A Brave and Vulnerable Conversation (Part II)
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Jordan Leigh on the podcast Something Worth Saying. In part two of our conversation we talk more life as an Enneagram Two and Brainspotting Therapy.
Listen to the podcast or scroll down for the transcript.
Missed part one? Go here.
Transcript
Jordan: Welcome to “Something Worth Saying”. I am your host and conversation guide, Jordan Lee. Join me for authentic and uncensored conversations from the yoga mat about joy, wellness, and relationships.
Welcome back, everybody. We have a wonderful part two of our conversation with Melinda Olsen, who is a Type Two. I'm really excited to have her back on the show because we're going to dive a little bit deeper into what this Type Two-ness is for her in her business, in her Enneagram coaching training, that she is undertaking right now. She is in a shit storm of facing all of those beautiful, difficult things. I'm very grateful that she's brave enough to be vulnerable and talk about it. In any of these conversations with any of these numbers that we talk about there's always a bit of ourselves in every number, so I'm sure she's going to say things that are going to be hard for all of us to hear.
Welcome to the show, Melinda. How are you feeling with this Enneagram coaching training? How's it going?
A Journey Towards Growth
Melinda: Oh, man. I mean, some days I feel like I'm a masochist.
It's really funny because I feel like one of my pet peeves when I hear people talking about or using the Enneagram and I think people use it at so many different levels, so this isn't meant as a judgment, but I do find that one of my pet peeves is when we find our “personality Type” and then leave it at that.
And because I'm apparently a masochist, I decided to go deeper and the part of the training that I'm receiving is not just getting to know my personality and my Two-ness and the ways that I'm in these survival patterns, but it's trying to let them go. Yeah, it's rough, Jordan.
It's rough.
Jordan: I can imagine that maybe it is being a working professional you kind of give yourself this extra pat on the back sometimes of, I'm a grown up. I'm a working professional. I've got myself together, right? There's a certain amount of self-awareness that one might say that they have or falsely think that they have. Then to have these layers of yourself peel away, including some of the things that you had created as a working professional, it stings.
I have to admit I have two professions and one keeps me humble. I am a professional photographer, I am a yoga instructor, and a healer and I think that both is my gift, that I get to have both of these things. I get to experience being a working professional, but then understand that I understand nothing and to walk through different journeys with different people and friends and things like that.
I'm that friend that people seem to be able to get very real with. And I love that. I love friends that I can get very real with because we all have that best friend, right? You have nice acquaintance friends that maybe you don't bitch about things too, but then you've got that one friend and you're like, “oh my god, I've had a day. I need to call ‘blank’.” You know what I'm saying? And you're deconstructing some of these things and having these moments.
You're a beautiful, vital working professional going through this hard stuff and you're doing it voluntarily. I think you're brave. I think you're awesome.
Melinda: Thank you. It's nice to hear.
I actually just came off of a retreat, Retreat A CP Enneagram Academy, in October and literally it was like five really painful days. Like it was great. It was wonderful, transformative, incredibly painful. It's like five days of your own personal trauma work where you further realize how little, you know. So fun. Then immediately after that, signed up for my own. So, I was just doing the coaching track and now I'm on the personal mastery track as well. I signed up for that after Retreat A. So, this is furthering my theory that I am a masochist. I for pay them to tear me down a little.
I guess it is brave. Anybody doing this work.
Jordan: Yeah. I mean, it's an ego death. That's really what it is. And in yoga terms, that's beautiful. Stripping down those layers of personality, and the Enneagram is talking about your personality. It really is throttling these parts of you. Then there's the soul version of Melinda and you're getting to know her. What does the soul version of Melinda want? I always kind of joke because my personal pattern has been, this sounds really weird, I've had to break up with a lot of people. I've had to do a lot of breaking through things that made sense and just do the thing that doesn't make sense to those around you. But I knew that my heart and soul were like this is what you need to be doing. It doesn't make sense but it's what you need. I think you're doing that. You're doing things that don't make sense to your logical brain. Like, why am I putting myself through this? That doesn't matter. Your soul's like, oh yeah, you need this.
Melinda: I totally agree. Actually, I was doing some reflecting and I think the thing that maybe distracts all of us, or maybe all of us, it is for me, is this idea of the me beyond my Two.
There's a book I'm reading, of course, the title escapes me right now, but the author talks about essence. It's an Enneagram book and how each of our personalities is an escape, a defense away from true essence, and what every personality or what every person is kind of their essence that they're born into and then how they slowly lose it.
So, I feel like I want to know even a little bit of what that is for me. That's the thing that keeps me motivated lately at least, wanting to know who that is in all aspects of my life, business included.
Jordan: I think it's important to talk about, *clears throat* I'm sorry guys. I'm powering through a cold, and I just did not want to not have this conversation today.
It is what it is.
Melinda: I was like, Jordan, I'm not going to yell at you in my pride. I'm going to let you do what you need to do.
Jordan: And I'm over here like, I’m going to have a conversation today and like snurrfle through this. That's my word, snurrfle. The other thing is I told her on the phone I have two fancy mid-century modern chairs that I bought. I was so excited. They look so pretty in my office. I go to sit down on them and they're making all kinds of squeaky sounds. So where am I? I'm on the floor on a pillow, cross legged, trying not to sneeze into the microphone and that's what my life is today. And I don't have a problem sharing that with everybody because that is what it is. I always think that being unabashedly honest with people allows them to not feel so shitty if their life isn't looking very glamorous today either. That's what it should be. I think previous generations didn’t understand all the sharing that happens on social media, I think our generation, us elder millennials, we understand why we're sharing. We're not just sharing because we want everyone to see the veal parmesan that we had or whatever. It's because we understand that sharing this shit is important. It helps other people make sense of their own life. And for those of us that are brave enough to go there, to pay attention to these things, and then to call it out and tell other people, yeah, hey, this is my life. It allows for bravery all around. Authenticity all around.
There's a short version of this that I'd like to kind of just say is breaking down your personality and not throwing it away because it does serve you, but knowing how it can serve the soul. Like the personality serving the soul's purpose, that's the sweet spot. That's where you want to be. But you have to break down the personality first to then be able to say, okay, I'm understanding my soul's purpose a little more. But I do understand the personality of this person that I inhabited this time around the marble. So, this is how I can contribute. This is the most natural way for me to fulfill the soul's purpose. You're just learning more of what that looks like for you. I'm just going to say congratulations. That’s the best thing I can say. Congratulations.
But you're deconstructing the story. You're losing the story. The story doesn't fucking matter anymore. It doesn't matter how you were raised, the trauma you feel. I mean, it matters, but it doesn't matter once you circumvent that you're above it and you're like, oh, yeah, these things happen to me. Okay. Sure. I'm not going to deny that, but I can pick what happens next. I can pick my path. I can pick the way I react to things. I can reconstruct my life in any way that I want. If I was always the person that was over giving, I don't have to be that person anymore. I can be the person that says, I don't want to do that, so I'm not going to, or I'm going to be the person that says I only act and I only give when I feel a tug from my soul, only then. It's like the angels greet you, and you have your guides and your angels and your helpers behind you. The thing that you do is more potent than ever. It has a delicious richness to it that you couldn't have manufactured yourself. You just can't.
Melinda: It's not possible. I think part of our journey, and part of my journey as a Two, is even getting to know what that richness is and what that tug feels like. Because Twos are so, and I have classically been, so numb to my own internal experience or not aware of it. As I'm getting to know the personality and becoming more aware of why I do what I do, what I do, and how I do it and going more and more internal, it's getting to know what that tug and what that richness actually is. Because if you had said that to me a year and a half ago, I don't think I would have even conceptually been able to understand what that meant.
The journey, especially for us outward oriented Types, there's also just getting to know what our true soul or essence is really. What that even feels like, what the smallest tug in that direction even is, because I feel like it's just been so dead and cut off. With good reason, you know, as we're trying to survive,
Jordan: Yeah, these are defense mechanisms. Always say to yourself, hey, I did it for a reason. It was what I was taught, or it was what I just had to do to survive.
Melinda: And everybody had to do it.
Jordan: And think of it now, you're at the point where you don't need those defense mechanisms anymore.
You're safe.
Melinda: I think convincing my internals that that's true is still a process. I don't know how we can track me on the journey or what that even looks like. But I think even just being in the process of telling my internals and really, truly believing that that's the case I think is kind of a daily practice. And it's hard.
Jordan: It really is. And I think there's a big trauma, like a big thing that we need to get over in our life. And then there's a million little ones. And if you know what the big one is, this is the one you're going to be working on. This is the big kahuna, your whole life. I'm still figuring out exactly what mine is, but a lot of it has to do with family issues. You know what I mean? Those deep, deep tugs. Though I love my father very much, I think that he and I having a difficult relationship for most of my life has really helped shape me in so many ways. But in so many ways I'm so much like him. It's very lovely to see and to kind of go, okay, how do I acknowledge and heal and forgive all parties involved, including myself.
Melinda: I'm really resonating with what you're saying. I think a lot of our big traumas have to do with our families, including mine.
There are so many layers that we need to address when we're especially on an Enneagram journey. But whatever journey we choose to be on, if it's a journey of growth, I think that's psychological work. That spiritual work is really important and necessary.
Jordan: And you're just peeling back different layers, understanding different, points to all of this.
Melinda: Yeah, grieving, feeling the feelings, getting the needs met. Trying to keep moving forward in awareness without cutting off or bypassing really hard work. I think some of the hardest work is the grief and the sadness work that we have to do when we hit a new layer and realize, oh, man, that happened. Okay. Well, here we are. Here I am. Let's look around a little. Okay. What are my feelings telling me? What do I need right now? How can I grow?
Masochism at its best. Here we are.
Jordan: I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that anybody that chose to manifest and reincarnate on earth right now is a bit of a masochist. I feel like we're taking on massive amounts of familial and ancestral trauma, but I really do feel that as we break these patterns, and that's the thing. That's why I say there's a big thing and then there's a million little things. You're breaking a million little patterns, and your ancestors are cheering you on and cheering you on. I'm not just going to do this because it's easy. I'm going to do the hard thing. That in and of itself is a reason for your ancestors to stand up and slow clap for you because you're healing them too. You’re healing backwards and forwards.
I think you need to first become an observer of your family and the patterns that you've seen. Then you can actively choose to not do that, even though it feels like the most natural thing to do.
I'll just go out on a limb and share mine. Mine is anger. Twos in their negative point or at their low point, their disintegration point go to Eights and Eights can get really angry. It doesn't always express the same for every Two. But for me personally, I found that I didn't allow myself to actually get sad. I wanted to get sad, I would get angry and so many people in my life didn't see the vulnerable Jordan that was actually just really, really sad. They saw the Jordan that raged and I'm not proud of that, but that was the pattern that I saw from other people who just as a kid, you look up to and you naturally say, okay, I'm learning how to be a human right now. I should watch these people. Learning how to, in my case, actually get sad and say, oh, the emotion that I'm actually feeling right now is sadness. I don't need to rage right now. I need to cry right now because something really is sad, and I get to cry about it. That was my personal breakthrough. That was one of mine and it was rough. It was really rough because I didn't understand that I wasn't angry. I'm like, no, I'm angry. I'm feeling angry and to feel through that and go, actually, you're super sad. That was weird for me. So that's just a version of me breaking through and breaking down.
Melinda: That actually reminds me of the arrow work that we're supposed to do as Twos. The really transformational work happens when we go from Two and we work into our Four. We work into our sadness and knowing our internals and all the shades of the feelings. And then from knowing who we are and what we are inside, then utilizing our Eight. Setting boundaries and doing all that healthy Eight work. That rounds us out instead of going straight to Eight, which is exhausting,
Jordan: Because then you're just always raging.
Melinda: It's so exhausting and intense. It's so energy consuming.
It's the same. I think I'm just in a very Four space right now.
Enneagram Arrow Work
Jordan: I'm going to talk about the arrow work for just a moment because I'm not familiar with it. For anyone listening, obviously, we're using a certain number and a certain pathway because Melinda is a Type Two. I'm also a Type Two. So, I'm very much identifying with this. But the point of the arrow is that, like you said, you don't go straight from Two to Eight. That doesn't actually serve you. You have to take a different route and go to your Four first and then use that to get to your Eight, which again, Eight is part of the process. It just shouldn't be the very next step right from your Two right out the gate. Because then you're intense, then you're blowing your load, if you will, on all of this intensity. That's not going anywhere. It's not productive. So, then all you see is this intensity, intensity, intensity, and everyone's like, what is going on? Which makes sense, because that's why Twos blow the lid off the can, if you will, right? Like, I did everything for everybody. And now all of a sudden, I have no patience left. Now I'm very upset. And no one understands how the sweet Two could even get there. Because I ran. I didn't walk or jog. I've ran to my Eight. That's where I'm at right now. So, understanding your number, your points of contact, but where you should be going first from your number. That's something that I didn't even think about.
That's a good point to kind of share with people listening who are still getting into Enneagrams and understanding what all of this means.
Melinda: Yeah. Uranio talks about how arrow work is actually incredibly difficult, but incredibly transformational. If you want little growth steps, stretch your wings, lean into one or both of your wings. If you want some pretty hardcore, transformational work, lean into your arrows. It's pretty hardcore amazing and also very difficult.
Jordan: When I teach a yoga class and I tell people you can take this pose and you can go here if you want to feel a nice stretch and you just really want something therapeutic right now. You want to continue to do the work, but you need to take it easy today. Do this. If you want to push and find your body's edge and go, “Oh, my god”, then do this. You need to know what both of those things are, you need to know and be honest with yourself about what you're capable of that day because you might want to do some transformational work, but you might need to sit in child's pose for a while.
Melinda: That's so deep. Honestly, I feel like you're preaching to me right now. That's really good. I'm like, oh man. Because I'm always trying to stretch towards my edge. I think it's that sexual instinct. I'm always trying to go for it, but some days I do need to just sit in child's pose.
Jordan: There's a beautiful studio that I started to go back to. I've been teaching in studios for years, and I'm finally not teaching in a studio anywhere. I'm teaching at a 55 and over community and I've kind of built a following there and it's really beautiful, but it's a different feel than a studio.
So, I was craving that, and I found a studio. Going there is a treat for my body. When I get there for the most part, not every single time, but most of the time on the days where I'm like, yes, I'm going to get up. I'm going to drive the 40 minutes to get to the studio because it's not close. It's not convenient. It's a choice to go there. Those days my body actually wants to be pushed and my body gets greedy for the sweat and greedy for that kind of pushing primal feeling. There's something really beautiful about that for me that I think sometimes I take it too easy on myself. The same can be said about your growth patterns and what you're ready for. For anyone listening, know your proclivity to relax or to push. If your tendency is to push, then you should probably be doing more relaxing. And vice versa. What we naturally go to is what we should probably shy away from for a while. It's really funny to understand that.
The more you learn yourself, the more you learn your body, the more you learn what's going to serve you, then these things become easier. And you know how hard to push because again there's so much help. There's so much grace.
I don't know how else to say this. This is going to sound a little strange. When my body wants to work out and to sweat, I kind of get slightly turned on, like on my mat, if that makes sense. I'm leaning into my sacral chakra and I'm actually getting pleasure from the strain. It doesn't feel like strain even.
You're struggling a little bit, not to say that this might sexually turn you on. Hey, maybe it could, no judgment if it does, but there's something that you're going to gain from finding your edge and knowing when to back away from your edge. But it's so personalized.
For me, again, I think my gift in life is to show people and share with people how to feel through their body. Know what's appropriate when. I know that my body likes to sweat and be pushed because my body literally tingles, and it has like a buzz kind of a feeling. But I don't lean on that all the time. So sometimes I am in child's pose the whole time.
So again, you're learning how to do this for yourself. In in your own way, but you're doing this to, I mean, obviously get a certification at the end of the day, and that helps you to be able to help other people. But you are so leaning into your Four. I have to tell you this. You're so leaning into your Four because, you are so aware of yourself, and you know why you're doing something. The big thing that always stuck out to me is if you're in your Four, you're not just going to work for any company. You're not just going to do any work. You're going to do work that means something to you. You are doing these hard things, but you're doing it because you know that you would not be in integrity with your clients unless you put yourself through exactly what you're hoping to do for them. That's massive transformation, not just masochistic difficulty for the sake of it. I mean, it's funny to say it, but that's not really what it is.
Melinda: No, of course not.
Jordan: I want to ask you a question about this book because you did have a reaction to it, and I thought that was pretty funny. What are your thoughts on “The Giving Tree” as a book? Especially as a book that we're reading to all our children.
Thoughts on “The Giving Tree”
Melinda: Oh, my god. I hate that book so much.
Jordan: And tell me why.
Melinda: I used to love that book, which is ironic. I used to think it was the best book ever and when I was younger, in my 20s, when I thought about having children, I was like, I'm going to read them that book. It's so beautiful.
Now I'm like, that book is terrible. I hate it because at the end of the day this tree is like a stump in the ground after having given and given and given and given and given and given and given to the little boy who is now an older man sitting on the stump of this dead tree. And finally, the tree is happy and finds her happiness and just like, so much sacrifice. Then finally, she just is a stump of a person. I don't know if the tree is a she. I guess I just gave it…
Jordan: You gave it a personality of a Two.
Melinda: I did.
Actually, what's really funny is three months ago I heard my husband reading this book to my son Caleb in the other room. And I'm like, no, slow run into the bedroom. I was like, why is this here? I think it's just kind of like that's the story that every, I mean, maybe not every Two personality, but I feel like that's the stereotypical Two story. Many of us just lean into, at least I did, if I can just sacrifice myself this much, this person will just love me so much and then I'll be a stump of a person, but at least I won't be alone.
Jordan: At least I'll be loved, right? Because you think you're not already just loved naturally. I don't mean to get religious because it is sort of a religious connotation or a Christian based thinking like that you're loved, right? I am loved. And to kind of flesh all of that out, because I know our listeners are far and wide with their thoughts and beliefs on all of that. It really is about understanding that this is a loving universe. And that you are loved and that you have people that are here for you, a team of people specifically, because they knew how fucking hard it would be to be here on earth. And they were like, we got you. We're going to send you a sign in the way that only you would know and feel it. That's who I think of when I think of you are loved.
So that means, guess what? You don't have to do a damn thing to be loved. You already have a crap ton of people that are literally just here helping you because whatever you chose to do here on Earth, raise the vibration of the planet, heal yourself, heal your ancestors. It's important and it matters. And I think that the trick, the lie is that that we're not doing really big things just by living a life. You know what I'm saying? Like that's the lie. Okay, fine. So, I had a kid, and I started a business, and I lived a happy life, but like nothing really crazy happened. Okay. Why do you think that that's not the biggest thing in the entire world? Because it is and it matters.
At first when I started to understand how much help there was for anybody, not just me, anybody, I was like, but why? Why do I matter so much? I mean, I'm just me. Bullshit. Bull. Shit. You have so much power in your pinky finger.
I've had some things happen with this podcast, small things, small little nods. Keep going. Keep going. But it's just a podcast. If I miss a week, is it that big a deal? It actually is. Keep going. And I can't explain it. It's just one of those really boring gifts of knowing that I have. It just is. It's truth.
To bring it back to this idea of, “The Giving Tree”, the book. I think that trying to teach kids, I mean, and the way I actually saw this book, as I got a little older, is that you could think of the Giving Tree as like the parent and. The boy, now a man, as the child in that dynamic. But some people could look at the Tree as like, I don't know, almost like a religious deity, like God or source or something that is always there for you and giving. I think it depends on how you interpret it. But for people who are personifying it, it is probably poorly written. Without the nuance that we now know should have been used and I think that's our evolution as people. We're learning better ways to say things and I don't know if—are you an Abraham Hicks person? Do you watch or listen to Abraham Hicks at all?
Melinda: No.
Jordan: Okay, so it's a woman who channels advice from a being, from a wise being. Some people might say it's just her inner knowing, her higher self. That's fine. It really doesn't even matter what you think of it as. But she talks about improving our language for manifestation. Gone are the days when we can say, “I want world peace”.
Well, actually, I don't know. That's still a pretty good one.
But I think, all beings everywhere being happy and free. That's a little bit better. I think that's a little bit more specific. She talks about how to improve your language to get really, truly what you want. I think we're learning better words and better phrases to actually articulate what we want. I think that's really beautiful. That as we evolve, the world evolves, our language evolves. Think about all the things that we don't say anymore that we used to say, the words we used to use, the phrases that used to be okay. And we're all like, that's not okay. So, we have improved so many different things. I think that “The Giving Tree” is an example of a book that is just begging to be rewritten with better language because it's got a good message. We're not knocking it completely.
Melinda: No, not at all and in fact, if I'm envisioning “The Giving Tree” from a perspective of like—so I do identify as Christian—so from a spiritual perspective or even just like a loving universe… because there is also something when we talk about this higher virtue of love, if we think about “The Giving Tree” as something along those lines. So, for me, it would be God. Constantly there for you, no matter what. Just simply for being you. That might change my mind, Jordan.
Jordan: I might have improved that book for you.
Melinda: You might have improved that book for me. My son might actually hear it now if we kind of tweak the tree to help him understand what it should mean.
Jordan: If that is representing source energy, well, then that one stump is going to turn into a million trees, because source is never ending. There's no end to that grace, that power, that energy that's always there.
Melinda: Absolutely. And it's a place you can always return to, and it will always be ever present.
Jordan: That's what we talk about so much in our spiritual teachings that you're tapping in. But you have to make sure that you're plugged into the light source first. I think you'd like a course in miracles as well. Marianne Williamson was like the original teacher as far as I'm concerned. There were others, but she has been teaching from this text for so many years and she talks about tapping in. That we all think that the grace isn't there. It is there. We just need to make sure that we're plugged in. If we're not, there's so much that we're not receiving. And here we think that this is a sparse universe. The opposite is true. There is so much waiting for you to tap into that it would blow your mind. It would blow your mind. That's where I think to myself, as I learn these things, I start to allow my life to get easier. That's my difficulty. This doesn't need to be so hard. Allow it to be easier.
Source wants this to be easier for you. Okay. So that you have more energy to then turn around and devote to yourself, but you can still be serving and helping as many people as you're helping now. And I'm like, oh, that'd be great. Cause I'm really pooped out.
Melinda: Yeah, absolutely.
Jordan: I just thought that that was like a really cool way to look at it and to continue to allow for help. It's ironic. I have a really lovely human that's come into my life and he's helping me with some things that I found very difficult. And these things seem to come very naturally and easily to this person. I don't know how else to say it, but grace saying, here, have some help. This person cares about you, and he can do all the things that you find really, really annoying and difficult. They're second nature to him and vice versa. I'm sure there's something that I'm gifting this person as well because that's the way it works. Right? I'm not just here to take. I'm here to give.
Melinda: Right. That's really beautiful. I love it when we have people like that in our lives.
Jordan: To me, the best way to see the universe in action is to have you be so filled up and something that you're giving, especially as a Two, be so easy that you give it to this other person, and they're blown away. And you're like, oh, my gosh, it was seriously no big deal. Because it wasn't. Because you were giving from a place of, I have plenty and this wasn't even hard and didn't even require 1/8th of my energy. Why wouldn't I have given it? And then someone else gives you something that again, to them would have been like, eh, I lifted my pinky finger a little bit and it just like the thing that you need more than anything.
That's the way the universe is supposed to work. And I think maybe have ourselves fooled that we have to give until it hurts because if we don't, we're doing something wrong. When you're giving, it shouldn't actually hurt at all. That's the whole point. And maybe that's why we're mad that there's a stump, Giving Tree, like it shouldn't be that way. To actually represent that as a source’s love it should be this big, gorgeous tree that kept giving and it just was never ending, and it didn't deplete the tree at all.
Melinda: In fact, it kept growing.
Jordan: It kept growing and it multiplied. And yes, because of the love of that little boy going back to the tree, the tree gained something just from having the little boy here.
I think there's a lot that could be improved with that book, but I don't think the message of it needs to be so limited to what we think of it.
Melinda: I completely agree. In fact, it's interesting, the way that you talk about this person who's come into your life and the way that we love people, or we have a relationship or give, not hurting because we're leaning into the things that we’re meant to do. We're giving out of abundance. It's really funny you say that because that's actually really how I feel about my coworker, my co-founder, the person that I work with for Havenly. Yeah. It's really funny you mentioned that because I feel like it's like that.
Jordan: Yeah. That's a good partnership.
Melinda: We call it alchemy. That's one of the pillars. We want the people who come together to be able to give in that kind of way and receive in that kind of way to where we create something that's more than just the sum of our parts.
Anyway, it was just really an interesting thing that you said that.
Jordan: I mean, the previous relationship that I was in, one of my main realizations was that I was having to give until it hurt. And unfortunately, the other person, what they were offering, wasn't helping me. It was actually hurting. And I'm like, ooh, this is bad math. That is not something that a Two would normally say. But to look at it from an alchemical perspective, you're like, this isn't working. The things they're offering are being wasted. The things I'm offering are being wasted and it's a lot of waste. This isn't a good connection. I'm going to move on and find a better connection where both people are honored just by giving exactly what they have to give. I think there's a lot of people stuck in relationships like that because they don't understand or recognize.
I want to jump into something that we hadn't gotten to in our first interview, and that is talking about a couple of things that you utilize in your counseling practice, Inviterra Counseling. You use a technique, and I was on your website today I read that it's a bit newer, but it's called Brainspotting.
What is that? How does that work?
What is Brainspotting?
Melinda: Brainspotting, it's been around I think since the early 90s. You know, I don't want to admit this to myself, but it's almost 2022. It's been around since I think the early 90s. So, we'll do the math. Yeah. I don't know if I want to.
Jordan: How old are we?
Melinda: Elder millennials for sure. So, Brainspotting was stumbled upon by a practitioner called David Grant. He was trained in a technique called somatic experiencing, and then EMDR, which is very well known, at least in psychology circles.
Basically, what Brainspotting is, it's a really powerful trauma tool. It utilizes your brain's natural way of processing. I don't know if you've ever kind of stared off into “nothing” for a while, or maybe some of your best processing has been while you're driving, or you’re thinking things through, or you feel your brain picking up if you're looking at a particular spot. Brainspotting is something we do naturally. My 4-year-old child, when he's sitting at the table, will sometimes glance off into nothing. When I ask him, hey, what are you feeling when you look at that spot? My kid will tell me, “I feel good”, or “it feels calm”, or “it feels happy”. That's just an example of Brainspotting.
It's a really powerful trauma tool. It utilizes your brain's natural ability to process through the visual field. Essentially, where you look dictates how you feel. That's the big quote in Brainspotting, where you look affects how you feel.
Interestingly, if you're feeling some kind of way about something and you look to the left, you'll feel one way about it. If you look to the right, you'll feel a different way about it. I encourage your listeners to try this sometime. If you're feeling very triggered or feeling a really big feeling, focus on a spot on their left and see how they feel inside and then focus on a spot to their right and see if it changes. What that is, is your brain and your visual fields or your eyes, they're very intricately connected. Essentially, it's utilizing spots in your visual field to connect with where trauma is stored in your brain and then focusing on that spot that you find intentionally. Then allowing your brain to do its own healing work kind of like the same processing that happens when you're in REM sleep. As your brain is basically processing all the information that you've carried on throughout your day or you've taken on throughout your day. It's a similar process.
So, by focusing on that particular spot and allowing your brain to do its natural processing, you can actually process through incredibly quickly, some large trauma and resolve trauma, reactivity, etc. What I tell my clients is after having done a course of Brainspotting around a particular trauma, you will be able to have things happen to you that might've triggered you previously, not trigger you anymore.
Jordan: Okay. I've talked to a therapist numerous times throughout my life and I used to have a lot of past triggering moments and things like that. She had talked to me about, let's just say you had a fight with your spouse, and it was a humdinger and it caused trauma because you were talking about something really intense. Then later on, months later, a year later, something happens and there is a fight. You might go back and feel very triggered and feel physically and emotionally the way you felt during that first fight. What I understood this as, based on the way she explained it to me, it's almost like the brain short circuits and it's like we have an open book. We're in a library, our own brain library, and there's a book and it's open. And because of the amount of trauma that was happening during that time, you were never able to close the book on that situation, like process through what happened and put the book back on the shelf.
What ends up happening is you have a mental library with a lot of open books just sitting there and they're like running through, or maybe more current example would be you have a bunch of computers that are like, at various stages through running a program through it, but they never finish. So, there's a lot of processing power in our brains that are used to just maintain and go through those things.
So, what I hear you saying is that Brainspotting gives us a chance to go back to that brain library and be like, I'm going to clean up in here and close this book and put it back.
Melinda: I love that. I love that metaphor too. I'm like, oh my god, I'm going to use that. It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect.
I love Brainspotting because in a very efficient way, in a way that talk therapy, don't get me wrong. I love talking and I love talk therapy and I love processing in that way, but brain-based therapies are really where it's at currently. I mean, honestly, we're probably in the medieval times of psychology as a field. There's a lot more development we need to go through. But I think that Brainspotting and brain-based therapies like that is such a beautiful and very efficient way to close those books. Much more so than talk therapy.
Jordan: I think talk therapy is kind of, I don't know, I mean, it has its place. I'm a verbal processor.
Melinda: Don't get me wrong. It has its place. I still do it.
Jordan: But you need something… I don't know. I mean, I think for being a yogi and understanding that the brain is a tool. We always think of the brain as the be all end all, and we're just so much more than our brain, but it's still a tool. And if the tool is not being used right, it can hijack all the other things.
Melinda: Oh my gosh. And it does. It does.
I think as a Yogi, you'll be able to really understand this particular kind of efficient trauma healing, right? Because things like movement, yoga, et cetera, utilize the same part of the brain where trauma is stored and that's the midbrain and the amygdala.
You have your lizard brain, your fight, flight, freeze, fawn, part of your brain. You also have your midbrain, your emotional brain. Those two parts of your brain are totally developed, entirely developed by the time you're born. So those two parts of the brain are done cooking by the time you're born and thus, if you think about it, your frontal cortex is the thing that's developing until you're like 27, as we cruelly point out to those poor Gen Z, young Millennials, I don't even know if young Millennials are in their 20s anymore...
Jordan: The math is whizzing by us.
Melinda: I'm old. I'm old now. They all look the same.
But because of that as you're going through your life, especially in your early life, this is why your traumatic things, things that go on in your life, they're stored in that part of your brain. I don't know if that's why, but I know that's where they're stored.
So, Brainspotting, yoga, somatic experiencing, EMDR, these are all ways that psychology, psychologists, therapists have learned to kind of tap in. And I mean people, yogis, like far beyond therapists, right? Like they've been around for so much longer. But it's a way of getting to the midbrain, that emotional brain, where these things are actually stored and working it out and allowing your body and brain to process that through. To close those books, clean things up in the library, if you will. Brainspotting, I think, is a really effective way to do that. It's not the only way. And in fact, it's a beautiful thing to be able to mix Brainspotting with yoga, Brainspotting with somatic experiencing, Brainspotting with some new techniques from EMDR. But for me, it's the most natural, powerful tool that I have in that regard to helping my clients close those books.
Talk therapy won't get to that place in the midbrain in the same way. It just won't. Because that's all frontal cortex. That's all you're thinking brain. It's not your feeling brain.
Jordan: It's just like saying to someone, I'm really sorry that I did that. Well, that's great. You can yap it out with your mouth all you want, but you still have to back it up by physical action. So that's where maybe talk therapy is great because you recognize that there are books that need to be closed, but the action steps that you need to take are to actually go in there and close the books. You can yap about it all day long.
But I was on your site earlier today and you had said, get back all that extra headspace. That's really making sense. Because again, all the processing power that's used to dwell on past stuff, what if you could close some of those books and get that headspace back? That's why I think so many people are debilitated, and I don't understand why. That's why they're like, why do other people seem to get so much more done in a day than me? Why do I feel like I just can't do much or I can't get anywhere. I can maintain, but I can't move forward. I've heard people say that before. I had to giggle because I was reading through your website and when you said, get all that extra mental headspace back. I was like, oh, you're Marie Kondo in your brain. That's the thing that came out. So, for those of you that don't know, Marie Kondo has a great book talking about decluttering your life and your surroundings. I think that I'm so horned up to tell people clean up your space, scrub your walls, repaint your walls, reorganize it and make your space make you smile. Because if it doesn't, your life is going to suck. I don't know how else to say it. Fix your bedroom, paint your walls. For years, my bedroom was just not a color that I identified with. I think I painted it baby blue because I read somewhere that blue is calming for sleep. Well, I had picked this powder blue color that just, I don't know. I was young and dumb. I didn't know how to pick out paint swatches back then. Now I have this awesome, cool, green, blue, teal color that I just love. It feels like me. Honestly, I knew painting my bedroom was the first step because it had been something that I didn't like for years. It's a very intimate room. You don't do a lot in there. It's a place where you need to feel very safe, to be very vulnerable, and sleep and recharge. After painting that space was when this lovely human came into my life, and I knew that redoing that was the key to moving something that was stuck that needed to be moved. These things matter. All of this stuff really affects your brain. So, imagine if you “repainted your bedroom” whatever that looks like for you at your house, and you did the Brainspotting and you cleared out all of the mental library, close the books, put them back on the shelf.
That's what I think you mean, when you say it's no longer triggering. You could in a moment, take that book off the shelf, open it, look at it and go, oh, that was intense when that happened. Then you can just close it and put it back on the shelf and not have it mess with you for the rest of the day.
Melinda: Absolutely. And that has been my experience.
I have a saying in my own business, in my own practice for myself that I’m really committed to. I don't do therapy on people that I myself have not done personally.
Jordan: Right. There's your Four. You want to put yourself through all of it to really understand.
Melinda: I do. It's really important to me. I myself have a therapist; I call her my client's “grandtherapist”. “Your grandtherapist said something very interesting today.”
Jordan: “You'll never guess what your grandtherapist said.”
Melinda: Basically, yeah. That's essentially what I say, but she's a really powerful Brainspotting Therapist. I do Brainspotting myself. That is true with every therapy that I do. I coach and use therapy and Enneagram together. Of course, I'm trying to do my own work in that as well. So, it's no different with Brainspotting.
It has been an incredibly powerful tool to where I've had some really bad trauma in my childhood, including physical and sexual abuse. But because of Brainspotting, and I've done other things I'm trained in EMDR as well, and that was helpful for the time. But I think Brainspotting has really helped me to process and close so many book,s in regard to that time in my childhood. It's continuing to help me reduce the reactivity that comes up naturally, like when you're a parent, especially if you have a trauma background. There are so many triggers because you have so many things that are still open and processing if you have a lot of trauma. I feel like there are books that I didn't even realize were open. As a parent, you're like, oh, shit, that books open. Okay. I feel like Brainspotting, I guess that's even a gift because I find these triggers and then I can take it to Brainspotting and it will help me close that book. So now there are books that I was super triggered by or events that I was super triggered by that I can take off the shelf open, think, wow, that was rough and close the book. And put it back on the shelf and just go on with my day.
Jordan: And kind of look at it like a story, a thing that happened. And that's where I think learning the balance of understanding that we're not our story, but stories happen to us. On some level, we need to acknowledge that. You need to own your story. I think that is a Brene Brown quote. Own your story, but don't let it own you, as far as don't let it be the only thing. Don't let it be something that plays itself in your head without your knowledge. That's a conscious choice to walk into the brain library, pull it down and look at it. Then you have the control to close it back up again and put it away. But don't let it absolutely replay for you at a bad moment.
Melinda: Yes, exactly. I think because often I feel that these programs are running, or these books are open, without even our knowledge, they're just running in the background. I think that there's so much space to be gained and so much healing to be gained from these particular kinds of therapies that can help you to close books that you didn't even realize were open.
Part of this process, utilizing the Enneagram, utilizing Brainspotting and utilizing even just talk therapy, systems therapy. That's what I do with Inviterra Counseling. We talk about family systems like the family you came from, your family of origin, where the story and the narrative that you came into my office with. The beginning of your life. The programs that are running in the background, things that might've happened to you, the way that you survived in your life. The defense mechanisms that you had to use via your personality, building of your ego in order to get through your life to where you're on my couch or I'm seeing people face to face online. We have to learn how to place ourselves within our stories. We really have to learn and grow more and more awareness around what books are open, what programs are running, where we are in our stories, what has happened to us. Not so that it controls us, but the more awareness we gain, the less control it has over us. The more we know what's open, the more we know what we need to close, how we need to approach things, how things control us. The more distance we can build within ourselves and these events, the more awareness, and then we can choose.
I don't know if you've heard this, there's this quote by Viktor Frankl about the space between something happening to you and the action that you decide to take, your reaction. The more you can build that space in between those two things, that's where freedom is. I think that space is the awareness that you have, your story, where you are in it, the programs that are still running, the programs you've closed. I think in that space, I feel like that's where you have the ability to act and choose instead of reacting triggered, that that's the triggered reaction. Just react. Like it's reacting to things that happen to us, not slowing things down, knowing what's going on, having awareness.
Jordan: I did want to make a comment. Obviously acknowledging that you had some real, really rough trauma from a young age. I'm assuming. I think those of us that have had things that weren't quite right, in whatever capacity that is, and we had that trauma, it makes us adamant seekers to understand. I think it sets us on our path. Like, I probably wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be where you are because of those things. They happen to set you on your course. Granted, you made choices to turn these negative things into positive things. But it is funny to me, I have, this new wonderful person and to observe and watch how this person interacts in the world. I am very much a people watcher, but not so much in the traditional sense of I'm sitting on the boardwalk, people watching, as most people joke. I love watching the people in my life and how they, my friends, my family, the people intimately acquainted with me, and how they deal with things. This person is rather new in my life and there are just certain things that he does that are so balanced. And I go, you must not have had any trauma around this as a child. And I'm like marveling at it, but it's so weird to see the opposite. Do you know what I'm saying? It's so weird to see what balance looks like. You're like, Oh my god. Okay. That's makes sense though. So, it's been helpful to see what being healed might look like in a certain area. Not to say that this person is perfect or hasn't ever gone through anything difficult, but he hasn't gone through the things that I went through. Childhood speaking. Then I start to see similarities in my friends and things like that. People that have had similar wounding. So, I'm like, that's why we're screwed up in this specific way. Okay, I'm getting it now, but it's really good to see the patterns, you know?
And you go, okay, that's why, that's why. Then to see the opposite of that, to see what someone who never had a wounding in that area looks like, it gives you hope, shows you how to be. Just like they say after being in an unhealthy relationship, being in a healthy relationship might freak the hell out of you because you don't understand what it looks like. It's new. What is this weird thing? It's not bad, but it's most certainly different. These are all important things to understand.
I love that you're using the Brainspotting. I love that you're using Enneagrams. You are specifically helping younger generations really to learn this stuff sooner. Handle it better sooner.
Have you seen, I guess you're kind of working with people that they're still going through trauma, but they're maybe recognizing it earlier or sooner? You personally had a beautiful experience with what, a therapist in your twenties, and that really kind of set you in motion to where you are now. In a way, you're fulfilling that role for other people. You're becoming what you had.
Melinda: That was my dream. And interestingly, I feel like that's definitely what it was. It was so integral to me to have that person in my early twenties. When I started in this field, that was really the goal for me to be that person for people who were experiencing something and just coming out of it and entering their adulthood. Emerging adulthood now, and not really knowing what to do with all the shit that they had dealt with in the past, but realizing that they carried it forward with them, because that's what happens. Those things, we carry them with us until we can process them through. That's certainly what happened with me. I really wanted to be a support to people starting to enter their adulthood, post grads, because I wanted to be a support for people in that space. Because for the love of God, it's such a tumultuous time. I could pin it like post grad to early thirties, because so much shit is happening. Even just developmentally, so much stuff is happening. You're in a whirlwind and then, especially nowadays, if you're just adding all that stuff we're dealing with now.
Jordan: I would like to personally say. This is just me getting on a bit of a soapbox, but I don't have any children. I may one day. I give myself another five, six years to make that choice. I'm 35 now. I have time, but can we talk about how cruel it is that most women are expected to, based on the medical standard of perfect health, to have a baby before your brain is fully developed. Like, come on. Can we please move back the finish line for women? It just seems so mean. I can barely take care of myself, or coming up to 27, I could barely take care of myself. And then you're like, let's add in a whole other human. Every parent is going to screw up their kids to a percentage, right? No matter how hard you try, no matter how enlightened you are, it doesn't matter.
Melinda: Oh, yeah. All of our kids are going to end up screwed up somehow.
Jordan: Somehow. Right? It might be in a new way, but it's it's something. I think it would be a beautiful thing to be 38, 39 and have a kid and just have one kid and feel a little bit more equipped to raise that child because I'm more who I need to be. Do you know what I'm saying? I think we should normalize women having babies at 39 and 40. Because I don't think that we're not medically advanced enough to figure this out. Do you know what I'm saying? I don't buy it. I just have to put that plug out there that I always joke and I'm like, I would love to rock a geriatric pregnancy and cover the whole thing and be like this is what having a baby, your first baby, and only baby, at 40 looks like. It's amazing. It's beautiful. Like I have more money in my bank account. I feel great to have a baby right now. And normalize that beautiful experience for a woman to have a baby. Then I feel like there's going to be more high vibrational humans on the planet because the parents thought more through the process.
I just think that we're coming through a time where I think a lot of people have been dealt a really difficult hand. For like their conception stories, their parent stories, there's a lot of trauma around that. And I'm like, can we come to a place where humans are made from a higher vibrational place? Can we please? That's just something I think about. And that's just a very random plug, but talking earlier about brain development.
Melinda: Oh my gosh. Absolutely.
Closing Comments
Jordan: Well, I think we should wrap up. I know we're overtime, but I love talking to you. I feel like we always say beautiful things that apparently need to be said and hopefully heard by those listening.
I highly recommend that you check out Melinda's website. I will put a link in the show notes. She is in such integrity with what she's doing and she's honest and going through the rough stuff. Someone once told me, I don't know why anyone would go to a therapist, they always have all this trauma and kooky stuff that they went through. And I'm like. Yeah, that's exactly who I'd want leading me along a path that has been shitty to something clearer. Who else knows the way better? So, I think you're doing the brave thing. You're doing the hard thing. I'm always the person that's going to cheer someone on doing the hard thing. Again, to bring in Brene Brown, you're in the arena right now. You're in the arena. You're doing the work right now. Your face is getting muddy. You're tripping, you're falling, you're having difficulty, but you're learning about yourself through it. And you're going to be able to better help your clients.
Melinda: That’s what I hope to do. I want that for myself, but I do hope that from a place then from hard earned self-knowledge, care for myself, and that abundance you're talking about kind of like that hard internal resource, I can then care for my clients in ways that are better and better. Better than what I first started out with when I just was in my Two space wanting to give, give, give. Now as I'm doing all this work, and really in that arena, there are so many of us therapists that are really trying to do that. I want to be able to give from the space of essence, not just personality, of just like of grace and ease as opposed to…
Jordan: From ego, from a clinical assessment. I mean, granted some of that's important.
Melinda: Absolutely, but if it comes from ego, it can only go so far. And so that's my hope.
Are you Interested in learning your enneagram & growing through enneagram counseling?
Hi, I’m Melinda
I’m a therapist who uses the Enneagram and Brainspotting to help 20 & 30-somethings understand and change unhelpful patterns, love themselves, and navigate all the big transitions and emotions that come with where they are in life.
What my clients often look like:
1) Empaths and “HSPs” who feel deeply and are afraid that something is “wrong” with them or have been told that they are too “sensitive”
2) Helpers or “over-givers” who want healthier relationships with themselves and others
3) Enneagram enthusiasts who want to grow
4) Premarital and young couples wanting to start their marriage off on the right foot