Meet Connor Reed

We were lucky to catch up with Connor Reed recently and have shared our conversation below.

Connor, we are so deeply grateful to you for opening up about your journey with mental health in the hops that it can help someone who might be going through something similar. Can you talk to us about your mental health journey and how you overcame or persisted despite any issues? For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.

Thank you for having me . To this day, even as a therapist, when it comes to describing my personal challenges with mental health I can feel the fear of uncertainty connected to the judgment of stigma still prevalent within our society in my heart. Growing up my emotional intelligence was stunted in the distorted image of what strength is. “Don’t cry, keep it in, do it alone” -a sense of failure and weakness in asking for help, a sense of isolation and loneliness that came with such rigid expectations. I noticed we can unknowingly place judgments on ourselves, judgments of how we “should ” be based on outdated systems of indoctrination. These fallacies get in the way of accepting ourselves for who we are. I believe Jiddu Krishnamurti said it best in that “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” .

So, when it comes to how I learned to live, enjoy, and love life it was not despite the challenges related to my personal mental health issues, it is thanks to them. It was through facing and embracing them as part of the self as a whole with love and compassion. It was not through diagnosing and labeling these parts as something wrong with me or trying to fit in, be understood, or fix it, it was through relinquishing judgment for discernment, knowledge of self, and when things feel like they are too much to handle being willing to ask for help. This allows me to accept who I am in any given moment and address the needs presented, to accept reality as it is as opposed to fighting reality and judging the self for what I would rather it be or it should be. It is through this alliance with self that I persist with the support and love of those I trust when it feels as though I cannot.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Currently I am moving into the next phase of my career which will likely include private practice, additional training, and we will see where I decide to go from there. I have been trained in the Comprehensive Resource Model, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Dialectical Behavioral therapy and am passionate in helping others connect with their core self to create a sense of connection and security within regardless of what challenges they personally face. I am a very direct therapist that will challenge and support those I work with every step of the way and find nothing more exciting then to see people reconnect with themselves and become empowered creating a sense of freedom within their lives.

I understand the difficulties that can come with mental health and how it connects with every aspect of our lives including emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual, and relational wellbeing first hand. I have lived it, I was in and out of inpatient facilities from the ages of 12-18 and lost my brother to fentanyl use during the completion of my Masters program. Prior to finding what worked for me I was told around the age of 18 by health care professionals I would have to be on disability and medication for the rest of my life ( neither were true and I graduated with an academic achievement award in my Masters program). I have met my own grief, depression, anger, anxieties and doubt and become well acquainted. They have equipped me with the compassion, empathy, and patience needed to support others in meeting their own. My passion for this comes from past pain and struggle with my intent being to reduce as much unnecessary suffering as possible. Professionally I have been in the field since 2016 and look forward to seeing where this path will take me.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back, three skills I would say were most impactful in my journey were mindfulness, humility, and opposite action. For those early in their journey I encourage you to explore and experiment, connect with a therapist or other support systems as needed, different perspectives can be useful especially if you have been operating the same way for the majority of your life, you don’t have to tough it alone. To develop any skill it requires practice and what you require, well that depends on you so I highly recommend beginning with mindfulness practices. This can begin with the recognition that you are not your thoughts, emotions, body, and behaviors and setting the intention of observing how each of these influence one another, rise, and fall throughout the day with a curious, non-judgmental mindset. We all have automatic thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, and urges this practice opens the door for intentional living, moving away from overly identifying with these experiences and becoming reactive to responding and choosing how to engage with them; knowledge of self through the recognition of what you are not. Attention brings about intention, intention breeds action, these are the keys to manifestation.

Humility helps me with self judgment when learning through trial and error, to be ok with making mistakes , being human, and willing to recognize and address when I am wrong, that it’s ok to ask for help and I don’t need to do it all alone . Without being willing to do something different and be wrong, I will continue to try the same thing over and over again likely resulting in the same result and further frustration, Mindfulness assists in this practice as it aids in noticing when I am having thoughts that are not beneficial, rigid, judgmental, or limiting in nature and I can reframe and provide myself with more supportive or beneficial thoughts depending on my needs in the moment. There are apps available and one can also keep a thought record to begin awareness of thoughts. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy also provides a plethora of skills to address thought content.

Opposite Action is a skill taken from Dialectical Behavioral Theory, oversimplified, when a emotional urge or the intensity of the emotion doesn’t fit the facts or is not beneficial you do the opposite. For example, in the beginning of this interview I identified my own experience of fear connected to thoughts of uncertainty and doubt based on previously held perceptions of stigma and past experiences. The emotional urges of avoidance made more tempting by excuses that I needed to study for an upcoming exam arose. To give into these automatic thoughts and urges would reinforce them and the pattern of avoidance which is not in tune with my higher values or goals. So opposite action in this scenario is doing the interview and giving it my all body, mind, and soul. Often times people think confidence, courage, motivation, discipline , etc. are the absence of doubt, fear, anxiety, and failure. It’s quite the opposite, it’s the recognition of these qualities within ourselves , and entering the paradox of becoming comfortable being uncomfortable. Emotions such as fear are often indicators something is important to you….. This is also a good one for doing chores and getting into the gym, reconditioning the self for a delayed reward system as opposed to the immediate reward that doing nothing or giving into our initial emotional urges can provide .

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

Good question, I believe it is important to be able to identify both our own strengths and weaknesses in a nonjudgmental manner. This way we can determine for ourselves whether it is worth while investing our time, energy, and efforts into improving areas we aren’t strong in or simply ask someone for help so that we can invest our energies elsewhere. There is only so much life to live, it does not need to be spent incessantly striving for self-improvement and development it’s ok not to know how to be able to do everything and ask for help. For example, my expertise is not in handyman work and as much as I love the university of Youtube there are certain things that I am frankly inexperienced in when it comes to fixing things around the house . As my wife likes to gently remind me when those times come ” Connor you are a therapist not a electrician or plumber”. Though I can tend to minor things and improve there, larger scale jobs require me to outsource and ask for help from those that already have the expertise which saves me time, energy, and at times a serious headache. It’s important to know our own limitations so that we can improve them as needed at our own pace and avoid doing more harm then good in trying to do it all ourselves, which I imagine I am not the only one who has achieved the latter.

Contact Info:

• Other: Below are a few free apps you may find helpful.

  https://www.traumaresourceinstitute.com/ichill

  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.howwefeel.moodmeter&hl=en-US&pli=1

  https://www.uclahealth.org/ulcamindful/ucla-mindful-app