Episode 69: The Phoenix Rises
Sheila Sutherland
Sheila Sutherland is a certified Social and Emotional Intelligence Coach, a Professional Educator, and Speaker.
Sheila believes you can change your life by choosing to shift how you react to your circumstances. She teaches tangible skills to manage your reactions, increase self-awareness and regain your personal power to make positive changes that stick!
Sheila has had quite a journey with trauma. Divorce, depression, losing her home to a fire, chronic illness/PTSD and growing up in a home full of physical, alcohol and drug abuse.
She has learned that no matter what life throws at you, you CAN come back stronger and better.
Social media and contact info.
sheila@reigniteyourpurpose.com
www.facebook.com/reigniteyourpurpose
www.instagram.com/reigniteyourpurpose
www.linkedin.com/in/sheilahsutherland
Podcast Transcript:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were burned, charred scorched people come to learn, maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%. Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than.
Like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damage self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it.
There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole. Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose.
These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero. Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice.
The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Today, we're going to talk with Sheila Sutherland. She has many roles in her life. Daughter, sister, aunt, great aunt, cousin, coach, and more. . We'll talk about how her home burned down which triggered a healing journey from ptsd and chronic illness Let's talk
Welcome Sheila, to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We're so glad to have you here today.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:02:02] Oh, thank you so much, Angela. I am. I'm excited. I'm excited to be here. I've been looking forward to this, this chat all week.
Damaged Parents: [00:02:08] Oh, I'm so glad. I love that. Struggles tough. And I love when people come on here excited because it means so much to me. And I know it means so much to the listeners. It really does. I walk away from these interview sessions with a new level of inspiration every single time. And I think even more empathy than I think I had before.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:02:32] Yeah. And you, sometimes you think, how is that even possible? Like, I thought I've had enough, but no, it, it, you can say there's a different level there. It just keep upleveling it every day. Time and it's incredible actually. And I find it really interesting when you said struggle is hard and it's like it is, but you know, I'm to the place now where, and I know some people will probably maybe crinkle their nose a little bit out of it.
What is she talking about? I'm actually grateful for a lot of the struggle that I have gone through. It hasn't been easy. It hasn't been fun. It has hurt a lot. I'm still dealing with a lot of it, but what I have learned through it, I wouldn't have learned otherwise. And for that reason I am, grateful.
So even though I think if somebody is in something right now and you're like, how the heck, can you be grateful for this? I would ask you to, it will come. You know, it might be 10 years down the road. It will come and you will see the silver lining.
Damaged Parents: [00:03:25] Now I have to know in the midst of your struggle, did you know that? Did anyone say that to you?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:03:31] Oh, no. I think if somebody would have said that to me, I would have had some really colorful words for them. So if somebody is listening right now and is in it, and they're like, got this look of the WTF going through their heads, I get it. I know, but I think I want, I just want people to know it does get better.
It does get easier. It, there is a moment in time. You will be grateful, but it may not be right now. And that's okay. Because, you know what, right now, when you're in it, you have some emotions and experiences that you need to go through. You need to experience them. You need to process them. And that's not the fun part, but you need to get to the good part to get to that place of being grateful.
You have to walk this path. And the great part is people now have great platforms like this to know that they're not walking that path alone. Cause I can tell you when I first started out, I didn't know about podcasts. I didn't know about coaching. I didn't know about personal development. I felt very alone.
You know, a lot of times it felt like I was just, you know, twisting in the wind or in this dark forest and not knowing with, no map, not knowing how to get out of it. And that's what kind of encouraged me to come to do what I do now is because I want to be able to maybe be that guiding light or be that hand that somebody holds or that shoulder that somebody leans on because they know I get it. I've been there. Walked it.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:56] And I think what I'm getting from you is that you wouldn't be there to say anything. You would just literally be there beside them.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:05:04] Yeah. I think that that whole term of holding space has, which I didn't understand what that really meant it previous to this. I really get it now. Like it's, you know, when you somewhat, you go to someone and I think I really hope that everyone has at least one of those people in their lives that they can go to and go.
I just need to vent. I need to unload. I need to cry. I need to do whatever it is. And they just allow you to do that without trying to do the fix you kind of thing, you know, Oh, let me give you some advice. Let me see when I'm ready for that. I will ask for it. But you know, some people will be like, I just need to know that somebody cares that somebody will hold me, that someone will just allow me to do and say whatever I need to do without judgment. And I think that a lot of people don't come forward and say a lot of things because they're so scared that the judgment.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:55] Okay. When you're saying this it's reminded me of that video of the gal with the nail in her head. I see it's a skit. Have you ever seen that?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:06:05] I have an inkling of that. Yep.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:07] Yeah. So she's got this nail in her head and she's talking to her boyfriend or husband or something like that. And then they're like, well, I think your headache would go away or whatever.
If you just got that nail, I don't want to hear about the nail. I just wanted vent
and he just keeps trying to fix it. And she just needs to be held right now until maybe she figures out that the nail is there because she's not going to figure it out that way.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:06:30] No. And that's a big thing in relationships, any type of relationship, whether it's your partner, your, you know, your brother or your parent, your child, whoever it is, that's that person for you, you need to, I think really need to explain to them. I just need this moment.
Let me unravel, let me fall apart. Let me do the ugly cry. Once I've got that out of my body and things have calmed down a little bit, then I can hear logic, right. But until I can get this emotion diffused and that's a big one, right? We, when you look at our brains, I always look at it like, you know, you've got your primitive brain, the instinctual brain, the fight or flight part of it.
And then you have the, your higher order thinking brain and your prefrontal cortex. There's this staircase that connects them. But when you are in an emotional turmoil or you're feeling really strong emotions of some sort that staircase. It's clouded, it's fogged in. You can not see how to take one step up that staircase, which means I can't problem solve.
I can't figure my way out of this. And I can't hear somebody else telling me how to do this. I need to let this, you know, the, clouds of this storm dissipate. Then once my staircase is clear, I can walk up and then I can problem solve. Then I can try to put some strategies or things together to help me through it for next time.
Right. This is where we always want to have things that we can fall back on, have them in place before the storm happens. And that was actually one of the big things. My psychiatrist told me when I was first diagnosed with PTSD.
And I had to put that together.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:11] Yeah. I want to get into the journey before that though. Real quick. I want to add or ask. In those moments, because I've learned being on the outside that I've started asking, what do you need from me? And I'm thinking though, while you were describing that as sometimes even then someone might not even be able to say what they need and maybe in that moment, just be there.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:08:35] Yeah. Yeah. Cause like I say, they, they won't know. They may not know. I won't say they won't because some may know that I just need to be held,
you know, right now. But some of them, if they're just going, I don't know what I need. I don't know if you hear the, I don't knows. That should kind of be a, have that to be a trigger, to just know.
Yeah, just need to be there. You just, they just need to have your energy, your arms, your presence, whatever it is to just sit and listen and keep your lips closed unless they ask, because I find that when people, we, I mean, we're instinctually, we want to help. Right. We do. That's just how we are built. We want to help.
We don't like seeing people in pain and it's really hard to stay quiet when someone's going through something. So from the other, so if you're the caregiver side of it, if you can learn to do that and wait until that person is ready to hear something, it will have so much more value to them and it will be so much more help to just give them that space.
Damaged Parents: [00:09:34] Yeah. Okay. Now we are really here to talk about your struggle so that we could learn along the way, how you found hope and courage. So go ahead and start that journey for us wherever it starts for you.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:09:48] Oh, my goodness. When I think of who I was. Previously, because it feels like I was a completely different person, you know, I was high functioning and, and always go, go, go, and I'm doing this and doing that. And it was just. That's just the way I was, you know, I was always learning, always doing things.
I was at university. I was always doing courses. I was a teacher. I was a high school math and science teacher for many years. And anyone in the educational field knows what kind of stress that can be. And, you know, I used to wear stress as a badge. Oh, look what I can do. I work better when I'm under stress you know, and I'm like, I can, you know, stress, no big deal.
I'll just push through and I'll just keep going and soldier way, my way through. Cause that's what I was taught. And there came a point in time where my body was like, I've had enough. I can't do this anymore. And it's like, at that point, I'm like, you're 40 years old and I'm feeling like I'm 80, you know, I can't do this, but I wouldn't listen.
I kept pushing, kept pushing, kept pushing. And it's kind of like, no matter what people believe out there, I'm not here to, you know, make any assumptions about anyone's belief system. So, but I'll say it's kind of like the universe out there kind of went. She's not listening. We need to up the ante just a little bit.
We need to really get her attention because up until this point with, see she's had a major car accident of which she really couldn't walk that well afterwards. So, but that didn't stop her. We gave her a really, you know, she had a really bad illness where she lost her voice. Couldn't teach that didn't stop
Damaged Parents: [00:11:22] wait, wait, wait. You lost your voice for a long period of time.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:11:25] It was about a month. I couldn't speak.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:27] Oh, okay. Did you go to the doctor's office?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:11:30] my gosh. Yeah. Oh yeah. Cause it was, I was a rear-ender it was on my birthday was on my 40th birthday.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:35] Welcome to your forties.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:11:37] Right. I, at that point in time, I was running five days a week. I was in the boxing gym at least a couple of days a week. I get hit my car came out of it.
Looking not bad. I was the one that was damaged my back shoulders, hips. They took the, all the energy of the impact and yeah, there were days I could not walk without hanging onto walls or hanging on to furniture. I remember going to the massage therapist at one day and when she was done, I'm like, I'm paralyzed.
I can't get up. I could not get off the table. It's like everything just different. And I'm like, what am I going to do? I had to lay there for about a half hour until I could finally, it was almost like consciously reconnecting everything. So I could actually get up off the table and move. And, you know, my doctor said, you'll never run again.
You know, you, you know, you'll be walking, but it's going to be painful and great. Just what I needed. Right. But I kept like I say, soldiering through and I had the pressure to get back to work. So I got back to work and literally every month after that, there was something else.
Damaged Parents: [00:12:35] Oh,
Sheila Sutherland: [00:12:36] I had a surgery where I'd, never had surgery before.
I'd never been under anesthetic before. Oh, guess what? You don't react well to anesthesia. so, so I ended up, they had to have somebody placed with me because I would just forget to breathe. My heart would get too low. They had to constantly be, you know, and this was a minor day surgery I was having and it ended up turning to this major emergency.
So finally got through that. Don't really remember a whole lot of that recovery. Then it was the next month. I lost my voice for the whole month when, and this was now December rolls around and I'm just like, I just gotta get to Christmas vacation, you know, two weeks I just got to get through till we get to Christmas vacation.
And then I have two weeks off and I was, I'm a person who I love Christmas. I didn't care at all that year. I just, I did not feel it. I just didn't give a care about anything. I just wanted to have a break. And during Christmas vacation, this is where my, you know, whoever the powers that be decided, okay, she's not listening.
We really need to rip that rug out from underneath her. I lost my house to a fire. The person who lived above me decided to leave a cigarette burning while they had decided to go out and caught fire, and my whole place you know, ceilings collapsed and lost, like everything. My home was down to two by fours and concrete was all I had left during that time.
And that's when my body just went, we're out. We're done.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:59] when can we, would you say that. That in a way you're when you say the house being down to two by fours in concrete, that that was, a metaphor for how you felt,
Sheila Sutherland: [00:14:11] exactly. I look at that now, so did not see that then, know, but. No, I could not put that two and two together. It took me probably a couple of years or more. I don't even remember how long to really put that two and two together. But yeah, like I had literally had to be brought down to my foundation to rebuild.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:30] Okay.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:14:31] but when that happened, like I say, mentally, physically, emotionally, I cut out. I was, I was done. I, I didn't know what to do. I was paralyzed figure really deeply in every way at that point.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:42] emotionally paralyzed,
Sheila Sutherland: [00:14:43] Yeah, everything mentally. I could not put a thought together, you know, and the person who, you know, used to be, I had an answer for everything.
My students used to give me rapid fire questions and I would just be firing them off. And some days I'm like, I don't even know what my phone number is, you know, like I couldn't do simple thought processes
Damaged Parents: [00:15:02] that sounds scary in the moment. Were you scared?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:15:06] Very much so, because for me, my intelligence was my identity I was in a moment I'm like, this will be what some of my students feel it because I dealt with a lot of people who had developmental issues and I kind of went, I get it.
I really get it now. Like this must be what ADHD feels like. Cause I was so squirrel every moment. Right? Like I couldn't focus on anything. And then I was mixing up my words, I would think orange, but I would say banana. Right. And I'm like, what is wrong with me? You know? And I, and I was after that, I was in the doctor's office almost on a weekly basis with something else.
I'm like, what is this? And I said, I think I'm falling apart bit by bit. I don't understand any of this. So that started from the health side of things, really taking a look at it. And it was right around that time. She diagnosed me with PTSD, you know, and I lived from the
fire and I looked at and I went, how do you mean PTSD?
I said is don't only, you know, veterans and emergency responders to get that. I said, how do I get that? And it was before the lot of, I think a lot of more information was coming out ahead of it, about PTSD and, you know, and, and it was, she's trying to explain to me that it's, anytime you go through an experience where your feel your safety and security has been violated in some way, that will result in.
PTSD of some sort, because I think there's a lot of different forms out there and I am no expert in it. I only know like, just from having it from that side of it, but I know that there are many different types and that will lead to a PTSD response. So then I'm left with, well, what does that mean? Because that's a heavy label.
To put on someone and I'm like, okay, so now I feel like I've got this label on my forehead that everyone's looking at me sideways. Like, what is that all about? And really trying to manage that then the symptoms. Right. Because I then went into quite a bit of a depression. I started dealing with anxiety, which I've never dealt with before in my life, I started having a, kind of like a hair-trigger temper, which was also something I never had any other time in my life.
I started becoming a Agoraphobia. I didn't want to leave the house. Cause I was like, well, the last time I left my house, the fire happened. I can never leave my house again. Cause something else bad is going to happen. You know, I got a would driving. I mean, driving had nothing to do with it, but getting behind the wheel of my car, I would have to pull over.
Cause I thought I was going to get sick, you know, cause all of the anxiety triggers and I was just like, I can, this cannot be my life.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:37] So you knew you were very aware of what was happening and it sounds like in those moments, the thought that may have crossed your mind is I don't know how to deal with this at all.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:17:50] No, I had no clue.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:51] And what was that like? Can you associate a feeling with that?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:17:57] I had my, you know, my friends that would rally around me and we're trying to help. And again there, so what can we do? And I'm like, I don't know. I felt like I was the person with the, wearing the Scarlet letter.
Right. Because people knew I was going through something. They didn't know how to help me. I didn't know how to communicate, how to help me. So then people just drifted away. Right because they just didn't know what to do. And so it became very lonely. It came very isolating. I actually just stopped again, stopped talking for quite a while.
Like, I feel like I lost and it wasn't because I couldn't talk. I just feel like I didn't want to anymore. Because I did, I didn't know how to explain what I was going through. And I was getting tired of hearing myself talk about it. So I just became quiet. I went inwards and I just kind of stayed away from everybody.
I ended up while my house was being rebuilt. I moved out to a very secluded area and, you know, almost felt like a hermit. And I didn't want to be around anybody. I didn't want to see anybody. And that isolating as much as in some way, I kind of needed it. I had to be, at some point I, I had this consciousness that I can't stay here and it will be very damaging if I stay here. But that took me about six months
Damaged Parents: [00:19:16] So, where did you, you stopped teaching?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:19:20] Yes, I went, I had to go off on a medical leave, because they had, I'm trying to think how they, coded me as unemployable because I didn't know how I was going to be each day. Right. And they don't get it. They don't want you in a classroom full of teenagers if you know, you're good one day and the next day you're having an anger response, not a good thing to be around kids.
During that time. Even though they were actually trying to force me back, my doctors were like, no, she's not going back. And so it started that started the journey of then trying to find someone to help. You know, I tried going to counselors cause you know, through, through the district school district, in that they have counseling services, I started going through them.
They just weren't a fit for me. And I knew that very quickly and I went, I'm not wasting your time or my cause my time I just, I can't do it. So then I was like, I need someone who can a higher up from that. Someone who knows how to deal with PTSD. So I finally, it did take some, a while to find a psychiatrist that I really felt like I clicked with. And I think that is one of the most important things out there. When you are looking for someone to be a, let's say, if you have a professional support, you need to be able to click with that person.
Otherwise, a lot of type things, what are the things they say is not your it's not going to, you're not going to hear it. It's not going to get in. And
Damaged Parents: [00:20:41] Right. So you have to make sure in some, what I think I hear you saying is you want to make sure that you're communicating on the same wavelength, because if you're not, then those tools and messages. Could be lost in translation if you will.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:20:56] Well, cause one of the first things I told a psychiatrist when I walked in, cause at this time I think I had seen probably five or six other people at this point. So I was kind of getting tired of this process and I told them right off the bat, I said, you can try to prescribe me antidepressants. I said, I won't take them.
I know that what I'm going through that won't help because I've taken antidepressants before. For me, they weren't, what I needed. They numbed everything out. Yeah. They kind of smoothed it, but I felt nothing. And I knew that that for me, that was not what I needed. I said, what I need from you is strategy.
Tell me what I need to do to get through this, teach me the skills that I need to get through this, because I want to get out of this. I want to move forward. And I think that's another thing that's really important as somebody, they need to have someone who's in the middle of something, they need to have the desire to get out of it, to be able to heal themselves, to, to move forward.
They can't do it for anyone else. And there'll be a lot of people who just do it for me. That's not going to work. You have to want it for yourself. And I really did at that point. And at that point I knew, I just tell me what to do, and I will do it because I don't know what to do.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:09] Kind of like, give me the homework.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:22:11] Yes. Well, exactly.
Cause that, that worked for me. Right. So I, I understood myself enough at that point to know that that's what worked. So he was like, Okay, let's do that. And I was just so thank God. I think I finally found my person.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:25] Well, yeah. And I'm wondering, I didn't hear you say you beat yourself up for not being able to connect with these other people.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:22:33] Yeah, I didn't feel like I was beating myself up over that. I was angry at them.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:37] Okay.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:22:37] will tell you, like I did feel, and I remember telling this one counselor, I say, because while I'm filling out forms she's on her phone doing whatever. And I finished my forms and I just sat there and I waited for her to notice me that I was ready to go.
And it was, I don't know how, but it was a long time, but she was playing on her phone and doing something. And I went, no, this isn't going to work. know, and I'm like, I'm not going to be here just to do some box ticking, you know, I've exercises with you. And I told her, I said, I'm, I need you to help me get through this anger and to understand it not cause it I'm said you're triggering my anger response right now.
I need to leave. I said, this is not going to work for us.
Damaged Parents: [00:23:16] I think it's fantastic though. In the place you were or what I'm imagining the place you were is emotionally that you were able to say, no, this isn't going to work for me. Instead of being more like, Oh, they're just too busy. I'm just going to wait a little bit and they're going to notice me and then, and then we'll get to work.
Like, do you understand where I'm coming from? I mean, is that maybe just part of your personality or where did that courage come from to be, to say, Nope, this is not okay.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:23:45] I would love to say that that was a part of my personality, but at that point in time, I can't say that with a hundred percent certainty. I think it's almost a case of, there was some part of me that knew and. Cause I'm, I'm not one. I mean, I still am not, I don't like confrontation and sometimes I do, even now, I still work on myself to stand up for myself.
And that has been something that has been a process of learning for me I was definitely one who was the people pleaser. Even if at that meant somebody walking all over me, as long as they're good, well, I'll get over it. I'm fine.
You know? And that's, I always was. And somewhere, if there's, like I say, one of the good things that came out of this process is it seems like something clicked in my brain to said enough of this. I need to stand up for myself because nobody else understands what I'm going through. So I have to be able to voice it.
For myself. I can't wait for someone else just to figure it out because that's not going to happen. So I think during this process, that courage or that empowerment or that whatever you want to call, it just started coming out because I maybe on some level, I thought I've got nothing to lose,
Damaged Parents: [00:24:57] Yeah,
Sheila Sutherland: [00:24:58] I've already lost everything.
What else can you take from me? Right.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:02] that makes a lot of sense actually. That you say that it's, it really does. So almost like you had to get to there.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:25:09] To actually find who I was at my core. Right. Because if you're to ask me how I felt before all this happened, I really felt like I was one of those people that you know, because I was always. Like you say, people pleasing doing what everybody else wanted. I always felt like I had all these expectations and things that are like weighing down on me.
I literally felt like my inner light that we all have. Like our little spark was slowly dying bit by bit. And it, it really did feel like there wasn't a lot of it left. And I think it was almost like, say this had to bring me to square one. To help peel away all that, that stuff that didn't matter to allow that spark to almost, you know, get some oxygen and re flame, you know, that's why I call them my business.
Reignite your purpose, because I feel like I was reignited. I felt like my inner flame had a chance to finally get some oxygen again to re-ignite. Why am I here? Who am I? What is my purpose in life? What am I doing? What do I want to see for my life? Those weren't questions. I asked myself before all of this. So this was something that this is as much as I hated everything that I went through. It allowed me to get to this point. I've now been walking one path. That path doesn't serve me anymore. So I'm doing this one 80 and I'm going this way now. I don't know where it's going to take me, but let's be adventurous and curious and let's just do it because again, I felt like I had nothing to lose at that point.
Damaged Parents: [00:26:37] And it took you getting to nothing to lose in order to say this isn't serving me, even though you had looking back now, you see your light just slowly dimming which is really interesting.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:26:50] Yeah. And at that point, when I, I mean, when I felt like I was literally slowly dying inside, you know, I would sit there and go, well, I don't know how to change this. I don't know. I guess this is just my lot in life. I guess this is just it. This is as good as it gets. You know, I can remember some of the conversations I would have at most myself when I would get home and.
I'm, you know, I was kind of like, well, like, I guess this is just, this is just my life. And I have to accept it. Even though inside of me, there was a little something that was like going, no, this isn't for us, we're meant for so much more, but I couldn't hear that.
I think at that point that I, couldn't hear it. I was just this, you know, hamster on this wheel that just kept running, running, running, doing what I needed to do to survive each day and not really even looking at what I really needed and what was going on around me.
Damaged Parents: [00:27:40] Yeah. And so you meet this psychiatrist or psychologist and he starts giving you tips and tools or homework
Sheila Sutherland: [00:27:48] Yeah, I understood. I understood homework
Damaged Parents: [00:27:51] and so what did you start to notice first?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:27:54] well, and the one thing I told him, you know, I said, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm not in, like I say, a PTSD trigger all the time. You know, I knew there were certain things that would trigger it. Initially. It was the sound of a fire engine, right. Because connecting it to the fire. And I just happened to live on one of the direct routes where all the fire trucks and ambulances would go.
So I would hear sirens a lot. Right. And I'm always running to the window. Is that the building again? Is it, you know, and this was after I moved back into where I was, back into my rebuilt home. And so I, you know, and it was, but it was, it wasn't only that it was just, there was a lot of things that I find out that would start to trigger me, you know, loud noises, a lot of when there's a lot of activity.
And that was one of the reasons I, I couldn't, again, couldn't go back into teaching because when you're in a room full of 35, 14 year olds, there's a lot of energy and a lot of activity going on and a lot of noise and that was triggering. So I couldn't do that. And I was telling him, I said, well, when I'm in that, in that moment of being triggered, I don't know how to get out of it.
And I said, I don't like how it feels. I said, I'm like a cage tiger. I will just start stalking around my room and have, I can feel that there's these things going through my head, but I can't really make sense of it. All of them. And I said, what can I do to help myself through those moments? And, and he said, for me, he says, what I need to do is when I'm not being triggered.
So when I'm in an a regular a regular moment, I needed to make a list of things that calmed me, things that I really enjoy. Things that I felt were kind of like a self care type thing for me. So I had to, I consciously I made, wrote this whole list and I would have this list right next to my computer. So when I was triggered, I could look at it.
Cause I couldn't think of it from memory at that point. Cause like I said, my staircase in my brain was claw was cluttered when I am in that trigger. So I can't remember my memory. So I had to have it printed out and have it on my table next to my computer so I could look at it and go, okay, which one can I do right now?
Having a bubble bath was one of them being able to get to the beach and just listen to the waves or even I could just put a, an audio on, of listening to the ocean. Another one came back is because what did I used to really enjoy doing as a kid was coloring? So I started getting some of the adult coloring books, and that was probably the main one I use because it was really quick and easy for me to grab.
And I would sit there and I would, you know, start coloring and get focused. And this was, I think it was a big thing. It was distracting my focus, right? So I wasn't focusing on whatever the trigger was or how jumbled my brain was feeling. I could focus on this picture. So I have this really narrow focus of coloring and trying to make it as pretty as possible and staying within the lines, you know, all the things that were taught in kindergarten.
And I would find that eventually my whole body and my mind would just calm right out. And sometimes it may be an hour, could be two hours later and I'm like, okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:52] So, do you have a good understanding of how that, what happens in side? Because so you were really focused on the drawing. There were still these thoughts going on over here. But you're focusing on the drawing. So are you just keeping, having to redirect to the drawing? What are you doing?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:31:10] It's almost like a distraction technique, right? So I'm just trying to distract my brain with the coloring. Away from everything else. Like, Hey, this is really fun. You enjoy this, come over here. You know, like here's some ice cream, you know, kind of thing. It's just, you know, cause that's what we do.
You know, when your child fall down and cries, a lot of times here, here's an ice cream cone. You're distracting them from the pain. So in the same way, I was distracting myself from the pain that was going on in my head.
Damaged Parents: [00:31:37] And it's not like those thoughts immediately stopped as soon as you started coloring.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:31:41] No.
they didn't, it wasn't just like immediate, but I would, you know, so I w it'd be a struggle to start and I would keep just really trying to focus on the coloring. And eventually I would just get so into doing the color. I forgot that all these other things were going on in the back of my head.
Damaged Parents: [00:31:59] okay.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:32:00] And as soon as you weren't giving that any energy. It was kinda like that, you know, say, you know, if you want to kind of, you know, look at it, say like the monster under the bed was kind of like, Oh, well fine. She's not going to pay attention to me. I'm going to go away then. And it would, and the more I would do this, you know, the more that, you know, it would flare up.
I would go to my, you know, my strategy list. I would start doing whatever it was. The more often I did that, the quicker. The calming became, the easier it became. It wasn't as much of a struggle, you know, to get it started and having kind of like the push pull back and forth. And finally, my brain kind of realized, Oh, this feels much better when we do this.
So I'm just going to do this from now.
Damaged Parents: [00:32:40] Let me make sure I understand that. You're triggered in instead of having to pick up the coloring one, at some point after you practiced for so long, you, your brain on a deeper level seemed to understand that. Okay. Yes. That thought came here, came by. I don't need to worry about it. This is much more interesting right now, I don't know if I'm getting that.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:33:05] Yes, no, it is yeah it came to the point that eventually I didn't need the coloring anymore.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:11] Okay. That's what I was trying to get at. For instance, now you're triggered unless it's a huge trigger. I mean, cause I'm thinking triggers still happen even after we think we're healed. Right.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:33:21] They do. And a lot of times it'll be like, Oh, aha. I remember that. I just need to, what do I need to do? And what are my other therapist that I went to? You know, because they know that the beach is very special for me as we did a process. And I don't know how well-known it is, you know, everywhere, but I think there should be a lot of psychologists that know how to do it.
It's called EMDR. So if the four letters don't ask me what they stand for, I can never remember what it is, but we went through a process of setting up. Our safe place by using this process. And it, it, I don't know exactly the physically how it works, but it's with triggers in your brain. You're holding these electrodes in your hands, right.
So they're kind of pulsing left, right. Left. Right. And your brain is getting those impulses while you are setting up your scene. So I'm thinking about digging my toes in the sand. I'm listening to the ocean waves. I'm feeling the warm breeze. I'm hearing the birds, you know, flying on the, you know, by. While this is going on.
So it's setting up this as my safe place in my head so that when I am, when something's instilled today. So if something now happens where I start to feel just that little inkling of anxiety, and I know for me where that feels, I start feeling it kind of in the pit of my stomach. It just at the top of this, right.
I can start to feel it building. And once you have your awareness where that anxiety starts, I will right away, just close my eyes and start thinking, I'll start building my scene. I'll start thinking of the sand. I'll start thinking of the ocean and it calms it down.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:59] So when you're learning that EMDR, are you. When you've built the scene and you figured out where your safe places then do they trigger you when you're there? Just so you can practice or how does it work?
Sheila Sutherland: [00:35:11] We'll be four. I'm like holding legacy of the instruments and whatnot, and doing that part of it. We will talk about whatever that say that the triggering experience could be. And they'll keep asking me like, okay, how are you? Where are you? And they'll say like, even on, I did a session here probably about three weeks, three or four weeks ago, and we were. And I will say this, there are as kind of a preface 12 is, as you're doing this healing, there is a lot of layers that you go through. Cause you talked about how, Oh, I think I'm healed now. For many years after everything had happened with the fire, I thought I was pretty good. Like I was hardly being triggered at all.
I was good a year ago. I was in another car accident and it re triggered all of my old PTSD symptoms. So I kind of, so this is why I just recently, now this last little while I've been going back to this therapist and doing this EMDR, but we are actually going deeper now where we're not looking at how, where this started from the fire.
We're not looking at, Oh, we've, I've had PTSD since I was a child. But it was never diagnosed. So we're going back now and working through a lot of the different experiences through that I've experienced through my family life. Growing up that I think was actually a contributing factor to everything, to my response that happened with the fire.
But I didn't know that. I didn't because they were, so to me it was like, so I'm completely unrelated at that point. So when I'm there now, and we're talking about some of those say triggering childhood experiences, you know, they're always checking in with me where you, where I'm at. And I know at one point in the last session, I said, you know what, my brain right now just feels done.
Like I said, it's so feels so tired. It feels tense. It actually just feels like it's, it doesn't want to do this anymore. And she's like, okay, now it's time to go to our safe place. So then we would put the mission, get the machine in my hands and we would go and we, again, set up my, the safe place there.
I think we're probably only do that for like maybe five minutes, if even, and then I'm good to go.
Damaged Parents: [00:37:14] And are you exhausted or tired
Sheila Sutherland: [00:37:18] After the session. Yeah. I mean, and she's, you know, and they warned me that it's like, expect that. So this is where, and one of the things I've had to learn through a lot of this is self-compassion okay. So I come out of that. I'm really exhausted. You know what? I'm not beating myself up for that.
You know, I just did some heavy emotional work. My body needs to rest. It's learning how to be compassionate with yourself in where you are in that moment. You know, someone could be going through something right now and they're like, Oh, I should be doing this and I should be doing that. But I just feel like I can't, my response to that is stopped shitting on yourself and it is a play on words.
But it is, we hear all these sheds, right? And we start putting all these expectations and this pressure, and I'm like, but you know what? You're just not there right now. Not in this moment, maybe an hour from now, it's going to be different, but you need to honor where your emotions are and where your feelings are in this moment.
And if you just can't do it in this moment, give yourself a hug and say, I just, I'm going to give, you know, go to the safe place, figure out what your safe place is. And, you know, and I found like meditation for me was another big one for me, to just kind of, to really learn how to quiet my mind and not judge the thoughts that are coming through my head.
Just go, Oh, hi, you're here. Okay. Keep going, please. You know, it's kind of like an open door, like one of those doors, you know, that revolves, just keep it going. I'm stuck in here. Right. And I think that's the big thing, right? Because we get a thought of some of one experience that we've been in and it gets stuck and then it sits there and it starts to drill through our head when we can just put it through that revolving door.
Go hi. Thank you for coming. See you later. Right? Send it on its way.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:01] Which is really hard if you don't have the tools and getting the tools is also hard.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:39:08] well, it is. The in thing was really hard for me and I know I'm not alone in this is the asking for help. Right, because I was always brought up if you want something done, right. Do it yourself. Don't ask anybody, just do it. And so really asking for help. And I'm still not great at it, but I'm still on the process of getting better.
I mean, I, I knew, I know now that there's, I get to a certain point of banging my head against the wall I need to ask.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:33] Okay. So it seems like you're still a little shitting on yourself over the asking for help.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:39:38] It does. And I will say, you know, even when you've done all this work, you've done, you get all these strategies, right. It doesn't mean you're going to be perfect. Right. You may be really good on some days, and then you're really crappy on another days. That's just how that. It, this is the way how it's going to be.
And that's okay. we were, I was at a business meeting here last week and we were talking about resilience and results. This is definitely something I feel like during all this process, I have really cultivated more of it. And they actually say that the most resilient people are in the world are the ones who have gone through a lot of stuff.
Right. Because they've had to learn how to come through it. But there are days that you're going to be, you know, you're going to be a superstar at resilience. You know, you feel like you're wearing the superhero Cape and you're doing your wonder woman pose and you know, you're awesome. And then, then there's going to be another day where you feel like you can't get out of bed.
That's okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:40:31] Yeah.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:40:32] You're not going to be perfect every day. We're not looking for perfection. Perfection doesn't exist, but compassion does. And it's those days that we have, we may have to give ourselves that little extra compassion and you may have to explain to the people around you, what that looks like.
Right. Because a lot of times they're like, why is mommy in bed all the time? Why is she always so depressed? It's have that conversation with your kids. That there are some times where my mommy's body is just too tired. You know, mommy's been through some really tough stuff in her life and sometimes I'm just, and I just need to have this moment, but mommy will be better later
Damaged Parents: [00:41:10] What you're speaking of is owning that this is just how you are.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:41:14] Yeah. It's. And it's making those conscious choices and understanding what those choices are. I teach a lot of programs in, in shifting being able to shift your emotions through experiences. It doesn't always mean that you're going to shift to a, to a positive emotional all the time. I'm not one that says you have to be positive a hundred percent of the days.
I don't even think Gandhi was a hundred percent positive, a hundred percent of the time. Right. We all have days where we're just not, but it's understanding that. Okay. You know what? No I'm going to choose to be angry right now. Here's why I'm choosing to be angry right now. And I get that. There may be some consequences to me choosing to be angry right now, and I will deal with those and I will take responsibility for those.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:54] Yeah. And sometimes it just makes sense to right. I know I've heard plenty of people think they shouldn't be angry or that it's wrong to be angry. And sometimes I think to myself, well, what you just explained to me make sense that you're angry and that can be a really hard place to get to though.
For someone who's always tried to be perfect or they're the go get like you you're explaining for yourself and just do, do, do and do well. How did you get to that point? I mean, was it just through this process or what was it that helped you get to that point where you could just accept those unfunded feelings for what they were, and maybe sometimes even lean into them on purpose.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:42:41] You know, and I can't say that it was a certain person I talked to or a thing that I read or something that I did. It was just kind of a trigger that I said that just happened in my head that realized that. What if I'm angry or I'm frustrated or I'm sad, or, you know, whatever the so-called, you know, bad feelings or negative feelings are.
And I hate to use those terms. Cause now I believe all, all emotions are great. All emotions are here for a reason. We just need to figure out what that reason is. So I would sit there and go, okay, why am I angry right now? And I would spend some time writing. And I would just start writing out all my feelings and I don't write to edit.
I just write to get it out of my body. I'm not looking at them to make sense of it. I don't care if I'm using punctuation. You know, my teacher and me had to go sit away for a little while. And I would just write out my feelings, why I'm angry, why, you know, what is directed towards someone or something.
And I would just write until I felt like I was empty. A lot of times it meant that I'm crying and I'm trying to write through tears. But once I got through that, then I was just like, okay, I'm done.
You know, instead of spending days of, roll, having this roll around in my head and being angry for days and kind of, and realizing that when you're in that moment, you're kind of spreading that out to the people who are around you.
Like you're impacting them in that way. I need to go and sit with myself for a little bit and get this out of my body. It may be an hour that I'm sitting there writing and I'm feeling, and I'm sitting in, in all of the, this, whatever emotion that is, but once it's processed, it's done for that moment. You know, and I didn't feel like I'm puking it on all of my family members or friends or whoever that is around me. I've processed it. Cause it's in my power. And I think it's really realizing that we have a lot of personal power that we don't realize that we have, we expect the outside world to have those answers and to give it to us when we actually have it, we just need to know what tools to use that will help us use it. And you don't need fancy tools, pen, and paper is one of the best tools, you know, whether you're coloring or you're writing on it, right? those are honestly some of the best tools that I've found during all of this. The more you do it, the quicker you process through some of those emotions. You know, even now, like if I'm feeling really frustrated about something and I really feel wound up with something about it.
I mean, I don't even have to go to the writing anymore. I will just go sit, do some deep breathing and just talk myself through it.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:17] so it gets easier.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:45:18] Yes, it does. You know, and this is where I really want to stress for people. It's not right away. It's not a one time. And you know, you do it once. I'm all better.
Now. I wish, I wish I could tell you that that's how easy it is and it, but it's not, it takes consistency. We don't pick up a guitar one day and just magically, you know, I'm now Carlos Santana, playing all these amazing riffs like that takes years of practice and commitment. It's the same way with this.
It takes practice and commitment to your health, to be able to get to the point where it really shortens the time of the trigger or the emotional outburst or whatever it is that you're kind of chaos, internal chaos, you're feeling maybe there'll come a day where you don't get triggered that often. I don't know.
It's an interesting world we have out there. There's triggers every time we walk out the door, but it's learning how to manage them. And that's kind of where I'm all about now is just learning how to manage those triggers. Because the only thing I can control is me, me, my reactions to those triggers. I can't control everybody else.
I can't control the world that's out there. And I think it's that, really accepting that. That understanding that as much as I, and I'm a control freak, I will tell you that I love control. I'm a type, a personality, but I I've learned to realize there's a lot of stuff out there in the world that I just don't have a control over.
So let's control what I do.
Damaged Parents: [00:46:40] And that's your response and choice? I think we talked about that earlier a little
Sheila Sutherland: [00:46:46] That's where my power of choice comes in. It is that is your super power. It's everybody's super power that we have. It's just up to you. How you're going to use it.
Damaged Parents: [00:46:55] Yeah. There's power in that once it happens or once an incident happens or a trigger happens, there's power in that choice. And. From what I'm hearing you say, it's not going to happen perfectly all the time, and there's going to be some bad choices or even bad, maybe choices that just didn't work out the way that you thought they were going to work out and you'll get through it for another day.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:47:21] Yeah. So you, you chose to do something. It didn't work out. What did you learn from it? Maybe you learned I'm not doing that again. Great. Right? There's always a lesson. So there's no sense in beating yourself up over it. It didn't work out sucks.
Damaged Parents: [00:47:33] Yeah.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:47:34] you know what? We're alive. We can move forward. We can do those baby steps in another direction.
What did I learn? Okay. So I have that now in my toolbox for next time.
Damaged Parents: [00:47:44] For sure. Okay. Three tips. You've already given us so many,
right? So many, but what's the homework you want to send our listeners home with today.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:47:55] Okay. Your mission, if you choose to accept it.
Damaged Parents: [00:47:58] Okay.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:47:59] One of the big, I would say the first thing to start with is self-awareness. So when you feel like you are being triggered in some way, where are you feeling it in your body could be, you get an instant headache, sore, shoulders, or tightness in your shoulders, tightness in your chest.
We all have a spot, really learn to understand where that is, because you're going to feel that before you understand what it is. Right. You're like, Oh, I got this pain in my stomach. Oh yeah. I'm being triggered for something. Right. So really understand, have that self awareness where that is. So that's, that's message number one.
And that may take you a little bit. You may have to go through a few triggers before you really get to understand. Oh, that happens every time. Right. So you really want to look for that pattern. Number two, breathe. Okay, so you're triggered before you do anything. I know when that knee jerk wants to happen and you watch a respond.
And a lot of times that response comes out of our mouth and then we're like, why did I say that? Take a deep breath and just give yourself that moment before you react. And a lot of times you'll have the knowing that it's not worth it. And it'll, it will stop a lot of trouble in relationships just by taking that deep breath and giving yourself that moment. Third, what I would like them to do start with a practice of gratitude. You know what this world is the way it is, especially right now. Our lives can be turned on an end in a second. We saw that collectively, the whole world got hit last March. That happened to all of us, even though stuff is going to happen.
That is not going to be fun. It's not going to be easy. And it's going to really suck royally at times. Really start a practice of ending your day before you close your eyes, concentrating on three things that you are grateful for in that day. But not only what you're grateful for, but why you are grateful for them and really evoke the emotion behind why you're grateful, allow that to be your last conscious thought before you drift off to sleep.
And I think you'll get the benefits of actually probably deeper and better sleep with it when, cause you're ending your day on a positive note.
Damaged Parents: [00:50:08] That's amazing. I'm so glad I got to have you on the show today, Sheila.
Sheila Sutherland: [00:50:13] I'm so glad I could be here. This is fun. I can't believe an hour has gone by.
Damaged Parents: [00:50:17] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Sheila about how her home burned down and she struggled with mental health. We especially liked when she spoke about learning to cope with triggers and how she liked to color. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged parents.
We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.
