What is Neurofeedback?
In this premiere episode of Mike Drop, we interview Kelsey Gilley - a former nurse practitioner and current provider of Neurofeedback at Gap Relief. We sit down with Kelsey to better understand what Neurofeedback is and how it helps our clients.
Want more info on Neurofeedback and how it can help?
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On Being Trauma-Impacted Leaders
How the Gap Relief Co-Founders maintain their own health while walking toward pain, stress, and trauma
Something that is very unique about what we do at Gap Relief is that we are intentionally moving toward trauma-impacted leaders when we, ourselves, are also trauma-impacted leaders. This can be tricky because, like many community helpers, we tend to neglect our own pain, stress, and trauma in order to continue serving others through theirs. At Gap Relief, we have to intentionally act out the very thing we help other leaders to do. We have to put on our own oxygen masks first.
Gap Relief Co-Founders and Co-Directors, Megan Taylor and Amy Butler, took some time this week to walk us through some of the ways they are intentional about caring for their own conditions so that they can stay on-mission for the helpers that they serve so passionately.
Megan explains that they are intentional in going toward their condition with care and relief in a couple of ways.
One of these is individually. They know that they experience the pain, stress, and trauma that comes with walking alongside others in their pain, stress, and trauma in very personal and specific ways. So, it is important that they are able to take care of their own systems and cycles of healing while leaning on each other for support.
The second is that they lean into healing for themselves as a unit; as Co-Directors. While they do have their own unique lenses through which they see their experiences, they also recognize the impact of going through difficulties alongside each other. So, they purposely attend to the relationship between the two of them in these spaces.
Amy and Megan are passionate about handing ideas on how to do this well to other trauma-impacted leaders, so here are a few of their best pieces of advice on navigating this type of growth and healing.
Get outside of your normal experience. They suggest attending trainings together, doing leadership retreats, etc in order to get away from the day-to-day and utilize that space to breathe, de-stress, heal, and come back stronger.
Invite unique consultants to walk alongside you as leaders. They have asked experts in varying fields to speak into the work they are doing and resource them. Inviting outside helpers to help them as helpers is vital to maintaining the Gap Relief mission.
Their last major piece of advice is to include a fun day into their regular schedule. They recognize that the majority of the work that they do, and the impact it has, is dark and heavy, and one of the core values of the Gap Relief team is balancing darkness with light. Intentionally ensuring that our eyes see and our systems experience light and fun things, as well as the hard, is proven to promote healing and wholeness. So, putting things on the calendar that create these healing experiences is vital to sustaining what they do best.
Gap Relief has trauma-impacted leaders’ backs! We are cheering you on as you fight for resilience for your community and we would love to walk alongside you as you do this.
What is Gap Relief?
How did Gap Relief come to be and what is it today?
Co-Founders and Co-Directors Amy Butler and Megan Taylor join us from the airport (Where Gap Relief actually began!) to tell us the story.
The story of Gap Relief started in an airport, which is only partly the reason why this week’s video is coming at us from an airport. (Also because of the massive amount of recent flight crises, but we digress.)
When Amy and Megan were asked several years ago to come to Malawi, Africa to resource and triage a team of international workers experiencing burnout and stress, a formal organization was not yet on their radar.
But, during this trip, our founders were inspired to not only replicate and expand their overseas efforts to support more international teams but also to bring this model of therapeutic support to those on the front lines of their missions here at home. They recognized that the individuals who provide safety and care to their communities often take on significant trauma and hardship themselves, making it difficult for them to sustain their important work without assistance. Amy and Megan decided to become the helpers to the helpers.
Their mission to do this; to help the helpers build resilient communities has expanded massively since that first trip, and now includes a team around them to bring trauma-informed counseling, body, and coaching resources to these incredible world-changers.
Today, Gap Relief serves both individuals and teams, including those working in the non-profit sector, public and private law enforcement agencies, educators, foster and adoptive community members, and many others.
We’re so proud of the mission Gap Relief is able to champion and the helpers we are able to serve with help from our partners and supporters. If you would like to be a part of all that Gap Relief is doing, please reach out! We would love to connect with you.
Connecting with Your Kids’ Teachers
3 tips on engaging with teachers on your kids’ big behaviors from licensed teacher, mom of kids with big behaviors, and TBRI practitioner, Elizabeth Brown.
Back to School time is here and with it comes a flurry of changes, transitions, and big feelings. And for parents of kids from hard places, high needs and big behaviors this time of year can mean a lot of additional anxiety. It’s intimidating to hand your kiddo off to a teacher you likely don’t know and who may or may not “get” your child the way you really need them to see and understand one of your most important people.
Elizabeth Brown has her Masters in Education and is a licensed teacher and TBRI practitioner. She also serves with and is a trainer for Gap Relief’s TIERS program (Trauma Informed Educators Reaching Students), and is a mom of kids from hard places herself! All of that to say, she has experienced this time of year from every single angle and has found her role in every side of it. She sat down with us this week to give her 3 best tips for parents to engage their child’s teacher in a way that will intentionally build a partnership for the school year.
Back-to-School/Meet-the-Teacher night is NOT the time to have a long in-depth conversation about your child with big behaviors. Elizabeth reminds us that if your kiddo has an IEP and/or a 504, their teacher already knows that and likely already has a copy of it.
The most important thing you can do during this quick interaction is put a face to the name, make a touchpoint of communication, and let them know you look forward to scheduling some time with them to talk about your child.
These nights tend to be really stressful and overstimulating for the teachers, so monopolizing their time or overwhelming them with information might have the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve.
What you CAN hand them on Meet-the-Teacher night is a one-page informational sheet about your child. What are their biggest struggles? In what areas do they excel? What typically works for them? What typically does not work for them? Be sure to include a photo to tie it all together and simply hand it to their teacher with a smile and a “I look forward to meeting with you after everything settles down a bit.”
Here are some ideas for what this page could look like:
Click here for an article with ideas
Click here for an option to customize and purchase your own!
3. On the first day of school, Elizabeth encourages parents of kids with high needs and big behaviors to send a simple card to their teacher with a message like “It was so nice to meet you the other night! I look forward to getting to sit down with you soon to talk about this school year with _____. I am so excited to partner with you this year and I hope you enjoy a sonic drink on me!” Pair this with a $5 sonic gift card or similar small treat as a token of appreciation to start the year off on a positive note.
These tips give you multiple touchpoints with your child’s teacher without overwhelming them and also serve to hand consistent reminders that you are a parent who wants to be involved and who wants an open line of communication with them during your time together.
Do you have more questions about school resources for kiddos with higher needs? We’d love to help! Click the button below to reach out.
Value Statements That Matter
Do your organizational value statements actually translate in practice?
We’ve all heard stories, right? The organizations that have AMAZING value statements up on their wall and in their employee handbook, but experientially those values are nowhere to be found?
In a culture where companies are trying really hard to accommodate for mental health and burnout, looking to overturn the workplace cultures of yesteryear, there is often still a tension between living out this ideal value system and maximizing the bottom line.
They say “We value teamwork!” and yet everything is micromanaged.
Or they say “All voices matter!” but when you try to use your voice, you’re shut down.
The reality of an organizational culture that upholds the holistic health of each team member is that sometimes living out those values will be hard. and may even be costly to the organization - so costly that those values are set aside when it matters most. We often see that the gap between the promise of a healthy work environment and the reality of an unhealthy culture is more painful than if that expectation never even existed. This can lead to frustration on leaders and team members all around.
Gap Relief Director and Co-Founder Amy Butler has many thoughts on this, and having years of experience working with organizations to boost their organizational culture, she is an expert in helping them make their value statements actually matter in reality.
She says
“It requires [organizations] to have a value system for pain and stress. So it actually feels stressful to actually push play and to do the ‘reals’ of a value system. And so if you have a value system of ‘teamwork,’ you have to feel the pain of ‘I can’t just take control and do everything or command everything in that place. I have to create space and safety for it to actually be a team working together.’”
That is part of The Gap that we at Gap Relief work to close in our communities. Our mission is to help the helpers build resilient communities, and organizational growth and health is a huge part of that.
Does your organization mean what it says? Do you act out your value statements in practice even when they might cost you something?
We’d love to consult with you on this! Click the button below to schedule a free call to see if Gap Relief can help!
How Being Selfish Can Help Your Community
When the need around them is BIG, why should helpers take the time AWAY from the mission to take care of themselves?
Pain, stress, and trauma affect every part of us as humans: heart, soul, mind, and body.
We often talk about the body and how it keeps the score, so to speak, as it holds the impact of the trauma in our memory system. Our bodies are really good at keeping us safe in this way. But, next to that, it’s really important for us to go towards the impact on our minds, as well, and hand our brains a framework we can hold onto so we can understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, in order to fully integrate the healing experiences we have.
In a very cool way, our brains are wired to fight for story. They work to understand and hold onto all of the pieces of an experience and for those pieces to be in order so that the experience makes sense. This is a VITAL part of walking toward healing and wholeness.
It can feel so incredibly counterintuitive to care for ourselves while the need around us is BIG, so what logical information can we hand the mind in these spaces?
We in helper occupations are really good at compartmentalizing the parts of us that get in the way of fighting for our communities.
Think of a teacher who may be struggling with burnout but who will use their last bit of energy to ensure a safe learning environment for their students.
Or a law enforcement officer who has seen the worst their community has to offer, and still suits up to protect and serve day after day.
Or a foster parent who just wants to hand love and stability to a kid in need, but has to push past their own hurts and needs and limitations to change another diaper and provide another meal.
But how are we logically supposed to say yes to ourselves when it feels an awful lot like saying no to the people who need us?
This is where it’s important to remember that our nervous systems are contagious. Back to the body. Our brains may be hardwired for story, but our bodies are hardwired for connection. We feed off of each other more than we’re typically aware of and certainly more than we would often choose to be.
We may think we are holding it together and white-knuckling our way to health for others, but in this condition we are often unknowingly impacting the very people we’re trying to help.
(We did a great video on this several months ago, and you can find it here)
We, in and of ourselves, are worth fighting for - fighting for healing and wholeness. And while that truth should be reason enough to embark on our own healing journeys, the fact of the matter is that our communities need us to do this, too.
We can only complete our mission with excellence when we are ok.
We’d love to be a part of this with you. Gap Relief has your back.
Business and... Trauma?
Can you be a strong business leader AND be trauma-informed?
Learn from Gap Relief’s Director of Development and Integration, Mike Turner that yes! It’s totally possible.
Legend has it that when John F. Kennedy was President and taking a tour of the Kennedy Space Station, he stopped to ask a janitor “What do you do here?” The janitor replied “Mr. President, I’m sending a man to the moon.”
Gap Relief’s Director of Development and Integration, Mike Turner, relates to this quote quite a bit. Although he is not sending a man to the moon, he finds himself in a similar position of being a minority in Gap Relief. Where most of the Gap Relief team is comprised of trauma therapists and coaches, he is one of the few who is not trained in trauma care. His strike-zone is in holding the business pieces of Gap Relief’s mission while maintaining the integrity of a trauma-informed organizational culture.
We recognize that it is hard to hold a trauma-informed culture alongside business practices, which is why Mike’s role in Gap Relief is so important and also so difficult.
A comical way this plays out is in our staff meetings where Mike is tasked with holding a group of trauma practitioners on-task and maintaining an agenda. The image of herding kittens comes to mind.
A more serious example is when a team member’s story and experience bumps up against best practices and he has to hold, prioritize, and walk out both at the same time.
In this week’s video, Mike is here to tell us that regardless of difficulty or concerns for efficiency or “the bottom line,” it is possible to hold both with integrity.
Not only is it possible, but it is an integral part of Gap Relief’s culture. Our mission is to help the helpers build resilient communities, and with few exceptions, these helpers are parts of organizations. What better way to show the helpers we serve that if they truly want to resiliently stand in our society’s gaps without going down themselves, their organizations must be able to hold an organizational structure that allows its team members’ stories, experiences, and the impact of pain, stress, and trauma to matter in the way they do their work.
Gap Relief has your back here. We have years of experience coming alongside leaders as they integrate a trauma-informed culture into their organization. If you’re an organizational leader who is interested in better understanding what it means to infuse trauma-informed (or just more human-centric) culture into your workplace, we’d love to talk to you about this more!
Personality Typing and Trauma Care
How we at Gap Relief use the Enneagram as a tool to promote healing.
When it comes to any kind of therapy work, personality typing tools can be incredibly helpful. This is especially true in trauma therapy. There are many different personality typing systems used by individuals, couples, and even organizations, as people seek to better understand themselves and one another. However, one system stands out for its expansive nature and holistic approach to personality. We are speaking of course about the Enneagram.
The Enneagram is a personality typing system comprised of 9 different Types, each representing a unique, biological personality. The reason the Enneagram supersedes other systems is that where models like Meyers-Briggs, DISC, Berkman, and others look at and explain outward behavior, the Enneagram examines the motivations BEHIND behavior and explains 9 different ways of seeing the world, processing information, and responding to that information. It goes beyond the “nurture” aspect of personality and allows the “nature” parts to fully matter in individuals’ stories.
This is incredibly insightful when it comes to working with all kinds of individuals, couples, and organizations, but it is ESPECIALLY beneficial in our work with helpers. Ultimately, it is the best tool to show us how we are personally and uniquely impacted by pain, stress, and trauma, how we best grow and heal, and how we react and respond to all of these things with our behavior.
We use the Enneagram in several different ways in our work at Gap Relief.
One of these is alongside trauma therapy.
Our trauma-informed Self-Awareness Coach, Alex Fittin has developed Your Enneagram Journey, a course for individuals and Our Enneagram Journey for couples. These courses are designed to work in tandem with counseling and seek to give participants and their counselors valuable insight into how they naturally see the world, process information, and respond to pain, stress, and trauma.
Another way we utilize the Enneagram in our work is with our intensive program.
An Enneagram assessment is the first stop for our intensive clients. After spending a session with intensive clients and working with them to find their unique Enneagram type, Alex is able to hand the client and our other intensive practitioners valuable insight into each client’s way of engaging and experiencing the world, which is incredibly valuable information as they engage their intensive journey.
A third way we use the Enneagram at Gap Relief is with trainings.
Sometimes this looks like organizational trainings, such as T.I.E.R.S. (Trauma Informed Educators Reaching Students), our public schools program in Northwest Arkansas, to hand them new ways of viewing themselves and their co-workers and collaborators as they fight for their mission as helpers to build resilient communities.
Sometimes this looks like organizational culture integration, where we come alongside our partners to show them how to use the Enneagram as a regular part of their company culture.
We also offer Enneagram Type-centered workshops called Enneagram Experience where we host 1-day retreats for individuals of the same number to come together and learn and grow in their unique personality alongside Alex, a trauma therapist, and each other.
We also use the Enneagram in our own organizational culture here at Gap Relief, supporting our team's personal health and growth, better enabling us to help the helpers in building resilient communities.
Do you have questions about the Enneagram or how it can help you, your relationship, or your organization? We would love to chat with you more!
When Healing Isn’t Safe
Often times, community helpers (professionals that are often regularly exposed to high levels of stress and trauma due to the nature of their work, including: teachers, law enforcement officers, foster and adoptive parents, nonprofit leaders, healthcare professionals, and more) find themselves in situations where they cannot safely move toward their own trauma impact immediately.
While a crisis or critical incident is active, it’s important for helpers to have access to the front part of their brain (prefrontal cortex) that stays logical so that they can make safe, rational decisions. As such, it may be dangerous for them to move into the fear-response part of their brain (amygdala) while a situation is actively occurring–as that could prevent them from getting themselves or others to safety.
Remaining in the front part of the brain during a crisis can hand others vital confidence, safety, and security, but it does come at a price to the helper. To stay healthy in these places, helpers MUST be intentional about circling back to attend to their own mental and physical health post critical incident. They must look at and respond to what the trauma impact did to them.
Helpers who purposely get into this rhythm of creating space to respond to their own stress impact following difficult incidents have the opportunity to become trauma resilient leaders. These are the helpers who are often able to stay on mission and fulfill their roles to a fuller extent and in more grounded manner for a longer period of time than those who don’t experience trauma care post-incident. (When the time is safe to do so).
As trauma therapists and trauma-informed coaches, we are constantly assessing whether it is safe for the helpers we serve to begin to process the impact of the stress and trauma they have experienced. Sometimes, the answer is no–not yet! We often ask ourselves, “Does their current role or experience require them to stay in a ‘put-together’ position? Do they still need to be functioning from the front part of their brain for safety reasons?” If we assess that it’s not yet safe to lean into deep trauma work, we’ll pause. Instead, we will lean into helping them stay on mission until the critical incident is complete, while handing them practical tools for resilience along the way. Then, we make a plan to attend to it when it IS safe.
While it may seem like we are delaying the process by pausing the engagement of trauma work at times, in reality–this move is mitigating trauma impact as well! One of the most painful experiences as a helper is when they find themselves in a situation where they are unable to respond as who they are in the midst of a crisis. At times, giving them permission to do just that while also handing them the reassurance that there is a plan to get them to safety when the crisis is over–reduces trauma impact on both sides of a critical incident.
Community helpers often already excel at “staying in the fight” while a situation is live. The part that helpers often miss is circling back for themselves. Because their eyes are so often on others, they can struggle to hold space for their own process so that the impact they carry can be attended to by trauma-informed professionals.
We can be a part of that plan. Gap Relief has your back.
What Components Go Into a Gap Relief Intensive?
For a long time now, many who are suffering from burnout, recovering from trauma, navigating a struggling marriage, or many other mental health concerns have lacked access to a comprehensive intensive program that is built to help them work toward healing and wholeness.
At Gap Relief, we have worked hard to build a solution to this painful roadblock: a full intensive program for individuals, couples, and families featuring our unique Wrap Care Model.
What components make up this program? In this week’s video, our Intensive Program Lead, Brittany Turner, is here to explain what is included in Gap Relief’s comprehensive intensive program.
The Enneagram. With this approach to each person’s unique personality, our trauma-informed Self-Awareness Coach, Alex Fittin, walks clients through a better understanding of how they naturally see the world, process information, and respond to pain, stress, and trauma. This hands clients and our other practitioners valuable insight into each client’s way of engaging and experiencing the world, which is incredibly valuable information as they engage their intensive journey.
Neurofeedback. This is a physiological component of our program where our neurofeedback practitioners, Kelsey Gilley and Elizabeth Brown, utilize Neurofeedback technology to non-invasively bathe the brain in good beta waves. These waves work to resource clients’ nervous systems and get them to the state of “rest and digest”, which is the natural state of healing.
Somatic Care. Utilizing body resources like yoga, breathwork, and brainspotting (to name a few), our body resourcing practitioner, Rebekah Price, helps clients release the trauma stored up in their bodies over time. This resources their bodies to get their autonomic systems (those that function without us thinking about it - breathing, digestion, heart-rate, etc) functioning fully while better aligning their sympathetic and para-sympathetic systems to get them back to a state of natural healing.
Trauma Counseling. This is the largest portion of the intensive program. One of Gap Relief’s highly trained, trauma-informed counselors will spend 15+ hours with clients to help them reprocess traumatic and stressful experiences in new ways, fostering growth and the creation of new pathways that walk them towards healing and wholeness.
We have seen lives change as we have seen clients lean into intensive counseling work. We believe in this program and are so grateful to be able to offer it to those who desire to continue pursuing wholeness as they fight for their mission at home, at work, and in their communities.
Gap Relief has your back
If you or someone you know might benefit from some focused effort in their mental health life - let's chat! Just reach out to info@gaprelief.com for a free intake session or click the button below.
Slow is Smooth. Smooth is Fast.
In this week’s video Gap Relief Co-Founder and Co-Director, Megan Taylor, is sitting down to explain one of Gap Relief’s favorite phrases.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
When starting a healing journey or really anything new, it can be a necessity to walk it really slowly at first. Sometimes that can be really frustrating, especially when we’re looking for the relief on the other side of that healing journey.
Sometimes, it might even feel like we take steps forward and then walk those same exact steps backward over and over again. For instance, we might make a new discovery about ourselves in counseling or in a training experience and fully intend to integrate that healing into our daily lives. But life doesn’t always work that way, and we can often fall back into unwanted or familiar patterns and find ourselves needing to go back for more muscle reps of healing.
What is really cool about this process though is that as we go through those steps at a slower pace and sometimes more than one time, the process begins to smooth out. Our systems begin to rewire and our brains literally and physiologically build new pathways around the new steps. Then, as we move forward, we begin to move faster with new muscle memory connected to healing.
Why? Because the more that we slow down and fully integrate things on the front end, the quicker that process will move on the back end.
Megan encourages us to keep going on our journey. The payoff is worth it as we walk out our healing. And Gap Relief has your back the whole way.
Trauma and the Body
How do pain, stress, and trauma impact our physical bodies?
Gap Relief Embodiment Specialist Rebekah Price is here to share with us all about it.
Do you have questions about trauma and the body or about how Gap Relief can help?
Using Summer Break to Build Connection
Summer is upon us! We highly value our Next Generation sector, made up of our future community leaders and helpers and those who care for them— like our teachers, parents (bio, foster, AND adoptive), healthcare providers, and more. We know that for this sector especially, summer can be a huge opportunity to build attachment and connection and also that it can be highly difficult and triggering for those of us working with kids from hard places and entering a season of less structure and big feelings.
Elizabeth Brown is Gap Relief’s Resource and Resiliency Coach, specializing in attachment and parent coaching as a TBRI practitioner, and is also a Neurofeedback provider. She is an incredible resource for parents, teachers, and others as they work to connect with kids and launch the next generation.
In our video this week, Elizabeth sat down to share her best tips for utilizing the summer break to intentionally build connection with our kiddos.
Her first big tip is to simply Delight in Our Children. She encourages us to lean into loving them where they are at and for who they are, no matter their age and regardless of their behavior or performance. This is not to say that we should not address big feelings and behaviors, but she is simply encouraging parents to delight in their kids alongside any necessary behavior correction.
Secondly, Elizabeth says to Play with Our Kids, whatever that looks like for *our* family. We know that play disarms fear and naturally builds connection, and it can look so many different ways! Play can mean getting on the floor with them and playing pretend, it can be cooking with them, and it can even be reading to them or watching a movie with them. If we’re struggling with motivation and desire to lean in with a difficult kiddo, it can be helpful to start by inviting them into something we already enjoy. Whatever it is, do it together and have fun!
Next, Elizabeth reminds us to Hold Structure and Nurture Together. Kids NEED structure. This doesn’t mean they need a tight schedule with constant entertainment and quality time, but it does mean boundaries and expectations. Some kids need higher structure than others, and she encourages parents to prioritize what works for their family and is best for their kids. No matter the level of boundaries, expectations, and correction, it’s important to have the same level of nurture alongside it.
Lastly, Elizabeth wants parents to Be Creative together with their children! She’s quick to remind us that this does not mean we need to spend a bunch of money or prioritize being the perfect parent or providing the perfect experiences. She confesses that she is not a Pinterest mom and knows most of us aren’t either, but impresses upon us that simple experiences of creativity like baking cookies or coloring a picture are HUGE for kiddos seeking connection with their caregivers.
Summer is a time for relaxation, looser schedules, and fun! But we at Gap Relief know that it can also come with its fair share of hardships, and we’ve got your back for both!
What is Trauma?
Trauma is a tricky idea to define. When most people think of trauma, they think of a physical injury or event, like a car accident or even the results from a natural disaster. While these things are absolutely considered trauma, the impact of trauma can reach far beyond a physical event- into the parts of us that our eyeballs can’t see. Our hearts, souls, and minds.
At Gap Relief, we work with the psychological impact of trauma—allowing space for the healing of heart, soul, mind, and body. While we are so grateful to see many cultures embracing more and more of an understanding of the impact of trauma and the resulting emotional and psychological injuries, we recognize we still have a long way to go in being fully trauma-informed and fully supporting mental health needs that may result from trauma’s impact.
The impact of trauma can trickle down to future generations for many years. It affects the physical and emotional safety, health, and livelihood of not just those who experienced it directly—but those closest to and and influenced by its victims as well.
To put it in layman's language, trauma is pretty much the worst.
Thankfully, we don’t have to rely on layman’s language to talk about such a complex topic. Gap Relief Director and Co-Founder, Amy Butler, sat down to help us understand trauma in a simple but accurate manner.
Simply put, defining trauma boils down to what we need as humans.
Trauma can be an event or experience that a person DID NOT NEED. This is any event or experience that injured and impacted someone beyond their ability to cope and process. This can be a one-time event or it can be a chronic experience over time.
Trauma can also be the NEGLECT OF OR FAILURE TO MEET A PERSON’S NEED. This type of trauma more typically occurs chronically over time, but can sometimes also be one major moment of need that was not met.
So how do we as trauma therapists, coaches, and practitioners help people access the spaces and tools they need to heal from trauma? We start by safely leading them back into their stories and memory systems to scan for any trauma impact that remains.
We then start resourcing their systems with what they needed back when the injury (or injuries) occurred, and what they need now in order to fully heal. We hand their stress response systems the ability to fully complete the stress response cycle so they can get to the other side of their trauma response in order for their hearts, bodies, souls, and minds to release the events or experiences keeping them stuck.
We are so passionate about this work at Gap Relief. We know that on the other side of moving through these painful experiences is freedom. And that’s truly what we want for everyone who enters into our space.
What in your story is keeping you stuck? We’d love to walk with you in your healing journey.
Building Connection with Your Teenager
We all remember being teenagers, right? We felt so much cooler than our parents. We were sooo misunderstood. We thought we knew exactly what we were doing and made *the best* choices, right?
But now, many of us have or know a teenager and find ourselves baffled with how they think and behave EVEN WITH our past experiences of actually BEING a teenager.
It’s hard. It’s murky. We’re all doing the best we can.
Janie Crow is a teen-focused therapist at Gap Relief and sat down with us this week to share her best tips for building a connection with teenagers in order to lead them into spaces of teaching, encouragement, and direction.
The first tip she gives is simply to start with connection. She encourages parents and caregivers to enter into a teenager’s world in order to do this. Listen, learn, and lean into what THEY are interested in and experiencing.
This connection helps to earn their trust. We know from experience that teenagers don’t hand their trust out easily, so leaning into their world will help them to know that we see them how they desire to be seen. This lays the foundation for them to hand out a bit more of themselves, knowing they can trust their parent or caregiver with that information.
Naturally, this connection will lead to them sharing more of their emotions, and Janie invites grown-ups to be curious about those emotions without judgment. By listening without immediately fixing, we can more easily validate those feelings. Janie reminds us that even if we don’t understand their experience, we can still recognize that for a human with a still under-developed prefrontal cortex, the problem they are experiencing is a big deal for them and is invoking very real feelings. Recognizing and validating those feelings is huge in keeping the trust we’ve built.
It is only then that we can begin to share constructive feedback and teach teenagers better coping mechanisms, appropriate behavior, and solid choices to help them grow.
Have questions for Janie? She’d love to answer them!
All Behavior Is Communication
All behavior is a form of communication. Sometimes when we are looking at kids (or adults as well–although today we’ll focus on kids) there are things we can see with our eyes that tell us a story about how that child is feeling or what they are experiencing, but that is often only part of the story.
Megan Taylor, Licensed Therapist and Co-Founder, Co-Director of Gap Relief, sat down with us in the video above to share how our Gap Relief team works with kids and grownups alike on how to be curious with what a child’s behavior is trying to tell us.
First–who might often be in a position to witness a child’s behavior or be impacted by such behavior? Who might benefit from new lenses with which to see the kids in their care so that they are better able to understand what these children need?
Obviously, parents fall into this category. However, anyone working with children and ESPECIALLY kids from hard places or who have been exposed to trauma can benefit from greater understanding here as well! Gap Relief has the unique opportunity to work with many teachers–who are constantly tasked with interpreting kids’ unique needs and addressing them in order to do their job with excellence. We also see foster parents, healthcare workers, first responders, and other helpers needing to learn the language of children in order to care for and protect our next generation.
When engaging a child who is dysregulated, frustrated, or has withdrawn out of self-protection, our first instinct is often to help the child get back on task or return to center. However, at Gap Relief we often encourage these helpers to practice being curious with what they are experiencing by asking themselves “What is this behavior trying to tell me that might be different than what my eyes are seeing right now?”
Maybe the child who is refusing to get up and go to PE with her class had to stay in a place that wasn’t her home last night and is extra tired or is wearing someone else’s shoes. (This just might an actual scenario we’ve run across…)
Maybe a child started throwing a tantrum because he smelled someone’s cologne and it was the same brand as an abusive caregiver’s (again, this may be a true scenario we’ve experienced as well…)
Maybe the child displaying extra aggression on the playground is struggling with some anxiety from experiences at home. (I’m sure you’re tracking with us by now 😉).
When we start reframing the way we process and respond to a child’s behavior, we begin to see that the behaviors that tend to be oversimplified, brushed aside, and shut down actually make complete sense. When we lean in with curiosity and pull in all of the possible information, letting those factors matter to us, we can respond more accurately to the situation and get to the root problem or injury to meet the truest need.
If you find yourself in a position to be engaging other humans and their behavior, but more specifically kids, here are some practical ways to begin to notice what their behavior may be trying to communicate:
Notice yourself. How are you entering the space? Is your nervous system regulated? Are you grounded? What is the situation in front of you doing to you?
Stay curious. Try to maintain an open-minded posture with the person in front of you. Saying something like “Hey, I’m noticing that you’re really angry. Can you tell me about that?” allows the person to feel seen for where they are currently and also invites them to slow down and explain how they got to that state.
Help them be aware of the connections between their physical and mental needs. They may be hyper-focused on their emotions, but a gentle reminder to pay attention to how their body may be hungry, tired, have a headache, and so on can help immensely in de-escalating the current situation and bringing healing in the future. Teaching kids to do a quick body-scan even while they are calm is an important tool in their toolbox (and ours!) as they learn to better regulate through these bumpy moments.
What we find is that the more we’re connected to ourselves, the more curious we are! And the more curious we are, the more we foster experiences of connection with kids in their own bodies. And from that place–something new can happen.
Have a heart for the next generation and want more info on how to jump in with Gap Relief’s Primary next generation initiatives– our TIERS (Trauma Informed Educators Reaching Students) program? Click below to learn more!
When to Lean into a Counseling Intensive
I think it’s safe to say that we at Gap Relief are pro-counseling– no matter the form. We are a trauma therapy center, after all. But counseling care can actually come in many forms! One of these is the more typical counseling format where a client establishes care with a licensed professional and then attends consistent counseling sessions. Another of these is counseling intensive programs, where a client and counselor often spend a greater amount of time together within a shorter time period–often accelerating the counseling work completed within a more typical counseling format.
Gap Relief’s intensive model is unique, offering clients the opportunity to engage an intensive experience utilizing our Wrap Model of Care. Our Intensive Program Lead, Brittany Turner, LPC sat down with us to discuss the main differences between these two formats and explain the circumstances in which each can benefit a client best.
Overall, the difference between regular counseling and intensive counseling is the time spent in therapy and how that time is allotted. With more typical services, a client goes to their counselor’s office, usually for an hour-long session at a planned time. This can be every week, every other week, or even monthly or quarterly depending on the needs and resources of the client. So, 15 hours of counseling, for example, may take 3-6 months to complete. During an intensive, however, those 15 hours would be condensed into a shorter time period, usually a week to two weeks.
So what are the benefits of each of these?
Regular counseling services are perfect for those who are functioning well in the rhythm of walking in and out of counseling sessions without much disruption. The clients who thrive with regular counseling may have already done the lion’s share of their healing work and are attending counseling regularly to maintain their healing and have a safe place to process anything they might be working through. Their pain, stress, and trauma also may not necessitate the level of care involved within a counseling intensive.
There are many other factors that make regular weekly counseling a perfect fit for clients, but sometimes, an intensive can be the ideal step for those seeking deep healing.
The structure of intensive programs can vary, but at their core–intensive programs offer the client the opportunity to step out of their regular, daily (and often stressful) environment to engage counseling services for multiple hours at a time, often over the course of several days. This allows the client’s nervous system to stay in healing mode for longer stretches without naturally preparing to re-enter their regular life.
So, why is this important?
As Brittany explains in the video, a typical counseling cycle involves:
A Client exiting their normal life with all of its hardships and stressors and entering into a healing space.
The client and counselor doing good work to overcome pain, stress, and trauma of the past and present. They may make some good progress in healing during that hour.
Around the 45 to 50-minute mark, the client’s nervous system begins naturally preparing to pull out of healing and re-enter real life.
Throughout the gap between counseling sessions, the client will accumulate more pain, stress, and trauma which partially pulls away from the good work they did during their last session.
This still accomplishes the goal of moving toward healing with baby steps, and the cycle is able to begin again.
With intensives, however, a client has the opportunity to enter that healing environment and then STAY in that healing environment. Their nervous systems don’t have to prepare to accumulate more stress because they get to go back again the next day and continue the work of moving past the injuries keeping them stuck.
So who could benefit from a counseling intensive?
Individuals whose pain, stress, and trauma levels are such that the act of pulling out of healing and re-entering their stressful environment may be hindering their healing process
Individuals who have experienced a major event that caused high amounts of pain
Couples struggling in their marriage or partnership
Individuals in a helping profession who can mitigate burnout by engaging a counseling intensive
Families or couples who have been impacted by the same pain, stress, and trauma
Individuals undergoing major life changes who need help making that transition
The suggestions above are just the tip of the iceberg, as many other individuals, couples, and families may benefit greatly from an intensive as well!
We believe intensives can be an incredible step for many along their healing journey, and are so thankful to have our program lead, Brittany, leading the way!
We would love to answer your questions with a free consultation.
What Color is Your Condition?
The United States Military and similar systems often utilize something called Cooper’s Code of Situational Awareness to categorize and better understand what they are currently experiencing within their body, mind, heart, and soul in any given situation.
We also utilize this code in our work at Gap Relief for a couple of reasons:
It often helps to have a visual for our condition. Visuals help us organize, make sense of, and have a picture in our minds of what is going on invisibly inside of us.
It enables us to better communicate this condition to those around us, offering them the ability to hold space for us and stand in the gaps alongside us.
The first of these conditions is Condition White. In condition white our heart rate is stable, there is no awareness of danger around us, and we are able to move through life at rest–without having to be situationally aware.
Next is Condition Yellow. When we start to move through these colors, we start to grow in alertness. We start noticing physiological changes here, especially in our heart rate. We are now walking around situationally aware while our systems are alert and searching for threats.
If we discover a potential threat, we may bump up to Condition Orange. We then begin to gather information about the potential threat and determine if it is valid and whether or not we are in danger.
We then bump up to Condition Red. This is when we have determined that there is a threat and we are in danger and we begin to ENGAGE this threat. We have made a decision and are now responding to the danger, real or perceived.
The next major level is Condition Black. This is where our heart rate reaches its maximum level and we begin to experience some pretty significant physiological symptoms such as tunnel vision and dry-mouth as well as psychological symptoms such as panic attacks and immobilization.
BUT, there is a sneaky level between Red and Black, and that is Condition Gray. This is a condition that often exists because of training and resiliency-building, or extended periods of time where we are living in significant stress or danger. We see this a lot in first responders, healthcare professionals, foster parents, and similar professions. Many helping professionals find themselves consistently engaging danger and stress at high levels–oftentimes where the intensity never really dissipates. They stay alert and ready for threats at all times. Condition Gray is difficult, because the lines between conditions Red, Gray, and Black are extremely thin. So thin, in fact, that it can be difficult for individuals to track when they cross over from one level to the next!
There can be a lot of shame involved when a person who is used to functioning well within Condition Gray is suddenly experiencing symptoms of Condition Black. We at Gap Relief often use these terms to give our helpers words for what they are experiencing.
Personal condition matters greatly in the helper community. Helpers are used to seeing and experiencing hard things, but all humans have limitations and those limitations are good indicators not only of invisible condition, but also of the level to which we are able to safely do our job and help build resilient communities.
We at Gap Relief are here to help the helpers do just that. Helpers’ conditions matter to us! Our goal is to hold up their arms and keep them on the mission about which they are so passionate and uniquely equipped to fight.
We’ve got your back.
My “Why” for Helping Teachers
I’m Elizabeth and I have the privilege of serving on our T.I.E.R.S. team as a resource and resiliency trainer for the educators we get to help.
I’ve never publicly shared my story of why this project matters so much to me personally…until now.
This project means the world to me personally, but more importantly to the teachers, counselors, and administrators in the T.I.E.R.S. Program.
please consider saying yes to NWA teachers with your NWA Gives donation.
Early Giving is open!
Help Launch NWA’s Future Leaders
With NWA Gives coming up April 4th, we’ve been talking A TON about our public schools project, T.I.E.R.S. It stands for Trauma Informed Educators Reaching Students–and we are so excited about the way we’ve seen teachers and school administrators feel encouraged and equipped to support and guide our community’s future leaders.
Can we show you some videos that demonstrate our passion for NWA’s education system?
We are passionate about this project because we’ve seen that the strain of stress and trauma on NWA teachers is higher than ever–creating high turnover and preventing students from getting what they need.
We know thriving schools create thriving communities. And yet, 90% of educators indicate burnout to be a “somewhat serious” or “very serious” issue.
In addition, students continue to be exposed to poverty and traumatic experiences in alarming numbers, inhibiting their ability to learn.
We knew we had to do something about this.
Recognizing that the needs of students and teachers continue to grow in volume and complexity, the Walton Family Foundation reached out to Gap Relief in the spring of 2022 with an invitation—
to develop and pilot a comprehensive program that equips teachers with both the resources they need for their own resiliency and the resiliency of their students.
We. Said. Yes.
Leaning on the experience of team members who have worked directly in the education system, consulting with area educators and administrators, and drawing on evidence-based practices—we developed the TIERS program and began piloting it in August 2022.
The T.I.E.R.S. Program Includes:
Resources for teacher strain and burnout
Practical strategies for engaging students who have experienced stress and trauma
The blueprint for developing a school culture that promotes safety, healing, and growth
As of March 2024, we have equipped 7 teams of educators who directly impact thousands of students in Northwest Arkansas...and we hope this is just the beginning.
Words like “relief”, “not alone”, “practical”, and “hope” are some of many we hear when participants describe their experience.
We believe it’s true that with the right resources for teachers—safety goes up, strain and turnover go down, and NWA will lead the way as a cutting-edge community.
