Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / People-Pleasing. Overachieving. Perfectionism. Dr. Aimie Apigian on the Biology of Trauma Patterns That Hijack Your Health—and How to Heal Your Nervous System for Good

Transcript

People-Pleasing. Overachieving. Perfectionism. Dr. Aimie Apigian on the Biology of Trauma Patterns That Hijack Your Health—and How to Heal Your Nervous System for Good · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

• 0:00
  What if the anxiety, burnout, or fatigue you're feeling isn't in your head, but it's in your biology?
• 0:14
  Well, Dr. Amy Epigen joins us to break down how trauma gets stored in the body and what it really
• 0:20
  takes to feel safe, energized, and alive again. A double-board certified physician and founder of
• 0:28
  the biology of trauma, Dr. Amy Blends personal experiences with cutting-edge science to help us
• 0:34
  understand why talk therapy isn't always enough. And what to do instead, whether you've been in
• 0:41
  survival mode for years or just feel stuck, this episode is a powerful reminder that healing
• 0:49
  doesn't have to be a mystery. It just has to start with the nervous system. I'm your host James
• 0:55
  Barry and welcome to everyday ancestral. Please enjoy this next episode. What was going on in your
• 1:03
  life when you realized traditional approaches to trauma weren't cutting it? This first happened when
• 1:10
  I adopted. I don't know how many people know this about my story, but it was during medical
• 1:18
  school that I foster parented and then adopted. It was not my intention to adopt from the beginning.
• 1:25
  I thought I was just signing up to be a foster parent. I wanted to use my time in a meaningful way.
• 1:31
  I had a few months between finishing my master's and jumping back into the third year of medical
• 1:36
  school. And I decided to become a foster parent during this time. I had no idea James that it would
• 1:42
  lead me to adopt. And I remember the phone call. There was a four-year-old boy. He needs a home
• 1:51
  and it was an immediate yes for me. My my heart was so wide open and I'm in my mid-twenties.
• 1:58
  So I have a lot of hope, you know, I think I know everything, but I also I also think you remember
• 2:07
  thinking that way in your 20s. I remember my 20s yet. Cocky and self-righteous, yeah.
• 2:12
  Much so that was me as well. And I just knew that young kids who are coming from hard places,
• 2:20
  they needed love. They needed understanding. They needed compassion. And with stability,
• 2:27
  they would heal. And I just wanted so much to be able to help them have a better life and a real
• 2:34
  future rising above their childhood. So this was all in my motivation for becoming a foster parent.
• 2:41
  But when Miguel came, he had already been through 20 different moves, not different placements,
• 2:49
  but had been moved around 20 different times. And he was only four. He was at the place where he
• 2:57
  had been so traumatized, not just from what placed him in the foster care system, but then during
• 3:04
  his time in the foster care system, that he was so violent and aggressive and
• 3:12
  dysregulated that they were not able to place him in any home that had children or pets.
• 3:20
  They saw that I was a medical student headed to be a doctor and they're like, she's the perfect one.
• 3:26
  No, you weren't necessarily studying trauma at this time. What kind of medicine were you studying?
• 3:31
  I was in medical school. I was in Southern California, Loma Linda University to be specific.
• 3:36
  And I was doing an MD, so my medical training, but then also getting a master's in biochemistry.
• 3:44
  And this was the environment in which I then became a foster parent.
• 3:49
  You clearly weren't dating, you weren't married. Because like, what kind of person decides
• 3:54
  to like take on a foster kid, let alone adopting a kid when they're in medical school? I mean,
• 3:58
  that's just crazy. But you clearly like, you saw yourself as having time. It was just that your
• 4:05
  heart was so big at that moment. My heart was so big at the moment. I had time in the sense that I
• 4:12
  had a few months before jumping back into medical school. And so I literally was going into this
• 4:18
  just to be helpful and foster parent for those couple of months. That's what I thought.
• 4:25
  By the time they called me and had a child that they wanted to place with me,
• 4:30
  I was already back in medical school. I was already back in internal medicine,
• 4:35
  rotation, no less. And in the third year of medical school, and I still said yes, James.
• 4:41
  So now you're getting into a window like of my own trauma patterns that would make me say,
• 4:47
  yes. But I was completely unaware of that being an unhealthy thing or that even being a
• 4:56
  manifestation of my own inner people pleasing, my own inner need for accomplishment to feel worthy.
• 5:06
  And I was completely unaware of that. That would all come out when I took Miguel in and then
• 5:13
  would go through the hardest thing that I've ever been through as a result. But that's how I
• 5:18
  discovered all of this about myself. It was so well hidden from even myself. I'm sorry that you
• 5:24
  had to go through that because that sounds really intense. And I think about this a lot that we really
• 5:31
  do need contrast to understand not only our placement in the world, but our placement within ourselves.
• 5:39
  Like without contrast, there is no change. And I find everyone in the health field,
• 5:45
  everyone had to come from somewhere to get to where they currently are. So I do think that this is
• 5:51
  very powerful. That this is the traumatic or the contrast that happened to help you see that you
• 6:00
  had trauma that you had these things going on inside you that were dictating your choices.
• 6:06
  And I often thought James that if he were any easier, I wouldn't have had the insights that I've
• 6:13
  had or had my life changed, my career path gone down a very meaningful path that I wouldn't I
• 6:22
  wouldn't have even been aware of if he hadn't have prompted this and been so tough that I had to go
• 6:32
  on a very different journey than what I was expecting in order to try to find answers for him.
• 6:38
  What a gift he was for you in that sense and really for all of us because now where you are
• 6:45
  and what you specialize in is helping so many people. So you ended up helping him find another
• 6:51
  adopted family. What was that process? Because really it sounds to me like you accepted him to adopt
• 6:59
  you did that for you said what six years hell on six years. So that's an incredible amount of time
• 7:05
  first of all to do that while you're still in school. But now you're being faced with your own shadow
• 7:11
  side. I imagine you probably didn't actually have time to really deal with that shadow side.
• 7:17
  And so then you had to make this decision which I imagine was probably rock bottom.
• 7:22
  What was that process and then how did you treat yourself after where you just beating yourself
• 7:27
  up? I mean sorry I'm talking a lot here but it really triggers me because it's like
• 7:31
  I know that when people have for example miscarriages they beat themselves up. They just are like
• 7:36
  what did I do wrong and I can just imagine that you were so hard on yourself and it makes me feel
• 7:42
  really sad for you. So I would love to better understand that. The short version of the story
• 7:50
  is that I poured myself into Miguel and talk about losing myself in the process needing to put
• 8:01
  myself on the sidelines because I have a child who James he was so deep in his trauma that he was
• 8:10
  talking about killing me would attempt to kill me. My daily life was at threat. I would sit down
• 8:18
  at the table for dinner after being in the hospital all day long seeing patients and we'd be having
• 8:24
  dinner and he would pick up his plate. He's two feet away from me and throw it right at my face.
• 8:31
  So this was my environment where I didn't have the space to do any of my own personal work that was
• 8:40
  surfacing as a result of this. It was pure survival which is why it became so necessary for me
• 8:50
  to find answers. It wasn't well it would be nice. It wasn't well I'm trying to help him. It was like
• 8:57
  no I'm trying to survive. I'm trying to get through today and he is going to have a very
• 9:03
  awful future if he's even alive because he's doing things that are putting his own life at risk and
• 9:09
  he's five. He's six. So it became so necessary just for literally like physical survival.
• 9:21
  So as I'm throwing myself into this I'm realizing that the therapies that are the evidence-based
• 9:28
  therapies are not working for him. They're actually making things worse. Talk about rock bottom.
• 9:36
  Here I am. I'm a poor medical student. Don't have any money. Don't have any time. My heart had been so
• 9:46
  open for this experience thinking that it was going to be this version of parenting and motherhood
• 9:53
  and I was getting this version and I couldn't even talk about it with my friends because they're
• 10:00
  dating. They're getting married. They're doing normal 20 year old things. I'm trying to keep a kid
• 10:06
  from killing me that day. I can't talk with my colleagues because they're telling me Amy like
• 10:12
  what were you thinking? We all know that these kinds of kids end up in juvenile hall and then they
• 10:18
  go on to have addictions and then they go on to have a life of broken relationships. We know this.
• 10:24
  Why are you setting yourself up for this? It was this constant message of hopelessness and
• 10:32
  discouragement even if they understood the situation and most of my friends had no clue what I was
• 10:39
  going through and part of the issue and I know a lot of parents who adopt can relate to this.
• 10:46
  Miguel was one way in public with other people and a very different way with me at home.
• 10:52
  He would put on his very charming self which he had refined over his years of being in foster care
• 10:57
  system. He knew how to charm people but he couldn't hold it together. It was only a matter of time
• 11:05
  and then it would be the explosion and the unraveling and the falling apart because he had had to
• 11:10
  do that. So my life just became increasingly smaller and smaller and smaller until I couldn't even
• 11:16
  leave my home because leaving my home meant that he was going to have a rage later on and it
• 11:22
  was going to be four hours on the floor holding him just because I had taken him out to the store
• 11:28
  and these were the kinds of things that would trigger him. So this was the context. Now there was
• 11:34
  something very significant that happened at that time that I'll share with you which is that
• 11:40
  there had been an adoptive mother who had adopted a boy from Russia. It was a big thing in the
• 11:46
  news at that time because she put him on a plane and sent him back to Russia. There was no family
• 11:53
  to accept him there. There was nothing there for him. She was just so done, exhausted, ran out of
• 12:04
  resources that that seemed to her the only thing for her to do to survive. Everyone else was
• 12:12
  horrified. Oh my goodness, how could she do this? Inside, I was like, I get it. I get it.
• 12:22
  And what an awful place to be where you're a parent and you don't see how you can be okay,
• 12:30
  how you don't see how they can be okay and it's that bad that you're putting your son who you
• 12:36
  adopted on a plane back to Russia. That was the context by which then I'm experiencing this and
• 12:44
  I'm realizing for some people this doesn't get better. What is my future going to be like? What is
• 12:50
  his future going to be like? Am I even going to be able to have a career because how do I even work?
• 12:57
  I took off a whole year after graduating medical school just to be at home with him. I had no
• 13:03
  money which means that I had to move to Oregon. This is when I moved to Oregon to live in someone's
• 13:10
  basement for free so that I could work for her and take care of her children so that I could be at
• 13:16
  home with Miguel. I cored everything into him and trying to find answers for him. It was an
• 13:25
  experience that few other people will ever have to go through and thus that can't really fully
• 13:32
  understand the the extent of the intensity of it and the rock bottomness that I experienced all
• 13:41
  the time of down on the floor on my knees in a fetal position crying because I am doing my best
• 13:49
  and my best is not good enough. What happened to me help you finally have the strength to just say
• 13:56
  I'm not the right person for him. He's not the right person for me. What kind of came together to
• 14:00
  assess that? So James here's the hardest part of the story is that I actually found all the answers
• 14:08
  that he needed. I am one of those people again talking about my trauma patterns. I understand
• 14:15
  I am one of those people that when I set out to do something there is no way that I would have stopped
• 14:21
  and I kept going and I did everything. This included putting them into boarding schools. I mean
• 14:28
  I did everything. Anything and everything I was still all in and it eventually worked. I found the
• 14:35
  last piece that he needed. It actually happened when he was nine and we did a week-long therapy session
• 14:45
  of a specific therapy that then it worked so well that I went and got trained in it because I needed
• 14:50
  to understand it but it built on the foundation that I had created but it was the last piece
• 14:56
  that he needed and I remember James being out it was in West Virginia where we were at this place
• 15:03
  doing this therapy and every single day I was seeing such dramatic changes inside of him
• 15:11
  that it was my dream come true. I mean it was more than what I had ever thought would be possible
• 15:17
  given my experience with him up until that point. I remember day one day one I pick him up from
• 15:23
  the therapy and that evening he's like hey mom can I do the dishes for you? And I fell down on
• 15:31
  the floor. I think any parent would fall down on the floor if their kids said that to them.
• 15:37
  Any parent would fall down on the floor and especially me given that what I usually would hear would
• 15:45
  be mom I want to kill you tomorrow. What was the therapy? The therapy is what led me to start to study
• 15:55
  the biology of trauma. The therapy actually was an art narrative process that broke it down in
• 16:01
  a very specific segments of one's inner experience during a trauma. Not what was happening on the
• 16:09
  outside the inner experience of that trauma and you map each step out of that inner experience on
• 16:16
  a different sheet of paper so that there's a total of eight pieces of paper and you walk through
• 16:22
  the whole thing and then you create a different ending where now you are safe and sometimes that
• 16:29
  means like well then right here right now because I've never felt safe in my life or sometimes it
• 16:34
  was if it was a cracks and you're like well no I was able to go to the hospital and they checked me
• 16:38
  out and everything was fine and who the story is over but so much of what I was learning at that time
• 16:44
  was that the body holds on to trauma and it holds on to it because it never got the sense that the
• 16:52
  danger was over so for Miguel he's still living in his past he's still living in the middle of
• 17:01
  my mom might give me up my mom might send me away my birth mom is neglecting me my birth mom is
• 17:08
  gone I don't even know where she is and when she is here she's not emotional present she's on
• 17:14
  substances he was still living in that sense of danger I didn't know this I thought that by bringing
• 17:22
  him into my home and giving it time that he would adjust and he would be able to realize oh I'm
• 17:31
  not in danger anymore but one of the first things I had to learn about trauma was that it's actually
• 17:38
  not what our mind thinks it's what our body believes and our body needs a reset to safety and most
• 17:48
  people including Miguel including myself had never had a reset a complete reset to safety so our body
• 17:56
  was still living as if it were in the past even though our mind could consciously look around and
• 18:03
  well no we're we're fine now we're in a different home now we have a different mom now she
• 18:07
  loves us our mom before it isn't but this one does that that is all cognitive reasoning and that
• 18:14
  has no place in the actual determination of our body of whether we remain in danger mode or not
• 18:21
  so what I hear you saying is that trauma is stored on a cellular level it's in our body
• 18:29
  and that talking through it is not necessarily the remedy the remedy is something physical but
• 18:35
  how does that look maybe walk us through what you would advise someone if someone came to you
• 18:41
  and it had stored trauma how would you work with them physically there are three levels that need
• 18:47
  repair and so we have our nervous system and specifically our autonomic nervous system where the
• 18:53
  trauma is actually stored in our autonomic nervous system and it runs this constant background
• 19:00
  calculation of am I safe or am I under threat it's a subconscious calculation it's happening
• 19:08
  every moment throughout our life because it's the job of our nervous system to keep us alive
• 19:14
  so it has to keep track of am I in danger or am I safe right now do I need to start running
• 19:20
  or can I relax and rest right now so there's very very very basic right and it would be
• 19:28
  amazing for people to understand like what are those cues of danger that our body receives what
• 19:33
  are the cues of safety because they're not necessarily what we would normally think of
• 19:37
  and that's the whole point is that then as we experience the impact of trauma on our body
• 19:45
  our own body is creating a feedback loop and giving signals of danger to our nervous system
• 19:51
  that say we're still in danger an obvious level is the mind so we can have self-talk
• 19:58
  and we can tell ourselves you're stupid Amy and that self-talk will be heard by my nervous system
• 20:05
  and my nervous system will be like oh it sounds like we're under threat because we're stupid
• 20:10
  the self-talk actually is important but the other two levels are even more powerful
• 20:15
  there is a body tissue level which is involving the movement of our muscles
• 20:22
  and when we have been in danger and powerless to protect ourselves our body retains that memory
• 20:31
  and it forms this belief a programming through our neuroplacicity that I'm incapable of hard things
• 20:40
  so then when stressors come even if we could actually respond to the challenge
• 20:46
  our body says oh no no we're not capable of hard things we should just shut down we should
• 20:53
  just not even try so there's this element of stored body memory in terms of our movement
• 21:01
  and our ability to move through hard things versus just getting overwhelmed and getting stuck
• 21:08
  the third level though is the biology and that's what you were referring to which is the
• 21:12
  actual cellular level and what happens is that as trauma impacts our cells and systems of our body
• 21:19
  it disrupts our gut it disrupts our mitochondria it disrupts our hormones it disrupts our
• 21:25
  cardiovascular system our lymphatic system our detoxification system because as we all know
• 21:31
  if we are needing to run from a tiger to survive right now now is not the best time to be eating a meal
• 21:38
  and cleaning out our toxins and lymphatic system and so all of those systems shut down including
• 21:45
  our metabolism when we go into a trauma response one of those steps of the inner experience that
• 21:52
  we want to map out on this art narrative therapy that I took Miguel to is this shutting down
• 21:58
  in order to survive our metabolism shuts down in order to survive this is where a lot of the fatigue
• 22:05
  and exhaustion comes from where it's our body actually saying I don't think you can do that much
• 22:11
  but you're not listening to me so I'm gonna shut down and force you to do less I'm going to
• 22:16
  shut down and force you to feel tired say that you won't go out and do all these things or follow
• 22:21
  your dreams or whatever it is that that you're experiencing this fatigue and exhaustion from
• 22:27
  and so that then becomes a source of ongoing danger when our cells and our systems don't get
• 22:33
  that reset to safety our metabolism stays in this energy conservation mode our hormones remain
• 22:42
  imbalanced our digestive system becomes imbalanced and we develop all forms of dysbiosis or inflammation
• 22:50
  changes in our digestive system that create more problems like nutrient deficiencies and all of
• 22:57
  this together is now becoming a cure of danger to our nervous system because our nervous system
• 23:03
  looks at our inner biology and says oh look at all those toxins oh look at that inflammation in the
• 23:10
  gut oh did you see the inflammation in the brain did you see that imbalance of hormones do you
• 23:15
  see the mitochondrial compromise do you see the oxidative stress and our nervous system is looking
• 23:21
  at all of that and saying because of the damage that's still present in our biology we don't have
• 23:29
  as big of a capacity so we need to stay small in order to try to stay safe and this is literally how
• 23:37
  then we get stuck in our trauma patterns so you were suggesting then that one of the forms of
• 23:44
  healing trauma is through functional medicine is through actually healing your body
• 23:49
  this is what i'm saying like it's a requirement and that is why talk therapy james will never be
• 23:55
  enough because you're only addressing one level with talk therapy you're not addressing how trauma
• 24:01
  impacted your biology and the repair that is needed and so what i started to see as a physician is
• 24:07
  that all of these people were coming in they're telling me that they've done all these years of
• 24:12
  therapy and yet their body is still impacted by their past for me that is not true healing true
• 24:20
  healing is where you are living free of the effects of your past not that you've erased the past but
• 24:27
  you're free of the effects of it it's no longer holding you back but as a physician i'm i'm
• 24:33
  seeing still seeing so many people with some physical health condition that is a result of
• 24:42
  store trauma in their body and they're still living with that impact that that is not a
• 24:47
  full and complete healing that i would like them to be able to have so when someone first comes to
• 24:52
  work with you are you first focusing on identifying the trauma or are you focusing on identifying the
• 25:01
  health issues what a great question so here's the crazy thing as i'm starting to learn all this
• 25:08
  i am now faced with a question well what do i do with my patients at this point i had changed my
• 25:14
  career so i'm no longer in general surgery residency yes i did four years of general surgery
• 25:19
  residency i have touched and cut the vagus nerve and then i moved to addiction medicine so that i can
• 25:26
  really work with trauma because i felt that addiction is one of the most clear examples of how
• 25:33
  trauma reinforces and becomes different patterns so i'm working with my patients and i'm realizing
• 25:39
  like where do i even start because the mountain is so big there is so much repair to do especially
• 25:46
  with someone who's become dependent and addicted on substances there's so much to do where do i
• 25:51
  even start and if i try to throw it all at them they're not successful at all and they get stuck
• 25:57
  so i had to really practice and figure out where am i starting with them the craziest thing James
• 26:04
  i as a physician i'm thinking i need to start them with diet and supplements and lifestyle
• 26:09
  no actually the most important place to start them that gave them the fastest results
• 26:18
  was teaching them how to shift their inner nervous system state they're coming in they're anxious
• 26:26
  they're stressed they're overwhelmed and they don't know how to shift their own state
• 26:34
  and i realized that if i could get them to learn 21 different exercises somatic self practices is
• 26:42
  what i call them we're at home they don't even need me to do this they can learn how to shift their
• 26:48
  own inner state they were experiencing more changes in their physical health than any other
• 26:55
  thing that i was prescribing that doesn't stick that doesn't last because they still have their
• 27:02
  biology to repair they still have their mindset and their self-talk to repair and so i would have
• 27:10
  learn how to shift their state and then they would notice that throughout the day it would fall
• 27:15
  back into stress and overwhelm and that is normal that's what is going to happen and tell you
• 27:20
  put the other pieces in the place and that's where i still see a lot of people like going to therapy
• 27:25
  they experience relief when they're on the yoga mat they experience relief when they're doing
• 27:30
  their meditation but not long after they've left their mat guess where their nervous system is
• 27:36
  back in survival mode whether stress and anxiety or just the overwhelm and the collapse and the shame
• 27:42
  and the depression it's not sticking because their nervous system is still getting all of these
• 27:48
  cues of danger from their body from their biology from their own mind and so now would come the
• 27:55
  second piece but the first piece if i wanted them to have the fastest results in their sleep
• 28:02
  in their energy and their depression anxiety GI issues it was these somatic self-practices where they
• 28:10
  on their own had learned how to shift their own state in the moment whenever they noticed
• 28:16
  that they were in the spiral of stress or overwhelm obviously there's 21 you shared
• 28:22
  that you share and and is this your first book that you shared them in i don't go into the details
• 28:28
  of these somatic self-practices in my book the biology of trauma i'm painting the picture of
• 28:33
  you've got to address the biology of trauma here's what the biology of trauma is i actually
• 28:38
  walk through these different steps of the art narrative process of one's inner experience
• 28:44
  that even creates this damage and then where do we start where do we start we have to start with
• 28:50
  creating that felt sense of safety and this is how we do that we do that through a very specific
• 28:56
  very deliberate and intentional process of learning to shift our inner state to a felt sense of
• 29:03
  safety is there one you can share like if our audience were to take away you know one or two things
• 29:11
  that they can directly start applying to their lives the minute this is done so James now you get
• 29:16
  to be my guinea pig let's do a quick body scan give me any place in your body where there's
• 29:23
  any kind of tension it's just uncomfortable in any way doesn't need to map my traps you know
• 29:29
  right under the neck right yes okay all right so here's what i want you to do give me a number
• 29:35
  for that level of discomfort what are we doing ten five what's the high whatever you want this
• 29:41
  is your number so whatever you want okay let's say that five is the highest and one is no tension
• 29:48
  so this is about a two and a half three two and a half all right so now we're going to forget
• 29:53
  that and now i want you to bring your arms up and bring your hands as close to your shoulders as
• 29:59
  you can and we're going to push away this big rock that's in front of you James can you see it
• 30:06
  it's huge it's massive start pushing it away put your muscle into it have to push slow because it's
• 30:13
  so big and you're going to go all the way until your arms are fully extended going as slow as
• 30:22
  you can pushing this big rock away oh i can see your muscles engaged i've got my fingers feeling
• 30:32
  like they're digging into this rock push that thing away push it away when you get to full arm
• 30:38
  extension just pause there we're not there yet but when you get there just pause there at full
• 30:43
  extension and now let them drop yeah i actually don't feel it it's a one right now so one right now
• 30:51
  that's how simple like literally when we started i could feel the tension and i don't feel the
• 30:56
  tension anymore this is how easy it can be to shift your inner state wow that was like 30 seconds
• 31:05
  whatever it was 30 60 seconds yes the problem is is i teach someone an exercise like this and
• 31:12
  they're like that's too simple that's too easy it it should be harder and i'm like it's not
• 31:21
  if you think that things need to be harder well then that's probably a trauma pattern that we
• 31:25
  should talk about at some point but this idea that it actually doesn't take much time
• 31:31
  to shift our inner state and when we shift our state our pain levels change so a lot of people
• 31:38
  are like i'm in pain i'm in pain and they're focused on the pain actually what we need to do is
• 31:44
  take our focus away from the pain do a somatic self practice that engages our body in a specific
• 31:50
  way and there's a very specific reason why i have you push a rock away there's science behind that
• 31:56
  but when we do that when we engage it with our body with this movement somatic practice
• 32:03
  that's what shifts our inner state and that's what changes for your case the pain level
• 32:08
  it's not actually by focusing on the pain it's by shifting the state it's interesting because i
• 32:13
  have heard before that and this is really ties into everything you're saying is that when a bird
• 32:17
  hits a glass a pain of glass what usually happens is you know if you've ever seen it they hit it
• 32:25
  and then they kind of shake off the like they kind of shake their entire body and then they fly away
• 32:31
  and they talk about how that shake is nature's way of releasing the trauma of hitting that glass
• 32:40
  the physical trauma of that and so it seems to me like the somatic practices are the you know human
• 32:48
  form of that release of physical trauma what are some other somatic practices that you would advise
• 32:55
  people to look into yeah i've got a whole five day nervous system reset and so what i've done is
• 33:02
  i've pulled five exercises from my 21 day journey program and i offer them to people who are
• 33:08
  purchasing my book so this can be a gift for anyone orders the book they get my five day nervous
• 33:14
  system somatic reset that has five of these very simple and yet very effective tools so another one
• 33:22
  would be as we look at the anatomy our stomach is one of the most vulnerable areas of our body
• 33:29
  our lungs are important our heart is important for keeping us alive our brain is important for
• 33:35
  keeping us alive but they are all encased in bones our stomach is not and if someone were to hurt
• 33:44
  our stomach there are vital arteries there that we would die and so knowing this we can actually
• 33:50
  use this to create a felt sense of safety in the moment so another very simple technique is to
• 33:57
  bring in some kind of pillow or blanket or if you have a purse or if you have a book just anything
• 34:04
  will work to be able to just put it over your belly tug it in a little bit and even just talking
• 34:10
  about it now like my body is like oh i remember that feeling and it melts into the sense of safety
• 34:15
  so knowing the science knowing the anatomy knowing our nervous system and what it needs
• 34:22
  one of the reasons why i do the pushways because space gives us a felt sense of safety
• 34:28
  space to think space to breathe we are so rushed in our society that we don't feel like we have
• 34:36
  space and creating a sense of space is creating a felt sense of safety for our nervous system
• 34:44
  it sounds to me though like not only is that pillow or that you know that protection
• 34:51
  creating space but it's also a form of touch it is and you know we had Mary Rudek on our podcast
• 34:59
  and she talked about how she believes that it's our societal kind of separation from intimacy and touch
• 35:07
  is actually one of the leading causes of trauma and it's and i notice even when i go to sleep at night
• 35:14
  i like to i usually i have like i have a multiple pillow so i have one pillow for my head but then
• 35:20
  i have another one that i'm almost like i like to just almost rest over my head so i can feel the
• 35:26
  weight or i put sometimes on my body but i just want the weight of something i sleep with a weighted
• 35:34
  blanket for that reason and when i am wanting to really settle it deep into my body i've got a
• 35:42
  weighted next all i've got a weighted lap pad that touch and that sense of gravity is very helpful
• 35:48
  for my body to get that sense of even knowing where my body is in space so touch is one of those
• 35:55
  things that we do need as part of our development for even being able to connect with our own body
• 36:03
  and with different contraptions and devices and social changes that have happened over the years
• 36:10
  it is true that children are not getting as much of those essentials for their
• 36:15
  neurodevelopment as they used to they don't get as much time on their belly which is an essential
• 36:22
  component for neurodevelopment they may not get as much touch and so they're missing part of that
• 36:28
  element that they use to connect with their own body and then they don't feel their body as much
• 36:33
  James and they don't even feel things like i'm hungry and tell their starving and they have to eat
• 36:39
  right now but actually if you were more in touch with your body you would have felt the hunger
• 36:45
  pains starting earlier you would have known okay i need to start preparing myself some food to eat
• 36:52
  but we're not feeling our body we're not connected with our body the same can go with thirst or
• 36:58
  temperature changes or going to the bathroom we don't notice these things until it's now an
• 37:04
  emergency because we're actually living disconnected from our body do you think we are co-creating
• 37:11
  this disconnection with kind of the newer methods of media where they're short fast cuts
• 37:21
  when we were younger you you rented a movie from a you know like a blockbuster and you only
• 37:27
  had that one movie and it's like you either watch the whole thing or you didn't watch anything
• 37:32
  and now kids can flip around to 20 different movies at immediately we have access to so much now
• 37:39
  at the drop of a dime do you think that's contributing to that disconnection oh i love this
• 37:46
  conversation because it really is i see it more of a need to meet the demand for where our nervous
• 37:55
  systems have gone our nervous systems given the disconnection have to have faster
• 38:02
  moments of activity and adrenaline and dopamine because we're not wired to feel more connected
• 38:10
  and to be getting dopamine from meaningful connections and so given that this is how nervous
• 38:17
  systems have developed in our generations now that's what is needed to grab their attention
• 38:24
  it didn't use to be that way we had nervous systems that that wanted more time to focus and to
• 38:30
  think and be creative that is not the nervous systems that are coming out of generations today
• 38:36
  being an addiction medicine physician is very much related to this because you're working with
• 38:41
  a different type of nervous system and when i'm working with a nervous system who's coming off
• 38:46
  of a substance for example i can't expect them to be able to focus for a long period of time
• 38:52
  it has to be fast it has to be rapid because they are so dopamine deficient because they
• 38:57
  were getting their dopamine from their substance that i know that if i don't provide that dopamine
• 39:04
  rush for them i've lost them and they're going to go back to their substance because that's what
• 39:09
  they feel that they need in order to survive we need dopamine we're just meeting people where
• 39:15
  they're at and that's the problem is that this is where the nervous systems are at that they
• 39:19
  actually need that to fill alive now but how does it change then i mean so are you you know using
• 39:27
  the addict and let's just say it's a screen addict you know someone is always on their phone
• 39:31
  doesn't have to be you know alcohol but it you know it can be that most or all the media is so
• 39:37
  fast cut particularly if the kids are on tiktok or youtube or something like that that's so fast cut
• 39:42
  and triggering what you're talking about how would someone change change this is the big topic
• 39:48
  and really change is dependent on how much trauma a nervous system is already holding the more trauma
• 39:55
  burden that a nervous system has the harder change will be which means the slower that we need to go
• 40:02
  so i would treat it the same way that i was treating a nervous system that's become dependent on
• 40:07
  alcohol to feel okay i'm not going to immediately cut you off of everything because you are going to
• 40:15
  die you're going to quit you're going to leave like i'm never trying that again so instead
• 40:23
  we manage the withdrawals and there is a withdrawal from screen time there is a withdrawal from
• 40:29
  this type of dopamine activity there is a withdrawal and we need to honor that so that as we're
• 40:35
  making this change we're bringing in other things that bring in dopamine so what other things bring
• 40:42
  in dopamine movement exercise joy laughter play well then bring those in because you can't expect a
• 40:51
  child or an any nervous system to to leave something and not have a replacement you've got to
• 40:58
  bring in the replacement first and then there's less need for this to fill the need but it is
• 41:05
  feeling a need parents need to recognize it's feeling a need and we've got to figure out how else
• 41:11
  can i have that need met so that the dependency on this isn't as strong and then i can make change
• 41:18
  more effective because i've created some other way for them to have that need met this is just
• 41:25
  still going back to the contrast right is like someone that is where their current state is one
• 41:31
  thing they need to experience that similar outcome but in a different form which is the contrast
• 41:41
  something i'm always kind of fascinated about with addiction is do you think that part of
• 41:48
  the addicts addiction is that they keep calling themselves and labeling themselves and reinforcing
• 41:56
  that they are an addict with their language what a great question and when you ask me that i think
• 42:02
  of my patients who have auto immunity i think of my patients who have depression anxiety and they
• 42:10
  would come in and they would say my depression my anxiety and i was like whoa are you sure you want
• 42:19
  to call that yours because if it's yours it's going to be much harder to leave behind
• 42:26
  whereas if it's the depression the anxiety it's already putting some space between this is me
• 42:34
  and this is just something that i'm challenged with at the moment but it's not me it's not mine
• 42:41
  so i think that this type of word and the labeling and how we refer to our conditions is very important
• 42:51
  so it takes me back to the three levels that need repair the mind is one of them and how we talk
• 42:58
  about ourselves how we talk about what we're being challenged by is really important the words
• 43:04
  that we use are really important it's so amazing because i i'm hearing you talk about things
• 43:12
  specifically around you know addiction i'm hearing you talk about things around trauma around your
• 43:18
  field of expertise and yet there's so much crossover with with what i do you know and how would
• 43:25
  i focus on how i focus on you know getting micronutrients frequently micro dosing frequent small
• 43:31
  amounts how i'm always talking about meeting people where they currently are but just making small
• 43:36
  changes to their diet so that they can start to feel better in their body so like it's different
• 43:44
  intentions maybe or maybe it's just different language but it's such similar intention can you
• 43:50
  share a little bit of what kind of lifestyle you've taken on to support you know your trauma healing
• 43:54
  this has been a big one and when i look at the similarities that you're mentioning to me this
• 44:00
  comes back to like this is just this is how we know this is truth is when it's obviously that it's
• 44:05
  a principle of nature it's a principle of the body that we do micro dosing of things that we need
• 44:13
  that we meet the body where it's at and then we guide it gently to the changes that will best help
• 44:19
  it so it's true like it's crossover because these are fundamental principles that we're learning
• 44:24
  about what the body needs to truly be and its best health so my journey with food started
• 44:33
  interesting James i actually grew up vegetarian and then vegan so i grew up vegetarian around the
• 44:40
  time that i was age 10 11 my family went vegan i didn't even have any meat until i was 31 and i
• 44:49
  had a fish for the very first time at age 31 i thought that this was the healthiest way for me
• 44:56
  to feed and nourish my body i struggled with so much anxiety i struggled with so much depression i
• 45:03
  struggled with so much exhaustion but i was young i was used to learning how to push through things
• 45:10
  and as a result i was on a lot of bread i was on a lot of sugar carbs and i
• 45:20
  never felt really well but then i i never felt well so i didn't i didn't know that feeling well
• 45:26
  was a thing and that other people didn't fill this way because this is how i just always felt
• 45:31
  so it wasn't until that first fish talk about contrast right this is our theme for this episode
• 45:36
  James the contrast i go from that to being on vacation in Cartagena Columbia with my Mexican mom
• 45:44
  and i'm realizing it no one is going to know if i eat a fish no one is going to know i'm not going
• 45:52
  to offend anybody it'll it'll be a secret no one will need to know and so with my mixing him on
• 46:00
  like the one person i felt safe with in my life at that time she and i are like okay we're going
• 46:05
  to do this i am going to have my first fish i had this amazing fresh caught fish with uh coconut
• 46:12
  rice it was one of the most amazing meals of my life but i remember within 30 minutes James
• 46:19
  the anxiety depression lifted my energy lifted and i was like whoa what is this it lasted only
• 46:28
  about 24 hours and then it faded but it created enough contrast for me that i was like
• 46:35
  i want to lean into this so several weeks later i'm back home i'm out to dinner with my cousin
• 46:42
  he's having a fish and i'm like okay i'll have a fish too it was still so much of the obstacle
• 46:50
  for me to be able to have meat because i'd always been taught it was bad so i have a fish
• 46:57
  same thing happened James i feel so much better within minutes of eating that fish and then it faded
• 47:06
  but by then i knew that this was the association isn't that wild though because you know you're talking
• 47:12
  about how oh talk therapy with trauma so the talk therapy is your your brain thinking that some
• 47:18
  this is healthy and which and that's basically how your diet was initially but then once you
• 47:23
  set on a cellular level ate something that shifted your biology you had truth you know
• 47:30
  for what your body what your body needed exactly like this was so much of my journey to learning
• 47:36
  there is a biology of trauma and my biology was keeping me stuck in these trauma manifestations
• 47:43
  of fatigue anxiety depression auto immunity so it has been quite the journey for me to go from
• 47:51
  vegan to now right at this moment i'm on a carnivore diet right wow huge and in i've witnessed
• 48:02
  huge shifts in your physicality as well from it like you your body is completely shifted during
• 48:08
  the time i've known you completely shifted and so i don't know if this if this is you know
• 48:14
  forever i don't i don't know and one of the areas that has changed the most for me is
• 48:21
  my ability to not need to know i don't need to control things anymore i can let my body say right
• 48:27
  now i need to be on a carnivore diet and this is how i feel best and i'm like okay i don't understand
• 48:34
  it but i want to support you and if this is how you feel best then i'm happy to support you
• 48:41
  it's no longer the no i shouldn't or i should like that word has gone out of my vocabulary
• 48:48
  it's all about how can i support you because when i support my body and my biology my body can
• 48:56
  support me this lifetime is about loving oneself and through the art of loving oneself we then
• 49:05
  can love others we can't actually connect with others more than what we are connected with ourselves
• 49:13
  we can't love others more than we actually truly love ourselves
• 49:19
  i love it so tell us you have a new book that i do coming and or has launched by the time this
• 49:25
  episode aired oh you yes the biology of trauma how the body holds fear pain and overwhelm
• 49:34
  and how to heal it wow well we're gonna have in the show notes ways for people to get it you're
• 49:38
  gonna be including those five somatic practices that people can utilize in their life with every
• 49:45
  purchase of the book doctor Amy it's always a pleasure getting time with you so thank you so
• 49:52
  much for joining us today we're gonna put in the show notes how people can find you but why don't
• 49:58
  you just verbally tell people how they can continue having conversations in connection with you
• 50:04
  i would love to connect with them and biology of trauma.com is one of the best ways to do that
• 50:09
  that's where they can find my five-day nervous system somatic reset for when they purchase the book
• 50:14
  and i have other resources and guides for them on what is the biology of trauma what does that mean
• 50:20
  for them and what they can do about it and social media where can people find your fast cutting
• 50:26
  videos i'm kidding my fast cutting videos my dopamine creating videos youtube i've got a large
• 50:35
  youtube channel i post twice a week on there i do have my biology trauma podcast i'm on linked in
• 50:41
  and instagram and those are places that they can connect with me and what's the handle just
• 50:46
  doctor Amy doctor Amy biology trauma either one of those will get you to me.
• 50:51
  well thank you thank you for sharing your gifts and thank you all for joining us on this journey
• 50:58
  uh stay curious keep asking questions thank you so much for joining me on every day ancestral
• 51:07
  if you enjoyed this episode hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one you could find
• 51:12
  the show notes links and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com that's e-a-t-p-l-u-c-k dot com
• 51:22
  and hey if you know someone who'd get something out of this share it with them too stay curious
• 51:29
  live well and keep it ancestral