Welcome to Headroom, where we discuss all things essential to mental health and well being. I'm your host, Jim Owens, a licensed professional counselor at Lansing Community College. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that while this podcast does not constitute psychotherapy, it does introduce you to some phenomenal people who have incredible ideas for you and your life. Having said that, let's get into the Headroom and begin today's conversation with Sam Bultman, one of our advisors here at LCC. Welcome, thanks for coming on.

All right. Excited to be here.

Yeah. I know this is your first radio show.

Yeah, this is the first time. So everything feels new.

Well, I'm a counselor. And you're actually a licensed professional counselor, too.

I am.

So let me just check in with. How are you feeling right now being on radio? And we're also being video recorded. How are your. Where are your feelings at?

Cautious.

This is going to go down in history, right?

Right. It's going to be reviewed.

This will be reviewed. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, we know obviously you work at LCC and I know you as a counselor and we have that in common. But yeah, I mean, what do you want people to know about you?

A little bit, I think. I mean, in the college setting, the first thing that I think of is I'm a first generation college student. I didn't know my dad poured concrete his whole life and still is. This is his last season. So I grew up in a blue collar family kind of northwest of Kalamazoo. My mom worked as a. As a bank teller and I got the encouragement to go for higher education because they didn't have those chances. So I think working at a college, having been able to go to college, I feel a lot of gratitude for the opportunity. And so I think that's kind of how I got interested in helping people like get to where they want to go, whether that's in academic advising or whether that's something that they're working through in personal counseling. I think that's kind of why I wanted to be a helper.

I can see that you want to lift people up to a higher station in life, but also health as well.

Right.

Your parents did that for you. I mean, I didn't know you were a first generation student. These are the things like we meet people. You have a master's degree.

Yeah.

You went far when you started. You were like, I'm going to be the first one. I'm going to go up to where 8% of the population lands.

Yeah. My wife is Actually a clinical psychologist. And so I always kind of joke. I'm like, I'm just a master's level clinician, not a fancy doctor.

She's a doctor.

Yeah.

But that's a huge generational jump for it to come from, as you say, blue collar workers literally laying cement and pouring cement to. You are an academic, you work in academia, and your wife's a scholar and she's a psychologist.

Yep.

That's a big jump. Did it feel like a big jump?

Yeah, I think it felt like a jump. I think in the same way, like, I still enjoy the blue collar work. Like, you know, this, like, the work of counseling and advising is so process oriented that I love it, but I also want to do things physically with my body that kind of fill up my cup. Like, I like to mow the lawn and see the stripes be just so. I like to paint the room. Like, I like to get the project done where I can also see a result.

Yeah, yeah.

To balance the process oriented work with like a tangible physical result.

Yeah.

I think is a. Is a healthy framework to relate to that.

I don't know if you knew this, but my dad was a builder, so I grew up swinging hammers, building, you know, framing houses and the drywalling and like, all other things. But both of our work and this, I think is relatable to students in a second here, it's kind of abstract, the outcome that we get as helpers and healers. And I think that's kind of part of the experience of being a college student. Like, you're laboring away in class and you don't exactly see, like, you're at week eight of calculus, but it doesn't feel like you've gone anywhere necessarily.

Except. Yeah. When somebody's laboring through, like, say, like some general education courses, it. It really can be a hard thing to sit there and be like, delay gratification.

That's it.

It's coming.

Right.

You're not there yet, but you're gonna get there. Like, keep the faith, keep moving, keep going, you know?

And then even in the end, after so many years of laboring what we hope for our students and what we got was this piece of paper.

Right.

It's a diploma.

I know. Well, not just that, Jim. Potentially tens of thousands of dollars of students.

That's what. No, that too. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. College isn't getting any cheaper.

Y.

But that's also like, in terms of all the work we put in, we get little report cards at the end of the semester. But it is hard, I think, for students to stay motivated.

Right.

It was for me, especially through gen Ed. Obviously, the further we got in our education, the more interesting it became. And finally we were studying the thing we really loved.

Sure.

But before that, you're getting through a lot of gen Ed, and it's hard to. Isn't it? I guess it's kind of hard to stay motivated when you don't see a product coming as the result of your labor.

Mm. And I think that's why I encourage my students, like, as much as possible. Like, begin with the end in mind. Try to see if you can identify a goal or a place where you can see yourself. Because if you can find your purpose, then it can make some of the things that feel more mundane. You have a reason to fight for it.

If you can see. Sometimes they use the image of dominoes. If you can see these dominoes that are going to fall, you know which one you've got to go topple next, Whether that's history or humanities or writing.

Right.

Something like that. Yeah. That's interesting. So were you prepared for college when you went?

Yeah, I felt prepared academically. Like, I didn't feel like the classes were above me. I. Like, I worked in high school, but then I also worked after. I feel like I was busier in high school sometimes than I was like now. But I felt academically prepared, but I didn't feel prepared for, like, how do I pick a career or how do I pick a major? Like, I was one of those kids that changed their majors several times, and there was some foreshadowing of, like, I kind of enjoyed reading, like, through the little curriculum books. And I was like, that was a precursor to, I think, being an advisor. I like solving that puzzle of how do I strategically plot the next path? And that's a lot of what advisors do is they teach some critical thinking, some problem solving skills of how to, you know, approach a decision.

Yeah.

You know, that's one of the things we teach in advising.

How stuck are. Do you think about students with. How stuck are students with their. I'm not sure what I want to do. I don't know what my purpose is yet. I mean, do you hear that a lot or.

Yeah, I. I think that's not a new issue. You know, I think that's developmentally, that's part of the human experience is like, where do I fit in the world? Especially with our college students today, though, coming out of COVID out of isolation, back into a world that isn't the same where do I fit? It's a. It's a big, big question. And so you have to balance meeting that person with a lot of empathy and also trying to give them some real tangible options to say, here are some tools you can put in your toolkit.

Yeah. That concept of where do you fit? I'm thinking back to what it was like when I was a freshman in college. And, of course, when I came to school, and people have heard this before. I kind of followed in my father's footsteps. I went to college to be an architect. Not a big difference from building, but where I thought I fit in the world was kind of a different idea than where I wanted to fit. Eventually I got to this notion, like, I think I want to be an academic. I think I want to be a counselor. I think I want to be a professor. I don't know if that fits. Like, I just didn't have enough background to know. If you would have asked me, what do I think I can do versus what I want to do, I would have given you very different answers. Do you encounter that with students?

Yeah, I. I think so. I think the preconceived notions are pretty powerful. Yeah, I mean, we know that, too. Like, family of origin. You know, personal history plays a tremendous influence, and so that it makes a big. Yeah, it's a big difference there. And then people's brains aren't fully developed, typically with the frontal lobe, till they're 25, 26, 27 sometimes. So you're in a developmentally interesting stage in life, trying to make big decisions for the rest of your life.

Yeah.

So I always admire kind of the spirit of our community college students in particular, who are also working, balancing adult lives, and then trying to better themselves with. With their education. They do a remarkable job.

Yeah. I'm still always struck by students who feel sometimes reticent to talk about or ashamed about. They want to change their major, which I know you hear, too. And they're like, well, are we allowed to do that? You know, like. Like you say, developmentally, we discover things about ourselves in classes.

Right.

Sometimes we get like, for me, psychology class, things started switching on for me. And relationship conversations going in certain directions, things started switching on from that man. Designing houses is really. Sounds cool, but people seem cooler. I think I'm more interested in people.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think that's an interesting thing. So one more thing about your college experience. I mean, you had the support of your family behind you, as in, we want this for you. They didn't exactly forewarn you of what you were gonna experience when you got there because they hadn't been there themselves.

Right.

Like you might say to people, well, you're probably gonna change your major a few times, probably to go through this huge developmental process and things like that.

Yeah.

So, yeah. I mean, was there stuff that made that difficult, that transition difficult, not having the support of. Well, I don't know if support's the right word, but if, you know, like where they had a map kind of laid out for you, like, sam, you're going to college. This is what it's going to be like. Was that challenging to kind of be the first generation?

Yeah, I think there is some challenge inherent to it. I think there's just a lot that you don't know what you don't know. And I didn't even know, like, what are some of the questions to even ask? What are the scholarships to even look for? I started grad school, for example. It's not undergrad, but I didn't even know there was a thing, such a thing as like a graduate assistantship or a teaching assistantship. So those things were different.

Absolutely.

You know, and that's some of that institutional knowledge you, you might have known. But at the same time, I think kind of the blue collar background provided me with like a lot of grit. Like I was like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not giving up. I'm going to, you know, slug my way through this. So I had some. Yeah, you have the benefits of your background too, not just the detriments of it.

Yeah, you had some liabilities, but you had some assets that you could apply.

Yeah, yeah.

Was there anything or a time when you were in college when you were like, maybe this isn't for me, maybe I'll go work in dad's business or something?

I think, I don't think there was ever a time in college where I thought, I'm going to give up and not earn my degree. I think I did have a moment where I had a two semester foreign language requirement and I think I'd done the first year of a foreign language class and then I'd waited or skipped the second year for like years. And so I had forgotten like most of what I'd learned in the one on one Spanish course. And then came to my senior year and I remember I'd done a semester abroad in Budapest and I did some, some language stuff there and I went into the registrar's office and I said, hey, can you, can you make something happen for me? That was the Time where I was like, I really don't want to do this. And I was fortunate that they were a kind person and subbed that. That out for me.

Subbed that experience for your foreign language. Awesome.

Yep. So lesson is go abroad. So, yeah.

Probably inspires you to give grace when you can. Just like, I think we can make that apply around.

Yeah. Yep.

So let's talk about mental health. This is maybe our. I don't know if it's our main interest, probably, but it is for me for sure. And I know it is for you, but we think about it different ways in the different roles we serve in. But what do you think are some of the challenges that students are facing right now with regard to their mental health?

I think there are several. And I'll preface it with saying that there typically aren't simple solutions to complex problems.

Yeah.

What I. What I really think the main problem is, is isolation. Okay, I. I see. I think that people are wired for connection. They're wired to get to know each other, sit across the room from one another. And I think at a commuter campus, like LCC, coming in person, like the connection, like some of the. It's harder to do than it was pre pandemic. And so we're coming up with lots of creative ways to get that connection done. But I think ultimately to miss, to be virtual, like in high school, to not go to some of the. To the prom, to the graduation, to have some of the marker events that you and I remember, and then to come into college and to have that be new, but then to be doing it with other people that weren't connecting. You weren't connecting with your. Your peers three years ago. Pick it up now. Yeah, that's. That's the hard bit. So if I had to just choose one and there's several, I would say isolation and reintegration.

Yeah.

Of community, of relationships. I think that's the challenge.

Yeah, I see it like. Like that. Exactly. I see that myself. But maybe in two ways. One is, not only are they isolated, but because they've been isolated for the last few years, their skill set is pretty rusty on how to get back into relationship with people.

Right. It's that type of thing where I'm married now. Like, my spouse is a wonderful person, but if I had to go back into the dating pool. Oh, goodness. Like, I'd be rusty, like.

Yeah.

High. You know, and so it's that type of thing. If you haven't been social for a minute. Yeah.

But then you would have to use that as an analogy. You'd have to be willing to be vulnerable and awkward and trip over yourself, all in pursuit of this greater good. Ooh. Yeah. And it's kind of like, well, maybe the temperature of this water is good enough where I'm at right now. It could be a little warmer over there. I'm not sure if it's worth it. Right, Yeah, I see that. And I've heard other people say on the. On the show here, like, isolation, and I don't know if we would have said that to the same extent pre pandemic. I think we probably would have still brought that up.

Yep.

But I think you're right. Like, having missed out on these major hallmarks of these rites of passage. And then at our school, it's. It's largely commuter school. And I was commenting to someone earlier, it actually wasn't like that four or five years ago, you'll remember, there were students all over the place. Right. We had huge cafeteria with multiple restaurants. We had seating all over campus. Outside and inside. People were hanging out and studying together and getting food together. And just like, it seemed, you know, I know we have a lot of students back on campus, but it's still kind of dart in, dart out a little bit right now.

Yep.

And I know we're working on, as a campus to try to figure out how to help people feel like they can stay here and make more connection, but. Yeah, I don't know. Do you have any advice for people when you talk to them about. I mean, this is what you'd recommend. You probably need more connection. Here's how you can get it. Or. I know you said there's no simple solutions.

Yeah. I think in general, when you think of, like, what are the things that I love doing, what are the things that are my hobbies or my pursuits, and whether that's through an LCC club or organization, whether that's a specific career community here or whether it's in the greater Lansing community. Like, if you love playing tennis, hop online, try to find a group of folks who love playing tennis, who love doing some of the same things that you might love doing, or, you know, we've got the Michigan Reconnect Scholarship here at LCC. You think, hey, you know what? That's going to be lowered to age 21. I can come back in. I can come to school, I can learn some things that I always wanted to learn that can connect me with a specific community that maybe I couldn't have been connected with before. Like, maybe I wanted to work on cars. Hey, I could come in and take an auto course. I can come in and take a welding class. Those are the types of things that I think if you can stay curious, to keep learning and find people who are curious about some of the similar things that you are, I think that's a non pressurized way to meet somebody. Yeah. Because to sit kind of inorganically, to say, hey, I'd love to get to know you, like, that can be hard if you're just like, there's a cup of coffee in the middle of the table, like, let's talk. You know, that's a lot more like. It's not as organic of a conversation. Whereas I feel like if you have something like a shared activity, that's easier. And so that would be my advice. Not that it's easy.

Yeah.

But to find, to find activities and hobbies that you could share with someone.

Probably the irony here is that it's probably easier now than it ever has been to find a group.

Right.

That you have an affinity with.

Yep.

However, it might be harder now than it's ever been.

Right.

To get ourselves out the door and into that group. Because probably whatever we're into, there's. It's easy to find that group online somewhere.

Yep.

And I could probably get myself there if they're meeting in public, which frankly a lot of them are. I mean, some meeting online, doing their thing. You can't play tennis online. But yeah, there's a lot of other things that people are doing online now that they used to do face to face. Face. So yeah, it's kind of a great irony. Right. Like it's probably easier to do this. And I do have these conversations with students too. And I think they know that this would be good for them.

Right.

But they're just not totally motivated to like take that risk. You know what I mean?

Well, it's. It's like exercise. I'm reading a book called Spark, which is the connection between essentially exercise and brain health. It argues that. That essentially, like your body, your physical health is. That's a secondary benefit to the benef. To your brain. Yeah, that's the author's hypothesis.

So it takes practice, it takes some commitment. What about other things? Have you thought of other things you wanted to say about what are essential to mental health besides connection?

Besides connection. I think one general thing again, but I would argue that most people, and this includes myself, most people are pain avoidant. And being pain avoidant, ultimately pain is part of your story. And to integrate the pain, to talk about your story, to acknowledge It. And then not to have that pain get to have the only seat at the table. I think when people are really hurting, their pain needs to be acknowledged and they need to make it congruent with their story, but also to encourage that person and to recognize there is more to your story than just your pain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see that. Like people, and you and I both do this, part of our job is to help them turn around and look at it.

Right.

And they don't want to do that because they think that's the only thing that's there.

Right.

Is pain.

Yep.

And what you're saying is, like, there's a whole lot more to you as a human being in this story than that moment of pain or that experience of pain, even if it was long standing and frequent. There's more to it than that.

Yeah.

Yeah. What's it like to lead somebody into that part of their life and try to help walk them through that? Because I know that's one of the things you do as a counselor.

Yeah. I think. I think a lot of times folks

want to stay there in the pain.

Yeah. In other words, to not let go. To say, this is it. This is what happened. Yeah. I can't move forward because of the pain.

Yeah.

That's the challenge to say to a person that is kind of in the hole who's hurting. To say, there is light up here.

Yeah.

How do we. We crawl up and see that there's more than just this part of you. I like internal family systems.

Yeah, me too.

You know, and that. That theory that there are many parts of ourselves and to try to complement a person, to say, you know, this part of you that was so anxious, that was hurting, this got you through some really difficult times. And now this part of you, it doesn't have to work.

Yeah.

So hard. It doesn't have to work as hard as it has been working. And we can allow some other parts of you, the. The silly part of you or the comedic part of you to also get a seat at the table and reintroduce parts of themselves that they've forgotten about or that they've lost.

Yeah.

I think if you can do that, to show them other parts of themselves that they can help remember, that helps them remember that they're more than. Than just their pain, too.

Yeah. Like I guess what you're saying, and I know ifs a little bit. Richard Schwartz, if you want to read more, people, they over identify with that pain. Maybe that's the major character in their story.

Yeah.

Which it is a defining. These moments of pain in our lives, let's just call them traumas, whatever you want. They are defining moments in our story. They are major turning points in our stories, but they are not the story itself. I mean, who would want that to be the whole story?

Right.

The beginning, the end, the middle. And we don't want that for anybody. We want freedom for them on the other side of that.

Exactly.

So how do they get that? With the help of a counselor. Right.

Yeah.

Because it's really. This is a difficult task to do on one's own.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. And I think there was an analogy from a counseling professor that always resonated with me, and it was kind of a weird triangle of, like, self awareness will then lead to self understanding, which then can lead to change and helping folks understand what's happening around them, where they've been. That allows them to utilize some of the strengths that they already have.

Yeah.

To then go, okay, where do I want to go? Yeah. But until you address, like, what's happened and also, like, what am I feeling?

Yeah.

I don't know. You probably run into this, like, sometimes, particularly with a male client maybe, but to say, like, oh, well, I don't do emotions.

Oh, yeah.

I've never met one of those before. All human beings do emotions. And emotions are also a gift. They're telling us something about our story. Even emotions that are considered bad, like anger, that's. That's letting you know something's not right, you know? So, yeah, I want.

Yeah, I want to reframe that a little bit because I taught a class, I think it was a counseling skills class, and there was a chapter in it that had all the feeling words. Like, there was a page that had all the feeling words. Two things to know. One, the negative feelings list was massive. It was like, 50 words.

Yeah.

And the positive feelings words was, like 20. It was like, half. You've seen these before. But I had all my students scratch out positive and negative feelings, and I had them rewrite in their books pleasant and unpleasant. Because there's really no such thing as a negative emotion to me. I just wanted them to reframe it to, like, some feelings are fun to feel, and some feelings are not fun to feel.

No, that's a good word.

They're needed. You have to feel them. Like, grieving is. It's not fun. It's painful to go through loss, but you cannot stop. You can stall yourself from going through it if you want. Then you're stuck there. That's the feeling you're gonna feel for a long time unless you can get through the other side of it. So.

Good.

Yeah. Right. Like, I love pleasant, unpleasant. Those are kind of 1950s words. Maybe. How do you feel? Pleasant. Feels a little old fashioned, but.

Yeah.

But anyway. Yeah, that's, that's, that's huge. That's a big task. It's a big. It's a lifelong project probably for. For most of us.

Yeah. And I think that is part of the point. Right. I think this kind of work, it is process oriented. You know, I don't, I don't feel that you get to the end and like, well, now I'm a completed work. I feel like we're trying to fill the cup up as we, as we go.

Yeah. You and I aren't products. We're processes.

Exactly.

We're never done.

Right.

This cement is never cured. It's never. The house is never like there's this for sale sign out front. It's never done, actually. Houses are never done. Right. I mean, that's kind of a thing as homeowners.

Don't remind me.

Houses are never done. And people. We're never done either, but we're working on it as we go.

Yeah.

Well, we got a couple minutes left. Anything else you want to share, like tips or ideas for students on mental health or anything?

I guess I go back to the book that I was reading. I think talk therapy is incredibly beneficial. I think it's wonderful. I think many of the things like medications, if you need an antidepressant or an anti anxiety. Absolutely. Talk with your general practitioner and consider doing that. I think those things need to be normalized and at the same time, exercise, good sleep, like the basic hygiene of mental health. If you're feeling down, it's not the time to be using alcohol or other substances. If you're feeling down, like going for a run or getting in the gym or really getting your body to sweat, the connection between your body and your mind is so strong. I'm such a huge believer in that. And especially as the winter months approach, be as active as. As you can be. Moving your body is one of the best things that's in your power, like in your locus of control that you can do for your mental health. So that'd be my. My other tip is to really pay attention to your physical health because it's the same thing as your mental health.

Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I'm going to have a few guests on the show here in the next couple of months. That are physical fitness people. Because I believe very strongly the same as you about. And we know from the research exercise and sleep are the two main things you really need to. And we all know this. We've all been told this since, like, kindergarten or whatever. High school health class.

Yep.

But. And I like, I appreciate that you underscored, come see a therapist if you want to work through this stuff, because we're out here.

Yep.

And if you go and see a counselor and it wasn't a great fit, it's because relationship is really one of the most important ingredients in counseling. If it doesn't feel right, go to the next counselor.

Yep.

Right. Because the techniques are very similar, but the people are different.

Yeah.

And that matters a lot. So I would say here at LCC, and I'll wrap up the episode with this is if you are currently enrolled student at LCC and you want access to free mental health care counseling, you have it. You can see there's four counselors on staff here. We're pretty busy, but we have openings. So if you want that, you can come in. If you want to learn more about that, students can go to LCC Edu Counseling. And I want to thank you again, Sam, for coming on the the Headroom and sharing your wisdom with us.

It was great to be here. I loved it.

Cool, thank you.