Beyond the Armor - A Conversation with Catia Hernandez Holm and Melissa Correa

To connect with Catia and become a client, visit- catiaholm.com

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What does it really mean to heal? To connect? To drop our armor and find genuine relationships in a divided world? In this premiere episode of Couch Time with Cat, we flip the script as veteran journalist Melissa Correa interviews therapist, coach, and bestselling author Kat about the heart behind this new show.

Through an honest conversation between best friends, we explore how personal experiences – from postpartum depression and IVF journeys to healing childhood trauma – have shaped Cat's approach to therapy and life. "My heart breaks and grows every day," she shares, capturing the paradox of holding both devastation and hope that drives her work.

Using vivid metaphors about "marinating" in our environments, Cat explains how we absorb beliefs, patterns, and identities from those around us, often without realizing it. This awareness becomes our first step toward intentional living, deciding what to keep and what to discard from our upbringing and culture. She candidly dispels the myth of the perfect therapist, sharing moments of motherhood frustration that remind us we're all works in progress.

The conversation takes a powerful turn when discussing what Cat calls "level eight" – the deep human needs we all share beneath our surface identities. Beyond the tribal signaling of bumper stickers and social media posturing lies our universal yearning for genuine connection, safety, and being seen. Through small, seemingly simple interactions, we can create spaces where people feel safe enough to remove their armor and simply be themselves.

Whether you're deep in your healing journey or just beginning to wonder what that means, this show offers a gentle check-in and practical wisdom for navigating life's challenges. Join us as we explore the messy, beautiful work of becoming more authentically ourselves – and finding others brave enough to do the same.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Couch Time with Kat
• 1:51 Personal Journey and Healing Paths
• 4:48 Systems Thinking and Relationships
• 7:56 How We Absorb Our Environment
• 13:55 Navigating Change and Therapy
• 19:04 Finding Authenticity in a Heavy World
• 24:32 Connection Beyond the Surface
• 28:10 Real Questions and Moving Forward

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Couch Time with Cat, your safe place for real conversation and a gentle check-in. KWVH presents Couch Time with Cat.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Welcome to Couch Time with Cat mental wellness. With a friendly voice. I'm your host, Cat, a therapist, coach, best-selling author and TEDx speaker. I've spent years supporting people around the world as they navigate healing, growth and everything in between. This show is a place for honest conversations. It's where we take a breath, sit down together and talk about the things that really matter Our struggles, our stories, our hopes and our capacity to change. We're coming to you from Wimberley Valley Radio, right here in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. Whether you're deep in your healing or just starting to wonder what that even means, you are welcome here.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Today marks the beginning of this show, and before we dive into stories, guests and soul deep dialogue, I wanted to start with something personal. I believe if we're going to travel this journey together, you should know who you're writing with, so I've invited someone very special to me to help do just that. Melissa Correa is a veteran journalist, a seasoned speechwriter and one of the most respected storytellers in media. She spent nearly two decades asking the right questions and giving voice to stories that matter, and she's also my best friend, lucky me. Melissa has seen me through the messy middles and the breakthroughs. She knows my heart my work and why I care so deeply about the people I serve. Today, she's flipping the script and taking the mic to interview me so you can get a feel for who I am, why the show exists and what you can expect from our time together. This is where our journey begins. Welcome, melissa, hi, welcome back. Welcome back, bienvenida.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Thank you so much. You know, in the last episode we really talked about kind of the journey that you know for you to get here, the education where your career took you. The word seemed to be turned right. So it's restaurant and bar manager turned writer, turned TEDx speaker, turned conscious parenting coach, turned student again, you know, to go back and get your degree so that you could turn into a licensed marriage and family therapist, and so we took a look at how that got you to where you are today. But breaking news, folks, she's authored two books and in both of them I'm not spilling any juicy details that she hasn't already spilled. Yourself, Catia, you've really put it out there, these personal traumas that have shaped the woman you are today. So let's talk a little bit about the woman behind the mic. Look at, maybe the last 10 to 15 years of your life has challenged you in a way that has essentially encouraged you to do the work that you're doing today.

Speaker 2: 3:13

Are you asking what events have pushed me toward this path?

Speaker 1: 3:20

Yes, yes, I am, yes, yes, I am.

Speaker 2: 3:41

Wow For sure, becoming a mother twice over, that has been completely life changing from the inside out. Both times I experienced postpartum depression. My second baby came to us, I say, with a mix of God and IVF, so going through an IVF journey was really challenging. Being a married woman and creating a marriage that I really love and that we love together, that has been that I really love and that we love together, that has been fortifying from the inside out and creating friendships and sustaining them and cultivating them. That has led me here also.

Speaker 2: 4:19

And then mostly well, maybe not mostly, but additionally healing journey healing from childhood traumas or traumas that I experienced as a young woman. Every time I heal that part, I see the world a little differently, and as I heal and as I look at my own really challenging experiences, I have so much more compassion for other people, and so I often like to say my heart breaks and grows every day. It's just. I hold the tension between absolutely devastated because people have to endure, and then also so incredibly hopeful because people do endure and they grow and they hope and they reach for better and more peace and more love, and so it's that combination that led me to be a therapist.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Who were some of your clients? Who were some of these people who you've broken, grown with?

Speaker 2: 5:22

They are from all walks of life and the main through line is that they're willing to have somebody walk with them. That is the most courageous part To me. I've been a client of a therapist. All good helpers get help, I say, and sometimes that's the scary part. I was actually talking to somebody yesterday and she said the scariest part of finding a therapist is walking into the, is finding one making the appointment and walking in. That was her experience. I was talking to a friend yesterday and so I know that that is a big leap for people. It's a big leap for me to trust somebody with my story and so, even though they come from all walks of life, that's the through line.

Speaker 1: 6:17

Is it primarily women?

Speaker 2: 6:19

I see men, women, couples, families, so that's multiple people in the room at the same time. Really anybody who? My training allows me to see all ages. I primarily focus on 18 and up, but I can certainly help and support an adolescent if they need it.

Speaker 1: 6:41

You know I'll say as your best friend, I've won the lotto of having a BFF who's a therapist Because I've called Katya a time or two with my own personal dramas and you've and you've guided me through meditations and breathing exercises and really held my hand as I see the other side. You know your, your business acumen says marriage and family therapy. I am not married, nor do I have children of my own. I don't have my own family, but you very much help me in so many ways. Also know that you've worked with, with teenagers. What do you want people to know when they hear marriage and family therapists? Do you gotta have?

Speaker 2: 7:25

both to get your help. That's a really great question. That training, all it means, is that that's how I was trained. So there are two different designations. There's something called licensed professional counselor and they are trained to primarily work with the one individual and work with the presenting problem. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist associate. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist associate. My training says that I think of things in terms of context and system. So even though I work with individuals, when they come to me with their problem, my training is such that I think about their whole work system or their family ecosystem or their friend system or the cultural system. So I'm not saying, oh Melissa, your problem is really xyz. I really take it much broader and think where is Melissa in context to her colleagues, her family, her culture, what is happening in the entire system? So a marriage and family therapist thinks in a systems context and so no, you don't have to be married or have children to come see me. That's just. It's just a systems way of thinking.

Speaker 1: 8:49

But how much of our childhood, of our family, of our friends who we choose to bring into our lives because we think they're enriching our lives? How much do all these other players have in my starring role show?

Speaker 2: 9:06

100%.

Speaker 1: 9:08

So much.

Speaker 2: 9:10

So much, yes, so much.

Speaker 1: 9:12

You know this for a fact. You know this from your own life.

Speaker 2: 9:17

I know this from my own life, I know it from my client experiences, I know it from it is we are marinating in the people that we are around. So if you put a piece of chicken in a lime marinade, it's going to absorb the lime. These are our family and friends. Yeah, we are the chicken.

Speaker 1: 9:44

So the decision Tough news for me I'm a vegan.

Speaker 2: 9:48

What do you marinate? Mushrooms.

Speaker 1: 9:50

I guess, so Sweet potato yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:52

Something we are absorbing the essence of the people around us, the cities we live in, the churches we go to.

Speaker 1: 10:07

And we don't know this is happening right, impacted and, and dare I say, influenced. You know, in the, in the life and times that we live in, that so many people actually are controlling the way we think and the decisions we make.

Speaker 2: 10:27

Does that take people by surprise? It takes a lot of people by surprise. I'm in a little bit of a silo Because my friends are very emotionally aware I think that I've self-selected, you know, as I age, that type of profile of person, because that's really important to me and I want the people in my life to be loving and kind and open and I in turn want to be like that for them. So the people in my life do.

Speaker 1: 10:56

But do you think you got there because you've done the work? Do you think you were selecting the same type of people 20 years ago?

Speaker 2: 11:04

Oh no, not even close.

Speaker 1: 11:06

See yes, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 11:07

I see what you're saying. No, this was not always how I operated. No, no, no, no, I didn't understand that I was marinating and as I have understood that more, I've been more deliberate in my choices. In friends, in churches, in the books I read, in the music I listen to. But this is often one of the very first conversations I have with clients. I take them through this metaphor about basically take them through this metaphor about basically marinating.

Speaker 2: 11:37

I use an apple and an onion as an example and I say this is where your autonomy comes in. You get to decide whether you want to absorb those essences, if you're okay with that, or if you want to let some rest, if you want to let some go by the wayside. Because this wasn't always you. This is what culture imposed on you, or the decade imposed on you, or your parents, or religion imposed on you, or your caregivers or friends, whatever it is. This is not the way you are or nor have always been. This was an idea that you absorbed as truth because you were too young to do anything otherwise.

Speaker 1: 12:16

So for folks who decide to go on this journey with you and listen to the show, is change as simple as removing the onion or the apple from the marinade and poof, you don't have the issue again. Or in so many ways. How long does it take to take the stink off In so many ways?

Speaker 2: 12:34

how long does it take to take the stink off? That's a great question. The first point is awareness. Once you're aware that you've been marinating, a lot changes. There isn't a prescription of time that I can say, oh, it'll take six months. But once that awareness happens, you really change the way you see the world and it changes the way you interact with people and you start to think wait, do I want this? Or it's just the way it's always been, so to speak, and so slowly, decision by decision, you get to start deciding maybe I do want this, great, maybe I don't want it at all. And so the client becomes they really have a huge sense of agency in their own life. So, instead of autopilot, you're choosing what you want.

Speaker 1: 13:29

And so is therapy a straight line, or is it like the squiggle of your own life, the work.

Speaker 2: 13:35

It is most definitely a squiggle, but I think that that should be comforting.

Speaker 1: 13:40

Yeah, to the patient right, Because they're going to try. They're exploring a new boundary.

Speaker 2: 13:45

Most definitely. You're exploring, you're getting to know yourself in a new way. You decide you don't want to go that way. That's right. And also the people in your life are getting used to this new person. So we are not people in vacuums. You know we exist, like I said in a context. So as you change, I get to see that and I get to hold space for that and then I get to decide do I want to change with you or not? Yeah, you just got a new dog. I did Pop-Tart, pop-tart. I love Poppy.

Speaker 1: 14:17

I call her a biohazard terrorist. She is not potty trained yet, but we're getting there and it's interesting. Looking at Pop-Tart, because I love her, I know that I got her from a rescue. I know that her previous owner surrendered her, so I know that she wasn't properly trained, she wasn't cared for. We're going to get her teeth cleaned and so really, in looking at Pop Tart, katya, I've seen her as people. I wouldn't go so far as saying men are dogs or women are dogs, but maybe we are dogs and so it gives me a lot of grace for people. Right, we're all carrying our own things. We've all maybe been mishandled or not cared for or don't have the right training or the skills yet, but we get there.

Speaker 2: 15:06

It's new and it's tedious until it's not yes, and you're my best friend, and this is a change that you've decided to make. Yes, and now you've decided to make it, and now I've decided to make it too Right. We got Pop-Tarts, treats and toys, but that's just an example of somebody in my life is changing and now I'm deciding to change with them.

Speaker 1: 15:30

But that's not easy. Sometimes that takes a lot of other people off their autopilot, yes, and we get pushback with those family and friends.

Speaker 2: 15:38

Yes, and something I like to encourage or just drop or leave and tell my clients is you've been working on this change with a professional, whoever you're interacting with, who's now experiencing this change. They're experiencing it for the first time. So just give them a minute. Be a pop star. Yeah, have some grace. Yeah, let them come into this new space on their own time. That's going to keep the connection, build the relationship, instead of giving an ultimatum like I'm going to change and if you don't like it, you can't be in my life. That's not a productive approach.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Yeah, okay, you know we're exploring how you got to where you are today and in the first episode we kind of very quickly cliff-snowed through you know your career, from working in restaurants and bars to eventually becoming a licensed therapist. You mentioned you have two daughters and you are happily married.

Speaker 2: 16:39

Yes.

Speaker 1: 16:39

And you are a therapist, just telling us to take it easy and give everybody grace. Is your life just so easy now? Is everybody in your home just well adjusted? And mother, may I, and how can I help you today? Do you no longer have problems now that you're a therapist?

Speaker 2: 17:03

I'm thinking of something completely inappropriate. A few years ago, I was in the bathroom and my kids were fighting. I was in the bathroom, if you know what I mean, and I absolutely lost it, Like a banshee. I was screaming from the top of my lungs stop fighting.

Speaker 1: 17:26

You make it sound so lovely with a giggle.

Speaker 2: 17:30

It was not my proudest moment as a mother, as a woman, as anybody. I thought, wow, what has my life come to? I'm screaming from the pot. So, no, no, no, things are not smooth sailing.

Speaker 2: 17:49

I think that the skills that I have decided to value and cultivate and to lead my life are that I want to set my kids up for success emotionally and their well-being and keeping them safe and loving them well, and so I lead with that and no matter how difficult things get. That is those are my values, period. I'm going to love my husband and my children and my home. Everything else comes second and that's hard, that's really hard. You know I want to live in the world with grace and kindness and love, also not just with me.

Speaker 2: 18:32

You know I want to be an integrated human being and that challenges me. I want to be the same person in my home that I am at CVS, that I am with you, that I am at the restaurant, that I am with my clients. So I really challenge myself to be my best, to lead with my best values and intentions and walk through the world that way. I don't enjoy compartmentalizing like I'm a good person here and I'm a banshee over here. That's not how I operate, so the more I can integrate and the more I can be values-led. Times will be challenging, things will be hard, but that doesn't matter, because I'm going to lead with my values, whether it's challenging or not.

Speaker 1: 19:19

I mean, if that's not a speech for the rest of us in 2025, I don't know what is. Because my question to you is and I guess I don't know how you would actually gauge this but who do you think you would be if you didn't have the skills, the experiences, you know, the foresight and the education to get through the world we're living in today?

Speaker 2: 19:44

I think I'd be highly medicated and I think I'd be scrolling on social media till my finger got numb To distract yourself. Yeah, because the world is heavy. The world is so heavy and so chaotic and I don't understand a lot of it, and sometimes it's too big for me to even try to comprehend. The heartache is unimaginable.

Speaker 1: 20:12

Do your clients talk about just the experiences that they're having with the world, or is your work in your therapist's office so niche and focused on family and friend experiences?

Speaker 2: 20:24

It's most definitely what's happening in the world. We're healing childhood traumas, but also our other traumas, but what is happening geopolitically makes my clients and everybody turns our triggers on. We all of a sudden don't feel safe, or we're coming from a scarcity mindset, or we're feeling more tribal, and I have a lot of grace for that, because these are biological functions. We are meant to want to stay safe and together, and so, as I see these things unfolding on television or in the news, I know that a lot of this is driven by biology, just like pack mentality, pack mentality, fight or flight.

Speaker 1: 21:12

And also, too, social media. Right, you said, people want to survive, people want to feel safe, people want to get in a group, and so we're talking about even if you're on social media the trends, the influencers, the different things. So much of society wants us to pick a team and then stay there. But I go back to something you were just talking about a few minutes ago, saying you want to be the same person in this situation, that situation, and don't forget the other situation. You can't be equal footing in all of these different scenarios if you're all in on one bucket, unless the bucket, I guess, is kindness. So what's the message you want listeners to take away, your clients to take away? What do we need to see to kind of drown out the noise, get off of autopilot, so to speak, and really navigate the world authentically ourselves?

Speaker 2: 22:10

If we can take a minute and realize all the points of armor that we put on before we leave the house. That is a Brene Brown-ism, I'll call it. She talks about armor. So what? We're wearing the bumper sticker on our car, the flag we have in our driveway, what team we root for, the jewelry we wear, whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 22:36

We're all wearing these pieces of identity. We are showing who we are as we walk into a room or as we drive down the road, and sometimes I think we're trying to signal to our fellow tribe members like, look, I belong here. Or sometimes, conversely, look, I don't belong here, wherever it is that you're landing. But you're trying to send a message, but know that the other person that's wearing the armor is also wearing armor. They are also trying to belong, they're also trying to stay safe, they are also just trying to make it. And so if we can look at people and just realize, oh, I see that they're acting prickly, but actually they're just hungry or actually they just got let go from their job or actually and that's not excusing all bad behavior by any means, but it is- it allows us not to personalize it.

Speaker 2: 23:36

Yes, and also to connect at a deeper level. What we're wearing, where we're eating, where our kids go to school, who you voted for, all these types of things are levels one, two, three, four of surface. I need you to get to level eight. What's level eight? What we said, why we created this show, our hopes, our fears, our dreams, what we really long for and yearn for all of that on level eight is pretty much the same.

Speaker 1: 24:11

And so, what are people going to see you for? What is the help? Do they want to fit in at school? Do they want to be stylish and trendy? What seems to be, in doing the work here in the hill country, the eight that people are seeking?

Speaker 2: 24:28

They want real connection. That sounds so cliche, but it's really not. They want deep friendships. They want marriages that are safe and loving. They want to date people that are kind and lovely. They want a community group that they can go to when something floods at their house. They want connection. They want to be seen and they want to be comfortable in their own skin. You are the person I feel probably most comfortable with in the world. Right, I can wear pajamas. It doesn't matter what I'm wearing. I'm not going to impress you. I'm also going to not unimpress you.

Speaker 1: 25:12

You're just going to be loved. That's right. You're safe and fine, that's right.

Speaker 2: 25:14

I'm not going to impress you. I'm also going to not unimpress you. You're just going to be loved, you're safe and fine, that's right. I'm trying to change you. You're going to hold my hand, we're going to laugh, we're going to be silly, and that's a real gift I have in you, and not everybody has that.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Thank you, I love you, I love you too. Can people get to that point through this radio show? Is that what you're hoping for?

Speaker 2: 25:33

I am just desperate for it for people. The people I feel most comfortable around are the ones who are the most comfortable in their own skin, and I try to be that, not to say that I'm like that all the time, but part of being an integrated person, like I was saying earlier, is being comfortable, not having that armor, really saying take off your shoes, be comfy, be yourself. I am not leading with an artifice and I hope you won't either.

Speaker 1: 26:04

You're also not trying to get people to go into your office. This is truly a conversation you're having with your community, with your neighbors, in their safe space. Maybe it's on their drive to work, maybe it's at home, maybe it's, you know, in the privacy of their living room or their office during a lunch break.

Speaker 2: 26:25

Maybe they're mowing the lawn.

Speaker 1: 26:27

Well, I hope they can crank up the volume if they're doing that.

Speaker 2: 26:31

A lot of people listen to music while they're mowing the lawn.

Speaker 1: 26:34

I'm a downtown girl but I know that you're going to offer up and invite engagement with this show. So, as folks are kind of figuring out if they're going to give the next episode a second chance, what are some of the topics? What are some of the questions? What are some of the questions? What's some of the feedback you hope you hear from listeners?

Speaker 2: 26:57

Ultimately, I would love the feedback to be you encouraged me to invite my neighbor over for spaghetti and we sat in our pajamas and we had tea and spaghetti, or we had a glass of wine and spaghetti and we laughed and we watched the Nate Bargatze show together. Like that would be a dream If everybody could have that space where they could just relax into who they are. Yeah, that connection point makes all the difference in how you handle your day the next day.

Speaker 1: 27:29

Yeah, big and bold doesn't require you jumping out of a plane. No, Sometimes it's taking a step forward and asking a question.

Speaker 2: 27:37

Yes, or can I go to your house, or come over to my house, or let's play Uno. I mean these such, such, such, such simple connection points.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Even parents asking their kids are you doing okay.

Speaker 2: 27:53

Yes, tell me. The other day I was lying down on the trampoline with my youngest. I said what's hard for you lately? And she told me and I said do you want help with that? And she said yeah. So I helped her out and now she has one less hard thing. Yeah, these are just simple questions. I didn't have to spend any money on her. That's what you get when your mom's a therapist.

Speaker 1: 28:16

Yeah, the feedback you're hoping is that people take leaps in, whatever that looks like in their life. The questions, the you know, the asks that you hope listeners have for you Do they have to be eloquent and thought provoking? Do they have to have the right language to explain what they're feeling? What are you looking for? What can we send you?

Speaker 2: 28:39

Oh, thank you. That's a great question. I'm looking for real questions. I'm going to call them like hotshot questions, anything. I'm having this disagreement with my daughter how can I connect with her better? Or my husband and I keep arguing about how we load the dishwasher. How do we get through that, you guys?

Speaker 1: 28:58

have had that argument. We had it for 10 years.

Speaker 2: 29:02

I'm an expert. I was not the expert.

Speaker 1: 29:06

I would never ask who won. We both know it was not you. Yeah, ask who won. We both know it was not you. Yeah, but people can pose scenarios without being too detailed or simply say I'm feeling uncomfortable at work, how do I navigate this? Yeah, and you genuinely can help them I can genuinely help them and you're bringing in experts, I'm bringing in experts.

Speaker 2: 29:29

I'm bringing in a trauma therapist perspective. You're bringing in experts. I'm bringing in experts. I'm bringing in a trauma therapist perspective. I'm bringing in all my tools that I use in the therapy room. While it's not therapy per se, because it's a radio show, it is supportive and it is a way to help people get over those hurdles that are maybe holding them back, and my ultimate hope is that they rest and accept who they are and embrace who they are, and that they can find somebody else who will do the same.

Speaker 1: 29:59

Well, listen, I appreciate you sharing more of your story, going through the things and the experiences and motherhood that has changed and colored your life. Thank you, madsie, this is a space for our stories, our struggles and our hopes, and you're part of that too. So you, Madsie. This is a space for our stories, our struggles and our hopes, and you're part of that too. So thanks for sharing with us.

Speaker 2: 30:16

Thank you, Melissa. Thank you for being here. If this conversation clarified something for you or helped you feel a little more seen, please share it with someone you care about. You can follow along for more grounded, soulful conversations and know that this space is here to support you.