STP 153 How to Start Something Great When You Don’t Feel Ready Yet
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[00:00:05] Alicia Brown: And I like how pursuing wholeness after trauma and launching that virtually has given me the opportunity to have creative outlets while I'm also moving towards the vision of carving this out as an extension of my private practice. And, so it's. It's serving multiple purposes for me psychologically and from a business standpoint and from a spiritual growth standpoint and impacting women positively standpoint.
[00:00:31] So, Multiple values that I'm able to move towards with launching it, which is really meaningful.
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[00:00:41] Speaker: In today's episode, I'm joined by Alicia Brown, a psychologist in private practice who's taking meaningful steps outside of the therapy room and her own comfort zone. Alicia shares how she began wholeness after trauma. It's a [00:01:00] system and a course designed to help women heal in safe environments, she's building this course and program all while still running her own private practice. Her story's a good reminder that you don't need to feel fully ready before you begin. You just need the courage to take the next step.
[00:01:22] Listeners, I got a resource for you. 'cause I, that's exactly what I want you to do. I want you to take the next step and I'm gonna mention the Unpause Playbook. It's a free resource designed to help you move from stuck to started. So if this episode stirs something in you and you feel like you have a mission that you wanna put in motion, even though you feel hesitant and overwhelmed, you're not really sure where to begin.
[00:01:46] Go. Go to the webpage and get the unpause playbook. This will help you take those first few scary steps and it'll give you some clarity, support, support, and direction. Go to course creation [00:02:00] studio.com/unpause. Now let's go to our interview with Alicia Brown.
[00:02:10] James Marland: Hello and welcome back to the Scaling Therapist Podcast. I'm your host, James Marland. This is the show where I help you take your, turn, your wisdom into income. Today I am here with Alicia Brown and she is the, owner, co-developer of a wholeness after trauma.
[00:02:27] She's a psychologist and practices in Georgia. And I met her at the A CC conference where she was talking about her vision and mission for helping women and churches deal with, trauma and trauma related act events. And I was just fascinated about her story and how she's taking her passion and turning not only, working with people in the therapy space, mental health space, but also taking that mission outside of the therapy [00:03:00] office.
[00:03:00] Alicia thank you for coming on the show. Welcome to Scaling Therapist.
[00:03:03] Alicia Brown: Thank you for having me.
[00:03:06] James Marland: So tell me a little about, a little bit about yourself and your practice and how you got started.
[00:03:12] Alicia Brown: Sure. So I've been in private practice as a psychologist for the last 10 years, specializing in working with adults, many of whom have trauma as part of their story. I've realized over the last several years that it would be meaningful to do group work. A lot of my training was in a VA setting where I did a lot of group work, and that's just been hard to carve out in my private practice.
[00:03:34] And so there's an opportunity that came about with someone who goes to my church here in Atlanta. We have a mutual friend who connected us and she has a heart for women who have been impacted by domestic violence and had been leading support groups and wanted to add more psychology to the curriculum.
[00:03:50] And then I also. So have a heart for people with relational trauma. So we got together and have a curriculum that we now call Wholeness After Trauma. That's a kinda [00:04:00] marriage, so to speak, of psychological tools and interventions and science with biblical truth. And it's a very meaningful curriculum for the women who have gone through it and now we're launching it.
[00:04:10] Virtually, which is exciting and also a learning curve for me, given my history of just doing individual therapy. But what God has called us to were to and walk in obedience. So that's kind where I'm right now.
[00:04:24] James Marland: Awesome. And I love that you are, taking those steps and you're not. A hundred percent sure of every step, you are taking dedicated steps forward. Just talk a second about group work. Why do you like group work? I did, I worked at a day hospital for a little while and we did psychoeducational groups and sometimes the revelations that came out of group as the whole group like experienced something together was a thing of beauty.
[00:04:53] So tell me why you like group work.
[00:04:55] Alicia Brown: Sure. Absolutely. No, I would agree with that. It's so meaningful when [00:05:00] they can hear pe, other people who have been through similar things, share about the things that they've learned, or ways that they've grown, or ways that they've been struggling, and being able to get the focus off of themselves a bit more.
[00:05:12] When you're. Listening to others and want to try to encourage them in a group context. I think that in and of itself can be helpful for people to grow too, to realize, okay I'm not alone. Others are experiencing hard things too. And it helps with just overall perspective which can help people to get unstuck and move forward in different ways. But I think especially with Christian community, when you can come alongside and speak biblical truth into the conversation as somebody sharing or struggling, with some of the spiritual impact of trauma in particular is what we see. A lot of times people are really struggling about God and how could a loving God allow such hard things, that theology of suffering, and it's just been a beautiful thing to see those two. I've worked through that themself or just are so grounded spiritually to be able to [00:06:00] speak to that other person in the group in such a meaning, validating way 'cause they get it. But also that biblical truth that coming from me, the facilitator, it just doesn't land in quite the same way as a peer.
[00:06:12] James Marland: It's gotta be in the right context. I don't know about you, but sometimes, my adult Bible study groups or even the. Groups in the home, they don't hit that deep level. I'm not, you're struggling with things, but when people ask you how you're doing, you're like, oh, I'm fine.
[00:06:27] Everything's fine. But it's not really fine. There, there isn't, it isn't fine. And it, and we don't share. 'cause I know for me it's like image management. If if I tell you what I'm struggling with, what are you gonna think about me? Am I gonna be that leader or that the the husband or the father that you think I am.
[00:06:46] And so then if I'm struggling with something, I'm just like I'm fine. And I often think that the foyer of the church or the front, where everybody's talking and congregating, there's more lies told there than anywhere else in [00:07:00] the week.
[00:07:00] Alicia Brown: Yes, no, absolutely. It's definitely a problem and heart issue and also just cultural, norms and things of that nature that we're up against. And, but yes, we absolutely try to create an environment with the wholeness after trauma course where it's okay to not be okay
[00:07:16] Helping them to see that this is a safe place for you to be vulnerable, and it's only gonna help you in your journey to be vulnerable.
[00:07:24] James Marland: What happens when people don't have that safe place? To talk about their journey.
[00:07:30] Alicia Brown: Sure. So safety is critical, especially from a nervous system standpoint, right? To have a calm nervous system, you need to feel safe, you need to feel in control. So there's. From a clinical lens, there's more nervous system dysregulation that happens where fight, flight,
[00:07:49] And fawn.
[00:07:49] When you think about just those aspects and how that manifests behaviorally, where there's gonna be a lack of closeness and intimacy with others, there might be people pleasing. [00:08:00] There might be, just proneness to irritability by nature of not having that close support and, even being willing to sit with their own emotions.
[00:08:09] So I think it's multifaceted, depending on which avenue we wanna explore there.
[00:08:14] James Marland: Yeah, there, there's just consequences for not dealing with some of those issues or the trauma for them.
[00:08:23] Alicia Brown: Yes, the language that we use that might help to summarize that, we talk about being a good steward of your emotions and of your relationships, and then allowing for the re allowing the Lord to renew your mind and your spirit and how there's, psychological interventions that can dovetail some of that work too. But that's certainly what we point women towards.
[00:08:45] James Marland: So you, you were a, you have your own private practice. You have, you've had it for about 10 years and you started doing something, you said you started doing something at your church three years ago.
[00:08:57] Alicia Brown: Yeah,
[00:08:58] James Marland: how, tell.
[00:08:58] Alicia Brown: little over two years.
[00:08:59] James Marland: [00:09:00] Little over two years. So you're, you have stages of your story where you started local and now you're branching out.
[00:09:05] Can you talk about some of the the decisions to bring it local and then, as you move forward, what made you want to take it further?
[00:09:15] Alicia Brown: Sure. So our mutual friend connected Diana and myself, and I was ready, the God had been putting on my heart to try to find a way to do more ministry work, especially some kind of group work. And it was just a great fit with Diana. So we got to work with developing the curriculum, met with our women's minister at our church, who was very supportive, and there's a need. For this type of group in the church. So she felt like it was an answer to prayer, that we brought it to her attention, what God was calling us to do. And then we were able to have it. It's the in-person models, 14 weeks two hour class for 14 weeks. And so we were offering it once in the fall, once in the spring, doing that for the last two years.
[00:09:57] And then this past December [00:10:00] we, my husband and I send out a Christmas letter every year. And a pastor of a church we are part of in Virginia. Sent me an email after reading our letter. 'cause in the letter I had mentioned that I was doing the wholeness after trauma class at my church. And he said, you know what?
[00:10:13] There's women here who would benefit from this type of resource. I would love to get more information. And at the time, I didn't really have much to offer him, right? Because it was in person. There's no way I could help those women at his church. And so that was the nudge that God used to. I really put the, burden on my heart to find a way to reach more women with the course.
[00:10:33] And since then, there, there have been some delays just personally, some other commitments going on. But this past summer I worked hard to develop the website, hired a website person to be able to do that, and launched at the A CC conference in September and just trying to actively market it and get the word out since then.
[00:10:52] James Marland: Okay, you, this was something that maybe you weren't even thinking about in the beginning, [00:11:00] like launching it virtually? Yeah.
[00:11:02] Alicia Brown: no. Just wanted to help meet some of the needs of our local church. Yep.
[00:11:07] James Marland: And somebody presented the idea, this content would help other people. There's other people out here that would, could benefit from it. And so was that your nudge to move forward?
[00:11:18] Alicia Brown: And Diana has been good too. 'cause she saw the value in it from the get go of, I wonder what God's gonna do with this. Let's keep thinking about what we could do next with it. So that was in the back of my mind too. And then, yeah, my former pastor's email was a official nudge.
[00:11:37] James Marland: Yeah. I think there's something to be said about being open, to try new things. Like a curiosity or maybe a like. Could this work type of thing. Now the, some of the difference between people who get started and people who just think about it and then throw it in a drawer is some action.
[00:11:57] There's gotta be some sort of [00:12:00] action to move forward. Because there's a lot of fear.
[00:12:03] Of fear in oh, this is new. I don't know how to do it. I'm a therapist, not. I don't create videos, I talk to people type of thing. Like how did you get over some of that fear and move into action?
[00:12:16] Alicia Brown: I have a strong background in program development, so that probably helps. Just in the midst of my training I did a lot of. Program group type work in developing the curriculum and that sort of thing. So I think it helps to have confidence in my skillset, belief in the curriculum itself and the impact it can have on women to just have my values top of mind, to motivate me to do the work, put in the time, overcome the learning curves. Certainly there are aspects I'm not confident with, that I'm actively growing in, in terms of. Making videos, editing videos, doing email marketing campaigns, things of that nature. But I'm willing to work through those learning curves and, God's brought people along my path along the way that has been [00:13:00] helpful to get support in those regards to and direction.
[00:13:03] And of it's just trusting that if God's called me to it, he will pave the way and give me the ability to overcome those hurdles.
[00:13:12] James Marland: So you mentioned a lot of things that we could spend a lot of time on or just gloss over, but you had beliefs, values, some of your own skills, and then you learn some things, but it also sounds like you delegated some things too, or you're looking to delegate some things as you go forward.
[00:13:30] Alicia Brown: Sure.
[00:13:31] James Marland: I think the one thing that propels people forward is that connection to the belief or connection to the mission. That this is valuable. I can help people need this, and I just gotta find a way to, to deliver it. I think one of the books, I think it was a Donald Miller book, I read a lot of Donald Miller's StoryBrand stuff and he was talking about, sometimes [00:14:00] people don't, aren't connected enough to their why to get through the valley, to get through the hard times.
[00:14:05] 'cause we both know, this is hard. Like this is hard work and doing new stuff is hard. And so he was saying. I think it was him. Imagine you're on one side of the Grand Canyon and your kid who needs you is on the other side of the Grand Canyon. You will find a way to get through, it might take a while, it might cause you a lot of pain, but you're gonna, you're gonna hire people, you're gonna travel, you're gonna go down the mountain, you're gonna ride the donkey up and down the hill, whatever.
[00:14:34] Whatever you're gonna do, you're gonna do it to get to that. Why? 'cause your kid needs you. And I think that has always stuck with me as a, like the people who are deeply connected to their why they're doing it, find a way. They just find a way to do it. And you're taking those steps. so what are,
[00:14:55] So what are some of your current challenges? Because you launched only a [00:15:00] few months ago, really, as we're talking about this and you're, you've probably learning some things as you go, because what I tell people is you learn a lot by launching, even if things aren't going well because.
[00:15:13] You, you learn from your mistakes and you gotta keep your eyes open to what people are doing.
[00:15:19] Alicia Brown: Sure. there's the financial aspect, the ongoing tension of how much time do I spend in my private practice seeing patients versus how much time do I spend on this. Because I have accepted that it is gonna be at a bit of a slow launch to find that balance where it does help to have income coming in.
[00:15:39] But I also want to keep in mind the long-term vision of wholeness after trauma and what that's gonna do. Not just for the women that are gonna go through it and that positive impact, but also. For me from a business standpoint as well, I really like that's gonna help diversify my income and help me to find balance in my work where I'm not just in the grind of seeing patient after [00:16:00] patient. So there's certainly professional values that I'm trying to move towards as well. So just that balance day to day where ideally I could have. Two months without private practice work to launch this fully. But not the reality. So I try to prioritize my time and I have a lot of leads from the A A CC conference to con to follow up with still. So I'm just hopeful that the gap in time won't be problematic. So yeah, just trying to balance and prioritize given financial considerations is a big one.
[00:16:34] James Marland: you are taking this as a, an investment, but not just in yourself, but also the future, the women. Like I thought that was pretty interesting. 'Cause if you thought it as something that, you know, oh, it has to return money tomorrow.
[00:16:50] That you would be doing things a lot differently,
[00:16:54] Alicia Brown: Sure.
[00:16:55] James Marland: And man, that's a long-term view, don't you? So [00:17:00] I'm just, I'm throwing a question out there. Do you think therapists and people in the private practice sector, they just, they feel like the only way that they can get good return on investment of all their college and education is just. See as many people as they can for as long as they can.
[00:17:19] Is that,
[00:17:20] Alicia Brown: is often the playbook that's proposed, right?
[00:17:22] James Marland: yeah.
[00:17:23] Alicia Brown: the training that we get. And I will say in my program at Regent University uh, we did have a professor that was very good at helping us think outside the box. And he himself pursued alternative endeavors that were. Meaningful and financially lucrative. So that did help to have that modeled for me to not feel stuck in that. In that one-on-one, this is the only way to make money.
[00:17:49] James Marland: Yeah, there's just a limit. Like I, I did intake, so I didn't even do therapy. I did, I don't have a therapist degree. But I worked like eight, 16 years in [00:18:00] intakes for day hospital, inpatient some outpatient, some, I just, I talk to people all day long about their, in their problems, 4, 4, 4 or five intakes a day, every day.
[00:18:14] And and that was exhausting. It's just, there's, there was no end. Like I just, I heard the front end of their problems. I heard no solutions. And
[00:18:24] It got like people didn't like doing that job, the intakes all day long, every day. It just was emotionally draining. And I've gotta, I gotta believe that there's a limit.
[00:18:36] Like even if you could see let's say all your systems are perfectly. Efficient and it only takes you like 20 minutes for paperwork and insurance or whatever, and you got everything else done. Would you really wanna see 30, 35 people a week? There's just a limit, like there's just a ceiling to what you can [00:19:00] do.
[00:19:00] Just doesn't scale. Like it just doesn't,
[00:19:05] Alicia Brown: Absolutely.
[00:19:06] James Marland: yeah.
[00:19:06] Alicia Brown: And it's not God honoring at that point either, right? We're to
[00:19:10] James Marland: Tell me about that. I agree with you, but tell me about that.
[00:19:13] Alicia Brown: we to honor our human limitations, he's God, we're not, and he designed us in a way to need sleep and
[00:19:20] James Marland: Hmm.
[00:19:21] Alicia Brown: And res restorative time. And so when we push ourselves beyond our capacity, especially chronically right then that. Isn't God honoring and not to say he never calls us to make a sacrifice. In some ways, I feel like I'm in that season of making sacrifice for that long-term investment. And I try to find ways to, rest here and there. But I, it's. Serving a bigger purpose, and I feel like it is what he wants me to do right now.
[00:19:48] And so I think that walking intimately with him and trying to discern, okay, do, he want me to exceed my capacity? And if so, how can I do that in a way where I don't get burned [00:20:00] out? And to not have it be ongoing, there needs to be. there too. So that's kind of part of my acceptance of this slow launch, I think, is trying to strike that balance to still be honoring God with my efforts and finding rest in him as well.
[00:20:17] James Marland: Yeah I think I read a statistic I'm gonna get the nu exact numbers wrong, but 70, 70% of therapists wills, experience burnout and like 20 or 30% of 'em experience it will experience it this year. Like it's a big number.
[00:20:33] Alicia Brown: It is a big number.
[00:20:35] James Marland: And I think it's part of the hustle culture or the max out till you burnout or the only way I can be successful, like they're chasing success.
[00:20:44] And that success is also the path to burnout.
[00:20:47] What can you do to, honor your calling, help people, but also be sustainable? And I do believe. Alternate ways of packaging up what you do to [00:21:00] help people. It doesn't have to be one-on-one, not like in one person in the chair for one hour.
[00:21:07] That's just that, that's just one way to do it. And it's a good way, but there's other ways to, help people and
[00:21:14] Alicia Brown: Not to cut you off, but
[00:21:15] James Marland: yeah, you're fine.
[00:21:16] Alicia Brown: aligns with that is instead of offering wholeness after trauma in person twice a year, we've decided to cut scale that back after we just wrapped up last night for our fall class. And we're not gonna offer it again now till next August, where we're
[00:21:29] It in the fall now that we do have a virtual option.
[00:21:32] So that is something that we decided to do so we don't get burned out.
[00:21:35] James Marland: Yeah. Yeah. If you say yes to this, you have to say no to something else. So it's like, what? And where's. Where's the challenge in that, and what are you gonna do?
[00:21:45] My, my coach challenged me and she said, you're doing, you're, you don't have to write all your emails, you don't have to, you don't.
[00:21:53] You sure write your blog post, but you don't have to, you don't have to be the one that goes into the program and [00:22:00] post them all. Save yourself an hour and get somebody to do that for you. I'm like, okay, but I wanna do everything myself. No, you don't. You're like, you gotta say no to something. So it's a big challenge for those of us who have a way we see it in our mind, and other people do it a little differently.
[00:22:15] And,
[00:22:16] Alicia Brown: Sure.
[00:22:17] James Marland: yeah. So where are you headed now and where can people find you? What's what's your, what's, what are you gonna be offering and where can people find you?
[00:22:25] Alicia Brown: Yes, so wholeness after trauma.com is the website, and we offer a 10 week virtual course for women impacted by trauma. Any type of trauma, though I do try to group. The women by type of trauma, if there's enough applicants coming in at the same time. And there's, it's a combination of video teaching 30 to 60 minutes a week of video teaching with an hour a week of a live Zoom discussion.
[00:22:51] So that's the delivery method of it, and we're actively trying to. Build those groups and so we're, I'm reaching out [00:23:00] to women's ministers, other ministry partners to get the word out so the women that they're ministering to, if they'd be a good fit, can hopefully get referred to the course.
[00:23:09] James Marland: That's wonderful. And as your one
[00:23:11] Alicia Brown: Yes.
[00:23:11] James Marland: pastor friend realized there's people out there who need this. There's just people out there who need that safe place to talk about it. Church, Church is full of hurting people who don't feel safe enough to say I'm hurting. Yeah, it's a wonderful message.
[00:23:26] Uh, So any we're wrapping up Any final words for the audience
[00:23:30] Alicia Brown: Yes, wholeness after trauma.com. Uh, I would just encourage people that it's rewarding to pursue something like this, that it's new, it's challenging, yes. But there's a lot of creative outlets that I've really valued as well. With therapy work, there is some creative work in terms of. you know, Discerning how to navigate the session.
[00:23:51] And but I've enjoyed, for example, designing my booth for the A CC conference and getting into Canva and [00:24:00] picking my background for my private practice video that I made. And so there's. Just I guess just to add a lens about creativity and how it's important to have creative outlets.
[00:24:10] And I like how pursuing wholeness after trauma and launching that virtually has given me the opportunity to have creative outlets while I'm also moving towards the vision of carving this out as an extension of my private practice. And, so it's. It's serving multiple purposes for me psychologically and from a business standpoint and from a spiritual growth standpoint and impacting women positively standpoint.
[00:24:36] So, Multiple values that I'm able to move towards with launching it, which is really meaningful.
[00:24:42] James Marland: Thanks Alicia, for being on the show. And audience it might be a little messy. It might be difficult, but the difference that. From an idea that impacts people to an idea that sits in a drawer as some action. So I'm encouraging you to take some action and put your mission in motion [00:25:00] this week.
[00:25:00] We'll talk to you next time.
[00:25:05] Speaker 2: Thanks again to Alicia Brown for joining me today and sharing her story, and I hope her example reminded you that you don't have to feel fully ready to begin. As we talked about so often, clarity and confidence, they, they just don't come before you start taking action. They come because of the action when you take the next step.
[00:25:30] Even a very small one, you begin to see the, your next step and the path becomes more clear. So if this episode stirred something in you. And you wanna start but you feel unsure about where to start, or you want, you felt like you took a pause on your mission and now it's time to unpause. I wanna point you to the Unpause Playbook.
[00:25:52] It's a free resource I developed to help you take those first few scary steps, and it will give you some more clarity and some more [00:26:00] direction. It'll help you define your mission and vision. And what your next steps should be. You can find this at www.coursecreationstudio.com/unpause. I also wanted to thank the pro sponsors of this podcast and the Scaling Therapist Services directory. You can find [email protected]. This directory was created to help therapists find vetted, recommended experts and resources so that you can spend less time guessing and more time getting the support you need.
[00:26:35] A special shout out goes to our new sponsors. Hey Boss, co profit comes first and Freedom Business Solutions. thank you so much for supporting the show. And you listener, thank you so much for listening.
[00:26:50] I wanna help you put your mission in motion and we'll see you next time.
