Lia - Welcome to the Sparky Life. I'm your host, Lia Lamela. Here we discuss universal themes of self-discovery, survival, self-confidence, compassion, and a complex family dynamic wrapped up in a construction career journey. Let's talk about women in the trades, construction careers, and how to construct your career. Join me on today's episode.
Today's episode is going to be a little unique. So if you know me, you know I love psychology, and on several episodes we have discussed how construction careers are empowering and bring a lot of opportunities. I had a conversation with my dear friend Dr. Kate Kelly, and Dr. Kelly helped shed some light on some of the benefits of trade careers. After we spoke, I felt it was a disservice if I did not share it with you. So please welcome with me, Dr. Kate Kelly. Dr. Kelly is a licensed psychologist and we geek out over exploring the intersection of psychology and construction.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Hello!
Lia: Hey!
Dr. Kate Kelly: I am so honored to be on your podcast.
Lia: I'm honored to have you. We were having a fun discussion about people in the trades and the mental health dynamic in 2023.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yep.
Lia: And we were talking about Dr. Kelly Lambert's research and the importance of working for your rewards.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yes. And her research is just incredible. She really touches on how important it is for us to have some kind of reward for effortful work, meaningful work, where we can see what we've accomplished or be able to tangibly experience the process.
Lia: Mm-hmm, when I saw her TED talk, I was blown away and then I went down a rabbit hole with her research. And then I had this theory: “I wonder if the reason depression and mental health is in such a bad state right now is because the majority of our jobs revolve around the internet. We're not creating with our hands.” And then I thought, “wow, I wonder if more people got work in construction careers and the trades if that would improve mental health.”
Dr. Kate Kelly: I, well, first I'm just so excited that you are weaving your knowledge and curiosity into this important place, because part of when the pandemic hit and we all became teleworkers, essentially, many of us were literally isolated beyond just within a family system, but some people living alone.
Lia: Right.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Isolated, many people, and how we are social beings and we need each other to survive and we need to feel purposeful. So what I think is connected to the trade careers and how life-changing they can be and satisfying is that there's that social connectedness, people working together towards the same goal. More self-confidence too. Because you literally are creating something that later you look at it and you're like, wow, I made that building.
Dr. Kate Kelly: That building is there because of my two hands and my intelligence. There's so many layers to why the trades are so important and then how it's so much less expensive to embark on a really satisfying career rather than the traditional of, you have to go to school, and you have to pay all this money for this type of school education. And how I think that really hurt us in our, in our life satisfaction and career happiness.
Lia: Yes. Yes. I speak to a lot of women who are involved in construction and trades and the common response is it was an incredible career. They love it and it taught them they could do things they never imagined before. The self-confidence that grew from working in the trades was astronomical. On the flip side of that, there is a high suicide rate in men in the trades. Now, to put in perspective, it's not the highest. The highest is actually doctors, dentist, financial service, real estate. Those are a couple in like your top 10. But construction's up there, and I have a theory with this, so, I hear the men on site often say they feel devalued. They make comments like, they're just a number. If any have to travel, which in most construction careers, you boom out, which is traveling, you frequently are removed from your original cruise, your hometown, and things that are familiar. The typical structure is imperial, where you have the crew who listens to the lead and the lead who listens to the foreman and the foreman who listens to the superintendent. And so it's a hierarchy which breeds transactional leadership. And the current construction culture does not create empowered teams. Most men that I work with say they're treated as a number and they feel detached and devalued at the companies they work for. That being said, I can't help but wonder if soft skills were introduced to construction careers, if that would lower suicide rates. Because think of this, if your work environment is horrible, you are devalued and detached. I can imagine this doesn't foster a healthy mental state. To introduce soft skills to construction culture could cultivate communication, teamwork, critical thinking, adaptability, and transformative leadership.
Dr. Kate Kelly: That is such an interesting and meaningful connection because soft skills really provide us with emotional intelligence. And feeling empathy for others and feeling understood how, how meaningful it's to feel understood by other human beings and accepted.
Lia: I, I can't help but make these correlations. And then I think if more females were in the trades, this balance of masculine and feminine energy, I'm trying to remember the stats on it, but companies that have more of a gender balance make something like 10% more.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yes. The balance. We have just straight up feminine energy and then straight up masculine energy. And there isn't this percolation of both together. We're missing such richness on either side. And that really connects to, I think, the suicide rates. When we feel connected and understood, and when we are in touch with our feelings, then we're able to articulate our feelings to others and understand our feelings ourselves.
Lia: It's interesting. Taz Wilson, one of the women I spoke with, she's an ironworker. With her presence on the crew, the guys are more likely to communicate their feelings, which I thought was so interesting. She said that she feels like a counselor sometimes cuz she kind of gets the guys that are disgruntled with one another to calm down and, and let's all work together. And it's, it's her feminine energy. There's this idea like, there's a lady present, it's almost like, they talk it out or work it out, as opposed to just building up inside of them and wanting to fight.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yeah. It and also the vulnerability of being able to say that as a man with the societal paradigm of, “Oh you're a man, you can't cry” or, “Oh you're a man, you can't feel your feelings”, when feeling our feelings takes courage, which is actually this really brave thing that we can do. So when we're taken out of our group and then our primitive brain loves being part of a connected group or even a connected friendship. Like the feeling that I get when I'm with you, Li, how this connectedness, and this understanding and safety, and how that is truly rooted to our overall happiness in life and prevents loneliness and isolation. The trades require a lot of physical and mental effort and intuitiveness.
Lia: Now you introduced me to a new type of therapy that I had never heard before that has to do with the link between the body and the mind. One of the reasons why I believe construction work is so healthy, to work with your hands, your body and your mind. What is that called? That therapy?
Dr. Kate Kelly: Somatic based therapies.
Lia: Okay.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Like mindfulness based therapies, neurobiological affect regulation therapies. So understanding our brain, changing our brain through understanding our feelings, connecting with others, and then connecting with our bodies.
Lia: Yes.
Dr. Kate Kelly: And we move trauma out of our body because we do hold trauma in our bodies, we move to this place where we tense the muscles to protect our most sensitive parts of our body. And how over time with trauma, our bodies get accustomed to that. And the way out of that isn't necessarily verbal.
Lia: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Kelly: And I'm a, a psychologist so you know, I'm all about talking.
Lia: Right.
Dr. Kate Kelly: The research shows, this is why I've moved into more somatic therapies and also using my yoga teacher skills to uh, work with my patients with trauma. Cause trauma isn't verbal, it's held in the body. It's this visceral emotional experience. And if it's in the body, words don't really address that. But movement does.
Lia: Very cool. That has to do with a book you introduced me to, “The Body Keeps the Score.”
Dr. Kate Kelly: He's an MD who got into psychology and became very involved with groundbreaking work.
Lia: What's his name again?
Dr. Kate Kelly: Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk.
Lia: Okay. Very cool. I love the book, you recommended it. And it was great, it helped me to better understand the types of therapies that we were discussing because it was all brand new to me. Very interesting. I love learning about the body and the mind. In your practice, do you find a correlation between clients that are more sedentary as opposed to clients that are more active?
Dr. Kate Kelly: Hmm. Absolutely.
Lia: I've heard that doing martial arts and getting physically involved with kickboxing and jujitsu is very therapeutic actually. Which I was shocked to discover. Cause people think fighting, violence. But actually it's, it's not about that at all. It's more about the control, the mind and your body coming together.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yes. I wanna do a study on how target practice is a stress relieving mindfulness skill that people can use to, to feel better.
Lia: That's super cool that that would be very interesting study to do. I know that we've shared that we've both experienced traumatic situations and afterwards a part of my recovery from that situation was doing krav maga.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Mm-hmm. It's, it's empowering. You feel strong. Early on when we met, when our friendship was blossoming in the beginning, to lift together.
Lia: Yes. We went to go to the gym!
Dr. Kate Kelly: Cause that was part of our healing process, was getting strong in our bodies, seeing progress in ourselves and getting stronger over time. And how that also links back to Dr. Kelly Lambert's research where like that reward system, you know, we had like, wow, like, look at our bodies getting stronger. We can protect ourselves physically and emotionally. And then also the oxytocin of working out with a friend.
Lia: Yes. Let's break down Kelly Lambert's research. What was her main principle? She worked with rats, right?
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yes. So she's a neuroscientist and really charming lady. She's really cool.
Lia: Yeah.
Dr. Kate Kelly: She used Fruit Loops to do her research with little rats,
Lia: Which is so cute.
Dr. Kate Kelly: It was really cute and I think rats are really underrated. They're…
Lia: Oh, totally. I agree. They are so smart. I agree with you completely. Yes.
Dr. Kate Kelly: But essentially she did research on the brain's reward system and how different areas of our brain grow when we do different things. And she found that the rats were motivated by doing an intentional action to get the fruit loop. Cause if they didn't work for the fruit loop, then they were kind of like, “okay, I know I'm gonna get the fruit loop.”
Lia: Yeah. They, they weren't as excited about it. They started to lose interest. Right, in getting the fruit loops. Like they didn't care anymore. They lost…is it, it the dopamine effect? Is that correct?
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yeah. Like if we're happy all the time, happiness is no longer happiness.
Lia: Right. You need to have the whole spectrum. But the key there in that research was that there needed to be effort or challenge for the rat in order for them to still desire the fruit loop or feel reward. So what's so cool and special about the trades is you get to see your progress. You, you put a lot of physical and mental effort into creating or building something and then you get to see that progress. So, you said it, so many tradesmen, they'll go by a building, they'll be like, “I built that.”
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yeah. That was their hands.
Lia: Yes. Now how everything intertwines with the type of therapy that involves the body. It's like there's a correlation there. Right? So working, having effort, having physical challenge, getting a reward, and then in a trauma space, being able to physically express that trauma. Am I accurately describing this?
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yeah, totally. And it's so complicated, because we're so complicated as these beings that we are.
Lia: Yeah.
Dr. Kate Kelly: But it also, the somatic therapy involves noticing when we're talking or recollecting on the traumatic event, if we feel anything in our bodies.
Lia: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Kelly: If we feel something like our chest tightening or we feel our hands forming a fist; when we notice that sometimes that creates this opening of being able to label our feeling like, “wow, I think that's anger.”
Lia: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Cause when I'm telling this story in therapy, I'm like, my patient's holding your fists. And I was like, “do you notice that you're holding your fist?” And when you're able to identify the feeling, that's when we can move through it.
Lia: Because you're connecting the body and the mind.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Yes. Yes. And a lot of times the trauma, it separates the body in the mind.
Lia: Ah, that makes so much sense. Okay. Dr. Kelly, I often ask my guests, since Sparky Life centers around construction trades, what's in your tool belt? I mean this figuratively, could you share with us a key skillset? One of your accumulated capabilities that has helped you achieve your goals.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Okay. So what I think has helped is having self-compassion.
Lia: Aw.
Dr. Kate Kelly: Because I can be really hard on myself.
Lia: Yeah, we Yep. Yeah, I can, I can relate.
Dr. Kate Kelly: And when I'm like replaying a session in my head and I'm like, “oh my God, I wish I had moved this direction instead of that direction,” that doesn't help me be a better psychologist.That actually lowers my self-esteem and, and my motivation. Whereas if I'm compassionate and remember I'm a human in the room too, that when I open my heart and I connect my heart and my brain to, to do my absolute best, it's not always going to be as shiny as I want it to be.
Lia: Right.
Dr. Kate Kelly: And some days it'll be a good session, but it won't be one of the stellar sessions.
Lia: Yeah.
Dr. Kate Kelly: So instead of overthinking on my drive home, or at the end of the day when I'm cooking dinner, just saying, okay, you know, I did the absolute best I could and challenging that inner critic because when we move through self-doubt, if we're compassionate to that part of ourselves and we keep persisting and moving forward, that's how we move through it.
Lia: That is so powerful. I never realized how self-compassion is so powerful. I always knew empathy and compassion for others was powerful.
Dr. Kate Kelly: It's challenging to understand self-compassion when you're an empathetic person, like you are Li. And how…
Lia: Aw…who me?
Dr. Kate Kelly: Like, it's like, “self-compassion, what do you mean, that seems like self-absorption or like…”
Lia: Right. It can get so easily confused in your head. Somehow selfish. Yeah. But that's not true.
Dr. Kate Kelly: And it's not true because when we're kind to ourselves the way we are to others, then we're better able to give our gifts to the world. Whatever those gifts may be.
Lia: I love that.
Dr. Kate Kelly: And we feel healthier and we accept who we are compassionately, others benefit.
Lia: Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for being here today. It was such a pleasure having you, Dr. Kelly.
Dr. Kate Kelly: It's an honor to be on your show because it's an incredible show and I have had so much fun talking to you about this and I could just nerd out on and on about it all of this. So thank you so much for having me.
Lia: It was so much fun geeking out on theorizing with Dr. Kelly. I always enjoy speaking with her. I hope this conversation with Dr. Kelly stirs up some sparks within you. I'd love to hear from you. Do you think any of the correlations that we made today make sense? There is so much self-worth within your grasp. All we need to do is to empower each other. The current state of construction is a system and we can decide if we wanna change this system, what changes would you make? If you like this podcast, be sure to subscribe and rate us five stars. The reviews on Apple and Spotify really help us reach listeners like you. Thank you for joining us. If you felt a spark in today's episode, I invite you to write a review. I'd love to hear what lit you up. Take what resonates with you. And if you'd like to hear more of the Sparky Life, please subscribe, like, follow, and share. Until next time, create the sparks in your life.