139. How To Reclaim Your Voice and Advocate For Yourself Through the Intention-Perception-Action Model (Dr. Patricia Timerman)

⚠️ Content Note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and suicide loss. Please take care while listening.

What happens when a confident communicator suddenly loses her voice?

In this deeply moving conversation, Serena Low sits down with psychotherapist, author, and communication expert Dr. Patricia Timerman Barbosa da Silva (“Dr. T”) to explore the life-changing experience that shaped her work: immigrating to the United States at 14 without knowing English and finding herself unable to express herself.

Together, they unpack the complexities of communication, grief, cultural identity, boundaries, and self-advocacy. Drawing from over a decade of clinical experience in trauma, grief, couples therapy, and immigration mental health, Dr. Patricia shares practical tools and profound insights that can help Quiet Warriors communicate more effectively, navigate difficult emotions, and honour their own needs without guilt.

If you’ve ever felt misunderstood, struggled to speak up, or carried grief that others couldn't fully comprehend, this conversation offers wisdom, compassion, and hope.

In This Episode, You'll Discover:

• Why communication breakdowns often happen even when both people have good intentions
• The Intention–Action–Perception (IAP) model and how it can transform your relationships
• A simple communication technique called the "Preamble" that reduces conflict and misunderstanding
• How immigration, culture, and identity influence the way we communicate
• The difference between healthy boundaries and emotional walls
• Why reciprocity matters in relationships and leadership
• What makes suicide grief uniquely challenging
• Practical ways to support someone who is grieving
• How to create "memories in your pocket" to navigate difficult moments of loss
• Why putting yourself on equal footing with others is an act of self-respect, not selfishness

Key Takeaways for Quiet Warriors

• Your silence is not weakness. Speaking thoughtfully and intentionally is a strength.
• Communication isn't just about what you say—it's about how your message is perceived.
• You cannot force someone to receive a message they aren't ready to hear.
• Healthy boundaries protect your wellbeing and strengthen your relationships.
• Grief doesn't follow a timetable, and healing cannot be rushed.
• Putting yourself at the same level as others creates more sustainable relationships and leadership.

About Dr. Patricia Timerman

Dr. Patricia Timerman Barbosa da Silva is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and founder of Advocate to Create. She holds a PhD in Mental Health and specialises in grief, trauma, couples therapy, and suicide loss support. Her work is informed by both extensive clinical experience and her own immigration journey, bringing a culturally sensitive perspective to mental health and communication.

Connect with Dr. Patricia Timerman

Instagram, LinkedIn & Facebook: @AdvocateToCreate

Book: Why Are We Fighting? Actionable Strategies for Effective Communication (available in print, eBook, and audiobook formats)

www.Advocate2Create.com

www.Advocate2Create.Teachable.com

P: (305) 204-7764

E: patricia@advocate2create.com

No More - Together we can end domestic violence and sexual assault

www.nomore.org

No More Tears 

nomoretearsusa.org

Resources for Quiet Achievers

Download the Leadership Visibility and Influence for Introverts mini-course for practical strategies to lead with confidence while staying true to yourself.

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Crisis Support

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This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Transcript

Content Warning And Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Before I introduce today's guest in conversation, I want to let you know that this episode contains references to suicide, which may be distressing, so you can decide whether you want to keep listening. Welcome. Our guest today is Dr. Patricia Timmerman Barbosa da Silva, also known as Dr. T, a psychotherapist, author, and founder of Advocate to Create. In her book, Why Are We Fighting, she introduces the IAP model, Intention, Action, Perception, which she calls the Google Translate for Communication. With over 12 years of experience, she specializes in grief, trauma, and couples therapy, integrating research fact strategies to improve relationships. She also provides clinical evaluations for immigration cases, combining her mental health expertise with her background in immigration law. Patricia, welcome to the Quiet Warrior Podcast. Hi, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited because your background, your story, your experiences are so multifaceted, so intriguing. And I want to start by asking you about your journey so far and what inspires you to do what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Oh. That's a good question. What inspires me to do what I do? I really love what I do. It's interesting, like when you said when you expressed about the immigration. So my background in immigration law is I worked at an immigration law firm while I was doing my master's in mental health and marriage and family therapy. And I remember at one point I even thought, you know, maybe I should go to law school. My sister's an attorney. Hubby's also an attorney. But something just kept on bringing me back to mental health. I know you're stinking some mental health. I even was gonna go back because mental health was a pit stop on my way to medical school. Um and after finishing my master's, I thought about law school, then I thought about going back to medical school, and then nope, continued on PhD in mental health because I love what I do. I think my mother-in-law once said, like, there's people for everything. Um the blessing that I've had is the opportunity of seeing things maybe in different ways and being able to help other people see things in different ways, then that facilitates our understanding of miscommunications or where we are in life, you know, or even how we can see our trauma from being victim to becoming a survivor. Um, so my work, the people that I work with, I think keeps motivating me to do what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

I love what your mother-in-law said, that there is a someone for everything.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

When I this is when I worked at the 1-800 Suicide, she's like, There's people for everything. Like, it's because I love what I do.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah,

Immigration Stress And Safety Layers

SPEAKER_00 3:05

let's talk about immigration and mental health. What has been your own lived experience? What are you noticing? How's that influencing what you do?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Well, I can say that we are definitely in an atypical era right now. Uh, there's a lot of anxiety. And so, prior to the current goings on, I felt like again, I'm not an attorney, but I worked with immigration law. Um, I was privy to so many things, the legal aspects and then the mental health. And so um, I was more confident in being able to talk about the myths and barriers, right? When it comes to anxiety, like when we have when a person is, I worked a lot with being domestic violence or trafficking. Um, and we have so many different resources when we're talking about a person who's experiencing domestic violence. But when you go an example, and this is from many moons ago, so I don't know the current studies on it, but one of the things was uh going to a shelter. And going to a shelter, a lot of the times was, well, why didn't you leave it early, leave the situation earlier? And many people, because of their cultural background, sometimes being more patriarchical background, leaving was not an option, and going to a place that is a more westernized point of view, they felt judged, and so the immigration status adds to it. Or if you are a person who is under you came because of a spouse, you believe that unless I the that spouse can simply deport me at any moment, right? And so it there was an additional layer of threat, an additional layer of fear. Today, with everything that's going on, people fear leaving their homes. And today, unfortunately, I can't confidently speak on myths and barriers as I could before, because there's so many things happening that we never thought would. So it's more difficult.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Does that make sense? It does make sense. You're talking about multiple layers that people have to go through as an immigrant, as a woman, as a woman of a particular culture. So there is shame, there is fear, there is maybe a life threat. So that's survival that's involved. And if they're children, that's even more complicated.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

And men as well, because men, so one of the visas that exists is called the uh VAWA, which is Violence Against Women Act. That's a misnomer because it when you hear it, you believe it's only for women. Right now, these are for individuals who are the spouse of, parent of, or child of a person who is abusing them, who's either a US citizen or a green card holder. Uh, but it does not matter your gender. Right? You can seek relief under the Violence Against Women Act, which is a way for you to be able to not depend upon your abuser to be able to be here legally. And of course, there are many qualifying uh or criteria that you need to prove and go through to be able, it's not a free-for-all, it's not easy to go through that. But sometimes just listening, violent Violence Against Women Act may already emasculate a person, a male who maybe would go for a relief and now I'm not gonna. So it's there are different layers, language, the words we use, the intentionality of it makes such an impact, and sometimes we don't even notice.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

I agree with you. Words are very powerful. So perhaps that legislation needs to be renamed quite quite quickly if you have a lot of males who are also victims of abuse and don't know that they have this way out.

Losing Your Voice Then Rebuilding It

SPEAKER_00 7:14

So, what about your own lived experience with moving to the US? How has that shaped your journey?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Oh, goodness. Um, you know, I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday, and we were speaking about moving here and assimilating to the culture. Um, and she expressed to me, she's like, I even put down my own culture to assimilate to the culture here. And then when I went back, I was like, no, but my culture is really good too. Like, I shouldn't just put one down to bring the other one up. Um, and I agree with that. Now I moved here when I was 14, didn't speak any English. Um, your confidence level, at least mine, went down. I am a talker, as you can see. Um, I lost my voice. I lost my voice. I couldn't speak because I didn't speak the language. I went from being an extrovert to becoming very introverted. Um, I lost myself until I started to master a little bit the language, but I remember saying like the words in my head, but they would not come out of my mouth. And I'm like, just go, just say it. But it was so scary to say because what if I say it wrong? And I think this is something that we hold on to so much. And I remember when I would listen to my friends or colleagues or well, classmates at the time I was in high school. One day I like got up in the middle of algebra class and I got really mad because I'm like, everybody's using wrong grammar, and I'm here really trying to use correct grammar. Why is it that I have to use correct grammar and everybody else does it? Right. So it's that own pressure that I put on myself. Um, but upon finding myself, which I actually only process that experience, I don't know if I would call it a trauma, maybe personality trauma, like as I was growing because it's a formative years of your life. I only processed it while doing my masters in mental health and marriage and family therapy. It allowed me to understand that that silencing is what maybe makes me focus so much on communication. I mean, the name of my firm is Advocate to Create, is advocacy. It's helping people find their voice and advocating for their voices.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

And you're talking about self-advocacy first. So we have to find our own voice in order to be able to use it to be able to make a difference for ourselves and then for other people.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah. And the sound of our voice will be different for each and every one of us. Um, and sometimes we think it has to be a specific way, and then we find our own. That's what matters. How long has it taken to find your own voice? I don't know, that's interesting. I think I'm comfortable with my voice today. I think that there's always room. Um, even a recent experience, I noticed that in a relationship and being so understanding, I kind of lost my thinking about me in the relationship and only thinking about the other person in the relationship. So I kind of lost that a little bit, and then I regained it to the point that I feel very positive about my decisions in the past couple of days of putting myself first. Right. Um, so I think it's I don't think you'll ever fully find it because it's always evolving. Um in my 30s, my 30s, I really am enamored by my 30s, and I think it's been when my voice has taken its shape.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

What does a voice that has taken its shape sound like?

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Being comfortable with yourself, being able to stay true to who you are, not being afraid of making mistakes. And I don't think apologies are easy for me, but I have no issue in apologizing if I have hurt somebody or if I've had actions that have been taken in different ways that I intended them. I have no issues in apologizing when my behavior has done something and I have no problem in making a mistake. Like I don't need to be fighting against it.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

On the subject of fighting, I can see the cover of your book on the back

Why Are We Fighting And Who It Helps

SPEAKER_00 11:54

of the wall there. Oh, yeah. And it says, Why are we fighting? Tell us about this book Actionable Strategies for Effective Communication. Tell us what inspired you to write it and who is it for?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

This is for everyone. Let me tell you, this is focused on communication and not on a specific relationship. Right. So you can use it with couples, you can use it at work, we can use it with friends, you can use it with colleagues, because it brings us the idea of talking about how to talk. It's learning how do we communicate with each other, because we are brought into, as we're brought into this world, we learn communication from the people surrounding us. But as we interact with the people that were not surrounding us, their communication might be different from ours, right? There's so many things, for example, eye contact. Not every culture thinks of eye contact as respectful. Some cultures think that if I am actually not looking straight in your face and I am maybe looking down or looking, I'm being respectful towards you, right? So there are so many aspects of communication, and I look at my life as a study, and I gather data, and I look at what are the things in my life that worked and didn't work. And when in one of my romantic relationships after it ended, I there's this one of the worksheets that I put here is a bonus worksheet that I call it the mean 3D, who I was, who I am, and who I want to become. I learned who was the partner that I did not want to become again. I didn't want to be somebody who walked on eggshells. I wanted to be somebody who had good boundaries for myself, understanding what are my own boundaries with myself. Then in whatever relationship I'm in, once I start crossing them, it's an internal alarm system for me to check myself and understand where I'm in, which is part of what you know it when I expressed like a recent event, it was I reached my limit in noticing, ooh, I'm stepping over my boundary for somebody else. Pause, reassess. Um, but the IAP was born from my communication with my

IAP Model Intention Action Perception

SPEAKER_01 14:20

husband. Um he and I, I one I observed a lot of when things would get lost in translation was because I would do an action and I had an expectation or an intention to that action, but his response was different from what I expected. Um, so the easiest example, which I think is the first one that ever happened, was us having a fight, and I walked out thinking, if you love me, you're gonna walk out to check up on me. And when he did, immediately my thought was, well, then you clearly don't care. When I asked him why didn't you follow, he's like, You created space. You know, I if you were me creating space, I'd want you to respect it. Therefore, in respecting you, I didn't follow you. I didn't realize that my action was subject to interpretation because I could not fathom there was a different way of looking at the same thing. And when I noticed a couple of these things happening, I noticed this pattern between intention, action, and perception. Sometimes we believe certain actions, certain words have a universal meaning, but they do not. And when we don't talk about it and we assume and what we expect to receive is different from what we receive, we often don't think about, oh, did I clearly express what I wanted from this? I usually go into how come you didn't do it? Like everybody does it, it's common knowledge. Um, so the IAP is a way to bring a lot of self-awareness into how you see the world, and that maybe the idea that others don't necessarily see the world in that way. And it helps us curb assumptions to increase better communication. And chapters one and two talk about the theory. Chapter three are all the actionable strategies, like things that you can start doing as of today, code words, rule of three interpretations, gratitude, preamble, and then I have worksheets for everybody on chapter four on how to apply all of these. Some people are auditory, and just by listening, the audiobook is coming out in a few days. Just by listening is enough. Other people like me are more visual, kinesthetic, and they would like and appreciate the worksheet, you know, until it becomes second nature. Um, but it's training yourselves to communicate in a more clear way. Now, something that's really important to note, and then I'm talking a lot, so I'm gonna stop talking for a minute, but I'm gonna say that because it's really important. These are tools, right? The IAP model is a concept, is understanding the relationship between the intention, action, and perception, and then the tools that we use to retrain how we communicate. When I stop using the tools, it stops working. And while I use it, and everybody who is trying it, then the idea is that the more we use it, the better we get at it. But if what and one person using it in a relationship, if the other one doesn't contribute, we all relationships consist of at least at minimum two individuals. I cannot do a hundred percent of everything. There has to be reciprocity, so we need at least two people being open to using the tools.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense, yes. Of course, we must have both sides uh reciprocating. There has to be a mutual exchange, a mutual respect, a willingness to uh to learn something new together, to maybe re-evaluate the way things have been and uh to explore some new ways of communicating. But the reality would be that a lot of in a lot of relationships, there would be one party that is much more uh motivated to make a change uh than the other. So in cases like that, I I would think that even starting to apply some of those strategies in your book would be better than just leaving it and waiting till the other person is willing to come to the table.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

No, yeah, I'd say the idea is that they will mirror you. Right. And so, like when I'm starting, I'm starting with the hopes that you will follow what and and I will express it, right? Like I'm in using the preamble. So the preamble, there are two functions, right? Function

Tools That Reduce Assumptions

SPEAKER_01 19:02

one is when I tell you, hey, I just need to vent. I do not need a solution right now. Are you in a space where you can just listen to an event? You don't really need to pay attention because I do not want any feedback. I just want a vent, right? And the other person gets to tell me yay or nay. The second one is when I tell you the intention behind what I'm gonna do or what I'm gonna say before saying it. So if I express, I really love our relationship, I miss what we used to have, and I notice that things have changed. So I want to be able to say this to see where we are and where we can be, then it gains us some grace, right? But when I talk about reciprocity, if the other individual isn't willing to see beyond your point of view, while you are trying to be, you know, to look at yours, because we can only control our own behaviors. Um you can't force the other person. So I think it's important for us to try our hardest, but at the same time to understand where are our boundaries? When does it get to a point where I have done now it's I need your participation?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

I see a parallel in the quiet achiever becoming a quiet warrior, because the quiet achiever is usually contented to remain in the background to let their good work speak for themselves. But the quiet warrior is someone who is actively and courageously stepping out and saying uncomfortable things, doing hard things, doing things they normally wouldn't do but for a higher purpose, because there is something else at stake. Maybe somebody else's well-being is at stake. So, in the in the case of a relationship, you have one person that's striving to put the relationship on a healthier keel. And then perhaps you might have one who is a bit reluctant, not yet uh able to see that they are also contributing to the problem and so not taking self-responsibility. And that is very hard work on the one party that is trying very hard. So I'm glad that you mentioned the importance of boundaries and the importance of knowing when the limit is, when you have done your best. But if somebody is not willing, not able, not ready, still resisting and pushing back, then we still have to retain, I think, our own integrity in deciding now what do I do next. I've done what I possibly can, I've done the responsible thing, but I can't change the other person. I'm not responsible for that bit.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yeah. And in a recent experience, a and this is not statistical, but this is one of the things that was I was where I was able to identify when. The other person wasn't willing. Is if everything happens to you, but nothing happens by you. Right. So in our exchange, as you and I are conversing, um, there we are reacting or responding at the same time to each other, being the way that our that we are looking at each other, our uh nonverbals, right? Like as I'm talking, you're going late. So like it's letting me know, okay, like she is listening, like this is a cue, that um, but and in that exchange, that means that two people are acting. What I've noticed is in conversing with someone and noticing that in spite of individual A saying, you know, uh, I hear you, I hear what you're saying, I hurt you, I apologize for it. But individual B only experiences that everything is done to them and is not acknowledging that something is done by them. I think that that lack of flexibility allows us to check ourselves and understand, okay, it's no not necessarily a communication problem, it's not necessarily a me problem. You are not yet open to this, right? This can be a boundary setting.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Does that make sense? It it does make sense. It's both a boundary setting, but I'm also wondering if it's also a doorway or an opportunity for the other person to rise up and do that inner work that's required. Now, how would they do that if they've always been a person that thinks things happen to them? How do you help them see that they are also responsible?

SPEAKER_01 23:49

That's the thing, right? I it it has to come from them. We can't make people see things they don't want to see. And sometimes that can be a defense mechanism, right? Uh something triggered us to go into and putting that shield up and putting the defense mechanism, so maybe time and space, but we can't force something upon someone else. Uh, we see it a lot in in therapy when people say, Well, I'm here because uh, you know, my parents brought me in or my spouse wanted me to come. And um, and I've had going to suicide grief, I remember a sibling. So parents brought their kid because the sibling had passed by suicide. Um, and in session, she just she wasn't ready for it. And then we would just sit there. We would just sit there because I can't force it. It wasn't until maybe I want to say a year later that she came on her own, because now she was ready to start to try to process some of the things that we were talking about, and because she felt rapport with me enough that she decided to come back and see me because I didn't force it upon her. So I can have somebody else move at my pace for as much as I would love it sometimes. Right. And if they are no longer willing to move, the question becomes what is it about that individual that makes you want them to move? Right? Is it maybe now on us to put our boundaries and give the space? Why are we forcing that?

Reciprocity Boundaries And Emotional Bank Accounts

SPEAKER_00 25:31

So let's talk about why we might force clients or loved ones to to process sooner than they are ready for.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah, I think sometimes we want something so much, like we may see a loved one like making decisions that we see are self-harming to them and we feel impotent. Right. And so we want them to move at our pace. Um, but sometimes the more that we push, the further we push them away from actually doing that. Then there are instances when there are people that are unhealthy for us and we may be in more toxic relationships. And the more we force ourselves because we feel beholden to this individual, the more power we give them, but they are not changing, right? So it's it becomes important for us to understand why are we trying this hard, right? If it's a relationship that's giving us anxiety, what makes this individual worth our time? Um, and understand that. Because if we understand this individual is really worth all this anxiety and all of this time, that how can I help you the way you want to be helped? Because maybe the way I'm helping you is actually not helping. And if I notice that maybe this individual is not worth my anxiety, then it allows us to notice this might not be a healthy relationship, and this is the time that I need to listen to myself and leave. Right. So these questions become really important.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

And that's a hard one to ask and to acknowledge when we say that someone is not worth our anxiety, because that implies how do you even put a value on someone's worth or the worth of a relationship to us, especially if if it's uh someone who is related, you know, someone from the family. And then there are all these cultural expectations, obligations, there'll be a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, all those layers come on top as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah, oh, absolutely. Right. And so when you're feeling beholden to someone, um the reciprocity in the relationship, right? If we, I'm gonna go to Gottman's emotional bank account, right? He when he looked at uh at partners, at um couples, he through his studies noticed that uh a positive to negative interaction is not one-to-one. You need five positive interactions to offset one negative interaction. So he called it the bank account because he's like for every one deposit, there like there will be like five, yeah, one deposit, five withdrawals. So a fight, if you do not have, sorry, the other way around, if you don't have five deposits and there's a withdrawal, you're gonna be in the negative. So it's maybe looking at that emotional bank account, right? Are the deposits balancing with the withdrawals? Am I enabling somebody by continuing in this relationship? So enabling possibly even the bad habit. So it's being able to think about the me in the relationship as much as we think about the other in the relationship. Um, I love the concept of the emotional bank account because when we are in that, it really allows us to know like, was the relationship we had, did those deposits make it worth it for me to feel like I need to put more than you because you can't right now. But if I notice that every deposit I make, you are making the withdrawal from it, then it becomes unsustainable. So if I think it's really important for us to not make sure that we put ourselves just as I don't know if I want to say first, but at least in the same level as we put somebody else. Right? We tend to do things to our detriment. I have a tendency of putting others before I do myself. One of the activities I did with my clients and myself in uh what I wanted to leave behind in 2025 and what I wanted to bring with me into 2026. And I said I wanted to leave behind overexplaining in 2025, and I wanted to bring putting thinking about myself in relationships into 2026, because I've noticed that in oftentimes, especially because I tend to give the benefit of the doubt when I think of the IAP and how other people may be thinking, that I would put others before myself. And finding a healthy balance meant putting myself at least in the same if I have an issue putting myself first, uh, but not to put others before.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

That makes perfect sense. That is that equilibrium of valuing yourself as much as you value other people. And I think it's particularly relevant for our introverts, for our women listeners who've had a lifelong tendency to put themselves a bit lower than other people, to put other people's needs and priorities ahead of their own. And that creates that friction, that imbalance you talked about. So the intention of that part is extremely important to value yourself in order that you can give sustainably.

Suicide Grief Guilt And The What Ifs

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Now, I understand, Patricia, you've had personal experience of suicide grief. What makes that different from other kinds of grief? What are some lessons you've learned, and how can we better support ourselves as well as other people who are going through suicide grief?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

So a big difference from suicide grief in relationship to other griefs is the fact that there's a piece of the puzzle that's missing. When somebody died from dies either suddenly from a sudden heart attack, from for example, or an accident, or somebody dies uh from a long, you know, like health. So there's expected and unexpected grief. There are also like people who've attempted before versus a person who's never attempted. So that also makes a significant difference in expected and unexpected suicide grief. Um, but because there's a missing puzzle or pieces of the puzzle that I can't put together as rational beings, we try to rationalize what happened. So one of the prominent aspects of suicide grief is that lingering movie like that, the last few days, everything that happened, every single detail. And as you're going through every single detail, then you go through the lingering questions. But what if, but what if, but what if? And because we are rational beings and we want to make sense of things and we don't know the reason, we will do one of two things, if not both. Blame ourselves or blame something or somebody else for it. So I should have been more present in this person's life, I should have done more. What if I had just knocked in his room that night? What if I had not stayed late at work? Right. So we internalize it because it's our way of trying to understand that. So another hallmark of a huge prominent aspect of suicide grief is guilt. And it's living in that what if world. Now, one of the things that I've noticed, and there have been a few studies on the longevity. Now, today in the the DSM, which is the mental health Bible, uh-huh, or a Torah or Quran or however you want to call it, uh the uh the we've identified now something called prolonged grief, right? Because it is more or used to be called complex or complicated, or so many different names, uh, but it is more difficult to experience than the expected grief, right? When I know somebody, if I'm experiencing somebody going through cancer and they are losing themselves, I'm already grieving their loss. So by the time they die, a lot of the grief has already happened. In a sudden death, we lose them in that moment. So usually we'll see like six months to a year, you know, you might like you get adjusted, more adjusted to the normal with suicide grief. And the study talked about suicide and homicide grief. It's about three years, and I've seen it myself. Like every three years, I would have a new cohort of so I worked at the 1800 suicide when I first started. So I worked a lot with intervention, prevention. Once I graduated, I then went into post-vention and I focused on suicide grief. I facilitated Group for Survivors of Suicide through the Florida Initiative for Suicide Prevention, known as FISP, for about uh 10 years. And every three years, I would say the first year you're existing. You're living in two worlds. There's the parallel world of the day that person died. And then there is the I gotta go to work, I still have a job, I still have to pay the bills, I still have a family to take care of. Um, and you're going in and out of those two. You're often being pulled into the grief world where it just feels like I'm still in that day. Second year is surviving. Second year, it goes from being surreal, as is in the first year, to real, but I hate my reality. I didn't choose this reality, I don't want this reality. I notice that in the third year we start adjusting to this reality, and that's when we start living again and understanding that life does continue. It's different. And I will have moments I when I talk with my clients about measurement of our grief, I talk about frequency and longevity, um, as well as intensity, right? So frequency, frequency would be the intensity, like how frequent I go like this. Like it's the anger, the guilt, the frustration, the social ineptitude of people not wanting to talk to me about that

How To Support Survivors Better

SPEAKER_01 35:59

person. So here's when you say, What can we do? Don't avoid the person's name. My friend Scott took his life. Don't avoid saying, Scott, I'm already thinking about him. You're not bringing him up to me. You're not making me think about him, already thinking about him. You're giving me the opportunity to speak about him. And you're showing me that you're not afraid for me to be able to talk about him. Don't ask how I'm doing if you don't want the answer. I'm not doing great. You can say it's nice to see you. Don't say stop crying. Because I think, like I think you and I had that conversation in the pre-call, I believe, of growing up. I heard people saying, Don't cry to console. So growing up, when I would see people crying, I would go to don't cry, even with the tilt of the head, right? And the voice, don't cry. Um, but when you listen to the words, you're asking the other person to stop having these emotions come out of them because a cry is a physiological response to what's happening inside. Just like when people tickle you and you laugh. I hate when people tickle me. I don't laugh because I'm enjoying it. It is a response, it's a physiological response that I cannot control, right? Crying is that is there's so many emotions they are bursting out on me. I'm either gonna cry, vomit, or have diarrhea. Out of all those three, I would rather cry. So instead of saying don't cry, say, I'm here, or don't even say anything, hold the person's hand, right? If you want to help, what are the the daily tasks? Food, getting the house clean, taking the kids to school, right? These are the things that help. So then the other individual is able to grieve without. Remember, I said the two worlds, I can process this world because I don't have to think so much of it. And sometimes I need to get this as a distraction from this world, but it's it is very different. It's it will take a while. So a year is not the mark for oh, you should get over it by now. No, second year oftentimes can be harder because now it's real as opposed to surreal.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Thank you so much for that. That is extremely helpful. Or the next time we meet someone who is going through that valley, we know what is the sensitive, what is the appropriate, what's the trauma-informed thing to say that makes them feel seen.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Now, speaking of words, and I want to say two things, but I will go to words. So through my experience in the world of suicide, being prevention, intervention, postvention, um, we've had myriad different ways of talking about suicide. So committed suicide was how it started, and then it had a negative connotation to it because it people talk about committing a crime as something negative. Then you went to completed suicide, right? So that there are it depends on the word. So, but I also with the committed, I noticed is generational because today, when I say committed or when I hear people say committed, it's not as as negative as it was for my generation, right? Uh, or people before before me. Um, it I love how it's said in Portuguese, Spanish, so Latin-based, suicided would be the term. Um, it's not made into a verb here, but I often just say took their lives. Um, but then is the difference between do I need to focus on the cause of death or the fact that this person is gone. If you're curious to know what happened, don't talk to the person. If you're there to be with them, then for sure, be there. Now, the one thing I'll say for the person struggling through it, let's say that we have a survivor of suicide who's listening to it. One thing that I'll say, we focus so much on the what-ifs. Whenever you notice yourself thinking about the things you did not do, which is an alternate reality, and we don't know if it would give a different response. Think about all the things you did do because those are factual, those did happen. And then I created, I like this, I call memory in the pocket. Think about what is the memory you want to have of that individual. And you know, when like you're downloading something and there's like that little loop, like the little circle that goes like this. When we start thinking about it, it's not voluntary. We involuntarily start thinking about it, right? And we can think of all the what ifs and all of that. So when you're able to catch yourself, voluntarily close it. So the memory in the pocket is what is the memory I want to think about when I think of you? Let me close that loop with a voluntary thought. What was this person wearing? What was that we were doing? I like to think what is the essence of that individual. I'm a funny person, I love humor, so I always try to think about like funny things. Like my friend, he had each collar with a different eye. Uh, he was very like eccentric, but super cool. And it's so I try to think about his smile because it was infectious. Um, because although I can't control how my thought begins, I can't control how it ends. And it's kind of like when you're eating something and you leave the favorite piece for less. That's what we're doing because we want to finish the dish with a good taste.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

You're finishing the dish, but you're also perpetuating. I love this concept of the memory in the pocket. It's like bringing that loved one with you wherever you go. They may not be here on this plane, but they're still with you in some way because they meant something to you then, and you meant something to them as well. And that relationship, that time together, that season needs to be acknowledged. And we want to be grateful for that. We want to be glad that we crossed paths and we had that time with them, and they had that time with us. Yeah. Yeah.

Intentional Self Talk For Introverts

SPEAKER_00 42:15

That is beautiful. Memory in a pocket. So, what is one thing you want introverts and quiet achievers listening to our conversation today to take away?

SPEAKER_01 42:26

We talked about so many things. I think I'm gonna go back to the IAP and when we talk about like finding our voice or the intentionality of words. I think, especially with introverts, usually like there are people that talk a lot, like me. Um, but there are people that when they talk, it's because they have something to say. Right? So I don't always talk, but when I talk, like everybody should kind of listen. And it's is the way that I'm saying reflecting its intention, reflecting what I want it to say. Um, so I think that that's what I take out of it is like being intentional with ourselves, with our words, how we talk to ourselves. Remember me saying it in my head a million times and not letting it out because what if I make a mistake? And the question be it kind of became, and what if I make a mistake? I will not learn unless I make that mistake. So let me be intentional as to how I talk to myself. So I can be intentional as to how I talk to others.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

So that IAP model is applicable to ourselves as well as to our communications with others. I love that it starts with intention before it moves into the action and then the perception. Yeah.

Where To Find Patricia And Closing

SPEAKER_00 43:46

What is the best place for people to find you and to find your book?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Um, my the name of my company is Advocate to Create, the Tuesday number two. Um, so you can go to advocatetocreate.com. I'm on Instagram, um, LinkedIn, Facebook, and my book is on Amazon, and the audiobook should be coming out in the next, I want to say like 10 days. They're just doing the quality assurance process. So it's very exciting. The narrator is amazing, Brianna Fox. Like, she's really was able to embody all that like I wanted out of it. And um, I really hope people enjoy it. And I'll say it brings a lot of self-awareness and it allows you to identify what is it about me that I love and I want to maintain, what is it about me that maybe I want to change a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

I loved it, and I'm so excited for you. You have an audio book coming out to supplement the original book. So thank you. Thank you so much, Patricia, for sharing your wisdom with us today on so many aspects of communication, of grieving, of losses, of how to navigate these ups and downs, I guess, in our lives and valuing ourselves while we do that.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

I appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

You're very, very welcome. It's an honor. If you're a quiet achiever, ready to be recognized and promoted without having to perform extroversion. I have just created a new leadership and visibility resource just for you. You can download it at QuietWarrioracademy.com backslash leadership for introverts, and I will make sure to have the link in the show notes for you. I'll see you on the next episode. High performing introverts with leadership ambition don't lack competence. What many of them lack is a psychologically safe and sustainable pathway to visibility and leadership. If you're successful on paper, but still feel unseen, overextended, or quietly stuck at the same level despite everything you've achieved, the scene executive calibration was designed for you. It helps identify the deeper patterns that may be affecting how you communicate, advocate for yourself, lead, and show up professionally. You'll find the link in the show notes.