I was in West Texas last week, training almost two hundred professionals. Tonight, after a long day of teaching, I went down to the hotel bar for a glass of champagne and some quiet time to collect my notes — thoughts on the curriculum, ideas for what comes next.

For most of the night, I sat by the windows, soaking up the last of the sunshine, jotting things down. Then the man next to me struck up a conversation. He’d noticed how intently I was writing, and, out of what felt like genuine curiosity, he asked what I was working on. What I did for a living.

I told him I work with professionals so they can better understand how to help kids. He asked me to say more, so I told him: I want professionals to understand children’s big behaviors and complex feelings. I train people to understand childhood trauma, and what to do about it.

His eyes went wide.

“I’m just a hick from West Texas,” he said, “but I’ve had a lot of trauma in my life.” He paused, then added, “I don’t mean to trauma dump on you, but—” and told me about a mom who struggled with meth and heroin, and the things he saw as a kid that no child should see. He said he wished someone in his life had known to explain what was happening to him. He was, in his words, a real bad kid in school. Eventually his dad sent him to military school. It straightened him out, but only for a while. Then trouble found him again.

He’d seen therapists. Psychiatrists. I told him my hope is that we put tools and understanding directly into the hands of the people kids see every single day — teachers, coaches, providers — so kids don’t have to wait until they’re sitting across from a therapist to be understood.

He got a little tearful. “Yeah,” he said. “That would have made a big difference for me.”

He kept talking about how he’d slowly rebuilt his relationship with his dad, how his mom drifts in and out of his life, how dating is hard for him now, how he worries about having kids of his own someday.

I think he was surprised that I just sat there and listened. I told him: we all have a story. In turn he looked at me and said, “And we all have a little bit of trauma.”

Both are true.

This is the work. This is why it matters. I was reminded, again, that connection heals trauma, and that everyone we meet is carrying something we can’t see until we make room for it.

If this story resonates with you and YOU want to be that somebody in a child’s life, you can do it and you can learn with us on November 4, 5, & 6. Join the waitlist here.