#101 - How to Reduce Harm in Our Industry

In this implementation episode, Allie and Emily delve deep into harm reduction within the pet professional industry. The discussion includes stories of Allie's Flight Cue skills, the importance of accountability, and the intricacies of managing difficult situations gracefully. Learn about the concepts of politeness versus consideration, the importance of safe and supportive communities, and practical steps to reduce harm effectively. This episode comes with a blanket content warning: in talking about harm reduction, we talk about harm, including physical, mental, and emotional. If you're not in the space to consume this content, we encourage you to sit this one out. You can always come back later!

You can find the full episode show notes here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Allie: The only thing that I, I want to add to that is in the, the first presentation that I talked about, I mentioned the logistical problem that I had with leaving that presentation was if I was on the end of the table, maybe I would have done it, I don't know. Because I was a different person in my healing journey a year ago than I am now, so I can't say for a fact what I would have done. But I remember thinking, I'm going to disrupt everybody else's experience if I leave now, and I'm going to be perceived as being impolite if I get up, and leave, and have to ask all these people to move and all that. And y'all, that was just me being a Midwesterner. And thinking that me taking up space is inherently wrong and that, no, we're, I'm better than that now. So, in that situation, like, again, even if you think you are going to be disrupting somebody else's experience, had I like been bladder bursting about to pee my pants, I would have been fine with asking those people to move so that I could get up and go to the bathroom because their experience would have been worse if I peed my pants next to them. So it's okay to take up space by just simply existing. Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:01:41] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:43] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

Last week, we heard from Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, and one of the topics we discussed was trauma stewardship for pet professionals. This week, we're going to dive further into how to reduce harm in our industry and talk about implementation with the humans in your life.

In this implementation episode, Emily and I talk about my therapist telling me I can use a flight cue, the TV show, The Good Place, obvi the best, politeness versus consideration, you're allowed to leave stressful situations, again, develop your own flight cue, half the episode is about this, and restorative practices.

Blanket content warning for this episode, we are talking about harm reduction, which means we have to talk about harm. Physical, emotional, and mental harm. We're talking about uncomfy and possibly triggering topics throughout the entire episode, so if you're not in a space to currently consume this content, just go ahead and skip this one and come back when you're in a space to be able to do that.

All right, friends. We're going to start this episode with story time. My story includes discussion about, just brief discussion about dog attacks happening, FYI, so, skip over the next however many minutes if you do not want to listen to that story. 

So, one of my triggers is dog attacks. For so many reasons, but mostly because I have a learning history with that, and therapy is fantastic and also can only do so much. So, last year I was at a conference and there was somebody speaking who decided to go in detail in the middle of her presentation, for no reason that I can perceive other than she hadn't dealt fully with her trauma to describe in detail a dog attack that happened to her, which actually made the rest of her presentation make a lot more sense to me. While I was in this presentation, I was fully fight or flight mode, I was actually freeze is what ended up happening. I was fully triggered, I was back into my past traumas. It was not a good mental health situation for me. And I stayed in that presentation and listened to her, and clapped at the end, and still have feelings about that. 

I then discussed with my therapist who had been helping me with industry related, who is helping me still with industry related trauma. About this situation and she said, why didn't you leave? And I gave her all of these excuses of why I couldn't leave this presentation. And we'll also like do content warning for like things that people say in our industry that are so untrue, and also we, we get told things, or have feelings about ourselves. So, I felt like I couldn't leave because it would make me look weak. Because it would make me look like I was not good at my job. Because it would make me look like I didn't care about her, or her story. There were so many reasons and just the logistical reason of, I was in the middle of a very long table and it would be, very noticeable and perceivingly annoying to have to ask everybody to scooch in so that I could leave.

So, there were all the stories that I was telling myself about why I couldn't leave in addition to the logistical issue behind that. But she asked me why I couldn't leave, I gave her all these reasons, and her suggestion was, next time, leave. And I was like, yeah, it's almost like, I teach a flight cue to animals that have trouble with stressful situations and you just told me to use a flight cue for this stressful situation. Got it. 

Fast forward to, I was recently at a conference, and there were several videos of dog attacks in a presentation that I was watching and I left. I left every single time that I could for that. The ones that I didn't have enough time to leave, I didn't, I didn't look like I just looked at my piece of paper, and hummed to myself, so I didn't have to hear it. But this time, I actually left. And I want to say a little bit more about this particular situation because I think the thought process is really important and will become important for part of the story coming up. 

So the first time we were warned, there's going to be an attack, teaching happened after the warning, so there wasn't really ample time to leave, but I was like, this sounds like a good time for me to go to the bathroom, and so I was able to leave for that one.

The second time, we are talking about dog attacks in general, I felt my stress levels rising, I felt, or I noticed that I was starting to have to use my tools to de stress, what are five things four things you hear, all of that I was having to start doing in the presentation, which to me was like, mayday, you maybe should leave right now if you are having to pull out these tools. Like, this is the place that you should not be right now. 

And the really interesting thing, I was at this conference with MaryKaye, who, as y'all know, if you heard her podcast episode with us, however many seasons ago is one of our Pet Harmony team members. I was also there with Sammi who you will hear later. Spoiler alert. Who is one of our amazing PETPro members. 

So, we were all there together. We were, we were standing there. MaryKaye left first, sammi left second. I left about 30 seconds after Sammi left. And we all just happened to have to go to the bathroom at the same time. And while we were in the bathroom, we were discussing about why we needed to leave. And each one of us was for a very slightly different reason, but it all had to do with we were being triggered by the, the material that was being presented to us. We hadn't even gotten to watching the video yet that we were told was going to happen. It was just that this threat was looming and we were talking around that topic and all of us had to leave. 

So we spent the next 20 minutes probably not in this presentation and just chatting, talking about how our therapists were going to be so proud of us for leaving this situation because we hadn't been able to leave situations before, and talking about how much work it was to be able to leave that situation. That we had to go through the, what if people think we're less than as professionals because we had to leave this presentation? Well, who cares what they think? What if they think we're weak? I know that I'm not. We had to go through all this thought work in order to do that. 

Fast forward, we come back in the room. We were the only people who left the presentation. And the really interesting thing was we were not the only people who were triggered into trauma responses by this presentation.

And we know that because we came back in the room, we were talking to somebody, and she said that she had a really, really hard time getting through that presentation. And we said, yeah, us too, that's why we left. And her response was essentially, I can't leave. Why, no, I can't leave. 

The next day, we had lunch with with a friend colleague and we were telling her the story. And she said, you can leave? We're like, yeah, you can leave. 

And so from those two encounters, we realized, oh, there were a whole lot of people in that room who felt the exact same way that we did. They did not yet have the skills and tools in their toolbox to be able to leave that situation, to use their flight cue, and be okay with not being there, and listening to the rest of that presentation because they needed to take care of themselves.

[00:10:18] Emily: Thank you for sharing that story because when we were planning this episode and we were talking about what we wanted to cover today, that story is just a really good example of all of the things that we're going to discuss. So when I was talking to Laura in the interview that aired last week, a common thread was harm reduction in a lot of different ways and for a lot of different reasons.

And so, when Allie and I were talking about what this implementation episode would be about, we realized that we need to talk about harm reduction. Because we mention it a lot, we talk all the time about how our goal is reducing harm and increasing welfare and well being. But we've never actually stopped to define harm, or talk about what harm reduction actually looks like, like how you can do that in a realistic and effective way.

So the first step of that is defining harm. And I did look up the definition of harm, and and it is to cause physical injury, damage the health of, or have an adverse effect on. So, basically, harm is the opposite of welfare and well being, right? And just like injury, harm really is on a massive spectrum. We can, we can talk about injury or physical trauma, and that can mean anything from a bruise. A bruise is a trauma to the skin, it's also not particularly life changing most of the time, right? A bruise is trauma. And also falling out of a plane and breaking every bone in your body, also trauma. 

And likewise, when we talk about harm, it falls on a pretty massive spectrum. So, harm can be anything from hurting somebody's feelings to, I don't know, mass murder. Like, there's just a large spectrum of what harm can look like in the same way that there's a large spectrum of what injury or trauma can look like.

So, that, first of all, we need to make sure that we're, we're, we all are drawing from the same pool of information. We all mean the same thing when we're talking about harm. I think the second thing to realize is that we all cause harm. And while our, our goal is to reduce harm, it is impossible to completely eliminate harm because harm is an inevitable part of life, just like injury is an inevitable part of life, just like trauma is an inevitable part of life, right?

So, this idea that if you cause harm, it means you're a terrible person is I think one of the main reasons that people are so avoidant of acknowledging the harm that they cause. And, and also just because it's unavoidable doesn't mean that there's not something that we can do about it. The best discussion I have ever seen about the inevitability of harm was actually from a TV show called The Good Place, which if you haven't seen 10 out of 10 recommend it is delightful. 

But there's the scene where they're talking about the fact that it's so hard for humans to be ethical in the 21st century, because, 500, 600 years ago, if you bought a tomato, you bought a tomato.

And now, if you buy a tomato, you're contributing to climate change, and exploitation of humans, and the erosion of soil, and all these different things, right? Capitalist greed, like there, there, you can't even buy a tomato without indirectly contributing to harm. 

And I loved that speech or that monologue from that show so much because it does a really good job of holding people accountable for the harm they cause without making it the blame or shame game, right? Harm is inevitable. We all cause harm directly, or indirectly at several points in our life, and so it's not that makes us terrible people. And also we're accountable for the harm that we cause, and we need to be aware of and take into consideration the harm that we cause. 

So I really love that mindset, because I think it helps us in general, do a better job of reducing harm. Because we are aware of the harm that we cause, and we can be thoughtful, and considerate about what we can realistically do to reduce harm.

[00:14:38] Allie: So, to tie this back to the story that we started with in the beginning. Buying a tomato isn't just buying a tomato. In our industry, telling a story about a dog attack is not just telling a story about a dog attack, because so many people in our industry have first or second hand experience with those things and have real trauma attached to that. So, there are a couple of options that could have happened in those presentations that would have opened that space for all of our personal learning histories of those who were in the audience. 

And, and I should mention that the audience members for both of these conferences were pet professionals and it was about, like, very specifically, like, aggression, dogs, like, reactivity, all of those sort of things. So, like, I knew the topics coming in, and I have taught on, not just me. And Emily, and I, and our entire team have been teaching on these topics for a long time, and don't need to go into really traumatic triggering details in order to teach those skills and get those points across. So one option would be to remove the triggering details, triggering videos, etc. There are a lot of ways y'all to talk about dog attacks where if especially you're in that particular group of people where you can say just one little thing, and that fills in an entire story that you do not have to give details about.

So, that's one way of, there are a lot of ways to talk about it without giving those details. The other way is if you're in a space where you're like, yeah, I get that there is a way to do that, I don't yet know how to get my point across without those triggering details, is to give space for people to leave during that time and make it known that you know that you may be causing harm by going into these details, or telling these stories, and you would like to protect everybody's mental health. And so if somebody in the room is having a, even a, just a difficult day where they're trigger stacked and they're like, you know what, on a different day, maybe I could handle this, but today I can't. Let me leave, leave, leave space to be able to do that.

[00:17:09] Emily: And that is a really beautiful segue into the next aspect of harm reduction, which is figuring out, what is effective harm reduction versus what is performative harm reduction. And I think on the other side of that, and we'll talk later about like, what is my responsibility towards my community to reduce harm? And what is other people's responsibility towards themselves, and towards everybody else for, for taking ownership of their own trauma? 

So, we will talk about that more later, but the flip side of the performative harm reduction is that we also see performative victimhood. And both of those, I, I think more often than not, they're, they're not actually malicious, or even intentional. I think a lot of times people aren't really even aware that they're doing it. In my experience, which I am not an expert on this, right? This implementation episode is just based on our experiences, and how we have learned to navigate this profession, and what we've learned from the people that we've learned from, like Laura.

But in my experience, a lot of times the performative harm reduction and performative victimhood are just a really common part of the learning process. And so, I see people when they're first learning these skills, they start off doing a thing that's not actually effective, it's just claiming to be harm reduction or, or, or being a victim.

And, and then as they learn more, they get better at, at, ownership of either the harm they've caused or the harm that's happening to them and what they can do about it. So, that, that is a really good example, Allie of performative harm reduction, where people will give a content warning, but then not actually give people the time, or space, or even permission to extract themselves from the situation.

And I think that is, is so common. And also it's it there's social precedent for it because how many corporations engage in things like performative DEI, but then their actual business practices and how they actually treat their employees is not equitable, inclusive or diverse at all, right? So, there's a lot of social precedence for performative harm reduction, and it makes sense that people would try to reduce harm and miss the mark at it. But part of that learning process is being able to differentiate between effective harm reduction and the stuff that just like throwing up a content warning, but not actually, it not actually being functional in any way, right? 

So one of the things that I do when at the beginning of workshops, I don't do this when I have like little short speeches. Like, if I'm just doing a 90 minute talk I typically don't, don't do this, but when I am doing a longer format teaching opportunity, like a workshop, or an all day seminar or something, one of the things I do at the very beginning of the presentation is discuss the difference between politeness and consideration. 

And the way that I define these two things and the difference to me between politeness and consideration, is that politeness is when we ignore our own needs so that we don't rock the boat so that we make everybody socially comfortable. Whereas with consideration, we are meeting our own needs, while making space for other people to meet their needs as well. That example that Allie just gave is a really good example of this, because, so many people stayed out of a sense of politeness, but they, they, weren't actually meeting their needs, and so there's a way to extract yourself from the situation while making space for everybody else.

Like, that it's not like Allie, and MaryKaye, and Sammi got up and were like, this is traumatic, you are being aggressive, you are hurting us. They just quietly extracted themselves. They did what they needed to do to take care of themselves without disrupting the entire group experience. So, that is a really good example of what the difference between politeness and consideration is.

And on the flip side of that from the presenter side, politeness was putting up a content warning. Consideration would have been, putting up that content warning, or teaching first, putting up the content warning, and then giving people the space and the permission to leave if they needed to.

[00:21:29] Allie: The, only thing that I, I want to add to that is in the, the first presentation that I talked about, I mentioned the logistical problem that I had with leaving that presentation was if I was on the end of the table, maybe I would have done it. I don't know because I was a different person in my healing journey a year ago than I am now. So I can't say for a fact what I would have done. But I remember thinking I'm going to disrupt everybody else's experience if I leave now, and I'm going to be perceived as being impolite if I get up and leave, and have to ask all these people to move, and all that. And y'all, that was just me being a Midwesterner, and thinking that me taking up space is inherently wrong. And that, no, we're, I'm better than that now. So, in that situation, like, again, even if you think you are going to be disrupting somebody else's experience, had I like been bladder bursting about to pee my pants. I would have been fine with asking those people to move so that I could get up and go to the bathroom because their experience would have been worse if I peed my pants next to them. So, it's okay to take up space by just simply existing.

[00:22:53] Emily: I love that comparison so much, and I think it really speaks to the, the stigma that still lingers around mental and emotional health, because nobody would question you getting up to meet a physical health need like that. Oh, I mean, some people might, but like they're jerks, right? But no reasonable person would, would be upset about you meeting a physical need like that.

But the fact that it, it was a much bigger burden for you to meet an emotional or a mental need instead of a physical one, speaks to how we still think about and value physical, versus emotional, or mental health, right? So I think it's just an interesting commentary on like what we consider, although that said, I do know people who have almost peed themselves because they were afraid to get up, and leave a presentation, so it does happen with physical health, too. But I think it's still, if we're looking at the spectrum, it's, it's still easier to meet a physical need than an emotional or, or mental health need, right? 

So this ties into what I said, we would talk about earlier, which is what is my responsibility versus their responsibility?

One of the things that we talk about in PetPro is that nobody is responsible for anybody else's triggers. By which we mean we cannot operate a business, and teach skills, and talk about the hard topics of our profession, our industry, without periodically, unintentionally, triggering somebody who has a traumatic experience.

And it is often in our experience, things that we never would have even clocked as being potentially traumatic. Because we are careful about the things that we're like, hey, y'all, this, this might be traumatic, so take care of yourself, take breaks, go touch grass if you need to, because this is going to be a hard topic. But we, we don't always know when somebody had a horrible experience with umbrellas, and they're really upset that we're talking about umbrellas, right?

So, we talk about the fact that everybody is responsible for their own processes. And that is true. And it, and it remains true. We are accountable. We are all accountable for our own behavior, and our own actions. 

And also the entire point of civilization is that is strength in numbers, and that we do better together. And that we help each other and we're more effective, and impactful, and safe. And happy as a community than we are if we're just off like being a lone wolf, right? And so, part of being in civilization, part of being in community is being aware of and caring about everybody else in our community, everybody else around us, right? 

And so, when we're talking about this balance, it is our responsibility to make sure that we are doing our level best to reduce harm in the ways that we are aware that we can reduce harm. And it is other people's responsibility, it is, it is also our responsibility when we are the one who is being harmed to communicate when we're being harmed, or how we're being harmed, and if we can't communicate, extract ourselves. 

Now, I'm going to do a huge asterisk here. There are situations where somebody is so wounded that they're not capable of doing that. And I want to acknowledge that those situations exist. And also, those situations are so far outside my wheelhouse that it would be deeply inappropriate for me to try to talk about that in this podcast. Ever, ever, that's not my profession. That's not my field. It would be inappropriate for me to talk about it ever. 

So, I am acknowledging those situations, and those are outlier situations. They are not what the, what the general population experiences. Most of the time, when we are experiencing harm, we have the ability to advocate for ourselves, or reach out to our community, and ask for other people to advocate for us. And that is specifically when I'm talking about the lower end of the harm spectrum, like my feelings are hurt, or this talk is really upsetting to me because I've had traumatic experiences with this in the past. This person is spreading misinformation or disinformation, that is causing people to perceive and respond to behavior in a way that is not helpful.

That is what I'm referring to, okay? Where, I'm not, I'm not the expert to talk about the more, the deeper traumas. That's super, super not my wheelhouse. But in the cases that we're talking about that typically happen in our profession, we need to take ownership of our responses, and we also need to be aware of how we're impacting other people, and that is a balance. 

[00:27:35] Allie: Yeah. So, again, tying this back to the story. I think y'all know what I'm going to say as far as there is my responsibility, versus their responsibility for this situation. What I would expect for speakers speaking on those difficult topics would be including content warnings, and giving ample time and permission for people to leave if they need to, and also, it would be nice to have a cue for people to be able to come back into the room. One of the reasons that we were gone so long, I said without that MaryKaye, Sammi and I hung out in the hallway for 20 minutes was because we didn't know when it was safe to come back. 

So, to the point where we heard laughter and I said, oh, laughter, it must be safe. And Sammi was like, sometimes laughter, laughter is a stress response. And so we continued staying in the hallway. Until we were 100 percent sure that it was safe to come back. So that would be something that I would ask of presenters in that situation, and something that honestly, like I hadn't thought of before, having a cue for people to come back when it's safe in my presentations. And that's something that I'm going to take away for myself. Being on, on the other side of this experience. My responsibility is to leave, when I feel that, and to do so in a considerate manner where I am not disrupting everybody else. And that's as simple as make sure the door doesn't slam behind you.

[00:29:05] Emily: I would add minimally disruptive, because if you were in the middle of the long table, it would have been a little disruptive, but still within reason, right?

Yeah. yes, yes. So the, the issue of harm reduction and how we actually do it is really complicated. Like I said, there are situations that are a level of extremity on that spectrum of harm that are very far outside of my wheelhouse to discuss, right? So, so there's a lot of complication in this topic, and that is why we need accountability. We need a community to help us navigate this, because it is really tricky, and it's really complex, and there are a lot of considerations that we need to account for. 

I do want to say quickly before we get started talking about how to create systems of accountability that I have heard in several places, people talk about accountability, self care, self reflection, all of the stuff that we're talking about as being a privilege. I hear that. I hear that when you are living your life in survival mode all the time, you don't actually have the ability to focus on anything other than survival. 

However, I would also like to add a nuance to that, which is that restorative practices come from Indigenous cultures. I don't think there is a single Indigenous culture anywhere on this planet that ever had a prison system. I could be wrong. If there is an anthropologist out there listening to me, and you know of an Indigenous culture that had a prison system, please educate me. But restorative practices come from the human cultures that are not focused on punitive methods. And so, this idea that only wealthy or elite people have the ability to do this work is not entirely accurate because this work comes from people who don't have the didn't have, much less even believe in, wealth. It comes from societies where wealth wasn't and isn't really a thing. It's not a priority. It's not a way of life. 

So this idea that systems of accountability, self reflection, self care, anything like that is a classist issue is a profound misunderstanding of our history as human beings. Because what we are talking about comes from the wisdom of elders from around the world. And that is why Laura said last week, when I asked her, how do, where do we go? How do we get help and guidance? Her, her answer was seek the wisdom of elders. Because we have this legacy, we have a legacy as humans of, of operating with restorative practices, and it's just a matter of us finding our way back to that. We're not inventing something new because we're wealthy and privileged. 

So I just want to put that out there because I, I love that people care about issues of classism, and ableism, and all of that, and I'm right there with you. And also we need to be sure that we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater when we talk about these things.

So, how to create systems of accountability for restorative practices. First of all, be willing to own up to the harm that you've caused, right? And I, and I understand why that's hard because we do come from a punitive society. We do live in a society that shames people and punishes people for causing harm, or making mistakes, or having an oopsie, right? So, I get why that's hard, and also we need to do the difficult mindset work in order to develop that self awareness, and develop the ability to go, oh, dang, I did cause harm here. Okay, what can I do to make this right? What can I do to restore what was lost, right? 

[00:32:49] Allie: And not only being willing to own up to the harm that you've caused, but being willing to identify the mindsets that are causing you to stay in that pattern of harm. So, for example, I recently had to have a difficult conversation with somebody who I love dearly. And I realized that I needed to have that conversation a while ago. I had put this conversation off, and I had put it off because I did not want to cause harm to this person. I didn't want to hurt their feelings. I didn't want them to feel ashamed, or less than, or that I thought less of them, or anything like that. 

And, I realized that I was causing harm, by trying to not cause harm. By not having this open, honest conversation, I was harming this person, and I was doing it through inaction instead of action, and that felt really gross when I realized that I was causing harm to this person. And so, for those of you who are like, maybe I need some help with this because y'all it me, I am going to be talking to my therapist about this. I have so many things to tell her, I have to tell her my wins, if I was able to leave a stressful situation and use my own flight queue, even in a social situation. And also I have work to do on this other front. 

But one of the things that really helps me is the book Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown. For those of you with Spotify Premium, it's free with your Spotify Premium account, and so you can be attacked by Brené just like I was very recently while trimming my evergreen hedges and being like, yeah, fine, I'll talk to this person, and have an uncomfortable situation so that I stop causing harm.

[00:34:45] Emily: I appreciate that you tried to protect me, but I'll just say that person was me. I think this is a really good example because, because the, I was feeling in an, or so I'll just tell y'all the situation. My defective meat sack has been really, really acting up lately. And on top of that, I had a series of losses that just came one after another, after another, and dotted between those losses, my body was, was bodying hard.

And so, for the past three or four months, I have not been able to do everything that I should have been doing for my job. And also we were expecting me to do some things that don't come naturally to my neurotype, and so it took an enormous amount of cognitive load for me to do tasks that for other people would be a lot simpler.

And so my end of the story is that, on top of the grieving, and on top of the dealing with pain, and sickness, and, just, just constant exhaustion, constant bone deep exhaustion. I also was feeling enormous amount of distress and guilt because I wasn't able to pull my weight in the company. 

And so, when Allie and I finally had this conversation about it, and she was like, how about we not expect you to do all these things that you clearly can't do because of your body and your neurotype. I was profoundly relieved. I was so relieved because I was like, I can't do all the things, Allie. And Allie was like, I know you can't, and it's not your fault, bodies be body. And I was like, bodies be body. And it was like such a healing and relieving conversation, but we were both causing harm, because we were both trying to not cause harm.

And the way that we were able to reduce harm for ourselves, for each other, for the company at large was for us to just have this honest conversation that might have felt a little uncomfortable or confrontational, but actually, was really necessary because I, I could not do the things that we were expecting me to do.

 That's a really good example of what we're talking about, and it actually beautifully segues into the next part of creating these systems of accountability, is that In order to have these systems of accountability, we need to be a part of a safe and supportive community.

And so, that means building your own community, or joining one that like clicks for you, that these, like these people are my people. And I could not have had those conversations if Allie and Ellen and I had not built a safe and supportive community, and we didn't, and we trusted each other, right?

So, that is part of it, is in order to create systems of accountability, community is everything. The other component of what makes that community safe, and supportive is that we're not just yes people. We don't just tell each other what we want to hear. And enable each other in our, in our current behavioral patterns, for systems of accountability to be functional, it has to be a group of people who are willing to lovingly call each other out, and help each other do better. 

And that's exactly what Allie did. Allie was like, I have a hard conversation. And I was like, please, please have this hard conversation because I can't do this anymore. And, and so like, we, being willing to have the hard conversations with each other and say this isn't working out, how can we collaboratively fix this and make it better? Is exactly how you reduce harm, and that might not be comfortable, but we have the trust, and the affection, and the shared goals, and shared values. To to make that effective and make it work, right? 

[00:38:13] Allie: We talk about that like it's easy. Join a safe and supportive community. It's not easy. We fully understand that it's not easy, and this is one of those things where sometimes people ask us, like, is this situation a safe and supportive community?

And I think one of the hard things is you don't know that it is until you know that it is. So my, example for this is, I think we have done a pretty good job, if I say so myself, in making PETPro a safe and supportive community, and I know that because people tell us that. And one of the things that, it warms and breaks my heart whenever somebody says this to us, is they join PETPro and they say, oh my gosh, I have never experienced a community that is this warm, and open, and that I feel so comfortable learning in, and being wrong in, and being, and showing my mistakes, and showing my flaws.

And I'm so happy that we've been able to build that community for people and it truly it hurts my heart to hear people who, in the decades of life that they have lived, have never had a community like that. And so, if you're here and you're wondering, like, hmm, is this community that I'm in, is it, does it meet that criteria? If you're questioning, the answer is probably no in some capacity. Maybe it meets that criteria 90 percent of the time. It's not a black or white, yes or no statement. But once you experience it, you know for sure that that's what it feels like.

[00:39:53] Emily: Yes, absolutely. And I think part of that is, that is the next aspect of creating systems of accountability is that restorative practices aren't punitive. Instead, we look at things constructively. So what that doesn't mean is, oh, I don't want to tell this person they're messing up because I, oh, I'm afraid they're not going to like that.

Like, that's, that's not what restorative practices look like, that's what enabling looks like. So what restorative practices look like are, here's, here's how this, this behavior is causing harm, it's cool, we get it, we all, we all cause harm, and there's a lot to learn in this life, and it's really hard to navigate, and I hear you. And also this is what good looks like instead. Here's what harm reduction actually looks like. Here's what you can do to be more effective at reducing harm. And when we have those conversations with people more often than not, we, we do get really good responses from that. Because people know that we're advocating for them, and for the whole community, where it's essentially what we're saying is, here's how we can help you to succeed in the community. And so the majority of the time, the overwhelming majority of the time, people really, really take that and appreciate it. We have had a couple of people who left, but we even left on good terms, and I still keep in touch with them. So, so that restorative practices can't be punitive. 

It can't be about like you messed up. So, now there's this consequence that's going to be dire. It's like, you messed up. We all do. And also here's what we can do to change that. So, I think that's another important part is that Allie wasn't like, Oh, Emily, you didn't mess up. Allie was like, you messed up. And also the reason you messed up is because we were asking you to do more than your body can reasonably handle. And more than, and we were asking you to do things that don't jive with your neurotype. So like, of course you messed up. That's what happens. So that I think is a really good, a good. Reframe for people who are really afraid of not being positive reinforcement enough. And so, being afraid to like call out harm when it happens.

And, and likewise, we just talked about in the story, like the, the presenter messed up, but it doesn't, that's not a reflection on that person. It's just like, here's what they could do to do better, right? And I think that is, a really important distinction to make because a lot of people think that restorative practices, or they mistake restorative practices for just like, everybody's needs to be happy sunshine and roses, and nobody can be upset or uncomfortable and that that's not what it looks like at all.

[00:42:28] Allie: Yeah, harm through inaction is still harm. I learned that the hard way when Brene Brown beat me up while I was trimming my hedges.

[00:42:37] Emily: But beat you up in a loving and supportive way. 

[00:42:40] Allie: In a loving and supportive way. like she does, 

[00:42:43] Emily: We at Pet Harmony call it., we at Pet Harmony call it violent compassion. 

[00:42:48] Allie: And I'm a better person for it. All right, friends. This was, this, this was a heavy one. If you are still here, kudos to you, my friend. I am excited for you, and hope that we did not cause too much harm by, by talking about causing harm. Let us know. We're also on our learning journeys, as we have discussed.

So, today we talked about how to reduce harm in our industry, and that starts with us. We have to change the system from within. So, the first thing is be willing to own your stuff, be willing to own when you cause harm and do the difficult mindset work necessary to develop that self awareness so that you can do better in the future. You got to be the change, y'all. Next, build or join a safe and supportive community. If you're not sure if you're in one, you're probably not in one, at least one that's not 100 percent there. It's, it's gray areas, y'all. In that community, make sure there's not just yes people who tell you what you want to hear and enable you. You need people to lovingly call you out and help you do better. And when they do that, remember that restorative practices aren't punitive but constructive. And the last thing that I will say, I should have said this earlier, but I'm putting it here in our recap instead, that when you have those constructive conversations, they need to be good faith conversations. We've talked about good faith conversations in the past. We'll link to that episode in the show notes for you.

Next week, we will be talking with Gabrielle Johnson about disability justice in animal welfare.

If you're anything like me, you listened to a podcast episode, and the little gremlin toddler in your brain is like, the world needs to know this! So, if that's you right now, and while you were listening to this episode, you thought of someone who could benefit from it, go ahead and text them the link to this right now. I'm tasking you with being an enrichment ambassador so that together we can improve the quality of life for pets and their people.

Thank you for listening. You can find us at petharmonytraining.com and @petharmonytraining on Facebook and Instagram, and also @petharmonypro on Instagram for those of you who are behavioral professionals. As always links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes and a reminder to please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts a special thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode, our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixabay.

Thank you for listening and happy training.