Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Episode #122 Relational Connection With Julie Hall

Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Episode #122 Relational Connection With Julie Hall

Marriage and Family Therapist Julie Hall is here with us. Julie is an expert on relational connection and healing.

If you'd like to learn more about Julie check out her site here.


We are talking about the power of connection to help heal us all.

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Transcript

sue_dhillon:
Hi there. Today on the show, we have got Julie Hall here with us. Julie is a marriage and family therapist and an expert on relational connection and healing. Julie, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to

Julie Hall:
Thank

sue_dhillon:
the show.

Julie Hall:
you, happy to be here.

sue_dhillon:
Oh, I'm so excited to have you here and get into your expertise and have you give us some insights and guidance, but give us a little bit of the backstory how you got into this line of work.

Julie Hall:
Sure, so I did not start off as a therapist. I was initially in the tech sector. I worked in corporate, I worked in nonprofit, I worked at government, I worked in startup, kind of all under the umbrella of technology. And loved it actually. And then I was, my partner and I, we were starting to try to expand our family. and it became more challenging than we expected. And I'll share a little story with you, Sue. We were working with a reproductive endocrinologist at the time who was supporting us with our fertility issues and he kind of sort of passed me a business card or a card of a psychologist who worked side by side with him in his practice that I might benefit from speaking to this person. And initially I was kind of offended because already we were kind of navigating so many sort of biological issues that now the meaning that I was making of kind of him passing me this card was that there was something wrong with me, like there was something wrong with the way that I was kind of navigating this thing. And so, All that to say, I did go. So something within me was compelling me to go to this session with a psychologist. And it was like the floodgates opened. It was just this beautiful experience for me as far as just having someone across the table really just kind of holding space for my emotional struggle and asking the approach questions and probing me appropriately and it really was kind of a life-changing moment. And I decided that I was going to go back to school and really try to support people who were navigating. Initially when I started really my intention was to to really work with people who are navigating fertility issues. Now it's become a little bit more generalized and I've kind of But yeah, so I went back to school and that was 10 plus years ago and here I am.

sue_dhillon:
I love

Julie Hall:
Yeah.

sue_dhillon:
that. And you know what I love? I love that there's, I read somewhere here, like some of the therapy you do, it's kind of emotional therapy, right? Which

Julie Hall:
Yeah, exactly.

sue_dhillon:
is outside of kind of like the norm of like your traditional therapy, correct?

Julie Hall:
I don't know. I mean, I think there are a lot of different sort of modalities of therapy But yeah, I will say emotion-focused therapy is unique and that we are targeting really tapping into that kind of emotional depth sort of like what's underneath Our patterns, you know, what what are some of the pains that we experience that have gone unnoticed Unprocessed for so long. Yeah

sue_dhillon:
Okay. And I just really love this, you know, for, so I've been to therapy over the years and in early years, like many decades ago, it never, it seemed like it was more of like a ritualistic

Julie Hall:
Thank

sue_dhillon:
thing.

Julie Hall:
you.

sue_dhillon:
Like I needed to go to heal this trauma, but it wasn't necessarily helping. You know, I didn't feel like I was overcoming stuff. Because perhaps I needed this emotional focused therapy,

Julie Hall:
Mm.

sue_dhillon:
right? Where I didn't, I was getting to the heart or the my emotions really. So I love that we're having like offering these different kinds of modalities and it's becoming more, it seems like more prevalent.

Julie Hall:
I think that's right, I think that's right. And there are a lot of different, like I said, modalities out there. CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy is one that is really common and has been around for a long time. I would say EFT and motion focused therapy is something that's been developed more recently. And so CBT has a lot of, has a lot of success measures associated with it. And it's great. I think, it kind of gets underneath kind of what's happening in our behavior. So I'm happy to share a little bit more with you about what emotion focused therapy is. Would that be helpful?

sue_dhillon:
It would be helpful, but you know it's interesting when you say EFT because I would imagine a lot of people could confuse that with the emotional freedom technique, right?

Julie Hall:
Yes.

sue_dhillon:
Because that's very widely

Julie Hall:
Yes.

sue_dhillon:
known as EFT.

Julie Hall:
Yes.

sue_dhillon:
But yes, please talk to

Julie Hall:
Of

sue_dhillon:
us

Julie Hall:
course,

sue_dhillon:
about

Julie Hall:
so

sue_dhillon:
that.

Julie Hall:
the way that I try to describe EFT is kind of in the framework of a hierarchy. So EFT starts with our understanding of our triggers, the things that activate us. So like anything in the way that I language of triggers, it's anything that happens outside of me, outside of my body that sends a message from my brain to my nervous system that tells me that I'm under some kind of threat. It could be a tone of voice. It could be something in front of me. It could be a word. It could be a touch. And in EFT, the threat is usually a threat to one or more of three things. A threat to our feelings of safety, threat to our feelings of love, and or threat to our feelings of belonging. And those feelings of threat, they can actually, they can be very real feelings of threat or perceived feelings of threat. Our body essentially perceived often in that place of trigger is almost the same thing. And so when we experience a trigger in our body, our body goes into what's called a threat response behavior. So like fight or flight, right? You've heard of fight or flight or fight, flight, fawn. Those are very common types of threat response behaviors. Fight is, you know, aggression. I rage, I get defensive. I get is I shut down, I isolate, I withdraw, fawn is kind of like that people pleasing. Other kinds of threat response behaviors can be things like control, right? I wanna like control all the pieces. Another kind of threat response behavior is like escapism. I like numb out, I numb out with substances, I numb out with social media, with work, with relationships. So we have our triggers and we have our threat response right? When we feel that threat, we, our threat response behavior gets activated. But underneath the threat response behavior is what we describe in EFT as kind of our pain story, like the actual threat, our pain story. So if you could imagine this with me, it's as if when I experience a trigger, it's like somebody put a t-shirt on me, like a white t-shirt, and the t-shirt says something like, I am blank. And the I am statement sounds something like this, I am alone. I am rejected. I am not good enough. I am a failure. I am unlovable. I am unworthy. These are not pretty stories. They're not pretty stories, which is why the nervous system or the body says, let's not talk about those stories. They're too painful. They're too vulnerable. Let's just do our threat response behavior, because we know that'll work, right? And yet what we realize very quickly is that those threat response behaviors, they're not sustainably effective. They might work quickly in the short term, but over time, those threat response behaviors, they keep us disconnected from ourselves and the people around us. And so what we try to do in emotion focused therapy is help people put words to and understand their triggers, their threat response behaviors, the threat that's underneath the threat response behaviors, and then what those pain stories are. Where did those pain stories originate? Put language to those threat. those pain stories so that they become less activating. Right? And then as we, as the body realizes those threat response behaviors are less activating, we can kind of put down our armor a little bit. And the more that we can put down our armor, the more we can essentially show up more authentically. So I know that was a lot, but that was kind of a quick

sue_dhillon:
Thank

Julie Hall:
pass

sue_dhillon:
you.

Julie Hall:
at emotion-focused therapy.

sue_dhillon:
Wow, yeah. And so it's this idea, like you say, put down our armor technology where people can kind of put on these airs and have a guard up and be cool until like it could be years later, right? And you get triggered and you just can't

Julie Hall:
Exactly.

sue_dhillon:
kind of break it anymore,

Julie Hall:
Exactly,

sue_dhillon:
right?

Julie Hall:
exactly, exactly. It's, you know, the armor is like, maybe it's my anger. You know, I always call anger like the bodyguard emotion, right, or, you know, maybe it's my retreat. Maybe it's the control, maybe it's the substances, right? But it's all armor, you know, and armor, obviously, it's designed to protect, but over time, it can crush us.

sue_dhillon:
Okay. And now talk to us. And that was very insightful. Thank you so much for breaking that down

Julie Hall:
Bye.

sue_dhillon:
the way you did that really was awesome. Now, you know, talk to us about relational connection and then getting deeper. We'll go deeper with like how that corresponds to healing. But why that's so important. What is it and why it's important?

Julie Hall:
Yes, absolutely. So a lot of the work that I do is with couples. And it's this emotion focused therapy work with couples where what I often find in my relational work with couples is that when they come to see me, it's often this kind of like blame game, right? It's this person is behaving in this way and this person is behaving in this way. And one of the things that I think is really, really important, I say is kind of like the I believe, and not every therapist would agree with this, but I believe the most important characteristic in relational health or in a relationship that it can be sustainably healthy. It's not love, it's not respect, it's not communication. All of those things are wonderful and important. What I believe is it's humility. It's humility. It's when I can recognize that there is something that perhaps I am contributing to the lack safety in the relational space. And when I can start to really kind of look inward and reflect upon my own moves, what's coming up for me, some of the threat response behaviors that I have in the relationship, we start to get somewhere. We don't get anywhere when we do this. We just kind of move into, further and further into our corners, right? The more the partner does this, the more I wanna just away, right? And on and on we go. So we employ this technique relationally by really trying to help partners in the couple dynamic recognize when they are actually showing up in their threat response behavior, rather than maybe what's actually happening for them more vulnerably underneath, right? Maybe they something is activated in them when what their partner some feel alone. It's a very different conversation when you are coming to your partner from a place of vulnerability rather than from this position. And so that's what we really try to do in the relational space is to build more connection by helping couples talk from a more vulnerable, tender place rather than from these positions of armor, these positions of defenses.

sue_dhillon:
And then obviously that's bringing about other things where it's kind of like, okay, when you start kind of sharing vulnerabilities in a way that you're not used to, that's gotta bring up things that haven't been addressed, right? So it's kind of like these layers of,

Julie Hall:
Absolutely, absolutely. There can be layers there for sure. And I think that's where it's the therapist's job to really help hold the space, right? To help, the way that I describe it is, how do I help give the partner who's sharing something really for the first time, help give them success in that new move of sharing vulnerability, right? And so that's really, I think, the way that I try to step in and practice and model sort of holding the space for the partner. And you're right. come up. Things like trauma, right? You know, trauma, the way that the definition that I love of trauma that's by an author, his name is Rest Momenicum, and he says trauma is anything that happened to us that was either too much too fast, too much too long, or not enough too long, where we did not receive adequate support and resourcing. And so when, you know, we're working with couples in to what is underneath, trauma absolutely can be a part of that conversation. And that's where we really try to, my job is to really, again, hold the space, be that empathic witness for somebody who perhaps is sharing something to the extent they haven't before. Or there are things like family history can come up. And so we really try to spend time, what I do in my work with clients is, particularly with couples and also individuals, but when I'm working with couples, I try to spend at least a session or two really just working on understanding their family of origin. Things like relational patterns, right? Like what conflict looked like, what were the communication styles, values. And so I really try to tap into that too. So we really have a good sense of kind of what issues that are kind of coming to the forefront as far as the relational dynamics.

sue_dhillon:
And now I can see how powerful it would be to kind of, you know, encourage people to share vulnerability so that way they can deepen connection. What is your guidance for people? Just someone who's not in therapy, doesn't have an expert, but wants to build connection. Is there some practical guidance you can offer to couples or just people, even someone wanting to connect more with a sibling or friend or someone?

Julie Hall:
That's a great question. You mean without having necessarily access to therapy or this kind of process. I think just again that I have what I call my three C's. The three C's are sort of in this kind of step by step framework. It's curiosity, compassion, and courage. So really starting with curiosity. Curiosity with self, curiosity then with the other person, rather than perhaps what can often happen which is criticism or judgment. When we lead from that place of curiosity, that can really help again just sort of soften defenses. Soften defenses in whatever relational situation, right? If it's a relational situation where you're not necessarily seeing eye to eye. You know, I always say there's nothing more powerful than when somebody shares pain, this practice of believing. just believing that. Right? So this kind of curiosity can be really helpful. There's so many podcasts out there that I think are wonderful that help us really tap into that practice of

sue_dhillon:
in a second while And I'll have you repeat that in a moment, because it was really awesome.

Julie Hall:
Okay, hold on one second.

sue_dhillon:
Okay.

Julie Hall:
I think they stopped.

sue_dhillon:
Okay. No problem. Okay, so maybe just wind back a moment and we'll just take it from there.

Julie Hall:
Sure, can you just pause? What was remind me to what was I?

sue_dhillon:
Um, yeah, so just some practical guidance for people, right? Who want to be able to connect more deeply with those around.

Julie Hall:
So I have what I call my three C's, right? Three C's is just a helpful guideline for me, a framework for me in working with clients and things that clients or people can just use on their own. And those three C's are curiosity, compassion, and courage, kind of in that order. And what I mean by curiosity is essentially just how do I approach myself? person that I'm in the relational experience with with a curiosity rather than maybe criticism or judgment and that's not always easy to do. That's just not you know always easy to do and so it is what I describe as a practice right a practice of how can I really withhold judgment as I am getting curious and again there are a lot of you know just podcasts out there books out there kind of help us in developing that beautiful practice. I'm happy to share some of those with you soon. Maybe after there's a great book called What Happened to You? I can't think the author's first name is Bruce and it's actually co-written with Oprah. There's another book called The Road the reader understand themselves a little bit more deeply. And so the more that we can, I think, just practice curiosity starting with self, the more we can kind of lend that practice to the people we care about. And then from there, as I get curious, what I try to sort of pour onto that is compassion. So as somebody responds to, you know, questions of curiosity, how do I really them compassion for whatever it is that they're sharing with me. Right. And again, this is a practice that anybody can utilize. Right. And it's something that we can also practice for ourselves. Right. The more that I get curious with myself and start making connections, right? What I want people to start practicing then is how can they build a deeper compassion for themselves? Right. And understanding that some of their behaviors, as much as maybe they can be frustrating, they're perhaps, or they, perhaps they've been adaptive in some way. Right? Perhaps they've served them in, you know, those behaviors serve them in some way, right? Until they no longer serve me anymore. Until they become maladaptive practices. And then the third is courage. Right? The third step is courage, meaning as I get curious and then I have compassion for those responses, how can I give myself permission to take one courageous step? Right? One courageous... I always say in a dyad, person to elevate, to move that interaction from a negative interaction cycle to a positive interaction cycle. It only takes one person to maybe say, I'm sorry, or one person to say, hey, can we start over? Can we do this differently? Right, to move forward.

sue_dhillon:
It's beautiful. I love that. And now, you know, as far as triggers for people, what is the guidance there? Like, it seems like people a lot of times are just unaware, right? Like they almost don't even know what's triggering certain behaviors.

Julie Hall:
Uh, great question.

sue_dhillon:
But where does it start with that?

Julie Hall:
Um, great question. I would say triggers are very much connected to our experience of our body. Right? You know, there's a beautiful saying that says our body knows before the thoughts can even catch up. Right? And so triggers are very much connected to the sensory experience. And so, I really believe our best, um, efforts in becoming just clearer about our triggers are just getting clearer with our bodies like just building deeper connections with our bodies so things like a mindfulness practice right breath work you know somatic breathing diaphragmatic breathing yoga stretching really starting to just proactively get a sense of body tension like you know often people just don't connect with our bodies. We're just going, going, going that we don't realize we haven't taken a good breath in like a couple of hours, right? So it's you know, I think the trigger awareness can be just more deeply attuned with as we start building deeper connection to our bodies.

sue_dhillon:
And now, you know, tell me, Julie, like, is it so that, cause not everyone's gonna go to therapy at some point or get treatment or, you know, get the healing that they need.

Julie Hall:
Thank you.

sue_dhillon:
And I think a lot of times people kind of confuse trauma, certain kinds of things that they don't really realize or trauma like neglect, right? Maybe you weren't beaten as a child, but maybe you were neglected get the nurturing that you needed.

Julie Hall:
Hello. Mm-hmm.

sue_dhillon:
So yeah, what is your guidance like for adults who kind of are maybe harboring something but maybe not aware or how can they feel safe and kind of allowing that up and out?

Julie Hall:
It's difficult. It's difficult. I think it requires for us a Willingness right a willingness to recognize that We are not necessarily showing up as our most sort of optimized self or healthiest self Right that maybe I get dysregulated often or maybe I get angry too often or holds a lot of grudges or You know I've gone to an escapism somehow, or I shut down a lot when I don't really want to and it's not serving me well. I think we have to really reckon with is the way that I'm moving through the world serving me well? Are there places in which I'm blocked or stuck? And whether it is through therapy, you know, I would say all of us could benefit from therapy because it really just gives us a safe space, a very time boxed intention. space to kind of do this work. That said again, you know, for every good reason, it's not always accessible, right? And so I think it is important for us to just tap into our childhood stories, right? What were some of the things that we experienced? It's what I love about that definition of trauma. I find it to be incredibly poignant and also all-encompassing, right? Anything that too fast, too much too long, or not enough too long, in which we did not receive adequate resourcing and support. And what happens is often when we have things in our lives that have been unprocessed, right, or fractured places in our history, those younger places in ourselves can show up in our adult bodies, right? And it's like, there's a beautiful quote the lived experience is the younger self and the adult self living in the same body, experiencing life as it is and as it was. Right, and so the practice is how do I parse out what was, what happened to me and where I am now? Right, what happened to me where I felt disempowered to where I am now, where I can make choices, I can be empowered. Right, and so, of it takes that kind of reckoning with how am I showing up in the world and is it serving me well, right? Are my relationships healthy, right? Am I holding healthy boundaries, that kind of thing and doing that kind of processing work, whether it be through books or study or speaking with mentors or safe people or kind of moving through the therapeutics space.

sue_dhillon:
Oh, I love that. That was such great practical guidance there. Now tell us, Julie, what if there is you are needing some healing, right? And not necessarily, like you said, have access to therapy or open to that for whatever reason. Is there a easy, and I know nothing's easy. I'm not sure why I'm saying is there something easy, but a practical tip for people would somebody or forgive somebody but they just don't know where to begin.

Julie Hall:
It's tough. I mean I hesitate to kind of sort of umbrella that. I think it's beautiful if you know someone does want to reconcile you know with someone and they just don't know how. I think that's indicative of something there, some kind of love there. I would just get curious about whether that reconciliation is something that really will be healing for you right or is it or anxious place in me, right? Is this a relationship that has been fruitful for me in the past, or is this a relationship that has been unhealthy, and I'm just trying to hold onto it somehow, right? And so I think we have to really kind of make some of those distinctions. Can there be value in health and reconciling with this person, you know? And that can obviously be talked through whether it be again with mentors, safe people through therapy. And then from there, if you believe that that's a relationship in which you can be a part of the community, you can be a part of the community. And so, I think that's a great way to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know each other, and to be able to get to know

sue_dhillon:
No problem.

Julie Hall:
Okay.

sue_dhillon:
You never know how much they've got to say, right?

Julie Hall:
Bye.

sue_dhillon:
Yeah.

Julie Hall:
Hold on one second.

sue_dhillon:
Okay. MBC 뉴스 김성현입니다.

Julie Hall:
the Okay. So, you know, and I think if you decide that it is a relationship that is worth reconciling, that is worth pursuing because it can be a healthy, good relationship, I would encourage just getting a sense of whether the other person is open to that reconciliation as well, because what I'm just mindful of is really kind of taking a step of vulnerability and then experiencing any kind of re-injury because that person is closed off or shunt down, right? And so that really takes just some attunement, some, you know, intuitive sort of awareness as to whether it may be an appropriate time to connect with that person. And then I've just encouraged for you to, you know, whomever that is to engage in that reconciliation in a way that feels safe for them, right? So maybe it's starting with a phone call, right? Or, you know, starting with a text message just to see, hey, are you in a, like, would you like to meet for a coffee and getting a sense of, you know, that person's response, right? But, you know, I just am very mindful of assessing risk, you know, and caring for yourself in the process because it is a vulnerable process, you know, and it's important to just be compassionate towards self as you are engaging in that process.

sue_dhillon:
Oh, I love that. That was such a beautiful, like such great expert advice there. Now, tell us, you know, what about people that are hard on themselves and kind of beat themselves up for things that they've done in the past and just hold on to that for so long? Like, do you have some practical guidance there? Like how why that's unhealthy and how to start kind of letting go of.

Julie Hall:
Sure. Well, yeah, I think that really kind of connects with some of the family work that I do with clients, right? So often, you know, the things that we hold onto or the behaviors that we engage with or maybe the stories that we tell ourselves, they have to some extent been helpful for us in the past. I really do believe that we have our good reasons for everything that we do. We have our good reasons. Whether or not they're effective for us is different, but we have our good reasons for those things. To some extent, they are serving us. They are serving us. And so even if it's the self-criticism, maybe we feel like criticizing or being tough on ourselves is what maybe gets us further. It's what drives us, it's what pushes us, or it pushes us or to not get stagnant. I will say though that the practice of self-compassion, which is very different than self-criticism, you might describe it as the opposite. It's not just the kind way of being towards self. There's a ton of research out there, especially coming from I think it's UC Berkeley, that tells us this practice of self-compassion actually opens up the centers of our brain that tell us we are capable of growth and change. So not only is self-compassion just a nice way of speaking to self as kind, it actually accelerates our growth. It is in fact a more effective driver than any self-criticism, which can perhaps to some extent feel counterintuitive to what we've known in the past, that we feel like self-compassion is perhaps us giving ourselves a pass. No, that's not. healthy practice of self-compassion. The more that I can recognize that I've had my good reasons for these behaviors and they're not necessarily serving me well and I have opportunity, right? The more I am essentially connected to the that higher level of thinking, right? The creativity, the problem-solving, rather than what the self-criticism often does is it keeps us in this position, in this knuckling or this again, this kind of like threat position, which actually blocks our access to higher levels of thinking.

sue_dhillon:
Oh, I love that. Okay, so a couple of things, Julie. First of all, I just want to say you have been so awesome and so insightful. And I would love to circle back with this. Because I feel like we're just kind of scratching the surface here. And I know there's other things, other modalities and other things that you are an expert in. So I would love to circle back and do this again, have another conversation on a different topic or go deeper.

Julie Hall:
Absolutely, absolutely Sue, for sure.

sue_dhillon:
Yeah, you were awesome. So first of all, just thanking you for all of your amazing insights and your time today.

Julie Hall:
Thank you.

sue_dhillon:
And thank you. And now in closing, if there were just one message, like your hope for everyone out there, what is that closing message you just would like to leave people

Julie Hall:
Um,

sue_dhillon:
with?

Julie Hall:
well, I would say that what I truly believe is that there is nothing more powerful than the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves. Not the story that we tell ourselves about the world or about this person or that person or my job or my boss. It's the story that I tell myself about myself. Right? And it's from that place. which we move. And so I think that's what I really am just protective of with my clients, with the people that I care about in my life is really being mindful and tending to that story that we tell ourselves about ourselves.

sue_dhillon:
I love that. That's such a powerful closing message. Julie, even so awesome. Thank you so much.

Julie Hall:
For sure, thanks Sue, thanks for all that you do.

sue_dhillon:
Thank you so much.