“Navigating Trauma” with Mickenzie Vought
Shownotes:
Mickenzie Vought is the Editorial and Community Director at Onsite Workshops in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee. Onsite is an emotional wellness company that focuses on enhanced emotional health through retreats, intensives, residential trauma care, and digital resources.
In her role at Onsite, Mickenzie is the producer and cohost of the Living Centered podcast and is the host of Onsite’s emotional wellness webinars. Although she is not a therapist, she is an advocate for mental health and dealing with and working through trauma, because trauma is something everyone experiences, and it affects us mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
In this episode, Mickenzie offers practical advice as well as websites, books, authors, and podcasts for starting--or continuing--your mental health journey:
Resources:
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s ACEs TED Talk
Onsite Workshop’s For Immediate Support Page
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr. Julie Smith
Living Centered podcast on Spotify and Apple
You can learn more about Onsite and the work they do for emotional wellbeing here.
Follow Mickenzie on Instagram
Transcript:
Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 00:02
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 00:04
Today we're talking to Mickenzie Vought from Onsite Workshops. She is the editorial and community engagement person there and does a lot of work in the digital space. And she's a delightful person to talk to. Eddie, kind of describe the conversation.
Eddie Rester 00:24
Today we wanted to talk about trauma. We wanted to talk about mental health. And Mickenzie and her team do a lot of work and have a podcast about trauma, mental health. And we wanted to really have a conversation of what do we have to say about how we hold long-term trauma in our lives. I think one of the things that I'm learning as a 51 year old is I still continue to deal with some of the things that happened, whether, you know, from my childhood, times in college, things I'm still sorting out and having to learn from and re-adapt how I deal with things and learn what kind of sets me off or triggers me in certain ways. And so I'm finding more and more people needing to have that conversation, wanting to have that conversation.
Eddie Rester 01:16
I think what Mickenzie offers to us is just one, just a conversation about some of the background information, but more than that very practical and pragmatic about community, and things that we can do faithfully to kind of step into life when we're struggling.
Chris McAlilly 01:36
The conversation about emotional health or just being socially aware of the way in which I interact with other people and the way in which that's rooted in kind of patterns or history or kind of things that have gone on in my own life. A lot of people are talking about that, certainly in younger generations and in Mickenzie kind of navigates from teenage years through college through young adulthood, she really helps give a language. And so maybe if you're a younger person, she's a good resource, navigating kind of some of the early stages of life, but also if you're a parent or a grandparent, you're looking for ways in which you can support your kids.
Chris McAlilly 02:21
I think, you know, she's gonna offer some resources and some language that I think could be really helpful. Just in knowing how, as a community we can help, you know, support one another in a journey towards healing, towards hope. And, yeah, there are a lot of practical resources she points folks to, as well.
Eddie Rester 02:45
Near the end of the conversation we really talk about, if you know someone, or if you recently have experienced something traumatic, what can you do. What can we be about? We can't heal the hurt and we can't solve someone else's issue, but what can we do to be a part of their life? And for me, I think for all of us, we encounter those people who have significant losses or disruption in their lives. And it's always helpful to hear again who we can be for others in those moments. This is one of those conversations that think is so important, and I'm thankful that we got to have it. I hope that you'll look Mickenzie Vought up. We'll have some--she's going to talk about some really great resources. So follow those threads if you need to. We're just thankful that you're with us in the journey here at The Weight.
Eddie Rester 03:37
[INTRO] Life can be heavy. We carry around with us the weight of our doubt, our pain, our suffering, our mental health, our family system, our politics. This is a podcast to create space for all of that.
Chris McAlilly 03:50
We want to talk about these things with humility, charity, and intellectual honesty. But more than that, we want to listen. It's time to open up our echo chamber. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]
Chris McAlilly 04:04
Well, we're here today with Mickenzie Vought Onsite. Mickenzie, thanks for being here today.
Mickenzie Vought 04:11
Thank you all for having me. I'm so excited to chat.
Chris McAlilly 04:14
I know Eddie's been excited as well.
Eddie Rester 04:16
Yeah, I'm thankful that you're with us for the topic we're gonna get to, but before we get to that, just give us a just a thumbnail sketch of who you are, where you work, what you want our listeners to know about you today.
Mickenzie Vought 04:30
Yeah, my name is Mickenzie Vought. I am the Director of Editorial and Community at Onsite, and Onsite is an emotional wellness lifestyle brand. We're dedicated to changing the world through enhanced emotional health. And basically what that means is that we currently offer well-known emotional wellness retreats, therapeutic intensives, trauma care, and a lot of what my job is entering into the digital space and just meeting people where they are. So I talk and breathe mental and emotional wellness all day long in my day job. And it's also something that's super important to me as a human, as an individual. And the caveat on the front end is I'm not a therapist, but our director, our creative director and I often joke and say that we are therapists on the internet. So that's kind of what it looks like.
Eddie Rester 05:21
One of the things that you deal with specifically, and Onsite deals with specifically, and this is what I want us to really dig into today, is trauma. And so help us understand how do we define trauma? How is that different from maybe other mental health issues? What do people need to know about how to understand, identify trauma?
Mickenzie Vought 05:46
Yeah, I think historically, when you talk about trauma, or someone thinks about trauma, you get this image, right. You get this very particular image of a soldier coming home from war, PTSD. And we kind of relegate, like, trauma is only allowed to those people who have experienced a really, what we would call big significant life event. And what we do at Onsite and what we kind of help people reckon with is just the understanding that trauma is something that we all experience. Life is hard. We all experience pain and adversity. And it's what we do with that, what that impact has on our body. And it can be a simple experience, that if not handled, if not walked through, if not dealt with at the core, that is going to have an adverse experience on us.
Mickenzie Vought 06:33
And so that is kind of our mission here is, as trauma experts, is expanding what people would define as trauma, and also helping them give permission to say, hey, what I experienced was hard, and it had an impact on me. And it matters. A really light definition that I like to use, and we often use it Onsite, is trauma is anything less than nurturing. And so it's anything in an experience that has left an impact on you, that takes away the onus of someone saying, hey, that's trauma and defining it for us and just saying, for me, what felt hard, what I felt had an impact on me and what was less than the nurturing that I think we all deserve as humans.
Chris McAlilly 07:11 I wonder...
Mickenzie Vought 07:12 Does that make sense?
Chris McAlilly 07:13
Yeah, that makes good sense. What were you going to say, Eddie?
Eddie Rester 07:16
Give us some examples. I'm just gonna say give us a few examples of things that... I mean, divorce.
Mickenzie Vought 07:22 Yeah.
Eddie Rester 07:23
Spousal, I mean, some of those--spousal abuse, some of those big things, I think we would label easily as trauma. But give us some of the examples, as you talk about those things, anything less than, some of those things that people may not think could be trauma, but from your experience and what you've read, and what you know, can also lead to kind of a long standing issue with trauma.
Mickenzie Vought 07:46
Yeah, and I think trauma, what we also look at is the impact on the nervous system. And so there's a lot of really great research around what is doing to us in a polyvagal sense, and what it's doing to our nervous system, if you want to deep dive into that. So it can be one event that has really impacted me. So I came back from war, had a really traumatic birth, I was a survivor of a mass shooting. Those can be really traumatic events. But also ongoing experiences can be traumatic events as well.
Mickenzie Vought 08:16
So if you grew up in a home where there wasn't a lot of support for you from an emotional level, if there was physical abuse, that might be something. If you are growing up in a home with a parent who has a mental illness, if you're growing up in a home where they're working, like, you know, I mean, your family is working really hard. And it's not often... We like to say it's about naming and claiming and not blaming. And so sometimes we even fear of like, if I call that trauma, then that's going to disenfranchise my parents or it's going to... I don't want to be angry at them. I don't want to be upset by how they, you know, they did the best they could. Yeah. They did the best they could with what they had, and it might still have impacted you. And that's okay.
Mickenzie Vought 08:59
So I think even some of the traumatic things in my own life, if I speak to my own personal experience. I had a lot of anxiety as a kid. And so just the experience of not knowing how to process that was kind of traumatic for me. And I've gone back and done a lot of work around that. And I think we're seeing, especially with this generation, our access to the internet at all times, that we're getting trauma. We're getting exposed to it on an often basis. And so one of my favorite researchers, he talks about media trauma, and that feels really weird. But I think in this conversation you guys have, you know, you just talked to last week to the Goffs. And they talk about kids and kids on social media, unfettered access. You're getting views of things that are traumatic, and you're not able to process it in your system.
Mickenzie Vought 09:51
So an example is the people who watched the Boston bombing. They went and looked at them, and kind of the impacts of people who were physically at the Boston bombing, that marathon bombing, and then people who watched it on repeat on the internet, as we do, they actually had more effects of trauma than people who were present at it, because there is no way to process that trauma, because they didn't know it. They didn't acknowledge it, they didn't know that this is something that my body has experienced that I need to then go make sense of.
Chris McAlilly 10:20
Yeah, that's fascinating. Just the exposure to the trauma of other people, or the ways in which the internet opens you up to the full range of the human experience on the globe in any given moment, that could kind of blow up in a way that you... Yeah, you know, if you don't have controls, or there's nothing that saying, you know, you should not view X, Y or Z thing. It's crazy. I mean, I'm convinced that like, 25, 30 years down the road, we're gonna look back at this moment, and the way in which we engage with media.
Mickenzie Vought 11:07 Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 11:08
And just think of it in fundamentally different ways. I still, it still feels very much like the Wild Wild West, but it's like, we need one or two generations to kind of come come through it to understand its impact. And you know, that's fine, all fine and well until you're a parent of young kids. Or you're a college student, or a young person that's really trying to navigate something and you don't have time to wait. You've got to figure out kind of how to navigate with these realities in ways that are healthy for you.
Chris McAlilly 11:44
What are some ways that have been helpful for you personally, as you navigate kind of your work? Inevitably, you have to engage online and digitally all the time. So I guess, personally, and also what are some ways that Onsite have been helpful for other folks that you've seen?
Mickenzie Vought 12:04
Yeah. And so personally, I think for me, this is a conversation that goes on a lot in my home. My husband has a Master's in marriage and family therapy, and I work in this space. And also, before this was very much like I was a social media marketer, that was what my job was. And so the conversation on social media has been something really prevalent in my own life, and then also, as I raise children. I have a two year old and a baby on the way. And I want to know how to do that well. I want to be intentional about that. And so I just think it's an ongoing conversation for me, and understanding, like you were saying, we're not equipped. We are not made as humans to consume as much information as we do.
Mickenzie Vought 12:45
And so one of my favorite things about Onsite and was a big part of my experience, I went and did what we call our Living Centered program. And so it's a week-long experience where you go and kind of work in a group experiential setting to get your life back to center. And I did that as a part of working at Onsite, but I had always wanted to do it. And the two rules that we have at Onsite is that you don't have any access to technology. So you unplug. You give away your phone for the week. And a lot of people say that's the best. Because a lot of people that come and do work with us are people who are on the burnout end of maybe a lot of success, or they're on the burnout end of I reached this goal, and it didn't do what I thought it was going to do. And so we're all really busy, right? So we do that. We unplug from technology. And the second thing is we don't talk about what we do. And I just love those two things. I love those two ground rules. I think they do a lot for us to get back to being human beings and not human doings.
Mickenzie Vought 13:42
And this conversation around media is to remember that, that we're human beings, and we're not a platform. We're not a product. And also the other people on the screen are also humans. So one of the practices that I took from being at Onsite is that I have consistent unplugging time. My phone goes away in the evenings when I'm with my daughter, and you know, we kind of have that rule in our home. I have consistent times where I remove social media from it. I also get intentional about who I follow. I came back from my program, and maybe the people that I'm following are bad for me. But I have teenage sisters who are 17, and I say to them, you don't have to follow this person. And it just feels almost revolutionary for them and like, "Oh, no, of course I do. They're my friend."
Mickenzie Vought 14:38
But if they are not making you feel good about yourself, you don't have to constantly see their stuff and see what they're putting out into the world because they're putting out their best day and we're comparing it to our worst. That's what we do on social media. And so that's just giving yourself permission to unfollow the people that don't make you feel good about yourself. Maybe it's not... I mean, if there are teenagers listening, if there are parents of teenagers listening, that feels counterintuitive, but I think you can do that.
Mickenzie Vought 15:03
I also got intentional with them, not just swiping through the new Instagram videos that, like you were saying, you are not prepared for what you're going to see. And sometimes your, "hijacked" is the word I was going to say. We talk about trauma hijacking your day, and you're hijacked with information. You don't know what's ever going to happen. The algorithm is designed to keep you there. And so often what keeps us there are things that pull in our attention and are not good for us.
Mickenzie Vought 15:33
So those are just a couple of things, not just scrolling to scroll, putting time limits on. I think it's all things we know to do, but in practice, feel a little foreign. And we're all navigating this wild, wild west that someday I think we're going to look at it and kind of view it the way that our parents view smoking, like, "Oh, yeah, everyone was just doing it. And we didn't know the effects of what was happening."
Chris McAlilly 15:55
Yeah, I think that's right. And I feel like it's like we are authorizing younger people. We're giving tons of freedom and also without a lot of guardrails. And then what ends up happening is that, inevitably, you end up in space that--or you see things or you experience things--that, you know, ultimately are harmful. And then you have to kind of unravel that, or not, over the course of time. I think Eddie and I, as pastors, we work with just a full range of folks. And, you know, you see folks--Eddie and I could probably share examples of folks that we see that have have had some kind of significant trauma, whether it's in real life or in a digital space at a younger age that doesn't get kind of completely dealt with. And then life happens. Careers happen. Start raising kids and a decade... I mean, it's just amazing. A decade or two or three will pass. And then you begin to see kind of the the effects of not dealing with some of that stuff until much later. It's real. Eddie, anything that you would share just kind of as a pastor?
Eddie Rester 17:09
Just as I think about that, yeah, I think a lot of times we see the actions, the reactions of folks who have experienced some significant trauma. And it's just like, sometimes people, you don't realize you're sick until somebody tells you, hey, that's not normal. That's not the way healthy people... Healthy people don't go around coughing all the time. Healthy people don't hurt all the time. And that from a physical perspective, and sometimes we don't know, maybe some of the signs from a kind of a trauma indeuced life of things that are unhealthy for us.
Eddie Rester 17:48
And so, Mickenzie, what are some of those maybe signs, some of those red flags that you would say, "Hey, here's some things." I think the term is adaptive response, the way that our our mind says, "Well, I'm going to work this way, because I'm working around this thing that happened." So what are some of the maybe signs, some of those adaptive responses that we, that people experience, that might be a sign that hey, there's something there that you need to dig in to deal with?
Mickenzie Vought 18:23
Oh, yeah, that's so good. Um, one of the things, one of the myths I think we really struggle with as humans around trauma and around naming it, we say it wasn't that big a deal, when really the impact that it has on you matters. And the other thing that we often think is that trauma just impacts me mentally. Like, if I've just had an experience, then it just impacts me mentally. But it's a holistic experience. You're a holistic human. And so it's going to show up and impact you on a mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual realm.
Mickenzie Vought 18:55
And so there is Dr. Nadine Burke, did a talk on ACEs. And that kind of really, when I watched it, it revolutionized my understanding of childhood trauma in particular, and how in those stay in our brain as it forms. It impacts us and so they can actually... She started as a pediatrician, and seeing if you had these--I think it's nine, but don't quote me on tha--if you had these different elements that were present in your home, and depending on the number of what she calls Adverse Childhood Experiences, ACEs, then the the ratio and the prevalence of you having adult trauma, and the adverse effects of that increase exponentially for the number that you had.
Mickenzie Vought 19:44
So it's growing up in a home where there was an addict, growing up with abuse, growing up with food shortage or food scarcity, you know, just things like that. And a lot of us look at that and we say, "Oh, I have one or two," but people who have five or six, end up, they can actually track them with physical, emotional, and other things going on in their lives. So if you want to dig down into that, I think it's such a beautiful, expansive view at trauma and kind of giving you language for maybe something that you've experienced and that you're now experiencing.
Mickenzie Vought 20:15
So the things that you might want to look for, is how am I coping in everyday life? What I say in my life is sometimes I can't identify what's going on, but when I start acting out in specific behaviors, I know that I need to get curious about something. And so, are you trying to escape life? Are you feeling high level of anxiety? Sometimes the ways that we cope with adverse experiences, the way that we cope with struggle, and the way that we medicate is really praised. So, are you working a lot? Are you chasing success at work? A lot of things that we do people say, "Oh, that's really awesome," and we're rewarded for it. And we keep doing it to the extent of burnout.
Mickenzie Vought 20:58
And for me, that's one of those. If I'm overworking and not paying attention to my physical health, my mental health, or my spiritual health, if those things start to get denied, I can recognize the behavior sometimes before I can recognize what's actually happening. And so, yeah, that shows up a lot for me. But one of the things I meant to mention around the Adverse Childhood Effects is that there are physical problems that are linked to trauma that we don't always associate. So adults with COPD, they're more likely, I think, it's six times more likely, to have COPD, if you had childhood trauma. It's breathing problems, because what's the first thing you do when you experience something hard? You hold your breath.
Mickenzie Vought 21:41
And so it's just even these physical problems that we don't think. Digestion problems are often connected to unaddressed and un-dealt with trauma. I'm trying to think of some of the other things that are. Anyway, there are a plethora of physical ailments that we have, that we don't necessarily connect back with our trauma. I think I'm just talking a lot, but yeah.
Eddie Rester 22:04
No, no, you're great. No, I'm sitting here, I was reading recently about Americans' lack of sleep.
Mickenzie Vought 22:10 Yeah.
Eddie Rester 22:11
And that sleep is often connected, not just to the stress you're experiencing right now. But sometimes it's connected to something that happened years and years or decades, decades before.
Eddie Rester 22:26
One of the things that when I'm dealing with premarital counseling, couples are coming to get married, one of the things I like to explain to them is that we live in the ruts that other people dug for us, intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes those are healthy ruts. They're good things, good habits. But sometimes we live in those ruts that our families or significant adults in our lives dug for us that we need to somehow name, deal with, climb out of. And that when you're trying to get married, it's all these things colliding.
Eddie Rester 23:04
What is, as you think about people who, maybe somebody's listening, they're like, "Yeah, I wake up in the morning, thinking about something that I hadn't thought about in 15 years," or "Yeah, you know, I'm having panic attacks. I can't figure out why." What would you say? How can people begin, I guess, to think about getting help or helping themselves or beginning to take helpful steps towards getting there? I don't know if you can, you can address this, whether or not we can ever get free from some of those adverse childhood experiences or that trauma. But how can we find freedom in that?
Mickenzie Vought 23:47
I think the hope is that the way that our brains are made, there's a lot of neuroplasticity. And so we can actually rewrite the patterns in our brains that are going to trip us up. We can heal our nervous systems. I like to say trauma is not what happened to you. It's what's currently happening to you, continually happening because you didn't get to have you know, to make space for that. Sometimes, it's coming up 15 years later, because you're finally in a space where you can deal with it. One of my favorite therapists used to talk about his addiction and talk about how he was thankful. He's now in recovery for 20 plus years, but he would say I'm really thankful for my addiction because it kept me alive long enough to deal with my stuff.
Mickenzie Vought 24:33
And what I have come to believe is that everything we do makes sense, because it's our body's way of taking care of us. And so first and foremost, I would say give yourself grace, and say, okay. Sometimes I have to literally say to my body, when I start to get panicky because I'm someone who really struggled with anxiety, to say, "Thank you for trying to protect me. I'm okay." And so I think we have to get curious about our internal world. I think that's the first thing that I would suggest is just start to get curious about, when is this coming up? Why is it coming up? Maybe journal. Start to recognize and kind of see some of those patterns.
Mickenzie Vought 25:11
I also love therapy. Therapy has been life changing for me. And so getting someone who has an outside look, who has an expert view on that can enter into it with you. Some of the modalities that are really effective for trauma are EMDR, which is Eye Motion Desensitization and Reprocessing. That's a lot of big words. But it's basically just taking you kindly through and it's a process to rewire that brain so that when you think about this experience, you don't have those palpitations. You can kind of separate yourself from it enough to then repair and to say, "Okay, this experience..." especially if you've got reoccurring experiences.
Mickenzie Vought 25:50
But if you're not in a place right now where therapy is an option for you, I love to direct people to something called Warmlines, which is like, "Maybe I just need to talk to someone." It's really similar to the National Suicide Help hotline, but it's just, it's pure led. And it's people who like, "Hey, I'm struggling with something, and I need someone to talk to."
Mickenzie Vought 26:13
We are often wounded in community, and so we're healed and community. And if you don't have the people in your life who can come alongside you in that, Warmlines is a great resource for that.
Chris McAlilly 26:22 That's amazing.
Chris McAlilly 26:25 Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 26:25 That's so cool.
Mickenzie Vought 26:26
And they just talk with you. And then if you are in crisis, then they'll get you. But they can direct you to resources. They can help you find things, low cost resources. To Write Love on Her Arms is also really great because their website has a really intensive database of low cost, free options to help you find the help that you need, depending on what you're facing. So I always want to give that caveat of I think therapy is really great, I also know that's not a financial option for everyone. So there is hope out there.
Mickenzie Vought 26:54
Also, one of our greatest resources is community. And I would believe that being in the church spcace that you guys would really, really lean into that. We're wounded in community, so we heal in community and there is awesome research about what happens when we let people in our lives. So if you're waking up in the middle of the night with a panic attack, maybe you've never let someone in on that. Maybe it's something that's really scary. And so reaching out to the safe people in your life can be really powerful.
Mickenzie Vought 27:23
I also love, oh, sorry, I was just thinking of this one story that there is a girl who was a survivor of one of the mass shootings at one of the high schools in, like, the 90s. She was only one of the only people to not have PTSD. Because every day her and her mom went for a walk. And while they were walking, they just talked. They didn't always talk about this traumatic thing that she'd undergone. She didn't talk about the friends that she'd lost. They just kind of talked about life. And they were together. And she was in community with her mom.
Mickenzie Vought 27:51
And scientifically, there's something called bilateral stimulation that happens in your brain when you're riding a bike or you're walking. And so it helps you process between the left and the right side of your brain. And so she was one of the only people to not have PTSD. There was a whole group of mothers who lost their newborn babies in a bombing. And they started a group where they walked. So there was grief, there was community, and there was bilateral stimulation. And so I think going on a walk with a friend and talking about what's going on your life goes a really long way. That's just a really tangible, small example. But I've seen it be powerful.
Chris McAlilly 28:29
I see, so I see several people pointing to walking as an incredibly helpful exercise for navigating this particular cultural moment that we're in. And from a lot of different directions. I mean, I think part of it is just the amount of time we spend inside, you know, just kind of getting outside. And then also that when we're normally outside, we're in cars. We're in these death machines that we travel in 80, 90 miles an hour. And just the pace of life at a walk, it allows you to attend to the world that you're actually in, and, you know, the sense of walking with other people.
Mickenzie Vought 29:14 Yeah.
Eddie Rester 29:14
And I'll just say, community, as you think about that. And for folks who are experiencing some times whether it's panic attacks, or you know... There's a time about a year and a half ago, I, for the first time in my life, I had just a panic attack. And one of the things that my brain told me in the middle of that panic attack, because I was thinking, "I should call this person. I should call this person," my brain told me, they're too busy.
Chris McAlilly 29:14
And then also having this bilateral stimulation, I've most recently heard it in a conversation about creativity, just the ways in which, you know, you can process whatever you're working on or whatever you're thinking about actively, but not actively when you're walking. I just I'm fascinated by that activity. So thanks for pointing that out.
Mickenzie Vought 30:01 Yeah.
Eddie Rester 30:02
You don't need to burden them with this. You just need to figure this out on your own. Don't worry, you know, don't burden someone else with this. And so I went an hour and a half, just freaking out. And when I finally called a friend, the next day and said, "This is what I just went through, and your name was one of the ones that I thought of, and I just couldn't pull the trigger on calling you. I felt foolish." And, and he said, "Dude, if I ever hear you tell the story again, I'll track you down and beat you. Call me."
Eddie Rester 30:36
You know, I think sometimes when we're in those places where part of our adaptive response is isolation.
Mickenzie Vought 30:43
Eddie Rester 30:43
And I think that even if, you don't have to go bare your soul to people. Sometimes you just need to say, "hey, can we go for a walk?" Or "Hey, can we go grab lunch?" You don't have to tell them anything, but just the very act of being with people changes things for you.
Chris McAlilly 31:02
But isn't there also something though, about, you know, I think about kind of the university community that we pastored in together. I also think for young people, I don't know. I don't know how to actually, like, draw attention to this. But there's something about big, thin community that doesn't work. You know, it's like, you can be in this massive crowd of people at a ballgame or in a social setting in a bar or whatever. And it's like, you're surrounded by people. And yet...
Mickenzie Vought 31:34 Feel really isolated.
Mickenzie Vought 31:35 Coming out sideways. Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 31:35
Yeah, you're massively isolated and alone. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of... I was talking to this guy, several months ago now, that his father had committed suicide when he was in college. And one of the things, one of the ways that he learned to navigate it, "How did you survive?" I asked. And he was like, "Well, I just, you know, kind of kept doing my thing." And it's like, whoa, you know, just going out with friends, making great grades, success, like all the things that that had always been there. I don't know. It didn't allow the space to process what was an immense trauma. And you know, a couple decades later, it was kind of resurfacing in a different kind of way.
Chris McAlilly 31:45
Yeah. And I don't know, for young people who are around a lot of people, they're very social. But the community that they're involved in, doesn't always do the deeper work that needs to be done. What encouragement do you have, Mickenzie?
Yeah.
Mickenzie Vought 32:42
Oh, golly, I have lived this. I wouldn't think I would be living it again at 31, you know. I feel like I am someone who does really good at going a mile wide and an inch deep. My community in college, I was so involved. I love being around people. I think I spent 95% of my time with other people, but didn't really feel known by people. I knew a lot of people and didn't feel known. And so it was in small group context, finding people, and letting them into my story, little bits and pieces of that was really revolutionary for me.
Mickenzie Vought 33:21
But I think community, especially in this current time, a lot of us have experienced that. We're, as a result of the pandemic, a lot of us are experiencing loneliness. Loneliness is at an all time high, and the effects of it are almost as bad as smoking. That's what the statistics tell us. And so my encouragement would be to find safe spaces, whether it's one or two people, to start to let people into your life.
Mickenzie Vought 33:51
And an encouragement that I needed at that age, at a teenage age and college, was that my story was sacred. And so I did a really good job of telling people all this information, almost as a way to protect myself, of like, "Oh, if I'm just..." There's a difference between transparency and vulnerability. And so something that I learned, actually going through an Onsite program was that I had agency over my own story and who I let in, and how much of myself I offered to people, and not using it as currency to be like, "Hey, let's go deep," you know, because it was not the depth of relationship and it wasn't always met with safe hands. And so testing out and finding who those safe hands might be, taking small steps.
Mickenzie Vought 34:35
And I think we kind of see this meme of five but, like, you know, Jesus had 12 good friends and then three people that he let in. You know, we kind of joke about that, but I think it's a good model for us to look at. I like to say, kind of the bullseye of our community. So in the center, we can't expect... Like who's at the center of our relationships? Only a couple people can fit in there. And then there's the next tier and the next tier and the next tier. And sometimes in college, you put people who we think should be in that center, who shouldn't be.
Mickenzie Vought 35:09
Or we're a little bit disoriented. We've created like a cone, because everyone is given massive access to ourselves. And we're not actually in intimate relationship with anyone. And so it's just getting honest, and taking an assessment of your relationships, and figuring out ,like, okay, do I have a lot of fringe people and not a lot of close people? Or do I only have close people and no fringe people? Because a healthy, robust community is going to have all those different layers.
Chris McAlilly 35:35
And I think it's somebody once told me, like, take an assessment, and it was really in a conversation about a support system. I had never really thought about it. It's like, actually take some time to think about what, who are the people that you count on as your support? Like, just doing that work, for a college student. I mean, when I was in college, or shortly thereafter, it's just such a turbulent time and people are going in different directions.
Mickenzie Vought 36:00 Oh, it's so confusing.
Chris McAlilly 36:00
It's so confusing. And I think just taking the time to assess like, what's the current state of my community? Or what's the current state of my support system? Is it breaking down? Like, I remember this one kid who was super talented, one of the smartest young people I had been around, but they had completely neglected their relationships, except for the one person that they were dating. And so when that relationship was...
Mickenzie Vought 36:27
That was another thing I was thinking.
Chris McAlilly 36:28
Yeah, that's like, yeah, it's like, everything was being, you know, all the emotional needs were being offered to this one individual. And that one individual said, "Nope, I'm out." Probably because of too much pressure.
Mickenzie Vought 36:42
That's a lot of pressure on someone.
Eddie Rester 36:42 Too much.
Chris McAlilly 36:44
Yeah. Then this individual looked up. And, you know, they realize that like, for 18 months, they had not done anything intentionally to develop a broader support system. And I think there's no shame in that. Because I think...
Mickenzie Vought 36:51 No.
Chris McAlilly 36:52
You can find yourself just tracking for however long and then you look up, and it's like, oh, my goodness, things are out of whack. And I think one of the things I'm learning is that just, it's a constant barometer, and you need good friends in your life to kind of navigate okay. Like, what's, you know, am I okay? Like, do I seem the same now that I was a decade ago? So for me, the relationships that are most valuable and in that really inner circle are people now I've known for 25, 30 years, who've known me in these different phases and seasons of life, and can help kind of be a barometer for me. But yeah, I mean, those kinds of people, then, you know, navigating exactly like who gets to be in the inside of that support system, is really helpful. That's a good word.
Mickenzie Vought 37:48
It's a hard one for me, we did a course, or we did a class called Building Healthy Community. And it's a digital class. And it just was so good and so practical. I helped. I did the interviews for it and did a talk and all of that. And also I learned a ton. And I was like, "Oh, why don't we get told this?"
Mickenzie Vought 38:11
I think the one of the examples that I give in it is just having the idea of, there's three types of friendships in our lives, and I like to call them our flowers, our weeds, and our oak trees. And this is something that I learned and love. I wish I had better understood that, at that early age, when you're making friends, when you've got so many people around you, and then all of a sudden you leave college and you're like, I have no people. How do I make friends? How do I start to as an adult, like, engage in community?
Mickenzie Vought 38:39
And so the idea of weeds, oaks, and flowers. Are we around those people, obviously, who are toxic? It's really easy to identify, like, hey, I don't feel good when I'm around them. Maybe they're painful. They're hurtful. We all can probably identify some weeds. But then we've got our oak trees, and those are those people. I cannot believe you've been in relationship with people for 25 or 30 years. That's so beautiful. And I think really, there are a lot of because you've probably seen they've weathered the storm with you, right? And they've continued to be there and they show up in your life. And they're our true blue.
Mickenzie Vought 39:12
And sometimes someone who we thought was an oak tree is actually a flower, and that's really hard. But flowers have their place in our life. They're the people that we get coffee with. And we feel like oh my gosh, I haven't talked to him forever. And I feels like we've just picked right back up. They're the people we would go on vacation with. They're the fun people that bring life and light and color to your life. But when you're walking through something deep, they're not the people you're going to invite in. And it's giving yourself permission to have a diverse community rather than, "I only have oak trees," because that's kind of where you create codependency and that's where you get into a discombobulated and not even and full and robust, cohesive community.
Chris McAlilly 39:56
Yeah, sorry. Eddie, the last conversation we had felt like he was boxing me out. I feel like I'm now boxing you out a little bit. Okay, go for it.
Mickenzie Vought 40:06
It's hard when you're virtual and you've got a cohost. You're like "I've got to talk now."
Eddie Rester 40:09
No, no, that's why I say we got these hand signals we do on Zoom. I think I want to shift gears just a little bit because as pastors, we, everybody, we encounter people who have things that happen that are in the moment, significantly traumatic. There's an incident recently that tied Oxford and Jackson--Oxford, Mississippi, where Chris is pastor and then Jackson, Mississippi, where I pasto--together, the loss of a student. Earlier this fall, we had a loss of a young parent and others. So we all know these people that have what are very clearly traumatic events, if we're friends or pastors with these people, what are some things that we can, you know, we can't fix anybody. But what are some things that we can do to encourage them, maybe in those first few weeks or months to really acknowledge, begin to put the pieces in place, so that they can begin to grapple with the trauma now, so that 30 years from now, it doesn't come back as hauntingly? You know, the thing about trauma that I know, is that it's always there somehow. So what would you say, encourage them in this way, or offer this, that's helpful?
Mickenzie Vought 41:32
That's so hard. I would just first and foremost, say I'm really sorry, if your communities that's heavy, it's hard. And when we experience something that affects our whole community, you can kind of feel like, okay, my pain is... We start to do pain comparison, right? Like, it's not as bad as this, or I wasn't this close to this person, you know, and you kind of extrapolate. So I would just once again, say it matters. It's hard. And the best thing that you can offer people in your life who are walking through something really hard and tragic and sad and heavy in grief is your presence. Show up. You can't fix it. It's not your job to fix it. But you can offer your presence.
Mickenzie Vought 42:15
And we often, I know that in those situations, I get really nervous about saying the right thing. And sometimes you don't need to say anything. You don't need to fix it. You just need to say I'm right here with you. And we can put the onus on them of like, well, I'll go to them, and I'll ask what they need. And if they don't say anything, then I'll just walk away. But keep coming back.
Mickenzie Vought 42:36
One of the things you said was in those first few days, keep showing up. People are gonna show up in those first few days, then keep showing up after the first few days, after the first couple of weeks, when maybe people have moved on. But you're gonna keep, you know, just kind of being there, being there with people and offering your presence.
Mickenzie Vought 42:54
And I think one of the biggest encouragements I would say is do something tangible, even if it's the wrong thing. Bring a meal, send a card. And be and gather together. We've talked a lot about community but being together in that space, there's so much healing in that, especially for things that are impacting a whole community. There's often holidays for like, we don't know how to send a card for that, right? Like, we don't know how to do anything for that. And continue to do your own work, continue to stay healthy.
Mickenzie Vought 43:27
We asked one of our therapists on our Treating Trauma podcast, what's the best thing you can do to support your loved one who's walking through something hard? And they said, do your own work. Be someone who is committed to staying healthy, because you can't pour from an empty cup. You can't continue to give to people. So to sum it all up, my encouragement would be, be present. Say, "I don't know what to say," if you don't know what to say. Be honest with that and say, "Hey, I really want to show up for you. But I don't know how to." Do something tangible. And then do your own work and stay healthy so that you can continue to pour out and love people. Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 44:04
Mickenzie, we can talk to you for days. Thank you so much for the work that you do. Oh,
Eddie's like, "Wait!"
Eddie Rester 44:11
I was just gonna say, are there websites, podcasts, things if people want to dig a little deeper into this? Where would you point them? Because I'm sure there are folks right now who are listening are like, "I need more." So where would you point them? I know y'all have a podcast as well from Onsite.
Mickenzie Vought 44:27
I do a weekly podcast called the Living Center podcast, where we get to talk to friends, emotional health experts, alumni of our Onsite programs. It's been the best part of my job for the last two years. So I absolutely love it. So that's a great free resource. Onsite in particular, now does things in the digital space. So we have classes and courses. Our emotional health masterclasses are really great. They're really topic driven, and they're quick and easy to consume from your own space. We have one on grief. And that's what I was thinking. We have one on grief. We have one on shame. We have one on community. We have one on emotions, because I think we haven't even gotten to that. But a lot of us don't have emotional language. So if I've had been saying some of these things, and you're like, "I don't even know how to identify that," I think that's a great place to start.
Mickenzie Vought 45:10
And then I have started plugging in this book because I just read it. It's by Dr. Julie Smith. It's called "Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?" And it's so practical. It talks about so much of what we talked about today, put it in normalizing language, and gives you exercises and journal prompts and ways to explore and do that personal work. And then invite other people into that community. So we just read it as a book club, as a community, and I've absolutely loved it. So, "Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?"
Mickenzie Vought 45:12
And then some of the websites that I mentioned, that would be great resources, if you want to start diving into some of this work and uncovering stuff, if you're walking through hard seasons, or you're saying like, "I think I need to make sense of it." Warmline is really great. To Write Love on Her Arms has a great database. We have some resources on our website at onsiteworkshops.com, to like, a PDF you can download, like how to find a new therapist and questions to ask a therapist if you've never dove in into that experience.
Eddie Rester 45:38
Awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mickenzie for your time with us today.
Mickenzie Vought 45:51
Thank you for having us. I'm so excited.
Chris McAlilly 46:13
Yeah, it's been great. Thanks, Mickenzie, and blessings in all the work that you have ahead. And also you I heard you say, you kind of slow dropped the news that you're going to be expecting a second child so we will be...
Eddie Rester 46:27 Good luck.
Chris McAlilly 46:28 Yeah, good luck.
Mickenzie Vought 46:28
Thank you. I'll take it all. We'll have two girls under three.
Chris McAlilly 46:34
That's its own thing. That's it's own. Well, we can have another conversation about it.
Eddie Rester 46:41
We did. We did that, and we survived. So.
Mickenzie Vought 46:44
Okay, thank you. It's good. It's gonna be wild. So I'm excited about it.
Eddie Rester 46:49 It will be, yes.
Mickenzie Vought 46:51
Thank you for all the work you're doing. I appreciate it.
Chris McAlilly 46:53 Thanks.
Eddie Rester 46:55
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like or subscribe or leave a review.
Chris McAlilly 47:02
If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]