Heartfelt Healing: Navigating Trauma-Informed Care with Love and Compassion

In this captivating interview, I talk with Mary Coughlin, MS, NNP, RNC-E, a trailblazer in the field of trauma-informed care, as she shares her inspiring journey and insights. Discover how early life experiences shape our biology and psychology, and explore the profound impact trauma can have on individuals, families, and communities. Mary's expertise highlights the importance of empathy, compassion, and creating a safe space for healing. Together, we explore the concept of trauma at both an individual and societal level, uncovering how trauma-informed care can be applied to a wide range of settings, including healthcare, education, and beyond. Prepare to be inspired as Mary's wisdom and passion guide transforming darkness into love and compassion. Whether you're a healthcare professional, someone with personal experience of trauma, or simply interested in creating a more compassionate world, this episode will challenge your perspective and ignite your drive to make a difference. Join us on this transformative journey as we embrace trauma-informed care, fostering a culture of understanding, healing, and empowerment. Let's pave the way for a brighter, more compassionate future together.

For more information on trauma-informed care, please check out these sites.

https://www.caringessentials.net/
https://www.instagram.com/caring.essentials/
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=caring%20essentials%20collaborative

Thanks so much for listening!

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Transcript

Charlotte 0:42

Hi, everyone. I'm really excited to have my guest today. Mary Kauflin on. Um, I met Mary. Oh, gosh, several years ago. when I was getting my certificate to become a trauma informed professional. Mary is a global leader in neonatal nursing and has pioneered the concept of trauma informed age-appropriate care for hospitalized babies, families and professionals. She has been a seasoned staff nurse. Charge nurse. Neonatal nurse practitioner, administrator educator. Coach and author. She has over 40 years of nursing experience. Starting with her seven years of active duty in the us air force, nurse Corps. She is now the president. And founder of caring, essentials collaborative. In her role.. As president of caring as Central's collaborative, she's educated, inspired, and empowered, close to 20,000 NICU nurses from over 15 countries to transform the experience of care for babies and families. And I'm very blessed to be one of them. So from all of her speaking engagements to coaching, to masterclasses, Mary's just a phenomenal individual. And I'm so glad that she's joining us here today. Hi, Mary. How are you this morning?

Mary 2:07

I'm good, Charlotte. How are you doing?

Charlotte 2:09

I am great. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.

Mary 2:13

I'm super excited to be here.

Charlotte 2:16

I, am very intrigued and I have learned a lot from you about trauma informed care I would love to hear, a little bit of your story how did you start this work? What kind of piqued your interest to, start learning more and kind of being a pioneer, about trauma informed care, especially in the NICU

Mary 2:34

yeah. wicked good question. and it actually, all began literally 10 years ago. I was, kind of trying to find my way to, you know what I'm doing now and I took this role. At a small community hospital within walking distance to my house. And, it's a little bit like ego y, you know, like, cause the title was so wicked cool. It was a director of professional practice, education, and research. And I was like, that sounds awesome. I can't believe they have that down there, but okay, let me go down and apply. I get the job and, it was really, interesting because the hospital itself, again, as I mentioned, it's very small, it's a community hospital, no babies, so it had, half the hospital was. Psych. And the other half was comprised of med surge, E. D. And a small ICU. And I worked with this brilliant team of clinical nurse specialists. It was exciting, because it was like uncharted territory for me. You know, I've always loved education, but I don't do grownups. So it was pretty cool. And things were humming along until one day I get called into my boss's office and she says, Mary, we need you to step in as the interim nurse manager. Yeah. on the inpatient adolescent psych unit. And I was like, what? Are you kidding me? Um, she's like, well, you're the only person in the house with pediatric experience. And I was like, Oh God, my brain's like all scrambled here. That's crazy. but anyways, to make a long story shot, which I'm not really good at. I took the position, but I had these two amazing psych clin specs, to really support me. So as we were, doing the work that needs to be done, the hospital had partnered with the Department of Mental Health here in Massachusetts to introduce this concept of trauma informed care. So I was like, Oh, that's really interesting. Yes. Um, tell me what, what I need to do. And, um, the more I learned about it. Um, The more I realized that, oh my gosh, this. seems to have relevance for, you know, the NICU. This seems to have relevance for like the whole world. Why isn't, why am I just hearing about this now? You know, like three quarters of the way through my professional career. And in a nutshell, it was really just about this idea that early life experiences change our biology, change our psychology, and that influences our developmental trajectory. And so you can imagine, you know, from a NICU perspective, I was like, holy moly. You know, in the NICU, we're taking care of these incredibly tiny people at the very beginning of their life. They're experiencing all this trauma. We should be doing this in the NICU and it just made sense. And so I went crazy and just started talking about it, blogging about it. You know, I mean, I stopped people on the streets, you know, cause I was just, I don't know. I was like on fire with this topic. and that was the beginning, it just seemed to resonate, with so many people and I feel really blessed about it, about the work and, and where, where it has taken me over these past 10 years.

Charlotte 5:25

So where exactly has it taken

Mary 5:27

I know I was like, I was, I was worried that I was talking too much. But, um, well, good question, Charlotte. And, um, and to be honest, you know, at the beginning, when I first, you know, I'm air quoting this, discovered this concept, which was well established before I came along. I was really focused on the baby, because I was super passionate about developmental care and, and this just seemed like it fit. Um, but then the more I dove into the research, the more I understood the biology. I started to realize, well, gee, was the family, you know, they're also freaking out, right. They're also traumatized by this. I mean, this really has relevance for the family and the baby. And then just kind of, as you evolve in your, your understanding and your depth of. Wisdom, maybe, um, with this paradigm, it started to hit me that, um, what about all the clinicians? I mean, we're bearing witness to this horrific trauma, you know, day in, day out, minute by minute. How is that eroding our Our soul, our integrity are, you know, ourselves. And so it really kind of, you know, pivoted, if you will, from a super focus on the baby, which I am completely dedicated to the baby. But nothing will change for the baby. If the clinician is not feeling whole and healthy and, and, and, um, and is able to metabolize their own trauma story, because at the end of the day, we all started out as babies, right? We all have a story of early life experiences that have shaped us. And, um, and I think, you know, the place where I'm at now is certainly an understanding of that. But now an appreciation of that larger context of, you know, systemic trauma and um, and global trauma. And that we live in a traumatized world and trauma just begets more trauma. And so how do we, um, disrupt that? You know, how do we, um, disrupt that cascade of events that just seemed so embedded in. In our society globally. And I mean, the short answer is love. Um, but that could go off onto a different tangent with our discussion. But, um,

Charlotte 7:43

I, I completely agree. I think, you and I both have, NICU backgrounds, and both being clinicians and then I, also being a parent of a NICU baby, but. In the greater scheme of things, everybody has suffering. It's not related just to the healthcare setting. And I think that, a lot of times in our work, it's easy because that's our world. That's our bubble. It's the healthcare environment. And unfortunately, in the healthcare environment, you do see a lot of trauma and you see a lot of trauma with your patients and a lot of trauma with your patient's families, but in the greater scheme of things, everybody experiences some sort of trauma. And I think even just the definition of trauma, our health care brain goes car accident, gunshot wound, that kind of trauma, but trauma is any kind of experience that is really unsettling or unnerving that has disrupted your pattern of life in your overall well being and it can be just anything from, A phone call, a traumatic, a conversation to a divorce to anything. And I think that, to shift this paradigm of what you're saying of society, it's,, shifting everyone's responses and coping skills with trauma.

Mary 9:05

I mean, at the, at the end of the day, it's really about, feeling safe. Right. When people don't feel safe, all bets are off on how, how they'll show up to any kind of a situation and, and it's not like people are walking around with little post it notes on their foreheads, you know, handle with care, I've survived X, Y, and Z or something like that. Right. Um, they're not. And We've individuated our society and even ourselves to such an extent that we're disconnected from even our own lived experience, which then it keeps us, it distances us from then understanding or being able to be compassionate to the lived experience of another person. Do you know what I mean? Like, I,

Charlotte 9:52

I think we're all kind of starting to be in silos. And I think, that's truly one reason I wanted to start this podcast is because my experience as a person, my experience as a nurse, even my experience as a parent and dealing with challenging situations, everyone's. In a silo and we're losing that community and connection with each other. And I think that helps heal your trauma. Knowing that you are not going at this alone

Mary 10:20

and, and I think that we've been accultured into, those silos and really believing that, when tough stuff or bad stuff or, painful stuff happens to you, you just suck it up, stuff that stuff down. Nobody wants to hear your sob story. and We dismiss and we, even denigrate, our core humanity by marginalizing our emotional experiences. There's this wicked cool book, that I'm about halfway through, Dan Siegel. Do you know Dan Siegel? So just wicked. Famous, super smart dude, and he, he's written a series of books, but this most recent one, it's called Intra Connected, and he talks about the me and the we, and he's actually contracted the two words together and talks about we, M W E, that we can be a me, right, that, you know, it's not an either or situation, that we are a me, But part of a larger we. And so we can, it's paradoxical, but we can be both, right? I mean, I can, remember being trained as a nurse, right? and implicitly and explicitly told, don't get too connected or too close to your patients, right? Um, somehow that emotional connection will, um, derail your professionalism. Like your brain apparently doesn't work if you're having feelings of compassion for somebody else. And Those disconnections are, are a way of, they're like a smoke screen that keep us in these silos, as you said, Charlotte, and that disrupts our capacity to be there for others. And when we're being there for another. Doesn't it feel wicked good to yourself? I mean, I think of different encounters that I've had with people, not just patients and families, but with other people, when it feels really good when I can make you feel, comforted, seen, supported. or whatever. It's not the reason why I'm doing it, but there's a benefit. When I help you, I'm helping myself at the same time. But we're just so sliced up, we're so separated, that I think we need to really, take a breath and re examine how is this,, particular situation paradigm working for us? And globally, it's not working for us. Right? We're still having wars. We're still having hate. We're still having violence. All of this, you know, it leads to disease, but we also have disease that's not secondary to it. But all of this stuff, it's not working for us. So what do we do? You know?

Charlotte 12:58

Yeah.

Mary 12:58

That's a big question.

Charlotte 13:01

We're just going to solve the world's problems, Mary, in 30 minutes. I just think that. In simplicity, what you said, it comes down to love and compassion, love and compassion for self, love and compassion for others, love and compassion for the world around us and I, know, we keep bringing in nursing references, but some of it's self preservation. If you are around many different traumatic situations, and when you talk about, you know, trying to close off your heart, which is, it's kind of an oxymoron in healthcare because you want to be empathetic, a compassionate human being, and you want to care and love for your patients, but then if you don't. Take care of yourself and have compassion and love for yourself how do you not become a silo because it's self preservation because you're getting just reintroduced to these traumatic situations over and over again.

Mary 13:57

Yeah, well, it's skill building, right? I mean, I think that's the other piece of this, that at least in nursing education, there's a huge paucity. I think medical education as well, but there's a huge paucity of, specific training in how to, care for yourself, right? How to nurture your compassion, how to be able to discern the And and burnout, you know, and and and what do you do? How do you stay balanced in that place that doesn't compromise your safety, your integrity, right, which is incredibly important so that you can bring your best self to the service of others. So I think that that's a big piece of it that we don't. We think it's like, I think we think that, well, you're a human being, you know, you should know how to do this but I don't, you know, and a lot of those soft skills, um, get, um, poo pooed or, you know, diminished. They're not really that important. So when they're not that important, I don't really pay attention to them. But what you're talking about, Charlotte, is really that practice has to be. intentional. It's not going to just, you know, fairy dust isn't just going to fall from the heavens and fill me up with compassion. I have to take action to nurture myself so that I can then show up and be that better self moving towards best, but you know, better self, um, In the course of, you know, my encounters with patients, with people, with, with the planet, you know, with everybody, but we don't really focus on that. And I think that that really might be the turnkey because we keep doing the same thing and we keep expecting a different outcome. And I think Einstein says that's a sign of insanity. So, and I'm kind of going to go with him on that one, you know, so we have to think about how are we going to do this differently? And, you and I, you know, we I do believe, going within is the ticket out, you know, really uncovering who am I and what is my story and really, um, metabolizing my story intentionally, not like, oh, that happened a long time ago. That has no effect on me. Well, we know from the biology and the psychology. Yes, it does, you know, and if you can't journey through it, it's not going to go away and it's just going to keep. Niggling at you and and holding you back and not allowing you to really step into being that greater expression so that you can maybe be that first domino and help folks see how important it is to act with love act from the heart. And, I think sometimes we feel invisible, you know, I'm just one person, what can I do, but, you know, I mean, we know what one person can do, they can do a lot, and it's slow and steady, the slow and steady transformation can unfold, but you have to be intentional about it.

Charlotte 17:00

And I think sometimes, especially being in academia and, sometimes it's hard to wrap your head around the simplicity. Of love and compassion because it's becoming, more measurable just from some research studies. but it's also necessarily tangible and I think that, it sounds kind of Pollyanna ish. just to say, We can solve a lot of problems with love and compassion, but I think that's it, in the healthcare setting, there's trauma, but there's so much trauma in the world in general. I know for myself, I don't put my head in the sand and not pay attention to the news, but I don't. Absorb the news on a 24 hour basis. I know what my threshold is. And I look at the, just general population of how much negativity and traumas in the world. And we're all absorbing it. Whether it's families becoming short with each other or, and it's not even something that might be going on in your own household, but you're just constantly, you know, have this negativity cloud, so to speak. And I think educating people on, it's okay to turn it off. It's okay to, be aware. No one's saying that you, you're not shutting out what's, going on in the world, but, also learning different coping skills and how to deal with it.

Mary 18:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with you 100%. I mean, it's important to protect yourself, right? And not, I mean, you can drown in all the negativity, all the violence, all the, all the war, all of the death, all of the suffering. I mean, it's great news, right? I mean, that's, it's like the car, you know, the car accident when you're driving down the highway, all the rubberneck is, you know, you see something disastrous. There's going to be a backlog. We know our susceptibility to that, but it's also, you know, so, so you have to protect yourself. But as you mentioned, you have to be aware because being aware I think starts to open up windows and doors at least this is the visual in my head right starts to open up windows and doors in my head. And that made me think, kind of going back to that trauma informed perspective, that resistance word, um, that's about safety, not feeling safe. And again, I'm not giving an excuse or rationalizing violent behavior. I'm that's not my point, but it's trying to understand where people are coming from, because I think if we can keep peeling back the layers instead of looking at the surface, because the surface is going to make me react and hate and have more fear. But if I can peel back and remind myself that these people. Everybody, right? Even, you know, in the hospital, right? When we have families that are really upset, really distressed, and, um, and sometimes act violently against healthcare workers. And I, I do not support that, um, and I'm not trying to rationalize that. But again, if we can come back and understand it from a trauma perspective, that these people don't feel safe, we can begin from that place of understanding and compassion. You know, examine. How are we showing up? Examine. How are we engaging with individuals who are in a state of vulnerability or in a state of feeling unsafe and foster a sense of safety? That's that's authentic and and real. because I think that's that's the route. Of all of the, I suppose I could say evil, right? I mean, when people don't feel safe, their behaviors are emanating from that place of fear and, and a sense of feeling unsafe. And that's what I think, you know, that this idea of being trauma informed can really help us understand it. But, but again, you have to be. Courageous and lean into the discomfort of getting close and, and personal with, with another, right? I mean, not in an invasive way, but in an understanding, compassionate way that, you know, I wonder what they're feeling because do you really think that, I mean, I don't know, maybe there are evil people on the planet, but I think that that evilness comes from something else. And, um, and, and understanding it through a trauma lens may help us uncover solutions that we're devoid of right now because we're just reacting from a place of fear and from a place of anger. Did I go off on a tangent?

Charlotte 21:51

No, I'm just, I'm just sitting here listening. I completely agree with you. I think there's so many different, Things that happen in life that, add these layers to us. My family has just had some recent traumas and. And, you know, it's just kind of alarming because sometimes, I feel like we have to almost put a disclaimer when we're talking to the provider of. This is why we may be more anxious or more fearful because of, you know, X, Y, and Z just happened. And. I think it's kinda sad that we shouldn't have to put a disclaimer that we should just be. Compassionate and empathetic. Um, especially in the Healthcare field. I know that we all have these layers and if we don't deal with the trauma. And then it can affect so many different areas in your life. I mean, you can even talk about. Dating, you know, if you had a bad breakup. You may be scared to have. Another relationship, especially if you had one bad relationship after another relationship. And it was too painful. It was too hurtful. Versus if you just had maybe one relationship that didn't work out, you might be more inclined.

Mary 23:13

Right.

Charlotte 23:13

Jump back into a relationship, you know, just trying to see how it affects us in all aspects of life and And how it changes our behaviors our thought processes and how we interact with the world

Mary 23:32

Yeah, but I feel like people that are in healthcare or that are first responders, people that have made a commitment to serve individuals who are suffering, who are vulnerable, who are on that raw edge of humanity, that those folks need to have the depth of wisdom and understanding and compassion to be able to engage. I shouldn't need to tell a healthcare professional how to understand my behavior in the moment. I, you know, but. I know how healthcare professionals are. I know how we're cultured. I know how we're educated. And none of that is interwoven into our orientation to human services. And so, in order to change that, I think, yes, we need to empower parents, families, victims. Um, which is tragic, right? Because, oh, I'm overwhelmed and I have to get my cortex online so I can, give you a heads up that I'm, I'm probably going to freak out in the next 30 to 60, you know, so be prepared, we need to really change how we're, educating and rearing, the professionals, healthcare professionals and human service professionals for the future so That burden doesn't fall on the victim or, or on the, on the patient or on that, individual who's just in such a state of vulnerability that we, that we can grow and evolve to be there for them, you know.

Charlotte 25:01

so I'm gonna read a quote from your book

Mary 25:03

Oh,

Charlotte 25:04

and it's talking about the quality of health care and, it says it can be vulnerable, bearing witness to tragedy. But when you lean into suffering, even for a moment, you transform the darkness into love and, I think that that's it. You have to lean into people suffering. And then another quote that I was going to read is Oh, I'm going to mess up the person who actually said it, but maybe you could actually help me with that. It says empowerment at the end of the day comes from refocusing healthcare from the conventional question of what is the matter with you to the modern question of what matters to you.

Mary 25:42

Yeah, I forget who's cooking.

Charlotte 25:44

it's D. Jaloha Clayton in Jerusalem, I'm totally going to botch those names, but we're just going to go with that. But I think that that is, the true question of not what's the matter with you? But what truly matters to you? What matters to you in this instance? What can I do for you? How can I serve you? This is a scary situation or. I see that you are, you know, tearful or have high anxiety. What can we do to help you or can we just be here for you and hold space for you?

Mary 26:18

yeah, exactly. I mean, and when you said it earlier about our tasks and stuff like that, and then we, we've evolved to this place where it's all about us, but we get to punch out at the end of the shift, but that person that's there. That's their life. That's, you know, and and we we need to shift, you know, how we how we're showing up to these situations. But I think it's a lot of it's because the overwhelm that we're feeling we're feeling unsupported in a system that is, you know, driven for the bottom line. And, and we're just these cogs in the wheel. And so, you know, a lot of the stuff is It's invisible, um, but it's disruptive and it deranges our capacity to show up as the loving human beings that we want to be in those moments, but we've kind of gotten the smokescreen and we're, we don't know how to find our way out. To really show up. And again, I'm super generalizations. I mean, they're incredibly beautiful, loving souls out there doing the work, um, and helping people navigate their experience of trauma and suffering. But it unfortunately I don't think it's the majority of professionals that are that are able to step up. And so how can we shift that how can we, how can we measure it, or how can we. Convince folks, I don't even know if this is the right language, that this matters, that this is valuable, you know, um, that we're not just treating, it's not a car repair shop, you know, I mean, these people that come in and are critically ill, maybe with, with, you know, life limiting diseases. You know, you just don't patch them up and push them out, you know, push them off the assembly line that they are living, breathing fellow human beings, and they need to be seen, they need to be loved, they need to be respected when they are feeling their most vulnerable. And we have the power to do that. It's a choice.

Charlotte 28:21

It all comes back down to choice, are you going to take the extra step and lean into that vulnerability and that person's suffering as it could be a friend, as a family member, as a provider, you know? cause it's easy. I mean, you could even pick up the phone and someone call you and you can hear their tearful and you could say, Oh, I'm, I'm walking out the door. Can I call you back? Or you can stop what you're doing and say, Oh goodness, you sound like you're having a bad day. How can I support you?

Mary 28:55

exactly.

Charlotte 28:56

And so it's a matter of choice. I know that we've talked on so many different aspects, but I know that you've traveled all over the country and all over the world, educating people on, trauma informed care and why it's so important. So, what's your next step?

Mary 29:15

Oh my gosh. Excellent question. And I've been asking myself that question as well. And it feels, it feels big. It feels, like activism, educating people is one piece of it, but really Now my goal is to start to reach out to politicians, reach out to social organizations, and just really start to, you know, beat the drum even hotter. I feel like there's a good groundswell of grassroots folks that have embraced the concept. Some have even gone on to become trauma informed professionals, which is really excellent. And all those little seeds are planted. Around. It is around the globe, which feels wicked, exciting and unexpected. And so now I feel like my next step is to, amp it up and start talking to, as I mentioned, politicians, governments, insurance companies, and those types of entities to try and, address the gap. At that level now, so I'm hoping, you know, it'll, it'll sandwich in and eventually we'll have everybody covered in this nice creamy goodness of love and compassion during their trauma and their suffering experiences. So, so we'll see. And it feels big it does feel uncomfortable and scary to be honest with you. Especially now. at my age and that really does seem to be feeling pretty, ever present that you know, Mary, you got to get moving girl. You don't have that much time on the planet. You need to. And there's a lot of work to be done. So start beating that drum harder for more people to hear. So we'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Charlotte 30:52

Well, if there's a will, there's a way. I know that Mary, Mary is perfectly capable and you've got so much love in your heart. And, I know that you and I could sit here and talk for hours about this. And, I definitely would love to have you back on at another time and really start to even dive in more about, how trauma changes, the neuroplasticity of your brain and, little behavior modifications and things that we can do to kind of help correct that. This was, so wonderful to speak to you and shed a little bit of light on trauma informed care and, I thank you again for coming. Thanks.

Mary 31:27

Oh, thank you so very much, Charlotte. It was awesome. Awesome hanging out with you. Thanks.

Charlotte 31:34

I appreciate you spending this time with me until next time, keep sowing the seeds of love in your life and those around you.