Latest / Rooted & Real With Keenan / Trauma, Somatic Healing, and Why Your Body Still Feels Unsafe
Transcript
- Keenan: Hey y'all, welcome back to Rooted in Real with me, Keenan Crowley, registered mental health counseling intern. I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. I come on here, talk about therapy for fun, education, educ encouragement, practical tools, but it's not therapy. Not even close. It's not medical advice, it's not crisis care. But if you feel like You're in danger, think about hurting yourself, hurting somebody else, an unsafe situation. please reach out to emergency services. Crisis hotline or per a trusted professional right away. ⁓ so today we're talking about trauma and somatic healing. And I want to start with a sentence ⁓ that been hearing a lot. And it's this. I know I'm safe, but my body doesn't believe it. And that sentence matters. Cause a lot of people think healing means once I understand what happened to me, I should be fine. Right? But trauma does not only live in the story you tell. It can also show up in the ways your body reacts. The tightness in the chest, the shallow breathing, the stomach dropping, the jaw clenching, the shoulders rising, the numbness, the shutdown, the anger that comes out faster than you expect. The panic that feels bigger than the moment. The exhaustion after that conversation that should not have taken that much out of That does not mean you're broken. It may mean your nervous system learned how to survive. And now it needs to learn safety again. Now we need to be clinically careful here. Trauma therapy is a serious, serious, serious field. The strongest evidence for PTSD treatment still supports trauma-focused treatments. Like Prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, EMDR. So the VA, National Center for PTSD, identifies PE, CPT, and EMDR as among the most highly recommended treatments for PTSD. So if you find somebody that does this and you have PTSD, latch onto them and talk to them about what's going on. Somatic approaches are growing, and even some research shows promising results, especially around PTSD-related symptoms and body-based distresses. But evidence is still considered preliminary compared to most established trauma treatments. So here's like the balanced view. Body-based tools can be super helpful. But we should not turn them into like a magic cure. We do not need hype. We need wisdom. We need the truth. We need critically sound care. And for Christian counseling, we also need a theology that honors the body. Because sometimes in Christian spaces, We act like the body is just this annoying thing that we like drag around while we try to be spiritual. But that's just not biblical. God made you embody. Jesus even took on a body. Your body matters. So Romans chapter 12 says to present your bodies as living sacrifices. And even in Psalms 139 says, You are fearfully and wonderfully made. And First Corinthians also reminds us that the body is not meaningless. So when your body reacts, we do not shame it. We listen. We discern and we bring it under the care of Christ. Now let's define somatic for a second, because that's a word not everybody hears and everybody knows. Somatic simply means related to the body. So when people talk about somatic healing. They're usually talking about paying attention to the body, the body sensations, the nervous system activation, how you breathe, movement, rounding, your posture, the way trauma can show up physically. This matters because trauma is not always experienced as a clean, organized memory. Sometimes trauma shows up as a reaction. You smell something, you hear something, and suddenly your body. Goes tense, tightens up. You hear a tone of a voice, and then you suddenly feel small. Someone gets too close and suddenly you want to escape. Your spouse asks a normal, reasonable question, and all you hear is criticism. Your child melts down and your body goes into fight mode. You walk into a room and your nervous system scans for danger. Before your mind has even formed a thought. This is not weakness. That is conditioning. Your body learned patterns. And healing often means learning new ones. Jordan Peterson has a helpful line from his book, The 12 Rules for Life. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday and not to who someone else is today. I know he used that in the comparison episode. But I think it applies here too. So trauma recovery is not about comparing your healing pace to someone else's. It's about noticing whether you're becoming a little more grounded and a little more honest and a more regulated and more connected than you were before. And that's important because trauma survivors often feel behind. Sometimes they think, I should be over this. I should not still react this way. Or they can say, I should be stronger. I should be able to move on. But healing does not usually happen by yelling at your nervous system. Healing ⁓ often happens through safety, truth, repetition, and support. Not shame. Not pressure. Not pretending, not spiritual bypassing, safety, truth, repetition, support. Now let's talk about Elijah in 1 Kings 19. Elijah in this book, in this chapter, he's exhausted. He's afraid. He's overwhelmed. He is isolated. And what does God do first? He doesn't start with a rebuke. God gives him rest. God gives him food. And then God lets him sleep. God speaks. That is such a compassionate picture. And sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is just take a nap. Go to sleep. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is eat. Have a snack. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is stop trying to solve your Entire life while your body is in survival mode. Because when your nervous system is highly activated, your thinking gets narrower. You become more reactive. You catastrophize. You personalize. You assume threats. You lose perspective. That is why regulation matters. Regulation is not weakness, regulation is wisdom. Before you analyze the trigger, sometimes you need to help your body return to the present. So here's a practical tool, something practical you can do. When you feel activated, ask yourself, am I in danger or am I being reminded of danger? And that question can create space. Because sometimes you're not in danger right now. You were reminded of danger from before. And your body is responding to the old threat as if it is happening right now. That doesn't mean we the reaction is fake. It means the reaction may be outdated. And your body is trying to protect you with old information. So we bring it new information. Look around the room. Name the date. Name where you are. Feel your feet. Unclench jaw. Drop your shoulders. Lengthen your exhale. Notice one thing you can see. Notice one thing you can hear. One thing you can touch. And then say, am here. This is now. That is what we call grounding. Grounding does not erase trauma, but it helps your body locate the present. And for Christian clients, I will often compare grounding with truth. Not in a forced way, not in a cheesy way, but in a real way. So Psalms 46, very popular verse. It says, Be still and know that I am God. It doesn't mean calm down because Christians should not feel things. It means there is a deeper reality than the alarm inside your body. God is present. God is near. God is not panicking. God is not confused by your nervous system. Psalm 34 says the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. That means God. Does not wait for you to be regulated before he comes close. He comes close to the brokenhearted. He comes close to the crushed. He comes close to the overwhelmed. Now I want to talk about fight, flight, freeze, and fun. Their survival responses. Fight says, I need to defend. Flight says, I need to escape. I need to run. Freeze says, I can't move. Bond says, I need to please you so I can stay safe. And a lot of people carry shame about around these responses. They say things like, Why did I freeze? Why did I explode? Why did I shut down? Why did I people please? Why did I not speak up? But here is the compassionate clinical truth. Your nervous system was just trying to survive. That does not mean every single reaction is healthy. It does not mean you are not responsible for But it does mean shame is not the path to healing. Romans 8:1 says, there is therefore condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Condemnation does not heal trauma, and it never will. Compassion and truth do. So to sense instead of saying, What's wrong with me? try saying, What happened to me? And that's the better question. What happened in my body? What did I perceive as a threat? What did this remind me of? What did my nervous system try to do? What does my body need now to come back to safety? That is not making excuses. That is building awareness. And awareness gives you options. Now I also want to be careful with the online trauma content. There's a lot of good education out there. There really is. But there's a lot of content that can keep people stuck. Not everything that validates you, heals you. Sometimes people start watching trauma content every night. They learn all these terms, they identify every wound, they label every person, they explain every reaction, but they're not actually building safety, boundaries, regulation, forgiveness, community. Or why support? That's not healing. That is ruminating rumination with better vocabulary. Proverbs 18, 17 says this the one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him. That is wisdom. We test things. We do not believe every post. We do not self-diagnose our Whole life from a 30-second TikTok. We do not turn trauma language into an identity. You are not your trauma response. You are not your symptoms. You are not your past. You are not what happened to you. In Christ, your story is real, but it is not ultimate. John Piper has said this your suffering is not meaningless. That is not a denial of pain. It is a reminder that suffering does not get the final word over the Christian life. and I love that because trauma often tells people, this ruined me. The gospel says this hurt you deeply, but it does not have the authority to define your whole future. That distinction is huge. We do not minimize the wound. We also do not crown the wound as Lord. Jesus is Lord, not trauma, not fear, not your past, not your nervous system, not the person who hurts you. Jesus is Lord. Now that does not mean you just quote a verse and everything gets better. Please hear me. I'm not saying that. I'm a Christian therapist. I believe in scripture deeply. But I also believe trauma recover often requires skilled care, patience, nervous system work, boundaries, grieving, and sometimes evidence-based trauma treatment. Faith does not mean we bypass the process. Faith means we do not go through the process alone. Pastor Mike says and has recently preached a message called When Joy Feels Impression. It the scripture and it says, when life gets loud, our hearts drift, anxiety grows, gratitude fates. And it points to Psalm 103 as a reminder to preach the truth to your own soul and not forget God's goodness. Grace, rescue, restoration, and renewal. That trauma recovery language is a pastoral key. Because trauma makes us forget. We forget safety. We forget goodness. We forget what is true. We forget our body is not the enemy. We forget that God restores. Psalm 103 says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Do not forget, not because your pain is small, but because God is still good in the middle of it. Now, let's make this practical. Here are five tools to use when your body still feels unsafe. Number one, name the body signal. Do not start with with a judgment. Start with an observation. My chest is tight. My shoulders are tense. My stomach is dropped. My hands are cold. My jaw is clenched. My body wants to leave. This is not bad. This is Data. Not an identity. Not bad. Data. Number two, orient to the room. Look around. Take a look around. Turn your head slowly. Notice the exits. Notice the colors. Notice objects. Notice that you are here now. Trauma pulls the past into the present. Orientation reminds the body. This is not then. Number three, lengthen the exhale. You do not need a complicated, weird breathing technique. Just inhale gently and then exhale a little longer. Longer exhales help the body signal safety to the body. Don't force it, don't perform it, just slow it down. And then number four. Move without intensity. Sometimes trauma activation needs gentle movement. Take a walk. Stretch. Touch your toes. Press your feet into the ground. Open and close your hands. Roll your shoulders. The goal's not fitness. We're not working out. The goal is just to be present. Number five, pair regulation with truth. Once your body is a little more settled, speak truth. I'm here. This is now. I'm here in the now. God is near. My body is reacting, but I can respond wisely. The Lord is my shepherd. I am not alone. That is where Christian counseling becomes powerful. We're not choosing between body and Bible. We are bringing the body under the care of the book of truth. Now let me speak to the person who feels frustrated with their healing pace. You may be doing better than you think. Maybe you still get triggered, but now you notice it sooner. That is growth. Progress is progress. Maybe you still feel anxious, but now you recover faster. That is growth. Maybe you still freeze, but you can name it. That is growth. Maybe you still feel fear, but you reach out instead of isolating. That's growth. Progress is progress. You do not despise small beginnings. Healing often looks like smaller reactions, faster repair, deeper honesty, safer relationships, and more capacity to stay present. It may not look dramatic, but it is real. And for some of you, the next faithful step is to doing more body scans. The next faithful step is to find a trauma-informed therapist. For others, it is telling the truth to someone safe. We should always tell someone something, but not everyone everything, including the truth to someone safe. And for some people, it's setting boundaries. For others, it's letting yourself breathe. For others, it's learning that rest is just not being lazy. And for others, it's admitting, I've been surviving for long time. And that admission can be so holy and life-giving. Because God does not heal the version of you that pretends. He meets the real you, the tired you, the guarded you, the hyper-vigilant you, the numb you, the angry you, the grieving you, the you that says, I know the verse, but my body is still scared. And he's not offended by that. He can handle that. He is near the brokenhearted. So here is the challenge this week. One body check-in every day. Just one. Pause and ask. What am I feeling in my body right now? What emotion might be connected to that? What do I need right now? Do I need grounding, truth, support? Rest. Movement? Do I need help? And then take one faithful step. Not a dramatic step, not a big step, a faithful step. Because healing trauma is not about forcing your body to calm down. It's about slowly teaching your body that the past is simply not in charge anymore. God is still present. Your body can learn safety. Your mind can learn truth. Your soul can learn hope. Your story is not over. And that actually leads me into the conversation we have coming up this Thursday with Monica Waltzon. Monica works in the space of quantum healing, emotional regulation, trauma, and the search for meaning. And I want to say this. Clearly before that episode drops. This conversation is not about me endorsing every claim, every framework, or every belief inside the healing world. That's not the point. The point is just to be curious. The point is an honest conversation. The point is asking. Why are so many people searching for healing beyond traditional language? Why are so many people searching for healing in this Crazy world. Why are people drawn to body-based work, energy language, spirituality, trauma recover in meaning making? And how do we as thoughtful people engage in those conversations with wisdom instead of fear, hype, or dismissal? Because here's the truth: people are hurting. People are trying to make sense of the world. People are trying to make sense of trauma. People are looking for hope. And sometimes the best conversations are not ones where we agree with everything. Sometimes the best conversations are the ones where we stay grounded and ask better questions, listen carefully, and test everything with wisdom. So this Thursday, Monaco joins me for a thoughtful con conversation quantum healing, trauma, emotional regulation, and deeper meaning, the deeper search. Meaning. Come into it curious. Come into it discerning. Come into it open-minded, but not empty-headed. That is the rooted and real way. This has been rooted and real, and I'm Keenan Crowley. Stay rooted, stay real, and remember, your body may remember the pain, but God is still able to restore what trauma tried to steal. Thank you all for listening, and I'll see you next time.