The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer:
Well, hello everyone. And welcome again to the practice of therapy podcast. And you just don't know it. Count excited. I am for my guest today. This, I will say this particular guest, I have known longer than any other guests I have ever had on the podcast, but I'm so happy for it to introduce you. Elizabeth Broyhill Morris, who is also my cousin. She is my second cousin. Is that correct? Or first the, the backstory is Elizabeth mother. Melanie is my first cousin. Her yes. Or something like that. Well, anyway, she's she's blood. I'll say Elizabeth, welcome. Glad you're here.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
Oh my gosh, Gordon. I just was so, so tickled and honored that you asked me to be a part of this platform today and I just love the work you do. And I always enjoy listening even though I am not a therapist as someone who's so appreciate the therapeutic process. I think that this platform and in this ministry is just radical and really important and needed.
Gordon Brewer:
Yeah. Well, thanks. And, and Elizabeth and I have kinda grown up together, different different areas, maybe a little bit, but we've grown up together. No folks on the podcast have hardest. Heard me talk about going to Lake lure. But our families, our families have places there and that's where we get together and just we're family there. So I mean the whole, yeah, I like, I like to say the whole family family's usually there. Yeah.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
And this year in this year we had a bear join us. I remember he did have a bear attempt to join our family cookout where that much fun
Gordon Brewer:
That's right. That's right. But I really wanted to have Elizabeth on the podcast here to talk about the work that she's doing and just particularly around helping other women go work through their trauma. And as Elizabeth said, she's, she's not a therapist, but what she's doing in my mind is very therapeutic and, and is another way if we think about it in the context of what we do as therapists, particularly those of us in private practice there's, there's a lot of different ways to do the work that we do. And I know there's a lot of folks that move more into coaching and that sort of thing. And that's really where Elizabeth is in her journey. And she's going to tell you some more about this. She's got a website and a blog living. This is living, this is living hope.com. I got that. And it's a wonderful resource. And Elizabeth has come up with this great framework just around that. And we're going to be talking about that and just her journey. So as I start with everyone Lizabeth, why don't you tell folks a little bit about your journey and how you kind of arrived, where you are?
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
Sure. So I am one of the very fortunate people that my mother Gordon is first content, her name's Melanie Broyhill. She really you know, demystified and did not put any, any shame around the therapeutic process for us as kids. And I was having some struggles when I was a little girl and she put me in with wonderful LPC and soon that was always a really like welcoming, loving, nurturing space for me. And I'm so grateful to her for that, because then if I was, you know, an adult and hit these huge roadblocks or major bumps in life, I did not feel afraid or shamed of ashamed of reaching out and entering into a relationship with a therapist. So that's something I'm particularly grateful for my mom for because that's really shaped my wife. And so I came to do the lay work is what I call it through a divorce in my twenties.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
And it was just incredibly devastating experience to be, you know, 28 years old. And suddenly in this space, when you, you enter into a marriage with so much so much hope and joy and really a lot of expectations that we place on these things in our lives, happily ever after and find that just really, it wasn't even crumble. It just imploded in front of me. And I had the incredible fortune of having him working with a woman named Trish Sanders in Nashville, Tennessee. She was an LPC and she was the, the angel that literally lifted me and pulled me through, you know, little by little through this recovery process, through that divorce. And Trish just really kind of sat down with me to say, okay, let's open this up and let's look at all of this mess. That's on your side of the street.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
And because there's nothing you can do about the mess on his strategy side of the street anymore. Like we cannot go him, him, him anymore. We've got to look at you, you, you, and that was really one of the first times I was able to start looking back through my wife, you know, and how I had been codependent. What had informed that from my childhood and experiences that I had had through my life that were little T traumatic, not big T, which, you know, would be abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, you think like that there's those little traumas that impact us in life and shape our framework. And I really came through that experience transformed because of the gifts that this woman Trisha and theirs had as a therapist. And so she and I became intimate friends through that. And around the same time that I moved, I was really hard to leave her because I know as you know, and anybody listening, there are certain, I think certain clients that really cross over and see what the base of intimate friendship, or like a loving space, because you really kind of get so intimately connected with one another energetically and emotionally.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
So when we came through this, that when I, when I, sorry, I got remarried to Scott, who's my forever husband, wonderful man. And I moved to chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I live now, Trisha and I maintained our friendship. And so I had a dear girlfriend who died by suicide. Gosh, I guess it was like 2014, 2015 now. And that was unbelievably painful. And I recognized one of the places that she had really gotten lost was where all of these things she had expected in her life were unmet. And she was about to be 50. She was never married, no children. And those things were incredibly painful for her. And I felt a really strong calling to speak to people, but in many ways, women who are losing hope and really where they had hung onto these expectations and where I'm going to be in my life at 40, 30, at 50, you know, when I'm married, when I have kids, what kind of mother I'm going to be, all the things.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
And so I reached out to Trish and said, I just feel this really strong calling to encapsulate what you taught me, I'm into these very specific directives. And so she and I sat down together and wrote this curriculum, what I called the practice of hope and Trish, Ashley PA actually passed away this past generation. And it was really a painful passing for me, but just an, the gifts that she left me were so extraordinary to really carry on this work to honor her. And so I'll kind of close the gap here. My, you know, as God always has it, there's like you get through this big challenge and then the next one comes and I had found motherhood to be really challenging. I have a child with his got some different wiring and that kind of stumped me up.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
So my, again, expectations of what motherhood would be really threw me off track. And so I had gotten stuck in the therapeutic process. I went back, I found a great therapist here in chapel Hill and it was like, we just kept going through my stuff. I'm like, I know my stuff, I know my stuff. And so I came to the conclusion that therapy, as we know it, it's so wonderful at remembering you or reconciling you your past self to your present spouse and what I needed, someone who was going to pull me to the future person that I so desired to be and bring her to my presence. And so one of the things I, if I kind of began searching through this, I recognized that coaching like coaching is okay, come to me, come to me. And so I joined this coaching program that is led by a woman who the former social worker, and she has this large group of women and really coaches us through entrepreneurship, parenting wellness, really about putting, you know, women I think are bad about putting ourselves at the bottom of the totem pole, putting us at the top.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
And in this program, I'm also having the great delight of being able to take my work, my curriculum, the practice of hope and apply that or, or to work with some of the women in my program now to have that an add on because I'm finding that that really grieving unmet expectations and their lives is something that they are really stuck in. That's a lot.
Gordon Brewer:
Well, that's a, that's good. Yeah. And I think that's just I think your story Elizabeth will ring true with so many people. And you know, I think for those of us that are therapists, we can kind of neglect our own self care. And even though we might go, we might go through you know, we go through hardships you know, you and I can can talk a lot about family hardships and stuff that we go through in terms of being being stuck in caregiver roles or being, you know, just dealing with all the stuff that life throws us. And so I think being able to, I love the, I love the way that you've kind of reframe that about really understanding and understanding who we are. You know, one of the questions I ask clients at therapy is, is why do you think you are like you are, and you've done a lot of work around that. And that, I think you're correct. That is the therapeutic process. And so being able to, and I love the way that you kind of reframe that to really understanding your past self, I bringing it to the future, but also thinking about are your hopes and your dreams and bringing those to the present and then being, have, having a way to, to follow through on that and to feel, because I think if we know, if we know the, the map to where we want to go, that's what brings us.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
Yup, yup. Right. It gives us something to visualize and it gives us something to, you know, say, yeah, my beloved grandmother, mama, who, who is Gordon's aunt Jackie passed away. So she can roll over in her grave. Gordon has kind of always been my Jesus because I watched that with mama every day when I was a little girl, you know, she talks about laws of attraction and alignment. And I think that that really is about laying out on paper, you know, who is it that I have this strong desire to be? What are the desires of my heart, because God or creation of the universe or source or whatever your word is, does not place that on your heart. I don't think without the intention of delivering it to you, but it's relational, right? Like you have to be in relationship with that, pass off your inner child, work, all those things we call it, but you also have to be in relationship or in alignment with what you hope to be. And I think there's a big difference between hope and expectation. So when we hang our hat on it, we're putting ourselves in major, major trouble, right? Like what trust you Trishy? So I say to me, you know, you know, disappointment for just unmet expectations. And so I think that there's a big difference between who I'm hoping to be and who I'm expecting to be. And I think hope is the sweet spot. That's where you're kind of bringing it. That's more attainable than I think, Oh, I'm fully expecting this to happen.
Gordon Brewer:
Right. Well, yeah. And I think one thing that occurs to me as you say that is to me, as you, as I think about expectation expectation is almost kind of like an other focus, psych something outside yourself,
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
So external.
Gordon Brewer:
And so, you know, one of the things, again, that I've, I've done, I talk with clients about a good bed, is talking about our locus of control, locus, just simply meaning location and people that are happiest in life have an internal locus of control that they know they know themselves. Well, they know you know, they know how to handle their own emotions while they know how to handle what other, the emotions that other people hand to them and all of that sort of thing. And so they feel more in control and happy versus somebody with an external locus of control where they're constantly responding to what they think everybody else wants or
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
Reactive, reactive.
Gordon Brewer:
Right. And so, yeah, I don't, I don't know if that fits completely, but that's what came to mind for me. Yeah. As you were talking about it,
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
I think that fits perfectly because really it's the end of the day, like it's for me, so this is my language, right? Like that's the great I am, you know, like that is the great internal, internal wisdom that we all have the ability to tap into in store and you're right. Expectations are totally external and anytime we are so outwardly focused that we're going to get tripped up on that.
Gordon Brewer:
Yeah. Yeah. So, so one of the, one of the things I know that you've developed with your curriculum is just some as you call it I forget what you call them now, the different time, the practices, that's it. I want you to say, I started to say the bullet points, but the practices, I like better
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
Change same, same difference.
Gordon Brewer:
So you want to talk some about that and just kind of have maybe a little bit of the backstory of how you kind of came up with us.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
Sure. I'd love to do that. So I call them practices because you know, whatever, one of the places that I stumbled when I started having all these children that are finished being had, but there are a lot of them is that I had really put down my practice. You know, it's like, you have to be totally focused on this, you know, your personal therapeutic practice and you can't put it down. I read a quote recently that Emmet Fox, who is like a metaphysical thinker that I love his work. And it's like the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. And so for me, I need kind of a mantra or bullet for whatever, you know, some real directive there, like step one, step two, step three to focus in on. And so when I did was I sat down and I really thought, okay, what was the process that Trish took me through through the recovery of my divorce, because that's going to have to be interchangeable in any moment or time or chapter of challenge in my life.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
So I really sat down and meditated on, on that. And she had she laughed. She was like, well, I never thought of it this way, but if this is what, if this is how you felt the, what my work looked like, take it and run with it. And so on, I call this the practice of hope. So number one, step one, surrender. We have to go, you know, we're always like I'm holding on to this dark on marriage, as hard as I can. It's falling apart in my hands, crumbling, like, you know, a piece of wet Wonderbread and by volume, I'm not letting go that same thing, excuse my language, when we can release and let it go and let go of that expectation of where I thought I would be, what I thought this would look like. That's your first step.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
We have to release it. Let it go. When that happens, there is this moment that we usually as humans wanting to get by because we want to get moving. Like what's that we have to sit, sit in the stillness of that. We have to just sit with it. This is gone. This job has gone. This marriage has gone. You know, I've been trying to have a baby for two years. It's not happening. I have to let this go. And I'm gonna sit with the box neck, what immediately enters the room. And I think this is where we can really get some resistance is the grief. And what I have learned that what is key to moving through to a place of joy and hope we have to process that grief. It is absolutely vital to go through the grading process. Now we can't get stuck there.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
It's not a, it's not a bench we need to submit on because as you and I know there are a lot of people that can get stuck in that place. My spouse died, my child died, went in and I cannot imagine what life is going to be like. Otherwise life doesn't exist otherwise. And if we can move through that grief process and allow that to pour out of it, we're able to then sit down and get some clarity. Okay. So my step four is honesty. So really sitting down and getting honest with yourself, how did I get here? What was my contribution? What were my expectations get really, really honest about your part in this and not called honesty slash accountability. You know, we all run from accountability in a lot of ways. Step five, curiosity. What informed that? Why was this so important to me?
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
What in my past, or my childhood, or what was modeled to me that really shaped the way that I pushed to this. And that's kind of that enlightenment piece of that's when all those light bulb go off. And I think that's important because all the puzzle pieces are starting to really kind of come together. So through that curiosity process, I realized you're really putting the pieces together and then you have to go, Oh my here's my accountability. So step six for me is forgiveness. And I think that there's a lot of, a lot of value and I forgive this person for hurting me. If you're going through a divorce, let's say you're going through, or you're going through a trauma related to a relationship. Yes, it's important to seek forgiveness to, I'm sorry to forgive the other. But I found the biggest, biggest piece for me with forgiving myself for what I had put myself through.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
And even if you're grieving the loss of a child or spouse, or heck I've been in a coaching group, there were two people that were grieving the passing of their dog, which my gosh, I've been through that process. It's horrible. But to really go, I need to forgive myself for allowing myself to stay in this place of grief. You know? So so that forgiveness piece for me was huge. And I think that when we all, again, that's another piece of accountability. And I think that's a place where you really can find some freedom because you can let it go. The shame is gone. That weight on around your neck is gone. So that is that number six is forgiveness. So number seven here comes your freedom. Peace when you can really step into the practice of resilience. So I called number seven, the practice of resilience back where you kind of pull those bootstraps up since when you stand up and move forward, walk forward into, you know, fresh new air.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
And then that leads you straight into this. What I call the ultimate practice of hope is joy and where you can step into a space of just complete release freedom, enjoy, which is an incredibly loving place to be. So that is the curriculum that I learned from Trish. And she gifted back to me and said, she's like, never was any of that crossing my mind, but is that what you received from me? Take it at church. And so I have this curriculum with some specific exercises that help people move through the space. And it's something when I am challenged, I kind of go, okay, I'm really stuck here. I've got a one practice surrender. Number two, guys, the practice is still not somebody to sit here, sit with this. I'm going to sit in stillness, you know, and I move through it. It really, really is helpful to have these kinds of like cues of, or gotta get honest with myself here needs some accountability. And so anyway, that's, that has been Trisha's gift to me. And this is how I honor her and carry on her great work that she's done here, here in this plane. And it's, it's, it's special for me to be able to honor someone who, who really gave me life back through a really traumatic and challenge.
Gordon Brewer:
Right. Right. Well, I love that. I love that framework. And I like you know, I think it is, I think when, when people are hurting, we need something that's gonna give us some structure to some degree. And I think that's one of the things that I like about this is just being able to say, okay, here are the steps, you know, when, when we're in crisis, I think one of the things that we, that is really essential is just to slow down enough to kind of get the landscape. And, you know, I love the framework in that. It's it gives people stepping stones, okay, this is where you go next. This is what you do next, that sort of thing. And, and I'm sure for, you know, but like, you know, and I love the emphasis on grief as well. I mean, because grief to me is at the heart of everything we struggle with as human beings and emotionally, I mean, it all comes down to grief and loss and, and being able to you know, work through that. So yeah, love that. Love that. So yeah. So Elizabeth, I want to be respectful of your time and I know we'll be having lots more conversations and I'm sure you will be back here on the podcast at some point. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah. So tell, tell folks again, how they can get in touch with you and where the website is and that sort of thing.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
So the website is that we need a w dot. This is living hope.com and you can email me@elizabethatthisislivinghope.com and we're on Instagram. Our handle is at this is living hope and you know, I'll be fully transparent. It's a space that I have really been doing more just like one-on-one. And we have when I had my second and third child, I was not able to be as present with the social media and the website that that's something I'm picking back up. Now that life is getting a little less intense. But that's where you can find me. And I do want to say just what you do through this podcast is remarkable. And just knowing who your audience is, you know, this is such a calling to be able to meet people at their, their lowest and their darkest, and to throw out a robe and say, I've got you, and we're going to get you through this. I think that anyone who is willing to sit with the grief and loss of other people and to do the incredible work that therapists do, it is such an incredible calling and ministry. And so I just want to thank all the ears that are here on this podcast for what you do for all of the clients that you meet with each day. It's, you're giving life back to people and it's enormous. So thank you for what you do and your colleagues. And thanks for, thanks for giving me a little bit of experience.
Gordon Brewer:
Yes. And we'll have all those links in the show notes and the show summary for easy access for folks. So I'm sure I will see you in the coming weeks, Elizabeth. So we'll be able to be back together. And I know, I know a lot for some of us, we get to the Lake called Thanksgiving. So
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
I know that that's our plan to play with. If we can all, all do that. We were there last weekend and the leaves not quite changing.
Gordon Brewer:
Well, they will be, it's starting to change. So, all right. Well take care of my dear cousin and we'll talk again.
Elizabeth Broyhill Morris:
All right. Thanks Gordon.