Watch my interview with Anxiety & Trauma Therapist, Kristen Jacobsen! [video]
I really enjoyed having Kristen come to the VIP Group for Empowered Women of Chicago for an interview on LIVE WITH LIZ about “How Your Subconscious is Sabotaging You!”
We had a fabulous time chatting about:
💗 The definitions and differences between trauma & anxiety
💗 The root causes of many anxiety disorders
💗 Techniques to help process traumatic memories and release physical tension.
💗 How to build resilience, practical coping skills, and prioritizing self-care for managing trauma and anxiety.
💗 Holistic approaches to address anxiety and trauma effectively
...and lots more!
Understanding the complexities of anxiety and trauma is crucial in today's world. Listen to my full interview with anxiety and trauma therapist, Kristen Jacobsen, about “How Your Subconscious is Sabotaging You!” as Kristen shares valuable insights into these conditions and the therapeutic approaches used to address them. Feel free to reach out to her at Cathartic Space Counseling!
Interview Auto-Generated Transcript:
hello and good morning hi I'm Liz Hansen
from Chicago Budoir and I am here today
for our live with Liz series where I
bring in local Chicago women who are
making a difference in our community and
I am so excited today to have Kristen
Jacobson with us hi Kristen hi Liz how
you doing happy to be here so good okay
so you guys I'm going to read this from
my phone kristen Jacobson is a licensed
therapist specializing in anxiety and
trauma she's been working in the field
for 15 plus years and established her
own practice in 2013 kristen has also
recently started offering mindset and
performance coaching for professionals
and entrepreneurs she was a psychology
professor at National Louie University
for six years and has served as a mentor
and consultant for those in the mental
health field kristen has been featured
on several media outlets including the
TEDex stage and she's currently in the
process of publishing a self-help book
kristen so accomplished so much
experience we're so glad to have you
here today thank you for joining us my
business is Budwoir but my bigger
mission is to help women feel empowered
in all areas of their lives and you also
are in the business and the your mission
also is to help women and men to feel
empowered confident and to get a hold of
sort of their thoughts and their mindset
so we're so glad to have you here today
we're going to be talking about how your
subconscious is sabotaging you so I want
you to first if you could just tell us a
little bit what is the subconscious for
those who might kind of not understand
what that is
yeah so um really most of what drives us
is our subconscious and so these are
sort of um stories or or narratives um
beliefs essentially that are are sort of
running in the background that we're
unaware of and they really inform a lot
of the decisions we make um a lot of our
behaviors a lot of our emotions so um
they play a pivotal role in in our lives
more so than we think i mean when I
first hear that I'm sort of like whoa
that like scary to think that like my
life and my emotions and my actions are
driven by something that I don't really
know about
i heard a quote one time that um a
belief is just a thought that you think
a lot of times do you think true yeah
absolutely
so okay so the subconscious is kind of
running in the background do we have any
control over our self-conscious our
subconscious
well if we're able to sort of bring it
into awareness then yes we do have
control over it but that's the hard part
a lot of times we can't do that
independently um and no matter you know
how much we've worked on ourselves um
done therapy done other sort of um you
know growthminded things uh we still all
have blind spots and so sometimes it
takes another person to sort of look for
those patterns and and point them out to
you okay so the first step is kind of
like bringing it to our attention kind
of noticing these background beliefs so
So we do have access to our subconscious
is what you're It just might take some
work or a neutral third party like a
therapist to kind of help us get there
absolutely yeah okay so you say that our
subconscious is sabotaging us tell us
what that means what do you mean by
sabotaging
so a lot of times um we have these
beliefs that are rooted in childhood
experiences and so a lot of them have to
do with worth or having value or um
competency and so if these if if we're
unaware of these beliefs then they are
it's it's sort of like putting on a a
pair of glasses like we are looking at
ourselves other people the world through
this pair of lenses that is always
skewed by that belief and so therefore
we're going to you know act in
accordance with that belief or make
decisions in accordance with that belief
or or experience emotions that that are
in accordance with that and a lot of
times these you know we we think about
um trauma as being sort of this huge
impactful experience and a lot of these
beliefs are developed in childhood not
from what we call big tea trauma which
would be like a sexual assault or being
robbed at gunpoint or you know a a car
accident in which you had a near-death
experience like th those are big tea
traumas but a lot of us have what's
called little tea trauma and that's a
little bit more insidious so these can
be really benign experiences if we're
looking at something objectively um but
it's the the way we interpreted them
it's the meaning that we made from those
experiences that sort of shape these
belief systems and then we're unaware of
this going into adulthood but they're
still driving the bus so to speak
interesting okay so you talk about the
subconscious as being kind of like a
pair of goggles that we see the world
through
that could to me that means let's say we
have a negative pair of goggles on right
now that's informed by trauma could we
also have a positive pair of goggles
like is it positive is it possible to do
that too yeah absolutely yeah I would
say that's a lot less common and it
takes a lot of work you have to be very
intentional about having those having
the positive goggles because it's surv
it's a survival mechanism that you know
our our ancestors had to pay attention
to the negative so so that they could
survive they had to say oh that berry
looks kind of weird i'm not going to eat
that or there's rustling in the bushes
i'm going to you know there might be a
predator in there so it it's ingrained
in us to kind of scan for danger like
that's a survival mechanism um and a
little bit of anxiety is a survival
mechanism it's just that when that sort
of crosses the threshold into being um
debilitating to us or or impacting our
functioning that's where it becomes a
problem and that's where we need to be a
lot more intentional about kind of
shifting our focus to the positive so
that we can put on the the positive
lenses okay so you're talking about some
little tea
trauma does does working on like I'm
going to call them our subconscious
goggles because that's what you call
them like our outlook how how we're how
what's what we're seeing the world
through do I need to go back and re and
catalog all the bad things that happened
to me as a kid no
okay tell me why not um because that can
really be retraumatizing and like who
wants to recount every single thing
negative experience they had you know
it's more so that like when I work with
clients we're we're identifying some of
those um just as sort of like targets
right we're not rehashing the whole
experience but we're just identifying
certain touch points where that belief
may have been reinforced or or maybe
where it started but really what we want
to work with is the belief so for
example if a if somebody has had several
experiences in which they felt like they
were unworthy you know or or unimportant
they may have developed this this
subconscious belief that I'm unworthy
and they're carrying that into adulthood
and so they're going to again act in
accordance with that so they might um
you know they might go up for a
promotion and subconsciously sabotage
the interview because inherently they
don't feel that they're worthy of that
promotion okay so more important than
what happened to you when you were a
child or what little T or big T trauma
you went through what's more important
if I'm hearing you correctly is
understanding what belief you created
from that experience and the belief
itself is what we're gonna look at and
investigate rather than the event itself
is that right okay now I know you work
some with like business owners and
entrepreneurs i'm a business owner and
an entrepreneur myself tell me how does
this subconscious or this or these
underlying beliefs how does that affect
entrepreneurs and business owners or
does it affect them differently than
someone who's not a business owner
yeah I I mean I think it's um as
entrepreneurs and and business owners we
tend to be very driven and ambitious and
sometimes that can actually come from
trauma where we're
overfunctioning and you know burning the
the wick at both ends and and we sort of
burn ourselves out because we a lot of
our worth is based on the doing versus
like the being who we are um so there
are a lot of I feel a little bit
attacked Chris
i'm right there with you i'm right there
with you this is definitely something I
mean if you've always been I mean I we
live in a society I feel like or a
culture that that um rewards grades and
jobs and salaries and so I think a lot
of us derived a lot of sense of worth
from the gold stars and the grades the
graduations and the diplomas or whatever
and it's hard to get off that train yeah
yeah we're just we're conditioned like
that and I I work with a lot of high
achievers who um you know have that
exact experience and so we start to um
which is kind of the irony is that a lot
of people come to me for anxiety these
like high achievers who are you know
they've they've hit the milestones
they're successful but they're they just
don't feel that way internally it
doesn't match up you know so they'll
they'll come to me for anxiety and then
we start getting into it it's like oh
okay you actually have quite a bit of
complex trauma in in your past you know
um so with with professionals and
business owners and entrepreneurs you
know that that's something we see a lot
where um that's one limiting belief i
also see some um financial trauma so
sometimes we will um can I just I have
never heard that term before financial
trauma yeah yeah imagine what that means
what does that mean i mean I can I'm
imagining what it means you tell me what
that means yeah we all have a money
story right um money
is it it's really it's just paper right
but we assign meaning to it and so we
all have this relationship with money
just like we would another person and so
sometimes for entrepreneurs if we have
some an unhealthy relationship with
money we can self-sabotage in terms of
how how much money we make you know um
but money is not just paper it's also
power and energy right yes yes well it
it can't you know that that's a a
certain type of relationship with it
yeah yeah if you see it as being power
you know I mean it is money
it it is a type of power right it is
energy exchange you can bring your money
to someone else in exchange for their
energy right like their goods and
services right yes to me it it carries
like an intrinsic power but you're
saying maybe maybe I that's just my
belief about it yeah could be and and
you know how do we define power like
does power have negative connotations
does power mean manipulation does it
mean control you know so people might
have different interpretations of of
that word interesting i could I could
probably talk to you for two hours about
this yeah well maybe we should do a
another segment sometimes yeah i mean
it's just so interesting to talk about
like how you say that like you have a
relationship with money the way you
might have a relationship with another
person Yeah you know and what does that
mean so okay financial trauma back to
financial trauma what is financial
trauma
so um again kind of going back to
childhood like how how did your parents
or what was their relationship with
money right was it okay we need to to
pinch pennies there's a scarcity mindset
you know there's not enough there that's
a big one there's not there's never
enough um or you know were your parents
very frivolous with money and um it it
really just kind of dep or or were there
mixed messages maybe one parent you know
was a big spender and and the other
parent was very frugal um so there's a
lot of dynamics at play there um I love
hearing your expertise on all these
topics how did you personally get into
this field of helping people with their
beliefs and their mindset and anxiety
and trauma therapy
yeah so ironically I went to school to
become an elementary school teacher and
um where I went you had to have a second
major so I um started taking some
psychology courses and then I took
abnormal psychology and I was like this
is what I want to do it was just like I
was fascinated um and I mean I I've
struggled with anxiety my entire life as
well so I have that that personal um
element to it as well so um yeah so just
you know decided to change course went
to grad school um for counseling
psychology and it sort of came full
circle because when I was teaching at
National Lewis I taught abnormal psych
and so it was kind of like the class
that you know drew me into the field i
was now teaching it to other people um
so I've just I've always had a
fascination in human behavior like what
drives people what motivates people to
do what they do um and you know that's
sort of shifted over the years initially
I I was really interested in forensics i
wanted to work with like serial killers
like Silence of Lambs was like my
favorite movie
so I' I've sort of like been on on this
journey i used to work with kids and
teens then started seeing um adults
exclusively really started honing in on
anxiety and then sort of noticed a lot
of that complex trauma um in those
listen to true crime podcasts
i do sometimes yeah i'm not a huge
podcast person i've been trying to get
get into more of them but um yeah
somebody might like true crime yeah yeah
i love watching true crime like any any
documentaries movies whatever yeah yeah
okay so in terms of women do you think
so i you know I work all of my clients
are women my employees are all women my
world is sort of very female focused do
you think women
bring sort of something different to the
table to this conversation than men do
in terms of our subconscious or our
beliefs um have you seen a difference
between how men and women kind of
operate in this sphere
yeah I think on on some levels you know
men and women are socialized very
differently and um so I think that can
be a big struggle for women is like you
know societal expectations and whether
they feel that that really aligns with
who they are or their values or um who
they want to be you know and in in terms
of the worth stuff like and and the
self-doubt I think that that's like like
genderneutral like you know that that
can span across men and women but um I
think just in terms of like the societal
expectations I think women are hit
pretty hard with those yeah and you said
a term that I heard a few years ago that
has helped me too is um we are
socialized to behave in in XYZ pattern
and I that that hit hard to me because
it's not that um
you know my parents did a bad job or
that society out to get me or whatever
but I do think there are certain ways in
which I was socialized as a girl to
believe certain things about my life and
my body earth that I carried with me
into adulthood that I didn't really I
hadn't stopped to really think about or
look at until fairly recently do you
know what I mean and that term like
perhaps you were socialized to believe
XYZ i was like "Yeah I was." Um that was
like a light bulb moment for me to
realize like it wasn't necessarily like
on purpose or you know in with mal
intent or anything but the socialization
is real
through like a variety of channels you
know yeah you're getting it from you
know maybe within your your household
you know from the from media what we see
in in movies and now social media
especially um you know from teachers
coaches who whomever you know it's sort
of like all-encompassing and that can
lead to a lot of um kind of staying
small for women or people pleasing or
kind of being expected to to be the the
caretaker for everyone you know a lot of
these different expectations that um
that that people can struggle with well
what's helped me is to say like some of
this was positive
some of it I want to keep right and then
some of it is not and I don't want to
keep it right so there are some
subconscious beliefs that I can look at
and be like that is actually something I
want to continue believing like this
isful for me i like this and looking at
another thought or belief and thinking
that is not serving me i want to replace
it with a a thought that is more helpful
for me right now in my life you know
because it's not all negative absolutely
yeah and that's going to look different
for each person right um because it's
really distress is created when we're
not living in alignment with our values
and when we have these beliefs that
don't fit with with who we are
authentically
um or you know what we truly believe in
then that's that's when the the distress
and the the disconnection comes in okay
okay so back to serial killers then are
they live is would a serial killer say
they're living their life in align with
their values by killing people and so
they don't feel distress about
it
um potentially i mean yeah they so
serial killers do have a personality
disorder right they have antisocial
personality disorder so that is that
sort of brings in a whole other element
of of uh complexity there but Yeah i
mean if healthy pe healthy people who
don't live in align with their values
yeah yeah yeah but I imagine a lot of
serial killers probably had significant
trauma in their past as well oh for sure
yes i full disclosure I enjoy some true
crime media myself
so you're talking about one of those
things where I'm like I shouldn't enjoy
this so much but like it is like very
there's something about true crime that
like gets to like the heart of like what
it means to be human and
what what human humanity is capable of
and the Anyway
okay so
um one of the things that I like to do
uh as we get to the end of each of these
interviews is to ask each person who
comes on to this Live with Liz series um
what does it mean to you to be an
empowered woman today and I just would
love to hear your take on that i know we
throw around the word empowered a lot
but what does it mean to you to be an
empowered woman today
yeah kind of piggybacking off of what I
said it you know it's really just being
authentic and true to yourself you know
not not trying to be perfect or
performative or anything i think you
know the more authentic and vulnerable
we can be the more we make connections
with people and as human beings like we
we need that that that's just part of
the human experience and I think when
you can feel comfortable being the
authentic version of yourself that is
extremely empowering
yeah okay i have a question for you
about that what is the difference
between being
authentic
and striving to be a better person so
like let's for example let's say
someone does something that's hurtful to
someone else and they say "Well that's
just the real me i'm just being
authentic." But they're but they're
being hurtful
how do you draw the line
between because like maybe my authentic
self is not my best self
does that make sense
how do you like there how do you draw
how do you differentiate between being
authentic and
being a better the best version of
yourself
yeah so I think in terms of being
authentic we all have room for growth
right so we part of being authentic is
recognizing our limitations and areas in
which we need to grow right um but being
authentic is also I actually had a very
similar conversation with a client the
other day because she's like "Well I I'm
I'm just being honest but it was hurtful
to the other person." And it's like okay
you know it's good to be honest but it's
all in the delivery it's it's all in
sort of you you know you also want to
recognize that this other person you're
communicating with has feelings too and
so you can be honest and authentic but
you need to to communicate in a way that
is sensitive to their feelings as well
this is this is a skill to be learned I
think Kristen yeah a lot of us are
terrible at communicating
oh we are are we myself included you
know I have I have a lot to learn when
it comes to effective communication i I
heard a therapist one time tell me
they're like most This was in the
context of a mar I've been married for
almost 20 years she was saying in the in
the context of marriages most spouses
actually communicate loud and
clear it's that you don't like the
message that's being communicated so
it's not that like you have a
communication problem and I'm putting
that in air quotes you're not actually
bad at communicating you're actually
letting your spouse know exactly how you
feel and how disappointed you are in
their behavior but you so people think
they need to work on their quote unquote
communication skills but what they
actually need to work on is being kind
or being you know so like most of us
communicate loud and clear how we feel
about things um was what she was saying
i don't know if you think that's true or
not
um yeah I I think some people can I
think a lot of people are tend to be
passive aggressive um or they when they
start to communicating with their
partner um they do so in a way where the
other person is their guard is going to
go up they're going to get defensive and
they're not actually going to hear what
the person is saying they're they're
thinking about how they're going to
respond right and so real thoughtful and
kind communication is sort of honoring
the relationship and really seeking to
understand and be curious about what the
other person is saying or or how they're
feeling and it not like a me versus you
type of situation
for sure well Kristen it has been really
great to chat with you today it's been
great about our subconscious and looking
at our beliefs and how they're limiting
us so um if you're watching this live um
drop any questions or comments you have
um as soon as this is over uh Kristen's
going to go in and drop her contact
information if you'd like to uh see more
about what she's done watch her TEDex
talk um and so that'll be in the
comments below after we get the
recording up so thank you so much for
coming today Kristen and for sharing
your expertise with us yeah thanks so
much for having me appreciate it all
right guys we'll see you next time on
Live with Liz i'm uh at the Chicago
Budoir Photography Studio and I hope you
have a great day