Christina McKelvy: 0:13

Welcome to Hopeology. Today we hear from Hannah Carr. She's a licensed professional counselor, clinical supervisor and director of training at a community agency in Arizona. We speak about her experience as a child being raised in an environment of addiction. We explore how she built resilience as a child and adult. We talk about how counseling helped heal her and shape her viewpoint on addiction recovery, and she shares about the importance of allowing yourself to feel your emotions and what that means to the human experience. We finally explore Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the importance of community and connection.

Christina McKelvy: 0:55

But first I want to bring some attention to the Maui fires in Kula and Lahaina that occurred last week. As of now, there are almost 100 that has perished and this will be rising. Thousands of locals were displaced, the town decimated. I'm originally from Maui and I have many memories of Lahaina in Kula. They need her support during the recovery efforts and moving forward. I have listed some ways to support them in my show notes below. Thank you, and we'll be right back after the short break. Welcome to Hopology Stories of Hope, Healing and Resilience. I'm your host, Christina McKelvie. Today we're speaking with Hannah Carr. She's a licensed professional counselor and a board certified tele-mental health provider. Welcome, Hannah.

Hannah Carr: 2:01

How are you? I am excited to tell you today. I'm feeling grateful. How are you, Christina?

Christina McKelvy: 2:07

I'm feeling grateful too. I like that. I'm also feeling a little overwhelmed because it's Monday and that's my catch-up days as well.

Hannah Carr: 2:17

I think that's a common experience for all of us in the world is Monday sort of represents something a little bit different Start of a new week, potentially if your week ended stressfully last time and if you didn't feel like you got enough time over the weekend. But if you had asked me how I was doing and feeling last week, my response would have been the total opposite, and so I think that's just a nice thing to know. If you asked me last week, my description would have been very different.

Christina McKelvy: 2:45

Yep, yep, because every day is different. Every week, and especially nowadays, I feel like there's so much more ups and downs with the world and our careers and different things like that.

Hannah Carr: 2:57

Absolutely. Yeah, our family experienced some big stress last week with one of our animals and we had an animal that got really sick and we were really concerned he wasn't going to make it. So just the stress and worry and anxiety of potential loss, even though it didn't happen, it literally takes you off course, and so last week was really touch and go for us and today I can sit here with you and say I'm grateful that he's getting back on track and healthy and we didn't lose one of our little guys. So my animal lovers out there understand what I mean they become our kiddos basically.

Christina McKelvy: 3:35

Oh, my goodness, I have a cat which I don't think he's in this room today. You might hear him then, because usually he's next to me and he's the co-host. But yeah, he's like my child, so I totally get it.

Hannah Carr: 3:51

You know, if there's something to happen, I was talking to some friends who are parents of human children and I said I don't know how you all handle the worry of fear when your kids are small, or even when they're adults and they're not well, whether it's physically or mentally, and just the pressure of what can I do to take care of this being and I know with a pet.

Hannah Carr: 4:15

It's a whole different. I don't know if it's a lower level, but it's a different level because this isn't a human being, right? But they still represent such a key piece of who we are and how we relate to the world and it's just, it's a lot. So I'm just thankful to be with you today and be at peace more than I would have been last week.

Christina McKelvy: 4:34

East. You know, I was talking to somebody about that sense of peace and how we could instill that sense of peace, and it's almost like a daily thing, a daily choice. So I'm glad you're at peace today.

Hannah Carr: 4:47

Yeah, I appreciate that it's intentional, right, gratitude, peace, joy. I'm not a huge fan of the word happiness because I think it's so subjective, but I think contentment, peace, happiness if that's your word of choice, it's a decision and it's intentional. It doesn't just happen because we get stuff or have stuff Very easy misconception, I think.

Christina McKelvy: 5:13

Yeah, that's some things to ponder. Well, hannah, tell me a little bit, or tell our audience or listeners, excuse me a little bit about you.

Hannah Carr: 5:22

So I love my story. So my story started in Houston, texas. I was born there to my parents and we stayed for about three years. We moved over to Jackson or Raymond, mississippi, a little tiny, tiny town.

Hannah Carr: 5:40

I mean, it was us and I think like 15 other families, oh, that is tiny Out in the middle of nowhere, far to get to a gas station, type thing, but really spent my years of childhood mostly there. Part of my story that's really important is that my parents have struggled with addiction my entire life, and so I'm an only child growing up in a pretty chaotic environment, and when my parents separated when I was about eight, my mom and I moved to the Phoenix area. That's where her family was really located. So it's like starting fresh second grade, trying to figure out who I am and where I fit in and trying to navigate a new culture.

Hannah Carr: 6:24

Basically, I mean, Phoenix was big and diverse and busy and I hadn't experienced that, and so, as a little human, I was kind of dysregulating but got an opportunity to stay at the same school district all the way through until I got promoted from eighth grade, had some really important connections that were like family to me and friends, and started high school, stayed in the Phoenix area, college also in the Phoenix area. Even though I always had desire to leave. I was convinced that I was going to college out of Arizona because I was tired of being hot. So those of our listeners in Arizona understand I should say in the Phoenix area understand, but really spent the first two years of college trying to decide what I wanted to do.

Hannah Carr: 7:09

And honestly, even though I decided on a bachelor's in psychology, I still didn't know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I was drawn to people and I had always been drawn to people and hearing their stories and helping people feel heard. And so I had a really nice mentor in my bachelor's degree who helped me sort of look at counseling and so I went back and got my master's at ASU where I was lucky to get to meet you and do classes together and have been a counselor since then Really started my work and I really love work with teenagers and addiction as well. Families Transitioned into supervision and really working with helping counselors grow and training and mentoring counselors, which has been really fun. And that's sort of where I've landed mostly in the last few years as I do therapy for a handful of my clients still, but my real work has been training, supervision, education of younger counselors, which is really fun, but also a lot of pressure because you want to make sure you're doing good by them and the clients that they serve.

Christina McKelvy: 8:27

So it sounds like you're on this journey of trying to figure out what you wanted to do in life when you were in undergrad and then you ended up going to a graduate program in counseling, which is where we met, and now you train counselors. So that's a journey, it's almost full circle.

Hannah Carr: 8:45

Now that you say that out loud, I hadn't thought of it that way it is.

Christina McKelvy: 8:50

Yeah, so what is some of the things that you feel is important for baby counselors or students to learn and understand about the field, or even if they're not counselors but in the helping professions even?

Hannah Carr: 9:04

Right. I think one of the most important things I always hope that, whether you're a student, whether you're an intern, whether you're a counselor, or even if you're somebody who's exploring therapy or counseling is that being a human is the first priority.

Christina McKelvy: 9:18

And so.

Hannah Carr: 9:19

I think many times there's this misconception that if you go into a helping profession you have to quote, have it all figured out or know how to fix all problems or have the answers to these really difficult, hard things, when in reality most of the work that we do in the helping profession is allowing people to be vulnerable and allow their true selves to be seen and experienced in a safe place so they have an opportunity to do something different. And so I think just trusting that your humanity first is what makes you you and if you're going to be a therapist or a helper doctor, nurse, right, Any of those things that that person across from you or with you or even over the screen with you.

Hannah Carr: 10:08

You have to see them as a human first, not the problems or the symptoms or the history, but just this being that's searching for something.

Christina McKelvy: 10:19

And I think that is a important concept to teach students or those in the helping professions. Because we have heard or I hear about you, but I will hear people that will say the label first. So the label person, right. You know, I have this client.

Hannah Carr: 10:36

They're very insert label, right, and that dehumanizes that individual and there's already so much stigma with people who are willing to seek support for mental health or substance use concerns, and so to immediately kind of re stigmatize, right that that population or that person it can be harmful, right, and part of our code of ethics is do no harm the best we can. Right, primarily, and so, you know, very important for even people who have never been to therapy or considering it, or have been in it forever. It's like you aren't your symptoms, just like you aren't your work title or your roles, right, you're this human that's experiencing these things and influenced by these things, and you're so much more than that and it gets lost, I think, sometimes.

Christina McKelvy: 11:30

That concept of identity. Individuals that suffer from a dyke, you know, a illness mental health illness or even chronic illness may get pegged into that identity. And then also you know, if you're in a career, you might. That might be how you identify, but what it is is, it's all these different parts of us, like it's a part of who we are and our identity is a sum of our parts.

Hannah Carr: 11:55

Exactly. I love that, as some of our parts. I had a really cool opportunity as a therapist to attend a conference this last weekend at a retreat center and with a bunch of other counselors, therapists, supervisors. It was something I had a chance to do last year and I thought you know it's easy to say we're too busy or it's too much money, or I should see this person or pay that debt off or do whatever. I will say to my fellow helpers and anybody who's just a human is you have to take time for yourself to recharge, and I think self care gets confused with things that we do every once in a while to decompress, when really self care, from my description and to each their own, is intentional, meaningful things that you do regularly as part of a routine to keep you healthy. And so this is now that retreat is now one of my routines that I'm going to do annually to continue to stay balanced, because balance is so important for all of us.

Christina McKelvy: 13:05

Yeah, being intentional or doing intentional, meaningful things regularly to stay healthy.

Hannah Carr: 13:12

Mm. Hmm. Yeah, it's hard to do that though, mm hmm, we're told we shouldn't.

Christina McKelvy: 13:21

You know, I think, as helpers and as women, you know we should not, or it's wrong to put ourselves first.

Hannah Carr: 13:26

Mm, hmm, I think it's a common theme, you know, especially people who are, whether it's you know, like you mentioned, sometimes our gender gets this expectation of being caretakers and responsible people for others, but I also think anybody who is caring for someone other than themselves, no matter their gender or sexual identity orientation is. If you are taking care of someone else, it's very easy to identify them as the first priority.

Christina McKelvy: 13:57

Mm, hmm.

Hannah Carr: 13:57

And you know you and I heard this a lot in school of you can't help others if you don't help yourself, which I think is true. But I also think it's sort of watered down of if you are healthy, how can you allow others to explore what healthy looks like for them if you don't even know what it is for you?

Christina McKelvy: 14:18

Mm-hmm, yeah, it's. You have to do it, practice it for yourself before you are Sharing that with others. Mm-hmm, yeah, I'm curious. You know how maybe this your role in what you do and and your story, how much of that and your story now, how much that is have been influenced by Growing up. You mentioned that you know your parents should go to the addiction and I'm curious how that plays into you as a therapist. And then also you're just the idea of self-care or taking care of yourself.

Hannah Carr: 14:54

Yeah, you know, I thought for a long time about what brought me into the, the helping profession, and that had so much to do with it was you know, as a Only child and a kiddo who grew up with parents struggling with addiction, I saw both sides of that coin.

Hannah Carr: 15:12

So I saw the struggle of addiction not being about willpower or Desire or not trying hard enough. I knew that wasn't true even at nine because my parents Made so many concerted efforts for their sobriety and so I knew that there was some missing piece. I just didn't understand about addiction. But then I also had experienced the hurt and Discouragement and pain of having my human adult caretakers not be what I needed, and so that those two pieces sort of combined helped my journey towards counseling and, I think, really influences how I Work with.

Hannah Carr: 15:56

Whether it's a patient who is struggling with addiction or even even if you're not struggling with addiction, you know someone who is, and they are likely in a Armspace of your circle. Whatever your main circle is, even if it's quiet or even if it's not over addiction, someone's been touched by it, and almost every family I, every patient I've worked with, every client patient I worked with, and so I always have that in the back of my mind, that there's always two sides to the coin, and it's very prevalent as a supervisor and a trainer when I see or experience People in the field who have strong reactions to patients with addiction.

Hannah Carr: 16:38

Strong reactions Mm-hmm strong reactions, being Judgmental or afraid, or Very labeling, like you mentioned earlier, like oh, that person's an Opiate addict. Hmm, that person is a human who's struggling with opiate addiction. Let's make sure we reframe that. So I Would say I get a bit more defensive. Yeah, and, and I really want to help people who don't have a background or real understanding of addiction and how that influences the families or the people we work with Know that it's a disease, just like diabetes.

Hannah Carr: 17:22

Right, there are key medical factors that lead to addiction and it's not just somebody not wanting to try or Someone who's not willing to make efforts, and I think that's a common misconception. We have to sort of battle in our field at times, because change is hard and that can be one of the more Difficult things for people to be honest with their therapists about. And so if people come to me and say, oh well, this person came in saying they were, you know, struggling with anxiety when they've been, you know, quietly using Illegal substance to self medicate or manage those symptoms, there's this oh my gosh, I don't know, I'm not an addictions counselor, but you are a counselor. That's something you can help them with, right, so there's a little bit of fear of. Well, I thought it was this, and now it's that they trusted you enough to tell you the truth. What does that mean? It's really special, so that's that's kind of what comes to mind for me when you ask about that. I.

Christina McKelvy: 18:28

Think so. You see, there's two sides of the same coin, or addiction is very integrated. It's not just addiction, you know. There's other facets that has led to that and you mentioned it's an illness, it's a disease, you know and someone can't just like.

Christina McKelvy: 18:43

For example, if we use the disease analogy like asthma, you can't just be like Go to counseling for asthma or use these coming skills for asthma. You know sometimes, you know you need medication or you need you know other interventions to help with your asthma. I don't know if that was the best analogy, but no, I think I understand what you're saying, right.

Hannah Carr: 19:00

So I use the description of like it's like a diabetes or chronic pain, right? We wouldn't say, well, they just need to try harder to not have diabetes. Well, yeah, there's some things that people with diabetes can do to help their health and their well-being, just like the rest of the us. But they need medical intervention, right, an addiction many times needs, whether it's medical or just therapeutic intervention. Also, I always come back to you know, the opposite of addiction is connection, and so if we have patients that are struggling and they don't have people Surrounding them, we got to look at that too. You know, we're, we're humans. We need connection to live, to survive. We were created as tribes originally, right? So, thinking about every person that comes in our space as what's their tribe like, their connection, like outside of this room.

Hannah Carr: 19:52

And how much that influences their peacefulness, contentment, joy, happiness, potentially sobriety, right all of those things are tied together.

Christina McKelvy: 20:04

Opposite of addiction is connection. Connection seems to be so much at least in my the last few weeks for myself really in the forefront. There has been a lot of conversation about connection and how that's really important, you know, for healing and growth. You know not, you know for everybody that connection right.

Hannah Carr: 20:25

Well, I just think about you know the idea of Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert. One of the things I think every human desires is to be like truly seen and understood.

Hannah Carr: 20:41

And you do that through connection, and that connection can be face-to-face with your birth family. It can be virtually with an online community. It could be Through text with a chosen family. It could be through friends. I mean, for me, I mentioned my dog. My pets are part of my connection. That helped me with my wellness and when I'm going through a funk or anxiety or the things that I experienced as a human, I can always come back to those connections to kind of ground myself and settle and say this is a hot mess and I have these supports and I have these skills and I have this resilience that I've built over time and this sucks right like it's not either or it's not, but it's and and is. Uncomfortable. Connections, I think, make it easier. Welcome to that a little bit more and being uncomfortable.

Christina McKelvy: 21:38

Chris, more about that, sure.

Hannah Carr: 21:39

So one of my, one of my favorite things that I will always keep in the back of my mind that I learned from my who I would consider now my mentor for the last few years, my who I would consider now my mentor for lifelong. He was my first clinical supervisor as a student, as a counselor, and we talked so much. His name is dr McCain. I will always shout him out because he has such ingrained in me these beliefs about emotions and connection and people's to share humanity that when people say but but anything they just said is diminished. So I love you, but I did what I did because you hurt my feelings. But sort of negates the I love you part, because what you just heard me say is I'm justifying all these things that I did that hurt you. If I change that too, I love you and what I did yesterday hurt you. I think it might be because of this Just, they both exist together. You can coexist, but coexisting things that are almost opposite can be really hard.

Christina McKelvy: 22:55

I'm not sure if that makes sense or no, it's almost as if the but is conditional. That's exactly it.

Hannah Carr: 23:06

Sort of like with motions, right. So I said at the beginning, if you had asked me how I was feeling last week, grateful and peaceful would not have been my answer Quite the opposite Stressed, anxious, nervous, fearful. But as I look at today I think I probably could have had both if I had had better perspective. So I'm anxious and I'm scared because my dog could die, and I'm thankful that I have a partner that I can go through this with, so I'm not alone. That's the uncomfortable piece. It doesn't get rid of the scared, terrible feelings, but it does acknowledge that it's not just that sad, terrible feeling. This also exists and I don't think that I don't know about other people, but I was not taught to hold opposing emotions comfortably. It was you're either sad or happy. You can be both, but you can, and that took me a long time to learn. But that's the part I think is uncomfortable. What do I do with both? How do they fit?

Christina McKelvy: 24:21

I'm curious about some of those examples on how it helps someone to hold space for both feelings.

Hannah Carr: 24:31

I think the first part about holding space for both feelings is being able to look inside and say they both exist first. So just acknowledgement is many times feelings. I think we're generally good at this. We wanna avoid them or numb them or try to explain them away or rationalize them or distract from them. I can just sit with.

Hannah Carr: 24:59

I'm really really nervous right now that my dog could die and I don't wanna think about it because A, B and C and I'm scared about it because A, B and C. And I give myself just a moment to acknowledge that it gives space for alternative emotions to exist too, versus being so boxed in of just the fear, just the worry, just the scared, Because I've given it space in my mind, in my heart, in my existence, to be there, and I think that opens up the door for the and and I'm in a place where I have a great support system, that I'm not going through this alone and I have a job that allows me to be flexible so I can be where I need to be to take care of this stressful situation. And I'm not sure how we're gonna pay all our bills, because this is really expensive, but we're gonna trust that we're gonna figure it out.

Christina McKelvy: 25:53

Yeah, it's almost like it gives someone permission to experience these feelings, the hard feelings and the easy feelings.

Hannah Carr: 26:06

Permission is, I think, something we don't tend to allow ourselves to have. And if maybe we didn't have it growing up, for me at least, is if you don't experience permission to acknowledge, have bad, sad, bad, negative I use negative in quotes because I think all emotions are valid, but negative, positive, right, we think of sad, bad, angry, whatever Angry is a big one, yeah, happy, excited, joyful. On the opposite, and if you were growing up in a space where you were permitted to experience the quote positive ones and avoid, don't talk about, don't explore, don't express the quote negative ones, how do you figure out?

Christina McKelvy: 26:58

what to do with those.

Hannah Carr: 27:00

It's really hard and confusing.

Christina McKelvy: 27:03

They have to go somewhere. I mean, I teach my kids that I work with. It's almost like a volcano. Those hard feelings are getting pushed down and eventually there's no way for it to go. If no, there's no place for those feelings to go, it's just going to explode.

Hannah Carr: 27:18

I know you and I hear a lot. The issues are in our tissues, right, and so a lot of times we hear that when people have experienced traumatic events, very somatic yeah right.

Hannah Carr: 27:30

There's some things that if you don't let them out or experience them or process them, they'll stay in your physical body somewhere. I think every emotion is physical if you aren't acknowledging it, even excitement. If I'm excited and I don't acknowledge it and experience it, it can also feel anxious in my body. My body is on edge, my heart's beating, I'm sweating right, but like what if I just man, I'm really excited about this interview with Christina today, but if I hadn't said that out loud last night when I was laying in bed, I was kind of like, oh my gosh, do I know what I'm going to talk about? And what if what I speak doesn't speak to people? And I had these anxious thoughts.

Hannah Carr: 28:12

But this morning I woke up and I went. I think I'm actually excited, but I'm nervous because this is important, and so this morning I've had more peace about our conversation. So, yeah, permission to feel all of the things, because if you don't, you're going to hold it somewhere spatially in your body or your mind until you deal with it. I like your volcano. That's a good one.

Christina McKelvy: 28:35

Yeah, and I use another with the volcano analogy. So there's that explosion, so you know those volcanoes that explode, but then there are some volcanoes that you find in Hawaii, for an example, where the lava slowly seeps out, and that's where I explain like this is where you're allowing yourself to feel emotions. Maybe you know a little bit of little regulated, maybe some coping skills, but you're still experiencing that anger, so experiencing that excitement, but in a little bit more of a regulated state. So the lava this is totally not scientific slowly goes down into the little fissures, or fissures, however you say it, and so you don't explode, whether that's, like you said, explode with excitement, which I love, that example of the positive emotions being almost in an unhelpful way. You know, I sometimes will label emotions as is this helpful or is this unhelpful for the moment?

Hannah Carr: 29:27

And that balance of saying emotions are giving me information About my environment, about what I'm experiencing and probably about what I've experienced before, because I also have a interesting concept for me that I learned from Dr McCain is people do not overreact. People react to this situation they're in and all of the situations prior that are close to that situation that are unresolved. Is there unfinished business showing up in the room? And so I think keeping that peace in mind is reaction and how we experience emotions influences our behavior and our thoughts and all of those things, but also it keeps us physically stuck sometimes if we don't have the permission to feel those things. There's a really great book called Permission to Feel, doctor. I'll try to look that up and maybe we can share it as a resource.

Hannah Carr: 30:31

But, dr Brownlee, dr Mark, I think you put that in the show notes too, yeah it is written by a psychologist who really worked with children and helping them learn emotion management and just emotions in general, and what he a short, little brief thing that was helpful was what he recognized after going through and researching all kinds of children in all different diverse educational backgrounds, cities all over the world. Kids know minimal emotion language, generally speaking, and even most adults Sad, mad, happy are like the three right, sad, mad, happy, maybe scared, bared, and I think there's a fifth one that's pretty common. I just can't think on the top of my head.

Hannah Carr: 31:17

If we discuss a few of inside out, maybe that's the other one, and so he talks about how, if our children, who grow into adults like us, only have those five words, and then we're wondering why people are dysregulated Cause they don't know what's going on with me because I don't have language for it and so I can't have permission to feel it if I don't know how to name it.

Christina McKelvy: 31:39

Yeah, and so naming those emotions, like by naming something that's making it a reality, but that's uncomfortable too. Things are uncomfortable and that is okay. You know being able to sit with that discomfort and it takes practice and I know that. You know anxiety is something I've always struggled with and over the years I've learned to sit with that and maybe even use it as a superpower too.

Christina McKelvy: 32:06

And be, like or, like you mentioned, what's the root of the anxiety. Maybe I'm just really excited or this is new. What not I'm curious about? What was your like? When was your aha moment, you know, in regards to giving yourself that permission? Cause you mentioned, when you were younger, you did not have that permission and then you went to school and you know, like most of us were going to school to learn about how to help others, but it's also helpful for us all those classes, right? Cause I'm just curious, like when that aha moment was and what that was like for you.

Hannah Carr: 32:40

So one of the opportunities I had working with teenagers was I ran a lot of groups and I ran a lot of groups with my mentor and we had a group called Emotions Group and all the kids tried to avoid that group in particular because we worked with a lot of teens who had experienced some really severe traumas kids and gangs who have no parents, kids in DCS custody, I mean like the kids who are super vulnerable, and so emotions for them were anger and that was it because they had to protect themselves to survive and so Emotions Group, they knew, was going to require them to look at anything other than anger. They weren't having it. So being in that group and watching these really quote hardcore, like honestly dive into. You know why I'm so mad? Because my dad left us. That's why I'm so mad.

Hannah Carr: 33:46

You want me to talk about why I'm so mad? Cause my dad left me and I'm an orphan and nobody cares about me and now my mom's in prison, so my aunt's raising me. Why do you think I'm mad? And then a few weeks later saying, actually I just wish I had somebody, cause I'm lonely, because I'm sad, because I'm scared and I don't know how to be it. I don't know what to do with this, but no, I'm mad.

Hannah Carr: 34:10

And just this really cool opportunity to watch people who are so committed to that emotion being the only answer with good reason, saying there's a possibility it could be something else, and so watching these teenagers be more emotionally vulnerable and raw and honest than most adults I had ever experienced, I said I think I need to do that more, and if I'm gonna do good work in this field, I have to do that more for me and for the work that I do. And so that's where that permission came from, and I almost feel like it was granted to me by the clients that I was with at that time, like I'm allowed to have that too, because he helped them have it. It was a really interesting like parallel process, I guess. Yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 35:07

It ties into similar to what you were saying before with self-care we need to be able to do it first so we can help our clients. I think that's similar. It sounds like for you. You learned I need to be able to give myself permission to feel these feelings, but not just these general feelings, but the root emotions or the root causes of these feelings, or learning to relabel these feelings and letting myself feel it, and then I can be able to be a better presence for my client or better support.

Hannah Carr: 35:40

Yeah, and better in my humanity, I think at times I like that. I think it's very easy to compartmentalize, just as human.

Christina McKelvy: 35:56

It's safety for us to compartmentalize Exactly.

Hannah Carr: 35:59

And my helpers out there. We're really good at that. We're really good at compartmentalizing.

Hannah Carr: 36:04

You're like I'm fine, right, my favorite. Anytime someone says they're fine, I'm like, hmm, what's going on? And if you don't feel safe to talk to me about it, I want you to find somebody to talk about it with, because if you're saying you're fine, that is my implication in my sight, that you are probably not. It's so hard for us to be honest about how we're doing. People ask us at the grocery store, at the gas station or at our classes or wherever we're going in our life or at work. A colleague's like how's it going? And internally you're like I hate everything, but you're like I'm great. How are you? Because we're kind of socialized to always seem like we're fine or good or happy. But what might it be like if we were more honest of? I'm feeling kind of stressed today, but you know what I appreciate you asking what if we were able to be more honest just in that basic, like 15 second interaction? I think that would be really meaningful for people to be able to do that.

Christina McKelvy: 37:08

It would be meaningful and uncomfortable. I was actually having the same exact conversation as my last interview, rob, who posed the question like it would also be uncomfortable and like that is very true. And good Different.

Hannah Carr: 37:25

Growth, I think, always exists outside of comfort zones, and so for me, it's whether you're ready to be uncomfortable, and sometimes we're not.

Hannah Carr: 37:38

I'm not always okay with being uncomfortable, and so I compartmentalize when I'm not ready to be uncomfortable, but just the acknowledgement and the awareness that I'm not ready to go there yet and I'm doing that intentionally, versus stuffing it away and hiding it, because I don't want to even consider that it's a possibility or what it might mean- and we have to have that sense of safety to be able to feel able to start experiencing that uncomfortable feeling or experiences.

Christina McKelvy: 38:17

I had something at the top of my head and it went away, but I, you know when I was thinking about. You know our conversation, you know I remember when I originally emailed you and you know I asked a series, I asked a lot of my guests, a series of questions, just as a starter point you mentioned. You know, one thing that you live by is Maslow's hierarchy of needs and I'm curious how our conversations that we were just having about community, permission to feel, and maybe even your experiences might, how Maslow's hiring needs kind of relates to that, because I also live by that I feel with some of my clients we're not at the first, we're at the first stage. We cannot, I cannot do some work with you yet until we get through the first stage. So I'm just curious what that means to you. And again, you know how community and these permission to feelings might play into Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Hannah Carr: 39:03

Yeah Well, it's always interesting to me because if you know Maslow's, you know it well, and if you don't, it's like what are you talking about? And so I want to acknowledge a lot of people that are listening to us probably have no idea what we're talking about. So what I would encourage is that there's this triangle and there was a guy named Maslow and he was part of our kind of program of learning about how people relate to their world as humans and what they really provide.

Christina McKelvy: 39:29

That would be great yeah.

Hannah Carr: 39:31

And so one of the things that I have always sort of lived by since my internship experience is that if we don't recognize where on this little triangle, kind of think of it as a food triangle, but for needs of humans, that's the way I'm describing it.

Hannah Carr: 39:47

It's like if you don't have food, water, shelter or a safe place to sleep at night. If you come to therapy with me, I can't talk to you about your self-esteem because I need you to be able to survive, right. So survival at the bottom, and if you're not in a safe, healthy space, we need to get you there. First, how do we get your resources, connections right related to those things, and then up the triangle right, and then you have a place to sleep and you have food, but are people hurting you when you're there? And if people are hurting you, then your self-esteem again, like I just used self-esteem as an example, and then loving, belonging, I think, ties to that piece.

Hannah Carr: 40:30

We've talked about a lot of connection.

Hannah Carr: 40:35

Community healing really starts with intimacy and the sense of connection and love and belonging with people, whether that's.

Hannah Carr: 40:44

I would say it starts with love and connection with yourself, first your identity, who you are and believing that you're a valuable human just because you breathe and you exist, and then your connection with others, and then we finally get to a place where, if we've got all those things, we can talk about self-worth, self-esteem, your strengths, like looking towards the future of things and identifying who do you really want to be in the long run right. So some of those existential questions of like what are my values and what's important to me and why am I on this journey, Like what is life really about for me? And I think having that in the back of my mind when I'm with other humans most of the time when I'm in therapy is, I think, especially when it comes to kind of diagnosis and treatment, because in our job we have to have a treatment goal and we have to have symptoms that we're reducing and things have to be written a certain way or done a certain way.

Hannah Carr: 41:45

But if I can't look at the humanity of where this person is and meet them where they're at in that section number one, they're probably not going to come back and see me again because I'm not going to connect with what they really need and want. If I'm so focused on the clinical stuff first and I think healing starts with the lowest piece and not lowest like the least important but the first primary If I don't have the things I need to live food, shelter, water and clothing right to some extent, then, it really matters.

Christina McKelvy: 42:24

Survival at that point.

Hannah Carr: 42:26

Right. If you found a kitten on the street and you realize, oh my gosh, this kitten is really sick, I need to nurse it back to health, you don't go get it groomed. I don't know if this kitten is going to survive. I need to start with. Let's make sure that it has enough body weight. Do I have a place to warm it up? Can I put it in a blanket? Can I get it nutrition? I'm not like, oh, its nails are kind of long, let's go get those clipped. It's like a priority system.

Christina McKelvy: 42:56

I wonder, using the kitten analogy, it took someone else to heal and help that kitten, even though connection is the third layer. I'm curious I don't have it pulled up, but I think it's the third layer. I'm curious if, at the same time, it might help with the first layer. Again, that community, that belonging, volunteering, giving to your neighbor, donating money, community centers, things like that that community can actually can also help someone feel safe and have shelter.

Hannah Carr: 43:28

Well, thinking about where do our kind of physiological needs come from. So food, water, shelter, clothing those things can be received by your community if you have one or if you can hunt one out, knowing that you don't have to do these things alone at any part of the journey, but figuring out what that connection can be to help you get those needs met. Also, recognizing who the healthy connections are for you, because you may be able to get food, transportation, water, shelter, but if that person is abusive or if that person is using you or manipulating you, so you can get those things, maybe you have that lower level need met, but that's now going to influence your ability to get your other needs met, because it's not out of intention to help you, it's intention to harm. So I think that ties together too is figuring out who is safe to trust in your community, or starting to search out how safe people in the community or resources in the community that are safe.

Christina McKelvy: 44:34

Yeah, and those that offer another time and energy to support someone being visible.

Hannah Carr: 44:44

That's so key. I think about so many of our communities that are populations that are disregarded and pushed down by the way that our world has been existing for a long while and knowing that there are places of refuge and shelter. It's hard to find, though. If you're a person of color, if you are an LGBTQIA person, there's not a lot of places that you can feel safe, and so knowing that there are places that exist, but also piloting them, call it like testing the waters so maybe this community resource place says that they are or even a therapist. I'm going to call us out.

Hannah Carr: 45:31

Some of us say that we are allies or we are trained in supporting Indigenous communities, and people come and we are not as skilled as we say we are, or we are blind, we have blind spots that we don't recognize, and so you have a right to find safety with anywhere you go, and if that person isn't safe and they don't attempt to be safe, you're allowed to move on. That's what I always like. I'm a therapist who goes to therapy, and I am a therapist who has had a really lovely, awesome, wonderful experience in therapy, and I'm one who's had really not great experiences it's the nicest way I can say it, so know that we're not all the same. If you haven't gone to therapy, and don't give up. Whether it's a community resource, a safe partner, a therapist, a teacher you can trust. We are all human, so we are all different, and so don't stereotype, and that's hard for us to do.

Christina McKelvy: 46:37

If you have one bad experience you're afraid that's going to be repeated. But in essence you're giving permission. You're a permission to find a way to feel safe, to seek out that safety, to try things out.

Hannah Carr: 46:53

And also protect themselves when it's not safe, that permission to say I don't feel good in the room with this person. I don't actually trust that they have my best interests in mind, so I'm not going to come back or I'm going to give them one more chance, but I'm not sure that I'm going to let them in. Boundaries are so important when it comes to our safety and I think many times boundaries are misconstrued as these things that we put up to keep people away, when really it's to protect us and protect that other person too. If you're not right to be around me, then I don't want to give away my energy or suck energy from you either.

Christina McKelvy: 47:37

Right. I feel that there's so many really good points that you brought up based off of your own experience, growing up even as a therapist, and that's again that sense of safety, having that permission to feel feelings, that community connection and also just making sure that you are having the basics first food, shelter, water. We are near the end and I a few minutes near the end, and I like to close out with one question.

Hannah Carr: 48:06

What gives you hope? You can give me emotional.

Christina McKelvy: 48:10

Christina, that's okay, I'm giving you permission.

Hannah Carr: 48:15

What gives me hope is seeing people and experiencing myself overcome obstacles that we didn't think we could and, if we have the right supports, if we have a safe space to land, if we have people in our community surrounding us, if we take risks, we can come out on the other side with glory.

Christina McKelvy: 48:47

And.

Hannah Carr: 48:47

I don't mean glory in a religious sense. I mean this image always comes to me of on the other side, with hope exists like this bright, shining light, and whatever that means for you. Glory just always has resounded for me and my soul of every time I've come through a tragedy or a painful experience or a client or a friend has gone through that they're more refined and they have more recognition of. That was something I wish I never had to experience and I learned from it. I grew from it.

Christina McKelvy: 49:28

I'm grateful for it because X that's what gives me hope that and was there, you would experience both Right, come out in glory. Yeah, hannah, that was beautiful. I really was.

Hannah Carr: 49:52

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me today. It's really meant a lot. It's really helped feed my soul. Being with you today and being able to be honest about my story and the things that I believe as a human and as a therapist and to reconnect with you has been really nice as well.

Christina McKelvy: 50:10

Same here, thank you, and I think there's just power in that connection being authentic, and I appreciate you being open and authentic with the not just the listeners, but with me today, or with myself and the listeners, and yeah, so thank you so much.

Hannah Carr: 50:28

It's good to be with you.