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Hello , you're listening to Into Liberation

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, a podcast about transformative change

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, equity and working against oppression

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. I'm Leena Akhtar , Director

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of Programs with VISIONS Inc . Welcome

0:11

. Today

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I'm excited to welcome Felipe Garcia , a

0:19

longtime Visions consultant and counselor

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, who specializes in Transactional Analysis

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, which is a social psychology framework

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that is at the core of the Visions model . Felipe

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is the author of several articles , including one that

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you may have read if you've been part of a longer Visions

0:33

training , called "the Role of Feelings in

0:35

the Workplace . This

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year , 2024 , is the 40th

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year of Visions existence , and this is

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another in our ongoing series of stories from

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elders in our community . Visions

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was founded in 1984 by a group

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of psychologists , among others , who

0:50

brought their clinical skills to bear on

0:52

the problem of racism and other forms of oppression

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, and this , in my opinion , is our

0:56

secret sauce . One of the things

0:58

that drew me to the Visions model was its

1:00

adeptness around the role that emotion

1:02

and feeling played in anti-oppression work

1:05

. Not only has Felipe done extensive

1:07

work in this area , he still actively

1:09

teaches what he calls the responsive process . In

1:11

our conversation , in addition to Felipe

1:13

sharing about his background and journey , we

1:16

talk about what transactional analysis is

1:18

and why it's so useful in anti-oppression

1:20

work and , of course , what the role

1:22

of feelings in the workplace actually is , and

1:25

we're recording . Hi everybody , I'm

1:27

really excited today to be talking to

1:30

Felipe Garcia . Felipe is

1:32

an elder in the Visions community , a longtime

1:34

clinician and one of my

1:37

instructors in the

1:39

Libertory Psychology Framework transactional

1:41

analysis , which , as Visions consultants , we

1:43

all went into training around . I haven't talked

1:46

to Felipe in an extended way before

1:48

, and so I've been really excited about this conversation

1:50

. Felipe , before we begin

1:52

, would you introduce yourself briefly to everyone

1:54

listening ?

1:55

Well , I'm Felipe Garcia and I'm

1:58

a master's in marriage and family therapy

2:00

and licensed professional counselor Actually

2:02

, I just let go of my license in Texas

2:04

marriage and family and professional

2:08

transactional analyst . Well , that one

2:10

wasn't a license in Texas , that's through the TA

2:13

Association . I've

2:15

been . I was in practice in San Antonio for

2:17

about 50 years in

2:20

marriage and family and I did a lot of group therapy

2:23

and a lot of transactional

2:26

analysis training . I had training groups

2:28

here and in Mexico City and in Monterrey

2:30

and in the Rio Grande Valley for many

2:32

years in the 80s and 90s

2:35

and into the 2000s , and then

2:37

I closed my office about three years

2:39

ago . Before that I was a teacher

2:41

of theater and drama

2:44

and speech for eight years

2:46

and then before that I was a school

2:48

counselor and then after

2:50

that I was a consultant at

2:52

a regional service center for

2:55

counselors for two

2:57

or three years and then I went

3:00

into private practice in 1975

3:02

. So that's a little bit about my

3:04

professional life , my

3:06

home life . I grew up in

3:09

South Texas , a little town called Bend

3:11

Volts , south of Alice , and it was a small

3:13

city and a small high school

3:15

. There were 100 people in the whole

3:17

school . There were 22 in my

3:19

graduating class and

3:21

most of the people in the community

3:24

were my cousins , either on my father

3:26

or on my mother's side . There were two communities

3:28

, one was called Bend Volts and one was

3:30

called Palito Blanco , and

3:32

my mother came from Palito Blanco and

3:34

so it was a large family

3:37

. My mother had like 11 siblings , and

3:39

my father did too , and so I had a lot of first

3:41

cousins and so I

3:44

grew up in this kind of like protected

3:46

environment and I didn't know

3:48

at the time but we were like

3:50

probably upper middle class

3:52

because we had businesses . My father and his

3:55

brothers had businesses , ranching

3:57

and general merchandise

4:00

store , cotton , gin and some fields where

4:02

they grew vegetables and corn

4:05

and cotton . So then

4:07

I went to St Mary's University as an undergraduate

4:09

and then to the University of Texas

4:11

as a graduate in theater and then back to the university

4:14

and I got my master's in counseling there . So

4:17

anything of that that catches your interest

4:20

.

4:21

So much of it . I had no idea that you had a background

4:23

in theater and in teaching before you

4:25

went into counseling . So for people

4:27

who may not know , because this podcast it

4:29

goes out to people who are basically

4:32

in the vision's community kind of in a very

4:34

wide sense so for people who might

4:36

not know what transactional analysis

4:38

is , how would you summarize

4:41

it ?

4:42

Transactional analysis analyzes

4:44

transactions Transactions meaning

4:46

we normally call interactions , or

4:49

when we communicate with each other and

4:52

we analyze them from the point of view of the ego

4:54

states and the

4:56

premise in transaction . I'm

4:58

going to say TA for now on , and that means transactional analysis

5:01

. The premise in TA

5:04

is that people operate from one

5:06

of either three ego states . There

5:09

are five behaviors in the ego states , and

5:11

the ego states are child

5:13

, adult and parent . And the child

5:15

ego state is who we were as

5:17

children , as all the way from infants

5:19

to 11 or so

5:22

years old , and it's

5:24

still recorded and so we

5:26

can access it . The child ego state

5:28

, that's our original self , our natural

5:31

, real self , and then our adaptive

5:33

child , which learned how to socialize and

5:35

live in the world , of what

5:37

to do legally

5:40

and culturally in

5:42

our world , and so that's the adaptive

5:44

child . And then there's the adult

5:46

ego state , which is the other ego state

5:49

, and that's that's begins to develop

5:51

as we begin to have language and think

5:53

and problem solve . The adult ego

5:56

state is like our computer . It asks

5:58

and answers questions like what , where

6:00

, when , that you know are answerable

6:03

with facts . So it's a

6:05

separation between feelings and facts in terms of

6:08

adult and child . And

6:10

the parent ego state is what we took in from

6:12

the people that were racing us either

6:15

our parents or whoever was racing us and

6:17

also the environment , teachers and other people

6:19

around us when we were children and so

6:21

we kind of took it in . Some

6:23

people don't take it in because it's harsh

6:26

and that leads to problems , but

6:28

we normally take in our parent and

6:30

then we find ourselves behaving and sounding

6:32

like our parent , pointing the finger , using

6:36

you a lot , and the parent ego

6:38

state is controlling , but

6:40

it also can be nurturing . The parent ego

6:42

state also is nurturing , particularly

6:44

if you had nurturing parents . Unfortunately

6:47

, if you didn't have anybody who was nurturing in

6:49

your youth growing up , you

6:52

may not have too much nurturing parent

6:54

in your parent ego state and you

6:56

have to use your adult to develop

6:58

it in the here and now . So

7:01

those are the three ego states . So we analyze

7:03

you say hello and I

7:05

say hello . That's a complimentary

7:07

transaction , that just seems nice

7:09

. But if you say hello and I say

7:11

shut up , that's a different kinds of transaction

7:14

. We call block train or cross transaction

7:16

and we want to analyze what was that

7:18

about ? Where did that come from ? So that's

7:20

transaction analysis . There are two other

7:23

concepts that are important to transactional

7:25

analysis , and one is script

7:28

, which we call the script , the

7:30

live plan that children

7:32

decide on when they're very young

7:34

in terms of what's going on in their environment

7:36

. So they'll make

7:39

decisions like I'll never be happy , or

7:41

I'll never be loved , or I'll never love anybody

7:43

, or I'll never let myself do this

7:45

or that , and those are early decisions

7:48

that we make that may still be impacting our

7:50

lives , and so we analyze

7:52

script through games , and

7:54

games is what we do over and over

7:57

, out of awareness , to reinforce

7:59

those decisions that we made early on

8:01

as children . And so we

8:03

analyze what you're reinforcing

8:06

life positions , because transactional

8:08

analysis believes and operates out of

8:10

the assumption that

8:12

people are okay , you are okay

8:14

, and that means you have value and worth and

8:16

deserve dignity and respect

8:19

, and so do I and so do all others

8:21

, including individuals or

8:23

groups . And so

8:25

if something is happening that is not

8:27

reflective of that okay

8:30

, okay relationship , we

8:32

analyze it , because it may be that the persons

8:34

are operating from either an I'm not okay

8:37

, you are positioned , or

8:39

I'm okay , you're not positioned

8:41

, or I'm not okay and you're

8:43

not okay , position , which is very depressing

8:46

. So , analyzing

8:48

those positions that the person

8:50

might still be reinforcing , we

8:53

move into helping and trying

8:55

to point that out to them and

8:57

inviting them into change .

8:59

Thank you . Thank you for that wonderfully

9:02

succinct summary of the big concepts

9:04

in TA .

9:06

So it is big and it's easy

9:08

to describe a quick

9:11

level like that . But I've been analyzing

9:13

transactions for over

9:15

50 well , 50 years and

9:18

it's still very , it's

9:21

still a learning curve . I'm

9:24

still learning about it because what it does

9:26

is analyze humans , and humans are complex

9:28

and unique .

9:30

Absolutely .

9:31

So as .

9:31

Visions consultants , we take workshop

9:34

called TA101 , which is a two-day

9:36

overview of the major concepts , and

9:39

I was reminded when I

9:41

sat in on a PACE2 workshop this past

9:43

fall how deep and intricate and rich

9:45

this framework is . Now

9:49

you just gave us a high-level overview and

9:51

, for people who are listening , could you tie

9:53

it to why this is so

9:55

profoundly applicable , which it

9:57

is ? It's a really powerful and generative framework

9:59

for anti-racist and anti-oppression

10:02

work .

10:03

Well , there's a concept in transactional

10:05

analysis called contamination , and

10:08

if you see the three ego states that I described

10:11

as three circles sitting on each

10:13

other on top of each other at the top

10:15

one is the parent , one in the middle is

10:17

the adult and the one in the bottom is a child

10:19

Contamination is when

10:21

either the child and or

10:24

the parent ego state overlaps

10:26

the adult and confuses opinions

10:29

and feelings for facts

10:31

, and so it's

10:33

very important in the work of anti-racism

10:36

and anti-sexism work , and all the anti-work

10:38

is to help

10:40

people get in touch

10:42

with their own prejudices , both

10:45

about themselves and about others because

10:48

of the environments they grew up in , and learn

10:50

those prejudices and their call contamination

10:52

, and that's a very effective

10:54

way to help lead

10:57

people into understanding their out-of-awareness

10:59

behaviors that may be impacting

11:01

others negatively or themselves negatively

11:04

because of internalized depression .

11:07

Is that exactly , or ? Yeah

11:09

, thank you so much for that . It

11:11

struck me as I deepened my

11:13

learning and deepened my training just

11:16

how much the visions model

11:18

, the whole thing , everything that we do , the

11:20

learnings , the exercises , and especially

11:23

the deep introspective exercises that we

11:25

do in the PACE trainings , are

11:27

rooted in this framework

11:29

of transactional analysis , and it took me a couple

11:31

of years before I was able to see the direct links

11:34

. Now , philippe , you've done a lot

11:36

of work on affect and emotion

11:38

specifically , and I think we

11:40

have this long list of questions and I'm really enjoying

11:42

nerding out about this with you , so I

11:45

hope you'll indulge me . One

11:47

of my favorite settings in which to do

11:49

visions work , and especially the

11:51

affective work , are places like academic

11:54

institutions and STEM institutions

11:56

, places where there's this longstanding

12:00

kind of deeply rooted hostility

12:02

and distrust of affect and emotions

12:04

, and introducing them to the visions

12:06

model and giving them a framework for how

12:08

important and useful and valuable

12:10

and really vital

12:13

to this work getting some adeptness

12:15

with emotions is . So , whatever

12:18

, you want to speak to that , especially in light of the

12:20

workshop that you gave recently and

12:22

its connection to anti-racism work . I'd

12:25

love to hear about that .

12:27

Well , the first thought that came to my mind as you

12:29

were describing academic settings and a lot of clinical

12:33

and professional settings where

12:35

feelings are considered not

12:38

germane is very sad , because

12:41

feelings lead the way and they're at the bottom of everything . I

12:45

had a trainer once in transactional analysis

12:47

that used to say that when he had a client that

12:50

he was talking to , he always saw

12:52

the child of the client sitting on his lap , and

12:55

so that's a way of getting helping

12:57

, staying in touch with the fact that you're really dealing with a child

12:59

in many ways , regardless of their behavior . So

13:05

it's unfortunate that in many

13:07

settings feelings are considered not

13:10

useful and actually are tried to

13:13

avoid them . My

13:16

work has been from very early on

13:18

, both when I was in education as well as when I was in

13:21

doing clinical transactional analysis work

13:23

, of the importance of feelings . Envision

13:27

the work dealing

13:30

with feelings is called feelings as messengers , and

13:34

that is that the feelings send

13:36

important messages about needs . The

13:39

ones that we're used to are like having

13:41

to go to the bathroom or being hungry or being

13:43

tired and sleepy . We

13:46

automatically respond to those , although

13:48

some people didn't discount them . They don't

13:50

even pay attention to those very well , and

13:52

we get into trouble when we're not paying

13:54

attention to our bodies messaging

13:57

us through our feelings . I call

13:59

it the responsive process because we

14:01

respond to it both in ourselves

14:04

and in others when they address

14:06

us about their feelings or

14:08

when we want to address them about their feelings

14:10

or ours . I

14:12

call it the responsive process and

14:15

I have written several

14:17

articles about that , three in particular . And

14:20

then , like you said , I just did a workshop on that

14:22

. So

14:25

there's the feelings and then there's thinking about the

14:27

feelings in order to decode

14:29

the feeling and identify what it is that our

14:31

body is needing . For instance

14:34

, if we're angry because we're being

14:36

treated unfairly , discriminated against

14:38

or

14:40

with prejudice , there

14:42

is a feeling reaction to that and how to deal with

14:45

it . So thinking about

14:47

that feeling and then figuring out how to deal with

14:49

that feeling in terms of the person

14:51

that's doing it , and what's effective

14:53

and not effective and what might be useful

14:56

and what might not , is important . So

14:58

that thinking is about

15:00

what is this about ? And then how

15:02

can I ? What can I do ? And then the

15:04

third part to the feeling response

15:07

is to act , to do something , and it

15:09

may be that you do something yourself

15:12

, directly with the person , or it may

15:14

be that you do something with hopefully

15:17

a support group of same

15:19

, like people For instance , if it's

15:21

people of color or women or GLBT

15:24

people to get support

15:26

from them to impact the system

15:29

rather than try to impact

15:31

at the personal level , because very often

15:33

that's doesn't go anywhere . So

15:36

we have to analyze it through this thinking step . So

15:40

thinking about feelings

15:42

and taking feelings into account is

15:44

very important in

15:47

the work of anti-racism

15:49

work . Thank you .

15:52

I have to say I watched the workshop

15:54

before this recording session

15:56

and I really appreciated just the elegant

15:58

simplicity of the

16:00

responsive process and

16:02

it actually got me thinking about a couple of things that

16:05

were happening in my own life in

16:07

a different way , because I realized in the triangle that you had

16:09

up there I was going

16:11

like a pinball between feeling and thinking . I

16:14

was like wait , there's a third step , I could act . So

16:17

, and even being that methodical

16:19

about it , like okay , here is this feeling , like what

16:21

is it telling me , etc . And then what can I do

16:23

about it ? Even

16:26

that is more , by leaps and bounds

16:28

, more emotional literacy than I certainly grew up with . So thank you

16:30

for that and thank you for . Wonderful

16:33

. So

16:36

I love that and I would be very happy to link

16:39

to your articles in the show notes . So

16:42

if you send them to me , I can make sure that anybody who's listening

16:44

can just look at the show notes and click on them .

16:45

The articles are on a website

16:48

that is called winningtogetherorg

16:51

. Under the tab publications

16:53

, the articles in particular

16:55

about this topic are called reactivity

16:58

and another one called responsivity , and

17:00

then there's one called the role of feelings in the workplace

17:03

. So those three articles

17:05

which are at that website explain

17:08

into more detail this feeling and the

17:10

messengers . Fantastic , so glad

17:12

that you brought up your example , because that's

17:14

what I was hoping for in doing that , that

17:16

workshop . I use it all the time

17:19

by myself with myself , like

17:22

, for instance , when I was getting ready to

17:24

talk to you today . I thought you know , I don't have

17:26

much to say about this , and at

17:28

the same time , either with

17:30

the workshop I was thinking everybody

17:32

already knows it or I'm trying to do too

17:34

much , but anyway I scare myself

17:36

. That's a very common feeling

17:39

for me . In transactional

17:41

analysis we call it a racket feeling , which is

17:43

our favorite feeling , and we have

17:45

to be careful with it because it's often

17:48

present even though there's not a stimuli

17:50

for it . I'm a worrier and

17:52

so I worry , and

17:54

then I look to see , find something to

17:56

worry about to

17:59

match the feeling , because there's not much

18:01

going on that worries me . So

18:03

when I was worrying about doing the workshop

18:06

and scaring myself

18:08

with that I didn't have much to say in

18:10

terms of action in response

18:12

to the feeling . Sometimes it just

18:14

means that attitude adjustment

18:16

and it's not always easy because

18:19

we're so prone

18:21

to feel that way in our body that is

18:23

sometimes hard to change

18:25

the feeling . It may be scare , or it may be sad

18:27

, or it may be anger . That is our

18:29

favorite feeling that we go to often

18:32

in spite the circumstance

18:34

. So how you want to check for

18:36

the accuracy of the feeling in

18:38

terms of responding is that

18:41

scare is a

18:43

threat , either imagined or real . And

18:45

my scare were imagined because

18:48

I've done this

18:50

workshop for many , many years and

18:52

I've talked about this topic for many years

18:54

and I know it . It just comes

18:56

out naturally and so there's

18:59

no seeking any

19:02

kind of help for the feeling . I

19:05

reached out and got some reassurance a couple

19:07

of times . When it's a real

19:09

scare because you hear a noise

19:11

in your house outside or something and you

19:13

want to carefully go , look to see what's

19:16

happening , that's an action taking

19:18

in terms of a real scare . You're walking

19:20

across the street and the cars approaching and you

19:22

quickly get out of the way . That's action

19:24

in terms of the scare . Sadness

19:27

is about loss and

19:29

so that needs space

19:31

to grieve and , hopefully , support , and

19:34

some people like support and some people like

19:36

to be on their own by themselves

19:38

, and anger is

19:40

an intrusion of some kind , either

19:43

a denial or an intrusion . And

19:48

so it makes sense that you reestablish

19:50

boundaries . When somebody is either shoving you

19:52

or yelling at you or treating you unkindly

19:54

or unrespectfully , you want to

19:56

re in some way reestablish

19:58

that boundary to protect

20:00

yourself . And it's important to

20:02

remember that sometimes we substitute

20:05

the feeling like . Very often people will get

20:07

mad when they're sad

20:09

, because men are given messages

20:12

not to feel sad or scared . That's

20:14

not manly , and so very

20:16

often they'll feel angry instead

20:18

, when in reality there I find lots

20:20

of my clients come in angry when

20:23

they're really scared . And

20:25

so it's important that you identify the feeling

20:27

in response to the stimuli in

20:30

order to decide how to take the action

20:32

. And sometimes the action is going

20:34

to be in response to the stimuli

20:37

outside , if it's real

20:39

, like the approaching car , or

20:41

to respond to the stimuli

20:43

internally , if it's not real , like

20:45

. What I do is work at reassuring

20:49

myself and stopping

20:51

myself from feeling the scare , although

20:53

it is a challenge , because

20:55

life is the challenge .

20:57

Right . So the stimuli can be something

20:59

that happens externally , something internal , like

21:01

a thought , or just the momentum , as you

21:03

said , of the dominant feeling state reaching

21:06

for something to latch onto Right

21:08

. I appreciate that summary . The

21:10

article the role of feelings

21:12

in the workplace . That's one that we include

21:15

a lot in our pre-work or

21:17

during session work packets , in

21:20

pace and other trainings . And

21:22

for people for whom that idea is counter-intuitive

21:25

, how would you like playing

21:27

on the title of your article what is the role of feelings

21:29

in the workplace ?

21:31

Well , I wrote that article because I

21:33

was working for visions , both

21:35

in the US and Japan

21:37

and in England , and we

21:39

were working a lot with engineers and

21:42

scientists who , as

21:44

you stated a while

21:46

ago , neglect

21:48

or ignore the importance

21:50

of feelings in relating

21:53

to in-building and managing

21:55

people , and so I

21:58

wrote that article . I already had

22:00

reactivity and responsivity , but it was

22:03

more clinically based , and

22:06

so I wanted to write an article that was for organizational

22:09

settings . It was true in most companies

22:11

that employees

22:13

were invited to leave their cultural

22:16

selves at the door and

22:18

take over and operate

22:22

out of the corporate

22:24

frame or culture which

22:26

denied feelings . And the

22:28

new , the change that

22:30

we were inviting them into making and they

22:33

did to a large extent because they

22:35

were long-term consults , they were years was

22:38

to invite them in to learn how

22:40

to respond to their own feelings and learn how to respond

22:42

to them what role

22:45

is being played , and how to respond to the

22:47

feelings of people

22:49

who they're supervising or other

22:51

people in the work team . So

22:54

feelings are very important

22:56

in the workplace . That was the reason I wrote

22:58

the article was to write something that

23:00

kind of had examples and

23:03

reflected more about

23:05

its application in an organizational

23:08

setting .

23:09

I think it's a great article and I

23:11

see constantly in organizations bring

23:14

this up when we talk about processing content . If

23:17

people aren't happy with the process , they'll make it known , and

23:19

if people can't speak openly about

23:21

their feelings it'll come out

23:24

in different ways . So if people

23:26

are scared , we might see a phenomenon where

23:29

people are kind of picking a process , like

23:31

being critical of minor

23:33

, minor points when it's really about something

23:36

else . So feelings

23:38

have this way of derailing processes if

23:40

they're not acknowledged Absolutely .

23:43

Including and absolutely in work settings as well

23:45

, absolutely in work settings

23:47

and I was a consultant

23:49

in education and I did a lot of training

23:52

for parents , teachers

23:54

and counselors , educators in general

23:56

, and the first consulting job

23:59

that I got at

24:01

the Regional Service Center here in Texas , in San Antonio , was

24:04

called Crime and Drug

24:07

Addiction Prevention . It

24:09

was in the late 70s

24:12

and because

24:14

I quit that at 75 , that's when

24:16

I went into private practice , but

24:18

even then I was really emphasizing

24:21

the importance in preventing

24:23

crime and drug addiction is

24:26

the importance of teaching children how

24:28

to deal with their feelings , both

24:31

as parents and as teachers . And at that

24:33

workshop that you were talking

24:35

about , I talked about

24:37

the use of the responsive

24:40

process in helping children

24:42

deal with their feelings , their sadness

24:44

, their scares , their angers . Very

24:46

often we're afraid of their feelings or

24:49

we tell them to stop feeling that because

24:52

we don't know how to deal with it ourselves , and

24:54

instead what is useful is

24:56

for us to say I

24:58

hear that you're feeling really mad or scared

25:00

or sad or whatever . Would you like

25:02

to tell me what's going on and what

25:05

are some options in terms of responding to it , so

25:07

that we can , from very early on , help

25:10

children learn how to address their feelings

25:12

and that they're very important messengers

25:14

and very important

25:16

stimuli for us to respond to in

25:18

some effective way .

25:20

Great . So you started in education

25:22

and in theater and then you

25:24

moved into counseling , and then tell

25:27

me about your trajectory from

25:29

there and how you got connected to visions

25:31

and how you started applying this work to

25:33

the anti-oppression , anti-racist work

25:35

that visions does .

25:37

Well , my career and my life

25:39

has been kind of like directed

25:41

by some other energy

25:43

rather than me , because I went

25:45

to a small school where there was no guidance and

25:48

counseling and guidance to help people

25:50

with their trajectory in terms of their careers

25:52

. So I was interested

25:54

in theater because

25:57

I love theater and I love musicals

25:59

and so on , and so that's what I

26:01

, and there was a small theater department

26:03

at St Mary's where I went to

26:05

undergraduate school and speech

26:08

. Actually I was interested in design

26:10

and I didn't know how to put that

26:12

into my life at work and

26:15

that was the closest that I could find at

26:18

St Mary's . But then

26:20

later I was teaching school

26:23

and then it

26:25

came time to get a master's in San Antonio

26:27

, and the only master's that I could get

26:29

in San Antonio , because I had gone to the University

26:31

of Texas where graduate studies

26:33

in theater was

26:36

either to become a principal or a

26:38

counselor , and I didn't want

26:40

to be a principal , so I got my

26:42

master's in counseling . I

26:44

started working with junior high school

26:46

children and it became apparent

26:48

to me that the problems that

26:51

the children were having were often family

26:53

problems . So I started

26:55

addressing , going to home

26:57

rooms in a junior high school

26:59

and inviting the students into

27:02

counseling to say counseling is not when you're

27:04

in trouble , it's when you want help

27:06

. And

27:08

so it changed the environment of the counseling process

27:10

, just being a scheduling office and

27:13

disciplinary office to

27:15

one which was office for help

27:17

and direction . And I did a lot

27:20

of my work in terms of training educators

27:22

was in training them to help deal with

27:24

their feelings and the feelings of

27:27

their children . So

27:29

, oh , the question was the trajectory

27:32

. So , and what got me interested

27:34

in this ? So I've always been interested

27:36

, from very young , first of all in people

27:38

. I'm just interested in people and

27:40

differences . What makes you difference ? In

27:43

my community there were mostly Latinos

27:45

, and the only white people

27:48

that were there were either because they came

27:50

during the Dust Bowl and the government

27:52

had given them some land , and

27:54

or the child

27:57

of the superintendent of the school . And

28:00

I remember asking the child of the superintendent

28:02

of the school who I played with , what did you

28:04

all have for dinner ? And it was an attempt

28:06

for me to figure out how they were different . And

28:09

so I had these two interests One was about

28:11

people and how they were different , and

28:14

what was the other one ? And

28:17

the other one was why

28:20

don't people get along ? Why do people fight and why do people have wars

28:22

and what would prevent

28:24

that ? So I wrote an article . One of the

28:27

first articles that I wanted to write

28:29

was the article which is also in that website

28:32

, called Winning Together , and

28:34

it was an article about how to work

28:36

together to create collaborative

28:39

community and collaborative team

28:42

building . And so

28:44

one of the elements in that

28:46

article , in terms like the elements

28:49

, include vision , contract

28:52

, cooperation . Those are the elements

28:54

in building collaborative communities

28:56

and one of them is communication , and

28:58

for communication I wrote . When

29:01

I went to write an article about all

29:03

of this , it just seemed too overwhelming and big , so

29:06

I thought well , I'll just write the one about communication

29:08

, which I call reactivity , and

29:10

the reason I called it reactivity is because

29:13

I was wanting to

29:15

help people identify and

29:17

move away from being passive . Passive

29:20

is doing nothing effective

29:22

about a problem . That's when you're being

29:24

passive is you have a pain and you're not paying

29:26

attention to it or doing anything about it , or

29:29

you are you

29:31

lose your job and you get depressed and

29:33

don't do anything about it . But

29:36

this one was about getting along

29:39

with each other and building teams . So it was

29:41

, I was doing that work and , like I

29:43

said earlier when I was introducing myself . I had a

29:46

lot of training groups and

29:48

then Val invited me . Val

29:50

and I were friends . Val and Angela and I

29:52

were friends before vision , so when vision

29:54

was getting born .

29:55

So that's Dr Valerie Bats and Angela

29:57

Bryant who are two of the co-founders of visions

29:59

.

30:00

That's right . So Valerie

30:02

invited me to come to

30:04

New York to what was then

30:06

called Four Day and now it's called

30:08

a PACE workshop , which is a four day introduction

30:11

to the visions model . And

30:13

so I went and Val

30:15

invited me to do some teaching of transactional

30:18

analysis at that group and then to

30:20

be a participant in

30:22

the visions work . And that

30:24

was very exciting and interesting to me and

30:27

I learned a lot . Because I

30:30

didn't know a lot about racism . I

30:32

knew . I knew that my family

30:34

had experienced it in terms of being

30:36

Latino , but also

30:39

my family had property

30:42

and it was easier for

30:45

them to address that than

30:47

it was for poor people who are at the mercy

30:49

of employers . So

30:53

I learned a lot at that first visions

30:55

four day that we did in

30:57

New York and that got me into learning

30:59

vision , the visions model , which was very enriching

31:02

for me . And

31:05

then Valerie kept inviting me to do

31:07

more training for visions at different settings and that's how I got involved

31:09

with visions and that's how I got

31:11

involved in rent . I racism work Fantastic

31:13

.

31:14

So a lot of the people who are in the visions

31:17

orbit , like a lot of our

31:19

elders , have literally been around , if not since

31:21

its inception , then

31:24

certainly for decades . So

31:27

what is it that led you to stay and what kept you coming

31:29

back ? Like what keeps you being part of the

31:31

community ? What keeps you being part of the community

31:33

?

31:35

Well , I came into visions

31:37

. Not knowing visions breaks

31:39

out into people of color

31:41

or white groups . In order

31:43

to address to support

31:46

groups , to build support groups , and

31:49

I didn't know which breakout group to go to

31:51

, because I'm white but Latino

31:54

people of color , and

31:56

so it was so I would go to each . Sometimes

31:59

I'd go to one , sometimes I'd go to the other . But

32:01

now I realize that I really was a non-target

32:03

, that I should have gone to them , although

32:06

I really can relate to both parts

32:08

of it , to both the target and targets

32:10

, a non-target side , which I think most

32:13

of us can , and

32:15

so . But in general I came

32:17

as a non-target in terms

32:19

of exposure to

32:21

the work . So I learned a lot

32:23

about the target group population

32:26

and their experiences and my

32:28

my out of awareness , prejudices

32:31

and contaminations that I was talking

32:33

about earlier . And the other thing

32:35

that was very useful that I learned was

32:37

that I hadn't put a lot of thought into

32:40

was the levels of oppression , which

32:42

is personal , interpersonal , institutional

32:45

and cultural . I had been paying attention

32:47

to the personal , interpersonal , a

32:49

lot more than institutional and cultural

32:52

at that time , but visions

32:54

open up my eyes to those other levels of

32:56

application and impact . So

32:59

, in a kind of like indirect way , that's how

33:01

I came to visions .

33:03

Beautiful . So you

33:06

continue doing am I correct

33:08

in thinking mostly your clinical work

33:10

, as well as doing some consulting and

33:12

training for visions ? Do I have that right ?

33:15

Yeah , I'm not doing very much anymore . I

33:18

don't take in clients Sometimes

33:20

I'll see a client that I've seen before

33:22

and I'm not

33:24

doing training groups and I'm not doing nothing

33:26

much with visions anymore

33:29

. I'm kind of retired and enjoying

33:31

it . And retired is a whole

33:33

other . And being old

33:35

, it's just so interesting . It's

33:38

another target group being old and it's so interesting

33:40

how it plays out . The most

33:43

common one that I noticed is that

33:45

I belong to a men's group , which

33:47

I had a lot to do with starting it , because

33:49

I think men have a lot of work to do in terms

33:51

of learning about their own oppression from

33:53

the sexism environments

33:56

they grew up in . And I

33:58

noticed that how often people

34:01

will talk to each other is , if I'm not there

34:03

, assuming that I'm too

34:05

old to get involved . I

34:07

don't know what the assumption is , but

34:09

I noticed it and , of course , in

34:11

terms of you know I will intervene with

34:13

making a comment or something and joining

34:16

the conversation rather than feeling

34:18

bad about it , but it's very

34:21

interesting to me . I noticed it somewhat

34:23

in my own family . What I mean by my family

34:25

is that I'm very close to a lot of nephews and nieces

34:27

, so that's what comes to mind

34:30

.

34:30

I'm also curious about from

34:33

when you joined visions . Was

34:35

it mostly that you were doing your

34:37

own clinical and training work

34:39

and then consulting work as well

34:41

, or were you heavily involved

34:43

in consulting ? That's just a curiosity question .

34:46

I was heavily involved in consulting myself

34:49

in my own practice and

34:51

Valerie Batson invited me to do

34:54

consulting work with visions , so

34:56

for me it was like another consulting job

34:59

. But , it was not

35:01

like all consulting jobs , because there was a lot

35:03

for me to learn from the visions model , my

35:06

experience there . But both

35:08

when I went to train my first

35:10

TA 101 was with Tom Harris

35:13

who wrote I'm okay , you're okay . And

35:15

it was a week long workshop and at

35:17

the end of the week they had what they called a marathon

35:19

, where you engaged in doing

35:21

your own personal work , because

35:23

, like visions , transactional analysis

35:26

training requires a lot of doing

35:28

your own personal work which

35:30

is one of the great important

35:33

values of transactional . I

35:35

mean both transactional analysis and visions

35:38

in their application , because the

35:40

visions model so much emphasizes

35:42

your own personal work and

35:45

both in visions and in transactional

35:47

analysis , I came to learn to help

35:49

others . I didn't come to learn to help me

35:52

, but it was through my process

35:54

of learning , learning transactional analysis

35:56

and the visions model , that I get in

35:58

touch with a lot of my own issues and

36:01

actually , the older I get , the more I

36:03

realize like I was just talking

36:05

to you about my worry ward part that

36:08

I'm addicted to worry . I'm doing

36:10

pretty well in terms of managing it , and

36:14

one of the ways that I manage it is not to give me

36:16

stimuli that will make me nervous

36:18

. That's really smart .

36:21

So that gets into my next question

36:23

, which would be would have been some of your biggest lessons

36:26

as you've done this work , either

36:28

externally , in terms of interfacing with

36:30

clients , whether that's organizations

36:32

or people , or internally .

36:34

Well , one of the biggest lessons was to

36:37

learn and continue to learn about the

36:39

impact and the intervention

36:41

at all four levels of

36:44

work , and to always think about that the

36:46

impact that the cultural and

36:48

institutional levels are having

36:51

on our interpersonal and personal

36:53

lives , and the need

36:55

to impact at the other levels

36:57

. But the other thing that

36:59

I've learned and continue to learn about

37:01

is the barriers

37:04

to the work , the difficultness of the work

37:06

, because there I

37:08

used to think that my dream

37:11

was to create a world where people were getting

37:13

along and respecting

37:15

each other and cooperating

37:17

. And what I've learned and continue

37:19

to learn is that there's a lot of people

37:21

who don't believe in in

37:24

I'm okay , you're okay . They

37:26

believe either I win or

37:28

you lose and you lose , or you or

37:30

you win and I lose . They operate

37:33

from a competitive frame of reference and

37:36

I didn't say this earlier

37:38

, but I meant to , because it's very important describing

37:40

the responsive process

37:43

that we operate out of the assumption

37:45

that people are okay and deserve respect and

37:48

that the goal of our work

37:51

is to create success and happiness

37:53

for people . And so , in

37:55

terms of creating the

37:57

environment in which

37:59

to work , it's important

38:01

that we teach people

38:04

how to deal with their feelings

38:06

in ways that are going to be respectful

38:08

of themselves and others . So

38:10

what I've learned is that there's

38:13

a lot of people that don't believe that

38:15

happiness is possible , that

38:18

getting along with people

38:20

of difference is valuable

38:22

or useful . So

38:24

I think it's just a realization

38:26

of there's a lot of people

38:28

that don't believe the way you do , and

38:30

so the learning is how to deal with that

38:33

. One of the things that I say about the

38:35

responsive process is that I practice

38:37

it , even if people don't believe

38:39

in it or practice it themselves . I

38:42

can practice it for myself , and

38:44

I think the vision of work is in the same

38:46

way . We can do the alternatives

38:49

to the modernism behaviors

38:51

, whether people are

38:53

doing them or not .

38:55

Right . I think that's a really important

38:57

point , because we give people

38:59

the tools and resources to

39:01

generate different outcomes , either

39:03

externally or internally for themselves . I

39:06

mean , obviously we do our organizational work and

39:08

we also give people supportive tools

39:10

to make outcomes happen

39:12

differently or at least feel different , even

39:15

if they're applying things just from one

39:17

side .

39:18

Right , exactly Because

39:21

the goal , actually one

39:23

of the goals I'm not saying the goal , but one

39:25

of the goals is to

39:28

live an okay life in spite of living

39:30

in a competitive , racist world .

39:33

So when you say competitive , Felipe

39:35

, I think that that might . I think people

39:37

, most people , will have a sense of what that means . And

39:40

when we say it , we do mean

39:42

certain specific assumptions that

39:44

are operating . Would you give a quick

39:47

overview ?

39:48

Thank you for picking that up , because I

39:50

did a chart also when I was working

39:52

in England , for visions differentiating

39:56

healthy from unhealthy competition

39:58

and I think it's on my website

40:00

and I think it's in the winning together article . But

40:03

visions , I think , has it as a handout and

40:05

it's called I think

40:07

it's called living cooperatively in a competitive

40:09

world but , it's a chart that has

40:11

positive and negative behavior

40:14

. Football games , for instance

40:16

, are okay

40:18

, being competitive behavior although I wonder

40:20

about that , but anyway , because in

40:23

general they work in a cooperative

40:25

environment . You notice , after they finish the game

40:27

they hug each other and congratulate each other

40:30

and we're competing

40:32

to do your best

40:34

to get an advancement in

40:36

your job or to get a higher degree

40:38

. You work real hard and so

40:41

people are often don't

40:43

like to think about Confronting

40:45

competition because that's

40:47

what got them to where they're at . But

40:49

that I'm talking . The negative competition

40:51

is interpersonal competition . Relational

40:54

competition is when I'm

40:56

operating , you say something and I say

40:58

yes , but or you

41:00

share a feeling of what's going on

41:02

with you . This happens very often is I'll

41:05

say I was feeling very tired

41:07

about that or very scared

41:09

, and we'll say a

41:11

little bit about that , and then the person responding

41:13

will say I was real scared about

41:16

something else and they go on with their

41:18

, their story . That's a the

41:20

frame of reference . That's a competitive transaction

41:22

, because it's not a response to

41:25

my feeling is introducing

41:27

another topic which is their feeling . So

41:29

Competition , interpersonal

41:32

, is the one that is negative . That I'm talking

41:35

about when you want to win an argument

41:37

or when you want to put

41:39

someone down . So that's

41:41

, that's a competition . That is not

41:44

useful . And what I'm more interested

41:46

in , I've always been more interested in finding

41:48

the solution rather than spending a lot of

41:50

time and defining the problem Once

41:52

you define the problem . That's

41:55

why I wrote winning together is what do we need

41:57

? How can we work better together ? And

42:00

I wrote this article with I think

42:02

it has about 10 or 11 elements

42:04

to it and I think that I'd

42:06

like to rewrite it and cut those down

42:09

a bit . But it was like

42:11

we have to have a mutual

42:13

vision and then we have

42:15

to have identify goals to meet

42:18

that vision . And if people are

42:20

working together towards a mission

42:22

, they cooperatively

42:24

, they will . I have a chance

42:27

of being successful better chance

42:29

of doing that in our government today

42:31

. It's so sad how

42:34

infrequent we see them identifying

42:36

a problem and working together at solving it . They

42:39

start arguing about whether

42:41

there is a problem to start with , or what is

42:43

the problem and then how to solve

42:45

it . That's , that's unhealthy

42:47

competition . Did that help ?

42:49

explain it . Yes , absolutely , thank

42:52

you , and I appreciated something that you said

42:54

a couple of minutes ago about

42:56

it's very obvious and this is not the first

42:58

time I've heard it and about oppressive

43:01

environments , oppressive systems being inherently

43:03

deeply competitive in

43:05

in the way that we define competitive

43:08

. I win , you lose , whether

43:10

that's at the interpersonal , personal level , or at

43:12

the group , systemic level .

43:14

So I'm right , you're wrong , I'm better

43:16

, you're worse , I'm smarter

43:18

. There's many ways in

43:20

which and none , like I said very

43:23

often that's done out of awareness , and

43:26

so the work that visions does , particularly

43:28

since they emphasize feelings , is

43:30

to bring that out of awareness behavior

43:32

into awareness , in order to be

43:34

able to change it , not

43:37

only in how we treat others , but how we treat

43:39

ourselves . Right I

43:41

, I was a youngest of five , and

43:44

one of the feelings that I often

43:46

deal with is , as a young

43:49

is what do I have to say ? You know , it's . The

43:51

older people are the one to know . So

43:53

that's an internalized depression that I have

43:55

to address in my own life .

43:58

It's amazing how impactful that is how

44:01

those old scripts can still run Absolutely

44:03

, and those out of awareness behaviors

44:06

. So , just to be explicit , some of the

44:08

things that we're referring to are

44:10

when we introduce in the portion

44:13

of our trainings that we call modern oppression

44:15

and internalized oppression

44:17

, slash survival behaviors . So behaviors

44:19

that are out of awareness , that we were sort of

44:22

scripted into , caught and taught that

44:24

we might be engaging in , not

44:27

realizing it . And you're right

44:29

, it's very powerful how just

44:31

even the naming and the categorizing and

44:33

the sometimes , actually frequently

44:35

uncomfortable work of identifying those behaviors

44:37

in ourselves this is certainly true for

44:40

me Identifying those behaviors in myself

44:42

was a very powerful step

44:44

towards being able to choose differently .

44:46

Right Good .

44:48

So you mentioned that you're

44:50

retired and enjoying

44:52

it and you

44:54

know , I feel very fortunate that I was able to

44:56

attend that TA 101

44:59

where you were training , and even more

45:01

fortunate that it's available on YouTube . That was like

45:03

quite a find and I'm curious

45:05

as somebody who's been doing this work in

45:07

various settings and who's seen it evolve

45:10

and who's written on it what would you

45:12

want to teach or

45:14

make sure people who are doing

45:16

this work or who are interested in

45:19

bringing about a better world ? What

45:21

is it that you would want them to know ?

45:24

Well , what comes to mind is

45:26

what I've always wanted to teach , which is

45:28

one of the ways in which we can make teams

45:31

and organizations work cooperatively together

45:33

, and how to identify

45:35

and change oppressive

45:38

behaviors . And what I

45:40

was thinking of as you asked that question , was

45:42

that , to a large extent , I've

45:44

always led my life in terms of

45:46

wanting to do what I call God's work

45:48

, whatever I'm here supposed to

45:51

be doing . So , even though I'm retired

45:53

and I'm not doing a lot of teaching

45:55

, opportunities come up , like this

45:57

opportunity . You just ask me if

45:59

you could interview me and I thought , well , that's

46:01

a way that maybe I can be of help

46:04

to somebody , and daily

46:06

there are ways in which opportunities

46:09

come up for me to be of service

46:11

in some way or another . So

46:13

when I did the workshop

46:15

that you attended or you viewed

46:17

recently , called the responsive

46:20

practice in the responsive process , I

46:22

thought , well , here's an opportunity for me to

46:24

do some teaching , and so I did

46:26

that , and now this interview

46:28

with you . So I'm trusting

46:31

and I was to say hoping , and

46:33

I think I trust that I

46:35

will be shown opportunities

46:37

to be useful and helpful . Either

46:39

, I thought of maybe doing the supervision

46:42

group , practicing the

46:44

responsive process . So I'm

46:46

waiting to see what the next steps are going

46:48

to be for me in terms of teaching

46:51

and impacting people , but in terms

46:53

of what I want to help people learn

46:55

is the importance three

46:57

things that I did in the workshop . One

46:59

of them is the importance of self

47:01

focus , paying attention

47:04

to what's going on internally for me , whether

47:06

I stimuli or where my sadness

47:08

, my scares , my loneliness or

47:10

my ideas , my judgments . What's

47:13

going on for me internally is the very important

47:15

first step that I wish for people

47:17

. Secondly is to learn the power

47:19

of what I can do about what's

47:21

going on for me in terms of me personally

47:24

doing it or and or getting support

47:26

to address it . And

47:29

the third is to behave in a way that

47:31

reflects the OK , this in

47:33

myself and in others , and

47:35

to reinforce and to operate

47:37

out of a place of forgiveness and love . So

47:41

those should three

47:43

behaviors that I see , that I'm hoping

47:45

that people , that I can help

47:47

people , impact people with change

47:50

.

47:50

Beautiful , beautiful , thank you . I love

47:52

that . So those are my formal

47:55

questions . And , felipe , how's your

47:57

energy level Like ? Can I ask you a couple more things

47:59

? Sure , yeah , so when we connected

48:01

last week , you were talking about how

48:04

you first connected to visions , and

48:06

I'm aware this may

48:08

or may not make it into the recorded podcast

48:10

. And I do want to just

48:12

ask because this is part of the Elder Story

48:14

Project . As I mentioned , most

48:17

of the consultants in my cohort

48:19

didn't ever get a chance to meet or get to

48:21

know Joe Lewis , and you

48:23

shared a couple of memories of her . I'd be

48:25

curious if you'd be willing to talk about her a little bit

48:27

.

48:28

Well , joe and I were friends and

48:31

colleagues and we

48:34

used to get together , usually with

48:36

two conferences a year in

48:38

transactional analysis , usually once

48:40

in San Francisco and another one in the

48:42

wintertime in warm places

48:44

like here in San Antonio . We had a couple of

48:46

times , yes , and then we were

48:48

training together

48:50

and Joe and

48:53

Mark developed

48:55

what they call the cooperative process

48:58

and they had training

49:00

groups that they called the

49:03

cooperative . What did ? They had

49:05

a center for cooperative , for cooperative

49:07

I forget what it was called , but it had cooperative

49:10

in the title . And I was doing

49:12

the same work , except I had my own process

49:15

of addressing it and they have theirs . And

49:18

when we got together at visions

49:20

it was just so obvious that

49:22

all of us Valerie bats

49:25

and the reason I mentioned Valerie and

49:27

not Angela is because Valerie

49:29

was also a transactional analyst

49:31

and so was Joe Lewis , and so

49:33

was myself . So , was I , and

49:36

so we just could work

49:39

together so easily because we had the

49:41

same frame of reference .

49:43

And from my understanding , the answer to

49:45

me is obviously yes , and cooperative

49:48

process . That's directly out of transactional

49:50

analysis , right ?

49:52

Well , I'm not

49:54

. I'm not sure , because

49:57

the originators of transactional

49:59

analysis were quite competitive themselves .

50:02

Interesting .

50:03

Well , they were humanistic , they were a man .

50:05

Sure , yeah , yeah .

50:07

A medical model , yeah , but we're really

50:09

wanting to learn to

50:11

be more collaborative . And Claude Steiner

50:14

was very influenced by a woman named

50:16

Hoge Wycov . They were

50:19

creating a kind of a kind of a

50:21

cooperative commune

50:23

sort of thing . They were very popular

50:25

in the 70s and

50:28

so he was developing tools

50:30

to help build teams

50:32

together . And I'm assuming

50:35

that Joe Lewis was also impacted

50:37

by Claude and by Jackie

50:39

Schiff I know she was

50:41

, because she and I were Jackie Schiff's training

50:44

groups together . So

50:46

I just found it very

50:48

compatible working with Val

50:50

, I mean with Joe Lewis , and so also

50:52

with Val Bats . What else can

50:54

I say about Joe ? She was a great clinician

50:57

and she was a great

50:59

trainer and I

51:01

had the honor of working with her many times

51:03

. We were doing the keynote

51:06

speech at a conference at San

51:08

Francisco when she died . We were

51:10

, we had planned we were

51:12

going to do a keynote on

51:14

the vision's model , applying

51:17

it to the group , and she passed

51:19

away and I had to end up

51:21

doing it by myself . That was another time

51:23

that I got myself real nervous , but it went

51:26

out very well , yeah

51:28

. Yeah , she was a lovely woman , really

51:30

powerful .

51:31

Thank you for sharing that . I appreciate that

51:33

and I also know what an

51:35

influence she has had on this

51:38

community and the organization

51:40

and the model , so it's lovely

51:43

to hear stories from people who knew her as

51:45

well as you did . Yeah , is

51:47

there anything that I haven't thought to ask

51:49

, that is top of mind , top of heart , that you

51:51

want to share or talk about ?

51:53

No , I think you covered it very well . I'm very

51:56

interested in asking you the same question

51:58

Is that the only thing that's left to unlever ? Because

52:00

I know that's an interesting story ? But

52:02

no , I think you covered the . I think

52:05

you asked some interesting questions and it made me think

52:07

, and the only thing that I haven't said

52:09

is that I I

52:12

thought this morning before we started , I

52:14

thought I'm assuming that Lena

52:16

knows that when she's dealing with elders , it's

52:19

not only the the memories that they have

52:21

, but also that they made me feel that they may be a

52:23

little wobbly and remembering

52:25

and in their speech . And I have Parkinson's

52:28

that I've been diagnosed

52:30

for about four years and fortunately

52:33

it has a minimal

52:35

impact , but it has an impact . And

52:37

. I think , how I verbalize things

52:40

and memory a little bit . And

52:43

in terms of energy , I think , as you were asking

52:45

earlier , how's your energy ? In

52:47

general , I'm fine . I do everything

52:50

during the day , but I have

52:52

to rest and take care of myself

52:54

around that . So

52:56

, like I said earlier , being an elder

52:58

is quite a learning stage

53:01

. Yeah , we never

53:03

stop learning . Yes , yeah

53:05

, life is about learning .

53:07

So that is on the list of questions

53:10

. Is there something that you'd still like

53:12

to learn ?

53:14

How to deal with , how to continue

53:16

to deal with life in a way that

53:18

I can feel good

53:21

, and good about myself and good about others

53:23

. Beautiful , beautiful In

53:26

this world , because this world has it's

53:28

gotten real scary . We're

53:30

living in a very dangerous time . Yeah

53:32

. And so my

53:35

hope is that we impact

53:37

people in a way that will help them

53:39

vote right , and for us

53:41

to get people in Congress and

53:43

in the White House who , at

53:46

the institutional and cultural levels , deal

53:48

with oppression and sexism and

53:50

racism .

53:51

Yeah , yeah , sometimes when I'm talking

53:53

to people about what I do , one of

53:55

the very potent things about the

53:57

vision's model to me is how it

54:00

gives people the tools and

54:02

skills that they

54:04

need in order to show up is who

54:06

they want to be in the world , and

54:08

that's work that I'm very grateful to be able to

54:11

support people in doing .

54:12

Yeah , that's great .

54:13

Well , Felipe , thank you so much

54:15

for taking the time to talk to me . This has been

54:18

such a pleasure . It's a pleasure to get

54:20

to know you better and to

54:22

hear about your experiences and to

54:24

hear you talk about your work .

54:27

Well , thank you very much , Lena . Thank you so

54:29

much . I really enjoyed talking to you

54:31

and getting to think about these things

54:33

, and I hope it was helpful .

54:37

Wonderful . Thank

54:39

you very much , thank you .

54:41

And I look forward to meeting you in person again

54:43

.

54:44

Likewise , we

54:48

have a few exciting things coming up . This year

54:50

, which is our 40th anniversary , we want

54:52

to flag for you our 2024 Spring Summit

54:54

, which is called In it for the Long Hall Trauma

54:57

informs strategies for sustaining laboratory

54:59

work . We have a wonderful lineup of speakers

55:01

and workshop facilitators , including Dr

55:03

Gabor Matei talking about compassion fatigue

55:05

, longtime vision consultant Emily

55:08

Schatzau and her collaborator , trauma

55:10

theorist and author of Trauma and Recovery

55:12

, dr Judith Herman , teaching about the

55:14

importance of community care . Our

55:16

40th anniversary celebration is going to happen

55:19

on September 27th , 2024

55:21

at the State Room in Boston . Follow

55:23

us to hear more . Links are in the show notes . Thank

55:26

you so much for listening , until next time you

55:57

.