@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:45

Healing Through Conversation | Talking with Therapist Kellie Prophet

article image placeholderKellie Prophet
Not that I fully understand it now, but if you would have told me what I was signing up for in 2015, when I first started working with my consult therapist, I may have run away screaming, no regrets, but it's interesting to look back at that point of time and knowing all that I've gone through in the last six years, you have also been on your own journey and have since received your Masters in mental health Counseling from Belmont University in Nashville

Join me & Kellie discussing healing journeys, inner child work, gestalt therapy & more #mentalhealth #swellinterview https://kellieprophet.com/

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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 4:58

@bowie

And I took a chaplaincy class where I got to see, like, I actually do have a skill in taking care of and listening to people. And I got to be curious about things like feminist theology and desert fathers and mindfulness and the Enneagram, and was introduced to a Christian Buddhist priest who is the author of one of my favorite books. But I still had all of these questions that kind of weren't being answered really about healing and about the healing journey
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 2:32

@bowie I did two in a row I hope that’s allowed 😂 I have so much to say!

So essentially all that to say, I didn't choose the path to become a counselor. It kind of just found me. It was like I looked up and all of a sudden I was just on the path and probably had been on the path for a long time. And it's kind of like what you said, right? If you had told me what I was getting into, I definitely would have run screaming and been like, no, you crazy. But then it was just happening
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 2:57

@kellieprophet Wow! So many thoughts & feels in response.

And I also was thinking about how much I would have loved to hear your story when I was right out of undergrad and also feeling all that life confusion and trying to figure things out and feeling this pressure that I needed to quote, figure things out when really I think for all of us, whether we like it or not, things find us too, like you said, and we're part of that process. We make choices
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 4:34

@kellieprophet Gestalt & embodiment

I've been seeing my current therapists for six of those years, which is the longest I've ever worked with any therapist, and it's been truly transformative for me. And I think I had a pretty misguided, but I still think somewhat commonplace view of therapy years ago, which was that I was going because I had to quote fix myself. And I think one of the biggest things I'm taking away from this past six years is that I don't need to fix myself
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 4:53

The blessing of uncertainty and sitting still 😌🙏🏻

Honestly, I listened to these, like, two or three days ago and have been kind of chewing on my response and just, like, digesting your questions questions a little because I want to respond to this thoughtfully because you are essentially asking questions that are really around the root of everything I do and why I do them and how I do those things in therapy in my life as a person, just like, absolutely on track
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 4:27
So that's the order in which that happens. However, when we're talking about different parts of the brain. And this is really important. That's not necessarily the order of events. That's the order of events really for the prefrontal cortex, which is where logic and reasoning, our thinking brain or language brain. That's where that operates. Right
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 4:54
Well, I told you that this is gonna take longer than five minutes, I guess. Buckle up. You got me talking about something I'm so passionate about. So what then happens if we experience a trauma, something that happens that we don't don't have the ability to understand at the time. Imagine you're five and something happens and you don't have a prefrontal cortex developed enough to help you logically and rationally understand that you're going to come up with the next best thing
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 3:05

WOW there’s my soapbox!!! And that was the short version! 😹

So the logic and reasoning that we do now have can help that inner child grow up out of the belief that I'm not good enough or that I'm unlovable or that I'm not worthy. And essentially, that is therapy with me. In a nutshell, I mean, that's the kind of stuff we work on all the time. And some of that comes in tandem with. We need to learn some coping skills to manage these panic attacks while you're processing that feeling
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:03

@kellieprophet Just be 🌼

In the blessings of uncertainty, I really needed to hear all of that today and also be reminded of what you were saying about how it's usually when we learn to just be with what it is to sit with it, that the things that are meant for us, the experiences, the people that's when they arrive and that very much has been true for me, especially within the past two years or so. And thank you for articulating so clearly
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 3:54

@kellieprophet Wow! Okay, let's talk shame ...

And I think the more that I have understood that and been able to start to feel compassion rather than judgment, criticism, self hatred, all of these other sort of reactions that I think many of us and not just myself learn in response. It's an incredible thing that we can heal some of those wounds. So thank you, Kelly
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 4:45
So my response is born from a thought that is dysfunctional and the response itself is going to be dysfunctional. And what ends up happening is that the answer becomes its own problem. Right? So, for example, for me feeling like an imposter or not feeling good enough around not responding to this, the behavior that presented was really avoidance or procrastination. So the behavior is also dysfunctional. Usually, like I said about the treat, people come to therapy to talk about that
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 4:41
So I didn't want to pop back on here and record something and be authentic and vulnerable about, like, man, I don't know if I have a good enough answer for that, or I've been really busy the past couple of weeks, and now I'm feeling guilty about not responding, right? The antidote to shame is really authenticity and vulnerability
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 4:38

@kellieprophet Beginning the journey

And that did involve a certain amount of research and trial and error on my part. So from your perspective as a clinician and also a human who is on this messy, amazing healing journey with us all, what is it that you would like that person out there considering starting this process? What would you want them to hear
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 3:01

Shame about shame 😂

The thing that made me laugh the hardest was when you talked about shame, about the shame that is so true, and it is such a relevant experience. It's another layer of it, right? I always think that as a therapist, there's this kind of, I don't know, expectation for myself that I have it all together because I'm the one teaching people to get it together. And so I experience shame about shame a lot
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@kellieprophet
Kellie Prophet
@kellieprophet · 4:54

What do you have to gain?? 😘😘

And when we actually sit down and think about it, what we have to gain from the experience of pushing deeper into our healing journey is so much more than what we would ever have to lose. And I think that's an important question to ask yourself if you are someone who's considering maybe seeking that for yourself or thinking about trying therapy for the first time
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:09

@kellieprophet Here's to leaping into the unknown!

I have been in Durham, North Carolina, now for a week, starting a year of traveling, and so I sold off all of my things except for what could fit on or in my car, including my dog and my cat. So I am talking to you from there after this big transition and easing into this next stage. And it was amazing to hear about you going through your own transition as well. So thank you for sharing that
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 3:25

@kellieprophet Trusting life ♥️

I'm kind of obsessed with her and in general have been on my own path, intellectually, emotionally and physically when it comes to minimalism and tidying and just having a deeper relationship with things in my life and not being so afraid to let them go and processing all the stuff that comes up around that which has been so interesting and a fruitful and challenging process for me
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