You’re Successful… So Why Are You Still Burnt Out? | Katie Townsend

May 19

Episode 47 with Katie Townsend

In this episode of No Permission Necessary, Jill and Molly are joined by Katie Townsend, Trauma Therapist and Business Coach, to explore how over-functioning and survival patterns can drive success while also leading to burnout.

They discuss the relationship between nervous system regulation, trauma responses, and high achievement, and how these patterns can impact both personal wellbeing and professional growth. The conversation highlights the importance of recognizing these patterns and developing more sustainable ways of operating.

Jill Griffin (00:00)
I'm so excited for today's episode with Katie Townsend. She's an Instagram follower turned friend over the past few years. Katie is a trauma trained business coach who works with high performing coaches, therapists and healers who look successful on the outside, but behind the scenes, their nervous system is still running the show.
She blends somatics, identity, and strategy to help her clients stop letting survival patterns run their business and start making repeatable money that keeps flowing while they're actually living their lives.
Jill Griffin (00:34)
Well, I'm so excited to have you on today because we've been Instagram internet friends for, I don't know, it's probably been a few years.
Katherine Townsend (00:43)
I think like more.
Molly Bierman (00:44)
that's how you guys know
each other?
Jill Griffin (00:45)
Yeah, we know each other through Instagram.
Molly Bierman (00:48)
my god, that's so funny. Okay, great. This is so interesting. Let's go.
Jill Griffin (00:52)
Yeah, so we've, you know, messaged back and forth for a few years and she does some really interesting stuff, you know, in the behavioral health space that I would say is non-traditional, but certainly stuff that we talk about comes up, I mean, and you're woman in recovery, which I think really blends perfectly with everything.
Molly Bierman (01:13)
So take us back a little bit into what drew you to the population of working with over-functioning women. Is that your own personal experience? Is that something that you observed in your life, you know, in other people's lives? Tell us a little bit about it.
Katherine Townsend (01:26)
Definitely from personal experience. was, you know, 15 years ago, I would not have used the word over-functioning. But when I was 24 and went back to school, I was just getting sober, brand new mom, and finishing up a year of therapy. You know what I mean? And starting to like really get back into that place where my self-esteem was up and I was like ready to go. I was ready to rebuild.
and I went back to school to become a therapist. And during that time, I thrived. I did really well, right? Like working 60 hours a week in substance use as a behavioral health technician, working my way up, you know, because I'm gonna be the therapist, I'm gonna work my way up from the bottom to the top, being a single mom, going to school, you know, getting all the A's and just kind of not realizing that at the time, but trying to...
overcompensate for all of the shame that I had from my past through 10 years of heroin addiction. Like I was broken and homeless and pregnant when I came in to recovery. And so a year of like, okay, I can get my life back on track. Let's go for it. So for the next eight years of excelling and hitting every goal post,
and then moving it further, you know what I mean? Overworking in every single capacity. Not only was I going to school, doing internships, because we all know how difficult that is, right? Like the internship with the schooling, as well as working 40, 50 hours a week, because I had no boundaries. You wanted me to do it, I was going to do it. I was going to show you what an excellent employee I was, right? Like, no problem, you want me to run that group, you want me to stay after, you want me to do this, I'll do it.
And then also being like, oh, I need to make extra money starting a side hustle, making jewelry and selling that on Etsy. Like, I don't even know how I did everything I was doing. But there was a point in like the seventh year of school right before I was about to graduate where I just crashed out, like hardcore. And I burnt out and I remember sitting in my car before going into work and I was just crying.
And I was like, how am gonna do this today? And I don't know if anybody's ever experienced that burnout before of just like being like, how the hell am I gonna face this day? I don't have it in me, but still having to go anyway and do it. ⁓ At that point, I realized I was in that cycle of over-functioning and it was driven from these deep imprinted stories of shame and insecurity from my past.
And that was when I started to do the work around this and get familiar with nervous system work, parts work, and applying it to myself. And then eventually leaving my career that I was so excited to have, right? Like I was like, my God, I got the promotion. I'm the primary therapist. This is everything I wanted. They're offering me more money. And I was like, I'm sorry, I have to stop. I can't do this anymore. This isn't where I want to be. I can't take care of my mental health and do what I need to do. And also I just felt super capped.
in my income and my ability to help people and I wanted to help more women specifically. And so that was when I started my coaching business and it's been a journey of just uncovering and reclaiming and healing ever since then so that I don't shift back into those patterns of over-functioning and burnout.
Jill Griffin (04:51)
think so many people are probably listening and identifying what things you're saying because Molly and I talk about this all the time. You get sober and then there is a large percentage of us who go into the behavioral health space, right? And we go and work in the fields. want to help people the way that somebody helped us, right? And there becomes this point where you've done the work, but there are layers to that when you start...
Molly Bierman (04:54)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (05:17)
than helping other people, right? And I'm wondering are there things that you thought sobriety would fix that actually it didn't? cause we all know on this podcast that like once that's taken care of, there's all these other layers that we have to unpack.
Katherine Townsend (05:32)
definitely. And I'm so happy that you asked that question because when I first got sober, I, you know, I was doing therapy at the time and I could only meet myself at the level that my nervous system and my body were ready to process at, you know what I mean? So like, there was only so much that I could touch and go into. And that's really, that's a good thing, right? Like you don't want to just dump it all at once. You can't heal it all at once. There has to be a process of
being in new experiences, seeing what happens, learning and growing from that, getting the support and the help. And in the beginning, the 12 steps after I left treatment were great. Like that was amazing. That was what I needed, but there was only a level of awareness that went so far with those 12 steps and the way that I was approaching recovery then. And it didn't touch some of the deeper rooted trauma that was still living in my body.
that needed to felt and completed so that I could stop repeating the patterns. But I didn't know what I didn't know, right? Like, and that's the thing is this is why we need support and this is why we need guidance because there were so many things that I uncovered in the beginning around like self-esteem and forgiveness and healing around like relationships with family and all of that. But there was so much more that
came through as I started to expand and get the gifts that recovery gives us and starting to have more because with more comes more sensation in the body, more experiences to be felt, more opportunities for shutting down, going into the hyper arousal state, just going and and going and going and running from all of it and not wanting to feel it. And I had to face all of that at each new level that I was at. there was definitely like, you get what you get when you're ready for it.
And people don't understand that you can't think your way into knowing like what's happening. I knew why I was doing the things I was doing. All of us could tell like a million stories about why we do what we do, but actually feeling it, understanding it and completing it in the body so that you stop repeating it is something completely different. And you don't know until you're actually like put in a situation where it's either reflected back to you by someone.
or you start to say, I'm so sick of doing this to myself, something has to change.
Molly Bierman (07:51)
feel like there's such a powerful experience that can happen when somebody reflects it back to you Because I think oftentimes Jill and I have both had this experience and we've talked a lot about it on this podcast, which is people who point it out, especially people that are closest to us, I think it's harder to hear, right?
I've definitely been a person in recovery that's also engaged in parts work for an extended period of time. And I was sharing with somebody about this role reversal that I just did, which is a very simple practice. Essentially, someone's observing somewhere that I'm stuck. They asked me to role reverse, basically speak to myself from a different vantage point, and then come back into the seat, right? And so what that does is that I'm able to see objectively, right? Especially when you're in recovery,
it's really easy to help people. And why it's easy to help people is because you're basically utilizing your own experience to then help somebody else. And so if you can get to a place where you start to unpack some of these things in parts work, you're basically doing a similar practice except on yourself, right? So, and for this example, when I did the role reversal, I was to play recovery, right? So what would recovery say to me if I was...
Katherine Townsend (09:03)
Hmm.
Molly Bierman (09:04)
looking at, you know, this conflict that I was in, right? And so what recovery would tell me is that, like, I'm stuck in resentment. I'm not being cognizant of my part. I have a much greater, love and system that I can rely on, right? And so all of these things started to take place with them. When I came back in the seat, I felt very clear. But also what happened is that not only did I feel clear, but the sadness was able to emerge.
Katherine Townsend (09:30)
Yes.
Molly Bierman (09:30)
And so the biggest thing that I think where people get stuck and at least for myself is that our protectors from the recovery space and the way that we lived our life keep us really safe. And so when you think about some of the survival patterns, which essentially kept you safe and then catapulted you into running your own business, what does that look like and
was there a turning point where you observed, this is the same pattern I used to use when I was ripping and running. And now I'm using it as a sober woman in a business as a mom.
maybe you could speak a little bit more about, you know, kind of how that showed up.
Katherine Townsend (10:08)
So this is such a, there's so many different parts that I can think of right now that show up all the different little protector parts in my firefighters that show up. But I, one of them that plays the main role for me and has always played the main role for me ever since I was younger, I named my parts. So she's Hustler Honey. And Hustler Honey is like the one who goes into just constantly moving and going because if I sit still then I.
to actually face the feelings that are beneath and that sadness that might come up or that grief that might come up or that insecurity that might be present. And so she has definitely ran the show ever since I was a kid. ⁓ I definitely ran away from some of the feelings at home by going into being the best student where I also did competitive dance growing up. being the best dancer, getting the biggest awards, whatever.
Molly Bierman (10:58)
Yeah.
Katherine Townsend (11:03)
showing up and working the hardest because if I could do that then somehow I could receive the validation that I wasn't getting from the people who were meant to give it to me ⁓ and that I was missing from my experience as a child. And so I had that play out in addiction too because I was going to be the best addict that there was.
Like I'm telling you right now, like not in a good way, but like in like, figured out how to make as much money as possible and use as as much as I could every single day. Like because I was willing to escape and obviously that's a firefighter that comes in there but Hustler Honey and my addiction firefighter both play a little role together. They work together to make sure that I didn't have to feel at all for like 10 years. And I ran every single day, figured out
as much money as possible, get as much as I could and then collapse at the end of the day and then do it again the next one. And so when I got sober, I can definitely see how that same pattern showed out as a story that I shared before with schooling, with everything and then starting my business. I went nothing, quitting that career to building a business that was generating over $300,000 in the next 18 months.
And that wasn't because I knew what I was doing. It was because I'm really good at figuring it out. And that's a great benefit of hustler honey is like, she will figure shit out. She will figure it out and she will get it done. And I think a lot of women understand that very well. But when that came into play with her, with I call it the wounded version, the million dollar version of our part, right? There's like the wounded version that's acting to protect that.
But then there's the million dollar part when we give her that new role where she can take on something that's healthy and she can actually benefit us. And so she was acting from a wounded heart for that first like two years. And so I was able to achieve a lot, but I was also completely numbed out from my experience, wasn't able to celebrate what was happening for me. I was running from failing, right? ⁓ So she still shows up today for me.
Molly Bierman (13:04)
Mm-hmm.
Katherine Townsend (13:11)
but she's part of my little internal team. Like we all work together. She's not working from that wounded role anymore. And she never really, that's the thing about this and I'm sure you know is like, there's not a bad part. Like she protected me, she kept me alive. Like she was the one who kept me from probably wanting to kill myself a lot of times, right? Like facing so much emotion that my body wasn't ready to handle. And...
today from working with her and working with the little girl that she was trying to protect, now she plays a really great role in my internal team with self-leading the discussion where she can come in and help me get shit done. We can do the things that are hard. We can show up when we don't want to. We can find the determination to finish that big project, but not in an attempt to run from feelings or just survive anymore.
Molly Bierman (14:01)
So if you have women listening that are hearing this example, right, mine and yours collectively, who are basically sitting there like these two bitches have multiple personalities, can you please break down in layman's terms, because I think everyone in this room knows what we're talking about, but could you break down what parts work is ⁓ for our listeners and why it matters?
Jill Griffin (14:02)
I mean.
Molly Bierman (14:27)
when you're starting to do more emotional and professional growth work.
Katherine Townsend (14:33)
Yeah, absolutely. So when we're thinking about parts work, what we're thinking about is that at some point during our most likely in our childhood, but also at other stages in life, there was some part about us, some part about who we genuinely are that was told you're too much, you're not enough, you're too sensitive, you're too this, you're too that was shamed into hiding. And that part that felt like it wasn't accepted or belonged
our brain and our body create these other mechanisms, these other parts that show up to protect that part from feeling too much emotion because it's too overwhelming to the system. And so we have managers and we have firefighters. Firefighters for the people in recovery, that's your addiction. That's the one who came in and was like, this is too much, put the emotional fire out, we don't wanna feel this, it needs to go numb, I need to not feel this right now. So those parts come online occasionally. But then we have the managers. The managers,
are the parts of ourselves that we created to protect that little girl or that part that felt very vulnerable, which is called the exile. And those manager parts are the ones who are basically kind of running the show when we haven't done the healing work to bring self online. So self is the part of us that's like compassionate, courageous, curious, playful, connected. Like that part of you, when you feel so like...
I'm still present with this person right now. I feel really good about who I am. I feel like I can face anything. I can problem solve. can create, can do all the things. That's our self energy. Self energy has always been present, but it just takes a backseat when we feel vulnerable or we've been through some shit, right? And these manager parts step forward to keep that exile safe. So the way that I like to describe this that makes it really easy for people to understand this is something I do in my programs is like, I want you to think of a house, okay?
So in the basement is that exiled part. And that exiled part has been hidden and put away to protect. But they never get to come out of the basement. So they're just down there. We don't even really know they're down there. They got put away a long time ago. And then we have like the living room and the kitchen and the other areas of the house where everybody's always moving around. And most likely the people, the parts of ourselves that are on that floor are the managers and the firefighter.
So firefighters are kind hanging out waiting for something really big to happen to put the fire out But the managers are directing all the traffic in the house directing everything we're doing in our life directing all the emotions everything and then self got locked in the attic because self wasn't trusted by the other parts because they're like you did a shitty job protecting us so we don't really have you in the show because you weren't there when we needed you so they think and Self is in the attic. The exile part is in the basement. They never communicate and basically what's happening
is our managers and our firefighters are running our lives. Our goal is to take self out of the attic, put it in the living room, start connecting with the managers and the firefighters, having conversations, building relationships with them, so they start to trust us, and then we get to go into the basement, and we get to free that exile from that basement, bring it onto the living room floor, and now we all get to work together as a team.
Molly Bierman (17:20)
such a good example, literally such a good example.
Katherine Townsend (17:44)
where self is running and managing our life and not all these other parts that we didn't even know existed before we started this work.
Jill Griffin (17:51)
I mean, that's such a great, I might steal that honestly, for my therapy clients. I use parts work in the
Katheirne Townsend (17:54)
No, go ahead. It's pretty good. Have fun with it.
Jill Griffin (18:02)
work that I do with clients and I feel like as I'm listening to you talk about this, a lot of people, once they get to that point, whether they're in sobriety or not, I feel like what happens is we maintain, we maintain with these parts and these protectors until what is,
what we're using to protect us, just it stops working eventually, right? And that is the moment that you either crash out or you do something about it. It's like the pivotal moment, right? Or somebody has to, you have to ask for help at that point because it's not even a logical moment of like, should, cause a lot of people that come to me, they are successful objectively. And we talk about this a lot, like they're making the money.
They have the family. have the stability. Like on paper, everything should be fine. So I think there is a shame to present with, why am I crashing out? What is wrong with me? Why do I want to burn everything to the ground and walk away from the success that I've built, right? And a lot of times I have to reflect back. Your protectors have stopped working for you. Like you have come to a point where we have to recognize that something else is happening under the surface and trying to come up because you're ready to face that now.
And there's always this fear of facing it because there is, although it's subconscious, there's a part of us that knows there's that little thing that we have to look at, right? Or that big thing or whatever. And so I'm wondering when women come into your program and you're coaching them, how do you walk them through that fear of looking at it? Because for us, I'm sure all the women you work with are not in recovery. And so I think for us, when we're talking about doing the work,
We're kind of used to that. When you come into recovery and you have the desire to not keep doing what you're doing, like you'll do whatever somebody says. But for somebody who doesn't have that experience, there's a lot of fear there of doing the work that I find.
Katheirne Townsend (19:55)
Yeah, absolutely. And there's also a lot of protectors that show up when you try to go there, right? Like they're they're like, absolutely not. We're not doing that. And so I get a lot of over intellectualizing from my clients because many of the women I work with, so there's like, it's weird because right now there's two sets of people because I have started doing substance abuse work again with clients. And for a while there I was working with an all male population. So we could talk about that forever.
Jill Griffin (19:59)
Mm-hmm.
yeah.
Katheirne Townsend (20:22)
But like so I have two sets of people to compare from right like it's it's almost I almost want to say it's harder with the women who have done a lot of work because I work with coaches and therapists specifically and like healers and somatic practitioners and stuff like that ⁓ and they think I love you guys, but they think they know everything you know what I mean like they think They have a protector part that thinks they know everything like I already know this or i've done this work before or
Molly Bierman (20:49)
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Katheirne Townsend (20:49)
I've already looked at that and
they can explain their patterns to me and why they do things like a Harvard professor. And I'm like, that's amazing. But can we just stop and actually look at what you were trying to protect by analyzing and telling me all of these things, right? Like I get that you can tell me about your patterns and why you have them, but why are you continuing to repeat them? What are you scared will happen if you will stop?
Jill Griffin (20:59)
you
Katheirne Townsend (21:17)
And then that's when the conversation starts to go a little bit further, a little bit further. I don't really, I think that the women I work with want to categorize it as fear of facing it because they have faced so much stuff in their lives, but they don't even realize that the intellectualization, thing that makes them a great coach and therapist is the exact thing that's stopping them from getting deeper and connecting with the exiled parts inside of them that are using this protection pattern.
to stop them from feeling the much bigger emotions. And so in the coaching, ⁓ it's a process of getting to know those parts, even acknowledging that they even exist, right? Creating that separation from self and that part that work together, like she can't even tell where self ends and that part begins. So creating that little bit of separation and then going deeper into the actual
I call it an inner child retrieval in the work that I do. ⁓ But, and everybody has a different way of using this, but we kind of have fundamentals across the line of how we do this work. But getting to the point where I can even access that inner child usually takes like six to eight weeks. And that was why I started, I created a course where they can just go through this on their own and like through a self healing journey and start to do that work so that by the time they actually come into a container with me, we can start making more progress. Cause even getting to that, getting to the basement,
Molly Bierman (22:42)
Mm-hmm.
Katheirne Townsend (22:43)
takes
a little bit of time.
Molly Bierman (22:44)
Can you give us an example of, and it doesn't have to be one person, but giving us an example of a client who looked like she had it all together, but underneath what was actually happening, your experience and through your clientele.
Katheirne Townsend (22:57)
⁓ There's a couple that came to mind. So, I have one client specifically. We've been working together for a long time and I just absolutely adore her. She's amazing. you know, on the outside, looked like she had everything together. The business is thriving. The money is coming in. Everything that she puts out like turns into signups, sold out launches, all of the things, right? Like she's making ridiculous amounts of money. She's a very skilled coach. She's done all the certifications.
But inside, when she's coming to me, there is just this constant anxiety that it's all going to fall apart, it's never enough, I need more. She would hit $100,000 in two month goal and then be like, it's not enough. Look at this person over here making X amount of dollars.
or oh my God, I had to spend all this money over here and invest over here. So now I need to go into hyper drive, selling harder, posting more, and push herself into that hustler honey. But then she also had who I called doomsday Donna is that everything's gonna fall apart. Everything's gonna go to shit. As soon as a client like if a payment didn't go through or there was
but a quote unquote complaint, not even a complaint, just a little bit of like rupture in a relationship that had to be repaired. She would go into fawning, taking over responsibility for that, not being able to address it, making it all about her, thinking that she's terrible. The imposter syndrome, the self doubt would kick in, right? And she wasn't even able to like experience the joy because the joy felt very vulnerable for her.
The joy and the celebration and the goodness of what was happening in her business felt so vulnerable because she thought it was going to be ripped away. And we found that out after going into childhood experiences of being overly criticized by parents, ⁓ never measuring up to standards. She was like one of seven kids.
Right? So like always feeling invisible, never feeling like she mattered, feeling like she had to work really hard to get the attention and the responsiveness from people, but still even though it was never enough. So hence the, have so much, but it's never enough mentality, no matter it was with money or clients or recognition or client testimonials or whatever, like the work that she was doing. ⁓ So getting into the container over the past, we've worked together now for
Probably a year and a half. And in doing that, she's actually able to slow down now. She's actually able to celebrate. We've started to give these parts new roles that actually support her instead of burning her off. It's just like Jill said, like those things work for a period of time, but they were not working at this new level that she was at. They were literally killing her. Like she was having physical symptoms, chronic illness stuff was showing up.
Molly Bierman (25:42)
Mm-hmm. Right, right, right. Right. Yeah.
Katheirne Townsend (25:50)
we had to really go into getting down to those exiles and liberating them. And there's more than one, right? So we've done a lot of work around a few of those between childhood, teenage years and early adulthood and relationships. And now she can actually like celebrate her success. She's not measuring her worth based off how much money she's making. She's not measuring her worth based off of clients' results. And that's actually giving her the freedom to experience that joy that felt so vulnerable for her.
Molly Bierman (26:13)
Mm-hmm.
Katheirne Townsend (26:17)
celebration that felt so uncomfortable before. And so not only is her business expanding more than it has, but she's also, I don't want to say working less, but she's carrying less of an emotional load every single day.
Molly Bierman (26:18)
⁓
Right.
Right.
Jill Griffin (26:31)
I hope that this is resonating with people because I just have this thought in my head of all of the conversations that I've had really over the past couple of years with a lot of people in this field as they tell me how exhausted they are, like the grind that they're in, like they don't know if this is where they want to be or this is what they work so hard for. it's like, I reflect back, you you almost have to reverse engineer from your nervous system of how do you want to feel?
Right? And how do you want to show up? mean, as you were talking about celebrating, I remember some work I did years ago where I've really brought that into my team environment where I make sure that we pause and we recognize like new achievements that we hit positive, you know, success with clients, like, because I worked in agencies, you know, if you look at it from a systemic level.
I've worked in those where it's just a grind. You never stop to say, ⁓ my God, like this client came back and it's still sober 18 months from, know, or, you know, we got a positive review and look what they said about the work that we did. Like there was never a time where we stopped to celebrate those things. And I think it makes such a big difference because that does feel unsafe. Like, but, there's more work to do and what happens if we stop and if we're not always going and you know, I just think about how
as a leader, because you're talking about women kind of like individually, but I kind of pull back and say, well, if you can regulate the leaders of these systems, right, that trickles down into the staff. And also reminds me of a conversation I had last week about boundaries. Like you mentioned the overworking. And I tell my staff, why are you working a 12 hour day? Nobody asked you to stay and do that. And that's not going to fly here. You need to go home. And they look at me like I'm crazy. No, we're not doing that here.
It's not sustainable.
Katheirne Townsend (28:18)
I just I have to say something too because from a systematic level from like this macro perspective But then we bring it down to the micro perspective of like doing that for the leaders like imagine how different you show up to the client experience in the client sessions because when you're not constantly In a place where you're looking for deficits or why things aren't working You can actually celebrate the strengths of the clients and I know sometimes it's really difficult and substance abuse because we get so programmed in this like
Like it's we just see so many times it not working We feel like it's not working not that it's not but we have this perception that it's not working because we're looking for and I've worked in a lot of substance abuse facilities over the last 15 years so like I have seen the the old paradigm of this playing out where it's like that's a disease behavior and that's an addictive behavior and they're being Manipulative and they're being this and I think so many times
when the clinician is dysregulated and overworked and playing out these patterns within themselves, they're looking at their client from the lens of, they're not working hard enough, they're not doing the work, they're playing out these manipulative behaviors, they're attention seeking, they're lying, whatever. And I'm just sitting there and I'm thinking about...
What a disservice to the client when we're showing up to sessions that way, because we're not celebrating the strengths and the progress that they're making. If we can't even recognize the little micro shifts that are happening on a day-to-day basis and their behavior changes, looking at their strengths, looking at the way that they're thinking differently, looking at the effort that they're putting into it, even at the level that they're able to when the time they come into treatment. if we could look at it through that lens, the client is way more likely to have better...
quicker progress in the session and for that to be translated in how they feel about themselves too, right? And so I think when we're working in systems of mental health, there's so much there that as leaders, it's our responsibility when we have this awareness to change because then that impacts the client result.
and the growth that they get to have and the way that they're viewing themselves. And that was one of the reasons that I still do 12 step programs, but I think there's a lot of shame based approach to the way that some of those things are done. They have saved my life. I have no qualms about them, but I think that sometimes we can get into like character defect mode and be like, that's a character defect. That's this, that's that. As opposed to looking at it like from a parts perspective.
that is just something that you're using. It's an adaptation that you created as a result of trauma to help you survive. It's not a bad thing, but it's our responsibility to find a better way to work with that and figure out why you're doing it and how we can change it, right? As opposed to like, that's a defect and that's a bad thing and you should look at it this way. I just feel like that sometimes that can take a wrong angle with people and lead them into these same patterns that we were.
Molly Bierman (31:12)
Do you think that, you know, a lot of times we think about our recovery and what was and what could have been and how it could have looked differently, especially as the evolution of substance abuse treatment has, I would say, come some steps. I wouldn't say it's come a long way, but I would say it's come some steps. And so when you think about parts work, do you think you would have been capable of in recovery, pregnant?
Katheirne Townsend (31:36)
So this is a great question.
Molly Bierman (31:37)
I mean, yeah, and I'd love to hear
your experience on it. You had highlighted that you were, you had highlighted you were pregnant, you were in a long-term program. So maybe give us a little bit more deets on that and what you would have thought. Okay, okay.
Jill Griffin (31:41)
Me? No way.
Katheirne Townsend (31:42)
Ha!
I couldn't even cry for the first six months of treatment. Okay, I used to sit
in sessions. had this one, I'm gonna even say her name because she was amazing. Dr. Siegel, I remember her name. like she was like, everyone didn't want to go to her group because you were gonna cry. And she was like, no nonsense. It was a process group, like a trauma process group. And she was no nonsense. I was always so excited. So was like, I'm gonna feel something today. Like today's gonna be the day that I'm gonna feel something. Because I was so numb and put off.
after ⁓ so many years of suppression. And it took me six months before I could cry, right? And it was in her group and I kept trying and it happened. But how I kind of, I think, know for me and the way that I approach this with my clients in substance abuse now is I don't come at it from the traditional parts work framework. I come at it from the let's build interoception, start understanding how we're feeling. What are the thoughts that are coming up with that feeling?
Molly Bierman (32:37)
Sure.
Katheirne Townsend (32:45)
Do you think that maybe this isn't really you saying this, that this is maybe something you learned from a child, from childhood or somebody else that told you this? And I kind of take a backdoor approach to it. And in that, I can start getting them connected to feeling, because that's really my goal. Because I only have them with me for maybe six to eight weeks, depending on what level of care they're in. So my goal is like, let's get you connected to your feelings. Let's actually learn how to feel.
what we need to do. And some of my clients are ready to go further. Some of them have more resource, some of them have better coping skills, better insight. And so I can do inner child work with them and start to do some of that inner child retrieval. And I've had a lot of progress with that, but others it's like, literally like, let's just learn how to turn our body on and get connected to how we're feeling and start from there. So again, this work depends and this is where the clinician comes in is like where you have to meet them where they're at. Like who are we working with and where are we at?
Molly Bierman (33:18)
Sure.
Yeah, because I think so often that, you know, clients prefrontal cortex has obviously been hijacked with substances for, you know, X amount of years or months, usually years with most of our clients.
And so to think that we're gonna say, hey, you know, maybe you did you learn this in a, you know, in a different way, right? When you were younger or you talk about family. I mean, I can vividly remember and I'll give a tangible example. This is years into recovery. Okay, we're talking. I don't know, I probably had at least a decade sober.
and I was in a session with ⁓ just like a traditional talk therapist and she started to broach my family of origin, my family system. And I immediately was like, I had a great childhood, you know? And I'm not saying I didn't have a great childhood, but there were definitely challenges, right? There's definitely challenges in a family system always, but I was so well protected. And so when I think about...
Going into a you know going in with somebody who's early in recovery and I think this is good for people to know is that their default at least mine was and I think that it sounds like most of ours were is If I'm given an excuse of why I'm showing up this way it's gonna be really easy to kind of use that on the opposite side of kind of hijacking or shaming or
Calling your family and saying my clinician told me that I learned this from you know So there's such a dance and I respect your ability to be able to hold and straddle kind of all parts of that because It is not easy, you know, especially when clients are so Driven to keep funding and supporting what has really taken their pain away, right? So
Such an important, part of the story. And no, I would have never been able to do parts work at that early. Never.
Katheirne Townsend (35:39)
I
don't know what you're talking about. I really have no idea what's going on. But I think the best thing that my therapist said to me when I was in treatment, probably had like, I don't know, maybe six months or something. And I was about to have my baby because I went in about two or three months after I found out I was pregnant and then I went into treatment.
Molly Bierman (35:42)
Yeah.
Katheirne Townsend (36:05)
I was going over some trauma that happened right before I had come into treatment. And I was worried about how that trauma might impact the baby. And I brought it up like every session for like a month. And I would just kind of like spiral out on it. It was like that little rumination of just like, what if, and playing out all the stories. The trauma trying to resolve itself, obviously. But I couldn't get it out no matter what she did with me. And then she just looked at me one day and she was like,
Molly Bierman (36:17)
you
I loop.
Katheirne Townsend (36:35)
Why does it matter? And I was like, She's like, if you had the answer to that question, would it change anything? And I was like, no, I guess it wouldn't. And she did it in a very nice confrontational way, but I appreciated it because it was what I needed to disrupt that pattern in my brain and in my body of cycling this thing. And I was like, you know what? I guess it doesn't matter why. And she's like, okay.
So what are we going to do next? And she took a very solution focused approach with me and I appreciated that. And that worked really well for me in that moment because sometimes we get into that intellectualization of like, why, why did it happen? What can I do to change it? How can I explain this away in an attempt to resolve or control or predict? And it's like, it just doesn't matter why. Like, and I think that that's a really helpful thing that we can use with clients who get stuck in that pattern that happens for a lot of the clients I see who are just coming into treatment.
Molly Bierman (37:22)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (37:30)
I also think that I said this to somebody this morning about how totally unrelated, some like exercise thing that somebody's probably tried to explain to me 10 or 11 times before whatever reason I watched this one video this weekend and the way that this woman explained it, I was like, ⁓ I get it now. something clicked and I was like, this totally makes sense. I think that's where...
Katheirne Townsend (37:48)
It's so funny.
Jill Griffin (37:53)
whether it's in recovery or when we talk about mentorship, like we have to have a community of people that we're bouncing things off of because sometimes it takes one person explaining something or being curious in a different way that disrupts that pattern so that we can have a different experience. And that doesn't happen in isolation. We can't do that. can't, even as a therapist and you know all the books and you know all the things, we can't self.
solve those things a lot of times. We need that reflection point. So I just love this conversation. I feel like we can go on and on forever. But I do want you to share. have parts to profit, is ⁓ your offering that you do. Who's it for? What changes for them on the other side? And if people want to, how can they find you?
Katheirne Townsend (38:42)
Thank you. So I definitely agree with what you said. We do need community and that's a big part of the work that I do. ⁓ Parts to Profit is the course that I created. I mentioned it earlier because I realized that a lot of women coming into this work need to do the foundations of learning how to identify parts, ⁓ learning how to get down to that exile. We do a little bit of unburdening. I did a live session with this ⁓ and then we actually get into assigning them new roles. I call it your million dollar internal team.
⁓ And so a lot of the women coming into my world, like I said before, they've had success in their careers, their therapist coaches that have built practices or businesses that they're successful. Like things are working, but it doesn't feel like things are working internally for them. And they start to see how these different patterns are showing up and it's capping their income. It's impacting the way that they show up in their marketing. It's impacting the way that they show up with their clients. And so I realized, well,
what we need is something that we can start to learn what these parts are that creating these patterns. And that's when I created Parts to Profit. So it's a foundational course that women can go into, start to identify what parts are running their business right now and how they're no longer helping them get where they wanna go and how we can start assigning those parts new roles that support us in the business and leading with self-authority. ⁓ So this is for anyone who feels like there are certain things that they're doing in their business or in their practice.
that is stopping them from getting to that next level that they want to be at. The one that they've been thinking about, journaling about, manifesting, visualizing, all the things for so long, but it just feels like they keep hitting that ceiling. This is the work where they need to start to focus on what is actually creating that ceiling and how do we smash right through it so that you can start to have ⁓ self-authority running your business and start hitting those new income or visibility goals that you have.
And where you can find me, Instagram, am Katie Townsend, TikTok, I am Katie Townsend is the same across the board. Lots of great tips and perspectives and tools that you can use for somatics and strategy and scaling your business.
Molly Bierman (40:37)
If
So you're in a totally new season of life. And I think it's a final question. I'd love to know you're expecting your second child, which is so exciting. And through that process, what would you say?
We ask for a permission slip on every single episode. So we ask our interviewee to give permission to our listeners. So what does no permission necessary mean to you right now in this season of your life? And what would you be giving permission for to our listeners?
Katheirne Townsend (41:22)
Okay, so no permission
necessary right now at this stage in my life. Looks like I don't have to be having these high touch points with every single person in my world in order to create change for them.
And that was a belief that I held on to a really long time. And it's what kept me capped in my business because I felt like if I couldn't have a touch point with you, see you face to face, have a session with you or have a group call with you, then this disbelief that people were gonna change, right? And that really came from like, can I change without that level of accountability? Can I create change and transformation without.
someone sitting right in front of me. And I think the permission necessary for myself and what I might offer to everyone else right now is like, You don't always have to be in an energy of caretaking and showing up for everybody and trying to manage other people's feelings and emotions through your coaching or therapy to get them results. Like we can trust other people to do the work and we can trust ourselves to receive what
to give, give, give, give, give, give, give. And that's the season I'm in now because as I get ready to have a baby and run a business, I've never done that before. And I don't know. I don't know. My daughter was seven or six when I started this. You know what I mean? So now she's like 15. And so I don't know what that's going to be like. I don't remember what postpartum was like, but I just remember that I was exhausted a lot.
And I am not gonna have the energy to book out my calendar with one-to-ones and be constantly doing masterminds and programs. And so I'm shifting into a season of my life where it's gonna be a lot more passive offers that are gonna help me scale my business. And I have to trust myself to receive that way and feel worthy of receiving that way while also trusting that other people can show up for themselves and get the results without having.
me there to show them how to do it. You know what I mean? So that's the permission I would give to myself and to anybody listening right now.
Molly Bierman (43:29)
Thank you so much. Such a powerful episode. I'm so excited. For our listeners, please like, follow, subscribe. If you enjoyed this episode, please write in with any questions. Please reach out to Katie if you would like to learn more about her offerings. And as always, we will see you next Tuesday for a new episode. Thank you so much.
Jill Griffin (43:49)
Amazing.
Katherine Townsend (43:49)
Thank you guys.