CHRIS NEWCOMB: Welcome to the Peer Into Recovery Podcast, a podcast with a focus on the profession of peer support. For more information about how to subscribe, please visit our website at www.vprsn.org. Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Peer Into Recovery Podcast. I’m your host, Chris Newcomb. Thanks for listening.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Today, we have a great guest. Her name is Veronica Castro-Albano. She comes to us from planet Earth by way of Argentina, New York City, New Jersey, the UK, and now in Virginia. And those places she’s been a couple of times, so we decided to just narrow it down. And she comes to us as a PRS, also a three-time author. Her first book is called Life is Worth Getting Better, and it’s also in Spanish. Tu Vida Merce Que Te Mejores is supposedly how you say that. And the last book is Honoring Your Recovery. She has done some work volunteering for NAMI and as a PRS, of course, and has become a Certified Life Coach.

So today, we have a power pack time of talking about her journey as a peer, and then into peer work as a Certified Life Coach and how those two intersect. So let’s get to it. Veronica, thanks for coming on the show today.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Thank you so much, Chris, for having me. I’m honored to be a part of this episode today. And before we start, I want to thank you for the work you guys do. It’s amazing how you can empower and encourage others. And I want to give a huge shout-out to the peer recovery specialists because how they use every day their lived experience, just how they are so understanding, and how they can bring new perspective to the lives of others. And having themselves gone through so many challenges and complexities in the recovery process, I think that’s huge that you guys can give so much wisdom and believe in clients that don’t even believe in themselves. So thank you for what you do.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Oh, thank you. That’s really nice of you. I’ve paid Veronica to say that, ladies and gentlemen. That’s straight from the heart, all joking aside. So we appreciate that. Thank you.

It’s great to be able to have a space where we can encourage other professional peer recovery specialists and those who actually are going to be in the field as well to learn a little bit about what it’s like to be in this field in different ways, because there’s lots of different ways you can be in this field. And so let’s get started and tell us about your journey into being a peer and receiving services yourself, and then we’ll get into that movement into what you do professionally.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: I suffered from postpartum depression, but in Argentina, 21 years ago, I didn’t know of anybody that went to the doctor for that. I thought it was just being tired and just waking up a lot of times at night and just being exhausted, but I didn’t realize that there was a whole emotional aspect to that, and how my brain was really not working well, and it took me about a year to go to the doctor. Of course, postpartum developed into clinical depression, so I suffered a lot of anxiety too, so it was both things. We went to the doctor, I started a treatment, but it wasn’t as effective because I kept feeling the same way pretty much. I would get better and then not so good.

And we had to move to England twice in that period, and I don’t know if you’ve been to England, but it rains a lot, so it didn’t help. It was really difficult. The culture is really different. I mean, a lot of ups and downs, so I guess we did it because it was my husband’s job transfer, so we adjusted. But especially the second time we moved, it was really hard for me because I knew how it would be. We’d lived there before and I knew how it would be if we lived there twice. And just the fact of having to know that I was going to be there for a long time, just set me in a mood that I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But I did it anyway because I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t want to go. So we did that.

And I started to think of all the ways that I really wanted to come back home and be in America. So it was difficult for me. I started spiraling down to a point where I’d never been. It was really dark for me in that time. And my husband was worried about me because he knew I wasn’t being myself, and he just wanted me to feel better. It’s not that easy in the medical system from England to get the right help. It’s pretty complicated, but we found a treatment, and they said that I had to go every day for a day treatment from nine to three. So I did that.

I was a mom. I had two kids and I wanted to get better for them. I wanted to keep having anniversaries with my husband and just having the regular life that I used to have. So I did my treatment. It was really difficult. The first days, I thought, I do not want to be here. I do not want to tell my story. I do not want to do therapy or anything. And it’s, I think a lot of people can relate to that because it’s difficult when you never, you don’t even know these people, you know. You don’t know yourself what’s going on, let alone tell others. So it’s really hard. But I did it.

And then it was a period in my life where I had a lot of doubts about who I really was. I had a lot of unforgiveness. I had a lot of insecurity. I had a lot of just all these baggage that we carry. And I started to realize that through therapy and doing things like CBT and things like drama therapy and self-awareness and mindfulness, it was really positive for me because I started to understand all the factors that it wasn’t just, oh, I’m depressed. It was, of course, a series of events that had led to this. And just unpacking that whole process was really difficult. It was really painful. But I did it with a lot of courage. Some days, I felt like I was going backwards, to be honest, not forwards. But I guess that’s how it is. It’s not linear lever, right? We just don’t go straight up. But it’s just a process. And when I got back, when we moved back to America, I was feeling much, much better.

And I realized that my journey, that pain that I had suffered, I didn’t want to waste that. I thought, you know, I think I’m going to tell my story because somebody maybe is going through something that’s similar. And I wanted to give them a sense of hope that they too could get better. You know, Chris, sometimes it’s like our story can encourage others, so.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: There’s a meme. It’s split down the center on the left side. From the bottom left to the top right is an arrow going up and it says success. And then on the right side, it’s the same arrow, but about halfway up, it starts squealing around in a big circle and then goes up to the top right. So it’s like, that’s what really success is really like going around in a circle, you know, up, down, around, back, forward, before it actually hits. Here is the person who goes from A to Z and succeeds without anything getting in the way. It happens, but it’s not the norm.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: At least that’s not, that wasn’t my journey. I also felt that, I mean, if I’m honest, of course, I wouldn’t want this experience to happen again to be, I would, you know, not want to repeat it. But I felt that I had much more understanding for people that struggle with mental wellness because when you haven’t been through it, you don’t know how it is. And there’s a lot of ideas about how, you know, things are, but when you don’t know, you don’t know. And so for me, it was a whole opening, a whole door. When I started thinking about my book, to be honest, Chris, I had never written a book. I guess I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know anybody in the industry. I didn’t know how I was going to do it. But I thought, you know what?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s good.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: I’m ready, you know, because it wasn’t about me. It was about helping others. And just if I could help one person, my book would have been worth it. So I did that. Yeah.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: And that’s the power of story, because we’re a story-oriented people around the world in any culture. Stories are people who have been doing it forever, sitting around a campfire, telling a story, grandparents sharing a story to a mom, to a daughter, all different kinds of ways of telling stories and doing it through different mediums, you know, through painting, through music, through movies. So that’s one of the power, I think, of being a peer is the power of our story.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: I felt like I also wanted to write the book that I would have wanted to read when I was going through it, because I wrote it like we’re sitting in the living room and I’m telling you my story. It’s honest, it’s vulnerable, it’s raw at some point, and it wasn’t easy. Things with my husband were great. We’re best friends, but marriages, it’s difficult when you say you’re going to love them in sickness and in health. It’s a wedding day. Of course, you’re going to say that. Then you got to do it, right?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: I mean, you got your fingers like, oh yeah, for sure.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: I hope she’s healthy. Right. Exactly. He completed his vows. He was so kind. It broke my heart because he gets his dream job and I’m a mess. So I’m like, great. This is really being supportive for him. I just felt so guilty.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Interesting because guilt, shame says we’re wrong. Guilt says we did something wrong. It’s interesting how when we have struggles with mental illness, we will often think that we are guilty, which means we think we’ve done something wrong. But we wouldn’t think that if we broke our leg. You would be like, oh my gosh, I’m such a bad wife and mother, I broke my leg, I’m awful, I should not exist. No. And if you did, we’d be like, really? Really? Right?

But have a little depression, have a little anxiety that nobody can see, right? Which complicates things because then it’s this ethereal thing. You’ve got this depression, whatever that is, we can’t, it’s not tangible, we can’t look at it. Then you get this idea of, I’ve done something morally wrong because to have guilt, you have to have a moral standard for guilt to happen. Guilt is connected to a right or wrong, which is really interesting because it’s black and white, but healing is not black and white.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Yes.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Yeah. Illness is not a morally based thing. It’s just being ill.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Also felt that a lot of people were vulnerable with their story because they started to tell me their story because I had told mine. And some people, even at the hospital, you have this idea that people that are suffering with mental health are going to look a certain way or be a certain way. And I got there and everybody looked so normal, you know, like in a way. But I feel like you can mask it so well. You can wear nice clothes. You can have your hair done. It’s not, you know, you don’t have to be jumping off the wall. And I feel like I was so surprised because a lot of people they drive past us. They work with us. They, we see them every day and we have no idea what they’re going through. And sometimes I feel like just being vulnerable and saying, hey, you know what, this happened to me. We can talk if you want or if it helps in any way.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: So. Peers, we live by the authority of our lived experience. We stand in our authority as peers by our lived experience.
It’s also a risk. It’s a risk to be able to say, I’m Veronica, this is my story. I’ll share it with you. And be risking the fact that they may not resonate with it, A, B, they may mock it, C, they may not take it seriously. And be okay in ourselves to say, it doesn’t matter how they react, this is my story, it’s valid, it’s true, and it has value regardless of someone else’s reaction. That’s a big problem being a peer recovery, being a PRS, is you’re rolling the dice. And sometimes that can be difficult. If someone doesn’t hear your story with respect or whatnot, but when they do and it makes an impact, then it’s worth it.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Some parts you just skip, maybe they’re too personal. So yeah. Well, my journey, and everybody has a different journey, but my journey was also faith-based. I feel like my faith grew really weak during this time. Maybe it wasn’t for my mom’s prayers. I don’t know where I would be today, to be honest. I know my husband really supported me, my family, my friends. I feel like a lot of the support is external, but there’s a part that they play in this role, but then there’s a lot that we have to do ourselves.

Nobody’s coming to save you. They’re not going to go to the treatment for you. You have to go every day or take your meds, do whatever that you need to be doing. And it takes a lot of effort and a lot of courage. But I feel like my family was my fuel. I knew that I wanted to stick around, but some days just the thoughts in my mind, I kept thinking they didn’t sign up for this. It would be better if I wasn’t here. Who hasn’t thought about that when you’re having that thought pattern? So it was really sad, but I’m glad that I could recover. I still practice the coping skills that I learned at the hospital.

In my second book, Honoring Your Recovery, I write about that because people kept saying, what happened afterwards? What happened to your family? I’m like, okay, this is not a Netflix episode thing. It’s about trying to help others. And the second book was more about my coping skills and the things that I still practice. Practical things, things like, not everything has to be perfect for you to enjoy your life. Trying not to be so hard on yourself, trying to accept your strengths, celebrating your successes. Sometimes we want a goal and we work towards it, and then instead of celebrating that we’re there, we’re on to the next thing, and it always feels like we’re chasing a moving target. We never get there.

And so that’s not fair, really, because we should stop and say, wow, I might not be where I want to be, but look at all the way I’ve come already. So just honoring that, challenging the negative thoughts, because do we have, you know, a certain, are we certain that this is really like this? Sometimes we’re so mean to ourselves, right? We think about things that are so negative. I don’t think we would, in our mind, we wouldn’t say that to somebody we don’t even like, right? I don’t know, just being kinder to ourselves.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Which is powerful. I used to tell people when I would coach to put down the bat.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Yes.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: And they look at me like, what bat? I’m like, the psychological bat you’re using to pummel yourself. They’re like, looking at me like, well, have you seen me? You know, like kind of that look like if you were me, you’d do the same thing. And I would say to them, only you can put the bat down. And then if you pick it back up, drop it again. Pick it back up, drop it again. Just getting used to dropping it and dropping it until finally you don’t go back to pick it up.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: That’s so powerful. I love that. Yeah.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: The last drop and then you’re done with it. You know, which is, which is, you know, it’s a process.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: I also learned at the hospital that I could do things differently. Sometimes we’re so committed to a strategy. We keep doing it over and over and over expecting different results. And we’re so committed because sometimes it works, but a lot of the times it doesn’t. So learning, you know, new skills, new ways of doing things, being a little bit more open to saying, oh, maybe I could really change this or, you know, not and even if it doesn’t go perfect, you know, since when do we do everything perfect the first time, right? It takes practice. So just being patient with the results, with the outcome, especially with our shortcomings.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Tell me more about that.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Well, I was a perfectionist at heart. So my value system was that my worth was tied into what I could do. And I was always producing everything, you know. Oh, don’t worry. You know, people would be like, can you do this? Sure. You know, everybody had my number. But when I got, you know, sick, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even make dinner. And so for me, that was such a sense of like worthlessness, you know, I couldn’t even, I couldn’t even think positive, you know, think positive, positively about myself because I thought, I’m not able to do anything today. Just the sense of not feeling good enough. I mean, that was times a thousand because I felt, well, if I can’t even take care of my family as a mom or as a wife.

So that was really difficult for me. But then learning that I can lower my expectations, not everything has to be perfect. That I can say, I need help. For me, those were almost prohibited words. Can you help me with this? Were you able to help me with this? It was just difficult to understand that I had to be more humble and more vulnerable and say, I’m sorry, I’m not going to be able to help you with this this time. I’m saying, no, I had to look it up in the dictionary. What is no? What does that mean? And familiarize myself with what it meant.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Well, I say no is a complete sentence.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Yes, exactly.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: I first heard that, a counselor told me that. She goes, do you realize no is a complete sentence? I go, what do you mean? She’s like, no, period, it’s a complete sentence. No, period, and it’s totally in bounds. I was like, man, it feels good to know things. You don’t know what you don’t know.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: I was also thinking that not only did I have to be more patient with myself, I also had to learn that the ways that I had acted in the past, I couldn’t feel bad about that because it was the best I knew how to do. And when we know better, we can do better. Maya Angelou says that, that when we know more things, when we learn new things, we can do better. But we can’t blame ourselves for having not had enough solutions or things that we could have done better in the past, because the guilt and just the regret, it doesn’t really help to move forward. And learning new things really helped me. And just understanding that social media for me was hard because I felt, how is this fair? I’m comparing my life inside of how I feel with how people look on the outside. That’s not a fair comparison, is it?

And I thought, we tend to do that. We think we have the worst life. We do everything wrong and everybody’s great and everybody has this life. And I felt that comparing myself with others was really difficult and it wasn’t helping at all. So I kind of withdrew from that and I thought, I’m going to run my own race and get better and do what I need to be doing. And I felt that that gave me an apartment to take care of myself, you know, and just say, I have to focus on myself. And that was huge for me. I’ve become a certified coach and I study a lot. And sometimes people say, oh, did you see this post? I’m like, no, I’m sorry. And I feel like I’m not going to die because I didn’t see that somebody went on a trip, right? I mean, I feel like FOMO is a thing, but I’ve stopped worrying about it so much because when you’re doing what you’re really excited about doing.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: So it sounds like kind of you’re talking about, almost if you want to call it like death by comparison, our society is so much about that. It’s like, oh, well, this person has that and they look like this. So I should have that or this to the other. If I don’t, I don’t measure up and then, you know, negative, negative, negative.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: I thought that I had to focus on myself and on my self-care and trying to get better and finding ways that I could get stronger and healthier was so key for me. Because if I would have started to focus on what this person posted and how she’s doing, sometimes we compare our life from the inside with somebody else’s on the outside. And that’s not a fair comparison. I feel like that’s really unfair. And we don’t know what happens in the inside of homes with people. We have no idea. We just know that they post when everybody looks pretty, and when somebody has had a beautiful trip. And, you know, but we don’t know what goes on. And it doesn’t seem real a lot of the times. And I’m not bashing social media. I know it’s a great tool to connect with people that you haven’t seen in a while, or people that you’ve seen yesterday.

But it’s, it’s, I’ve learned that when you have to, if you have to compare yourself, I feel it’s better to compare where you were from where you are now, and the progress you’ve made, because everybody’s different. We don’t run somebody else’s race. We just have to run our own and do the best we can with our life. Our abilities, the things we’ve learned, can always help others. So instead of it being a competitive thing, we’re out to help others and to serve in ways that we can make an impact.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: One of the things I read in your book, you said that leave a legacy inside somebody’s heart with something you taught them that helped them. I think that’s a beautiful idea. Tell me about what that means to you.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: On the treatment and how many doctors we had had and the therapist and even the assistants that were so kind to us. On the worst days, they would always smile and they would always be so positive. I thought, wow, these people, how can they be so positive if we’re in such a bad mood all the time or so negative? Not in a bad mood, but when you’re not very friendly or you’re just doing your thing. I thought that they deposited something in me that was that they were caring, that they were compassionate, that they listened. Sometimes people say, oh, how are you doing? Oh, fine, and they’re on the next thing. How many really, really listen to say, how are you doing? Matter of fact, people have to pay professionals to tell them how they’re feeling, right? And so the gift of presence, of listening, of being a friend, of being even a good listener is so, it’s huge. You know?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Yeah, because you think of the number of people who do they actually really want to know how you’re feeling, because you go somewhere like, hey, how’s it going? And you start to go, well, that’s it. They’re like, that was just a perfunctory thing.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: I say, I don’t really mean it’s just a greeting. I know.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: I’m not really interested in you. I’m way more interested in me. But thanks for applying for my attention.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: It’s funny. It’s funny. And also we think of a legacy being it, you know, cash or the things we leave to our kids, but a legacy that you leave in others. I thought, you know, even teachers that have to a school or a coach that encourage us or somebody that, you know, thought we were great when we didn’t even believe in ourselves, you know, and I feel like all of that, it really does take a village to be encouraged to people that say, I did all on my own or I’m self-made. Really, I don’t know, remembering of all the people that helped us is so important. I feel like I’ve appreciated more of the people at the hospital when I started to think about, you know, the legacy that they leave in us.

So after all these experiences, when we moved to Virginia and I published my book, I was volunteering at the St. Mary’s Hospital, but not just general services. And then somebody told me about NAMI. So I took interest and I realized that I really wanted to be a part of that. And the first thing that I wanted to do was in our own voice, which is you tell your story at the hospital and you listen to the patients, and you talk to them on the behavioral wing, and it’s really interesting how your story can impact them. It gives them hope. And then I did the peer to peer, and then I facilitated peer to peer.

And then I really wanted to become a peer specialist because I thought, if I can help somebody else in a more professional way, that would be really cool. So what happened was that the pandemic hit, and you didn’t have enough hours and all of that. But it was still a good time for me to partner with all the people that I had already been able to help. And life coaching is a lot like that. I feel like when you’ve tried to make sense of your past, you can be more present in the present. You know, being like what is going on now. And have a brighter future. I think I’ve tried to make sense of my past just to give myself that piece, if you can say that, and then be more in the present. I lost two sisters to cancer and two of my best friends.

And to be honest, I’m 52 years old. That’s a lot of loss for my age. At least that’s what I think. You know, and I have this high respect for life in all honesty. And I feel like, okay, this happened. Okay, I get it. But now you’re here and you’re breathing and you still have a future. So what are you going to do with the time you have left? So that’s mostly why I’ve, I mean, I love, I mean, I love peer recovery. It’s almost like, it’s like what I said at the beginning. It’s a purpose is something that you give your heart out for your clients, the patients, but I still feel that being present and thinking about the future and what you really want to do about that dream, it’s so important because we can’t, we can’t die with that dream inside of us, you know? And I know a lot of things have happened. I don’t know if we’re recording this.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Yeah, the whole thing is recording. No, it’s all recording.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Oh, I don’t know if-

CHRIS NEWCOMB: I’ll go back and shop it up.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Okay. We can- I feel like our dream, that thing that we wanted to do when we were kids. Okay. I know we can’t be Superman, but we are kind of Superman to somebody, you know? What did we want to do when we were young adults? So we wanted to change the world. What were we excited about? What was our passion? And of course, then this happened. See? This happened and we struggled or we still struggle with mental health. But see, that dream hasn’t gone away. It’s covered, but it’s there, you know?

And I feel like just uncovering that, discovering your purpose. What are you about? What do you love? What would you like to do? If I told you, you don’t have to worry about money, about a job, about anything. You have all the time in the world. What would you do that you would just love doing? If you had one more hour of the day, what would you do? If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do? And I feel like these are valid questions because some people don’t give themselves a chance. No.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: They’ve had negative voices tell them, you can’t do that.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: You can’t do that. You’re from the wrong side of the track. What are your friends going to say? What do you think you are? How are you going to do this? You don’t know anything. Like you don’t know anybody. And just saying, you know what? I might not have all of that, but I still want to do this. And how do people that do it do it? They had to start somewhere, right?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: It’s hard to beat the man or woman who doesn’t quit.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Exactly. I learned a phrase from inspirational speaker, winners never quit and quitters never win. And I love that because things are difficult for everybody. It’s not like it’s a, oh, I think I’ll do this and the next day you’re like a mega millionaire. I mean, ask anybody that succeeded how many times they had to fail before. But we just give up, you know? And we give up so easily.

And I feel that that a lot of people feel, you know, that they’ve had too many tumbles in their life and they’re not fit enough and they can’t, it’s too late or they’re too old or too young or, or they’re not, you know, they’re out of shape or whatever it is that they’re saying. But, you know, what if we could think about our story and our negative experiences as the stepping stones that have brought us all the way to where we are today? And who we become? Because I wouldn’t have the patience, the resilience, the empathy, the encouragement, you know, all of these things if I wouldn’t have had the experiences that I had. And of course, it wasn’t fun going through that, but it was almost like life school, you know, preparing you for what I was going to be doing afterwards.

When I was writing my second book, in the middle, I mean, supposedly, I was much more built up because I was doing all the recovery skills, and I still was feeling better. But in the middle of my book, my sister passed, and it was like, I have two choices now. I can go all the way down to where I started, or I can honor my recovery. And that was the day that I named that book, because I thought, I’m going to honor the progress that I’ve made. All the effort that I put into keeping all these coping skills, into putting effort, into feeling better, into thinking myself happy. Sometimes you just have to decide that you’re going to be happy. Because if you’re going to wait to see how you feel, chances are, it’s not happening.

So I could have said, well, my sister passed and now everything is like it was before. And it’s not that I didn’t grieve her, it’s not that I don’t miss her. I miss her every day, she died on my birthday. Of course, I’m always going to think about her. But I’m thinking, and I don’t say this for people to, but I’m saying there’s always going to be something that’s challenging. But what are we going to do? What is our response going to be? Everybody has had something. I mean, some people have everything and they don’t have their health. So people have gone through things that are unthinkable. And yet, you know, they said, I’m going to make a go of my life and I’m going to pursue my dream. Because what is career? Doing what you want to do and not knowing how to do it or if you’re going to even succeed, or being 80 years old and thinking, I should have done this and just that regret. Which one is going to be the scariest?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: For me, it would be the regret.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Also, the part of doing what’s in your heart is that nobody else can do it for you. That’s why Life Coaches, they inspire people to go for your dream, set some goals, even if you make baby steps towards your progress, it’s still progress. Someday, you’re going to get there and you’re going to be so excited. Also, just celebrating that your life is going to be so much valuable. If you’re looking forward to it, if you’re always in the past, because we can’t fix the past. We really can’t.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: I think it’s cool what you do because you marry the inspirational parts of Life Coaching to the experience you have of being a peer and a Peer Recovery Specialist. A lot of times, you’ll have one but not the other. You have a Life Coach who isn’t a Peer or you have a Peer who’s not a Life Coach. And you’ve got both and they complement each other.

A lot of times in the Peer world, there’s this thing of like, oh, well, you can’t work with a doctor. Oh, counselors are bad because they don’t have peer experience. And I think sometimes we are being cautious, but sometimes we’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater because it is clinical expertise that’s good. There’s coaching expertise that’s good. For our side of things, the lived experience is what trumps those things not because it’s better, it’s because they’re different, but you bring both to the table, which I think is great. It’s well-rounded.

So you can speak a language that is not only you can do it, you can get better, but also because I’ve been there. What’s a dream that you have that you’re pursuing through all of this, that we talk about, if you’re writing your funeral and you want to make sure you had one thing done? Yes. What’s one thing you want to finish?

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: To me, what I want to do is I work mostly with women, but I want to inspire them to discover their purpose and to become their best version. Because I feel like women put their priorities in their kids and their family, they take care of everything, of everybody, but maybe they’re last on the list. By the time their kids are out of school, then it’s like, what am I supposed to do now? How do they redefine themselves? Just finding their passion, what they really wanted to do before, that dream that they left on the shelf, things that they really wanted to do. Then either because they were working at a career that they didn’t like or they did, but they had no time.

Now it’s like another season and a lot of women that I work with are late 40s, 60s, and just finding ways to give back. A lot of them don’t want to go back to their corporate job. They want to do something different. A lot of them are retiring. How does that look? What am I supposed to do? So just another season of finding what their purpose is in a new direction, and also becoming, I’m a huge advocate for self-development and just becoming a better version of yourself. Because I feel like we’re evolving all the time. Everything is changing all the time. I feel like if we get stuck in a way of being that doesn’t help us move forward, that’s a shame because there’s so many books you can learn or podcasts you can hear, and change things. It doesn’t have to be huge.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: No, it doesn’t. And as we wrap up, I think about the small steps that add up and make big changes in people’s lives. And you’re helping them with the Peer Recovery Special designation and working as a life coach. And I think it’s amazing. And I just want to thank you for what you’re doing and for your time here to encourage those who are working as Peer Recovery Specialists and those who are considering coming into the fold.

VERONICA CASTRO-ALBANO: Thank you.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: I want to thank our listeners for listening to the Peer Into Recovery Podcast, which is brought to you by the Virginia Peer Recovery Specialist Network and Mental Health America of Virginia. And if you like our show and would like to subscribe to the podcast, please visit our website at www.vprsn.org. And please leave us a brief review on iTunes. In the meantime, please take care of yourselves, everyone. We’ll see you soon.