The Family Tree Project, LLP

08/29/2025

08/29/2025

11/30/2023

30 days of perspective, day 14. Sorry, I have been a little busy lately., but will try to finish strong. This is the picture of the very last time that I went fishing with my dad at Lake mead. Yesterday, I was in a session and my hippocampus decided to flash at that moment and spark a realization that my dad visited me in a dream the night before. I noticed some emotion building and I had to quickly push it out of mind and refocus on the client in front of me. It wasn't a traumatic memory (a pleasant one actually), but it was at an inconvenient time. We don't get to control when our brain will trigger memories or recall, sometimes its a sound, a smell, a touch, or even a story that will light up your brain and highlight that memory. Most times, it will be things we want to forget that we have buried deep on purpose. The recall of this will fill our emotional barrel with anxiety, depression, anger and even physical pain. Until we fully process this memory, it will show it for us randomly in our dreams, in our thoughts and probably create projections onto others.
My dad's visit in my dream brought on emotion, but it was more of gratitude. In my dream, I knew it was a visit, I knew he was gone and I was grateful that I could hug him in my dream. What is killing me, is that he told something in the dream and I can't recall that part. Hopefully, if and when my hippocampus sparks again, that it is during an appropriate time.

11/09/2023

30 days of perspective, Day 13 (I never said it would be consecutive days). Ganbatte! It's a Japanese word that means to give it your all. Everyone who knows me, would not describe me as fearful as I am a risk-taker. I have always been confident as I tend to focus on the goal and run towards it at full force. This is probably why I tend to get injured often in my soccer games, but I digress.

Today, I found myself fearful after I pitched the Trap Method to a big corporation and got a Yes. I wanted a "yes", but I honestly wasn't expecting one. Then I realized that now I have to perform. Now I have to back up my words. I had a melt down. I reached out to family, friends, and peers for validation, and obviously got it, but it wasn't enough. The anxiety and fear still permeated within me.

I told a kid today that the only validation that should matter is their own and realized that I was talking to myself. I am still overwhelmed, but I don't think I am still fearful.

We are the experts of ourselves and our own locus of control. Believe in ourselves and Ganbatte... and the rest should fall into place.

11/06/2023

30 days of perspective, day 12. Growing up playing soccer, I have always been right foot dominant. My dad used to get so frustrated with me because I never practiced kicking with my left foot. At the time, I never understood why, as I believed I could never be a strong left foot kicker . If we only focus on our strengths and the things we are good at, we limit ourselves to just that. When learning my craft, my strengths were adolescents, this was target population I was comfortable with. I forced myself to work with adults, and now I enjoy that more. I learned to treat s*xual trauma, and now I specialize in it. Being uncomfortable is how we grow and evolve. Learn to kick with your left foot.

11/06/2023

30 days of perspective, Day 11. The Scorecard....How many times have we held our partner or family accountable to things that they did in the past? We take snapshots of things they did and freeze it in time. I recently realized that I was holding my husband accountable for something he did 25 years ago on the day our first child was born. My husband is not that same man that he was 25 years ago, yet I didn't allow the perception of who he is (and how he behaves) to evolve. That incident has been on my scorecard for 25 years, building resentment and holding a space to be reminded of anytime something happens that slightly resembles that behavior. Then I get to use the words "always" or "never", you always do that, or you never do that based on his 25-year-old self. We need to start clearing our scorecards or it will "always" feel like nothing has "never" changed.

11/03/2023

30 Days of perspective, Day 10. Long before I saw the documentary, Black Fish, Sea World was an amazing childhood memory. I remember watching the Orcas jump over the high bar and do all of these tricks. I learned years later that they train these orcas by placing the bar at the bottom of the tank. Every time they swim over the bar, they get a fish. Eventually, they start raising the bar until it 10 feet in the air the Orca is flying over it. Do we learn and adapt? Do we leave our bar at the bottom of the pool and stay in our comfort zone? The view and the environment doesn't change if we don't push ourselves out of our comfort zone. Being uncomfortable means we are growing and experiencing something out of the ordinary. Being uncomfortable means that we are invoking change. Don't be afraid to raise the bar.

11/01/2023

30 days of perspective, Day #9. Did you know that the Rhino is the king of social media? Groups of Rhinos all p**p in the same pile. The rhino investigates the current the p**p in the pile to learn about potential mates or threats. Through the p**p, they can figure out the age, health, s*x, diet, and reproductive status of other rhinos. Putting their p**p in the pile is their way of saying, smell mine, judge mine, pick me. I often share this fun fact with my clients to segway into the idea of sitting in your own s**t. We want what we put out there to be healthy, so we have to work on our own s**t and not focus on others.

11/01/2023

30 days of perspective, Day #8. As you can tell, Malu does not appreciate his costume. I think he feels like it dampers his movements and makes him feel restricted. He gets used to it and will move around eventually, but is not as active. The same things happen to us when we put on our masks. Unlike Malu, his shame is putting on the costume, our masks try to cover our shame.

In our journey with the TRAP method, we have been trying to build empathy skills. One of the exercises is identifying emotions and reactions. Defensiveness is a common reaction that happens when we are caught off guard because someone removed the mask we were wearing to hide the shame of a personal hidden belief system or a contradiction to our own values system. We get "butt-hurt" because we believe the opinion of others is true, even though we don't want it to be. We believe that we are being exposed as weak or vulnerable even though we try so hard to wear the mask and persona of strength. We should all learn from Malu and want to live our lives as our genuine selves without the costumes.

10/31/2023

30 days of perspective, day #7. I was speaking to a 16 year old female today about her issues with 2 other girls. She shared how hard it was to walk away and not engage or become aggressive. I shared with her that I went to Mexico this year and saw a puppet on a stand. Every time you press the button, the puppet will dance. I proceeded to tell her that she reminded me of the puppet. I explained to her reaction or dance gives them the sense of power and she keeps giving it to them. She decided her goal this week was to take out the "button". How often do we make other peoples' projections our own? How often do we allow others to control our emotions and our reactions when our button is pressed?

10/31/2023

30 days of perspective, day #6. Its funny how I get so motivated with these ideas and then when I have to commit to it, I find so many other things to do instead of what I committed to. I find justification behind being busy and having more important things to do, delaying my progress. During the pandemic, I watched a lot of National Geographic and saw a video of a peacock entering the watering hole. It's a defenseless bird with it's only weapon is to make it look bigger and more threatening than it is. It's only weapon is distraction and illusion. How often do we distract ourselves from being our best selves and making progress? Is the drama or issues we focus on an act of a peacock or is it really valid?

10/28/2023

30 days of perspective, day #5. My favorite story of perception is about my dad. Years ago, when I started my trauma treatment journey, I was training to learn EMDR. Like most trainings, you have to practice on yourself, and the trauma that came up for me, was the memory at age 4 of my dad teaching me how to ride a bike. I had no helmet and no baby bike. He threw me on my brother's schwinn, and pushed me down our steep garage driveway. I fell the first time and I cried and he scolded me for crying. He said, "if you don't want to hurt, don't fall". The second time he threw me down the hill, I learned how to ride a bike. After my EMDR training, I went to visit my dad and shared this traumatic memory that he caused me. My dad, just laughed and said "you learned how to ride a bike didn't you? That was one of my proudest moments". Same memory, but totally different perceptions. It's funny how I held onto the fear and resentment of learning and not the greatest of being able to ride the bike. That fear and resentment at age 4, drove my behavior for years and I never taught my kids how to ride a bike, which became my regret.