because they're intimidated. They're being potentially like, victimized. And that person might be the softer one, the safer one, but they're not really protecting from the one who's overusing their power, it can't. So that can be more of a feeling of betrayal. Because it's like, well, what do we expect from this one, that they always do what they do, but this one's supposed to be safe, but still not doing the need? Yes. Not pretending? Yeah, that was my and it's not their fault. If they can't No, see how that would show that work?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 38:46

Yeah, I don't think we talked about in the protocol things like if you understand some of the roles that people play like scapegoat and other roles, black sheep, maybe it's the same sort of language, how you end up sort of unconsciously, unconsciously replaying those family dynamics, thinking people are just being difficult, but actually, it's your own patterns that are playing out in the workplace.

Laura Reagan: 39:09

Right. So it's like, if you have a staff meeting, and just a couple simple examples, you might feel in competition with one person at that table. There's one person at the table that you see as your competition. So in some way, you're relating to them like a sibling, or a peer that you have an experience with from childhood, or maybe even your own parent like competition for that parents attention. There might be another person there who you think gets an undue amount of attention. That would be the golden child. There might be someone else who you think is doing a bad job and you blame them for everything. You're making them the scapegoat. You see yourself of course, as like on top, you're the one who's doing everything the way it should be. But why doesn't everyone else do things the way that it should be? And then they're all reacting to their family dynamics to it. So they might see you as the annoying little sibling who's always complaining. And you might be trying to ally yourself with another co worker and talk about the third one you're triangulating. Because that's, you don't feel empowered enough to say, I don't like this, but you're like, I don't like this to the other person. And they're like, yeah, they're terrible. You know? Why people love reality shows because you can see these dynamics play out on every reality show.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 40:27

It's more transparent, right? I think what I'm learning in this conversation is like, it's all there. You don't have to watch the reality show. You just have to pay attention at work, because it's in the meeting that you're in. You're playing a part

Laura Reagan: 40:37

Exactly. And you're not playing a part. It's not just them

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 40:40

that you know what the camera does, looking at the action you are in the drama unfolding. It makes me laugh so much. Now, this idea of, oh, I didn't bring personal stuff to work. Oh, yeah. I'm like, Well, how's it working out for you?

Laura Reagan: 40:53

You don't think you do?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 40:57

If it's a pervasive belief, it's really hard to even chip away like it's so firmly held as a protection mechanism. Or at least I think, this idea of what is professional and I can't be angry, because that's not professional, and therefore I can't access my emotions. And it's a mess. It's surprising to get out here alive. Yeah.

Laura Reagan: 41:14

Oh, I know. And one thing for those of us who were raised as female, it's very common to be told to be nice. And take turns where boys might not be oh, well, you know, they're boys. Yeah. Boys will be in matches the toy. And they're like, oh, wow, you wanted that toy. But with for the girl? It's like, no, what are you doing? Share the toy? Don't pin mean little girl. So we learn to really suppress our anger. Yeah. So when you said like being angry at work is not professional? Well, I used to think that exact words, you can't be angry at work. But I realized that I never wanted to be angry. I never wanted to show anger, if I never identified with or connected to feeling angry, didn't trust your anger, probably. Yeah, I was afraid to access my anger, because it was probably so big from all of the things that I was resentful about. But I felt so unsafe to express it when I was younger, that it was like there. And probably other people could feel it from me, actually saw a video a home video of myself when I was about 17. Same time I'd left home, my sister sent me this video and I watched I was like, oh, I want to see this. And all of our family were there. And I was horrified at my own behavior. I was so mean, I was being mean to everyone. I was making these nasty little sarcastic cutting remarks to everyone. And oh, my God, that's not me. Sweet. Yeah. I wouldn't be like, Why was I acting like that? What was wrong with me? And no one was reacting at all. So obviously, they were used to it. Yeah. But it tells you that I had a lot of feelings that weren't being expressed. And that was how it was coming out and slamming passive aggressive digs. That was another way

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 43:06

to do people to take away. So if people have been if we've opened the door, which I hope we have in curiosity of like, maybe there's some stuff I need to work on? Do we just send people to go look for a trauma therapist or any therapist that what would you say?

Laura Reagan: 43:22

Well, yeah, I would say start off with just slowing things down and checking in with yourself and noticing. Is there someone who when I'm around them at work, my stomach's upset, or some I just rather avoid? Do they remind me of anyone? What does this feel like? Does it seem familiar? Does it seem like do I feel the way I felt when I was younger? One thing is that so much of our younger selves are kind of leading the way most of the time when we're not aware, we don't know that there could be a more adult way of relating that we're not accessing. Because we've always been like this. And we just Yeah, I can remember very clearly, probably being 35 or 40, and saying I feel the same inside as I did when I was a kid well, because that's kind of running thing.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 44:16

That's often seen as a sort of a plaudit. Do you like Yeah, isn't that amazing? I just want a business, like the therapists angles, like maybe you should think about that.

Laura Reagan: 44:25

Yeah, it's like, Are there any other parts in there that you can also access? Yeah, just noticing what comes up for you. And you can even just on a piece of paper, like write down your family members, who are the important people and how did it feel in interacting with them? Or how do you feel about them now? What do you like and dislike about each one? And then think about your co workers. Does anybody have the same kinds of behavior patterns? And if so, maybe that's what's triggering you. They're not a bad person, but when they behave the same way that siblings did, that reminds you unconscious flee of being a kid and you go back into that younger self and react the same way you did as a kid who didn't really have power versus the adult that you are now who does have power?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 45:11

Because that's part of the healing journey here as well. Had you reclaim your power in this because you have power? Do you reclaim that?

Laura Reagan: 45:18

Yeah, I would say if this is resonating for people who are listening, I would start with looking into maybe Dr. Richard Schwartz's book, no bad parts, that teaches just in a very, down to earth way, how to notice the different parts of yourself, and sort of welcome them all to be here instead of some parts have to be hidden and pushed back. And other parts have to be out front all the time. And I would say to that, looking for a therapist, if you want to work on trauma, definitely identifying a trauma therapist is the best way to start. I do have a directory for searching.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 46:02

It's us only white,

Laura Reagan: 46:04

US and Canada only right now. But I do want to open it up to UK next. And that is a plan. So

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 46:11

okay, so depending on when you're listening to this podcast, if you're in the future, definitely in the UK, still check it out. Okay, great. Yeah.

Laura Reagan: 46:17

And the grand trauma therapist network, which is where you'll find that is also a website that has a lot of resources for learning about how you might be affected by trauma. And there's also a podcast that I created. That is their called trauma chat. It's my little podcast that just helps people learn about trauma. It's not my big podcast therapy chat, which is much longer. Running

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 46:42

that in a minute minutes how I found you. I've been listening to your therapy chat podcast for a few years ago. So I originally that's how I came to you. And I didn't know you had a trauma chat. That's great. I'm gonna look that up.

Laura Reagan: 46:53

I made that for general public just to be able to kind of in five to 20 minute episodes, understand how they might be impacted on by trauma, and it's on Apple podcasts, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts. But you can also find it on the trauma

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 47:09

chat. We'll put it in the show notes as well. That sounds like a really solid place to start. If you're curious in this journey. That's great.

Laura Reagan: 47:16

Yeah, and wherever you are, don't be hard on yourself. You're in the right place. Just keep going.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 47:21

Yeah, the kindness and compassion, like you're not broken. This is this is a journey is an invitation of kindness in the healing journey as well. I love that. It's been a delight, Laura. Next time, I'm hoping to see Kermit in the back. Count on it. We can. We had a joke about COVID. Before we hit record, it's going to be a mandatory requirement for my future guests. Almost per year when anyone from Sesame Street is welcome for an inclusive space. But Sesame Street please thank you.

Laura Reagan: 47:55

For your time with you, Catherine, thank you so much. And obviously I didn't even want to stop. There's just so much to say so hope maybe I can come back sometime in the future. That will be fantastic.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 48:08

I'm so grateful for Laura to come on the show and share her experiences. As I said, I've been a regular listener of her podcast therapy chat, but I haven't heard of the other one trauma chat. I will be checking that out as I continue to learn about trauma and how that impacts me and my clients. And I love what Laurie said about we our children walking around and grown up size bodies. Because what wasn't addressed for us what we weren't helped with when we were kids remains with us, even if we don't know it about their loss, but even if we don't know it, if you've been moved by this episode and feel that you need some more support. Please check out the resources I've included in the show notes. There is no loads of great support out there if you feel you need us. Until next week. Take care of yourself. Zooming woman, signing off