Blindness Abroad: A Journey of Love, Resilience, and Unexpected Curveballs
In this episode of ‘Love Isn’t Enough,’ hosts Joree Rose and Dr. John Schinnerer return from a brief podcast hiatus to share an incredible journey through unexpected challenges. They recount a trip to Europe marred by five ER visits, unexpected illnesses, a 5 1/2 hour plane flight with e.coli, and John completely losing vision in his left eye. Apart from revealing the potential reasons behind John’s blindness, including a spiritual ‘shamanic injury,’ the couple discusses resilience and the tools they’ve employed to persevere. They delve into the impact on their relationship, highlighting strong communication, vulnerability, and mutual support. The couple also differentiates between scientific and spiritual explanations, emphasizing cognitive flexibility and the importance of maintaining emotional and relational health amidst adversities. Their story underlines the power of choosing empowering interpretations and practicing steadfast resilience in the face of life’s curveballs.
Episode 7: Blindness Abroad: A Journey of Love, Resilience, and Unexpected Curveballs w/ Dr. John Schinnerer & Joree Rose, LMFT – Transcript
Welcome Back
Joree Rose: Hey everyone. We are back. We’re back.
Dr. John Schinnerer: We’re back.
Joree Rose: We are back.
Dr. John Schinnerer: It’s after a couple months hiatus.
Joree Rose: So it was not quite our intention to take this long of a hiatus, but as they say, make plans and God will laugh.
Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah.
Joree Rose: Better late than never.
Introduction and Relationship Overview
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So if this is your first time listening to Love Isn’t Enough, or if you are back joining us, we will reintroduce ourselves. I am Joy Rose,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: and I am Dr. John Schinnerer.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: and we are in relationship with one another.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Been together over nine years, engaged for five of those. Living together finally, after our teenage daughters went off to college.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And boy do we have a story to share with you.
Challenges and Resilience
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And yeah, life has been
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It’s been challenging.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: It has been challenging, and walking across the parking lot to one of the many doctor’s office visits that we’ve had.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: As I guided you in your near blindness, you asked me, do you think [00:01:00] all its challenges have made us closer? Do you think it’s brought us closer together?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Absolutely.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Absolutely. Yeah. Resounding yes. The moral of the story is you can choose how challenge affects you,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: or we can quote Nietzsche and say that which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: All of it’s true.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So why have we been gone for so very long?
John’s Blindness and Coping Mechanisms
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Because John went blind in his left eye.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: went blind. So we’re gonna share the story of John’s blindness and the potential theories of said blindness, but more importantly, the tools we’ve put into practice, both individually and as a couple, which are consistent with what we teach our clients and how we choose to live our lives.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Maybe we call this episode how to deal when the shit hits the fan.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: It was weird. They think things just got wonky in terms of these, I didn’t see this coming.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I keep thinking of all these vision jokes. You didn’t see it happening when it was actually happening. Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so let’s back up and [00:02:00] begin with the.
Vacation Troubles in Madrid
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Vacation, right where we went to Madrid and Lisbon and the intention was to go and see Kami, your daughter, who was studying in Madrid, and then my daughter Molly, and your other daughter Ari, were joining us and Ari was turning 21 and we were all gonna be together and we had five ER visits in a little over a week.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Let’s even back up before the first ER visit, this trip was met with challenge from day one. Before we even had the first ER visit. Yeah. We arrived in Madrid and at that point your daughter wasn’t there yet, so you and me and my girls had our first day there and our plan was to go to a food tour.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: The next day. And our apartment, as many apartments are in Europe with no side access to light because you’re just in a building with only one window facing the street. We slept apparently really well.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: it was [00:03:00] nice and dark in there
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: and we overslept
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: and John wakes up and goes out to look out the window to determine it was actually daylight and realize it’s 1215 and our food tour starts at 1230.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: How do we deal with curve balls? How do you emotionally recover quickly? How do you be resilient?
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And we were out the door in 10 minutes. Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: and then Molly flew by herself and went to Frankfurt, Germany, and somehow the connecting flight got screwed up. She missed her connecting flight and had to spend the night in Frankfurt. And that was a little bit unsettling. And we got through that and then she got to Madrid.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: But that even affected some other things. Missing her flight and having to stay overnight. Detoured the plans for the next day, which was Ari’s 21st birthday. And we had a day trip planned to all go take a train, ride out to the coast of Spain and spend a beautiful day at the coast. Molly then was gonna be arriving midday. We decided me and my girls would still go, and we get out early, get our [00:04:00] Uber. Little did we know that there was actually every Sunday, a marathon that goes through Madrid that shuts down streets. Long story short, we get to the train station with one minute to spare.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We run up to the platform as we watch our train pull away. So here we were met with yet another curve ball.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: So the day trip got scrapped.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: That got scrapped and we ended up getting tattoos. Yeah. So you know there was that. And we had actually a really fun day and that was a blast. And I think that was the beginning of us all recognizing, wow, we’re all pretty darn resilient right now because all these things could have been hard to overcome.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Or the thought of how much money we might have lost on those train tickets. Or what Molly had to spend to stay overnight in Germany. But none of that really surfaced because we’ve been teaching these girls for years, stay present, breathe, don’t over personalize.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: How to recover quickly.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And then shortly after that, Molly got an injury to her left eye. [00:05:00] And I think it was the day after she couldn’t leave her room. she just wanted to stay in a dark room ’cause she couldn’t open her eye. And I was like, oh man, like I gotta take her to the er. And so we go to the ER in Madrid and turns out she has a scratch on her cornea.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: They got infected. They were great. They gave her a ton of antibiotics to put into her eyes every two hours, including throughout the night and. That was the Continuation of the debacle of vacation,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: which then in turn prevented her from joining us on another day trip.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Again, more resiliency on her part to stay back and for us to still go ahead and we did, we made the best of it.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: recovered every step,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: every single step.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Couples Therapist: And then we had, so I had to take. Molly back to the hospital two days later to check up on the eye and that seemed to be healing.
Unexpected Events in Lisbon
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And then you and I went to Lisbon, Portugal by ourselves.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. We had Thanksgiving there and we were supposed to be there for a few days.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Which we were only there for three days. [00:06:00] And one of my absolute favorite things to do when we travel is food tours. I love eating around the world. I love learning about cultures through food around the world.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We had a food tour scheduled for the day after we got there and we had the whole morning open. And we thought, oh, let’s get a little tour of the city. Let’s look at these cute little tuk tuks that can drive us around and teach us about the history. And that was actually fantastic.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And then we went to the food tour and we were about two thirds of the way through the food tour. It’s now evening, and I’m sitting there at a table with, I don’t know, 10. Other people. And I realize, holy shit, like I can’t see anything outta my left eye.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And you come up to me at the end of this particular food stop and you say, Hey, he I think something’s wrong. I realized I turned to look at the guy next to me and I couldn’t see him. And pretty quickly we made the decision to leave the food tour. And go right to the ER because you have a history Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Of a retinal issue. So you had some [00:07:00] intuition of, aside from not being able to see that we need to get help immediately.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And people, some people were like, oh, it’s a stroke. And I’m like, nah, it’s not a stroke. It’s retinal.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Therapist: in nature. And so we went to the ER the first night and spent, I don’t know, three hours there.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Best Couples Counselor: Three, three and a half hours. And. They didn’t speak much English there.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: But we left there about 10 o’clock with really no help
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: with nothing because they had no ophthalmologist there on staff at the time.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: than come back tomorrow.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Despite the fact that John couldn’t see anything, and if you’ve never been to Lisbon, it’s akin to San Francisco. Very hilly. Narrow streets, narrow sidewalks, lots of stairs, cobblestone. difficult to navigate if you have two working eyes.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So I was leading him around half line.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Difficult to maneuver without depth perception.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And we decided we haven’t had dinner yet ’cause it, we left the food tour and that would’ve been really during the day and ended up going to a neighborhood restaurant right near our Airbnb. And this was another point of resiliency because despite the fact that John went blind in [00:08:00] Portugal, we actually had a great visit.
Joree Rose, Top Couples Counselor: It’s a really interesting experience because I’m working pretty hard to stay calm. Over this, three day period that we’re in Portugal, because really easy to go down the rabbit hole of I’m going blind, I’m losing my vision, like what’s going on? Like really easy to panic.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And you did amazingly well. Yeah, thanks amazingly well, and I think that’s a result of years worth of you practicing these tools. The tools of mindfulness, of acceptance, of presence of. How to get out of a spiral when you start going in one. Yeah, and I wanna highlight this restaurant experience because it’s also.
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Counselor: Shows one of our top values, which I think we’ve talked about in previous podcast episodes, which is the power of connection. And there were two waiters at this restaurant that we connected with so deeply, and partly for two reasons. One, when I said, how you doing? John’s I’m blind in this side.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: This just happened. We just came from the hospital and now we’re here. And the first waiter, [00:09:00] Ricardo, just had the most. Beautiful compassion I’ve ever seen, I think ever from a stranger. Yeah. He softened and he put his arm around you and he looked pained for your experience. And that right there just felt safe.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top 10 Couples Therapist: was a vulnerable share.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: He did.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so immediately in that moment there’s deep connection and there’s trust and so it felt, very warm and comforting.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top 10 Couples Counselor: was scared.
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Therapist: Absolutely.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And it’s a scary situation, And he did a great job of not having any anxiety over your fear or discomfort. If more people could respond that genuinely to someone’s vulnerability or fear, my God, we would feel so much safer in this world.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And we know that you can collapse, creating new friendships down from 200 hours to 45 minutes by doing a vulnerable share and having that vulnerability met safely.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It was beautiful. So despite the fact that, this was going on, all in all, it [00:10:00] was still a good day, Uhhuh.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I don’t think, that was just my perception of, looking for the good. Yeah. We had a three and a half hour detour where you were really scared and we got through it. So we get up the next morning, go back to the hospital and
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: that’s where we met dr. Philip.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Dr. Philip.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Dr. Philip had our heart.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Dr. Philip was very handsome.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: he must have been a really good doctor and good at what he does. So the fact that he chose to be an ophthalmologist and come in on a Saturday to help us in emergency just really showed how much he cared.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And he examined me and there wasn’t much he could do. He said, you’ve got a likely, you’ve got a retinal tear. We can’t see past the blood, The tear probably bled your eye filled with blood and that’s why you can’t see and you’re safe to fly home, which is so there’s no detached retina at that point.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: to fly home the next day. Yeah. And that was one of the fears of, oh shit, what if we get stuck here for a few weeks and you can’t fly? And we have that ER visit and that gave us some comfort that we could get home [00:11:00] safely. We had a great afternoon.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We explored a little bit. We had a great meal sat by the water. I was pleased that we still got to experience where we were. It would’ve been so easy for you to fall into a depressive cycle, to go back to the room to woes me and to just. Sit there before we, until we had to leave.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: You had to hide in the room.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I probably would’ve done that. You have experience with your eyes so somewhat new, how to manage this and I like to share a lot more frequently when I’m in discomfort. So I might have had a harder time. So I’m really praising you and your resilience here.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: ’cause your ability to. Be where you were and still appreciate where you were and make the most out of. It was remarkable.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And we actually ended up going back to that same restaurant that second night. Yeah. ’cause it felt like such a sense of community. Yeah. And the second waiter who we connected with we were laughing, we almost shut the place down there till like almost 1:00 AM [00:12:00] Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Bonding and again, connection. It’s all about connection. Met those two waiters and that little corner restaurant made part of our experience there.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Couples Counselor: Yeah. And the food was amazing too.
Joree Rose, Best Couples Therapist: I still have that.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It was very sweet.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And I. Then it was time to go home, which, I had some relief over. I was like at least I can get home and we can follow up on this and figure out what’s actually going on.
Medical Emergency on the Flight Home
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so we get on the plane and we fly from Lisbon to Toronto and then Toronto to San Francisco. When we’re in Toronto, my stomach starts feeling upset.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And I’m like, huh, that’s weird. And we get on the plane.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We had lunch on that layover.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: We get on the plane and I threw up twice before the plane even left the ground.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. He was sitting in his seat. He was not well, so much so that the flight attendants come over.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And if you don’t, we’ll push back to the gate and you can get off the plane.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And I’m thinking the last thing I wanna do is be stranded in Toronto.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: So I’m like, yeah I’m good to fly
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: not knowing what was wrong.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And that was not the right [00:13:00] answer at some level, because I spent the next five and a half hours throwing up every 10 minutes.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: It was horrific. And I’ve never seen him so sick. I’ve never felt so helpless.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: About halfway through that flight, the flight attendants come over and they say, do you want medical assistance? And
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: we’re like, at first I was like, no. And then I was like, yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah, so they make the call on the plane. There’s been a medical emergency on board. If you’re a doctor, please ring your call button. Two doctors come over.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: So now I’m a medical emergency.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Great.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So these two doctors come over and they start triaging him with three flight attendants, two doctors just standing in the middle of this pretty narrow plane.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Determining that it wasn’t life threatening. You weren’t having a heart attack, you weren’t having a stroke. There was no major, do we need to land of this plane emergency?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And they had some meds to help with. Vomiting, but I couldn’t keep him down enough for them to have an [00:14:00] impact.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And they were super kind to move some seats around and move, play some, musical chairs to get him to the back of the plane to attempt to lie down. I stood pretty much the rest of the time ’cause he was lying down across three seats. The doctor was in the aisle seat next to me on the other side
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Couldn’t keep any of the Zofran down. they actually were able to do a little blood test to see if your blood sugars were okay. I was actually impressed on what they were able to do.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And at that point I’m even, I’m having muscle cramps and spasms. Yeah. Super dehydrated.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And they asked me, do you want the paramedics and an ambulance to meet us when we pull up to the gate? And I’m like, no. And then I think I threw up again and I’m like, yeah,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And the doctor next to me, she was like, no he needs to be seen as soon as possible because I guess it takes about two hours for the pilot to convey to the paramedics.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: In preparation to have that upon landing. What we didn’t know is if you ever have paramedics meet you upon arrival, it is now actually declared an emergency landing and at one [00:15:00] point the pilot announces that there’s been a medical emergency you can literally feel the plane speed up.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. And the pilot actually landed about 30 minutes earlier, which was amazing. And once they land, the pilot comes back on. Everyone, please stay in your seats. We’re in the very back row of the plane and these paramedics come on with a very narrow wheelchair.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And they, get me into the wheelchair and I’m being taken out of the plane, down the aisle backwards. And I’m just like sorry. Sorry about that. I’m sorry. Because I’m thinking like I’m patient zero that’s just exposed this whole plane full of people to some god awful stomach flu.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And my mean, don’t mind you, he’s still blind in one eye.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: This is less than 48 hours after he lost his vision.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It was a rough. Couple days.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So the paramedics do some triage at the gate. They determine he needs to get into that ambulance. You almost fell over.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yes, I was pretty weak.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And they put him on a gurney and we got taken to a service elevator down to the [00:16:00] tarmac to like the underbelly of the airport when an ambulance was waiting.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And we got to skip customs.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: That was exciting.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah, that was.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: But, so they took us to the er, spent about four hours in the er, got fluids in me, got the vomiting under control, and then got home about 2 33 in the morning.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And It was brutal.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Oh we got home and I woke us up as early as I could because we needed to get you to
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: the eye doctor. Still not sure what’s wrong with him from his stomach, but needing to get seen.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Recovery and Reflection
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: So saw the retinal specialist feeling like hell. And then a couple days later we found out from the lab results from the ER that it was e coli.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: that was causing the throwing up, which is not contagious. So that was the good news.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: The County health Department called,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: They were trying to trace down what the origin of the e coli was. I’m like it was in Spain. I’m like, oh, okay, cool. We don’t have to worry about that here.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And that’s a really interesting thing too, because at this point, actually. Two days after we, or the day after we got home, my stomach [00:17:00] started to hurt. And I took the Zofran to stave off. I’m like, oh shit, I just saw what he went through. I do not wanna go through, want any, go through that.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So I was nauseous for a few days, but was able to otherwise be okay. And we were super confused on the origins of this e coli once we found out what that was because. Where did we eat that? You had something that none of the rest of us would’ve eaten because we were with our kids in Spain.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Everywhere we went, we all tasted each other’s food. You and I probably shared the most food. And they said the incubation period was seven days. So it couldn’t have been food from Portugal. That must have originated in Spain, but the fact that nobody else really got it was a big head scratcher.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: There was some recovery from that. The retinal specialist said, yeah, there’s a tear and a bleed most likely, but we can’t really see behind the blood, so we’re gonna have to just sit and watch it.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So from that point that this, now, this is the beginning of December because the loss of vision happened the day after Thanksgiving.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: [00:18:00] And every week, every couple weeks, we would go back to the eye doctor. And again, the resilience, you couldn’t work out, you couldn’t drive. It was difficult to work. At one point we got an eye patch for you, cool Pirate look. But you dealt with it amazingly well.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Dealing with fear of the unknown dependency on me. What was that like for you?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It’s hard, actually. I brought this up in the men’s group last week where I said, It was harder after the surgery that was coming, a couple months down the road.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Because the recovery from the surgery is just. Really difficult and trying and I was telling them that, the question I had for. Men’s group was, when has something happened to you that made you feel like less of a man? And how did you deal with it? And I used this surgery recovery as my example saying, look, can’t drive, can’t have sex, can’t pick up anything heavy can’t even make money.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Like I couldn’t see clients, I couldn’t work on the computer. A lot of what I do and part of my identity as a man was just erased It’s really [00:19:00] difficult to sit with for longer and longer periods of time. Now, fortunately, that was only two and a half weeks post-surgery.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I’ve been blind in my left eye now for four months,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: right? Coming on four months. But slowly over time. And the way the doctor, Dr. Philip, the way that Dr. Philip described what was going on was, there was a tear and the eye filled with blood in the back of the eye.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: You wouldn’t look at his eye and see anything. So it was all on the back of the eye, but that the blood needed to settle, snow and a snow globe. And once it settled, they would be able to see what the actual issue was. Yeah. We had been going to these follow-up appointments.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Nothing was changing. Nothing was changing, but yet vision was slowly beginning to come back. And you thought, yay, I’m improving. This is all good.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It’s healing. Which was best case scenario.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And then the one appointment I didn’t go to him, go with him to, because he was getting his vision back and he was beginning to drive again.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: The retinal specialist took a look at one scan, I think it was an ultrasound, and said, yeah, it looks like you’ve got a bit of a retinal detachment. It looks like we’re gonna have to do surgery. Let me consult with the other specialist and we’ll [00:20:00] schedule surgery.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And when they make that decision, it’s usually within 24 hours.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: yeah. surgery is tomorrow.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. Because there’s been times during this process where I have gotten a little bit depressed. The things have gotten to me and I have lost a little bit of resolve and resiliency.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And typically when I get there, I’ll hear things in my head like, I can’t deal with this. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t handle this. And I’ve learned over the years that when I hear those thoughts, immediately I’ll start to challenge them and say, okay, look, this is difficult and I can handle this. This is challenging and I got this is tough and I can deal with this.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so I was always reiterating those thoughts almost as mantras to help me stay grounded.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And that was one of the key things that I did along with deep breathing and not catastrophizing,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: get to the surgery recovery in a minute. But I think the other thing I could say.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: You did really was when those moments came up, you shared them with me. You [00:21:00] didn’t hold them in and I think, and we live together now, so it would’ve been a lot harder for you to quote, hide from me. Yeah. What you were feeling. ’cause I could look at you and see where your emotional state was.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I’m really grateful that we were already living together during this process because Yeah, me too. You would’ve had to move in no matter what, but. The, even the vulnerability coming back to that vulnerability idea to share with me, I’m really struggling right now.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: scared or I’m struggling or this is really hard, or I’m in a lot of pain
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: and I’m in a lot of pain and it’s an interesting dynamic that I’ve never really been in.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Let’s get to the surgery first, then we’ll go get to kinda the next piece. ’cause I wanna also share my experience of you because I think that’s a part that doesn’t often get talked about when someone is going through an illness or a surgery or a recovery.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: So the surgery happened, what,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: two and a half, weeks ago.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. So you know by, from the time that we’re pointing February 5th, we’re recording this February. Simultaneous to this timing, we had made a decision to. [00:22:00] My ex-husband and John and my daughter and I to withdraw her from college.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Oh yeah. And to come home on medical leave for some challenges that she’s happening. And that was another curve ball. And how do we reset when the plan is no longer the plan? When what we thought was gonna look like and be like, and feel like in our world that we’ve now created has changed.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: For her and her experience of being in college for us, as our experience, as being empty nesters.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: four months in, a
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: few months in. It’s a great run and we’ll have another great run. Eventually, and that’s, it’s all fine, but I wanna point that out because. I think the key in all of this has been communication and resilience at every which level.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And in absence of communicating everything you’re feeling and thinking, it’s easy to hold it in and the more you hold it in, the more it grows. And when we can name it and talk about it and give it room to exist without judging, it makes it a lot easier to deal with it.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: doesn’t stand up well to the light of day.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I [00:23:00] was just gonna say kinda like shame.
A Chaotic Day of Surgery and Support
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So the day that he had surgery. It was a little chaotic for me. Yeah, because I had to drive him to, they had to do one more scan at the doctor’s office to confirm surgery was necessary. So we went there at three o’clock, got to the hospital at four o’clock, got checked into the hospital.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I had to leave the hospital at four 30 to go drive to the airport to pick up my daughter, coming home from college, home for a somewhat indefinite amount of time, get her settled, drive home and rush hour traffic, have dinner with her. Get back to the hospital and your surgery had been pushed off.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So when I got back to the hospital, you were still in surgery. I don’t think your surgery ended till 1230 at night.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah, it was a three hour surgery. It was pretty significant.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: was long. Yeah, it was long. And I of course was getting worried and by the time we checked out, got home at about two in the morning.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Facing the Challenges of Recovery
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And it felt very supportive of some of my friends to say, do you want me to go sit with John at the hospital? Luckily I could in this scenario, but to [00:24:00] also have that vulnerability to share with others like this is a lot for me to be balancing the fear and anxiety of you being in surgery.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I would’ve preferred to have stayed the whole time at the hospital per. Perceived sense of right. Safety or protection that I could be there. I also wanted to be there full-time with my daughter who was just coming home and the grace that she had as soon as we got home for me to go back to the hospital.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: cognitive flexibility
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I invite you to consider, what challenges have you had in your life in which any of those things are hard.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: One I do like the idea that. The surest path to misery is resisting reality as it is. And so the more resistant I was, or yeah, the more resistant I was to any of these curve balls, the more difficult things get exponentially.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: A hundred percent. And I remember, like being in prep for surgery and I have my go-to defense strategy is humor. And whenever I have surgery, and I’ve had a few at this point in my life, I. I’m always trying to make [00:25:00] jokes and make the people around me laugh. And my thought is I wanna make them relaxed and comfortable.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: around being the nurses and doctors.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I know that they will perform their best
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: If they’re uptight and tense they’re not gonna perform as well.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so went into that surgery
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: you were in with some.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Trepidation. It’s never those are tough surgeries. They’re quite invasive. So they went in, they did a vitrectomy. So they go into the eyeball, they smooth out the retina, they inject a gas bubble in the eye. They sew the eye shut, which is crazy. There’s micro sutures in the eyeball.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: There was a silicon band that was lasered onto the backside of my eye. ’cause I’ve had the surgery twice before in the right eye and. Then got to come home.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
The Pain and Pressure of Eye Surgery
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Part of the recovery of this is he’s gotta be face down for seven full days,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: 24 hours a day,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: which probably ended up being maybe like 22 and a half hours.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: difficult. It’s really difficult
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: facing the ground. We had to rent equipment, like face cradles, like massage chairs. to [00:26:00] cradle the face to be able to stay face down even for sleeping.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: The problem came two days after surgery when the pressure in my eye went three and a half times normal. And normally it’s around 10, it went up to 35, 36, and at 40 is where the alarm bells start going off. Where they’re looking at surgical alternatives or options to decrease the pressure.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: But what his experience was intense pain.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Which no medication could touch because it wasn’t a headache. it was pressure building. It was
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: pressure building on the inside of my eye, pushing outwards
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: and it was horrific to I, this sounds I dunno the right word, it was horrible for me to watch.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I can’t even imagine what it must have been like in your own skin. There were moments where he couldn’t find a position, kinda riving in pain and. How to get through 24 hours a day. ’cause we didn’t get relief for that until about five days.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And they gave me like, so they start you off on three eye [00:27:00] drops, three medications, and when the eye pressure increased, they added four more,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: four more drops in a pill.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And the eye drops themselves are problematic and uncomfortable. I thought that they would reduce the pressure within I was hoping like two hours, and then I’m hoping like 12 hours, and then I’m hoping like a day. And it turned out to be five,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: about five days.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And that was really difficult.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I started towards the end of like day four and a half, five, I started having some pretty dark thoughts. Like just take the eyeball. I can’t deal with this anymore. It’s not worth it. How’d you get through that?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Same thing. I kept going back to this is difficult and I can handle this, and.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Breathing and, I would try and find ways to alleviate the pain, even if it was only for seconds. Like the warm compress would help for minutes. And so that was helpful. once that five day window passed things I. We’re much easier.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. And I think part of the thing to ease the anxiety was we just kept going back to the doctor.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Sometimes we showed up with no appointment because we needed the knowledge of where is the eye pressure [00:28:00] at.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And it’s bad when the retinal specialist says, come on and drop by the clinic anytime you want.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: They’re busy as hell. Yeah. And so for them to say that, it’s not the best indicator in my mind. Now the question that interests me about this whole thing is that I, can
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I felt incredibly helpless. you were the one suffering and I was also suffering in a different capacity.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And every now and then I would like I sometimes just looked at you and started to cry because the pain he was in, I knew was. Horrific. And after the fact, once everything subsided I recently asked, were you really honest with how bad it was?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I said, no, I wasn’t. I was minimizing it.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. And I didn’t, and I think I knew that, which is part of the challenge I had in, in bearing witness to that.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And once the eye pressure significantly went down after one of the appointments from which we just showed up and at that point the meds were working, I had this letdown [00:29:00] response in which I just burst into tears and I felt really guilty for struggling with you having this horrible recovery. I felt my emotions don’t matter.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I feel helpless. This has been so hard and I felt guilty for having any emotion when I wasn’t the one in surgery and recovery.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: But we know because of empathy, you’re gonna experience the pain that I feel to some extent.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And you can argue to what degree,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And you had even said to me at one point, I think you’ve said it twice, is. I wouldn’t wanna have been in your shoes. I would’ve rather be the one in pain than if you had to watch me be in that much pain.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I just think it’s an important thing to name, because I think those in caregiver roles, right? There’s many challenges. There’s the, I have to do all the work, or I am the only one capable of doing all these things right now. So that was less of what was hard for me. It was just my partner is in pain, he’s struggling, I’m scared I don’t wanna name my fears.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And that was really hard and that was part of my letdown. After we got home, it was actually Valentine’s Day that [00:30:00] day, and I remember we just went to lie down and I just started to sob, and then I felt guilty that I’m crying to you about your own suffering, but I wanna normalize any emotion. Yeah. And your grace of holding space at that point for me was so loving.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I think when you’re really connected with someone, how could you not have that level? How could I not have that level of fear, anxiety, overwhelm. And you also did an amazing job, especially during that eye pressure of not going dark, maybe twice for an hour or two.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: It was pretty limited quick, and I was really pleased on that because. I would’ve had a hard time not going down the rabbit hole with you, and I would’ve felt naive to just try to pull you out. Because I didn’t know the degree to which you were actually suffering. So I just wanted to give a shout out to those who are holding space for those they love, who are in extreme pain or suffering or kind of whatever recovery they’re in.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: It was hard.
Exploring Spiritual Explanations
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so then the next [00:31:00] piece is the why. Why did this happen? I. And it’s a little frustrating ’cause you can talk to ophthalmologists and retinal specialists and optometrists and not get the same answer and not get a straight answer. Because I really think they don’t know.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: one possibility I heard on a materialistic physical level is, violent shearing. So that quick start stop to your head, almost like heading a soccer ball or stopping a car and hitting your head against the dash or something like that might lead to a retinal tear if you’ve got those predispositions.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so we were thinking we went on the Tuck ride, we were going on bumpy cobblestone roads and there was no real shocks in the Tuck, so maybe there was some shaking that happened that kind of loosened up something. And I had, there was 10 retinal tears in this eye two years ago.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And they had lasered all those shut, so it. Not that hard to open up one of those tears.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: that was explanation given where we were at.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Because it was the only thing that we [00:32:00] could turn to, to say, why did this happen? Now I can’t see.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: was about four hours prior to losing video.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And did it go away or was it immediate?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It went away over the course of that food tour.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Okay. So about two and a half hours. Yeah. And so for a long time, that was our working definition. Yeah. That was like, oh damn.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: There goes tuck, tuck rides forever.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. ’cause you look at, you’re looking for an explanation. You’re looking for a cause and even to look at, what do I avoid in the future? I don’t think I’m going on rollercoasters anytime soon, for example.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Tuck, tuck rides.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I don’t know.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It depends on the road.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: yes.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: depends. I have a masseuse I’ve been going to for 21 years and she’s magic. She’s an intuitive healer and it’s always more like a therapy sematic release session. And so we sat for about 30 minutes prior to the massage and I’d caught her up on all the things that were going on so she could work it outta my body.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: About five minutes into my massage, she says to me, I think John’s loss of vision was a shamanic injury. [00:33:00] But it made sense in that. It was a spiritual explanation. And we’ve been on a spiritual journey, and we haven’t shared all of the stories on this podcast.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We’ve done it on our individual ones, some, but I think we’re gonna revisit that here for those who haven’t heard. But it opened the door to another lens of consideration. And I come home from the massage. I said, John Madeline thinks it was a shamanic injury. You need to call Pasha. Pasha is another intuitive healer that we’ve been working with that actually was introduced to John when his eyesight had these 10 retinal tears two years ago.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And that was the entree in, so it seemed quite logical to bring it back to Pasha and have a conversation around what could be a spiritual explanation to. This eye injury. So here’s where, you gotta have some suspension of disbelief. You might be listening and think, this all sounds like bullshit.[00:34:00]
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I’m gonna stick with the took, took response. And believe that there’s only tangible evidence from what we can see in front of us. And one of our takeaways is. Choose the interpretation that serves you best. There’s a point in life or a point in time in my life when I could only go with the materialistic, scientific based explanation.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And I think we’ve gotten more into the woo or the spiritual or whatever. I love that about you. And we’ve encountered some really. Hard to refute experiences that point in that direction. And we won’t go into all those in this one, we’ll just keep it more current.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: But so I met with Pasha and she said, yeah, it was definitely a spiritual injury. You gotta remember she’s told me before that I’m a shaman. I would never say that because I don’t think I know nearly enough to say anything like that. I’m open to learning more about it. She says
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: simpler terms, a healer.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: That feels, in our line of work, we are helping people heal, so yeah, it’s
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: another level of healing, spiritual healing. And [00:35:00] she said that you gotta remember your contract is with the land
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: spiritual contract that is, yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so you can’t just travel around the world without taking proper precautions.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Grounding, visualization, shielding, that sort of thing.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Protection.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And she’s did you do any of that? I said, no, actually, I’d been doing it at home, but I totally forgot to do it when we were on vacation. And she said, I think what happened is you picked up a curse from the land and cleansed the land, but you took the curse into yourself.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And not only did you take the curse in, but the e coli was you purging the curse So we might’ve just lost half of you. Here’s where it gets, I don’t know even stranger that during that food tour we walked to a church plaza with a church that had been around since the 15 hundreds was involved in the Spanish Inquisition.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And this church had been through, [00:36:00] two earthquakes, a fire and a tsunami. And at one point they decided, we’re not gonna rebuild this church because it’s cursed
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: walking inside. All of the walls are charred. It’s eerie in there because it stills grand and beautiful and old
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Back in the 15 hundreds, there was a three day riot in which Jews and new Christians were killed, burnt, alive in empires at the stake.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: The new Christians, by the way, were the Jews who fled Spain from the Spanish Inquisition and we’re forced to convert. So the new Christians, quote unquote, were Jews by birth.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so if you’re gonna pick up a curse from land, that seems like a pretty decent place to do it in my mind.
Joree Rose, Top Couples Counselor: that went down there
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Therapist: and so I started going blind about two, two and a half hours after that.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: T. True.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: The reality is I do know I’m gonna take steps to protect myself here and when I travel.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I’ve seen enough at this point in [00:37:00] my life to know that not everything can be viewed through or explained by the scientific paradigm. Although I’m a big fan of the scientific paradigm I believe it’s inherently limited. It’s limited to empiricism, to what we can see with our, what we can experience with our senses, but there’s more going on in this world than what we can merely experience with our senses.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Just look at, a dog’s sense of smell or an owls sense of vision. They can sense things far beyond what our human senses can. To think that I’m taking in all of reality, merely through my five senses is somewhat arrogant and misguided in my opinion.
Reflecting on Resilience and Relationships
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: When we were under the belief that the vision was lost as a result of the took, took, how did you feel with that belief?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Couples Therapist: I think I was a little bit defeated because it made me feel weak in the sense that there was physical limitations to what I could do and not do.
Joree Rose, Best Couples Counselor: How did you [00:38:00] then feel in perhaps choosing to believe more in alignment with this spiritual experience of. Something that may make no logical sense, but that you had some spiritual burden come upon you as a result of the openness of your heart, as a result of your energy, as a result of your healing.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: how did that then feel as a potential explanation?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I think it’s empowering because I think it puts. A layer of meaning on what happened that wasn’t there before. And if it’s true that I pulled a curse from the land and helped that land in some way, and this was how I dealt with the after effects, then it becomes to some extent worth it.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So here’s the interesting question, because there’s still an interplay of tangible reality and spiritual belief because [00:39:00] even if it was a quote curse from the land that you picked up, you still had a retinal tear. There was still a physical eye injury.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Both are true.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Even if the, you got e coli, which I, yes.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Your blood or your stool sample, whatever. It was determined that this was the infection that caused all the vomiting. the belief that maybe that was a purge of what you took in, right?
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So there are still the tangible results of what might’ve been a spiritual cause.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yes. And I think the other thing that enters into this, that’s interesting, coincidental synchronous is, Molly’s eye injury was the same eye
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: right.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: she doesn’t remember anything that led to her scratching her eye.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So when we look up, whenever there’s an injury or like numbers or animals, I’m always curious what’s the spiritual meaning. So to you, what was the spiritual meaning of you and Molly having an eye injury?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It feels like an attack on the masculine. Side of me
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: isn’t the left side though feminine.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I thought left was masculine.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I think left is [00:40:00] feminine.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Oh,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: nothing that comes in feminine goes out masculine.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I don’t know.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Okay.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I think part of the meaning there is what am I supposed to see in a new way? What am I not seeing accurately? What do I need to look at differently?
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And that’s a very tangible question. The spiritual response of that would be Activating your third eye.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It’s getting outta my head and into more heart based perception or third eye perception intuition.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So how have you done that throughout all this?
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I think for me it’s been a ongoing journey into the unseen, the unknown different domains. I have played around with shamanic journeys and going to the underworld and finding familiars or animals that can accompany me
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: protect you.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Looking more for ways to protect myself if, in the event that all this is true at the spiritual level. And I think to me in my life I look [00:41:00] at, there’s been kind of these waves of development where when I was young it was more, I was trying to figure out my physical body and then.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It became intellectual development and then it became emotional development and then it became relational development. And finally, I think we’re at this phase of spiritual development. And so I think it’s, the question of, if I look at this level of development with curiosity, with open-mindedness, what can I learn?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top 10 Couples Therapist: What can I discover?
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: I love that. And to make it really applicable, regardless of what anyone’s going through, there’s an opportunity to say, what’s another lens I can look through? What’s another possible reframe in how I can think about this? And I think that’s one of my favorite tools actually to teach clients, is we get really stuck on narratives.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And oftentimes those narratives are born out of a previous time in our life, out of a trauma, out of a situation in which we were. Needing survival strategies [00:42:00] in some capacity, and we hold onto those belief systems or patterns or thoughts or the way we process and those get outdated. we don’t upgrade our operating system.
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Counselor: And so I love that idea of what’s another lens I can look through.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And I think one of the things I will always ask myself in tragic or difficult circumstances is what am I supposed to learn from this? one of the big ones to me is cognitive flexibility, right? So can I be open-minded?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Can I be curious? Can I look at situations through different lenses or different angles to see what’s possible?
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And I think that’s huge. Flexible thinking.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. And relationally as this, podcast is about relationships, how would you relate that more relationally of what is there to learn here?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: I don’t know if this is answering the question specifically, but I think it came up in the question that I asked you of, to what extent do you think this, these difficulties have made us? Or brought us closer together.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And I think that [00:43:00] we’ve also been able to come together or find common ground in this spiritual sandbox. Yeah. In this spiritual playground. And there’s been some really pretty exciting, pretty awe-inspiring, incredible. Events that have happened over the past two years where, by my way of looking at it, it’s just way beyond coincidence.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: we can’t make this shit up. It’s too improbable.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. I think for me. The relational piece is, it’s just that, it’s something you said to me. We were dating only about three and a half months and I had two medical things happen in one month and like surgical procedures and you had from the very get go said, we will get through this.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We are a we. And I remember thinking, wow, we’re a we. That was such different language from what I was used to hearing [00:44:00] and. I love that the we of these past challenges, it wasn’t a, oh, John is suffering, it’s no, we’re suffering. Because I am right there with you. And knowing that we are a, we did make me actually feel more comfortable to express my part in that, of where I was struggling.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: That it wasn’t selfish for me to think about myself, or it wasn’t this either or. It’s a, we both are having. A very real and honest and vulnerable response to these circumstances. Yeah. And the safety and trust that we’ve built to express any of them without judgment I think is phenomenal. And that’s, I think also a reflection of the work that we have done and we think it’s like the root of all relationship, challenge and healing is looking at our attachment wounds.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Having previously had, I was anxious, you were avoidant in our attachment style. Had we still been stuck in those patterns, would’ve been I think, making these curve [00:45:00] balls a lot harder. A lot harder because my anxious attachment, would’ve struggled when you were inaccessible as a result of your surgery or loss of eyesight.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I feel such a sense of safety and security. None of that ever once came into play.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. I agree.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And for you, if I could speak and you can correct, but having had an avoid an attachment might’ve been harder to lean into vulnerability with me.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: To ask for support to receive the love and nurturing and nursing that you gave to me would’ve been a challenge.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And to bring it back to what you said in the beginning, that at some point did challenge your masculinity, but it didn’t bring upon shame, which often is a key cornerstone for those in it with avoidant.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And so I love these examples of these curve balls because those 10 days in Europe, it literally felt like one after the other and they were varying degrees. Of intensity or consequence. But nonetheless, [00:46:00] waking up 15 minutes before we’re supposed to be somewhere could have put us all irritable, all blaming each other.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Why didn’t you wake us up? It’s your fault. We could have not been present and enjoyed. That wasn’t the case once. Despite all the ER visits over the 10 days, I’m like, that was actually a pretty good trip.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: We still had fun
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We did. And I think that’s remarkable because by no sense was this trip.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: A flop or a failure.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. Positive or negative. And just to bring it full circle, so the prognosis for my eye is we don’t know anything until maybe a month from now when the bubble kind of shrinks.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And we’ll see what my vision looks like. Pretty good chance that I’ll have to have the surgery again. We don’t know that yet, but that would probably be in a year. Definitely we’ll have to have a corneal replacement. Like I did on the other eye, which that’s not that big a deal. That’s outpatient 15, 20 minutes.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: So I do believe that the eye will heal enough and I will see again out of this eye because that’s been my experience with my right eye
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: and I have great confidence in that.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I also wanna just say one last piece is [00:47:00] there were moments where I think both of us had to consider, oh shit, what if this doesn’t.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Repair. And even that was a point of resilience to say, what? Could we live with that? Could we live with you having only one eye? And we could, it wouldn’t have been ideal and we would’ve adjusted even then. So I found great comfort that even if that worst case scenario came true, knock on what it didn’t, and I’m hopeful and confident it won’t given your history with your other eye.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: But if we get stuck on that worst case scenario, then we’re stuck in that suffering cycle.
Tools for Building Resilience
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And so I’m hoping that as you’re listening to this, you’re not just hearing our storytelling, but really understanding what tools we put into play to make these past four months not awful.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And these tools take practice. They’re not one and done. the more tools you learn. The better things get, the happier you are, the more satisfied you are with life.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I love this idea that you have to build them outside of the moments of overwhelmed chaos or emergency [00:48:00] because you can’t. You can’t prepare for it in the midst of the emergency.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. I couldn’t have just started practicing mindfulness or loving kindness or reframing or not catastrophizing during
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: No.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: emergency that took place in Lisbon.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: No, it’s not possible.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: would’ve worked.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And so it’s something we teach. It’s something we live by. And I think this whole experience, this whole episode is really evidence of we literally practice everything we teach.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: This is ongoing work. It’s not like you learn it once and you put it away in your file cabinet and you don’t think about it again.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: a lifetime of work.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: It’s building that muscle and then stretching that muscle over and over again.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Conclusion and Resources for Growth
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: thank you to the listeners for listening,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: and if any of this was inspiring to you of wanting to say, I need more tools of resiliency because our world’s feeling pretty chaotic right now, John.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: A little bit. And there’s a lot of uncertainty and unknown, That can be anxiety provoking and dysregulating. We do have some options of how you can build some of these tools. I think our favorite one right now [00:49:00] is our masterclass series that we have going on where once a month we do a live masterclass on different areas in relationship growth and healing and insight and tool building and understanding.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And you can join one that. Peaks your interest, or you can sign up for the whole year and actually get a bonus coaching session, which was nice. So the link for that masterclass series is in the show notes.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It’s, you can also go to Love isn’t enough.net. And then you can also find out there’s a number of other classes that both Joy and I offer.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Anger management, mindfulness, anxiety, positive meditation, psychology, meditation.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: a parenting one.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: most of these have similar tools in them.
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Counselor: Yeah, we’re a wealth of resources we would love to share with you. Thank you guys so much. If this episode inspired you and you wanna share it with others, one of the best ways you could do that is to give it a rating, a review, or just simply send the link to someone who you think might be interested in hearing it.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top 10 Couples Therapist: Share it with your friends. [00:50:00]
Joree Rose, Best Couples Counselor: We look forward to bringing you more stories and insights So stay tuned for our next episode.