The power of curiosity. Dr Lara Pence helps change lives to be the best version of ourselves...

192: Laura Pence: PsyD Doctor, Theraand Founder of LIGHFBOX discusses how she evolved from her early beginnings as a high school athlete, to her involvement in the Spartan Championships and treating patients that battle eating disorders. 

 

Laura Pence

 

Today’s guest Laura Pence discusses her introduction to the Spartan Championships at a point in her life where she had been in a private practice as a psychologist for about 10+ years and was experiencing a nagging feeling that there was something else she should be doing. “I got this random, and I mean random, phone call from this gentleman who was producing a documentary for Spartan, and they said, we are doing this documentary. We want to talk and really highlight the importance of taking care of your body in order to take care of your mind, and we wanted to interview you for the documentary. I sort of flipped it the other way. I’m like, we have to take care of our mind first if we want to take care of our body.”

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Laura Pence, PsyD, Therapist, and Founder of LIGHFBOX about signing up for her first Spartan race. “I had heard of obstacle racing before and adventure racing. But I had always been your average athlete I guess. I mean, I played soccer from 7th grade all the way through college. I played basketball up until college. I always valued physical activity and movement. So, I had heard of things like obstacle races and tough mudder runs and stuff like that. But, I had never done one. So, I find Joe in my office and I am an individual who truly believes that if I am going to get behind something, I’ve got to do that thing that I am going to get behind. So the day before had signed up for a Spartan race.”

 

What You Will Learn:

Laura Pence describes what she learned about the Spartan Championships. “I am watching the physical manifestation of what I had been asking my clients to do for 10-11-12 years, to walk through things that are difficult, to overcome obstacles, to carry heavy weight, right? To use support people for assistance in their journey. Like, all of these metaphors that I had used in my office with my clients. You are carrying the emotional weight of your trauma from five years ago. We’ve got to overcome this wall that you have up against hearing good things about yourself. I was seeing the physical manifestation of that in the area at AT&T Stadium with these individuals running the Spartan race, and I was immediately hooked.”

Does Laura Pence believe that training a strong mind can train a very strong body? “I believe that they work so much in tandem. I think for each of us we have to start somewhere. Some people start with the mind, right? Some people start with really dialing into their mindset and the psychology that is going on, and other people start with their body and then the mind starts to follow. So, I think for each individual it is different. There are people, for example, who have come into my office struggling with addiction, let's say. First what they want to work through, or what they think would be helpful for them to work through is a past trauma, right? So, we do that and at some point, because inevitably it happens in my office, I encourage them or ask them, or inquire with them, get curious with them about movement. How does movement fit into their life?”

When people come to Laura Pence who feel stuck in their life, how does she do to get them started to get unstuck and passionate about something? “You can literally Google ‘list of values’ and you can find a list of images of values, 30 values, 50 values, and then you can go through the process. You can pick 10, right? Pick 10 values that feel aligned with you. What I mean by that is that if somebody were to give a speech about you, what would you want them to say? For me, a lot of it has to do with adventure, and family, and integrity, and honesty. So, when you think about what would you want your friends to say if they are giving a speech about you, that could be a guiding place for you picking your values.”

Laura Pence talks about her approach to therapy. “I like to call myself a more active therapist. I don’t necessarily publish this on my website. If you get my newsletter you certainly see it. I like to unravel bullsh*t...The truth is, I don’t know how much time I’m going to have with any given client. They only sign up for one week at a time, even if we have scheduled the same day and time for the next 52 weeks. I don’t know if they are going to come back next week. So, I have a limited amount of time with them to make the biggest impact. For me, yes, it is important to talk about feelings I think, and explore feelings. The truth is, half the time people don’t know what they feel.”

How did she find herself in the lane of becoming an expert in treating eating disorders? “When I was in high school, I had a best friend who had a pretty raging eating disorder. There was sort of a critical moment in my own life in the athletic arena where I was a captain of the soccer team and she was my best friend. As a captain of the soccer team the coach consults with the captains on who they want on the team and who they think is appropriate for the team. We were a great soccer team. We got second in state my senior year. It was a big deal to make varsity. I remember senior year she tried out for the team. I was a captain and we had a discussion, me and the other two captains and the coach about whether or not she would make the team because we all knew she had an eating disorder and I was rightfully torn.”

 

The Word ‘Curiosity’

What power does Laura Pence believe the word ‘curiosity’ has? “To me, curiosity puts us in a state of wonder, and it also strips away our expertise and our attachment to know. When we give ourselves the opportunity to not know, first of all, it strips away our ego immediately. Because if we don’t know and if we are ok with not knowing, then we don’t have to be right. So much about being right is about ego. Curiosity allows you to step into a position of wonder, also without judgement if you are able to do that. It is hard sometimes to do that. It is hard to be curious about how you think, how you feel, how you behave, how you relate, how you engage with the world without having judgement seep in.”

 

Eating Disorders in Dallas

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Laura Pence discusses the work she has done in Dallas treating people dealing with eating disorders. “Dallas is a place that feeds off of perfectionism and doing the most things as possible. Which, inevitably, for any person is going to be burdensome, and stressful, and difficult, and put you in a place of being emotionally dysregulated. So, that was really the maintenance of my practice, working primarily with individuals in Dallas. Really in a lot of ways Mark, my work with eating disorders propelled me to work with athletes.”

 

Links to Additional Resources:

• Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
• Emilia’s Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/
• Laura Pence website:drlarapence.com
• Laura Pence social media: Instagram
• Lighfbox website: lighfbox.com
• Lighfbox social media: Instagram