A Hero's Welcome Podcast
A Hero’s Welcome Podcast
For the therapists doing the hard work and the hearts behind the healing.
Hosted by Maria Laquerre Diego and Liliana Baylon, both LMFT-S and RPT-S, A Hero’s Welcome is a podcast created by and for mental health professionals. We spotlight the work, wisdom, and lived experiences of therapists who show up for others every day, especially those working with children, families, and communities impacted by trauma, migration, and systemic stress.
Each episode features honest conversations with expert clinicians, supervisors, trainers, and consultants. We talk about clinical insights, cultural humility, and what it means to support healing in today’s world. This is your space if you’re a therapist seeking a more profound connection, real-world tools, and community.
Hosts:
Maria Laquerre-Diego
maria@anewhopetc.org
Liliana Baylon
liliana@lilianabaylon.com
A Hero's Welcome Podcast
Understanding Intergenerational Trauma with Mili Shoemaker
Unlock the secrets of intergenerational trauma with Milagros "Mili" Sarmiento Shoemaker, a distinguished therapist who bridges cultures from Argentina to the United States. Have you ever wondered how the experiences of your ancestors shape your life today? This episode promises insights into understanding trauma as a survival mechanism that transcends generations, using historical contexts, like wars and migrations, to illustrate the invisible threads connecting us to our past.
Our conversation with Mili dives deep into the layers of generational healing, where we explore the unique privilege and responsibility our generation holds in addressing and integrating the unresolved issues of our ancestors. By embracing the complex dynamics between victims and perpetrators in our family histories, we underscore the importance of empathy and grace in understanding where we come from. This episode sheds light on how acknowledging these inherited patterns paves the way for future generations to face new challenges unencumbered by the weight of the past.
We conclude with an exploration of how therapists can harness the power of communication and resource-sharing to unravel their clients' intergenerational trauma. Mili shares poignant examples that highlight the significant impact of incorporating family systems into therapeutic practices. Not only do we discuss how these insights can prevent children from being unfairly pathologized, but we also reflect on the mutual growth experienced by both therapists and clients. Join us in this enlightening journey that promises to break the cycle of unspoken trauma and foster a deeper understanding of our shared human experience.
A Hero's Welcome Podcast © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon
Welcome listeners back for another episode of a Heroes Welcome podcast. I'm your co-host, Maria Laquera-Diego, and I'm joined today by my co-host.
Speaker 2:That's me, Liliana Bailon, and we are here with Mili Mili, how do you want to introduce yourself to our audience?
Speaker 3:Well, my name is Mili, but really my name is Milagros, but I go by Mili because it's much easier. Sarmiento is my last name and then I also use my husband's name, so it's Sarmiento Shoemaker, and that says a lot about me. I am an Argentine that lives in the US. I'm a therapist, I'm an LPC in the state of Colorado. I am a registered play therapy supervisor. I started seeing kids when I started my career and now I'm seeing many families and adults, not many kids, and I don't know. I don't know. That's a little bit about me. I guess you're going to have a sense of who I am when we start to have this conversation.
Speaker 2:So for everyone who's out there, and you're like wait, what? So Millie's an outstanding. And I tell her because that's how I met her, that's how I know her, but Millie and I are from Latin America, I'm from Mexico, she's from Argentina, and that's how we started, just knowing each other and then asking what do you think about this concept or what do you think about this? And that's how we created a connection. But it was through Synergetic Play Therapy where we met. Yep, so the three of us have Lisa Dion in common. Yes, so, millie, what is it that we're going to be talking about today?
Speaker 3:So today we're going to talk about intergenerational trauma, which I feel that is a hot topic, like I feel that is something that nowadays a lot of people like bring it up. So we're going to talk about intergenerational trauma and the patterns that at least I see and this is a conversation that I would love to have with the two of you the patterns that we see in the clinical space, so how intergenerational that we see in the clinical space, so how intergenerational trauma shows up in the clinical space and even in today's society. But we can even start just talking about, like, what we see as therapists and, of course, define what the heck intergenerational trauma is. Right.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I was just thinking even before we started recording, when you said your little girls were watching Encanto, and I was like that is the perfect example of intergenerational trauma. But give us an example of what do you see in your practice. How is it showing up with the families that you're serving?
Speaker 3:So let's start by defining what is intergenerational trauma, and we cannot define intergenerational trauma without defining first what the heck is trauma, right? So let's just come out with a very simple description of what trauma is. Trauma is any experience right that for the person that is experiencing the experience is too much, too fast, right? So too much is coming at you, and when you're going through a traumatic experience or an event, your nervous system, your brain, your body needs to exclude information out and hyper-focus onto something in order to make it through, in order to survive. So trauma is, in my opinion, is the perfect survival mechanism that we developed as humanity in order to survive generation from generation. So the trauma is not so much the event itself, but more so how that person, the event itself, but more so how that person internalized that experience and what that person needed, unconsciously, to live out of the experience in order to make it through. Would you all agree that that is trauma?
Speaker 1:I love that definition. Okay, so then, if we talk about intergenerational trauma.
Speaker 3:It means that. So then, if we talk about intergenerational trauma, it means that intergenerational trauma is imagine from our past generations. Right, our ancestors, they also experienced trauma. I once heard, I once watched this video that I think describes it beautifully. So I am in my 40s, liliana, you are in your what 40s. Maria, you are in your what 40s? Or, maria, you are in your 40s. Okay, so we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna.
Speaker 3:The three of us agree that our great-grandparents, so our bisabuelos, they depend. I'm my parent. My great-grandparents were from Spain, from Bolivia, yours from Mexico. Right, I don't know, maria, where you're from, but we can. I don't know, maria, where you're from, but we can agree that that generation were either in war, fighting war, or they were migrating into new territories because of war. So all that generation was about war, surviving guerra. When I pronounce it in English, it doesn't come out as good, but guerra, right, they were like fighting war.
Speaker 3:So those are our great grandparents, and you can imagine that that generation left a lot of information out. They needed to exclude information in order to make it through. That generation didn't really ask themselves oh, what do I feel like eating today? Oh, what do I feel like eating today? Oh, what do I feel like listening today? I'm gonna listen to classic music right now. They were just fighting for their lives.
Speaker 3:Okay, then our grandparents generation came in and our grandparents, uh, they were still worse, but not as many, and they dedicated their energy and their lives to make a living. Right, they were making a living. Many of our grandparents were either like factory workers right, factory workers or they were just doing different types of professions not professions like farming, different types of professions like non-professions, farming, different types of works that today we have more options, but our grandparents, their goal or their purpose in life was to make a living. And then our parents came in and I don't know your parents' story, but we can say that our parents' generation. They were able to either choose a career or choose a profession, maybe different from what their parents were able to, to choose right. And then here we come, and then our generation comes right.
Speaker 3:Which is interesting that in our generation there is so many options for so many things, right, think about, like, all the options that we have for therapy. We have so many podcasts that talk about mental health you name it right. We have so many. Still, accessibility is an issue, right? It's not that everyone has access to mental health services, but we have so many services for mental health need, right? So our generation is in charge, or our purpose is to integrate it all, so to fill what they needed. So what our ancestors needed to exclude in order to survive, needed to exclude in order to survive in today, today's generation, our generation, we are.
Speaker 3:It's not random why, at first, we're having this conversation. There are so many, uh, places in the world where, like this is a thing like integrating and addressing intergenerational trauma, and it is because of that, because our you know those that came before us. They couldn't, they needed to put their attention, their focus on someone, something else. Right Now, we have the privilege to be able to talk about these, to be able to go to therapy, to be able to talk about things that we didn't before. Let's think about.
Speaker 3:In today's society, there's so many things that we talk about that we didn't talk about then. For example, sexual abuse. Sexual abuse when I was a kid, that wasn't a thing, not that it didn't happen, we just didn't talk about it. Or sexuality in general. We didn't talk about gender identity. We didn't talk about that. We didn't talk about even war. We didn't talk about those countries that were in war. At least, that was my experience. Growing up. I lived in a bubble where we didn't talk about many things. All of those things were still happening. In Argentina, for example, we didn't talk about abortion. Abortion is not even legal in Argentina. And today, of course, there is a big movement that is fighting these two movements one that fights for abortion and one that fights against abortion.
Speaker 3:So what I'm trying to say is that even in today's society, we're giving voice to many of these symptoms, to many of these challenges that existed before, like domestic violence.
Speaker 3:Domestic violence has been a thing since we are a species. We have so many nonprofits, so many organizations that protect victims or that help perpetrators to, you know, like work through their stuff so they can change right how they relate with people, but anyway. So what I'm trying to say with this is that our generation is a generation that is not in charge. Generation is a generation that is not in charge. I don't want to say that we are in charge, but we have the privilege to connect with all of that, to make space for it and to integrate it, so our kids don't have to continue to re-experience, repeat patterns that we can talk about. You know we can talk about that now if you want to, like how intergenerational trauma shows up in general. What like now we're talking about, like from a intellectual perspective, right Like that previous generation didn't integrate is getting repeated in today's reality. And then, if you want, we can talk about like what we're seeing, that we're making sense of this information.
Speaker 1:I love this. This is so helpful, this framework and this lens, because I think the other thing we've been we've said on a couple of other interviews is like this stuff is not new, right, these things that we are dealing with, these symptoms that we are seeing, these traumas that we are processing, these are not new experiences for us as a species, or even as a country species, or even as a country. But why like I get that all the time, you know well why are we talking about it now? Why is this such a big deal now? Why and partly, we didn't have the language right you were talking about, like sexuality and even child abuse or spousal abuse, like we didn't have the language back then.
Speaker 1:And I think I really love this because it wasn't, that wasn't the most important thing going on for that generation at the time.
Speaker 1:So it was dropped Right. And I think that's helpful too, to have some grace and understanding for past generations, because, I mean, we're recording this the night before the election season and I know you know things are heightened right now. But one of the things that keeps coming up, at least in our practice, is why is this my mess to clean up? I didn't, you know, like the newer generations are like why is it on us to parent my parents who are of different beliefs, or having to explain mental health to my parents or to older generations when they just want to brush it under the rug? Still, and it's really helpful to be able to have some grace and go, because it wasn't important to them. They had bigger things on their plate and we have the privilege now to be in a safer space, to be able to fight some of these battles and to look at some of these things and to do some of this integration in this work. I love that, so I think.
Speaker 2:Judy's sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So, for everyone who's out there, just pause, because the conversation is going really, really fast and this is huge, not just because where we are in this moment and what may happen this week, but I have never and I love that you said it, maria which is we didn't have the language.
Speaker 2:Millie, what you said and I, like highlighted it which is our generation purpose is to integrate to, is to process and integrate, because past generations they didn't have the privilege and I love the word that you're using in regards to what was happening when they were growing up that they needed to exclude a lot of things just to survive.
Speaker 2:We, this generation, especially the three of us who are here, who are in our 40s, we're talking about, we have the privilege to be able to process, because we're saying we don't want our children to continue repeating these patterns and if we can help them to start to have a different issue, we're going to call it an issue, a different issue that they get to take on and to work on, because they're not dealing with, you know, the stuff that our ancestors were dealing with, if it was migration, if it was crime, if it whatever it was, even the financial burdens that they had, like they don't have to do that. They're in a different lens, a different view. So again, let us think in, for everyone who's listening, our generation purpose is to process and integrate what our ancestors went through that is huge and integrate what our ancestors went through.
Speaker 3:That is huge. That is huge. And for some of us we come from families or ancestors that they were the perpetrators. They were the ones that killed people, many people, right, for some of us we are part of a family and it's not from a family constellation perspective, which is the one philosophy that I follow in my practice as other philosophies and approaches but it's not that maybe one generation was, let's say, let's call it a perpetrator, and maybe the generation before were the victims and then the generation before were the perpetrators.
Speaker 3:Is this dance between it's not that you are the bad ones and I'm the good one you are the perpetrator and I'm the victim? Can you own it in yourself? Can you look back? Can you look around, like look and study your family history, and can you how do I say this without creating lots of tension but can you be grateful from where you come from? And being grateful means can you integrate both the good and the bad, because it's really easy to write to say I come from a, I'm just going to make something up.
Speaker 3:I come from a family where you know we were victims of the Holocaust, right, and of course that has. We know the pain, that of the Holocaust right, and of course that has. We know the pain that that system carries and all of that right. I can totally love that and be grateful for my ancestors, but how challenging at least for me, mili would it be to own and to be grateful for my Nazis. So let's say that my family's members, my ancestors, were Nazis, right, and to know that I come from them and to honor them no, not honor what they did, that is different. It's not that we are honoring crime, that is not the message. But the message is not random, at least from this perspective, the family that you were born in and can you again own and be grateful for those that came before you, that it wasn't easy for them and it doesn't mean that we are again honoring their crimes.
Speaker 3:We're just saying yes, because what you were saying, maria, about many people saying why do we have to clean up? You know, this is not our mess. It's, let's say, our parents' mess or like someone else's mess. Well, actually it's humanity's mess and as long as you're a human, it impacts you and you're responsible for it. At least I can speak for myself and that's how I view it. Whatever is going on in my world today that affects my life, that affects my kids, that affects my community. I'm a part of it. So let's study and let's get curious about our ancestors. And can we be one with them? Because this is not what we're doing. We are separating and we're saying we don't belong or we don't. You know, we're not alike and we don't want to be like them, but part of us continues to repeat what we did because we are an extension of them. So it's just about like I don't know. In my opinion, it's curiosity, becoming curious of your roots.
Speaker 2:Think about everyone who's listening. So think about everyone who's listening. Think about when a family comes in and they say and you ask questions. Part of your intake is you're working with a child and you realize that that parent was physically abused, because that generation was dealing not only with a different set of rules in regards to parenting, but whatever they were going through. And then now the parent is like I don't want my child to go through this, that's why we're here in therapy. And then when they're dysregulated, they hit.
Speaker 2:So this is repeating a pattern where we can see ourselves as villains. I'm going to use Maria's word right now for not being able to stop myself. But what is the wisdom in humanizing my parents for what I went through, trying to integrate what I learned, trying to integrate what my family went through and be able to embrace the good and the bad and why we tend to repeat what we repeat. And then what is it that no longer is serving us and what is it that we can change it? So the conversation is learning, so that we can take accountability, we can process and we can change. It's not that we're changing our DNA, but it is that we're changing family patterns, and I think that's what you're suggesting, millie, with this discussion.
Speaker 2:Which is, what is it the Europeans are doing when they say especially when you mentioned the Holocaust, I was thinking like they're not saying this didn't happen. Germany is not saying this didn't happen. Germany is saying let's learn from it so that we don't repeat these aspects of our history anymore. They're not rejecting it, they're not in denial it didn't happen, let's not talk about it. They're saying this is what we did, this is what we were going through, and let's make sure that we don't repeat it. That's the integration in the process, that's the process and the integration per se, would you say, mili, am I getting it?
Speaker 3:I was just thinking about.
Speaker 3:I've been reading a book that is a little bit controversy about. You know this topic. It talks about perpetrators and victims and what he says, this guy, what he says is that he's curious about you know, like, whenever you talk about victims right, let's say, you go and you may see for example, in my country we had a big war in 1982 in argentina and you go to a specific place and you see all the names of all the soldiers that died in that war, but you don't see all the names of all the perpetrators, all the let's quote unquote like bad people. So what this guy says in this book is that about the Holocaust and the you know, what happened with the Nazis and the Jewish community is that we see a lot of Jewish names on these walls but we never see the preparator's name. And in order for us to integrate this, we need to see both sides, not just the victims. We need to see their names, because seeing and reading their names is a way of them being responsible for what they did, and that matters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I think it also brings in an opportunity for healing for those right, because if there is no name, if there is no image, if there is no acknowledgement of the other people right, right, then it's very easy then to slip into like well, did it really happen? Was it really that bad, like you know, and that those messages can get perpetuated in that way. So I think I think that's a really interesting concept because we are quick to you know, and history is written by the survivors and the successors. But I think it's also really interesting to just kind of note, like what are we doing when we are distancing or eliminating the other side, because it clearly has not been serving us or we wouldn't be having this conversation, we wouldn't be in this position for our generation and future generations?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's right, I have two things in mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm thinking also of time, so we can take this conversation into. You know, what are we? What we're seeing in our practice? We're going to talk about what is going on in the U? S, like from the U? S history, because we also repeat patterns here, right? Not just you know, like we're talking about what happened, right? Of course, the Nazis and the Jewish community impacted the whole world, but there's also some like social issues in the US that continue to repeat that we tiptoe around. So we're going to talk about like something more uh, I don't know less, I don't know what's the word. We're going to talk about the clinical space or we're going to talk about what is going on in today's I think that whatever we decide right, they're gonna be um, fear-based because everyone tries to like.
Speaker 2:That doesn't happen, even in our field, when, even when you mention, like generationally, families tend to have issues with sexual abuse, with racism, with a dv, with, like all these things, bullying, with like all these things that bring cases to our clinical practice, we tend to say, like, not this part, we're going to focus on this part.
Speaker 2:So even in that, we're repeating historically what we have done. So if we zoom out from an intergenerational trauma, what we're saying is that sometimes we are even excluding information because we're not ready to process into interests and we tend to super focus on one area, because that's the capacity that we have, either because we're not aware, because we don't want to process and we're not ready to integrate. Yeah, and in that, in our field, we'll continue to have the same patterns, right, even if we zoom out, because we can say society, us, we can talk family, system, but we can also say in our field we also have this issue because we're in denial, because we're not ready to process, we're not ready to integrate, to pass the baton to the new cohort so that they can have a different perspective and they can have a different fight per se. You see this enough that we just did yes.
Speaker 3:Think about this In the state of Colorado. This is how we exclude. In my opinion, in the state of Colorado, you need to be at least right, like when you get to the age of 12, you don't need parent consent to do therapy. So what are we doing as therapists? We are saying to the parents I personally, if I work with a 12-year-old, I work with the parents, but that's how I work, right? But from a systemic perspective, the system is saying we don't need the parents, we're going to put them here aside, we're just going to work with the kid. That is a way of excluding, not working with a client systemically, which, in my opinion, that's the way to do it in order to see change. Right, but that's also the message that kids get from out there, right, yeah, you don't need your parents for consent.
Speaker 2:Come and see me, so let's bring it to the system in our field being played there, which he says let me teach you how to work with the child, but not with the system. Yeah, we're doing cut off. Yes, that's right, therapist, we're naming it. The three of us are naming it have to work with the system. Yes, you have to work with the system to help help the client in front of you, and that may include having family sessions with the purpose to help the client with whatever the issue is.
Speaker 3:And having sessions. I know that not for all play therapies it's comfortable to have the parents in the room. So it's something that some therapies may need to, just if they want to work more systematically to develop right, like to learn how to be more comfortable with parents. But just to start, like, when you conceptualize, let's say, an issue, a symptom, can you start to conceptualize it from a systemic perspective? So, for example, I want to share an example, if that's okay. So there is this person in the family conservation field. His name is Stefan Hausner and he says that parents exclude their kids, feel attracted to. I'm going to give you an example. I'm going to give you an example.
Speaker 3:I once was doing an intake with a family. They wanted their six-year-old to come to therapy because she was having some suicide ideation, and because I work from this perspective in my intake, my first question was parents were in the in the intake and I asked them directly have you ever, the two of you, thought about killing yourself? Have you had thoughts about? And mom's starting to cry? Yeah, when I was 18, I went through a really hard time, but we never talk about it. Okay, I explained this concept to them. Your kid is bringing into today's life aspects of your past that haven't been fully integrated yet. Let's do a few play therapy sessions, but just know that my work is with the two of you, as long as you can make space for this to talk about suicide, to talk about depression, to tell them not necessarily tell them what happened to you, maybe now, but maybe in a few years. So we were able to identify in that first intake issue and what my mom shared was like, and my mom had history of depression and I think someone in the system committed suicide. So, from a family conservation perspective, how do we bring light into that? By bringing and talking about that family member that committed suicide.
Speaker 3:So, from a family conservation perspective, those that are excluded in the system, or the experiences that are excluded in the system, influence the ones that are alive, the ones that are in today's reality. So, from this perspective, it's about connecting the dots right, like the same with sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is systemic. It never happens as an not in never. You never know, right Like, I cannot say it never, but it's not usually an isolated event. So the same thing with sexual abuse. When I have an intake with a parents that are, you know bringing a kid that has been sexually abused. I ask directly have you been sexually abused as a kid? And it's usually either mom or dad that starts to cry and says, yes, that was my experience growing up, but I never told anyone.
Speaker 2:First of all, mom, if you're listening, I just want you to know. This is why, whatever you left out, I picked it up and even as you said it right, and we can be joking and I was like, oh, so that's why this child picked this, like got it. So even in that, we can have easily make sense of three generations, right? I love this example, millie, because a lot of the times, again, because they feel that we are, especially when we say I am a play therapist, right? I think it was the last podcast that we recorded, maria, where we said we don't tend to talk to each other.
Speaker 2:If we are LMFT and LPCs, we don't talk to each other, we don't share resources. And then, if you narrow it down of like, oh, we're play therapists, then we don't share with LMFTs, we don't share with LPCs, like, we just don't share. And this is information, millie, that I feel like, yes, how do we talk to each other so that we can share? Have you considered, not just as an LPC but as a play therapist, have you considered, how intergenerational trauma is showing up and why the need to include the system is important, not only for intake history, but we want to make sense of make sense of the purpose, right, when you said, whatever the parents exclude, the child is attracted to man. I quoted that one right away because I was like this is not mine.
Speaker 3:I stole that, but you can take it I stole that.
Speaker 2:But you can take it Like this is gold, because that's how patterns show up in our offices and we don't know.
Speaker 1:And I love that, millie, because your approach right. Otherwise, that six-year-old girl is now pathologized for having suicidal ideations. Um is penned to become the outcast, the black sheep. The problem when she is simply the symptom carrier of past generations, um, not talking about their own experiences, their own um, you know from from the norm, from the healthy right, and I think it goes back to that. Like that, it, it's our generation who are like no more, no more, we're not doing this, we're not going to continue to pass this down to our kids. And as a provider, you're giving a template to other clinician, or clinicians be able to say, like you know, if they're coming in with this, I, I can build up the skills to clinicians be able to say, like you know, if they're coming in with this, I, I can build up the skills to just be able to ask, point blank mom, dad, who in your history, or was it you that has experienced suicidal ideations or completed suicides in either family side? But yeah, it needs to be that simple, it needs to be that simple instead.
Speaker 3:It needs to be that simple Instead of us tiptoeing. And it's simple and, of course, like and when you ask the right question, the person on the other side feels seen, it's not that they're like feeling I never with this, I never had a client that was offended by those questions. They were feeling like, okay, I get to talk about this, for example, I get to talk about this. For example, I have a brief example.
Speaker 3:I was doing an intake with a dad for a six-year-old. He wanted her to come to therapy because when she was two, mom died right, and so when I was doing the intake, I asked him so what's going on? And he said well, at night, every time we go to bed, she says that she wants to die. She says that she wants to go with mom. So I asked him how much do you talk about mom? Now, in our family, we don't talk about mom. We don't talk about death, right, death people.
Speaker 3:I said does she have a picture of mom? Does she know what mom looks like? Not really. I said okay, homework, print a picture of mom, put it in her bedroom and let her talk about mom and bring mom in today's reality, tell her stories about mom when she was pregnant with her right, like as simple as that. And he was someone that he said, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to follow you. He went, he printed in the picture the next day, he put in his in her bedroom and she never again, ever, said that she wanted to kill herself. Never. It's that simple, it's not that complicated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so powerful though. It's so powerful right, both the recognizing and the asking, and then the power that comes from just a little bit of understanding and acknowledgement.
Speaker 2:That's huge, that congruency, that attunement, right Like that understanding of, in order to simplify it for caretakers, simple exercises that they can do at home in order to make it explicit and start conversations.
Speaker 3:such a beautiful task, mili that we can all do right. And going back to us therapists, we also have our patterns through our clients. That connects to our own history, so that this is the next phrase that so our clients sometimes bring light into that that we exclude.
Speaker 2:I have to say that, sorry for interrupting me, but I have to say, like when Lisa Deanne started teaching us that I was like mm-mm, I'm not ready for this. I don't know if you remember, cause sometimes we will sit close by each other, cause you know that I, I was like I'm not ready for this. I don't know if you remember, because sometimes we will sit close by each other, because you know that I talk a lot, but like when, when she will start like talking about, you know, system carrier, what you know, the clients that we're attracting into our practice, and I was like that cannot be it. That cannot be it and it took me a while. So, for everyone who's listening out there, what Millie's talking about is something that it took us a while to integrate in order to make sense of.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, but we hear that all the time, right as supervisors too. It's like, well, I don't understand how I ended up with a caseload full of fill in the blank here and it's lovely to be able to like, oh I'm I'm wondering what that's reflecting of your own experiences that you yourself have not completely integrated, or you're continuing to actively try to hide. Um, sometimes the the universe can get real loud with messages if we're ignoring them or they, they think your family carried right, because sometimes it was not you.
Speaker 2:They remember-.
Speaker 3:The intergenerational trauma reflects also in your case. It's not just what happened to you directly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I was going to say I remember asking Lisa, but I haven't gone through this and it took me a while Like, oh, this is not mine yet I'm carrying it, Got it. But it takes a while because we have to be able to be open, to be curious, even asking questions of family that a lot of times we don't talk about, not just because they're secrets, because they're shame or because they were not shared right period. So, millie, I'm wondering we were going to put information, how people to, how other therapists can contact you, because I think you're doing amazing trainings and everyone needs to know about you. But is what is one thing that you want them to know about you before we say goodbye today, not forever. Today I'm sure you're coming back.
Speaker 3:And my invitation. I don't know if something that I want them to know about me, but my invitation is for for all all the listeners to get curious, to like to get outside of the box, like, like this work. If you are sitting in your heart and you are, you know, connected with your roots and with who you are, it's so much more I don't know, it flows, it's much easier. You won't burn out if you are, you know, working from that place. So my invitation is to just open your heart and really get curious about where you come from and those aspects of your history that haven't been integrated yet. And integration means it's another opportunity to to to let that experience, to make space for it, to be able to be in relationship with it. So that's what I want to, how I want to end.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was beautiful, Maria. Anything that you want to add?
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, I'm going to just piggyback off of that and encourage especially play therapists, who tend to just prefer working with the child, to welcome in the whole system and be curious of the entire system that that child might be representing and bringing forth but is not the only owner of whatever the complaints or problem behaviors might be. Everyone's going to come to the system side.
Speaker 2:Thank you, millie, for honoring us with your presence today. Listeners, please make sure on the bottom of the podcast you will have Mila's information there. Contact her, do consultations with her. She is an outstanding therapist. Reach out to her and remember she's bilingual, so whatever language you need, like she will be able to help you here, mila. Thank you and until next time. Thank you, edith.
