Growing Tall Poppies

From Shadows to Light: Embracing the Wounded Healer through Addiction and Recovery.

• Dr Natalie Green • Season 2 • Episode 59

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In this insightful and compelling episode of the Growing Tall Poppies Podcast, host Dr. Nat Green sits down with Dr. David Lee, a clinical psychologist and addiction recovery coach, with extensive experience in trauma and addiction recovery.

Dr David shares his personal journey of overcoming alcoholism, trauma, and the breakdown of his marriage, and how these experiences have shaped his approach to psychology and coaching. From struggling with alcoholism and professional setbacks to finding recovery through spirituality, therapy, and the 12-step program. He discusses the importance of lived experience, honesty, openness, and willingness in overcoming trauma. 

Dr David also highlights his future ambitions, including developing a shadow work program and helping others through writing and public speaking, while emphasizing the continuous need for personal growth and spiritual connection.

Key takeaways include the importance of spiritual surrender, the value of lived experience in professional practice, and the essential qualities needed for personal growth, such as honesty, accountability, and courage. Tune in to discover how embracing one's vulnerabilities and doing the deep inner work can lead to a life of greater purpose, self-awareness, and inner peace.

02:24 David's Professional Background and Personal Journey

06:08 The Importance of Personal Inner Work

19:24 David's Dark Night of the Soul

25:14 The Path to Recovery and Spiritual Awakening

31:05 The First Steps of Surrender

31:46 A Powerful Moment of Realization

32:31 Guided Visualization and Staying on the Path

33:13 Understanding the Wounded Healer

34:20 Working with Clients and Recognizing Patterns

35:16 The Role of Relationships in Trauma

37:08 Exploring the Shadow and Personal Therapy

39:49 The Journey of Recovery and Professional Work

44:35 Future Vision and New Directions

51:10 The Importance of Honesty and Accountability

55:48 Final Thoughts and Reflections

With valuable insights from his personal and professional experiences, this episode serves as a beacon of hope and a practical guide for anyone working through trauma and seeking to thrive.

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Intro and Outro music: Inspired Ambient by Playsound.

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be deemed or treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

Dr Nat Green:

Welcome to the Growing Tall Poppies Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nat Green, and I'm so excited to have you join me as we discuss what it means to navigate your way through post-traumatic growth and not just survive, but to thrive after trauma. Through our podcast, we will explore ways for you to create a life filled with greater purpose, self-awareness, and a deep inner peace. Through integrating the many years of knowledge and professional experience, as well as the wisdom of those who have experienced trauma firsthand. We'll combine psychology accelerated approaches. Coaching and personal experience to assist you, to learn, to grow and to thrive. I hope to empower you to create deeper awareness and understanding and stronger connections with yourself and with others, whilst also paving the way for those who have experienced trauma and adversity to reduce their suffering and become the very best versions of themselves. In order to thrive. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I'm super excited and grateful today to bring you our next guest on the Growing Tall Poppies podcast. It's my absolute pleasure and privilege to welcome an amazing man who I've known for the last few years having met him through a community of coaches and therapists that we are connected through. He's experienced and overcome considerable amounts of trauma and adversity throughout his life, and has very kindly agreed to come and chat with us today about his personal and his professional experience. So let me start by welcoming David to chat with us today. So welcome. Dr. David Lee, it's so great to have you here.

Dr David Lee:

My pleasure. Nat thank you very much for having me. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me to be on this wonderful podcast, growing Tall poppies. Really excited.

Dr Nat Green:

Thanks, David. So let's start with you giving us a brief introduction of who you are and what you do in the world.

Dr David Lee:

Sure. Yeah. I think there are a number of ways I can answer that question. Fundamentally, I'm David Lee. I'm a human being who's been through life experiences. I'm a father, I'm a husband hopefully a friend to, to a number of people. I'm somebody who is deeply committed, I think, to sharing my own lived experience in a way that can hopefully help other human beings, not to just emphasize that my way is the only way. But I guess professionally speaking I'm a clinical psychologist by background. I'm from the uk. I now live and work in Dubai in the UAE. I'm back here in the UK right now, visiting family. But yeah, I trained in the uk. I've been around for a little while. Trained in psychology, clinical psychology. I went through the the National Health Service here in the uk. Then onward into the private sector. Worked with a variety of different, kind of client groups outpatient, inpatient, community based private practice. And I think I realized over time that, my own lived experience counts for more in a sense not saying that, throw the baby out with the bath water.'Cause my psych psychology experience and training is incredibly valuable. But I think in certainly more recent years, I've ventured down a different path. I'm still a psychologist, but I'm also a coach as well. I guess a coach a speaker, a writer I don't know if I wanna be so grandiose to give myself the title thought leader, but looking to, inspire others or at least invite others to consider how their own lived experience can be helpful in a way. I myself have lived experience of recovery from addiction and I guess trauma as well multiple, I. Kind of addictions, but mainly alcoholism. And yeah. And off the back of that, really, I trained as an addiction recovery coach as well. So I've gone down the coaching route. I'd already done some training and qualifications in executive coaching. But what really appealed to me was to how I can support other individuals who either want to recover from addiction or are already on the path. And I guess more broadly, addiction and trauma as well. So I guess my professionally speaking, multifaceted, I'm a kind of clinician, a coach, and doing various bits and pieces. But you know, personally, I'm husband, father recovering addict and alcoholic and yeah, all of these things.

Dr Nat Green:

I love that so much and thank you for just so openly sharing that with us. And I know we've chatted many times you the same as myself, are an open book. That what we've been through has led us down the path that we're going down, wherever that is for each of us. And yes, the background in clinical psychology is really valuable and really important. But as you so beautifully articulated, that lived experience brings just that different layer an additional level I think, of wisdom and understanding and empathy into the room with our clients.

Dr David Lee:

Absolutely. For me, this has just been my journey. It's been a journey of recovery from addiction and trauma going right back to childhood and what really set the wheels in motion for that was me deciding that I needed to do committed. I say long-term work. What I actually mean is lifelong work around who I am as a human being, fundamentally. And it was the the breakdown and the dissolution of my former marriage that sort of led me to do that. And my problems with addiction and alcoholism that led me into that. I've done bits and pieces of therapy before when I felt that I needed to, but I don't know about you, Nat. One of the things in my clinical training is that I now recognize is. It wasn't strongly emphasized to me the need to do your own personal inner work. As a psychologist it was almost like, take it or leave it. You want to go do some therapy go get some CBT or do a bit of psychodynamic psychotherapy or look at this. But yet when I speak to psychotherapists, including my own therapist over many years now it's a fundamental part of the experience, is that journey along the path. And for me in more recent years, it's been therapy. It's been 12 step addiction recovery which has become a way of life for me now. And other deep inner work obviously the professional stuff around coaching, which also really attends to the personal as well. But if somebody had have told me this when I was in my twenties way back 20 odd years ago, if somebody had said to me if you're gonna venture down the the wellbeing, mental health, clinical psychology path, and or be, become a therapist you should probably do work on yourself. I probably would've said at that time, what does that actually mean

Dr Nat Green:

exactly.

Dr David Lee:

So many years, I masqueraded as the the expert, if you like, because I thought I had the book-based knowledge. I'd done clinical placements, I'd attended numerous courses, programs, invested heavily in myself over the years, trained with some of the very best the best of the best and thought that made me. A really good therapist and it was only through my own lived experience and pain. Let's be honest. Pain and suffering. Yeah. That I came to realize. No, this the working on yourself is it doesn't come from saying, okay, I'm gonna do that course or Okay, I'm even gonna just go and work with that therapist.'cause it might be helpful. It comes from a deep inner experience of needing to do that work. I think being called to do that work for me, it was a dark night of the soul. It was an absolute rock bottom. And that was. Having being qualified for many years as a clinical psychologist and working, I think in a different way than to how I would work now. But yeah, for me, it's the fundamental experience of being human. I'm not saying everybody has to recover from addiction or even complex childhood trauma or something. But I think and this is only with hindsight really and being on the path now had I known then what I now know that this journey is it's so sacred really. It's to do that inner work and to become acquainted with who you really are. That has been, that's been my story for, quite a number of years now.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. I honestly, think you completely nailed it. I was exactly the same. Yes. You did your training in the uk. I did my training over here in Australia, but yeah, and I'm talking a long time ago. Over 35 years ago. Yeah, 35 years now as a psychologist. Yeah. So the four years, six years prior to that in learning how to do it, it was never, ever mentioned that you go and do your own work, you learn it from a book. We didn't even see a person sitting in front of us in my undergrad. Yeah. So you turn up and you're in the room and you just gotta fumble your way through. Absolutely. And then obviously I went on. To do the clinical psychology, and you do placements and you do more, but it was never discussed that you had to do your own work. In fact, it was almost like you had to have nothing wrong in inverted commas. Nothing wrong with you, or you couldn't be a psychologist. You, you Yeah. You invulnerable in a sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr David Lee:

I totally relate to that because when I was like, just relating to your experience there, when I was in the throes, if you like, of applying for clinical training and and for me that was back in the early two thousands, it was so competitive in the sense that it was almost the reverse of what I'm talking about here. Yeah. It was that kind of, you need to be a gladiator if you like. And you need to know everything and go out and prove yourself. Almost like competitive beyond reason. Yes. Where and I remember my cohort when I did my training back in my clinical training was 2003 to 2006. And almost like there, there was an edge of mistrust among my peers.'cause, because such and such person, I was doing this placement and working with this supervisor, so therefore they might have the edge on you and such a person has already worked with this person. And Wow. Lo and behold, if you already had a PhD, so you were gonna become doctor as a result of your training or you had prior experience as a counselor and you decided to train as a clinical psychologist. That was like, Ooh, that this, now this is I really feel outta my comfort zone now'cause I'm among peers who have got the edge on me. And I look back on that and it's absolutely ridiculous.

Dr Nat Green:

Absolutely ridiculous,

Dr David Lee:

Of the lack of togetherness and solidarity that I experienced at that time. But the way I look at it, I think I had to get to the point where I was almost approaching midlife and for all sorts of personal things to happen to me to appreciate, oh, maybe this is what the journey really should have been. And maybe I just wasn't ready to see it at 24, 25.

Dr Nat Green:

And yeah, that wisdom that comes through the life experience and lived experience opens up this whole new world. And I think for whatever reasons, when we're human beings and we go through life and things happen. Yeah. That we need to be prepared to be vulnerable. Yeah. Be open to doing the work but actually acknowledging that and sharing that and not trying to hide it and pretend it's not there. I think to be open vulnerable and imperfect to be prepared to accept and admit your flaws.'cause we're all flawed, right? Absolutely. I just never admit that previously'cause there was always a yes, but and there was always a justification as as to why I'd made mistakes, et cetera. For me, it really took me to. Effectively burn my life down and to lose everything to realize what this was really about. And some ways, somehow I've managed to stay working in the profession. I made mistakes that I'm not proud of and had to really look at those with rigorous honesty and develop some humility along the way. But I was almost ready to get out of clinical psychology and to go do something else. I didn't know what exactly. But I've managed to stay in that realm somehow. And and also to broaden my experience. The addiction Recovery coach training came from being a fellow myself in recovery. I say fellow'cause that's the term that we use in 12 steps. Yeah.

Dr David Lee:

In, in the rooms as we say. But of course there are multiple pathways of recovery from addiction. So I guess I've tried to in some way. Listen to my higher power because I do live a spiritual life now to again, not perfect progress, not perfection, but to almost listen to what my higher power or God wants me to do in this world. And that goes beyond labels and identities and all of the things that our ego tells us. We should be clinical psychologist or therapist or coach, or whatever name or Dr. David or whatever it's about. Okay let's shed all that. But when we come back to what your higher purpose is and how you can help others how can you do that? And when I committed to that, I thought I'll always find a way to do that some way.'cause I think that's what God wants me to do, is he wants me in some ways to help people based on my lived experience and to, in some way be able to. Help others, I think, to be open to their vulnerabilities and accept their imperfections and guess look into the shadow and face the shame and the fear and the guilt and all that stuff that's there. Which for me, was going back to childhood stuff. And stuff that I grew up with in the home. But also the stuff that then resurfaced in my previous marriage as well. And I thought, yeah, this is what I'm called to do in some way and to connect with other human beings and share my experience. But to really I said for a long time now, I think part of what I've set myself the task of doing is, helping individuals to break patterns of intergenerational adversity, trauma, whatever that looks like, whether it's trauma, addiction often intertwined. And I think I made a pledge to myself a number of years ago that no matter what it takes me to do that, I'm gonna do it anyway, even if I no longer work as a clinical psychologist. Even if I have to start all over again from scratch, and I guess the way I look at it now is I reinvested my early training and experience in clinical psychology and all of that. And, but it only made sense in terms of the life experiences, the trauma, the breakdown of the marriage.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah.

Dr David Lee:

The the fractured relationship with my son at the time. And the financial damage that I went through and everything, and having to look at myself in the mirror. And start to do that with compassion as well.

Dr Nat Green:

Really important part.

Dr David Lee:

Yeah. It's not that the academic knowledge didn't matter anymore, it's just that I came to look at it in a different way and I've come to use the theories, the concepts and all of that in a very different way. They say, you go through these experience, it's like looking through a new pair of glasses, yeah.

Dr Nat Green:

Totally different lens. And I think once you've put on that lens and looked at it, you never view life the same. It's always gonna be changed and changed for the better usually, even though it didn't feel like it along the way.

Dr David Lee:

You you cannot go back. That's the reality. I think'cause to go back would be like, it's like entering the labyrinth or something like that. Yeah. Something like that. So familiar that you're like, yeah. Or a matrix or something. But it's like and look, and this doesn't mean that Oh yeah. Life becomes utopia and there are no problems.

Dr Nat Green:

Absolutely not.

Dr David Lee:

It's easier it's a different way of dealing with things in 12 step recovery. We talk about letting go and surrendering and and that really means a spiritual death. That's the death of the ego, if you like. And it's also about learning a different way no longer living your life based on self will and trying to control people, places and things. And it clicked to me one day, I think, when I was working with a client that I thought I. So many of the problems that clients come to me with are wrapped around that trying to control their environment, trying to control their life, trying to control the future and I hadn't really realized that until I, I went through that experience myself having to let go. So it sounds like it's easy letting go and just handing it over. You are outsourcing responsibility for life, but it's not that at all. It's actually incredibly challenging to start to live your life and let go and put your future and destiny in the hands of God, however you conceive God, your higher power or whatever. But that's how I live my life now, each and every day. And I have to live like that. I have to commit to that way of living because I know what the alternative is. I know to step back in that realm would be it's not that it's impossible, it's that it's it would to say it would be a backward step is like such an understatement. Oh yeah. A lot of life would become a complete and utter mess,

Dr Nat Green:

yeah. So you've mentioned a few things that I'd love to touch on. So you talked about your dark night of the soul, burning everything down, and you talked about how you had the addiction and all these impacts, a fractured relationship with your son, your marriage, all those things. Did you wanna tell our listeners a little bit about what led up to that?

Dr David Lee:

Yeah. I'll tell the story. I, wanna be careful not to implicate some people here as I do it, of course. And but I'll touch on the essence of it and what it was. I'd been qualified for approaching 10 years working as a clinical psychologist and I was actually full-time in private practice in the UK around. 2015 when I had the bright idea that I'll become an expat and move from the UK and go to the Middle East. And my, my wife, ex-wife now, and I, we were like pretty newly married at the time, but we'd had my son quite early in the relationship. We did that. We packed up everything and moved to Dubai and left the UK behind and it was quite an impulsive decision. I'm not saying it was the wrong decision at the time. Now I don't think it could have played out in any other way. Yeah. Because of what then later transpired. But just to summarize the essence of that marriage and relationship, it was a quite a dysfunctional marriage. I think now looking back, we were trauma bonded. And we moved very quickly in the relationship. My son is one of the most wonderful things that's ever happened to me. And we have a brilliant relationship now, albeit a distance, which is why it's amazing to be back here. Spending some time with him. Yes. I'm seeing him later today. I was when we went for dinner last night. But I have to face the reality that my son was born of a relationship that was not functional. And look, you only know what you know often in hindsight and I was

Dr Nat Green:

absolutely

Dr David Lee:

too young to it. So we went on this path together. We set up business here in the UK in private practices, my ex-wife and I together. Then we decided to move to Dubai. And we went to Dubai in 2016. And that was where things just really it's where the descent started and where I crashed and burned and ended up at rock bottom. Things were very stressful. First of all, I hadn't really recognized how difficult expat life could be in the sense that how expensive it could be, how sometimes promises are made that are not kept with regard to work. Look, I've had some amazing life experiences living in Dubai and in the Middle East that I don't wanna this to sound because in a way, I would not be where I am now had I, I'd not been living in Dubai. But we found it really hard, I think, to adapt to that shift of lifestyle and all of the stress. And I began to drink more and more alcohol. Okay. Is a problem and has been a problem. And what I mean is there's a problem in my family there's a intergenerational lineage I think, of alcoholism. Okay. I didn't realize I was alcoholic, so I was there. I got to late thirties, then hit forty, and things just became really unmanageable. I was drinking constantly I, I was drinking every night. I was blacking out. I was getting up and going to work the next morning and seeing clients of working six days a week.

Dr Nat Green:

mmmm

Dr David Lee:

Things got really difficult. I I think when you are in that state, when you're either always drinking or you are living from a place of addiction or what we, in 12 step recovery, we call a spiritual malady You can't function as a normal. Responsible, ethical human being does. Of course, my professionalism really slipped and I got into trouble. I made mistakes I'm not proud of, and I'll be open and honest. I don't think I was fit to practice at that time. What came next was basically the marriage broke down. My ex-wife and my son moved back to the uk. I got into a lot of trouble professionally. I found myself living over there effectively having lost a lot of money without my son and a very fractured relationship that had to be repaired. My son was only 11 at that time. Okay. And that was it for me. It felt like, it felt at the time, like a fall from Grace. But I look back at it now and there was never any grace really there was just a highly qualified person on paper two degrees and a doctorate, and a lot of sort of book knowledge and Okay. I was yeah, I had knowledge. I helped a lot of clients over the years, but I hadn't done the deep inner work or the spiritual work that I went on to do, and I wouldn't have done it had I not found myself in that dark night of the soul and needing to do it, because I thought, what do I do? I either carry on drinking and I carry on creating a mess, and I'll not, I won't maybe. Destroy a family anymore, or I certainly won't be in a position to rebuild the relationship with my son, but I could just carry on living a lonely life and carry on doing that. And now it'll probably never work again. And contribute to society or help anybody. And I thought, that's not what I want. And in fact, it then did cross my mind that if I carry on in this way, I'm probably not gonna live a long life. My dad died young. He died in his early fifties very suddenly. Okay. And he had a real problem with alcohol. And I thought, I have a chance here. I have an opportunity. And that I think that came to me as my first ever kind of spiritual experience, if you like was that awakening that I can go get help and I can get real help.

Dr Nat Green:

And

Dr David Lee:

from there it wasn't easy. But but I did I got recovery. I I went into long-term therapy. Then I started to reassemble my career. I think clinic, regular, very consistent clinical supervision. All of these things. I started to look at what do I wanna do more broadly? Then I met my now wife she's absolutely beautiful experience, but she met me when I was very early in sobriety. I was going through such a change in transition, which wasn't easy, but I wasn't able to pick up the drink. And I'd say my wife now Jaz, she's Filipino. She's just been such a source of strength to me. But I don't think it was easy for her early on to be with a recovering alcoholic and addict who's very early in the process. Yes. She's never seen me pick up a drink, an alcoholic drink, but she's been with me as I as I've navigated the 12 steps and as I've deepened my therapeutic experience. It's been an incredible experience, I would say in the last six years or so. But it's it's not been easy, but it's amazing how things transpire in your life when you set out on that path and you stay on the path.

Dr Nat Green:

Yes, definitely. Yeah. That's

Dr David Lee:

been my experience.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. And one of the things that, with all the interviews I've done in this over a year now that we've been podcasting, growing tall poppies, the one surprised me actually, the one common theme that every guest I've had has talked about is spirituality, whatever that spirituality means. And like you said, it doesn't have to be religion, it can be anything, but it's that higher power, that higher source outside of ourselves. And here we are again. You're talking about, yeah. Spirituality and when that first big recognition came for you. Yeah. So tell me a bit more about that.

Dr David Lee:

It's I never thought that I would be a person who placed his life and his will and everything in the hands of God, and'cause I didn't really believe in it. I played at believing in spirituality and all of these things we attract what we believe and all of that stuff, but to actually put everything in God's hands. And for me, I have my own beliefs about what that is, but I think what I did is going into recoveries, came back to a deeper sense of. Christianity, really. I grew up with Christianity. I wouldn't say my family were religious, but it, I guess I, I grew up in a Christian family, sort of Church of England, but rediscovering those roots in a sense. And connecting to Christ and the Christ in me as a human being, which is not my ego, by the way. And i'll share my spiritual experience was I had been out one night when I found myself lonely, alone, broken without my son. And suddenly under investigation for a regulatory issue so my, I. Registration was here in the uk, was threatened because of mistakes that I'd made. And I was scared and deeply scared. And I'd been out one night and I sat in this bar and I drunk a few beers. I drunk a glass of wine and it wasn't for me. That wasn't a heavy night, but something spoke to me that night and said I'm completely lost now. I just don't know what to do next. I don't have the answers. I could sit here drinking in this bar, but I don't think that's gonna help. And I was obsessively trying to strategize and plan, what do I do? How do I deal? I've got no money. How do I get legal representation and how do I deal with all of the admin that comes with this? And then I walked home from this bar back to my apartment that night. And and this was back in 2019. I looked into the sky and I saw the moon. And for some reason at that moment, I knew that I'd taken my last alcoholic drink.

Dr Nat Green:

Wow.

Dr David Lee:

And that the next day would be a different day. It would be the first day of sobriety for me.

Dr Nat Green:

And I

Dr David Lee:

knew that the following day I was gonna walk into the rooms for the 12 step recovery fellowship, that, one of which I'm part of. I regularly attend three fellowships now. But the one, the primary one to get help for alcoholism. And and it happened from there. I can't describe it anymore than that. A profound sense of, it wasn't like, oh, this is all solved and there's instant relief. It was not alone.

Dr Nat Green:

And I surrender.

Dr David Lee:

I'm on my knees right now. My will isn't gonna change. The it's only gonna take me back to the drink again. And so yeah, that sense of spirituality. And it's interesting because in 12 Step recovery we talk about a god of your own understanding or a higher power of your own understanding. Yeah. So that was it.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. And yeah,

Dr David Lee:

the first, first three steps are about surrender. They're about, admitting the problem and the unmanageability coming to believe in a power greater than yourself and then making a decision to turn your will and your life over. And that was it for me. That was all that was the start of the process for me. Didn't know quite what it was going to gonna look like and how my life would be from there. But I think I knew at that point I couldn't, I can't you can't pick up another drink. You don't to actually start to consider that as almost like an impossibility in a sense. You know what happens when you do, you know what is gonna happen if you carry on? There had to be a, there had to be a hard stop there. And for some reason, and I don't know why it was that evening, was it and I was almost, when I got a 12 step sponsor in the next couple of days, I was reassured.'cause I said to him, I said what's the whole thing then about when you stop?'cause I always I took a drink the other night. I haven't had one since. And he's like you don't plan to go back drinking again, do you? So you think you've already stopped? And I'm just, I think that confirmed to me what I already knew. I had taken my last alcoholic drink. I couldn't go back from that.

Dr Nat Green:

What a powerful moment. And for whatever reason it came into your life, you were able to recognize that and trust. In that process.

Dr David Lee:

Yeah. I something came to me very early on in my long-term therapy in one of my therapy sessions. And it was a kind of guided visualization, stroke, meditation exercise that we did. And and there was a message that I received during that, which just spoke to me, stay on the path and

Dr Nat Green:

And that

Dr David Lee:

was very early on in my recovery as well.'cause the two were in tandem I was attending 12 step meetings and doing weekly therapy. That and I should say the therapist I chose to work with, who's is very 12 step informed. She's a fellow traveler in a sense. So something really spoke to me about that, staying on the path. And I guess that leads me on to to me to say that I'd always heard of this concept of a wounded healer as well. I didn't quite know what that meant. I, yeah, we've all got stuff in our past. Okay, fine. We've wounded, we move on, we train, and then we help other people. But then I really started working with my therapist and going along the path as I now call it I, I came to realize what it means to be a wounded healer.

Dr Nat Green:

Actually, I'd love you to share that. I'd love you to share what your version of that is.

Dr David Lee:

Yeah. It's not about ego. It's not about, okay, I've been there, I'm wounded, so I can tell you what you need to do. It's not about that. I can sit with a person and have a deep sense of what it's like to be at the turning point of going, what I thought was working for me. Is no longer working for me. And maybe it wasn't in the first place, but I deluded myself into believing that it did.

Dr Nat Green:

And to

Dr David Lee:

recognizing that there is hope, but it's gonna require work and it's gonna require a commitment to change and to observe that in somebody, and to sit with that and to work with individuals around that. Like right now, clinically, I work with predominantly females, but I come across a lot of males who are in some way going through a parallel journey to what I'm going through. Okay. I made a lot of mistakes and I'm seeing the parallels with some of the male clients I work with. When I now work with female clients, I. Equally get a sense of what it is to go through trauma often in relationships. Look I didn't have a good template for relationships right. From childhood. And I was trauma bonded in my marriage. And I would say I was codependent from a very young age and bounce from one relationship to another, pretty much from the age of 17 to learn a very different way, an embodied way of being with somebody in a relationship and a marriage. Now a beautiful marriage, but you know, that still we go through life ups and downs together.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah.

Dr David Lee:

And to do that in recovery has been absolutely wonderful. But I had to make a lot of mistakes. I don't think I had a healthy relationship up until now.

Dr Nat Green:

Wow.

Dr David Lee:

In my life. So actually to. Work with clients.'cause the way I see it all of our trauma, all of our adversity is relational. Yeah. And that's how it played out for me. And to look back and work with some clients and recognize what's going on. Often that we make mistakes in relationships, not because we're bad people and not because we are fundamentally trying to destroy the lives of others. But because we are often traumatized and we're often needs have not been met, let's say. There's a reason that, that I could be codependent and demanding in an adult relationship was because the inner child in me had never really been attended to. And I work with so many people now where I see those patterns coming up patterns of whether it's addiction, trauma, acting out infidelity crossing boundaries. And yes, it's wrong and it takes humility, accountability, and rigorous honesty to look at that stuff. But it comes from a place of pain. It doesn't come from people being bad people. We don't intentionally set out to cheat on our wives or cross boundaries, let's say, or this is the shadow stuff, by the way. So for me it's the stuff that I only really got to know about from my own personal therapy. What does it mean to look into the shadow as somebody who's very traditionally a CBT therapist yeah. And to find myself then really exploring the work of Carl Jung and people like that. And, but so actually do that work. There is stuff in the shadow, and but it's, when we bring light to the shadow that we have, we're empowered. And my sense is it's you don't do that work alone. I needed God to shine a light into the shadow in order to be able to face it. I couldn't have done this work alone. I just run, I would just run from it, it's too dark.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh, absolutely. And you didn't know where to look to find the shadows. That's right. Yeah. That you needed someone to guide you through that and have been able to acknowledge your own inner demons and actually deal with them. So when you are working with clients now, I would imagine from what you've just said, that you can see those patterns really quickly. Identify them quickly because you can highlight their shadows pretty quickly,

Dr David Lee:

I think. Again, it's through the experience the lived experience, the embodied experience of going through that, that I think I'm able to often tap into for example it gets much easier to spot avoidance, even subtle avoidance in your clients, yeah. You and I'm quite direct as the therapist, although I believe the compassion is there fully. I don't hesitate to call somebody out to start to let's what are you edging away from there? Hang on, let's look at that. And I do that genuinely from a place of compassion.'cause I know that's what I needed at the time. And I chose to work with a therapist and commit to working with a therapist who initially I didn't like working with her because she can be pretty brusque at times. And she can call a spade, but also help you to identify where you are avoiding I was called out on my bullshit as some of my clients say, you call me out your bullshit. That happens to me so many times. Exactly. But the way I look at it now, it's being able to look into the shadow and then say, oh yes, and God is with me. And I can do that. It's scary stuff, like, conceptually it sounds like, oh yeah, that's what I need to do. But actually when you go through that lived day experience, and to me I recognize that. It was going through a marriage where everything broke down and was so dysfunctional that it's almost like trauma. The word trauma doesn't quite capture it for me, the word terror is more accurate. Okay. The deep darkest moments in my marriage previously pattern matched almost so perfectly some of the experiences I had in my childhood with an alcoholic father. Gosh. And when you have that experience, it takes you back to being a really scared child. That also feels, it's almost like that, a sense of fear and shame coexisting. I later experienced that in my thirties in a marriage and it was almost like I'm back there again and this is absolutely horrendous. And oh, would it

Dr Nat Green:

triggered all of that? Yeah. All of that back then, and you can understand how those patterns continue to play out through your life. Exactly. Until you are willing to really do that deeper work.'cause nothing would've changed your next relationship. Nothing would changed, would've been the same. Absolutely.

Dr David Lee:

Nothing would've changed. And for me it was to recognize that I was psychologically I think now I don't hesitate to use this word psychologically sick and spiritually sick, but so too were others in my life, so too were parent figures in my life. Family. And partners as well and to have compassion for others. Is also to, I think, to be able to connect to yourself fully and have compassion as well, to hold yourself with compassion. And to know that you are held to look deeply into mistakes that are if somebody I did a great job of burning my own life down, but other people jumped on the bandwagon as well and try to also dismantle what was left of it and then keep going. But to see where that comes from and to hold it with compassion and I think, and to forgive, and it's such a unique experience life becomes lighter. Oh, there, there is an easier way to carry the load when you do that, when you let go, when you forgive, and you are able to unbuckle yourself from all of that resentment. Consequently we say in 12 step recovery fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. That's been my experience. I'm not saying I don't have days where I don't worry about money or I don't worry about what someone will think of me, but on the whole I recognize that whether I'm challenged by people or whether I'm stretched financially or whatever, fundamentally I know it's gonna be okay. Stuff, it's just stuff that we deal with in the world now. It's not a catastrophe.

Dr Nat Green:

So after having been through your deepest, darkest moment and rebuilding, you know that you can do anything. You can get yourself through anything because you're not alone. Yeah. That's right.

Dr David Lee:

And my sense is when I'm working with clients is you can explain this stuff theoretically and conceptually, but nobody gets it because they it just doesn't, it's meaningless until you have that inner experience. But when you start to do the work and you start to help people to change and to see those changes transpire, I. I'm a big fan in terms of my therapy work of EMDR I was fairly late to the game with EMDR. I think I'd clung to the CBT and schema therapy for so long that for me to to train in EMDR another approaches as well like ACT acceptance and commitment therapy. But I'm a huge fan of EMDR now. And why, I think because it resonates so much with the 12 steps in terms of the surrender and letting go process. I say in, in EMDR, we say go with that when we're doing the bilateral stimulation.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. Yep.

Dr David Lee:

In 12 step recovery, we say Go with God, and the idea of being open and fully willing to experience whatever's coming in the moment to moment it's so powerful. It's so incredibly powerful.

Dr Nat Green:

And you can just hear you telling your story, you. Show that very clearly of what you've been through, all the horrendous stuff you've navigated and where you are now. So tell me a bit more about the work you're doing and what you're doing in the world now.'cause I know Yeah. Things have shifted.

Dr David Lee:

Things have shifted. I am the work in, as a clinical psychologist in Dubai. I'm mainly working with clients with addictions and trauma. I get a wide range of referrals. I work with adults, but I will for a time I was working with adolescents as well, 12 years and upwards. But I've now I mainly work with 16 and upwards now. So I mainly work with a adults, some older adolescents, early adults couples as well. I don't do a great deal of couples therapy, but I do some. Predominantly working in a very integrative way. Often using EMDR with clients in some way. And, a lot of the work around addiction and trauma that I do is 12 step informed in some way. Yeah. And I did in recent years set up a brand the sober way and was working mainly online. Predominantly with males. And it was around alcoholism and that was a coaching program. It wasn't therapy'cause it wasn't in depth, but it was more like, I guess blending together some of my sort of clinical experience with the lived experience and developing a program which was more bespoke than like the 12 steps. But it wasn't depth psychology or anything like that. I think I had some epiphany moments along the way when I was working with some clients as part of that program. One is that I didn't feel that I had got it quite right and it wasn't quite what I wanted to do. So I thought I'd shelved that, put it on hold and see what spoke to me later. And I think now I'm forming more of an idea of what I wanna do. And it's more about shadow work, but we hear a lot about shadow work in this day and age. You can you can just pick up a shadow work journal off Amazon. I think that probably, yeah, ChatGPT wrote for somebody. But I would like to develop a program that is around facing the shadow in a way that. Has been inspired, my own lived experience, and I think initially possibly to work with men but eventually to work with ladies, non-binary folk however you define yourself. But there's, there has to be a starting point from it. And because I'm a heterosexual male who's been through this experience, I, and knows what it is like to navigate that path. But that said, I clinically I work with, I think about 80% of my clients are female. But I, so what I'm saying is I'm still working clinically, but I want to go much more down the working online again. Both one-to-one and group coaching program. But I wanna go beyond that as well. Like my passion is really to write as well. My passion is I think for language to write, to speak So I want to create movements based on my own understanding and lived the experience of what it is to look into the shadow, to recover from trauma, recover from addiction, and to live lives where we can flourish. That's the direction I'm now looking to move in i'm still working clinically. Yeah.

Dr Nat Green:

But I love this future vision that you've got for yourself because I think you have shown exactly what it's like to navigate that path, to be a success from where you've come from. And I know it's it's still a work in progress. It's always a work in progress. The journey's never done.

Dr David Lee:

Absolutely. I'm smiling because I was gonna say that and I wasn't clear, like when I set up the sober way, I wasn't clear that's what I wanted to do, but that was the first iteration of something, right?

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah.

Dr David Lee:

Because the journey that we're on isn't clear. I'm not really sure what's gonna happen today. I think I know what I'm doing this afternoon and possibly this evening, but I don't know how it's gonna transpire. The jet lag might kick in and I might go to bed early. And and then we have all sorts of things that are unforeseen that come up that we, that suddenly changed the course of the day and changed the course of life. I'm okay with the uncertainty now. That's what I'm saying. I know I have a sense of the direction I'm moving in. I dunno exactly what it's, what the first offer is gonna really look like, but I think I have some sense of what I'm being called to do. So I'm okay with that uncertainty as I move forward. And I'm even, and totally fine with the idea that. I may let go of labels, identities completely.'cause I'm not my identity. I don't really need to be a clinical psychologist

Dr Nat Green:

No.

Dr David Lee:

Or a coach or anything. I'm somebody who has walked a path and is still walking a path and can share life experience. Part of my life experience as well as addiction recovery and trauma recovery and all of that stuff is to have worked for some time as a clinical psychologist and done X number of qualifications. So that all comes together. And I think when I trust in God and just let go it. It's all ego stuff to say I'm a psychologist, or a coach or a thought leader, or whatever. The reality is, it doesn't matter if you can help people and you can find a way to reach them, and more importantly, if they can find, if they are drawn to you and life leads them on that path, it will happen. I know that because I've experienced that countless times in my life and continue to experience that day in, day out. So yeah, it's having faith

Dr Nat Green:

and it's also, it then becomes part of, you were born to do that and you know you'll continue to go along the path that you're meant to go on.

Dr David Lee:

So it's trusting, is it? It's trusting sometimes blindly, but trusting also from feeling, and that's faith, it's going with grace and having faith that you are doing what you are meant to be doing, and if there are temporary problems along the way we won't perish.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. So you've said like you've spoken very much about spirituality and faith. Would you say, David, that there's any other specific qualities or personal attributes that you see as being key for someone who's moving through trauma and into post-traumatic growth?

Dr David Lee:

I think honesty. And I think that's honesty with look on a number of levels, being honest about what's happened, being honest about where you are. And that from my lived experience, I was the psychologist and therapist masquerading as the expert who was deeply wounded. Yeah. And suffering in a whole lot of pain. But the ego was portraying something else.

Dr Nat Green:

So the

Dr David Lee:

light was the suited, booted, do media interviews and speaking on stage and claiming to be the expert. The shadow was the underbelly of life, of pain. And so honesty about that kind of honesty about where you are at whether we all make mistakes in life, but, and I had to face my mistakes with rigorous honesty. But honesty as to where you are how many people carry on as if they're invulnerable and they're I can carry on. And life they're breaking, their bodies are breaking down, but they're still trying to work six days a week. Exactly. See a caseload of however many people whether you're you are a therapist or not. So honesty naturally goes with accountability for me. And that's accountability for actually doing the work, yeah. I learned that, and I can't remember who first told me this was that, God can move mountains, but you have to bring the shovel.

Dr Nat Green:

I love it. You don't

Dr David Lee:

just turn up. I haven't just turned up and it's been easy. Oh yeah. I'll just sit back and God will do all the work. But there is an accountability part to recovering from trauma and I think to post traumatic growth, post addiction growth, however you wanna look at it, post adversity growth. There is a honesty and accountability go hand in hand. And I also think the the other thing which I don't think is so much of a quality is. Willingness. And I think that's about willingness and open-mindedness. So you we talk about in recovery, honesty, open-mindedness and willingness. I think the willingness is sometimes to let go of defiance and open up to a new way. And it's not, you can't really explain how you become willing to let go of everything. How do you become willing to let go of the future and your idea of what the future's gonna be like? How do you let go of this idea that I don't know, you may not live in the big house in the countryside that you want. You may end up somewhere else. You may not end up married with four kids or whatever. Life may take you down a different path. How do you let go and become willing to not try to control the future and control people places and things?

Dr Nat Green:

Great

Dr David Lee:

question again but, and for me it's it's facing up to what's already there quite often the clue is usually in the pain, but a lot of people don't want to explore those pain points.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. And I think that's, that, willingness as in being willing to explore the pain points and like you said, the shadows and really be open to doing the work no matter how painful it is. That's very key. Yeah, that's

Dr David Lee:

right. And once again, you don't do this work alone. And you don't just look into the shadow and feel the shame and the terror and all of that stuff and just stay there. You go with grace and you, and there is a whole I think one of the most brilliant sort of innovations, if you like in recent years is some of the technical advances that we've made in terms of health, mind body integration, but comes through neuroscience and biology and things like polyvagal theory, for example.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah.

Dr David Lee:

There is a way of being with trauma and pain and adversity and whatever and shame of what lies in the shadow. In a contained way through being connected in a safe way towards others through the breath.

Dr Nat Green:

Through

Dr David Lee:

Mindful and curious, compassionate exploration of the body. We don't just jump into the shadow and get lost there.

Dr Nat Green:

No.

Dr David Lee:

We don't need to do that. We have

Dr Nat Green:

to manage our nervous system in the process as we do that, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. David, as we move to wrapping up the conversation, where can our listeners find out more about you and find you online?

Dr David Lee:

Yeah I'm in a state of transition, I think, in terms of social media, but something we will be coming next. I don't know what exactly, but you can find me for now. On linked LinkedIn as Dr. David A. Lee. Yeah, Dr. David Lee psychology. On Instagram. Those are the places that's best to find me. Yeah.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. And we'll put that in the show notes. And I always finish our interviews with one of my favorite questions. So David, what do you think your younger self would think of what you've achieved?

Dr David Lee:

If I could just as I'm not avoiding the question, but if I could try and re reword it a little bit, I would wonder not so much about the achievement as what would he make of the kind of person that you have become. Exactly. And the way that I now live day to day, I think that he probably, I. I would not believe that you don't have to live from a state of constantly feeling that you're in danger or you don't have to live from a place where you are constantly striving and doing and pushing. He probably wouldn't quite believe that. You can come to a way where you can be centered and present and part of attending to life, the business of life each day is about being, rather than doing and being grounded and centered and showing up for others and for yourself. I don't think he would understand that, but he would have some sense of, wow, this is what it now looks like. And what a journey I must have to go on to get there. But yeah.'cause I would have no conception of that as a young, as a boy or as an early adult or even 10, 15 years ago. I would have no, no concept of that.

Dr Nat Green:

Wow. Little David's come so

Dr David Lee:

far. I think I'd take little David with me young David. And I still do that each and every day. I have to find a way to turn to him each and every day to nurture with compassion and then adult David takes care of the stuff that adults should take care of.'cause little boys shouldn't have to take care of

Dr Nat Green:

Some

Dr David Lee:

of the things that life throws at us, but he might need to be contained and held with compassion and then we move forward with faith. and Courage. I

Dr Nat Green:

love that. Absolutely. Courage. And I thought that a bit earlier when we were talking that you didn't mention courage, but I really wanna acknowledge the courage it takes you, it has taken you to move forward. Yeah. And live every day and show up in the way that you show up.

Dr David Lee:

Yeah. And I'm sorry I missed that.'cause that is really important for me as well. And that's something that I observe in my clients and it's something that I think I and I remember that I do commend in my clients is the courage that this work take. And it's always so inspiring to, to see changing clients and to recognize that. You did this from a place of courage, yeah. And that is needed. Yeah. That's needed at the outset, really. That when you stand at the turning point and you have an opportunity to do this work, courage is needed. Yeah. For sure.

Dr Nat Green:

Absolutely. Thank you so much David for chatting with us today. I know our listeners are gonna have loved this conversation. I'm so grateful. My pleasure.

Dr David Lee:

Na, my pleasure.

Dr Nat Green:

You enjoy the rest of your time in the uk. I hope the jet lags not too bad, and talk to you soon. Thank you. I'll go

Dr David Lee:

and get some rest. Thanks very much Nat. Thanks for having me.

Dr Nat Green:

Thank you for joining me in this episode of Growing Tall Poppies. It is my deepest hope that today's episode may have inspired and empowered you to step fully into your post-traumatic growth, so that you can have absolute clarity around who you are, what matters the most to you, and to assist you to release your negative emotions. And regulate your nervous system so you can fully thrive. New episodes are published every Tuesday, and I hope you'll continue to join us as we explore both the strategies and the personal qualities required to fully live a life of post-traumatic growth and to thrive. So if it feels aligned to you and really resonates, then I invite you to hit subscribe and it would mean the world to us. If you could share this episode with others who you feel may benefit too, you may also find me on Instagram at Growing Tall Poppies and Facebook, Dr. Natalie Green. Remember, every moment is an opportunity to look for the lessons and to learn and increase your ability to live the life you desire and deserve. So for now, stay connected. Stay inspired. Stand tall like the tall poppy you are, and keep shining your light brightly in the world. Bye for.

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Dr Natalie Green

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