This is part of an interview series with our certified Forward-Facing® coaches. In this series, we’ll take some time to get to know our coaches, how they found Forward-Facing® and how they’re using it in both the professional and personal lives. This post contains highlights from the interview. The whole interview is coming soon.

Poy I’m so glad to be speaking with you and want to give you an opportunity to tell us a bit more about how you got involved with Forward-Facing® and how you use it in your coaching practice.

Thank you. I am really glad to be here and to be part of this interview. While I started Forward-Facing® about a year and a half ago, I was looking for ways to enhance my recovery coaching practice. 

So I’m a recovering addict, lifetime depressive, always trying to find the answers on where to go about my life and what to do, what it’s like. Been hopeless for quite some time, more than half of my life, I think. And I started to do recovery coaching. After my second time in rehab, I established a support group in the Philippines. I said I have to study and look for how to help myself and my clients as well. And then I came towards Forward-Facing® through Arizona Trauma Institute.

I took their course and then I fell in love with the Forward-Facing® process. Frankly, it worked for me. I don’t know if you have videos of me way back, but I always wore big headsets because I don’t want to be alone with myself. And now I’m proud to say that I can be comfortable in my own body, with my own thoughts, talking to myself, not really criticizing, living one day at a time. Forward-Facing® has done a lot for me. This is the core of my coaching practice and it helped a lot of people now in the Philippines.

Who have you seen benefit from the Forward-Facing® process?

I’ve used this for students, educators, social workers, police officers, incarcerated people. I recently used it for a group of martial artists and they were really amazed by it. I’m really grateful. 

Well there are so many different aspects to your story and I know that you’re in Canada now, right? Would you mind giving me a little bit of an overview of the connection to the Philippines and how you got to Canada? 

My parents left the Philippines when I was four for Canada in the US  but I didn’t want to go.

I really hit rock bottom last 2015 and my mom said, “okay, we’re going to send you to rehab but you need to go to Canada right after.” 

So I’m here rebuilding my life and trying to move forward. But of course the Philippines is my home and the Filipino people will always be my people. So I share with them. 

How have you shared Forward-Facing with people back in the Phillippines?

We do hybrid workshops. So I do have a group there called the UDRIVE group of coaches. So they do things for me on site and then I just conduct it via Zoom like this. So I just appear on the big screen.

I’m really grateful for technology because I can still interact with the people that are attending the workshop and it works wonders. But hopefully next year we could do some live trainings over there back home. I’m excited for that. 

When you found Forward-Facing®, was there something specific that you were looking for? Like how long had you been out of rehab and where were you in that process of going from a recovering person to a recovering person who helps other recovering people? 

I found Forward-Facing® in 2020, 2021. I started my recovery group last 2018. So I’ve been there but there were a lot of relapses happening and I wanted to help and I began questioning myself, am I really helping these people? Because a lot of them had like four or five, seven rehab experiences and they still do the same thing. Then there were suicides, five suicides among the group, ODs. So I began to have compassion fatigue.

I began to doubt myself. And then I realized when from the certified clinical trauma specialist course, that I wasn’t doing it right.

What did you need to change?

I had to focus on self-regulation, and that’s really the thing that hooked me into Forward- Facing® because I was an anxious coach. I wasn’t really providing them that non-anxious presence that we all need at one point. When I began to write my intentions it took that thing to a totally different level.

What has been the most helpful idea that Forward-Facing® has given you? 

The idea that connection heals. A lot of us trauma survivors and those with addiction begin to dissociate or withdraw from people, not only from ourselves, but from other people. And that creates shame and isolation. The Forward-Facing® ME group would give me the sense that, “ooh, it’s not just me.” Or “oh, I’m human.” And these were people that I would look up to because the Foward-Facing® ME group had therapists in it. And I didn’t feel imposter syndrome. I would say like, “oh, they have problems too.”  And they encounter every little bit of problem that every person has like finances, work and stuff. 

So the feeling of belonging into a group that made me feel that I no longer need to fit in, but I belong. When you try to fit in, you try to change yourself and who you are. But whenever we meet with Eric, with you, with Jenny, I don’t need to be somebody that I’m not. I just need to be myself. And that gives me hope. And that gives me the sense of family that I was looking for ever since I was young. 

The connection and support that’s number one for me. That’s so powerful.

What has been most difficult for you as you’ve learned Forward-Facing®? 

To accept maybe that I am 100 percent safe as of the present moment – because I’ve been living in survival mode for most of my life. For as long as I can remember, we were raised that the world is a dangerous place and people are not supposed to be trusted. Don’t trust too much. 

It was a hard concept for me because I know a lot of dangers not only in my surroundings, but also in my head. I’ve survived five suicide attempts and my head is a very, very dangerous place for me. So I had trouble doing that, not until I learned how to self-regulate.

What helped you understand your safety?

There was a time I remember that I paused and I said, what am I afraid of? And I said, I’m afraid of being alone because I’m afraid that I’m going to hurt myself. 

And I realized when Dr. Gentry said that that’s true, your head could be a really scary place, but not until you act on it are you in danger. And when I began to soften into that, that’s when I realized that is true: I am not in danger at this moment and I don’t need fight or flight and I don’t need to be defensive and no one is going to kill me. 

And then the fear, it kind of lifted up and I learned that what I’m really feeling was not fear, it was sadness. So I began to accept that: OK, so I’m not afraid. I’m sad and I can be sad. You know, it’s OK to be sad.

That’s when I started accepting six, seven months through the program of self-regulation and intentionality that I began to really let go of all that. I’m able to name what I’m feeling and it’s not only fear, it’s something underneath. Well, that’s powerful. 

How are you using what you’ve learned in the Forward-Facing® trainings that you’ve received in your career now? 

Before I used to think that when you help other people, you wear yourself out.

As a Forward-Facing coach, helping doesn’t need to hurt. 

We get scared from our experiences, from other people’s experiences. What if it happens to me? And then you begin to burn out. But applying the Forward-Facing® process lets me listen more to my clients and not transform their story into something that can happen to me. 

To be able to provide a safe space for them, that they’re not taking care of my feelings is big. 

I also take care of myself better in between sessions, doing some walking, some yoga to release that energy and stress. So I’ve learned a lot.

What have you been able to leave behind now that you’re using Forward-Facing®? 

A lot. So first of all, maybe perfectionism.I want to do it perfectly or not do it at all. 

I think a lot of anger that I carried for a very long time. I’m more open now to criticism, which before criticism, you know, kind of gets me that threat response and I’m reactive and not the person I want to be. But I’m open to that now. 

And I also left behind that version of me who needed to be saved. I thought I was always that person that somebody’s going to save me. But no, I was able to leave that person behind. I was actually able to let that part of me trust me enough to let myself lead.

My true self was able to emerge from where it was hiding and left all the pain, anger, resentment, guilt and shame behind and move forward together with all the parts in me that helped me throughout.

Anything else you would like to offer anyone listening to this in the future? 

There are times that we think that we did everything that we could. Sometimes we have to acknowledge that some of the things that we’re doing are not working for us anymore. And when we begin to realize that, we begin to open ourselves to new opportunities, learning opportunities, growth. And who knows in one to five years, you know, you’ve reached your goal. You were able to conquer that fear of trying something new.

And Forward-Facing® is one of those tools and approaches that’s really simple, but you have to be dedicated and you have to have an exact vision of what you want from it. And only then would it work for you, not only for you, but the people around you, the people that you serve, the people that you live with, your family, yourself. And of course, the community that you’re in. That’s powerful. 

Emily Hedrick is Director of Operations and Innovation at Forward-Facing® Institute. One of her favorite things about Forward-Facing® is the people she has met through FFME, training programs, and other Forward-Facing interactions. She’s excited to bring this series to life and knows it won’t be much work because Forward-Facing® draws in amazing humans. 

If you’re a certified Forward-Facing® coach and want to have a conversation, she’d love to hear from you. Send her an email: emilyh@forward-facing.com