Caring for Communities After Traumatic Events Featuring Erin Raftery Ryan and Dr. Shauna "Doc" Springer

Following their previous conversation in episode 63, NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison, Jr. is joined again by NAMI West Los Angeles CEO Erin Raftery Ryan and Stella Mental Health Chief Psychologist Shauna “Doc” Springer. This episode asks us to consider how we continue to support communities after traumatic events occur and after the news is no longer “breaking.” How can local community members support each other? How can caring folks who are far away contribute to efforts to heal? Find out the answers to these questions and more in this continued conversation.  

Mentioned in this conversation, two additional resources:

• LA Connect
• LA Jewish Federation

You can find additional episodes of this NAMI podcast and others at nami.org/podcast.

"Hope Starts With Us" is a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It is hosted by NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison, Jr.

Episode production is provided by NAMI staff, including Traci Coulter and Connor Larsen.

Transcript

0:00

I think it starts with acknowledging how people feel. We don't heal unless we acknowledge, address it, call it out, name it. And then we begin to move to a place of hope. When we connect, we survive. Welcome to Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI. My name is Dan Gillison, the CEO of NAMI and I'm your host. And NAMI started this podcast because we believe that hope starts with us, all of us. Let me give you a little bit of a background on that. Hope starts with us talking about mental health. Hope starts with us making information accessible. Hope starts with us providing resources and practical advice. Hope starts with us sharing our stories, and hope starts with us breaking the stigma. If you or a loved one is struggling with a mental health condition and have been looking for hope, we made this podcast for you. Hope starts with all of us. Hope is a collective. We hope that each episode with each conversation brings you into that collective so you know you are not alone. So let me give you a little bit of a background, because you're going to hear from our guest in just a moment. But I want to give you a little bit of the backdrop as to why and what we're talking about here today. You know, supporting a community and neighbors after traumatic event and after the cameras have gone home is so critically important. You know, we live in a society where it's more of that microwave kind of immediate versus that crockpot that we need in terms of helping others. So what we're talking about is that we did an episode earlier with our guests who are here with us today on the immediate support, for neighbors and communities right after a disaster. And we're going to build on that to talk about what does it look like after a disaster or, another traumatic event within a community? So in this episode, we are continuing the conversation about what happens when the news stops breaking and communities start the hard work of healing. This was major news. So the genesis for the first episode was the trio of LA

fires: 2:17

Palisades, Eaton, Hughes, and more. Clusters of wildfires led to evacuations across the city, loss of homes, both valuable and sentimental personal items that simply can't be replaced. In the aftermath of the fires, NAMI and other local affiliates are asking, how can we be of service? What's the most useful help to give these communities? And if tragedy like this strikes our communities outside of Los Angeles, how can the lessons we learned here help us support our neighbors? In other words, that after action report that's talked about, well, how do you put that to work? How do you learn from this so you can help other communities and neighbors in other environments that may experience this? So our guests here today will discuss these questions and more and give us a little bit of insight into how people are doing and what they've seen from the onset to now, the building and as the cameras have gone away. Erin Raftery Ryan is the CEO of NAMI West Side Los Angeles. She's passionate about the power of storytelling to create social impact, leading with intentionality and a growth mindset. A trained teacher in mindfulness based cognitive therapy from the Brown School of Public Health, a master gardener from the United States Department of Agriculture, University of California, and currently studying at the Harvard Business School, pursuing her EMBA. Welcome, Erin. Welcome. And Doctor Shauna "Doc" Springer, chief psychologist at Stellar Mental Health, one of the world's leading experts on psychological trauma, military transition, suicide prevention, and close relationships. Three time bestselling author, frequently requested keynote speaker, and award winning podcast host from California. These wildfires impacted her hometown as well as Erin's. So, Erin, start this off for us. As living in these impacted communities, can you share how your family is doing in terms of as they are navigating this now, and how have the past two months been for you? Dan, thank you first and foremost for having this conversation. And doing this follow up because it's so important. So I really appreciate that. Well, the past few months have been very challenging in some ways. My family and I are safe, and I'm very grateful for that. We weren't-- our home wasn't directly impacted. So, like, this morning, I had some coffee and eggs and bacon, and I was just thinking about, oh, my gosh, it's so comforting to have those comforts of home. That I can do those. The smell of coffee from my coffee pot, those simple things. And it made me think of a lot of the friends and, and neighbors that couldn't wake up in their own home and be able to do those simple things, those tasks that you do every day and the comforts of home. So the weight of the devastation and the trauma we feel every day, but we also still feel that resilience, a bit of exhaustion, and the hope of working together with our community to rebuild. Yeah. Thank you, Erin. And, I really appreciate you sharing. And you're so right. It's so simple things, you know, just starting your morning off with the fragrance of the coffee, and then knowing that you can have that breakfast and just the feeling that you have in terms of consistency and continuity that so many others have lost. So thank you for sharing that. Doc, the same question. How are you doing? What have the last few months been like for you personally? And then, if you don't mind, can you toggle into professionally as you help others? Thank you, Dan. And hi Erin, good to see you both again. Glad to be on. So my family has moved into an apartment as of two weeks ago. So it took a while to find an apartment. But they now have stability and they're in a safe place. And they were staying with a friend before, but now they've, you know, rented an apartment and intend to rebuild. So everybody's okay in my family. Professionally, I have found a lot of meaning in hosting a wildfire survivors group and developing some material on, you know, steps to take and ways to calm your nervous system and even a Spotify playlist and some things like that, to be able to do something because I was not directly impacted. I'm up in the Bay area. And the journeys, the healing journeys of people going through this are so different and so interesting and related to what you just talked about. The smell of the coffee, these like little things. We have a concept in psychology of decision making fatigue that if you have to make, you know, x number of decisions, by the end of the day, it gets really hard. And there's a level of fatigue, which is why a lot of times our habits break down at the end of the day. There's a variant of that when everything is different and new. The coffee maker. How it works. The coffee you're drinking, the clothes you put on your body, like all of those little friction areas can really be exhausting. And they can add up in a way that people don't really notice. And they're just feeling so exhausted that a lot of my group members have said, you know, I've had to get way out of the situation into a totally different city or a different country even. In the case of one who went home to Canada for a while, before my nervous system could really relax and I slept for days. And so I'm just seeing so many different journeys and grateful to have this follow up conversation. Because so much of healing isn't just right away, but sort of over the marathon of the process. Yeah. And, Doc, we're going to come back to you in a minute because what I want to go to is how someone might respond to a traumatic event. I didn't live the event and I know how I was responding, watching the news. And as I watched the news, I kept saying, I want to turn it on and it'd be a different story. That this is not real, that this is not happening, and that this is just someone that is made up a story and the person living it, that seeing their house no longer there, it has to be different for them. But I want to toggle over to Erin for a second and ask, what have been some of the activities, Erin, in the community. And that you and others have taken on and what's the mood like? Thank you. Dan. And, my thoughts go out to you and your family, Doc. I'm glad to hear that they're transitioning and things are moving forward. And just sending so much love to you and to them during this time. The mood, it varies from day to day, you know, and in some of the things that are going on, there's like micro things that are happening and macro things that are happening. A micro story is, this is going back a little bit, but, we were talking to the chief of the Santa Monica Fire Department, and he was out there with, you know, this was still kind of towards the end of when a lot of the firefighters were still here and kind of doing a lot of, still putting out a lot of the fires. And, it was a micro act of kindness, but it had a macro impact, and he was kind of on the front lines. And there's like, you know, 400 or, you know, 40 firefighters in the background. And, you know, this woman comes up and she's in her car, and she was an older lady. And he said, she came up to me and she said, I want to do something to help. And he said, okay, and what can I do for you? And she said, well, I have this cake. And she had a little bundt cake. And he's got like, you know, so many men behind him, you know, all these firefighters and this plum cake is going to last about, you know, maybe a millisecond. But he said, oh, thank you so much. That's so lovely. I will take it in. You'll be so appreciative. And, you know, he said, the look on her face just changed my whole day. The fact that she felt that she contributed in some small way to relieve some pain, to give some joy, was a micro act that had a macro impact. And so, I think that those are happening on a day to day basis. That's just one, you know, small story that was shared from the chief of the Santa Monica Fire Department. And then on a macro level, you know, I'm on several different kind of coalition groups, one in particular called LA Connect with UCLA health. And it is a combination of many different organizations, leaders in different spaces that are trying to really create a website, try to create a home base so people can kind of find resources from how do you deal with rebuilding? How do you deal with insurance? How do you deal with your mental health? How do you deal with, you know, hotel, anything across the gamut, really kind of seeing the whole trajectory of the possibilities of situations that people are going through and getting leaders from each space to kind of really, talk about and make some game plans and have things and resources accessible for people that are going through this journey and providing space for them to have other people support them. So that's maybe more of a macro collective that is having maybe more micro impact on personal level. So the overall feeling, I think is a combination of resilience and exhaustion. Like Doc was saying, you know, you don't really realize the impact it has on you until you kind of sit back and say, oh, why am I so tired? Oh, because we've been doing all these things. Yeah. Thank you, Erin, and thank you for sharing the story about the bundt cake and, all that you're doing with LA Connect and looking to actually, you know, construct that tapestry of different organizations making such a difference. And, I really appreciate it. And, Doc, congratulations to your family. That's now in an apartment, and they've only been in apartment two weeks. When you think about that, their resilience leading up to being in an apartment is just incredible, because it's that uncertainty, and it's dotting all those I's, crossing all those T's and looking for a place, and so much more in terms of insurance and will you rebuild and what does that mean? And going back to work. So there's so much there. And so, the last time we spoke, Doc, we talked about how there are many ways someone might react to traumatic events. In a similar vein, could you respond to some of these experiences that Erin has shared and what you know of, if you would please? Sure. So what I've learned through my, fire survivors group is that the healing journey is different for everybody. There's no sort of one path to heal, just like there's no one path around grieving or one right way to grieve. This is similarly true. And some of the things that have come up is, you know, some people have a lot less choice than others, like, if you, for example, were in a home that's on land you didn't own, you can't even get started in the process of deciding whether you're going to rebuild or not, because a lot of that decision is out of your hands. For others, you know, it was how fast they could get stabilized in an apartment with a printer so that they could start working on the insurance claims while other people, their whole healing process got delayed because they didn't have the tangible, physical things they needed to really start to stabilize and start to rebuild some of that constancy. I think there's something that can happen as well with relationships as people go through trauma and change like this. One of the impacts is on the need to have safe relationships. And, you know, Dan, you brought up this really important piece I don't want to miss about when the cameras stop recording or however you said it, like when everybody goes off camera, the trauma is still there and it's going to be very long lasting. And it's been said about the grieving process that people's address book often changes. I think the same thing is true here, that there have been on the hope side of things. Some really wonderful communities where a lot of displaced people from Palisades or Eating Fire have landed in the same apartment complex and been this amazing healing community for each other, where they will gather for meals and workouts and yoga sessions and take walks together and build out like this whole new tribe of friends and family. So that's where the hopeful side of it looks like. And on the other side of supported people that have bonded with people in a moment of need and vulnerability that ended up not being healthy at all. And then they've had further trauma from relationships they might have been more discerning about. If they didn't have so much need to be related in this moment of vulnerability. So it's all over the map. You know, there's no real way for me to say this is the journey, other than to say that everybody kind of has a similar impact at first. This kind of nightmare. Is this real? Depersonalization. I can't believe this. I'm living in a nightmare. Kind of. Everybody goes through that. And then there's this endless bifurcation of people's healing journeys based on all of these complicated factors. As things kind of progressed from there. Well, it, you know, as we talk about relationships and you mentioned a couple of little things that everyone's path is different. And you gave some examples of think about an apartment that doesn't have a printer. Printer is essential because of what you're navigating and what you have to do. And then also, if you want to rebuild, but the property that you had was on land that you didn't own. There's so many dynamics here. You know, we say a couple of things at NAMI that are critically important. We say "you are not alone" and "nothing about us without us." And then we really focus on support groups. So, as you talked about a lot of the displaced families are in the same apartment complex. That's a support group that's been created around them. So that's really very tangible. And I understand it greatly.

So let me ask this question: 17:11

now Los Angeles is a big city covering 468mi² of land, and the fires burned across 89mi² of the city. That's almost 20%, of the city's landscape affected. How can the city heal together as homes are rebuilt and recovery programs continue? You've got our first responder community, which many of them were impacted as well. You've got the faith community. You've got the nonprofit sector. You've got the academic sector. You've got, all of these different sectors, the business sector that, you know, need to come together. I think it goes back to what Erin was saying earlier about LA Connect. So I was interested in getting both of your perspectives on how can, how is. Because the cameras are not there. And these are some of those lessons learned and after action that we need to be looking at for the future and for the good of the people that are navigating it right now. Stay the course. I mentioned in the first episode when we first, got together and started this conversation about how you can feel LA Strong, how it's palpable, how everyone is recognizing, the collective trauma that our city has experienced. And like you said, you know, 89mi², burnt over 16,000 structures, gone, 29 lives lost. So we have been traumatized as a collective community. And so I think leaders from every space are rising to the occasion to support our community as a whole. And these coalition groups are a space where those leaders can come together and really report back on the services and the programs that we can provide. For example, when I'm in these conversations, a lot of my focus is on the children about how our young ones are impacted by, this traumatic event. We had spoken, Doc, last time about, ACES, right, that a natural disaster is considered an adverse childhood experience. And so all of our kids, and even across the country, quite frankly, because, Dan, you mentioned earlier putting on the news. When you see the news and it's just devastation, I mean, apocalyptic almost. And you don't really-- it doesn't seem like it's real. And it's happening more and more across the country. Right? Not just here in Los Angeles, but natural disasters are becoming more frequent. And I think it's something, you know, with our NAMI programming, we're so blessed to have, trauma insight. You know, to take those, for school educators, it's a simple online program where you can really get trained to see those warning signs for trauma and to maybe get ahead of the possibility of PTSD, anxiety, depression, address that early on. So when I'm in conversations with other leaders across, the county, whether it be in business, academics, health care, you know, representing the voice of NAMI, I always want to share our programs and how we can come to the table and really uplift our community and support them in a meaningful way. Thank you. Erin. Thank you very much. Doc? I do think it is, you know, a coalition effort. It has to be multifaceted and nuanced and responsive more than anything. The healing journeys are so different that there needs to be a wide array of different services for people that are in a different place and need different things. And so the way that we, you know, build trust in human relationships is through safe, responsive attachments. And in kind of a macro level, I think that responsive, provision of what we need to heal and repair and get back our lives and, and rebuild is equally important. And so that's why you really do need to have a shared and collective effort around this kind of rebuilding. I think I would also call out, that it's really important to look out for those that were who are otherwise isolated. You know, when the cameras go in a different direction and nobody's paying attention, you know, who are the people that get left behind? And one of those is sometimes the first responders. So I have a unique experience of working in the last few months, not just with the civilians who have lost their homes, but with many of the firefighters who were responders to this. And they don't really get time off. Usually, they just kind of keep on trucking and they're doing what they're doing, and a lot of them are struggling with feelings of profound helplessness around the particular fires that that they responded to and the amount of devastation. With these kind of winds, there's really nothing they could have done. And they did an amazing job. I mean, the fact that, you know, there were fewer than 30 deaths in a fire of this size and that so many structures were saved is amazing. Amazing. And one of the worst feelings for protectors and defenders is helplessness. And so there's this ripple effect on firefighters of, you know, sort of responding and doing, you know, their human best and also feeling very helpless about the ongoing devastation and the reminders and sort of visual triggers of that. Doc, thank you very much. And, as you mentioned, our protectors and our defenders, as you become a firefighter or you go into some other, profession where it's all about protecting others, you can have that situation where I didn't stop the fire. I didn't, I didn't do this, I didn't-- So you start doing that personal reflection that doesn't talk about what you did do. That you worked for four days with no sleep. That you did this. You did that. You don't focus on that. That human kind of mental piece is what you didn't do. So as you think about that hopelessness, how are you working to have them feel hopeful? Like our podcast Hope Starts With Us. How were you working to have them as you interact with them, feel hopeful and that they were not helpless and focus on what they did versus what they feel they didn't do? Yeah. That's great. Thanks for that really elegant nudge there. Because that's not the end of the story, right? They feel helpless. I think it starts with acknowledging how people feel. We don't heal unless we acknowledge, address it, call it out, name it. And then we begin to move to a place of hope. And it's been as micro as me having sessions as a Palisades resident and being able to thank some of them directly for what they did in response. And knowing how hard that is to be the only person taking the calls or to be on for days and days and exhausted and trying to do your human best and all the things that you did accomplish. So I've been able to thank them personally and also in a professional way, to move them through to a place of everything that could have happened if they hadn't done what they did, you know, and the how they did show up. And the people that are here because of them. These moments like the bundt cake are important. These moments of interaction between the protectors and defenders and those protected, they are symbolic. And so they carry the seeds of attachment and healing in a symbolic form. So it doesn't have to be, you know, the loaves and fishes that feed the thousands. It's just the idea of somebody sees you, they show up and they say, thank you. I did this thing because I so appreciate you. That's really healing for them. When people acknowledge, what they did do. And so I think hope can you start from these little moments of intersection between the protected and the protectors, and then also looking around at their fellow protectors and knowing that you all came together and really prevented a lot of devastation that would have otherwise been even worse than what was experienced. I'm nodding so much because so much of what you're saying is resonating with me on so many different levels. We talked about, at the our last conversation, just my husband being in the military. And I think that feeling of helplessness made him say, who can I help? And went next door and grabbed our neighbor. And those feelings are so real. And talking with our first responders, we're actually having an event for Mental Health Awareness Month. We're having a large gathering, and we're inviting a lot of our first responders to have an evening to really acknowledge them and validate all that they did do. And, I'm so grateful that we have the opportunity to do that because oftentimes, like you said, it's just head down muscle through, next one. And, you know, they don't have an opportunity to really unpack and process all that they are doing. And so, I'm just so grateful for the work that you're doing every day, Doc, to support them and, and their journey on this and sharing all this information because what we're feeling is, I think a times ten with how they're feeling. Yeah, thank you Erin. Thank you, Doc, I want to go back to something that you said earlier, Doc, and ask Erin about this. You mentioned safe, responsive attachments. I want to ask about pets and young people and was there any observation on how pets helped young people and are hopefully still helping young people with some continuity? And what was the experience during and what's the experience now? And, I think I wrote it down correctly, safe, responsive attachments. And I'm thinking about pets and safe, responsive attachments. I know, Doc, you may not have been thinking about that, but I'm thinking about that with young people. Erin, was there anything you can, or is there anything you can share about pets and navigating this and anything that NAMI is aware of? Well, just our personal experience when we evacuated, you know, we grabbed the dogs and, you know, they're in the back seat. And I think I touched on this and the last conversation when we, helped our neighbor. She lives with dementia. And so she was very confused about what was happening. And at first she was very startled. She felt, you know, like we were kidnaping her. And there were moments of, like, wait a minute, now I know who you are, now I don't know who you are. Were in the vehicle were, you know, leaving. There's just traffic behind because everyone is evacuating and, you know, there's a lot of chaos going on around. So she was very confused. My youngest daughter said, why don't we let, Miss have our dog? And so one of the dogs, the smaller one, not the golden retriever, I don't think that she would have enjoyed her having her on her lap. But the small beagle went and sat on her lap, Miss Elaine's lap. And that gave her comfort. Here's this woman feeling very displaced, feeling traumatized and very uncertain, not knowing what's happening and having the comfort of an animal that she could pet and gave her just some warmth, some comfort and grounded her, grounded her in all the chaos that was happening. So that was just our personal experience. And we have other, things that are happening in our community. We have a ranch, too, that we, are very active with that have rescue animals and that we had to help evacuate. And some of those animals, you know, really provided, grounding for other people in the community. So I would say, pets are such an important part of who we are. Absolutely. They ground you and especially in crisis. Thank you so much. That's an incredible story. And in terms of your neighbor in that continuity and just, helping her feel something, that that was uplifting, if you will. Having had a golden retriever that was about 76 pounds, that would not have worked. So I got it, got it. And, Doc, let me come back to you. Safe, responsive attachments. Could you elaborate on safe, responsive attachments? Because the first visual I got was young people and pets, because I felt like that's where that continuity comes in there. And there's a calming effect. Let's go with that. So one of Stella Mental Health's partners is Operation Freedom Paws. They're up here in Northern California. And the founder, Mary Cortani, was a CNN hero for some of the work she's done. She was an Army canine handler before this organization started. Here's something interesting. So at Stella, we do a procedure called stellate ganglion block that restores calm to the nervous system. And she was compelled because she brought one of the dogs in with the handler, and the dog was jumping in what they call alerting, because the person was really worked up and stressed out and anxious before getting this treatment done. And after the treatment was done and the nervous system was calmed, the dog just came over, sat down at this person's feet and just went to sleep. And so dogs see stuff in us that we don't see in each other. And what Mary's doing now, we're doing actually some work together. She's been training, emotional support dogs for entire first responder departments. And so, for example, there could be a fire department or a police department that has not a canine, like a drug sniffing dog, but totally different training and function to be kind of an emotional support animal for everybody in the department. And they're used in precisely the way you just said. So if there's a crisis or a trauma, they'll bring in the dog to interact with the kid, and the dog will come up and put their nose out and the kid will start petting them and kind of like, it just calms them down and helps them to be able to talk about traumas with a kind of calming and soothing companion. And those dogs are being used for the first responders after the traumas to actually take care of and notice who's struggling and suffering within the first responder teams. So I think absolutely, you know, safe and responsive attachment. Dogs can smell our anxiety or stress or trauma and they can move in. But, you know, as my friend Mary says, it's also not just the dog, it's the human at the end of the leash. So the human at the end of the leash needs to also be the kind of person or needs to work in conjunction with NAMI and its affiliates and the good docs out there to really help people move from a place of trauma into a place of deep healing. Thank you very much. Erin, I want to come back to you from the standpoint of NAMI, when we did our first podcast in terms of this devastation. You mentioned some of the staff that were actually impacted, but they were actually trying to help others. And we don't know whether some of our listeners will go back to the first podcast. So we always say that a lot of the people at NAMI start out as volunteers, and they take their pain and they turn that into their purpose, and that purpose becomes their passion. And I think that that's what you see every day and it's a part of your DNA as well. Would you share a little bit about what you told our listeners in that first podcast about your staff? Absolutely, Dan. You're 100% right. Heal people, healed people, right? And I think that our team, we had one team member in particular who he and his parents lost their home. And that was just devastating. He is a peer support group facilitator and has continued to run our peer support groups. And there's some times that he needs to take a break and he doesn't need the support group. And other times he's, you know, he's there. And I think that, like you said, Doc, everyone's journey is different, and we know it at NAMI, it's not linear. So, you know, some days you win, some days you lose, some days you get rained out. And, he's doing very well again. Just the epitome of resilience and hope. A wonderful, wonderful team member. And, you know, he's taking it one day at a time, but he's always there for our community. Yeah. So, Erin, tell me a little bit about NAMI. You're an incredible leader there and I'm just not saying it. It is absolutely the truth. So as a leader, what resources have you marshaled? And I know you have your ear to the ground and you see where there's needs. Tell us a little bit about what you've done and what you're doing in terms of, aligning the NAMI resources. Well, first of all, thank you, Dan. That's very kind of you. And I take my lead from you, and I think that you are an excellent listener. You listen to us. You listen to everyone that's in your team and to all those that you serve. So you lead by example, and I try to follow. And so taking that into consideration, we reached out to our state office, NAMI California, because they were there as well as a national office. What can we do to help? And, you know, we said, well, are there other NAMI affiliates that perhaps have gone through something like this in the past that could provide some support to us? And so, we were connected to NAMI Hawaii, and because of the devastation that they experienced not too long ago. And so we organized a Zoom call, with the leaders from NAMI Hawaii for some of the leaders here in Los Angeles County to kind of talk about and walk through, you know, their experiences. So I think that, the power of the collective, the power of connection and really listening to others, and also just heeding the support of others. Sometimes it's so difficult to know what you need when you're in the middle of it. And so sometimes just being able to receive is also a gift. I know we talked about being hyper vigilant, and I think that when you're in the midst of crisis, you are just on edge, just trying to survive. And it's hard sometimes to receive the support when you're on high alert and a big shout out to our friends at NAMI Southeast Louisiana. They recognize that. And they organized a wonderful support campaign and had numerous letters of hope, personal handwritten notes from children in their community, from board members, from their team and staff, and it was just so powerful to receive a huge manila envelope in the mail, saying that you're not alone and you have support. And I think sometimes you're a great example of this, as a leader, you just have to listen and be available to receive that information. So I try to do that every day, to listen to the needs of our community and also try to connect and provide that support for those needs, wherever they may be. Erin, I want to say thank you for the compliments. As you know, I don't do well with those. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. And as you talked about NAMI Southeast Louisiana and your peer, Nick Richards and what he did. This is our community helping each other and just being there. And Nick navigated something there in southeast Louisiana with the French Quarter and the situation there as well. So he knows this very well in terms of the traumatic events and as well as Katrina and displaced families with Katrina and adverse childhood experiences that we brought up earlier about ACES. When you have families that have to move from a community that that's all they've known is New Orleans. And they have to relocate to Mississippi, to Texas, to Utah. This this is all real. And it's very much what we're seeing here. So appreciate the collaboration and the sharing in NAMI Hawaii, NAMI Southeast Louisiana and other locations. Doc, Erin, what would you like to make sure that our audience hears from you in terms of the current state, the resilience, the next steps and what they need to really hear? I'd love to make a little comment on what Erin just shared about the power of that kind of communication, direct letters communication. With grief, with trauma, there is often this piece about, you know, when the casseroles stop coming, when the calls stop coming, when the letters stop coming, that I really think things that we aspire to, whether it's hope or love or things that should compel us to act and that there's a way to do this in very practical ways. I don't--I can't remember if we talked about this on the last podcast, but a simple practice. A lot of people ask me, you know, what can I do to help? I'm at a distance. What can I do to help? One of the things that people can do is get out their phone and, you know, put in their phone twice every month, make a call, send a text, send an old school letter. If somebody has a mailing address where they can receive it, right? Which not everybody does. But make a proactive attempt to reach out and put that in your calendar for the next year, because that might be the thing that that person needs to hear from. And they might say, hey, I need a resource. And then you've got all these rich resources at NAMI and this coalition that, Erin, you're working on and, you know, other interventions and treatments and you know still is part of a whole ecosystem of healing efforts for people that are impacted by trauma. And so when people receive those constant, that responsive and constant proactive support, that gives them the openings that they need to perhaps say, hey, I'm not doing well right now or I'm struggling and it just sends that message in such a powerful way. You're not alone and you're not on your own. And there are people with you. You're not walking this really traumatic or grief loaded journey alone. So I think that's the thing I would leave is that that love and hope are practical things. And we can use our iPhones and our Androids to make those things actionable. Thank you, thank you. Well, I wanted to ask, one last thing here. For any listeners local to Los Angeles, could either or both of you share resources you know about for healing after trauma? I think especially if any of these resources focus on this community focused lens, rather than the individual therapy. I think our listeners would love to hear. Absolutely. I would definitely recommend people look up LA Connect in it's in process right now too. So the website is in process, but it is a collection of resources. There are so many out there and there are very different specific areas that people need support. So I think that is a collective and a coalition of tremendous resources. We also work very closely with the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, and they're an amazing organization. That doesn't just foster resilience and hope for people with the Jewish faith, it's for every denomination. And they've been incredibly active. And so the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, their website is quite helpful. The amount of resources that everyone is pulling together, is quite extraordinary. So, it really, I think, depends on what you're specifically looking for. But that's why I think these coalition groups are so important because they're pulling leaders from every different department. And, you know, really looking at, the whole, you know, zooming out and seeing everyone and where those needs are. Doc, I have a quick question, actually. So being on this collective and working with UCLA Health, they've been amazing because they've also been talking about the natural, the environmental rebuild that's going to have to happen. And I heard this term that I had never heard before and I probably will, mispronounce it, but it's called solastalgia. Like nostalgia. But solastalgia. And it's about, like shared spaces. Have you heard this term before? I have not I have not it's interesting. So this came out of the UCLA Health conversations? Yes. There's a fabulous article that I read and I will share it, but it was talking about the nostalgia of shared spaces about these like, you know, just treasured environmental like locations that we have specifically on, you know, the Pacific Palisades and Malibu and the Pacific Coast Highway, all of these unbelievably beautiful spaces that are just not there anymore. They're just gone. It's unbelievable. And, you know, if you go to Will Rogers, if you hike there every Saturday, it looks completely different now. So this routine and this environment, this place, this sense of the fabric of who you are, not just your home, but the actual space and of our community is gone. And I just thought that that was such an interesting concept that I had not thought about. And also too, I mean, you, you know L.A. traffic. So, I mean, it's just compound in completely more because PCH is closed. So, you know, every day when you're driving, you're like, wow, that is no longer an option. Yeah, it's hard to imagine that it could get even more compacted with the traffic. We talk about this, Erin, all the time. I just did a group yesterday for the wildfire survivors, and we were reflecting on that. What is the essence of the Palisades? You know, having grown up there? And we talked about how they had a 4th of July parade that went down this one street. And the night before, everybody would put chairs all up and down that road without a thought that the chairs would be stolen. It just wasn't even a thought. Nobody's going to steal your chairs even now. And then you'd come and there'd be these, like, there were these old guys in the parade that were maybe Shriners, or they had these big puffy boxer shorts with hearts all over them, an oompahpah band. And in those days, I mean, I know that trauma happens all the time. I know what happens behind closed doors in the work I do. But at that time in history, there was something that felt so innocent because nobody said child predators, you know, like it was-- these guys were raising funds for kids in hospitals. And it was this time of innocence to all of us, and nostalgia and memory and place and space and Will Rogers and we talk about this all the time. And it's super interesting because even though I haven't been down there since the fires, I find myself really craving to go to Half Moon Bay, where I have a home in the eucalyptus groves because it smells like home and I want to go down there and I want to smell those smells, and I want to remember those things, because otherwise, it's so painful to think about all the landscape of all those memories just being gone and changed and people will rebuild and hopefully rebuild, restoring some essence of that or bringing in some symbolic markers of what that legacy has been for those communities, because it really felt like a small town within the big gaping, you know, kind of expanse of what Los Angeles is and all of its traffic and busyness. So I'm a fan of actually not giving people too many resources. So I'm not going to add I mean, other than, of course, I believe in the work we do, it's Stella Mental Health. I would direct people to the L.A. Connect and the coalition there, because I think giving too many resources for people in trauma can be confusing. And if you have a group that's really bringing in a number of different mental health and recovery resources and, you know, bringing them under one umbrella, that's generally best. So, NAMI has great resources to on the website. Of course, I would encourage people to check out the NAMI resources and groups that you all have been running for years. You know, for people who are impacted, and family members of those who are struggling with depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions, that's a great resource. But I think I would just say go with the ones that you shared and keep it simple. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I would also offer to you that at the end we'll share our helpline, which is a resource line. So we'll mention that. And it's a great resource. And thank you very much to both of you. LA Connect, the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles and the other resources. Also, I had not heard that word, but I get it because I'm thinking about my bio rhythms of places I've always gone, places I've always been able to access and how I've moved in those spaces, whether it's Will Rogers or the one time I did get to see Malibu, and I've had the ability to go to Half Moon Bay once, Doc and if I went back, I would do the same thing the same way because it instantly became a part of my bio rhythms. And that's another part of what so many of our friends have had to put aside or had lost because it's what they consistently did that now they can't. So this is about resiliency. So, you know, we also look at something where we say we don't judge a person by the cover of the book. We want to get into the past, the table of contents and into the chapters. So NAMI always likes to create judgment-free zones where people can be themselves and with our support groups, and even one of our courses is Family-to-family. What happens is someone that has felt alone all of a sudden goes to this, this support group or this class, and all of a sudden they're sitting across from someone who's navigating a similar experience, and all of a sudden, the light bulb goes off about, I'm not alone. Now we can get into the chapters versus just the cover of the book. So it's really cool. But it is about the collective. It is about collaboration. And we so much appreciate the collaboration right here. So as we wrap up, I have a question for both of you. And it's one that we wrap up each one of our podcasts with, so you know it well. The world can be a difficult place and sometimes it can be hard to hold on to hope. That's why with each episode, we dedicate the last couple of minutes of our podcast on a special segment called Hold on to Hope. Erin and Shauna, can you tell us what helps you hold on to hope? I'll jump in, Doc. I've said this once before, but just conversations like these, spaces like these to know that you're not alone and to be able to share your story and to have a space to be vulnerable and show your strength through vulnerability and to give that opportunity or invitation to someone else to do the same. I think that is the definition of hope. Well said. Well said. Safe, responsive attachment with people who are worthy of our trust, who see us, who listen for longer than feels comfortable, who give us space to feel whatever we feel and express whatever we need to express. And if I had one saying that encapsulates the work and writing I do, whether it's around suicide prevention, healing from trauma, it's when we connect, we survive. Thank you very much. And the transition with the military, that's huge. So that's another part of your portfolio of work. And I want to thank you. Coming from a military family and knowing when my brother was coming out of the military after 22 years, that transition was significant. So, thank you for that body of work. And, Erin, I heard you mention something that you're putting together where you're going to be able to acknowledge a lot of first responders and thank them. So appreciate that. And I didn't know if you wanted to say anything about it, but I think that it's an incredible piece of work that you're doing right now that is very labor intensive. But the end result is going to be cool. Anything you want to say about that? Well, thank you, Dan, that's so kind of you. Yes, we are. We're working on something very exciting. And it's kind of a three tier partnership with a local NAMI affiliate, NAMI West Side Los Angeles, a state, NAMI California organization, and the national organization headquarters, NAMI National. So the three of us are partnering together to really put on an amazing event May 8th at the Beverly Hills Hotel here in California. And it's going to be a mental health gala for Mental Health Awareness Month. And we have the absolute pleasure of honoring co-founders of Happy Coffee, Robert Downey Jr. and Craig Dubitsky. They are really redefining the relationship of entrepreneurship and philanthropy, which is so very exciting, that innovative relationship. So giving them the Heart of Innovation award, which is very exciting. And then we'll also take a moment in the program to really highlight what's been going on here in our county and all of what we've discussed today about the trauma of displacement, the anxiety about rebuilding, and the uncertainty of what happens next, but all of the resilience and hope of our community coming together and collaborating to rebuild. So we're very much looking forward to having an evening of hope. Thank you, Erin, and to all of our listeners, I do have the formal wrap up, but I'm just going to say something as you listen to this podcast. You know, there's this saying people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And you just had the up to listen to two leaders who care so very much and they bring their full selves to this work, and they do it because they care. Care about you, care about the community, and care about all of us and our well-being. So with that said, this has been Hope Starts With us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. If you are looking for mental health resources, you are not alone. To connect with the NAMI helpline and find local resources, visit nami.org/help. Text "helpline" to 62640 or dial 800-950-NAMI (6264). Or if you are experiencing an immediate suicide, substance use, or mental health crisis, please call and text 988 to speak with a trained support specialist or visit 988lifeline.org. I'm Dan Gillison, your host. Thanks for listening. Be well.