Chris Bruno & Tracy Johnson - Wisdom, Thoughts and Resources for Mental Health Care

This episode was recorded in Dec 20, 2021. 

Tracy Johnson – Lives in Austin, Tx. Works with and for Chris Bruno at Restoration Counseling in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is the founder and Chief editor of Red Tent Living Magazine, online space for women around the world. She works in the virtual world with story work and spiritual direction, seeing people from all over the world. 

Chris Bruno – Founded Restoration Counseling 12 years ago after living overseas doing missions. He is a licensed professional counselor and works locally with folks as well as online. He has been doing a lot more Intensives and group intensives – the opportunity to spend more focused time. He loves that work. He also founded Restoration Project, which is focused on men, fathering and brother-ing, exploring what it means to be a son. 

Danielle has had an increase in requests for support, coaching and counseling. Where can we plug people in? What’s available?

Tracy has had similar experiences – there was a lull in the summer when people were out enjoying the sun but she too is experiencing an uptick with people needing help. Tracy believes that COVID, the pandemic and isolation has shrunk space that used to be expansive inside of people, and people are noticing they are less well. Before there may have been pockets of anxiety or depression before but now is it more prevalent and feels like it doesn’t go away.

She says the same is true for spirituality—before the pandemic people may have masked a struggle with their spirituality by continuing to go to church and bible study, but as that went away, the questions have surfaced and there is more disruption between their relationship with God and their relationship with the Church.

Chris agrees with both. The way he conceptualizes where we’ve been is by looking back to 2020-2021 New Years when there was an emotional rally. As a world, we said “2020 sucked! It sucked the life out of us” and yet mentally and emotionally there was this thought that “2021” will be different. But this year, as we realized that the pandemic is not going away, and the coping mechanisms aren’t going to help us any more than they did before. This are not shifting. “Deferred Hope.” 2021 was a thinning of this hope. The last little bit of hope in relationships, marriages, etc. has eroded. He’s seen this too in their Thrive Marriage Lab online – relationships seem more tense, thin and desperate. Like it could move to crisis if it’s not dealt with. 

Tracy says we’re set up for the same this year looking at 2022. We can make no plans; everything is subject to cancelation. We’re not okay again.

Chris wants to invite people to do something different in 2022. There isn’t a going back to normal—the normal that we know is now different and therefore the internal work we do needs to be different. The mental, emotional and relationship work needs to look different than what it was and what we assumed. There is a shift in how we need to work on and expand “the space inside” that is no longer spacious. This is the important work that needs to be done in 2022. 

Tracy said those can be part of what comes in the New Year—it is just a fact that we will never go back to where we were before. She thinks what we’re learning to do now is about tending to ourselves in ways that we’ve never had to do that before. There was so much noise pre-pandemic with traveling and parties, gatherings and going to the office… It’s kept us from having to listen to our internal selves. How do we learn to tend to this internal space? What does that mean and what does it look like for me? For some people, that tending needs to be done with a therapist or licensed counselors. For others that looks like tending to the stories that our bodies and souls hold; To listen and care for those stories. Now is the time to do this work. “Our world has changed and so that we’re going to be in our world has to change, like it or not.”

Danielle said she has been paying a trainer to work out twice a week because first she doesn’t want to get COVID in a gym class but secondly because she likes the attention on her—that there is someone who it watching and attending to her body. A few days before this recording, her trainer told her that the average human uses between 50-70% of the air in their lungs. That means we’re only breathing at 50-70% our capacity. Danielle was un-attentive to her breathe, and as her heart rate get high her trainer said, “you’re not in your body!” Danielle was thinking, “hey I’m the therapist!” But her trainer replied, “If you want to push yourself, you have to be present. You have to pay attention to your body.” Danielle said this interaction with her trainer in a sense is like what Chris is doing with intensives—it is expanding someone’s capacity to stay present in themselves and their relationships. 

Chris loves that image of how much space is your lungs and in your body and the invitation to pay attention to it. Some of the work around story is about being aware of and staying in your body. “How present are you to what’s happening inside of you?” 

Restoration Counseling’s logo is a cross-section of a tree. The outside, Chris says, is the adult part of us. The inside are all the rings of the life of the tree. Those rings are still inside the tree, marking the dry years, the years with a lot of sun, the shade of another tree. You can read the story of how that tree was shaped by the rings. All you see from the outside is just the outside, but all the stories of all the days that tree has ever lived are still inside that tree. Humans are the same—we have all those parts of us that live inside of us. And what he believes Tracy is saying is do we have enough space to attend to those parts that are living with us. 

As an example from a recent intensive Chris hosted, while working with a man in his 40s, present in the work was his 3 year old self, his 5 year old, 13 year old, 18 year old… All those parts had no space to live and to tell their stories. Those parts are all interacting with the present day trauma, isolation, anxiety… We have to in our present day have space for our past day to still live inside us. Can we have the capacity to increase our “lung capacity” for our stories to live in us?

Tracy liked what Danielle said about choosing to have a personal trainer – those trainers eyes are on you, noticing how your body is positioned, what it’s doing. You can’t do this for yourself; even with a mirror you can’t totally see whether you’re the correct position so that you don’t hurt yourself. She has never had that kind of witness like she did when she first started counseling and story work – having someone attend to her and notice her eyes, face and body shifting. It invited her to think and be with herself different. I wonder why I did that?

For listeners, she said that may sound a little woo-woo… But she believes this is what we were designed for. This is why Jesus had to come in the flesh—it was to experience with-ness. To have someone physically watching you, being with you and noticing you… It has been such a gift to even have a zoom space that is devoted to that. Part of what we’ve lost in all the years of noise, that has taken up so much space, is our ability to be with ourselves. And the pandemic has brought the silence and space we need to attend to those places. We are made for with-ness and that is what we’ve been needing: to have a witness. With-ness can be learned in the therapeutic and Story Work spaces. Once someone has done this with and for you, then you can in turn be with and for others. Tracy believes this is what will heal us. 

Danielle lost her last grandparent the day before thanksgiving. She cried and grieved. But in the last week she’s been with people and she’s felt sad and she’s just let her tears come. Mostly it’s been with her officemates. They’ve asked her what’s coming up and she said she doesn’t know but she’s just sad. And her colleague said, “Yeah I think we’re going to be sad for a while. I’m sad too.” It was comforting to be seen in her sadness and to know that other are with her in her sadness. It restored some space in her. 

Tracy said we need to be able to be sad with one another. She thinks that when we’re able to experience sadness with one another, the feeling of depression is less. Depression is “I’m a sad and I am alone. I have fallen into this deep pit and I can’t get out of it.” It feels like no one else is sad. But when we know that we’re not alone, it’s like we’re not falling down the pit at the same rate. Feeling sad is normal, it doesn’t have to mean there is something wrong with me. Perhaps it means something is right about me. And each person’s sadness will be different but there is a sense of with-ness if knowing that you are not sad alone. Tracy said she didn’t lose a grandparent but she has lost a friend. She knows something of the sadness of loss. And while its not the same, they both can witness each other’s sadness. 

Chris says the worse experience a human can have is the experience is aloneness. There is s sense that if I am actually alone, I don’t have a buoy or a tether to keep me human. He believes the human experience is meant to be done together. Calling on places in scripture where is says, “mourn with those who mourn, rejoice with those who rejoice.” Whether it is rejoicing or mourning, it is elevated when it is done together. To be sad with one another does not mean that you are not able to be joyful or even laughing in the next second. There is the sadness of the loss of Danielle’s grandmother and there is a beautiful memory about her life. Both of them can co-exist. When someone is spiraling out in depression, they are losing the ability to have this co-existence of emotions; holding grief and joy, celebration and sadness being so close together. 

Danielle agrees, grief and joy are so connected.

Tracy adds, but most people don’t live like there are connected. She believes this is a sad biproduct in Church circles because of the Church’s focus on joy, not mourning like those who don’t have hope. It contributes to people feeling alone. “I can’t be at church and have my sadness shared. I’m doing to be told I need to rally and get out of it, to grab on to some joy or hope so everyone isn’t uncomfortable with my grief and sadness.” This is another forced shift that has been very disorienting for a lot of Christian folks. This is no longer working during this pandemic season.

Danielle circles back to what Chris shared that the tools we’ve had to cope with a starting a new year, aren’t going to be enough this time around. It can be so intimating to reach out to therapists, counselors and story groups, Danielle asks how people can find the work that they are doing:

Tracy, who does the Story Work and Spiritual Direction, said they have openings right now just head over to their website and hit the drop-down menu option for what you’re wanting. 

www.restorationcounselingnoco.com

There are also intensives available, for those who want to do 2-3 days rather than every other week rhythm. Available for both men and women. 

Thrive Marriage lab- couples wanting support to have better conversations. Affordable way to do something for your marriage. 

Chris mentioned the “Re-Story Experience Coordinator” – helps people find the best care for what they need. Identifies an avenue of care, and if it doesn’t exist within Restoration Counseling, she will help you find what you need. 

If you are in Colorado, their therapists can work with you. 

Intensive are 15 hours of face-time… It’s condensing 15 weeks of engagement. Intensive work with you counseling, before and after. It’s increased care to help you get unstuck. 

Tracy says to those who are “just getting by:” what would it looks like to imagine more than just getting by? That you’re worth more than just getting by. The choice to seek out care is an investment and that can be the hardest part for people who are just getting by. She wants to say to them there’s more for you, and you don’t know what you don’t know. Lend them some trust! This is what they do. Invest in yourself, you are worth it. 

Chris adds, for the person who is just getting by they have found some level of management with their coping strategies, he says “do you want to have a lifetime of coping or a lifetime of living?” We do things outside of soul care to take care of ourselves, like the dentist! We go to prevent cavities in addition to helping cavities. The same is for self-care and soul care.

CALL 1-855 -RESTORY will get you to Katelyn the ReStory Experience Coordinator. 

Chris says for 2022, can we welcome where we currently find ourselves and wonder what is now available in the coming year?

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.