From Trauma to Triumph: How Healing Can Empower You EYV81

Hello, I am Nancy Bos. I am the host of the Empower Your Voice podcast. So glad you could be here today. This particular episode, wow, this episode could spin off many more episodes. Uh, I think you're gonna be transformed by what Shad Cunningham has to say to us today. A little bit about me. I'm a former singing voice teacher, professional performer. I'm a speaker, an author of 4 bestselling books on voice. And what I learned through this process of teaching over 25,000 hours with clients on voice is I learned that the tools that I could give them for how to use their voice physically in the physical world made no difference if they didn't believe in themselves. Now, who believes in themselves? I mean, that's a big ask as a human to actually have the confidence to think, this is what I'm doing here, this is why I was put on this planet, this is what I should be doing. I have complete confidence in this moment and this performance with my voice, whether that's singing or speaking or just literally talking to somebody else that you need to share a message with. So all the tools in the world that I could give my clients didn't matter if they didn't believe themselves. And so that's why I've gone on a deep dive on the root causes of why people don't believe in themselves. Now, the symptoms of not believing in yourself are you feel like an imposter, or you get very nervous, you feel fear or anxiety when it comes to sharing your message. You maybe shut down and you're like, you know, I think I'm just gonna go be a a barista or a garbage man, because then I don't have to share anything of myself at all and avoid the whole 'this is my passion' path that makes for a super meaningful life. My exploration of finding the root cause of not believing in yourself always leads back to personal narratives, which is the stories that we tell ourselves. And if the stories that we tell ourselves help us to believe in ourselves and our mission and our purpose. Those are stories worth keeping. It's the stories that tear us apart, that break us apart, that break us down and steal our confidence and cause fear. The traumas, or abuses as you're going to hear Shad call them. We've all experienced them our whole lives. In this message from Shad Cunningham, you are going to hear about healing. It's a super powerful message. This episode in particular is for sharing. If they help you heal, if they help you along your journey, I can 100% guarantee that these episodes also will help the people that you know and love on their journey as well. Share this, spread this message. Let people know that they're not alone, that we are in a tribe together of people that are healing. Now let's get to the message from Shad. Shad Cunningham is a mental health provider, a therapist in the San Antonio area. He's also an amazing public speaker. His knowledge and his wisdom are so deep. Every time Shad and I talk, which is 5 or 6 times now that we've gotten together in deep conversation. This one is recorded for you because the stuff that Shad shares has to be put out there, and that's why I'm doing this. So here he is, Shad Cunningham. Enjoy. Welcome, Shad. It is so awesome to have you on Empower Your Voice. Thank you for being here.

Appreciate it. I appreciate you.

Thank you. There's a, there's a question that, that's been bugging me ever since we met, and that is the name Shad. So S-H-A-D-D, is it short for Shadrach?

It is, yes. Yeah, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they walked through the fire and came out the same.

So yeah, can you remind me of that story? Because it's, it's definitely foggy there.

Oh, it's just, it's three, three characters in the Bible that were, you know, thrown into the furnace, and the person that was in there with them was Jesus, who saved them and brought them back out. God.

Wow. And in the Bible story, it's literal, but I can relate to walking through psychological fires in my life and, and having Spirit and Love and the Source, the Greater. I was raised Lutheran. I've I've moved into a much more all-encompassing kind of religion. I think you were as well.

Absolutely. I was raised the same way you were in the same denomination.

Yeah, that's right. So why don't you start by telling us a little bit about this fire or two or three or five that you've walked through?

Well, I like to think that the fire that I've walked through in my life has actually developed a greater amount of empathy Uh, which is what a lot of times trauma will do to us. Um, I'm a 5-time open heart surgery patient, um, at age 4, 8, 10, 30, and 33.

Wait a minute, 4, 8, 10, 30, and 33, and each time— I mean, open heart surgery is always life or death.

Yes.

Wow, intense.

It's a very intense procedure. Um, But the story starts actually in Melbourne, Australia, where I was born, where a cardiac nurse came up to take her friend to lunch who was in charge of looking after the newborns, which was me, one of me. The cardiac nurse actually came up and said, there's something wrong with that baby's breathing. And she actually saved my life because normally they would just send me home and I would have died of crib death in the first week.

Yeah.

So in Australia, my mom ended up staying about almost, I think almost a month in there with me. Wow. And then when we— when my father and my mom moved back stateside, um, we found the one of the world number one, uh, world's number one surgeon called Dr. Albert Starr in Portland, Oregon. And he operated on me at age 4, 8, 10, and 30. And then 33, um, the surgeon that was hand-picked by him worked on me, and he was only one of two surgeons that would perform it. And they replaced my mitral valve and my aortic valve with mechanical valves. I have a pacemaker and an ascending aortic aneurysm replaced with a Dacron shaft. I'm currently 48, and, and along with open heart surgery and the history of that and what it has done for me— and I'll talk on that later— um, comes multiple doctor visits, right heart casts, I've been cardioverted, which is where they shock your heart back into rhythm 7 times. And, um, my, my life is very regimented— diet, everything.

My brother had one open heart surgery when he was about 50, and I know just from hearing him talk about it that that has changed him forever, that, that nearness to death facing the fear of losing his life. And then on the other side, mostly gratitude, but also confusion and a feeling of responsibility. And it's just that one open heart surgery was super loaded for him. So what, what are some of the experiences that you've had after 5?

Um, I think, well, fear is definitely one of them. I mean, we never look— no one ever goes to the hospital and goes, oh my gosh, this is going to be great. You know, so one of the things that has incorporated in my life since going through that is, is fear. But on the opposite side of that is perfectionism.

Oh, right.

I grew up— yeah, I grew up a perfectionist. I would say I had a touch of OCD. I'm not self-diagnosing myself, but it's just, it's kind of obvious, you know, but The thing that comes out of that, which is what I was talking about earlier, is it's these things that we have stigmatized in mental health. And being a mental health provider is that we have stigmatized these for so long that growing up without going to therapy, without having these interventions, I became this person because of all this fear and this trauma in my life. I became this person that never felt like he was good enough, hence the perfectionism. Wow.

And the source of fear doesn't really have anything to do with the places that you would apply your perfectionism. It was just part of that package.

It was, uh, I call it the, uh, it was the residue from trauma.

Wow.

Okay, that's what I call it, because If you think about it, when you go through something traumatic, what do we do? We are very ultra sensitive. Someone says something the wrong way, even though they don't mean it, we go, we take it literal.

Wow, you're so right. Humans are incredibly sensitive.

Absolutely. And it took— but being a perfectionist, think what it was hard for me to be sensitive to understanding myself and knowing how to cope within that perfectionism. So if I— if somebody hurt my feelings, per se, you know, those were things that I took so literal and so to heart because I already don't feel good enough and I already have this disability, which later on in life I have come to see that I don't have a disability, I have a different ability.

Yes, for sure. Yes, yes, yes.

And so After counseling and after being around people who value me, who actually want to understand me and actually hold me accountable in the right way. I call it loving me where I'm at, not where you want me to be.

Okay. Okay.

Which is very important for people to do in today's world. You really want to love people where they're at. I mean, can you imagine you and I being raised as Lutheran? Let's bring that back around. Can you imagine if people in the church would have loved us where we were at, not where they wanted to be? Right.

No judgment. No judgment would be amazing.

Right. And what is judgment? It's truth without grace.

Oh, but the church preaches grace.

Oh, exactly. Well, there we go. So what's the fundamental problem? Man. So what we have to understand is, is that going back to that perfectionism, when we display or portray perfectionism— and well, I'll stick with the church analogy since, you know, you and I were talking about that— if you portray something as perfect, it's a level that we can never live up to, right? It actually— we have to come to terms, and I had to in my life, which is harder. And I don't want to say it's harder than anyone else, but for me personally, it was hard because I had to come to terms with, yes, I have a different ability, But why? We always ask that. I wish I could be that person that didn't have to ask why. But really, just because I went through this trauma doesn't mean someone else who didn't has the same amount of trauma. And I found this out not just through education but through my profession as a mental health provider, is that you see a lot of people. This is why groups work so well. We find familiarity with people who have hurt and who have been through similar traumas. And then we go, oh, wait a minute, I'm not the only one.

It's really important to know you're not alone. And maybe that goes back to tribalism, knowing that, oh, I may not be part of that tribe, but I'm part of this tribe.

Right. Absolutely.

Yeah.

And that's the familiarity. And, you know, I, I, I, I've come to terms to where you start realizing, and where I've come to terms to is, is where I've grown, is that I've actually come to see that My perfectionism, it saved my life.

Okay.

It literally saved my life. Think about how regimented through this trauma that I had to be. Medication, exercise, diet, stay on top of my doctor's appointments. If something goes wrong, the little thing that reminds me, hey, your heart's still here, I'm on it. So that perfectionism in me actually saved my life. It allowed me not to go down a road that I would have if I would have had a normal heart.

So you're, you're showing me, I think, that, that the perfectionism, when it is a response to fear, it has value. There's a good reason.

Absolutely.

Is perfectionism always a response to fear? Are there other sources of perfectionism that you know of?

Um, I think, well, one of the most common ones we know in psychology is the modeling.

Okay.

The modeling of how a child is brought up.

Tell me more about that.

Well, say that Person A is brought up with a father who holds this high bar that the child has to live up to.

Right.

Not even caring really if that's what that child wants to do. So if we model a child that way, we know that, that bar that we set, if they don't reach it, what do you think that child is going to think about themselves?

Always not be good enough.

I'm not good enough. Never good enough. So I've got to do this. I've got to be good. I've got to do this. I have talked to many people who have in the end said, you know, when I was growing up, I didn't even want to do that. I did it because my dad wanted me to, or I did it because my mom told me to, you know. And I think you and I have talked on this, or I've heard you talk on this, is it You know, when a parent tells us— going back to that, love me where I'm at, not where you want me to be— when a parent tells us what we should be doing and what they need us to do, what's missing? Okay, what do you want to do?

Right, that respect for, for the person as their own entity.

Absolutely. And that's grace within that truth that that parent may be trying to find that they want. That's why we have those sayings that parents living their dreams for their children.

Right, absolutely. There's— yes, there are musicals about this. Mama Rose is living the dream through her daughter.

Yep. You know, and so I, I think about— I think about self-improvement through trauma, through life struggles. It is possible. I'm a living example of it. And there's many more just like me. There's many people out there struggling. There's many people hurting. And when we try— when we, when we find the understanding as to why we are hurting, we can start healing.

So you think that's very important, is to, to get to the source of the problem?

Absolutely.

Root cause is important. We can't just treat the symptoms.

Well, if we're treating the symptoms, that's what we call it masking.

Masking. Okay.

You know, I mean, if I, if I'm so depressed or I'm feeling depressed and I don't want to deal with my perfectionism or I don't want to deal with my trauma, what am I going to do? I'm either going to drink, resort to other process addictions, you know, whatever it is. I mean, you can throw anything out there. Exercise too much, which I have done. Yeah, I mean, I've done it. I've, I've— there was a part of my life I was so anxiety-ridden and depressed, I, I just, I use exercise. I'd exercise 3, 4 times a day.

Yeah, um, or the distractions of work. Workaholic. Work, work, work, work, work. And then the minute that, that we get to turn the work off, then, you know what, I think I'll have a scotch, or I think I'll smoke a joint. Because, right, dealing with the, the non-work mind is masking. That's masking. Okay.

Yeah. And if we numb it down, all we're doing is dumbing it down. That's all we're doing. And when we have people— I think I've said this before many times to people, not just in session, but when I've publicly spoke— is that when people start feeling like living a lie is due to sometimes them taking truths from you that they didn't have. And an easier example, that would be projections.

Okay.

Think about how many people project onto us in the world. I'm going to make you feel bad for something you didn't do because I'm actually doing it. Okay, that modeling as a child. Imagine if our parents did that. What do you think that's teaching us?

I'm, I'm a little bit foggy on this because I think this is a big concept that my brain is wrapping around for the first time. Can you explain a little bit more about this?

Yeah, absolutely. So when I think what happens is when people project onto us, which adds to that perfectionism and it adds to that trauma, these are just secondary things and mental cognitions that people do to people sometimes. It's when it'll actually manifest in us to start rationalizing the bad.

Okay. To start rationalizing the bad. This is the way it is. This is how you're supposed to be. Yeah. Okay.

Think about if we rationalize the bad, we sooner than later will start showing an example that people will start to not recognize the good in us, about us, and for us, because we have portrayed and taken on this responsibility of that projection. We see it in marital abuse all the time where the husband or wife is projecting on to somebody and they're not owning what they did themselves. They can't just say sorry. They want to make someone else feel guilty for something they don't do.

I need a story to grab on here. I, I just— can you give me an example?

Absolutely. When I'm in therapy, say with a woman, okay, if they ask me, you know, hey, this is what's going on in my marriage, one of the first things I will ask them, and males too, is, do you ever feel guilty for things you don't do? If they answer yes, we have eliminated probably, probably 2 to 4 sessions.

So things, things you don't do, like, I, I should have made him dinner last night, is that kind of thing you're talking about?

Or no, it has to— goes back to the word projection, where they actually start feeling bad for something that that person did.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, they actually are starting to feel bad because that person made them feel like they do, which is wrong. It's actually kind of like gaslighting. It's a term we use in psychology a lot where someone makes you question your reality.

Cool. I, I knew that that was a trendy word, but I didn't know it was used in psychology.

It's amazing how in the last 5 years all these words have become trendy. I wonder why, right?

We're all elevating ourselves. So gaslighting is when somebody makes you feel like you're crazy, um, when you've actually done nothing wrong, but it's something they're manipulating in you.

Yeah, and even, even if you haven't done nothing wrong, gaslighting still affects because they're making you question your reality. What do you mean? I wasn't there. You're nuts. Okay, that's why you hear people go, oh my gosh, maybe I am, maybe I was just thinking that up. No, you know, that's— I, I think I've touched on this before, is that the— I, I, in my opinion, this is my opinion in mental health and what I've talked to in men's groups and marriage groups and seminars is A woman's intuition is the most powerful thing in the world.

You have told me that before. Maybe that has something to do with why you're on the podcast.

Yeah, it is the most— it is the most powerful, uh, power in the world because I always encourage men, listen to your better half's intuition, it might save you. There's a reason why she has a problem with that without having to explain it. See, assumption has a history, intuition doesn't.

Assumption has a history, intuition doesn't.

No, that's what we call go with your gut.

Yeah, go with your gut.

We don't know what's going to happen, so, but I'm feeling kind of like this person's not— doesn't have my best interest at heart, you know. I feel like I'm being tolerated, not celebrated.

Yeah, that's so interesting that you honor intuition as, as a mental scientist. That's fantastic.

Absolutely. You know, that's why, you know, intuition is is vital for self-protection and self-care. It just is. Absolutely. And I've never had anybody go, no, that's not true. So I think the people speak for me when I say that.

Awesome. We've covered perfectionism, masking. We just talked about gaslighting and intuition. There was one in between there that I asked you to explain in more depth. It was projection, right? Okay, this has been an intense 10 minutes. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. And, and we mentioned, um, root cause, that you have to solve the root cause if you have something, if these things are a problem for you, right?

Right. Absolutely.

All right, let's dig in with that a little bit. Okay, when does a person decide to go to therapy? They decide to go to therapy when they feel like they aren't functioning well enough in the world, that things could be better. Does that sound about, right?

To a point, yes. I mean, they've got it. They've got to make that choice. You know, and that's one of the hardest things for people that we care about, is to let them make that choice. You know, that's why we call it free will.

Right?

We don't— if we don't celebrate somebody and having free will, they're not going to feel free to share with us. Yeah, they won't. And that's why we always say, I would encourage you, I don't tell them what to do. I encourage and I say, hey, think about this. What do you— what's your thoughts? You know. And so when someone makes that choice to go into therapy, um, it is hard because they have to come to terms with certain root problems, issues, circumstances that they may have never seen before. And that is hard. It's very difficult. But the very fact they're doing it, I mean, congratulations, because that's, that's hard for some people. I mean, that's why we That's why we see the importance of androgyny, especially for males, you know. Um, yeah, and I'll wrap this around, um, I'll bring this back around, is that my trauma and what I went through with having 5 open-heart surgeries throughout my life and having these— this medical issue and trauma has taught me to have an increasing amount of empathy, sensitivity. Yeah. Androgyny, emotional understanding. Basically, androgyny— let's, let's keep it simple stupid—

is understanding the emotional aspects of, of each other and, and vulnerability to each other.

Absolutely. Because with vulnerability and, you know, transparency, we heal.

Okay. Yes, you do. And that's the beauty of the relationship with a therapist, is that you're in a safe place to to be vulnerable and to heal. So in the culture that I was raised in, and I know this is true of a lot of cultures in the world, you do not ask for help for mental psychological issues until it's desperate. Absolutely. I am hopeful that that is changing. Is that something that you're seeing, that people are just expected to deal with their stuff, hopefully more as they go along through life, not waiting for it to pile up until it bursts through?

Yeah, I mean, I'm always hopeful that, you know, I mean, we're always hopeful that someone will— people will come to understanding. If we fully understood each other, we could love each other. I think Steinbeck said it, who wrote Mice and Men, you know, you really can't truly— I'm paraphrasing, by the way— you can't really truly understand or love someone unless you understand them, right? It's almost impossible. So I mean, if we all understood each other and took time with each other, we would see a lot less activity in the news. We were wood. And so, and so when I do meet people of different cultures and authenticity, which are, which is absolutely fantastic, I do take those in consideration, but I give them the power to discuss what they want to discuss. I'm not going to pry a nail that's been bent over and dug into an old piece of wood for years. I'm not going to do that.

Got it.

They have to choose to do so. And so when you give that freedom to share, like I said before, and that encouragement, it opens that up. And it is very, very true about familiarity. When we find a familiarity, not just with ourselves, but with other people, we can be more transparent. We can be excessively vulnerable, which is very hard. Mm-hmm. And trust. Henry Cloud wrote a book called Safe People. Okay, great book. It expresses how we choose, how we see safe people and those that we need around us. You know, going back to us talking about the Bible and how we were raised, iron sharpens iron. It does. So when we are around somebody who's going to keep encouraging us, you know, valuing us and saying, hey, you got this. Yeah. Though, how much more free between you and me talking? What does that even feel like when I even say that? It's wonderful because we go, oh my gosh, there's somebody that really gets me.

Yeah, that's right, that's right.

That's one of the reasons why I love working with open heart surgery patients. Even if I'm not counseling them, I'm just spending time with them and saying, hey, you know, on my fifth one You'd be amazed how much anxiety leaves the room with the child going in for his first one. That's a good example as to what I'm talking about with familiarity. I see I'm being transparent and I'm being vulnerable, and it's helping that child. So why wouldn't I do it?

When we think— when I think of prior to my brother going through it, when I thought of open heart surgery, I thought this is a physical thing. This is like having a bone set. This is like having a tooth pulled, which can also be traumatic, but, but, uh, You're talking about the emotional scars that come from the fear that you had to deal with going into it and then healing those fears, I believe, on the other side.

Absolutely.

Can you talk to me a little bit about your journey with— I, I believe that you actually died, um, in a couple of those situations. And, and what have you come to realize about your fear since then?

Um, the first time was really scary. I think my pacemaker had a thing called a transient slip. I don't have to do a little bit more research on that, but that's what one of the ER doctors said, where it stopped and then rebooted. But I felt my body completely go numb. I started lifting and then I slammed back down into my body. And of course, then I went to the ER, right? And you could hear my mechanical valves going, you know, just going off, right? Like a machine gun. And basically went into like a temporary AFib, which is where your heart excessively races at a higher beat. Per minute. And so the second time, I actually went somewhere, which is what I will call heaven. It was absolutely beautiful. And when I had come back, I was upset that I was back into my body, because the peace that I felt was beyond anything that I've ever experienced in my life here on Earth. It is a wonderful. And it was a wonderful experience, and it gave me encouragement that, you know, one, my faith, you know, oh my gosh, it may be true, you know. I mean, it's like, but, but I don't want to die and find out that I was wrong, if that makes any sense. But it doesn't, right? But at the same time, you think about that grace. I don't have to be perfect. It all works hand in hand.. And we forget that. We always forget the grace, and we always forget, you know, because look at the world we live in. It's nothing but judgment.

It isn't. It's, it's totally— and, and, and so if I'm understanding you right, you got to experience this incredible peace and beauty even though you hadn't been perfect up until then, right?

But that one moment I was. And so guess what I have to look forward to?

Oh wow.

Then we can't deny the correlation between what we feel mentally and what we feel in our bodies. That's why we call it psychosomatics, which is basically— you ever heard the term, you're going to think yourself sick?

Yes, absolutely. And I did once in elementary school. I had a terrible stomachache, and it turned out it was because of my teacher being a mean person, a judgmental person.

Good use of words. I like that.

I had to work on that.

Well, you know, when we think about mean people— and I don't want to get off topic, but It's, you know, I've always, I've always believed that anyone who belittles you and makes you feel small knows how big and beautiful you are and can become.

I had my, okay, I'm just gonna go there. I think it was my fourth grade teacher who, um, the closets in our classroom were folding door closets where they had about a 6-inch gap under the closet door. And so if I got on her nerves, then she would send me into the closet. And I would stand in the closet and was expected to— with the doors closed— and was expected to listen and learn and be able to tell her what she taught with me inside the dark closet. And, uh, I, I don't think I'm— I don't think I deserve that. And neither did the school counselor that they hired just to help me through that. So, right.

And that's, you know, it's interesting you say that, you know, that's That's another good example of being vulnerable and transparent. And imagine you and I around the same age. Imagine us growing up. Do you think we could have ever shared that when we were little? What about this?

This is the first time I've ever told the public that story. Yeah. No. But why?

But why are you sharing that?

I'm being vulnerable with everybody.

And why? Because you feel safe.

Because I feel safe. I do feel safe. Yes. And, and I would like other people to know they're not alone.

Absolutely.

Every once in a while, somebody tells me who went to Catholic school about the nuns who, you know, bloodied their knuckles with a ruler. And that would be a very similar type of, um, you're not alone.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that, you know, when we make it safe for people in this world to say, it's okay, I'm a daily struggler. Yeah. It doesn't set the bar so high that they need to create their occupations to become their dispositions. Doing that, I mean, think about it exactly. Our occupation should never be our dispositions. Just because you're a lawyer, a brain surgeon, psychologist, that doesn't mean you're perfect.

Wow.

Just because you have things, and because we're a very consumptuous country, I'm speaking for the United States of America. We're so consumptuous that basically cognitively what we have owns us.

Absolutely, 100%. Our things own us.

Yes, right. So when we— I mean, imagine the pressure. I mean, you're basically putting yourself in that pressure cooker. Now, I'm not saying it's not okay to own nice things. Of course it is, as long as it doesn't own you.

So speaking specifically to the professional voice users that listen to this podcast, the speakers, the, um, the singers, uh, the people who get up on stage and they have to show up as perfect as possible because we are a culture that judges, or people do just everywhere. What a lot of pressure to do what you just said is to be your profession and to let it own you.

Absolutely. It— I think when somebody puts pressure on themselves, uh, from outside sources and what they're going to look like. I mean, instead of worrying about what am I going to look at and what am I going to be looking at, or what am I going to be looking, uh, for while I'm out there, they should just be themselves. And the way that— the way you do that is— here's a reframing. Like, before I've gone up on stage to speak at seminars or in front of like medical professionals, I always go, man, this is so exciting, I get to do this. Yeah, this is going to be exciting. I don't go, oh my gosh, I'm so nervous, my palms are sweaty. I don't do that. I don't pay attention to it. Yeah. You know, I've actually told myself, well, my palms are sweaty because I just rinsed my hands off. Nice, right? I mean, it's okay for me to lie to myself, right? Yeah. So, but no, but I, but I do use a lot of reframing, um, and I always think about, but who am I helping by being up here?

Yes. And who am I not helping if I don't do it?

If I don't do it. Absolutely. And I don't, it's not that I don't want to let anyone down or myself down. It's that's, that's my, that's my cause. That's my, that's my calling. Yeah. And if that is, that's okay. And it's okay to get up there and go, you know what? I may screw this up, but I want you to bear with me because I'm a little nervous. I've actually, I've actually did that before. Everyone applauded and I'm like, there we go. There's my confidence back. Okay. Now let's talk about the topic that we're up here for. When we're going back to that vulnerability, when we're vulnerable and transparent with who we are up there, yeah, we're— people think that we're actually down here talking with, with them, not at them.

It brings us right in there, doesn't it?

Absolutely. Because we're familiarizing with them. I mean, if you ever watch somebody speak, have you ever looked in the crowd? This is what I do. I look around at what other people are doing, and I always see heads nodding. That is confirmation. True to the people. They're going, you know what, I felt that way too. I can totally relate, and it's okay for me not to be perfect. When you get to that point, that person in that crowd that's listening to you, they can now have that confidence to go, you know what, I have a new goal. I want to heal. Cool. And that just— that little bit, just that little bit can help somebody catapult into new healing and new direction of thinking. Because imagine being raised with a certain type of— going back to our projections and modeling and abuse, whatever we went through. I'm using abuse as a broad spectrum here. I'm talking about everything, okay? Whatever we go through in our life that we didn't like, that hurt us, you know, when we can relate with something and we start actually taking the steps to heal from it, we actually start to understand who we are and not living who we're not. I always, I always, I always encourage, especially men, you know, it's always great to know who you are. It's better to know who you're not, because when you find out who you're not, you can start emphasizing all your time, money, resources on who you actually are.

Yeah.

And I've lived it, being a perfectionist. I mean, can you imagine how many types of ways and directions in my life I've tried to go that didn't work out?

You would be good at everything you could try, you'd be good at it. So who are you not?

Yeah, yeah, I'm a perfectionist. I should be perfect at doing this, and I should be perfect at doing that. And, you know, when, when I stop and I'm like, actually, I want to be good at just this because it's my passion.

I got a lot recently in that direction from studying my Enneagram scores, um, because— and, and this was the first time I had, um, taken that, that direction of Enneagram, so I don't know much about it. But I do know that I was grateful that the analysis showed me what might be a problem to the world, you know, showed me ways that I might be challenging to other people, and, and showed me this is what you're good at, and this is what 8 other personality types are good at, so don't bother. This is what you're good at.

Right. Absolutely.

What are other tools that mental health therapists use to help people get from, from fear to peace and finding out what they're not good at?

Um, there's a lot of self-care. I mean, we got a lot of treatments. We got like EMDR, we have exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is like if I'm afraid to do something in my outside world, we actually take them to that place. You go, let's walk through there because you're with them safely.

Yep.

Safely. Yeah. And, you know, keep it classy and legal is what I always say.

Right.

So, but, you know, I mean, you do that because it helps them, you know, develop a pattern in their life to go, wow, I really got over this. This— if you get someone over a step that they haven't their whole life, can you imagine all the little other ones they can just jump over?

Yeah. You're helping them reframe the stories.

Right.

On the big ones.

Right.

And then, and, and assuming you've looked at the root cause, what is EMDR?

EMDR is basically where we use tapping and other procedures, you know, within that, that form of, you know, therapy to relate to historical recollection. At times it can bring back, it can bring back emotions, it can bring back, you know, uh, things that stimulated us in the wrong way. It helps us reflect and re-navigate things on how to go about treating it.

Cool. I've been through several tapping sessions, hours of tapping sessions, and because of a gratitude group that I go to, and I have never felt any impact from it. I am just tapping.

It doesn't work. It doesn't work for everyone, right? You know, basically it's, you know, it's eye movement desensitization reprocessing. So they're using those basic principles, protocols, and procedures to bring back that stuff. You know, I mean, it's— it doesn't work all the time, but that's just one. That's just one of many. I'm more big on and promote self-care.

Okay.

Diet, exercise. I mean, think about diet— bad in, bad out.

Loving your— loving your body and taking good care of it, is that what self-care is?

Absolutely. Yep. Yeah, and you know, it's, you know, EMDR can help you from trauma, you know, and distressing life experiences, but there are a lot more other fundamental practices, you know, like before we encourage or refer for prescriptions for psychiatric treatment or psychotropics, you know, I always encourage people, you know, hey, let's try exercising, let's get on a good, you know, not diet plan, but let's get on a good eating well wellness plan and let's, you know, just— and exercise. I mean, we know that exercise cures over 50% of depression. We know. Yes, we know this.

Wow, I did not know the number was that big. I had no idea.

Wow. Yeah, you change someone's environment, they'll change their behavior, you know. Um, if you hang around people who, uh, are not like you— that's a good way of saying that aren't bringing value into your life. Okay, what do you, what do you think you're more apt to do? I mean, when we change our environment, we change our behaviors, we change our thinking, we change our ways of doing things. I mean, I know that in my personal life— I'll speak from my personal— is that when I got out of toxicities or, um, abuses or any other thing that I've been around, when I got out of it and I was actually around somebody who values me and who understands me, my life changed.

Yes.

Yeah. Not, not just professionally, but it changed to where I go, well, I got someone that really is— they're really behind me. They understand me.

Yeah. They just love me for me, right?

They're not cutting me down and, and allowing other people to come in and triangulate and make, make it look like something that it's not to hurt me.

Yes, yes.

And those type of people cannot defend you. They will not defend you. They will put you on the cross and hand the nails to the people that are angling you on there.

Triangulate. Bring in other people to hurt you. That is a big takeaway for me.

And think about triangulation is, is that, I mean, triangulation is people taking on offenses of other people and using it against you. Even if it's a lie, they don't care. They don't care because they have so much confidence, false confidence, and their wrongful thinking that they actually sales— I call it sales pitching. They pitch it to someone else who they know will listen to deflect away from their themselves and their accountability. And guess what? People buy it. And guess what happens? They, they, they come in between things that are really good. And sometimes the people who can't recognize what they're destroying are the people that we love, that we love dearly.

Absolutely.

But we have to come to the understanding— we see this in relationships— they were never capable of loving you because they only love the idea of you. You see how hard that is? To— and that's why getting at the root cause of somebody and sharing that vulnerability and safety and transparency for them to go, so I am valuable. Yes, you are. You're more valuable than you can imagine. There's a reason why they attacked you.

Yeah, there's— they have their reasons within themselves why they attacked you.

Now we know why jealousy is so bad. That's a form of jealousy. Someone's so jealous that they have to go and triangulate other people to work against you. Oh, and what happens? They're collateral damage when they shouldn't have been. They should have been protected.

I wish— I kind of wish you had a whiteboard right now. I want to see these triangles.

Magic marker.

Yes, exactly.

An eraser.

Yeah, yeah, and an eraser for sure. An eraser, right? Because I was, I was thinking with triangulation. I was thinking institutions, laws, organizations, associations that back up, you know, it's like, well, this is what the justice system says, so I must be right, you know, or something. For instance, the criminalization of marijuana. And so then we made the laws that made it wrong to smoke marijuana or to do mushrooms. And now we're finally starting to destroy those erroneous situations. And that's part of that triangulation I was in. And, and then you brought it into the more intimate, to the, the jealousy, literally bringing in another person into the triangle.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, speaking on relational, if we— if you want to stay on relational, is, you know, I've had to do this in my own life, is that sometimes We have to look at our own hearts when someone rips it out to know who to truly trust it with, right? We have to, because it's like knowing who we are and knowing who we're not, which is what we discussed earlier. You know, heard— you ever heard hurt people hurt people?

Yes, I have heard that.

Okay, so when hurt people hurt people, but, but, but there, there are hurts that help others help others also. Okay, that's how hurt people mask. That's why hurt people have empathy, because they're able to use that mask to understand someone else that went through it. But when we help them find out who they are versus who they're not, they stop hurting people.

Okay, and, and that's the healing, the healing that hurts so that you are no longer a hurt person, right?

Absolutely. And I mean, I've, I've lived this. I mean, I know it very well. It's not because of my profession or my education. It's, it's, it's— I've seen it not just in therapies, but I've seen it myself. And it's something I had to grow through personally also. Absolutely. I've had to come to terms with going, wait a minute, that's not who I am. I need to stop doing that. That's, that's not how— that's not where my heart is. Because the mind and the heart work together. The mind's the computer, the heart's the engine. If I'm not keeping the engine, you know, oil change and all the— I'm using, you know, analogies, metaphors, but, but, you know, figurative speech. So, you know, when, when we are taking care of this, this can operate, the brain can operate a lot more efficiently.

When we're taking care of the heart, the brain can operate more. And you've also mentioned the gut, so you brought that in that third thing as well. Absolutely. We haven't talked about voice at all. So we've gone a little long, but if you've got the time, I would like to talk about voice. Just bring this home to people stop using their literal voice. I've talked with people who say that they went almost mute for a time because of the trauma that happened to them. But most of us don't actually stop using our literal voice, but figuratively, we decide to pull back. We decide that our message is not worth sharing, um, or that we don't have the right, or that we are not enough. And so then our figurative voice, um, we don't allow it to come out, right?

Yeah, I think for people to use their voice evocatively in comparison, and, and, you know, something that deviates away from the conventional you know, public opinion. You know, they need to look within themselves to find that self-care like we talked about earlier, to know exactly what they want to talk about. If someone is passionate about something, say like you and I are, you are going to hear it in their voice.

You will, certainly.

And so when we when we find our passion, not, not when we help someone, not when we go to get help for passion, when we actually stop and we think about what is it that I'm really passionate about.

What am I here for?

Yeah, yeah. I don't care if it's popular. I don't care if it's gonna make me millions of dollars. See, we always chasing the money. Well, sometimes chasing the money can put you in the poorhouse mentally.

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

And mentally, yes, absolutely. So when we find something we're passionate about Doesn't matter if we're, you know, we can become an author or if it's published. It's we're doing something to help us build our confidence. It goes back to putting ourselves in the right environment to be able to have that passionate voice for something, finding what we want to talk about, knowing what we're talking about, and being passionate about it. Doesn't matter if someone agrees with us or they disagree with us. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, we might learn something, but when we are passionate about it, it will gain more respect. It'll hold more substantial weight, and it'll help us feel more confident in what we want to do and progress on to talking about. Even if it has nothing to do with our passion, we'll at least do the due diligence and finding out what we need to know about talking about, right?

And for me, if I'm passionate about a topic, I'm willing to take the risk of being vulnerable and being hurt because what I think I am put on this earth to say, it's not gonna— you're not gonna stop me.

Yeah. And you know what, I'll use my own life experience in this, uh, Nancy, is that the hurt I had to go through helped me heal.

Okay.

It gave me more confidence in my voice and less insecurity in what I chose not to do.

You keep coming back to that, what you should not do.

Yes. Yeah. So if I know that I am talking to someone that's going to be helping them, or someone that's going to be helping me in the same way, and we have that common ground— even if I don't, I'm still going in with the mindset, I want this to help someone.

Yeah.

I want this to be shared freely. I want to put a— I don't want to put a nickel or a dime on it. I want to I want it to be free for people so that they can, they can be passionate also, like, like I have become. But when we find the passion in our voice and what we care about and what cares about us, guess what happens? We stop using verbal diarrhea, hand signals, body movement. We do because we want to be— we, you know, it's like caring for people. We all have this innate thing, we want to care for someone.

We do. Everybody does.

Yeah. And people wanna be loved.

That's why we find that peace in what motivates us that bleeds out into everything else.

And that's why I always say, love people where they're at, not where you want 'em to be.

Every conversation I have with you, I, it blows my mind. I love what you're bringing to the world and I can't wait for the world to get more Shad Cunningham.

Thank you. You too.

Right? Wasn't that awesome? Shad, just wow, he's got so much to share that this brief podcast hardly does it justice. But hopefully it's cracked open some new ideas for you, some new awarenesses. I know I'm going to be going back and listening to this podcast again and again, and I already have people in mind that I'm going to share this particular episode with who maybe have never been attracted to a podcast called Empower Your voice because they don't think the voice is the issue. But the voice is not working right for us. It is a symptom of the greater issues, and Shad really gets to the bottom of it. If you are listening on Spotify or Apple, please go and leave this up to a 5-star review. You can give us the stars, you can give us comments. We appreciate it. The more you comment and like on these, um, podcast episodes, the more it gets promoted so that other people find it and this message gets to them. Following up with Shad, the— as a public speaker and a mental health provider, he is probably the only person in the world with the name Shad Cunningham. So just search him up on the search engines, S-H-A-D-D Cunningham, C-U-N-N-I-N-G-H-A-M. My name is Nancy Bos, and it has been my privilege to bring you this episode of Empower Your Voice, along with the others that preceded it and the ones to come. Please subscribe and join me here again sometime. Thank you all. May you find healing.