• 15 Feb, 2025
• Dr. Bea Mackay

Transform Your Life: Dr. Bea Mackay’s Insights on Trauma, Relationships, Emotional Well-being, Lasting Change and Healing

Magazica: Welcome everyone. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Bea Mackay, a counseling psychologist dedicated to helping individuals navigate their emotional journeys. Bea’s path wasn’t a straight line. It began on her family farm, continued as a physical education teacher, and ultimately led her to the field of psychology.

Her diverse background gives her a unique perspective on the challenges people face and the strategies that can lead to positive change in their lives. Her personal and professional approach makes her insights particularly relevant to us.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have Dr. Bea Mackay, author, registered psychologist, and thought leader. Bea, welcome to our magazine.

Dr. Bea Mackay: I’m delighted to be here.

Magazica: Bea, considering your diverse background from farm life to physical education, and then to counseling psychology, how did these early experiences in your life shape your understanding of the human experience and ultimately your path toward counseling psychology?

Dr. Bea Mackay: Well, I was raised in a time when religion and schools had corporal punishment. The belief was to “spare the rod and spoil the child.” I was raised on a farm, and my parents were hardworking farmers who didn’t have much time to parent, and when they did, it was often harsh. When I became a mom, I wanted a parenting style that wasn’t as harsh. This is important in my life and has shaped who I am and what I want for people.

Magazica: You mentioned that your upbringing, particularly regarding discipline, influenced your approach to parenting and eventually your professional work. Can you share how these early experiences impacted your decision to help others break negative cycles and how that relates to the readers of Magazica?

Dr. Bea Mackay: My experiences were both positive and negative. My earliest memory is when I was nine months to a year old, in our farm kitchen without running water or electricity. My mother had just received her first pair of eyeglasses, and she was happy. When my mother was happy, there was a ripple effect, and everyone was happy. This powerful influence shaped what I’m doing today because when people are happy, there’s a ripple effect, and life is good.

The punishment part was too harsh for me. There’s a difference between discipline and harsh beatings. I looked for a different parenting style and found the Dreikers’ approach, based on logical and natural consequences. This helped me, and it’s what I do in my work today—helping people shift from reasoning to strategies when reasoning doesn’t work.

Magazica: Fantastic. In one of your writings, you describe a sense of belonging when you entered your master’s program in counseling psychology. What was it about this field that resonated so deeply with you, and what do you hope your work is providing to people?

Dr. Bea Mackay: I felt that when I was working with people and could influence them in positive ways, helping them change their lives, it was like, “Yes, I’m home.” I was meant to do this. It comes from making other people happy and creating good feelings in them. That’s why I felt at home in my career.

Magazica: Fantastic. Many people find traditional therapy intimidating. What inspired you to create “Beainbalance” as an accessible platform with blogs and quizzes? How does this approach help people who might be hesitant to seek traditional counseling?

Dr. Bea Mackay: Well, I want to give you a historical development of my career.

Magazica: Please, we’d love that.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Early in my career, I was invited by a doctor who refers a lot of her patients to me. One night at dinner, she gave me some feedback that blew me away. She said, “I refer a lot of my patients for therapy, and at their next appointment, I ask them how it was, and they say it was good to talk to someone. But when I refer people to you, at their next appointment, they’re already making the changes they need to make.”

I did not know I was doing anything different from my colleagues. At the time, I told her, “I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m glad you realize it’s from the therapy, and you keep referring people to me.” I said I would find out, and that’s what my work has been about finding what makes for the action component of therapy. Talk therapy is good, but sometimes people can talk forever and there’s no change. What makes for the change is having people access the sensations in their body as they’re talking.

This connection with sensations is powerful because when you access the sensations, they synthesize with logical data, creating new neural pathways with different sensations. When you feel different, you behave differently. It’s transformative change, but it feels normal. I give people feedback on their nonverbal cues, like when they flush or show certain expressions. They often don’t realize how much expression they show and I feed it back to them. This helps them access the senstations which synthesis with their logic. This forms new neural pathways and changes sensations, which drive their actions.

My work is about helping people get back to processing their emotions. Babies are born knowing how to process emotions, but we unlearn it and try to manage emotions instead. Managing emotions creates issues. My book is called “When you Let Go of the Outcome and Let Things Fall Together” because when you are not trying to control the outcome things can come together in ways that it couldn’t come together when you are trying to avoid them.

I teach people to stay with the sensations and breathe through them. The waves of sensations get smaller and eventually disappear. The brain forms new neural pathways, and the old sensations do not return. This is how you heal from past trauma—when you talk about it without the unpleasant sensations, you’re healed.

Magazica: I was going to talk about trauma later, but as the topic came up, let’s discuss it now. Your work focuses on helping people navigate life’s challenges and heal from past traumas. What are some common misconceptions people have about trauma, and what’s the basic first step you take to start the healing process with the people you see?

Dr. Bea Mackay: Well, I start with just educating people to pay attention to whatever sensations they feel. I tell them not to try and change them, but to accept them as they are. It doesn’t matter if they might be overreacting. What’s important is acknowledging the sensation they’re feeling. In the hear and now. I teach people to reconnect with these sensations. Once they experience the creation of new neural pathways, they become more engaged in therapy.

Magazica: Sometimes, when facing trauma, people might be in a state of denial or suppression. Do you encourage them to acknowledge their experiences openly?

Dr. Bea Mackay: Trauma itself isn’t the problem; it’s whether you’re healed from it or not. When you are healed physically and psychologically, trauma can make you wiser and more resilient. Unhealed trauma goes underground in our subconscious and can cause developmental and emotional arrests. For example, a woman I worked with had an affair for years and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t stop. Through therapy, we uncovered a memory from when she was three years old at her father’s funeral. She saw the pain on her daddy’s face and decided, at a young age, not to have children to avoid the pain of losing them. This unhealed trauma led to her actions.

Many of us have parts of ourselves arrested at a young age due to trauma. These parts operate from a place of pain, trying to avoid something they don’t even understand.

Magazica: Beautiful. Let’s transition to our next topic relationships. In one of your blog posts, you discuss relationship communication skills. What are some simple yet effective strategies our readers can use to improve communication in their relationships, and how do these skills relate to general well-being?

Dr. Bea Mackay: I’m currently writing a book called “Effective Communication Skills for Everyday Life.” One strategy I call “putting the inside outside.” If your partner does something that gives you goosebumps, share that with them. In therapy, I model this by telling clients how their words impact me. I coach couples to say what they need to say and then ask about the impact on their partner. This helps them feel heard and connected.

We tend to keep our emotions to ourselves, but connection is essential. Technology can make us feel robotic and disconnected. Simple actions like expressing that someone heard you, saw you, or made you feel safe are crucial. These simple yet powerful expressions can transform relationships.

In couples therapy, I learned that progress can sometimes lead to discomfort because it’s unfamiliar. People need to develop new neural pathways to handle positive sensations. Breathing through these sensations helps them get comfortable with progress.

Magazica: Wow. You mentioned you’re writing a book on effective communication. Was your first book “Let Go of Outcome”?

Dr. Bea Mackay: No, my first book was “How to Work with the Self in Conflict.” It’s a manual for therapists based on the gestalt technique. It helps people access sensations and have a conversation with themselves, which is different from role-playing. My second book, “The Power of Connection,” is also for the lay person, written in easy language to ensure it’s practical and helpful.

Magazica: Okay. And I really like all the titles. But I really like the next one, “Let Go of Outcome.” That’s a very powerful message.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Yes.

Magazica: The book title itself is so powerful, and fascinating.

Dr. Bea Mackay: That’s the book I started writing when I was finally able to write for the general population. When I turned 70, I went into a bit of a funk, a bit of a depression. The reason was that I thought it was too late for me to share what I knew with the world. A former client of mine invited me out for dinner one night. When I arrived, he asked me how I was, and I said I was fine. An hour into dinner, I admitted I was in a funk. I don’t remember what he said to me for the next hour, but when I walked out of that restaurant, I put up my umbrella in the rainy Vancouver weather and thought, “I can dream again.” That’s when I started writing “Let Go of Outcome.”

Magazica: Fantastic. And your fourth book was “Train Your Brain”?

Dr. Bea Mackay: Train Your Brain is a book I’m working on as a sports psychologist for two young girls who are number one in Canada for their age group. It’s about the relationship between yourself and tennis. At that top level, the difference is not in skills but in how your brain works and how you treat yourself.

Magazica: Fantastic! Good to know about all your books and upcoming ones. Now, back to our main topic. Your blog features posts on decision-making and the pendulum.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Yes, I did my doctoral research on decision-making. These quizzes come out of that.

Magazica: Yes, you mentioned going through a divorce and the sleepless nights trying to make decisions. Can you tell us more?

Dr. Bea Mackay: I chose decision-making as my research focus. I chose people who were already in therapy deciding whether or not to end their marriages. I used a methodology called Q-sort, translating theory into everyday language for sorting. By sorting these items, we could tell if they were conflicted. After six sessions of Two-Year Work, we’d have them sort again to see if they had made a decision and the quality of it. This method helped so much that I created a hard copy for clients, eventually putting it online as a computer form. It’s called Decision Quiz.

Magazica: Yes, viewers can access a shorter version online for free at decisionquiz.com.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Yes.

Magazica: It’s fascinating. Two of our team members took it and found it very helpful.

Dr. Bea Mackay: That’s great to hear.

Magazica: With your clients’ emotional journeys, including dreams, how can understanding our dreams, visions, or mental maps give us insights into our daily lives and emotional well-being?

Dr. Bea Mackay: I’m halfway through writing a book on working with dreams without needing to know their meanings. It’s always fun to know what they mean, but you don’t have to. I opened “Let Go of Outcome” with a nightmare I had before presenting at an international conference. I woke up at 5 a.m. with cold sensations of terror. I knew I was over-reacting , however it did not stop the difficult sensations of terror. Fortunately I knew what to do I lay in bed and breathed through the sensations of white cold terror causing from my head to toes for two hours. When I got up, they were gone, and I haven’t had a panic attack since. You can survive a panic attack by breathing through the sensations. If you’re not experienced, it’s good to have a therapist as a container, reassuring you that you’re okay.

Knowing you can handle it frees you to do what you want without avoiding sensations. When you let go of the outcome things can come together in a new way.

Magazica: While you were talking about writing a book on dreams, I remembered reading C.G. Jung’s “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” and “Man and His Symbols.”

Dr. Bea Mackay: Yes, those are great works.

Yes, well, he is very well known. One way to work with dreams is to go with images, symbols, and metaphors. But you don’t have to do that. I had a fellow come in who was having nightmares every night. We worked on it in our session, and I told him to re-enter the dream letting go of logic and see himself handling it well. The hardest part is letting go of logic. I taught him how to do that, and we practiced it in our sessions. Several weeks later, he said he no longer had nightmares. If he wakes up from a bad dream, he lies there and imagines different scenarios where it turns out well.

That’s the book I’m writing now. You don’t have to know what the dream means. It’s usual to want to know, but you don’t have to.

Magazica: Oh, yeah, I’ll wait for your book. It will be more accessible for me. Jung’s work is more classic, so I’ll wait for your book.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Well, I’d like to say something about jargon. I don’t use any jargon in my therapy. You don’t have to learn any therapist-specific language. It’s just your own everyday language. That’s one reason it works with so many people.

Magazica: Good for us.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Yes, and I don’t like to put people in boxes. If someone comes in and says they have ADHD or they’re paranoid, I say most of society is in the normal bell curve. Rather than saying you’re paranoid, say you scare yourself too much. If you own it, you can do it more, or less, or do something totally different.

Magazica: This alternate framing of situations can be very proactive and have a positive impact on people.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Yes, it gives them a sense of agency.

Magazica: True.

Dr. Bea Mackay: For example, anxiety and depression are not causes or conditions. They’re the symptoms. When we get anxious, we’re scaring ourselves with our self-talk, and we don’t even know it. I get people to own that they’re scaring themselves. They’re usually trying to protect themselves from some horrible fate of sensations. Depression is when people feel trapped in a situation, more psychologically than physically, and they cope by getting depressed because they feel they cannot solve it.

Magazica: That’s enlightening. What’s the one thing you wish everyone knew about mental well-being, and how can individuals take a proactive role in their emotional health?

Dr. Bea Mackay: It’s the quality of sensations that determine how we think and act. If you feel different, you act differently. People don’t realize they can change the quality of sensations by creating new neural pathways, just by breathing through these waves. If people stay with the sensations and others let them, they can handle it. People are afraid to know what they know because they’re afraid they’ll do something different, but it’s helpful for them.

Magazica: And for dealing with that, always get professional help, Beainbalance.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Yes.

Magazica: You’ve said you’re halfway through a book on dreams and writing a book on effective communication. Any other future projects we can expect?

Dr. Bea Mackay: Yes, I have a whole list. One is an almanac for children, targeted at ages six to eight, called “How to Do Life,” covering topics like preventing accidents and handling abuse. Another is a book on doing couples counseling on your own. Relationships are interactive, and if one person changes, it impacts the partner. People can do couples counseling even if their partner doesn’t want to go.

Magazica: Fantastic! We’ll be waiting for all your beautiful work. Bea, thank you very much for this conversation. You’ve changed many perceptions in me to become a better, more sensitive person. Thank you.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Magazica: Definitely. Please let this not be the only time we converse. We will talk again if you allow us.

Dr. Bea Mackay: I’d love to. I want to get my word out to the population.

Magazica: When your books on effective communication and dreams come out, we’ll have a detailed talk.

Dr. Bea Mackay: Good. They can benefit from reading my two published books in the meantime.

Magazica: Definitely. Thank you for your time and presence, Dr. Bea.

Dr. Bea Mackay: You’re welcome. My delight to be here. Bye-bye.

Magazica: Bye-bye.