The Path to Self-Empowerment with Jamie Cromer Grue
Episode 17
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Jamie lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has been in clinical practice for almost three decades and served in many capacities, nationally and locally. She is currently on Faculty, Chair of Outreach, Chair of Progress, and in her second term as President of the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center. She is a Board Certified Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst in private practice, Founder/Owner of Windows to Wisdom®, and enjoys a more balanced life as a wife, mother, creative, and meditator.
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In the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, some words of advice keep coming back around: “Look after yourself”, “self-care first”... Simple, in theory. But how do we truly prioritize our well-being? What can we do to build confidence and strength, and balance out our emotions, when life challenges us? Today’s guest has long grappled with these fundamental questions.
Jamie Cromer Grue is a licensed clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with over 25 years of clinical experience. She serves as an Executive Board member at the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center and on the committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Outside of her therapeutic practice, she is also the CEO of Windows to Wisdom, a holistic wellness learning community for women.
On this episode of the Art of Listening, Jamie shares how she has embraced her intent to care in her professional and personal life. From her first steps into psychotherapy to finding a new spiritual approach to healing, Jamie has committed herself to self-care at every turn. Today, she reflects on the challenges encountered along the way and shows us how to leave a place of burnout and dissatisfaction, to find a new beginning.
Tune into Eileen and Jamie’s conversation for a true lesson in self-love, independence, and strength.
Chapters
1 - From Business to Psychology and Psychoanalysis
2 - How to find your voice and correct past behaviors
3 - Exploring the benefits of holistic practices
3 - Aligning mind, body, and spirit: Jamie’s personal story of spiritual discovery
5 - Committing to self-care to better heal others
Links
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Jamie: [00:00:05] It's essential that we do our own personal work to discern what we're hearing from ourselves, and then hearing from our patients. How impossible could it be that we could earnestly, sincerely, and openly listen to others if we haven't done that work, listening and understanding ourselves?
Eileen: [00:00:32] I'm Eileen Dunn, and this is the Art of listening, a podcast that delves into the incomparable power of human connection and the magic of good depth. Talk therapy. Today's guest is Jamie Cromer. Grew. Self care. Funny little thing, isn't it? Sounds simple in theory. Put your own mask on first. Give yourself rest and nurture. How are you to support others if you're not taking care of yourself? And yet so often we hunger for it. This mindful attention to ourselves that we have gone without, that we have given away even without noticing. It takes effort to find time, space, and the right practices for self care. So how do we reliably tend to our well-being month after month, year after year? What does it take to build confidence and strength and balance out our emotions when life challenges us? My guest today has perfected the art of self care.
Jamie: [00:01:52] If I feel in balance, mind, body and spirit, I have much more to offer and how I can listen and how I can help.
Eileen: [00:02:01] This is Jamie Cromer grew. I met Jamie during the Covid pandemic in a peer group we are both part of. Actually, it was a peer group that the pandemic created. The first thing that struck me was her energy. Bouncing constant. Deeply rooted in action. Jamie is a go getter. And through and through she has committed herself to care in everything she has touched. In today's episode, she shares how she has learned to look after herself and others. From undoing habits learned in childhood and connecting with her true spiritual self. To finding a new approach to healing. Weaving the intellectual with the physical holistically. Jamie gives us a true lesson in self love, independence and strength. So as you listen, consider how you define wellness in every part of your life. What practices complement your psychology? Is it a hobby that offers you mental clarity? A moment in your week used for meditation and calm. Or is it a group of people with whom you can simply let go? What are your own personal acts of self-care? While you think about it. Let's welcome Jamie. She is a psychoanalyst based in New Orleans who has been in private practice for over 25 years. She is also the founder of Windows to Wisdom, a wellness platform to encourage holistic healing, growth and balanced, impactful living. I'd love to talk to you about how you came into this field. You started your career in business. It's such a contrast to psychology. Tell us what prompted the professional turn.
Jamie: [00:04:07] Well, it was a very, very brief foray into business. It was me starting my undergrad and struggling to find my own voice and my own way. I think instinctually I knew I wanted to be in psychology, and I think with where I was at that time in my life, I was a bit influenced and turned to business because it was practical. So I took some time off and got into the business world, actually began managing clothing stores, and became the youngest manager of a clothing store. And a period of time that I call the golden handcuffs, because I was well compensated very early in my life for doing this work and felt very competent leading teams of people and felt very successful, but always knew that that was definitely not what I was going to do. And I realized pretty quickly that that was not making me happy. And so as I was managing these million dollar stores, I began to also take classes in psychology at the same time. I was at that time running a different store and training other managers and quit to finish my psychology undergrad and found my way back to psychology, and then got my master's in clinical social work and actually started that degree with a two week old son.
Eileen: [00:05:30] Wow. Well, how about the world of psychoanalysis?
Jamie: [00:05:33] How so? How did.
Eileen: [00:05:35] You.
Jamie: [00:05:35] I was working for the Department of Psychiatry at Tulane, and one during our weekly staffing meetings. We had a psychoanalyst that would come and sit in those case presentations. I had a supervisor at the time who had done some psychoanalytic training, and I think he was probably an advanced candidate psychiatrist that was there. And I think the combination of having these two people influence me and what I was reading, reading Glen Gabbard and having that be a part of my supervision and being encouraged by them to actually go to the psychoanalytic center here, where it's the New Orleans Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center. And I began taking courses and got a two year psychoanalytic psychotherapy certificate. And so I took a little time off and actually started my full psychoanalytic training when my daughter was six months old.
Eileen: [00:06:28] Boy, big moves correspond with the birth of your children.
Jamie: [00:06:32] It's true. These really big transitional moments.
Eileen: [00:06:35] At this point. You've been in clinical practice for 28 years, and now you train and supervise others in training. Can you say more about this side of your work?
Jamie: [00:06:46] Well, yes, I do have a private practice and that's been, gosh, maybe 28 years and seeing patients here. And I've been a part of my psychoanalytic center almost that whole time as well, serving on the board in various ways and helping teach. But now for the last three years, I've been the president of the Psychoanalytic Center, and I've served many roles over there. Vice president I'm currently head of outreach, head of the Progress Committee of the Education Committee. And so, yes, I am a training and supervising analyst as well. I was board certified as a psychoanalyst after graduating from the center and on faculty. And so I currently teach and supervise and have the pleasure of not only in my private practice, helping many other healing professionals, but being able to help those who are training to become psychoanalysts.
Eileen: [00:07:41] Why is it essential that we practitioners go through the process of healing for ourselves before we, you know, learn to treat patients? How do you think about that?
Jamie: [00:07:52] Yes, I think it's essential that we do our own personal work in order to be able to to discern what we're hearing from ourselves and then hearing from our patients. I feel like, how impossible could it be that we could earnestly, sincerely, and openly listen to others if we haven't done that work at listening and understanding ourselves? So, of course, I've been in my own psychotherapy and had my own healing path, as I would call it. I feel like it helps me map my mind and my soul and how to feel like I can sit and actually really listen because of my own experiences in the room.
Eileen: [00:08:32] You know, I wonder if you can say something more about just the experience you had of being listened to in that deep, analytic way. Do you have memories of the experience? Pivotal moments?
Jamie: [00:08:44] This is interesting. Having been in a psychodynamic psychotherapy prior to my psychoanalysis, I see both of them having been such an essential part of my. Own healing or development, even of my own identity as an analyst and a good therapist. I think all of these things are so woven in it's hard to tease those apart. There's something about having the space and time to become who you are, in the presence of someone that helped me over time, find my voice and be able to show up, show up more fully in the world. So the thing I feel like I got most from my own psychoanalysis probably was the space to hear myself, the space to find my own voice, to discover my own experience in the presence of another person. And for me, fundamentally, finding someone who was reliable, safe, non-judgmental, fully present was a part of this experience of letting me become who I was supposed to be. And even earlier when you asked me about business, it's like, I think there were things about my life and how I had adapted to my life that kept me from really, really listening to myself and trusting myself.
Eileen: [00:10:06] Becoming who were meant to be. It's a big thought and one so powerful too, because it's a mission we all share, whether we're a practitioner in training or patients engaging with therapy for the first time. In childhood. We are shaped by our environments, reacting to our surroundings on instinct. But growing up, it's not just surviving in that way. It's learning to live with ourselves, figuring out our needs, our qualities, how we want to change things to. Jamie's upbringing was spent between different parts of the world, from the north of Scotland to the southern United States. Her family relocated multiple times. Following along, Jamie learned to adapt no matter what because it would keep her safe. Make everyone's life easy, and for a long time, that was her way. Until it wasn't.
Jamie: [00:11:17] I'm not really sure how to say this, but we came to New Orleans and I think it became apparent to me probably at some point, that the people around me were actually not very happy and not very happy in what they were doing or how they were living. And, you know, a lot of anxiety and disruption, to say the least. And I do think early on I was trying to listen for what they needed or what I needed to do in order to make sure I was okay in the midst of it. And that was being a good student. It was making the best out of everything. Because, you know, I was the kind of kid that if something was going down around me, and even if people may have been saying things that weren't so very nice, I was the kid that would say something inside of my mind like, that's okay, they're just having a bad day. All along the way. I didn't take it on. I refused to take it on. So I think there was already something I was doing. We would call it good defense or good coping skills very early on.
Eileen: [00:12:22] But there is there's a lot in that. There's a lot of listening to what's going on around you, listening within you and interacting to take care of yourself in a fundamental way. And you and I both know that the inner world is where the action is, and so that's pretty compelling. You learn to do that. I wonder if there's a time when you felt challenged in your life in a big way, where your capacity to or your growing in your own process of listening to yourself felt supremely challenged.
Jamie: [00:12:57] I think there's a few key nodal points in my life where I felt supremely challenged and back in reference to when I was making this decision around working or not working. Even that what I'll say is in these challenge and these crisis moments of my life really, at that time, feeling quite depressed and really being called to attend to myself in a way that I had never before. I think I learned very early on that by listening to what other people needed from me was essential in me being okay in the world. And so putting aside my own needs and even my own instincts was at some point useful. But clearly over time I realized that I was really just almost too depressed to go on and that I needed to make a change. And in contrast to all the other voices, every challenge I've had has actually come with me pushing forward, following my own instincts, following my own voice despite other people's voices. Another super challenging moment, I think in my life, probably one of the biggest challenging moments of my life was probably when my son almost died, and that was in 2017. And the stresses around that. And I think at that point in my life, I think I was operating under the assumption that if I was good enough, if I was smart enough, if I had done my own analysis, I was doing good in the world.
Jamie: [00:14:31] There was this kind of fantasy of protection, of life's challenges. And I think at that time it was so challenging to me and not just challenging as much as I love my meaningful work. I was sitting in my chair 8 to 10 hours a day, every day. So there was a real call to action to question how I wanted to spend my days. I feel like it was a wake up call of like, is this everything you want for yourself? I wanted to get up out of that chair a little bit more, but also I felt like I needed more in terms of my own self-care, how to tune in to what I needed and listen. And so that was the first time I went to a retreat and ultimately was put in touch with the world of RG Veda, which is this sort of personalized approach, a very science based, 5000 year old ancient approach to wellness. And for me, it was like the companion to psychoanalysis, personalized approach to and framework for understanding the mind and development. I felt like they could shake hands and give each other a big hug, that they could work in concert, because what I felt like I needed was more balance in my life. That psychoanalysis, as much as it offered me and as much as I could offer, was not the whole picture.
Jamie: [00:15:49] Showing up every day fully open is something I've always easily been able to do, and I think at this challenge in my life it was more like, I don't know if I can. I also wondered, could I actually be reliable to my patients in a way that I had grown accustomed? Will I be needed outside of this office? Can I do meaningful work if I don't do this, or if I need to cut back? And so at that point it called for something. More for me. So I became a certified lifestyle and health instructor. And for me, it was about how can I share all of this knowledge about the mind? How can I share how people can more deeply listen to themselves, for themselves, for their own personal growth? And so for me, being able to offer what I consider the the foundations of psychoanalysis and understanding the unconscious and being able, how do you listen to yourself, those principles, along with this mind body balance and helping people find their purposeful, meaningful way to show up in the world? I think these are the things I started to do at that crossroads during that challenge, and mostly that's integrated into my personal life as a way of creating balance in my own life.
Eileen: [00:17:12] Listening to Jamie, I'm reminded that showing up in the world is not a mere act of presence. It's a philosophy and a question. Who am I? What do I bring to this space? Your answer only belongs to you. There are as many truths as there are people. But one thing is for sure. Our minds and hearts contain multitudes. We will never only wander the world as one. So when we explore the diversity of our needs and desires, we give ourselves a better chance, a real chance to thrive. Realizing this, Jamie began to test out new ways to heal outside of psychotherapy with the ancient Indian practice of Ayurveda. She now investigates the relationship between mind, body, and spirit. We talk about mind and body all the time and easily, but I'm really appreciating the way that in your own organic path, you've been following the lead of your mind and your capacities and your native curiosity. But then the real life experiences you've had and the analytic life is about the mind. And, yeah, leans toward the analytic. The thought of things. Not that we don't think about the body, but I really appreciate how this whole other world, the holistic world, the Ayurvedic wisdom really completely leans in toward the body and away from thinking and reasoning. So you've made a place in both worlds and then put them together?
Jamie: [00:18:53] Yes. And I think actually I do talk about it being holistic, and I think of it as not just I think the difference is this sort of mind, body spirit. And really it's the spirituality part. Eileen, I think for me personally, that's helped me feel a deeper connection both inside and outside of my office. But I think that's part of it. It's the spirit of our work, and it isn't just in the mind.
Eileen: [00:19:18] A third world. Say more about that, Jamie. What do you mean, the spiritual? How do you think about that? How do you listen for it?
Jamie: [00:19:26] The way that I began to expand my own sense of spirituality, I think it's on in multiple levels. Right. Part of it is the way that my own spirituality has grown over my lifetime. Though I am Jewish and I don't think of myself as a deeply religious person, though I am observing and and I'm certainly aligned and very connected, deeply connected to my Judaism. But for me it was more about spirituality and how to be connected to something bigger in this world and more meaningful. I think it's about maybe what even drives wanting to be an analyst. It's like, yes, I became an analyst because it intrigued me, and it interest me to understand the mind and the minds of other people. But deeply. It started as this wanting to be doing something meaningful in the world and how I was showing up in the world, and then it became maybe how I was going to help heal myself and heal others. And so, in a way, becoming a psychoanalyst, which is incredibly rewarding and very meaningful, wasn't going to complete what I had to offer myself or the world. And this is why I began to try to integrate this. And so for me, it was a spiritual expansion of how do I want to show up in the world and make a meaningful difference? And part of it was mastering through life and death situations with people I love, and that there was something more where experiencing someone's energy as much as we are, their thoughts and feelings.
Jamie: [00:20:57] And I think if we've got an expanded sense of ourselves and we can more likely connect with them and the expanse of themselves, I just I feel like we are the instruments of change, and I feel like I am not just a mind, I'm not just a body, and I am a spirit also. And so there is something very much about embracing that. If I feel in balance, mind, body and spirit, I have much more to offer and how I can listen and how I can help. And so my spirituality now extends into meditative practices and how meditation is a way to access your creativity. It's a way of listening to your unconscious. It's a way of also just feeling more one with consciousness in general, or deeply connected with yourself in this world. And I think when we can sit quiet, you know, yes, we can sift through our own thoughts, but we also can hear and experience something much deeper. And that's a deep listening to our own truth.
Eileen: [00:22:04] Spirituality is a way to listen, says Jami. It's a point of connection between the intellectual and the physical. It's also making contact with the inmate who we have been from the very start. And so Jamie's spiritual practice is another way to take care when she falls. It's what drives her to try again. Resilient and unbeaten. It's a vibrant energy she nurtures consciously so that she can show up as a better therapist to two. I just appreciate there's like speaking of energy, there's just a deep driving energy in you that feels like it's been with you always. I'm listening to you now, and I'm thinking there's something about battling with what others were saying, or listening to others as opposed to listening to yourself originally and, but but pushing through that to make sure that you were listening to yourself and following your path and learning on from your experience directly. But it's that boldness, Jamie, you just push on, right? It feels like you have a vision that transcends, that keeps calling to you.
Jamie: [00:23:27] Well, I think the word authenticity comes into my mind. Maybe that's the piece maybe I'm trying to get to in my own way. In our conversation. I'm coming to know my own mind right now. It's not like it's all figured out, but I think there's a sense of like, I feel like there are ways in our lives, ultimately at some point where we might feel something's getting compromised. And I feel like by sitting in my chair listening the way I do, which is a great gift that I know that I give and I receive, I just feel like my whole me couldn't exist just there. And that's the calling. It's like, how can I be more authentically myself? How can I live my life more authentically? It began to feel, obviously with these external situations, impossible to continue just that. But I feel like wanting to show up in a way where more of me was present. And as you know, Eileen, for us to do our work and do our work well in the psychoanalytic frame, so much of us is not present in one way. We're not going to give advice. We can't share all our wisdom.
Jamie: [00:24:36] We're there as guides and yes, we interpret and yes, yes, all. Obviously our training matters and we're and we are saying some things and our patients get to know us in a way that nobody else gets to. Right? They don't get to eat at the dinner table with us, but they get to be in this room with us. And there's a special kind of relationship that's unfolding where I get to hear, in a way where I don't get to hear anywhere else, like this gift of being able to really have someone trust, opening up and allowing me to know them that deeply. There's very few people that you can do that with outside of this room. And so like I said, they don't get to have me at the dinner table, but they get to have me listening to them in a way that nobody else gets as well. And so I feel like I want it. But there's spaces I want to be able to show up more. I don't want to spend my whole life just be quiet, listening. I want to find ways that I can show up in the world.
Eileen: [00:25:41] Listening is never just hearing and receiving our patients words. It's a much more complex exercise. Listening is a humbling and a privileged invitation to sit with the truth of someone's inner world. It's an intimate experience that we can only begin to touch when we are reverent. It's a posture, as therapists share, to sit, to listen, to think deeply and accept. But outside the chair, the presence of our peers is a great source of comfort, inspiration and support. It's true that we did meet in our virtual peer group care of the pandemic. Can you say some more about that?
Jamie: [00:26:36] Oh, well, I have a lot of good things I could say. I think the most rewarding part of it is that here we were in the pandemic. This opportunity comes up that Apsa provides us this opportunity to come together with other psychoanalysts and other psychoanalytically interested therapists at a time where we were already such an isolated career, way more isolated than ever, like literally in our homes and not leaving our homes. And I think, you know, initially it felt like the right thing to do, you know, like, I'm going to get support for myself. I'm going to get some intellectual stimulation. It felt like good self-care. I think what has evolved is, wow, this deep connection to all of the women that are there and the stories of our lives and talk about listening like the space to be listened to and to listen. And I love that about all of us, and that there's something special that we bring to the table because of the way we listen. But also, just like the real human love and connection that happens in that space, there's no way that you and I would have crossed paths, probably, had we not met online. Would we have come to know each other and how deeply rewarding it is to come to be deeply known and to know someone else? And I feel like we've had that because we've been together so many years. How could we not know about all the beautiful moments and also the difficult challenges we have all faced during these years? So I feel I feel very grateful, grateful to have had this group of women, including you. Oh, and watch each other grow. My goodness.
Eileen: [00:28:31] It's so true, Jamie. Amen. I mean, there are ten of us and we are very different. We are very unique individuals and we came together, as you say, as peers. And the exchange that's gone on is all about listening, really, as we've gotten to know each other without the usual way that you get to know someone. We just were thrown in the pool together, and it's something organic that has happened to make those connections.
Jamie: [00:29:00] I think there was this idea of the ways in which we bring personal meaning to our lives, and how we discover that inside of us, you know, a lot of people feel like, how do I find my purpose? How do I have a meaningful life? I feel like there's these things to be mined from us that have something to do with our actual life, right, that empower us to become something. I think for you, Eileen, when you've talked about issues around expressive language, the fact that you have been empowered to use your voice to be heard in this medium in podcast, to find a this valuable way to show up and and speak up how powerful that is. But we all have that. There are ways we show up in the world where we have the opportunity to take something and transform it creatively into something so powerful and in itself so healing, that we can show up in the world and do good things. So there's something along those lines, Eileen, that I think is so valuable about what we do and how we listen to people as we're listening for their personal meaning and how it gets in their way, and, and something creative that can be transformed in the work. And it's very powerful.
Eileen: [00:30:23] As we close in on our encounter, I want to look back on the questions we raised at the start of the episode. Remember we asked, what are your own personal acts of self-care? If you're still not sure, allow me now to echo Jamie's final words and guide you towards an answer. Self-care is something that allows us to express ourselves openly. It's a creative endeavor that makes room for play and gives us freedom to try. Just try something so simple, yet so necessary. Wellness is at the heart of everything Jamie is. Early on, it's what led her into her own analysis, and the world of psychotherapy and self-care is still what animates her now. Challenge after challenge, keeping her work fresh and alive after nearly three decades in the field. And so, speaking to Jamie, I have come to understand that self-care is a shapeshifter, a time evader. It's an impulse to live well, live better, live fully as our whole authentic self. Learning from her today. I hope you came to see it too, that while it might not feel the same for everyone, looking after ourselves is something we all deserve. And require. It's always there. A craving that makes sense. It's profound for a reason. It's only asking that we tend to it. So let us listen and let us care. In that one of a kind, Jamie. Way beyond expectations or pretense, her approach to loving herself and healing others is simply inspiring, and her friendship among peers is a gift I cherish. This has been the art of listening. Again, my name is Eileen Dunn. Please join us for our next episode as we continue to dive into the space between speaker and listener. You can follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We'd love to read your thoughts on the show, so if you have a minute, leave us a review to let us know what you think. We want to capture what you feel as you listen. It helps us find out how we can keep bringing you new conversations, and we'll see you the next time.
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