Transforming Trauma: Episode 191

“ The only way that I could begin that work was to allow myself to be a subject who was impacted by the experience, to not be the fixer, to not be someone who was trying to prevent things from happening. I needed to not leave myself behind anymore.” ~Samantha Montemayor

Some grief doesn’t resolve. It doesn’t end when a relationship does, when someone gets sober, or when you finally set the boundary you’d been avoiding. One NARM® Master Therapist and Training Assistant, Samantha Montemayor, LPCS, shares how the NeuroAffective Relational Model® (NARM®) transformed her relationship with grief, both professionally and personally, and helped her find a way to live alongside what doesn’t resolve.

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth welcomes Samantha Montemayor, LPCS, a NARM® Master Therapist and practice owner based in Austin, Texas. The two discuss the effects of grief on our relationships, emotional resources, and boundary-setting abilities. Samantha also recalls her professional journey and the deeper relational approach that NeuroAffective Relational Model® encourages in healing. The pair also explore Samantha’s personal experiences with grief, her cultural relationship to grief as a Latina, and how NARM® has supported her through its ongoing ebbs and flows.

“I want to offer [the audience] hope around living with what doesn’t resolve.” While Samantha’s intention stems from a heartbreaking personal experience, many professional encounters also inform her aspirations for this discussion. “I’ve been in the field for about 18 years,” she says, recounting her roles in community mental health, crisis intervention, victim advocacy, and leadership. Early in her career, Samantha worked in juvenile probation where she quickly recognized that almost every child and family on her caseload had experienced trauma, often across generations. “That was my entrance into really seeing the long-term impacts that trauma can have on families and children,” she says.

Although she initially considered becoming a psychiatrist, Samantha found herself more drawn to relational and therapeutic work than medication management. She pursued a master’s degree in counseling and continued working with justice-involved youth and victims of violence. Then, in 2021, while supervising a crisis team, she discovered the NeuroAffective Relational Model. “I was enrolled in another training and a colleague said, “If I had to choose between the two, I would go NARM® all the way.”

NARM® has transformed the way Samantha relates to herself as a therapist. “I think so much of what I learned in grad school…was leave ourselves at the door,” she says. “When I was being invited to bring myself in, it was like taking something out from behind lock and key.” Shortly thereafter, she began working with a NARM® therapist to guide her healing journey. When grief surfaced, Samantha found NARM® to be a welcome space for processing it.

Samantha distinguishes between grief as a clear loss, such as death, and “the kind of grief that’s tied to circumstances that are unchangeable and enduring.” These are situations that may never fully resolve, including addiction, chronic illness, dementia, divorce, or ongoing family pain. She refers to her own relationship with grief as trying to outpace the dark. “If I could only offer this particular resource, say the right words, if maybe this time I showed up in this particular way,” she thought, “it might mean all the difference.”

NARM® training has helped Samantha accept that boundaries aren’t acts of rejection; they’re necessary for a relationship’s survival. “The work becomes, how do I stay connected to myself and others? How do I stay connected to meaning while that’s all still here with me?”

Transforming Trauma thanks Samantha for reminding us that grief is a lifelong companion. Our healing isn’t about becoming finished or perfectly regulated but developing the capacity to hold joy, sorrow, and connection at the same time.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Francine Shapiro, Ph.D.

The Afterlife