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Happy Holidays from Matt’s Mumblings

Posted on December 21, 2015

Welcome to the annual holiday edition of Matt’s Mumblings!! I wanted to take a quick break from our discussion on poverty to reflect back on 2015 and look ahead to next year.

Matt’s Mumblings was started as a way for people who attended my trainings to continue learning. I had no idea how to blog or if anyone would read what I wrote. A little over two years later, we have over 1,000 people in our listserv and additional readers that follow the blog on social media. It has been a humbling and fun experience to grow a thriving community. Thank you for being a part of this little experiment!

The humility I feel when thinking about the blog is mirrored by the humility and amazement I feel about the growth in the demand for my trainings. In 2015 I was in 15 states, with multiple trips to D.C., California, Michigan, Arizona, New York, and Maryland. One fun new challenge has been a dramatic increase in request for keynote addresses. I have really enjoyed this honor and it has challenged me to communicate key points in a much more concise way.

There were two other related accomplishments that I’ve been really excited about in 2015. First, we launched our new Motivational Interviewing Online Series. We have gotten great feedback on this series, and I love how we were able to integrate the science and neurobiology of change into the MI framework. The new MI Series is a key part of our revisions to our Medical Case Management Certificate program, which has gone through a total update. Having presented the new material several times now, I love the depth of material we are able to cover and the energy of the participants going through the training.

Coldspring Center continues to thrive. I’m so lucky to be part of a great team, and looking back, I’m amazed at the amount and quality of work we are consistently able to deliver to our clients.  There is no way I could do what I do without the support of Bettina Harmon, Brooke Bender, and Kate Leos. A special thanks to Kate who edits (and basically co-writes) this blog every week.

Personally, 2015 has been a year of transition. It was February 24^th when I called my wife, Sarah, during a walk through Balboa Park in San Diego. It was 75 degrees, and I was enjoying a beautiful Southern California evening after a great vegan Mexican dinner in North Park. After I had gone on and on about how beautiful the park was, my wife went on to tell me about shoveling four feet of snow off our 50-yard driveway just so she could get to the house.

Living in the Rocky Mountains is an amazing thing, but also takes a great deal of work. Neither Sarah nor I predicted I would be traveling so much and, while professionally this has been an amazing experience, personally it left Sarah with a great deal of responsibility, in addition to being an amazing first grade teacher. About halfway through the call from Balboa Park, we decided we needed a change in order to simplify our lives.

This summer we realized this goal by moving into the Berkeley neighborhood in Northwest Denver. Going from 2.5 acres in the mountains to a townhome in the middle of a thriving art district was a big change. While we miss the mountains, they are only 20 minutes away, and the benefits of city living has really been a positive change in both of our lives. For those who are wondering, the dogs are also adjusting well to city life, though as this picture shows, Tucker still gets stressed out from time to time and just has to crash!

Coldspring Center has some big things in the works for 2016. We are excited to be partnering with Family Health Centers of San Diego for a Train the Trainer trauma informed care training program, and we hope this approach helps us further the reach and impact of our trauma informed trainings. In addition, our 2016 schedule is filling up with Medical Case Management trainings in Arizona, Nebraska, and Michigan, along with trainings and conferences around the country.

We’ll also be launching a significant revision to our Trauma Informed Care online training. The new format includes the Hero’s Journey that was a central theme of the blog this year, as well as updated research and science coming out of the fields of neurobiology, psychology, and genetics. It has been great to see the impact of our Trauma Informed Excellence online series. In 2015, several large groups moved through the program, and the feedback we’ve received shows that this approach has an overwhelmingly positive effect – we are really able to see the potential impact of online trainings.

We are also on the verge of bringing on a fifth Coldspringer to our team. We are in the process of finalizing the hire, so I’m holding back the details. Let’s just say that if I could hire one person to further our trauma informed care offerings, it would be this person!!! Hopefully I can share the details in the next post.

I want to end this post how I began – with a big thank you. I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I get the opportunity to work with such amazing people doing such critical work around this country. Thank you for believing in me and my message. I really can’t begin to express the respect I have for all you and the work you do, and to be a small part of that work, even vicariously, is incredibly humbling, and something I value tremendously.

Have a great holiday season and I’ll see you in 2016!