The Body Knows: Trauma, Healing, and the Wisdom Within

Today on the Synergy podcast, we are honored to welcome a guest whose work is redefining how we approach trauma healing and the wisdom of the body. Meet Melanie Reese, trauma therapist, clinical supervisor, brain spotting consultant in training, and founder of Trauma Therapy of Nashville, a holistic group practice rooted in the heart of Music row. With over 12 years of experience, Melanie brings a powerful blend of evidence, informed practice, and deep intuition to her work. She specializes in helping clients navigate the intersections of trauma, chronic conditions, and emotional health using advanced modalities like emdr, brain spotting, ketamine, assisted psychotherapy, and somatic therapy. Her unique approach is both compassionate and refreshingly direct, grounded in the belief that every person holds the capacity to heal and that therapy should feel like a conversation you're finally safe enough to have. Whether she's holding space for clients in intensive trauma sessions or educating fellow clinicians, Melanie's work is centered around nervous system regulation, embodied healing, and real human connection. She's the co host of the podcast I'm Fine, It's Fine, where mental health meets honest storytelling and just the right amount of humor. This is going to be a conversation you will not want to miss, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the episode.

Welcome back, senergy listeners. We are so excited to be back and in house with our guest, Melanie Reese. Melanie is from Nashville, Tennessee. I got to know Melanie through my research. I was researching places that held space for people struggling with chronic health conditions that needed trauma therapy and trauma assisted therapy and found Melanie. She and her team there in Nashville just have something incredibly special. We really wanted to have her on and dig into trauma and how it affects our health, especially chronic health conditions, and talk about some things, tips and tools that we can be using just in our everyday life to really maximize what our body has the capability to do, and that's heal. So thank you, Melanie, for being here.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Well, you know, we always like to start out and just ask your story, like, how did you land where you are doing what you do?

Oh, it's been an evolution. That's a big question, as I'm sure y' all know that if you've been doing this for a while, it's an evolution. I would say I found trauma really early. As an intern. I just. Those cases just landed, you know, those. Those clients just kind of landed on my caseload, and I was fascinated with it. It was hard and it was different. And where some people were intimidated by that because we didn't know it, I'm always like, let me learn about it. And so I got trained in EMDR as an intern, did that for 10 years, and then found brain spotting. And I'm, I'm a huge brain spotter and just started letting clients teach me what was going on. You know, noticed energy in them flipping and playing with pillows and their hair and their nails. And I was like, there's some energy here going on. So I got trained in trauma informed yoga as a way to like learning more body movement and how. And then you start getting into the neuroscience of like. Like this is not just the separation of mind and body. And so back, back in the day when I was getting trained, the words holistic and integrative were not even. Trauma was not the it words that it is now. Like, those are very common things that people search for. And that was not what we were talking about when we were going through school. Like, there's not. There was not even a trauma class in my program, which is scary to say because we all have it.

Melanie? Yeah, I was going to ask for, for time reference because I agree with you. When we started treating chronic health patients, there was no talk about trauma. It's just been recently that you see the verbiage trauma informed therapist. So what was the, what was the year like? When were you being trained and when did your curiosity in that regard start? Because really I think you're a pioneer in this area.

I graduated in 2011. And so, you know, I, it probably took me, I think with school and grad school and your clinicals because you do like a year and a half of clinicals before you graduate. So that was about four year time span. So 2009, 2011 is probably that time range. And then it was, I always say, like grad school just gives you permission to go learn more.

True. And pay more.

And then you just kind of figure out what your interests are and then you go get trained more in it and so that you can just keep doing this. But I just kind of followed my clients, what I was seeing and just met everything with curiosity. And I think that landed me in the trauma world. And I remember when I decided to niche down into trauma, there was that I was still in scarcity mindset of I'm not going to get enough clients if I don't work with couples anymore or this or that. But it actually helped and it pushed me to learn more. And I would say being trained in EMDR and brain spotting, brain. Those are trauma modalities and those teach you more how to work with that. But I also do Ketamine assisted therapy. I have a therapy dog that is with me. So I got trained in using animals in the therapy space. So it's all just been an evolution of like this seems like a thing I need to work on. I've had my own experience with chronic illness and so they say if you look at a therapist and their specialties, you get a good idea of what they're career. So my specialties are trauma, chronic pain and illness, attachment, relationship, wounding, chronic pain and illness. But then also how to. I'll say I'm a trained death doula. So that's not under my license as a therapist, but I have gotten trained to do end of life care, which we all have to deal with that at some point. And that came from losing my dad and I. That's tends that gives you an idea of like how I. I wanted to deal with that. And so I went and got trained as a death dealer to deal with health anxiety that I had of my own. But then with my father passing and so that was. That tends to be how I've landed. Where I am is just by where my life has taken me, which is.

Really cool because I think you're right where you need to be. You shine, you can see it in your face that you really love what you do. And I think about your story, it's so relatable for both Kelly and I. I think I could speak for both of us is that organic next step. And that next step that landed us where we are and very similar to that of trauma to you in your schooling. Nutrition in our schooling of traditional medicine does not exist or did not exist in the same capacity.

Right.

So, you know, I think that it's really cool to watch how that has developed for you from one to the next. So.

Yeah. And I just appreciate you as a therapist having more tools in your toolbox. You know, EMDR is what EMDR is one thing, but some people don't respond to EMDR and need brainspotting. Right. And so the fact that you do have the tools in your toolbox to kind of pull from depending on the client that you're working with. Just really appreciate that.

Yeah. I kind of use the metaphor of it's an art form and the more paint brushes you have, the better you can kind of move with the process as it's unfolding. So. Yeah.

So as Lori and I treat patients with chronic disease. Right. We oftentimes see that there's a big disconnect from their mind and body. Like there's just no integration of like, what's really happening? So how does that show up for you in counseling? And how do you. How do you help someone kind of bridge that gap?

Oh, yeah. Well, I feel like the modalities, like brain spotting and I do IFS and somatic work, so I feel like it's the lens I see things through. So whether I'll. I'll tell the client. Whether you recognize or feel your emotions, they're there. They're neurological responses. And so it doesn't mean we don't have them. It just means you're disconnected from them. So I kind of set that framework up from the beginning. And most of the work I do, intensive work now, most of the work I do are people that, like, shorter term wanting to come dig in. They normally have a primary therapist already, and so they. I have that luxury of. Clients are normally evolved a little bit more in their. They've been doing the healing thing for a while. And so that's not completely strange words. When I start saying, where do you feel that in your body? But when someone's very cognitive, that can be a disconnect. But to me, I just set up the framework, and even if they say, I don't feel anything, I'm just having a lot of thoughts, I'm going to say, be in your brain. That's a part of your body, too. So where are you feeling all your thoughts? Where are you feeling your anxiety? If it's in your brain, that's where we're going to be. So we just kind of go, and then we can work our way into the body.

Too often, I hear in working with patients where you bring up the T word, the trauma word, and it's so funny, they posture back. I don't know if you see that, but they posture back usually. Like, I haven't had any tr. Like trauma that I can remember.

Yeah, they discount that phrase. Big T and little T, trauma. I'm sure y' all have heard that. I. I don't like that term because it does that. It's. It can be oppressive because people think unless they have the big T, that they discount their trauma and they don't name it as that. And so sometimes that's the work of, like, really understanding what's the layout of, like, your experiences. And really, I define trauma as anything that hasn't been nourishing to you. And so a lot of times it's people, like, naming things for the first time. But then if they have that response to trauma, like, let's talk about that. What's Your response and your. Your beliefs and messaging around what trauma is, what's the fears around, if that's part of your story and that that's sometimes the place to start when you notice that that feeling or response and.

That disconnection often is seen in a response back. You know, first of all, obviously, you know, they say, well, you know, what are you talking about? I haven't had that. But also I think that, you know, I think sometimes the response is that it's like, that's no big deal. Or I've dealt with that, you know, kind of minimizing that. You know, I think that's actually one of the hardest. I don't have the skill set as a clinician to lean into that with what questions to ask at that point.

Can you give me a little bit more clarification as far as, like, in your setting? What, what would you. What are you trying to get to with the client that you feel like you don't have the right questions for?

Right. I think so.

I'm.

I think sometimes, number one, that they truly don't believe that they've had any trauma. And I love what you said about anything that doesn't nourish. I think you said the body or you is nourish you.

Right.

So I think that's a great response back just to define it. But when they are very, very disconnected, because it's almost like I feel like some people have kind of put it in this nice little box.

Good question to ask. I'll say. When they say, I've dealt with that, I'll say, have you talked enough about it that you're desensitized to it, or have you actually processed it and let your body release it?

So that's not true healing. But they see that as healing is what I hear you saying.

Yeah. So I educate them around that and say, so now what? What do you want to do? If you feel okay living like that, by all means. But there's deeper work that can be done. And with some stuff I might, if someone's really resistant, I mean, I do work with chronic pain and illness. And I'll say, your body's going to get sick. You know, they say the body will deal with what the mind want. And a lot of times that's what I feel like a lot of chronic or autoimmune stuff can be. Or when you lay, you know, a physical injury into a trauma nervous system, it'll hold on to it instead of it being more acute and being able to heal and let go really quickly. It can just add to it. And so that's where I've seen, like earlier on, before I got into the. The chronic illness stuff, I might be doing some trauma work, and someone's had a back injury or a hip injury or something like that, and then it'll flare up when we're processing, and then when we're done, they're like, it's better. And I was like, oh, maybe there's something to this. And that's what led me into figuring that out more. But I do. I've seen just chronic illness play out in so many fascinating ways with clients of, like, what your body, It's a nervous system, and it. It can communicate in very primal ways. And so I think, you know, pain is a safety mechanism. I have seen, like autoimmune and things like that. It's the only way it has to communicate is through somatic way. And sometimes I've seen someone have a chronic illness because it is. If you look at their family line, every woman in the family had that same type of illness. And it was to create connection with each other. It was like a family generational agreement of I will be sick in order to be connected to you. And look at the dynamics. It's the only way. It's the only thing that connected them, that finally gave them connection to talk about their illness together.

Interesting. Yeah. We see that so often with autoimmunity. I'm seeing grandmother, mother and daughter, but.

They think it's genetic.

It's both.

Right.

So genetics load the gun, but trauma.

Turns it on, pulls the trigger.

Trauma turns it on.

Yep.

And I want to go back to that quote you said about the mind and the body again.

Yeah. The. The body will deal with what the mind won't. Yeah. Yeah.

So where do you start unpacking that with them? How do you begin to heal? And maybe the better question is for a person who truly is resistant to number one, maybe they haven't. They have desensitized to it.

Right.

And they haven't maybe processed it. Where do you start with them?

Well, I think I have the luxury of. I normally get clients when they've tried everything else and nothing's working or a doctor to me because they don't know what else to do. Sure. So I kind of. They're willing to listen at that point to anything, so kind of offer this. And they. And it feels right when I start having these con. Just the psychoeducation piece around how our bodies can use disease to try to get what it needs. And sometimes it's not necessarily, let's heal this disease. It's like, let's help your body get in the best place to try to heal from it. You know, it's not that you may not cure. You're not trying to cure cancer, but you're trying to. If you're. A lot of energy in your body goes to fear and anxiety and all the things that go along with a chronic condition. And the more you can process your fears around death or illness or food anxiety or health anxiety, you're giving the body back more energy to use medicine. If you're getting a cancer treatment, right, your body can use that better. And you may try to limit or help the symptoms increase or decrease a little bit so that they can function a little bit better. And so when you just start explaining, and especially because I have dealt with this personally, they're a little bit more willing to listen as well, that they're not discounted. And like, they've had other doctors just, yeah, this is all in your head. And I'm like, yeah, your head and your body, it's all the same thing. So let's, let's process with it. So they normally are pretty open once I kind of introduced the possibility, because they've normally tried so many things, and this is something they're willing to try. I mean, we know if we. We're willing to try anything when we have, you know, a chronic thing that we can't quite figure out what's going on. So as long as I set the expectations right, they're willing to kind of start. So then I'm like, let's look at your life experiences, like starting in childhood, in when you were in the womb. And then, you know, epigenetics goes way beyond into intergenerational stuff. So that's, that's the mindset and the frame that I work with.

So, Melanie, I love what you said about, about fatigue. Right. In chronic illness, most all chronic illnesses, one of the symptoms that people are struggling with is energy and fatigue and how they choose to spend that energy. And I think, you know, working around, how do we help navigate that? How do we help remove some of the barriers to energy waste, basically are wasting a lot of energy when we're not out processing those emotions, is what I hear you saying. And so being able to process those emotions better gives us back some energy that we can spend in other areas, whether that's healing and repair or whether that's relational getting in tune with the people that we're around. And that kind of thing. So I think that's pretty incredible, too, for people to hear it in that way they think of therapy. The resistance I get from patients when I talk about counseling, I talk about therapy. And we oftentimes do get the pushback. I've done that. I've already been to a therapist. I did that. I did that one time. Right.

Maybe not the right one.

Yeah, Maybe not the right one, or maybe not the right time. Right. Or maybe not the right modality. Right. But if they're still holding on to that physical aspect of what's going on with them in a way that's keeping them from repairing, then perhaps doing things a little bit differently. And that's what I love about the tools that you guys do have, and even incorporating body work. I mean, you have, you know, you have someone there that does craniosacral work and vibrational therapy to really get them in tune with what is happening in the body. Right. And to calm the nervous system.

I'm about to say yeah. To get the nervous system in a place that it can do the work, that it has the best capacity it can to move through, you know, doing the work.

I find that giving a person just hope that things can be different. It's really the biggest step to. Or at least the entry point to the next step. And that, to me, is very fulfilling.

Yeah. I think that's probably the focus of my first session with clients, is instilling hope that it's like I. I want to reassure the client. What you're telling me you're experiencing does not feel out of reach for healing. Like, we. We can do this, but sometimes you have to start with, do you think you can heal first? Sometimes that's the first. If. Especially with. They just. They've tried everything. They just don't think it can get better. But if they stop trying, then they're giving up. And so you just. But I want to know, like, does your body. Because I think our. Our thoughts are very powerful. Do you think you can heal? And a lot of times they're like, no, but I'm going to give this a try. And that's where I need to start. Because there's a no there. We gotta work on that before we can get anywhere.

And I think Lori would say the same thing. We oftentimes ask our clients the same thing.

Yeah.

Do you think you can heal? Because if they think they can't heal, they can't. There's nothing we can do to take them from that place forward unless they're willing to make a change in their belief system. So that's powerful, too.

Yeah.

And I think that, you know, we can't skim over that too. You know, we have to ask it in many different ways sometimes, too, whether that be in a questionnaire and the, you know, maybe a complimentary consult before they. We ever decide to align ourselves together, to work together. Because I do think that, you know, some people, there's that whole want and need and willingness too. Like, some people want to feel better. They know they need to feel better, but they're not at the place what they're willing or their, Their belief is. I don't believe I can be better.

Yeah. And I'll say this is something a client of mine, it's probably. She's had one of the, like, toughest cases of chronic illness that I've probably worked with. And, you know, I'm a big proponent of the. I believe your body has everything it needs to heal. And my, My role is just to help you connect to that because trauma's disconnected you from that. And. But I had her tell me that, that sometimes when she hears that your body has everything it needs to heal, that. That feels. Forget the word she used. But basically it, it felt oppressive to her because she's like, I want to heal. And she does. She's very motivated, but she's so. Her body is very sick. And it made it feel like. She compared it to like, Like a Christian culture of if you're not praying enough, that's why you're not getting better, that it feels like I'm not doing enough, so I'm not getting better. So just meeting every client where they are, that it, sometimes it's not that they're not willing, but there's just this deep message subconsciously sometimes that until you sit with them with that question, like, I know you want to, but do you think you can? And letting them sit with that. Yeah.

And they come that shame and guilt is what I hear you saying, and probably a myriad of other emotions already feeling like I feel like I should have everything. You know, I've been told a million times my body has everything. But obvious, you know, the whole rolling of the eyes sometimes. Obviously, you know, I've done everything I know to do. Like, what are you trying to tell me? You know, I haven't done enough. And that's not it at all. It almost sometimes probably feels like we're minimizing it too. And, and, and, and it's never our intention to do that, but it's just not necessarily the choice of wor. And we learn. And I have heard you saying that you've had to learn what to do, what not to do. We're still learning every day.

But I think too sometimes reframing what healing means to the person. Right. That's really important too, because sometimes that end we're trying to get back somewhere and we really should be going forward. Right. Because we'll never get back and we don't need to get back. Right. But learning to walk toward healing in whatever way it's going to manifest for us, I think there's power in that too. And I think there can be a lot of frustration when we're trying to get back.

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think as therapists, doctors, we're trained to look at dysfunction. We're trained to find the dysfunction and fix it. And I try to teach the therapists that are around me that we need to be focused on finding the healing capacity of each client that we are with and that we're. But we're trained to find the dysfunction and that's. It's helpful to understand what you're working with. But we just we for and that we aren't the ones providing the healing. The client is. And we're just helping their bodies know how to do that the best way that it can.

And that's what I was going to say because I feel like there is oftentimes the expectation that is set with the client, patient, whatever a person is, you know, chosen to be called in a practice on us, that we are the healer or the fixer or the finding of that dysfunction. And so I love what you just said.

So oftentimes with chronic disease, and even I would say with perimenopause, and I don't want to put perimenopause and chronic disease in the same space, but it just keeps coming up. So I have to say it. But we lose our edge, we lose our creativity, we lose the umph that we've had, perhaps. And you know, you read all of these things online about dopamine and how dopamine plays into creativity and all of that. Like, what are the things that you do with clients to help tap into getting them back to a place where they have some creativity, where they're improving their dopamine. Like, what does that look like in therapy?

I encourage clients to be bored, figure.

Out.

Okay, so this is really funny, Melanie, because we have a video. Lori and I have a video that she's telling a patient if they're bored it's because they're boring, right?

That's.

That was when we didn't know because.

They'Re cleaning up food, right? They're saying, you know, about my food. I'm so bored. Like, if I eat one more piece of chicken, I feel like I'm gonna have wings and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, if word you're probably being boring. So I said, you saw me sit back in posture, like.

So you're telling us to get bored, right? To get bored.

So.

Okay, so I need to know about that.

Yeah, I'm super curious. Well, with the dopamine, I. It's comes into play with, I think with our, our phones. Like, we're. We just live in a different time than, you know, I think I was in the last, you know, group of kids that grew up without cell phones and all that stuff, which I'm. I'm grateful that I. That I had that as a child. But we are just. And I'm guilty of it too, with being on devices all the time. There's research for kids, and I can't quote what it. What the research was, but it was the cartoons and the kids on all these things that there's a lot more behavior problems because the cartoons, they move so fast. The scrolling, it goes so fast that then when they have to be still in the world, they're very bored. And as a child, they can't name that and. Or it's not that they're not bored. They can't. Things aren't moving as fast as what their brain's doing, so they get irritated. And then there's behavioral problems. And so there's a whole research. This woman who does this and like, has where she names like, cartoons that are good to watch and some ones that kind of create that cycle. But so it's starting out as young, but adults are doing it through social media, scrolling and constantly being on the phone and things like that. That is, we get this little dopamine hit. And I'll put this in terms of like a health term is like when someone becomes insulin resistant, you eat so much sugar that it quits being sensitive to it, right? This, the insulin doesn't work properly. So look at dopamine that way. When we. Every time we pick up our phone, I mean, have you ever picked up your phone? You're not really sure why he picked it up. You're just like, it's just a natural. That's you're going for a dopamine hit. And it's like the More we do it, then the more we, we become, we've got to keep doing more and more to get it. And so we kind of become resistant to the dopamine hit that we get. Right. So we need that dopamine. But when we allow ourselves to be bored. Right. And without our constant, our minds being engaged with something. So think about your ideas best come when you're in the shower or you're running or you're. You're doing something like that. That is something your body, brain knows to do without really thinking too much. Like, have you ever forgotten? Did I wash my hair yet? Did I put condition?

Yes.

That means like you, you, your brain calmed down and slowed down enough, it just started daydreaming and thinking. That's when the good ideas come. Right. When we're doing these things that aren't. Our brain's not constantly engaged in something. And so that's where the boredom is helpful. And that can look like when we're. We're journaling or we're meditating or taking a walk, being out in nature and that sort of thing. So it creates a dysregulated nervous system.

Yeah. So I want to go back to what you said about running because I'm a rehab endurance runner, meaning I can't do it anymore. But it was my drug of choice. It's where my brain worked the best. It's where I was creative. And I can't do that anymore. I can't physically do that without the consequence of a crash. Okay. And so I feel like we train ourselves to be creative in certain ways. Like mine was through running. How do we retrain the body to tap into that same creativity in other ways? Like is that, is there a path to that?

I would say one look at how much are you. Where are you chasing your dopamine? Like you can't run right now, but you're still. It's, it's our nature to seek out the dopamine. So what does that look like? It could be as simple as like you make a to do list and you love checking the things off. And so you'll just keep yourself busy adding things to your do to do list so that you can check them off. So how are you trying to get your dopamine hits?

Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not a list maker per se. And checking things off, that doesn't typically go. I do find myself scrolling, probably way too much. Right.

Exercise is still it. So I'm gonna call from a third party reviewer of my Best friend there.

Okay. Oh, gosh. I knew you guys were gonna team up on me.

No, mine's coming. I know mine's coming because I know mine's coming because it always. Because this is gonna be fun. Right? But shifting from running to just devices, like, you know, just, you know, your, your bike, and always trying to find movement because movement for you, really movement.

For me, is it movement, is it. Just figuring out what the threshold is for tolerability of movement has been the biggest challenge. Right. But yes, I will go to movement every single time. I'll go to being outside. Like, if the sun is up, I'm outside. I mean, if possible, right? Obviously I work, but if it's possible for me to be outside, I'm going to be outside. Like, I will e single meal outside, trying to just do everything I can to be outside. So those would be the two big things that I go to. And probably scrolling would be the thing. I don't like that I do that I do go to.

Yeah. So I think it's figuring out what do you do? And then if it's. If the scrolling and things, the things that you can identify is not helpful, let's just start walking them back. Let's start looking for. To lean more into, like, what's helpful. But some of it's bored. Do you feel like you're bored when you're doing those things? The movement?

Oh, no, I don't feel.

I don't.

I do get out of my head more.

Okay, that's good, right?

I do get out of my head more. I don't feel like I don't feel the same as running, though. I don't feel the same, like, it's not the same processing because I am on the bike, I am having to concentrate. Right. I'm still. It's not like running where you just completely lose your mind and you're not having to think about anything. And I think some of it is time too. Because with endurance, you're out there a long time. With what I'm doing now, it's short. And so I don't think there's been enough time to tap into that part of the creativity side of that. So maybe I need to exercise and then just be bored. Maybe I just need to exercise and get in the shower. Is that what you're telling me? And wash my hair three times.

Talk about what the idea of being bored really means. Because a lot of people think it. It feels like it's a negative thing to be bored. They're being lazy. You Know that sort of thing. They're not being productive because we live in a society where we need to be productive. If you happen to just lay around and just piddle around the house for a day, we're like, I just wasted a day. And I'm like, no, that was just lovely that you just did that. You know, that just let yourself do nothing. I get excited when there's, you know, when somebody's like, what's your weekend look like? I'm like, nothing. I don't have anything on my schedule. I'm just gonna flow through it and see what happens, like. Because that doesn't get to happen very much. And especially, I mean, as a practitioner, hour by hour, your days are scheduled and they're not your. Yeah. And I think it's even more important to find that time where it. So unscheduled play. We can. I think we could switch out boredom and play, but figure out what that means there. Also, pay attention. What's the first thing you do in the morning for a dopamine hit? Do you pick up your phone when you wake up and look at it?

No, I'm in a habit now of meditating in the mornings, so I'll do a meditation before I do anything else.

Good. What about you, Lori?

I don't. First thing I do when I wake up is meditation, typically prayer time. Then get out of bed, then walk myself to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and get on my phone. Yes. For. Do I have any text messages from the office that someone's not coming in?

So they'll say, whatever. The first thing you do for a dopamine hit of the day, your brain will chase it. Typically, a lot of y'. All. Y' all get A pluses. Y' all meditate first before you do anything, so keep it up. But a lot of times, I mean, myself included, I do that. Let's. Has our schedule changed yet today? You know that first thing I do is to look to see if my day has shifted. And then. And then you start looking at other stuff. And so. But if you. A lot of clients, they're like, yeah, I get on my phone and scroll in the morning, and it's. Can we just change one thing about. If that was. If we didn't do that and we. We did something else first. If you just walked outside and looked at the trees, I mean, you know, you don't have to walk outside. Just open your door, look out the window, just take a few breaths, ground, and just keep it slow in the morning or, you know, figure out where you can work that in. But the first thing. Normally you. That gives you that in the day, just like any other drug. You then chase it the rest of the day.

Okay, so what was your recommendation for the first thing to do for a dopamine hit? Like, what would be the best first.

Thing to walk outside. You could drink a glass of water, play with your animal. If you have a pet. You know, I have Darcy, my therapy dog. So she's. Normally, I call it. She sleeps on a couch, and. But then I'll call her over and we snuggle a little bit before we get up. So I do like to have this bef. When I first become into awareness that I'm awake, I try to just stay there with my eyes closed for a little bit and just kind of pay attention to the thoughts I'm having and just take some nice, deep breaths and then sit up and put my feet on the floor intentionally. It's kind of like, okay, our day is starting now. It can be very simple little things. It could be. I mean, my coffee. I look forward to my coffee in the morning. I have a latte machine and making my latte in that. So just while I'm sitting and waiting on that to make, and I'm smelling it, and I take that first sip, like, just intentionally doing something in the morning.

Yeah. So that anticipation, I read anticipation of something you enjoy builds dopamine. So probably the anticipation of the coffee does more than the coffee.

That's right.

That's right. You know, I think we all. You know, sometimes I think as our. Our clients kind of look at us as you guys have it all together, and. And I don't know if, you know, you get that too, but I. I kind of want to.

I.

Yes, I do that now. I wake up and I do those things now. But I remember a time that I clearly did not do that. And you know what really shifted me was when I did do that. And when I first started doing that, it was maybe once a week. You know, I made the time to do that, and then I would notice, like, gosh, my day was better, you know, and then I would do it a couple times, and I was like, wow. And then I wouldn't do it, and I was like, ugh. So I just really feel like it's important to kind of the people that are listening here is if you kind of feel like if I'm doing it all wrong, understand that, you know, what you said, Melanie, is so true. It's one thing. What's one thing? You can do and what could you shift. And it's not really about more time. It's just changing up how you use that time.

Yeah. I always say the intention. Look at the intention of doing things. Yeah. Something I like to suggest to clients, too, is I was like, let's talk about what your ideal day would look like. Get into the details with me. Tell me from the time you wake up, like, what would you feel like, what would you do? How would you move throughout your day? So tell me, you know what that would look like. And so now I say now you have all these options of things at any point in the day that you can. If your day gets. You get pulled away into some craziness and you need to come back, you've got a whole list and a whole timeline of things that you come back to that's going to help you get kind of grounded and centered again, and that helps it tailor to the client and what that might look like.

I love that. So in thinking about patients with trauma, and oftentimes they do get derailed with being triggered by events or things, what are some grounding things that they can do in the moment to kind of get them back to being settled?

The breath is going to be the first thing, like connect back to your breath. It's. It's a. You don't have to think about it, but it's. It's the most regulatory thing. Heart beating that our bodies can do. And if you could just. And a lot of times our. If you pay attention, the breath will tell you what's going on. Because, I mean, when I watch clients process trauma, they'll hold their breath a lot of times or the breath gets faster. And so I'm just reminding them, let's take a breath. They're holding it. And so see what your breath is doing. And can you kind of come back to it and kind of steady it? You know, I think that's. That's a really easy thing. One thing I like to do, and I do it too, is barely rubbing your fingers together to where you can feel your fingerprint. Like, very, very softly. You can feel the ridges. And it's like your. When your brain gets focused on that, it. It can't like, split into, like, the panic and the somatic thing that you're doing, like when you're paying attention to the body. And so you can do things like that. There's tapping and things that you can do. Going outside and hugging a tree, you know.

Oh, my gosh, it reminds me of my college class. My very first one in sociology. And that's what he said.

Oh, I will take my shoes off and go. And especially at the office, there's some really fluffy grass around there. And I've gone for a walk. Like we have a walkable neighborhood. Like our, our therapy space is like a house, but there's. It's like a neighborhood with lots of sidewalks. So we have walked and done walking meditations where you're naming things that you see, you smell, you hear things like that. But to me, the nature is going to be my next go to after breath, doing breath. If you're in panic mode, that's a little different. Getting in a cold shower, that can help different. Anything somatic that's gonna like your body is just gonna tune into your nervous system and try to support the nervous system. Don't try to solve the problem. Just get with your nervous system and. And nourish it.

But that's with moms with kids who. Moms are seeing their kids escalate maybe down that path. Can we use some of those same tools with them or other ones?

So, okay, so I'm not a mom. So I, I preface. I know this isn't just as easy as it sound. As a therapist that is constantly in the room with dysregulated clients, I would say to the mom, your job is to be the regulated nervous system out of you and your child. You can't really help them if you're dysregulated too. So try to be the grounded regulating system for them because they can borrow your nervous system. Like when clients get. If I'm just. Do you see even just that pausing say a lot, just soften tone, take a breath, make eye contact that just shifts very quickly, can shift energy versus if you're in it with them, y' all are just feeding off of each other and it builds and builds until you both just don't know what to do. And so if you can just keep in mind like stay calm, you can get mad later and have your feelings and. And address problem behaviors. That's not the time to do it. When someone is triggered and you know they're not in their logic brain anymore when that's going on. So to try to reason with your child, they already still have a developing brains and that it's not probably not going to go very well. And it's just resort to either like punishment that isn't really going to help the relationship or the child's ego or not ego. But when I say ego, just ego. State their Beliefs about self and things like that.

So stay regulated even though it's hard, like stay well, that's what coming back.

To the breath like as the, you know, it's. Yeah, try to get regulated first. Even though I know it's, I know it's hard, you know, trying to. When your kid is doing that, you know, having something going on. But you know when you can try to just stay regulated and connect to your breath. Go get grounded, say I'll be back, I need to take, you can take a minute too to try to get regulated. But yeah, I would say but with, with an adult and a child, the adults got to try to be the more regulated one.

And I like what you said about borrowing. I never heard that term before. I've definitely heard that, you know, the way that you show up, definitely energy wise, we're energetic beings and they can sense energy. They're very energy sensitive. But that whole borrowing, I think that's really a powerful statement in that I can actually what I have and what I show up with, I share. And so I'm responsible for that. That changes. I feel like the ownership we are.

You know, the whole human beings versus human doings. We always think we have to do something to, to solve a problem. But a lot of times just, just being present, being like showing up present with. With another human and attuning to them. I mean that's my job as a therapist is that I am just attuning to others nervous systems all day. But I have to be attuned to my own as well or I'm not going to be able to do that very well for anybody else. Because you know, if a client comes in and they're like really amped up and I'm like getting in that with them, you know, I'm not, I'm not helping them. But they tell me all this stuff and I'm like, I just take a breath and I'm like that sounds like a lot. Sounds really like you're like what is your body feeling right now as you tell me about that? Because I can, I can feel it just listening to you. I can only imagine what you, you experience that and, and then I'm but just acknowledging and versus like oh my God, I cannot believe that, you know, then I'm egging it on, you know.

Well, I can imagine that's a really.

Good leadership skill too, right.

Not just as a provider to you know, our clients or patients, but anyone in leadership. Like, you know, it's that whole de. Escalating of a Situation. It starts with how we posture ourselves from the second someone comes in the door at us. I know that as a leader, even walking into you my building, I have to outside before walking in. This is just something I've had to create for myself because I'm a go get it done. Like, I'm just down the hall getting things off my list and I'm like, how do I want to show up? Take a deep breath, right. And slow down, listen, pause and do all of those things. So I think that's good advice all the way around. Really, really good. So listen, I heard this quote and I just, I told Kelly I was going to ask you this and I, so I, I had seen it on Facebook, so I have to qualify. This is not my.

It is.

And, and I just am curious what you think about it. Okay, so you're not healing to be able to handle trauma, pain, anxiety and depression. You're used to those. You're healing to be able to handle joy and to accept happiness back into your life.

Yeah, that's a powerful one. Are you asking just my thoughts on that or if. I mean, I definitely agree your thoughts on that?

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I think we are more comfortable in chaos a lot of times. Like trauma sometimes tells us that stillness is scary. It's more scary. We're very used to know how to move through the difficult stuff. And sometimes our system seeks out what's known, what's familiar more than the unfamiliar, which sometimes is calm and joy and the thing, you know, the second part of that quote. And so I think it's important, it is like we've got. When we are able to process and let our nervous system like release the things that tells us those things are scary, we can definitely receive them and lean into them more and experience them more. Because how many times when someone says I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, that means they've been through a first shoe dropping. So their experiences are telling them be ready for the next one that's going to happen. And so they're constantly, they're hyper vigilant. And this goes back to the boredom and dopamine stuff too. Like it, this is like a very foundational thing in our body that we don't realize is going on all the time, but we are hyper vigilant looking for where it was, you know, the negativity bias. Where's this, where's it going to go wrong versus when we haven't had it go right or experienced joy. Then even when we do get it. Sometimes we're looking for it to be taken away. Right. And so I think it's important to embrace like there. It's not something you earn. It's not something that's going to be dropped in your lap. It's. It's within you, but you've gotten disconnected from it. And your life experiences have told you a narrative around those. These things that you're scared to welcome in. They're there, but we've got to do this other work first so that you can, you can receive it.

Yeah, it's good stuff. And I, I love the word foundational. You know, we talk about that from the standpoint of food being foundational. You know, what you eat is so. Is so key and foundational. And what I hear you saying is these, the foundational belief systems around healing are key to all together to optimize a person's health.

So. Absolutely. I think a lot of times when people hear holistic, they think it's like just organic. Like it's organic. Natural is what I think a lot of people. What comes to mind when someone hears organic or holistic healing? And it's. I just, I feel like I want to say this as many times as I can to as many people as I can, that holistic means your whole body, your mind and your body, your whole being. And I include our spirituality in that as well. But like our physical body and our mental body and our spiritual body, like it's all of it. And so that's why, like, all these things, they are foundational and to work with, whether it's a medical, mental, spiritual people that, that work that you're seeking out to work with these things. Like, I think it's important that they have an understanding. They're going to look at the other things as well.

You know, that's your wellness team. Right. We say there's wellness is in the set, you know, in the center. But the reality is it's concentric circles of physical, emotional, spiritual, nutritional, all of those, you know, things. And you have to have a team of qualified professionals. You're not going to find that in typically. I mean, maybe there are some clinics out there and, you know, praise them for having pulled all of these specialties into one. But the reality is that we really do have to be seekers of all of those things that we can come and bring into our, you know, our wellness plan and those wellness professionals like yourself, you know, like, you know, Kelly and I, like a chiropractor, we talk about holistic, even integrative, or or you know, biological dentistry. I mean, the list goes on. And that team has to continually change too and be refined over time based on the season and the chapter of their, where they're at in their journey too.

So Val, tell us a little bit about, describe it intensive for our audience. Like what does that look like when someone engages with you and they're working through some trauma challenges? Like what would that look like?

Yeah, it can look so many different ways. And that's what I like about that is that we get to really kind of tailor it to whatever the client's wanting or needing. And so sometimes an intensive, I typically am doing trauma intensives but I'm, I'm offering a workshop here soon to try to teach therapists how to do intensives because I just think it means it's a deeper way to work with clients. You're getting more focused and I think clients can go deeper and then hopefully with the idea it, they can heal a little quicker. And the goal is not to heal fast, but it, it'll follow their system and what its capacity is. Because sometimes I've worked with clients who have said they've, they've been seeing a therapist for years and they've never even talked about some of the trauma that they experienced. And so to me it's, it's just a more focused, intensive way to try to go about doing this work. And so that an intensive, if it's a client on the very front end of their healing, then an intensive may look like you're focusing on getting grounded in the body and learning coping skills for regulation. So you could do, you could do a whole intensive just on that. Sometimes then clients need to understand their, their trauma and their life experiences and how they're impacting their lives. So that might look like one understanding what trauma is and what that means, what their trauma actually has been. But then how is that affecting how they think about themselves, how they're showing up in relationships and that sort of thing. And then, then we're moving into trauma now we're ready to do some trauma intensive work. And so it's really, I do a consultation, a 45 minute consultation on the front end for anybody I work with to really talk about. And they fill out a pre screen that gives me a lot of information. And then I'm going to start kind of, I call it a treatment planning session because sometimes it's not going to include me. Sometimes I'm going to say I think you need to get with a primary therapist first and do some of this work. And so that's why I love the team that I have, because I can really trust, I understand this lens, and that's how they're working as well. But then, then if we're doing a trauma intensive or setting up any kind of intensive, then we kind of decide what's the time you can give to it, what's the financial, you know, what can you do financially? Because that's a huge barrier for a lot of people. And so we're going to talk about what's the best way to go about doing this. So this could be. I typically will work with someone up to six months and we're doing extended sessions, so at least an hour and a half when we meet. So that. Because clients will say, I'm not going to go into trauma when I've got 30 minutes left and I've got to do the rest of my day. So when we have this set aside time for to do the work, the nervous system's way more open to doing it. So I've tried, I tried to just to curate the best situation for that. So someone that maybe lives locally, they might spread those out. But we're doing deeper sessions. And for me, clients know I'm going to ask them, what do you need today? They're telling me what they want to work on. So they're going to be thinking about it between sessions, noticing what's coming up and what's going on. And they're like, okay, here's what I want to dig into today day. All right, cool, let's, let's do it. Some travel in from out of town. And so it's, maybe we're trying to set up, you know, a week's worth of stuff. And then we're looking at what's best for their nervous system. And that can include emdr, brain spotting, ketamine, assisted therapy, ifs, somatic work, all, all those kinds of things. But then I also have a sound therapist that's a good friend of mine that works in our office that does the cranial sacral and sound therapy. And we've got a massage place next door that does massage somatic therapy as well. Somebody, a practitioner there that does that. There's a yoga studio down the street. So there's. I kind of have all these different things that we piece together and help build out an intensive and what that needs to look like. And so it could, you know, it can really look several different ways. And those sessions, it can be, you know, that we just do an hour and a half for four Days, if that's what feels appropriate for the nervous system. But then I like to, like, if we're doing several days, then we're going to stack up stuff. So we're going to be combining and doing longer sessions. But you just have to see what the capacity of the nervous system is because you don't want to overwhelm it. But it. So it can be anywhere from one to four days. Typically that we're. We have this theme that we're working through as we move through it.

So, yeah, I'm glad that you said that you know what the nervous system can do, because I think a lot of times with conventional therapy, that's the barrier is you go in for therapy, it kind of triggers you, and then you're left to do the rest of your week and you're still kind of spun up, like your nervous system hasn't settled. And so it makes it really hard to get through the rest of your week when you're, you know, you're hyperactivated. And so I can see where a, where an intensive would be extremely helpful in that situation.

Yeah, and that's. I learned the very first intensive when I decided I wanted to start doing them. I was like, if it. Basically at that time, if somebody reached out and said they wanted to do it, I'm like, okay, let's do it. And then the very first one, I was like, her nervous system can't do this. Like the first time we tried to brain spot. So then we, we spent a week doing things that were helpful. But her expectations were that all this trauma was going to get processed. So I, that taught me, like, we've gotta, I've got to really on the front end, figure out where this client is and what is going to be best for them. And that we really talk about expectations that we, we can have these. The expectation and the goal to process trauma. But if you get here that week and your nervous system says no, and we just need. You would want to talk about things or we want to learn some somatic work or do whatever. I'll say just the fact that you came, that you had intentions to do this and that you listened to your nervous system and did what it was capable of doing is very healing in itself. So that's kind of how I address kind of resetting an intention for what this may look like. But then we're just going to see what happens. And that is teaching a client something we normally don't do. Right.

You have to say that's not the normal response because in the get her done world that Lori and I live in, we're just gonna push through, right? We're just gonna get what needs to be done. So even that conversation, I would think would be very impactful and empowering to just listen like, what. What are you. What is your body asking for now in this moment?

So I love that and honoring that, and we talk about that a lot too. Is. Is honoring what our body is saying. And some people are just so in the. In the thick of it. They aren't at a point, you know, I heard you say earlier, you know, you get the privilege of. Of working with people who've been doing some work prior to getting to you, but I can imagine those that are not yet there just even trying to figure out, you know, just what is honoring my body. Like, what do you mean? Like, you know.

Well, I had. This is a neat thing, that example I like to share. Like, because younger therapists that I'm working with, they're teaching in certain. Some capacity. They have. They still have this. I got to do it right. I'm going to fail the client thing. And I'm like, you can't do that as long as you're showing up and following them. So I was brain spotting with a client, and she. I noticed her starting to, like, nod off, and I was like, do you feel like you need to lay down? She was like, yeah. So she laid down and she fell asleep while we were brain spotting. And I just. If you're familiar with brain spotting, it's a pointer. So I was. I still just sat and held the spot and probably five minutes, minutes or. Or more. Maybe she just laid there and like. And I couldn't quite. She was like, laying down, and then she just kind of woke up. And I was like, hi, how was that? And then we just started this whole conversation of like, one, she had never felt safe enough with a stranger to let herself fall asleep. So she was, like, kind of proud of herself that she, like, let herself be vulnerable to fall asleep, but that rest comes very difficult, is very difficult for her, and that it just felt good to kind of let that go and to fall asleep for a little bit and to rest. And I've had that happen two or three times with clients, but this was someone with some chronic illness stuff as well and just nourishing their body. And so then we talked about that, and she still had about 20 minutes left of her session. And I said, well, what do you feel like you need right now? I was like, we have about 20 minutes left. She was like, I think I need to go home and take a nap. I was like, okay. I said, do you want to be done with the session now? And she's like, I think so. It's like, okay, well, notice the permission you're giving yourself, because normally clients, like, I paid for this. I'm staying the whole time. You know, I got to get this work done. I'm going to, like, process right up until the end. But I was like, just notice that you're listening to yourself and giving yourself permission to.

To.

To give it what your body, what it needs right now. And so even things like that, like that. My perception was that was very healing and a very different experience. She normally does not give her body. And so that is therapeutic. And if you just look at it for what it was, she came in and fell asleep on my couch, you know, but that was very. That's what her nervous system needed. And if I would have been in my ego, I would have woken her up and I would have tried to. Kept the therapy part, which I think therapy was still happening, but I would have tried to keep her processing because that's what I thought was right for her. And so that's the mentality of. Of us. We have to listen to the person sitting across from us. Their nervous system will say things they aren't saying.

And watching that happen and being sensitive to it and like you said, not being in your ego, and I believe you on so many levels because I have actually seen, you know, we love wearable devices. And one of the things I found on the OURA ring, particularly in individuals who don't find it easy to rest and, you know, that trauma relationship, sometimes feeling safe, they have very limited deep sleep. And when they do feel more safe, their restorative sleep goes up. Yeah, I just think that was a profound finding. I think. I mean, we love, you know, wearables for so many reasons, but, you know, that's. That's really cool, that safety. She obviously felt safe to have fallen asleep in front of you and was truly resting. So I wonder if she went home and actually went to sleep, though, because, you know, sometimes we get revved back up. Yes, I need sleep. And then we get all kind of busy afterwards, but I hope she got rest.

Yes. Also, I'll say with. Because I have an aura ring when I'm in session with clients, I'm, like, in the most, like, relaxed, restored zones of the day. But when I'm on my computer and doing admin stuff, more of that, then I'm that's when I typically am more in the stress.

I'm exactly the same. I get a lot of restored time when I'm at clinic. And it's crazy because, you know, you don't think about it being so restorative, but I think when you're doing what you love and you're engaging with people that way, it definitely shows up. And it's pretty. It's exciting because you think at the end of the week, gosh, what have I really done? And you see, you see that reinforcement there is pretty incredible.

When your mission is. And what you do every day is aligned with what your mission and your passion is do. And that's a pretty cool thing to watch happen. Well, this has been extremely interesting. It's so nice to. Absolutely to meet you. Not only do I love Nashville, I. I might have to come because now I really love Melanie. So we're going to Nash together.

Open invitation. Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Yeah. So, Melanie, tell us, tell us about your clinic. Tell us where people can reach you, all of your information. That would be great.

So my practice, my group practice of therapists is Trauma Therapy of nashville, and it's traumatherapynashville.com or@trauma Therapy Nashville on social media. I also have kind of a separate piece of this that's just me as a clinician, and it's melanie lane reese.com. but it's on Instagram is melanie reese lmft. So, but that's more of doing coaching for therapists that are, you know, I like to do all kinds of consultation and education workshops, things like that, and my end of life care that I do. So that's on that website.

Well, you just keep doing what you're doing. The world needs more of you, and so we're very, very honored that you gave us your time and you were so generous with that today. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. I think you are doing. Creating really wonderful conversations for people, so thank you.

The Synergy Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor patient relationship is formed. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.