Latest / How to Be an Adult / How to Live Well After Trauma (Ep. 13)

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How to Live Well After Trauma (Ep. 13) · How to Be an Adult

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I would argue that the very fact that
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you're doing those things at all is actually
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proof that a, you're alive and b, you're
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trying to heal. People think they need motivation
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to drink less, to stop smoking, to exercise
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more. They don't need motivation.
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But we are often projecting ourselves into an
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unknown future.
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Welcome to How to be an Adult. This
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is a podcast created by the practitioners at
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the Morpheus Clinic For Hypnosis
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in Toronto, Canada. It's for people just like
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you who've inadvertently become adults and don't know
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what to do about it. I'm Luke Chao.
0:35
And I'm Pascal Langdell. Now this is the
0:37
trail guide to life that your parents never
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gave you when you reached the age of
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majority.
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And we share our ideas and our principles
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and our approaches
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in an effort to democratize
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self love, self care, self compassion.
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In this episode, we're gonna do our best
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to work out how to best live with
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a trauma history.
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When you've been wounded by other people or
1:01
the world and then you have to live
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with the pain that one lives with after
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trauma, there are a few responses that people
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go to.
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And
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one response is to just kind of take
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it out on others.
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So your boss yells at you, you yell
1:16
at your wife, your wife yells at the
1:17
kid, the kid yells at the cat.
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Another response
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is to kind of just hold the pain
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on the inside
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and not perpetuate your suffering upon other people.
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But there is a better alternative
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to that.
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And here we'll seek to unravel
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how one might
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try to recover from the wounds that have
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been inflicted upon them
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and achieve or at least try to achieve
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something called post
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traumatic growth.
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I was watching a,
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a series by a clinician on trauma recently,
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and
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he stated that reasonable efforts to come to
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a conclusion as to who suffers from trauma
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reached levels of around 75%.
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So, 75% of the population
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has experienced some form of trauma in their
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past. And I would suggest that perhaps after
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COVID, that's actually gone up. It It depends
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on the threshold you choose for trauma. Mhmm.
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So I I do agree. COVID kind of
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put us in this collective trauma
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of living in a pandemic and suddenly being
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scared of our friends,
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being scared of ourselves if we visit our
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grandparents.
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You could also make the argument that the
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school system traumatizes its people you could make
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the argument that living under capitalism traumatizes its
2:30
people
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it depends on the threshold you pick yeah
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I am someone who will not seek to
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gatekeep trauma to to me if you self
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assess that you've been through trauma. That to
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me is good enough.
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I'll share with our listeners that I actually
2:44
have a diagnosis of complex PTSD
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so, PTSD traditionally defined is it's kind of
2:51
like a stab wound to the gut there
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are clearly defined incidents that give you trauma
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like a natural disaster
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complex trauma is more like the death of
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a 1,000 cuts
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where one might grow up believing that he
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or she is not being traumatized
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simply because there is no stab wound to
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the gut to find
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but the symptoms are similar to if you've
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gotten that stab wound to the gut Hyper
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vigilance, for example, a negative self image.
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So, so much of what I share today
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is first what I've experienced personally
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and then what I've shared with my clients
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so that I can kind of draw these
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conclusions about how human beings
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can do our version of licking our wounds
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and trying to recover after we've been wounded
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by the world. One of the aspects that's
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differs between CPTSD and PTSD,
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particularly if it happens
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in your youth, in your formative developmental years,
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you learn strategies to deal with the 1,000
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cuts.
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And you survive. And it's quite possible to
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reach adulthood and think, well,
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that's it. I
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these are the rules by which I can
4:00
live because they worked. But the challenge is
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that what works during the period of a
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1000 cuts
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may not work when you're trying to be
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an adult in the world and you start
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to have relationships and responsibilities.
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And those same tools don't necessarily
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apply. You're no longer working to an accurate
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map. Well, we can understand that the rescue
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dog or the rescue cat
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might have been adapted to an abusive environment.
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So cowering all the time, you know, jumping
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at loud noises. They're adapted to an abusive
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environment. But once we take the animal and
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put them in a loving home where they
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can see for themselves
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that it's safe, they can venture out, they
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can make noise, and they don't have to
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cower. Well then the animal adapts to
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its new environment.
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Now we human beings are also capable of
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adapting to our adult environments.
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So I have 7 concise points just like
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colors of the rainbow. We can look at
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the finer grain details and come up with
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more, but at least at this point in
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my career in my life. I've ascertained
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7 main points I want to make for
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how to cope with trauma and the first
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one is to remember
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that trauma doesn't mean
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that you're broken
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like a shattered iPhone screen.
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It means you're wounded.
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It comes from the Greek word for wound
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and it's a wounded psyche of course. It's
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not a wounded body.
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But the word wound implies
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is that
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you're not at fault
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and also that the wound can heal
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and that's very different from a paradigm of
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brokenness
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where perhaps it's your fault you're broken
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and Perhaps you're irreparable
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So the first main point I absolutely want
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to make is that if we recall what
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trauma means,
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it's a wounded psyche
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and wounds heal. Wounds do heal.
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You might have to apply ample dollops of
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self love and self care
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to help your emotional wounds heal.
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But if we keep our mind on healing
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then we don't have our minds on the
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erroneous idea that life could just simply break
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without
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later healing. I would even suggest that
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it's inevitable that you you will attempt to
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heal your psyche. That that drive to
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heal is in is inevitable as life itself,
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in fact. So, in some ways, the
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some of the maladaptive choices that you might
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be making are an effort still to heal.
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It's just that they don't really work for
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you. Yes. And so, you can't look at
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the evidence of your behavior and coruscate yourself
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for them. Say, I shouldn't be doing this,
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I shouldn't be doing that, it's proof that
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I'm broken.
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Quite contrary to that, I would argue that
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the very fact you're doing those things at
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all is actually proof that a, you're alive
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and b, you're trying to heal. It's just
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that you've not been given the right guidance
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to figure out how. Exactly.
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It's like you're asked to climb the mountain
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on your own and you know you can
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do it But without a guide and having
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to find your own way it is a
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lot harder and sometimes you might make a
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misstep
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compared to if in psychotherapy, for example, or
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in our work or just listening to this
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podcast you have some guidance
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in how to climb the the mountain of
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trauma recovery
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this point about being wounded and not broken
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which makes healing inevitable
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it falls from the fact that we are
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only correctly categorized
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as life.
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So the living animal
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who had been wounded physically or emotionally
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given enough care can be expected to heal
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and then be happy and healthy again right
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but the stuffed animal who's wounded cannot heal
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We could go in and sew it up
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and
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fix it, but
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let's make this distinction between life versus objects
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where life will heal. Life will adapt. Life
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will find a way, whether we're talking about
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a tree with its branches and roots, or
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whether we're talking about the wolf going back
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to her den, licking her wounds or the
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human being trying to figure out how are
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they gonna climb this mountain of trauma recovery?
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This aliveness is worth underscoring because the rules
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for how we treat life are very different
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from the rules for how we treat things
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where things could be broken. Things require us
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to, like, tinker with them until they're fixed.
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Life just requires nourishment.
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Life has to have its needs met and
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then healing
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follows inevitably.
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For us human beings, our needs include well
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everything Maslow identified
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so
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love esteem
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respect
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on top of the physical needs like safety
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and food and air and water.
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As adults,
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we have to fulfill our own needs.
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So self love and self esteem and self
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respect
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might have to do in a world where
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others might not give you enough love and
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esteem and respect, but it
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it fulfills the need it's not just love
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from another that's valid
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your self love is valid it just wasn't
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under scored enough when you were a child
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which is probably why you're listening to this
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podcast
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and I'm here to tell you that your
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self love comes from a human being who
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has a heart, who knows you very, very,
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very well,
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and who's gonna be with you for the
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rest of your life. What you have with
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yourself is a, in sickness and in health,
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till death do you part thing. Even when
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you feel half alive,
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You're completely alive if you perceive yourself as
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a 100% alive You're perceiving the whole thing
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when people feel half alive. That's because they're
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not looking at their entirety.
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So the second point is to take guardianship
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of your own body which is
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similar to that phrase which is you are
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life under your own care. Your mind and
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a body under your own care.
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Absolutely.
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Because if you forget this fact then you're
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completely abandoned
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some of the time.
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Right? So you're trying to fall asleep at
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night if you don't count yourself as life
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That's yours to care for if you've not
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adopted yourself in the way I'm advising
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often than you hope with your own darkest
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thoughts
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But if you've kind of adopted yourself in
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a way so that you're guaranteeing you're always
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going to be there to love you and
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care for you and you're never going to
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betray or abandon yourself
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Then every night you go to bed with
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someone you love. I think in in some
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ways, it's
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and we've we've said this before. It's the
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panacea. It seems to be the foundational and
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core axiom, if you like, that you have
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fundamental intrinsic worth and you are life in
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your own care. Yeah. Which many other decisions
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automatically proceed from. So, to give you an
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example, if something triggers a memory for example,
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or triggers a feeling, and this feeling is
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a historical echo of something that is not
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present, is not real, and is not in
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the here and now,
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then if you're treating yourself
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not as a friend would, if you're treating
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yourself bad, you're mistreating yourself, you would criticize
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yourself from those feelings. You would adopt them
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as being true and valid and not give
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yourself the grace, should we say,
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to even be able to inquire about what
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that emotion is, where it's come from. Yep.
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To even begin to learn about yourself you
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have to start off with a certain level
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of self love that says it's worth learning,
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it's worth taking that time and taking a
11:10
a step back to be able to observe
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what's going on with compassion.
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And what you're talking about is someone who's
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still kind of adapted to their childhood environment,
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like the rescue dog who's not yet been
11:23
adopted.
11:24
This is why I'm asking our listeners
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to adopt themselves in a way to be
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the guarantors of their own lovability and worthiness
11:33
and respectability
11:34
being consistently recognized.
11:36
If 8,000,000,000 people on the planet did this
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for themselves, the world will be much better
11:41
off. It's not gonna, like, take someone else's
11:44
self esteem if you esteem yourself and, you
11:47
know, everyone's doing the self esteem thing correctly.
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Just like if everyone sleeps well at night,
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the world's gonna be better off if, you
11:55
know, everyone has love in their hearts.
11:58
The world will be better off.
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But one of the aspects that I often
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see about life in your own care is
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that
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even that can seem like a huge mountain.
12:09
Mhmm. And
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I think it's important to state even at
12:13
this point that even the smallest incremental step
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that is
12:18
based on a value of self care is
12:20
huge. Even if it's something as small as,
12:23
you know, drinking a glass of water, that
12:25
to the outside might be, well, I could
12:27
drink water all the time, what's the problem
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with that? You know, to to to some
12:30
people even
12:32
the smaller steps are huge and should be
12:34
honored and respected as if it was somebody
12:37
that had just scaled Everest, you know. It's
12:39
not it's not a small negligent thing to
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be able to make that step sometimes.
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Because you're then abiding by the paradigm, then
12:46
your life that's under your care if you
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refuse to drink a glass of water just
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because you're feeling miserable you're not abiding by
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the paradigm
12:53
that your life that's under your care And
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every mountain is climbed
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one foothold at a time. Literally, everyone who's
13:01
ever scaled Mount Everest
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did it one little step at a time
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and it would have been difficult it was
13:08
sometimes life threatening
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but
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This is what the professionals do that this
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is what those who reach the peak do
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they take it one little step at a
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time
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they stay on the slope
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and then eventually they're at the peak. So
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what so what I'm advocating for here is
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within that statement, there's a sense of boldness
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and a sense of forthrightness that sometimes isn't
13:31
felt, particularly in the early stages.
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And that to me, one of the things
13:35
I'd like to underline is that if your
13:37
sense of self worth has been educated into
13:40
such a degree that you find it difficult
13:42
to treat yourself as life under your own
13:44
care, to have compassion for yourself, I mean
13:46
really difficult.
13:47
Then any step that you take should be
13:49
celebrated, not a subject for shame or again
13:52
being pointed out saying, yeah, you're broken because
13:54
this is all you can do. Everybody else
13:56
seems to be able to do it but
13:57
you can't. Yeah. You find it difficult. Yeah.
13:59
And that becomes again another avenue for that
14:02
old voice of the worst voices that ever
14:04
spoke to you, you know, to come back
14:06
in. And so I I wanted
14:08
to to to point out that even those
14:10
first steps
14:11
in some ways should should garner respect
14:14
and awards
14:15
because
14:16
they are even if they may appear small,
14:19
they are still big to you. And that's
14:21
really only you get to be the arbiter
14:23
and the moral moral authority on the kind
14:25
of steps that are possible for you at
14:27
any given time. And so if it's a
14:29
small step, for other people it could be
14:31
there's people that you and I know that
14:32
find it difficult to get out of bed,
14:33
you know.
14:35
I've been there. Yeah, exactly. So you know,
14:37
that just getting out of bed could be
14:39
a huge deal and as soon as you've
14:40
done that, so you've made the choice.
14:42
Today I'm gonna get out of bed because
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I am a life under my own care
14:46
and I have work. The moment you made
14:48
that one first decision
14:50
then it shows you have a choice. It
14:52
It shows that you have agency. It shows
14:54
that you are able to make a positive
14:56
choice and redirect your thoughts to a positive
14:58
behavior. And if you know you can do
15:00
it once then you can do it twice.
15:02
And then eventually these steps become bigger and
15:05
bigger and can be exponential. And because of
15:07
this we can say that sometimes we can
15:09
see quite rapid change
15:11
as a result. Because it's not necessarily, you
15:13
know, 10 years of therapy
15:15
that's that that is required, but it's this
15:18
reinforcement of the steps based on a foundation
15:21
of self worth. Many people I think who
15:23
are lying in bed
15:25
not doing anything and again I've been there.
15:27
I've been there more than once in my
15:28
life.
15:29
It's because they're waiting for a feeling
15:33
that
15:34
they can go out of bed and nothing
15:37
bad will happen and they can handle life
15:39
before they do it, and that's the wrong
15:40
order of things. What you're advocating for is
15:43
to take the action
15:44
one way or another and expect that the
15:47
feelings follow from actions.
15:49
Again, I've been there. This way works.
15:52
In fact, with any difficult enough endeavor,
15:55
you don't
15:56
wanna just wait passively
15:58
for the right feeling to come along before
16:00
you do the thing. Whether it's getting out
16:03
of bed when you have depression or whether
16:04
it's writing the great American novel or whether
16:07
it's recording your first album.
16:10
Just starting to take the actions
16:13
produces
16:14
the feelings which follow after the actions. It
16:17
would be the wrong order of things to
16:19
wait for the right feelings to strike if
16:21
you're already depressed and Mhmm. So what we're
16:24
talking about,
16:25
so far as self care and moving into
16:27
those physical needs, so drinking water, exercise. But
16:31
what is the correct or the most beneficial
16:34
attitude to your body? A body that's been
16:36
traumatized. So that ties into our third point,
16:39
which is that we have to fulfill all
16:41
of our physical needs.
16:43
Now I have to tell a lot of
16:45
people to take a deep breath because they're
16:48
not even fulfilling the basic physical need of
16:51
breathing deeply enough. Now I know where this
16:54
comes from. It comes with a feeling that
16:55
it's not safe to take a breath. I
16:57
know that's the feeling
16:59
but when you take the small action of
17:01
asking your body for a deeper breath and
17:04
you take deeper breath and you see no
17:05
bad thing happens there's no like velociraptor around
17:08
the corner ready to eat you
17:10
then
17:12
you can breathe deeply. Your body gets that
17:14
need fulfilled and your body also gets through
17:17
the mind body link the signal that it's
17:19
safe to breathe.
17:20
Now for someone who's dealing with post traumatic
17:22
stress it's a very helpful signal
17:25
to give your body that it's safe to
17:26
breathe, it's safe to breathe deeply, and therefore
17:29
it's safe to relax. It's safe to even
17:32
let your guards down at least a little
17:33
bit and then see if it's safe to
17:35
let your guards down a little bit further.
17:38
It's not too basic to talk about drinking
17:41
some water, taking a deep enough breath,
17:44
given how many people fail to fulfill even
17:46
these most basic of needs that a human
17:49
being has.
17:50
Other physical needs that often people neglect because
17:53
they're going through some stuff
17:55
are the need for sleep, which is an
17:57
entitlement. It's not a nice to have when
17:59
you finally get around to it
18:01
or the need to eat good enough food
18:05
where you know Feeling miserable is no excuse
18:09
to feed yourself junk that you wouldn't give
18:11
to anyone you love
18:13
So the action of eating fruits and vegetables
18:17
Underscores
18:18
that you're adopting a new paradigm where you
18:21
are indeed life That's under your care and
18:23
you've indeed adopted yourself and you would hold
18:26
yourself to the same standards you would hold
18:27
yourself to
18:28
if you were responsible for a cat, a
18:31
dog, maybe even a house plant. The house
18:34
plant gets enough water
18:36
not too much but enough water rather than
18:39
a bottle of wine.
18:40
Yeah. And and
18:42
there's an aspect of that which is like
18:44
a dog for instance. You take a dog
18:45
for a walk, you would exercise the dog.
18:47
The dog needs exercise. So that again,
18:49
you could
18:51
be consistent if you do that for a
18:52
dog that you would do that for yourself.
18:54
The same with medical care or water, food,
18:57
you know, it's it's this There there wasn't
18:59
that I I remember reading, I can't remember
19:01
where where it was now, about how they
19:04
did a sort of a survey
19:05
of how much money and how much attention
19:07
were paid towards pets compared to the owners
19:10
on themselves. And it was like a huge
19:12
difference. It's like more money and more attention
19:15
was being paid towards their own pets than
19:17
was being paid to themselves,
19:19
which is
19:20
really quite inconsistent,
19:22
you know, at the very is one way
19:23
of putting it. People think they need motivation
19:27
to drink less to stop smoking to exercise
19:31
more
19:32
they don't need motivation
19:35
to fulfill these basic needs for their pet
19:37
cat or dog.
19:38
The missing piece of the puzzle for how
19:41
we treat ourselves is love.
19:43
So knowing you've got to walk the dog
19:45
is not enough. You've got to know that
19:48
and love the dog too and then you're
19:50
walking the dog. So knowing what you have
19:52
to eat or how to exercise and use
19:54
the machines at the gym isn't enough unless
19:57
you have that piece of the puzzle which
19:59
is self love. And and even if it's
20:01
not a question of getting a gym membership
20:03
and working
20:05
out how to use the machines.
20:07
If you're approaching exercise
20:08
from the point of view which is not
20:10
that I wanna get necessarily buff and and
20:13
and you know,
20:14
and sculpted, but that it's important to exercise
20:18
because I spend most of my time at
20:20
a desk. It's important to exercise
20:22
because it's good for my mental health just
20:24
as it's to equal to say it's good
20:26
that I sleep
20:28
because when I'm tired
20:30
that negative voice gets louder and I find
20:31
it harder to to turn the volume down.
20:34
I believe more of the dark imaginings when
20:37
I'm tired. And I have less I have
20:39
less energy that I can bring to preparing
20:41
good food. There's some sort of key aspects
20:43
that even in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs
20:45
perhaps there's
20:46
sort of sleep might be right up there
20:48
at the top. And that's under recognized that
20:50
sleep is a physical need, but it is
20:52
a physical need.
20:54
Even if you don't get these kinds of
20:55
outcomes, right? So even if your inner critic
20:58
is still strong, though, you've
21:00
slept well.
21:02
That's not a failure. Mhmm.
21:04
Because sleep in itself
21:07
is
21:07
intrinsically
21:08
valuable. Mhmm. As long as you can raise
21:11
the question of should I treat myself well
21:13
or poorly today?
21:15
The answer is treat yourself as human life
21:18
that is under your care.
21:20
And one thought you can add to that
21:22
is that generally speaking you don't regret it.
21:24
It's I can't I can't think of a
21:26
time that you regret treating yourself
21:29
well with compassion
21:30
and with a sense of self worth. Independently
21:33
of the outcomes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
21:36
So among our basic needs
21:39
is to have a safe person to physically
21:42
share ourselves with. Mhmm. And I'm gonna count
21:45
animals as people for the purposes of this
21:47
discussion because for all intents and purposes they
21:50
are. They have hearts, they have emotions,
21:53
they see us and they're they're there for
21:55
us and they don't judge
21:57
us. So when we're touch starved,
22:01
right,
22:02
it's almost like we're dehydrated
22:05
or we're malnourished.
22:07
It will be harder
22:09
to love yourself. It will be harder
22:13
to fulfill your obligations to society
22:16
if you're touch starved.
22:18
Like when my cat died, I've talked about
22:20
this in prior episodes,
22:22
when my cat died I had a very
22:24
hard time sleeping for for for quite some
22:26
time.
22:27
The presence of that animal fulfilled
22:31
my need to receive touch,
22:34
to have my physical
22:36
presence
22:37
recognized
22:37
as worthy or valid
22:40
enough to to cuddle up next to.
22:43
And I sort of see this crisis in
22:45
our society where especially young men. Right? Unless
22:48
you have a cat or a dog,
22:51
you might have nobody
22:53
to do that with, to to cuddle with,
22:55
to to have your physical presence validated so
22:58
of course you feel empty in your heart
22:59
of course it's like you're malnourished
23:02
when you have a trauma history it is
23:04
harder to date or to I guess be
23:06
recognized as normal.
23:08
Well, if you're if you're with,
23:09
75% of others then you are normal.
23:14
You're not the exception.
23:17
Yeah, but that's under recognized until we say
23:19
it on a podcast like this that you're
23:22
definitely not the only person in the city
23:24
that you're in who is touch starved and
23:27
who just wishes they could find someone else
23:30
even if you just, like, met
23:32
your needs or you don't even have to
23:34
have sex.
23:35
That need is valid. I mean, sex is
23:37
kind of like an option for a lot
23:39
of people,
23:40
but to kind of be hugged
23:42
or held
23:44
or to have, like, a cat mash their
23:46
belly into your face because that's what they
23:50
do that
23:51
physical validation of your actual presence in this
23:55
material world made of atoms and molecules seems
23:57
to make a difference and especially for those
23:59
with a trauma history. Yeah. Yeah. The 4th
24:02
point that I want to make is that
24:04
we're not just rational beings,
24:07
we're also moral beings
24:09
and in the prior episode we talked about
24:11
why we need to account for morality
24:15
even in this world where the m word
24:18
seems quaint and outdated
24:20
now a lot of the problems that I
24:22
see in my clients are problems of demoralization.
24:25
If they're connected with a moral center, they're
24:28
willing to say no, thank you
24:31
to other people's bad ideas.
24:33
Right?
24:34
If they're connected with their moral center, then,
24:36
of course, they treat themselves as a living
24:38
human being that they're responsible for. If they're
24:41
connected with their moral center then the long
24:44
dark nights become easier to bear
24:47
if you're disconnected with your moral center
24:51
other people's bad ideas
24:53
might end up being weighed equally
24:56
to
24:56
good ideas in your mind.
24:59
So someone else's cruelty
25:01
you might actually take as valid
25:04
if you're out of touch with your moral
25:06
center.
25:07
So And and I think part part of
25:09
the challenge there is that
25:11
if you have CPTSD because
25:13
your developmental period has been traumatized or traumatizing,
25:17
is that as a child you don't have
25:20
the experience or the wisdom to have a
25:22
developed, we say, moral center. You look to
25:25
your peers, you look to your parents and
25:26
your peers
25:27
to say, well, what is it that I
25:29
should guide myself with?
25:31
And if your parents are saying, for instance,
25:33
you're you're having an emotion and your parents
25:35
are gaslighting you Mhmm. Then you're being told
25:38
that you shouldn't trust your emotions, for example.
25:40
And that's you could say well,
25:43
as an adult you have to observe your
25:44
emotions, see them as signals and trust them
25:46
as good signals of something. Mhmm. Don't have
25:48
to see this, treat them like lenses that
25:50
you need to see the world through. But
25:52
still this is this is an example of
25:53
how
25:54
trauma can put you in a situation where
25:56
you have to make your morals. You have
25:58
to figure out what they are because
26:00
you weren't told them at all, and you
26:02
were actually instructed in a very different moral
26:05
that was about somebody else's
26:07
needs and desires
26:08
and and proclivities, if you like, and not
26:11
honoring yours.
26:13
I'm gonna make an interesting argument Mhmm. That
26:16
human beings are not the only moral animals.
26:20
I'm going to make the argument that the
26:22
animals who we can kind of
26:25
interact with in a friendly way or play
26:26
within a friendly way
26:28
have a kind of instinctive morality that we
26:31
human beings as mammals can kind of tap
26:33
into
26:34
2. So, for example,
26:36
let's say that I'm,
26:39
respectfully
26:39
playing with a cat and the cat's got
26:42
its claws right.
26:44
The cats morality
26:46
doesn't permit
26:47
them to extend their claws for me,
26:50
who is respectfully
26:52
playing with the cat and honoring their boundaries.
26:55
But then if I'm just a total jerk
26:59
and then I like grab the cat in
27:01
a way they don't like, the claws come
27:02
out.
27:04
Now we human beings,
27:06
we don't use claws, we don't use teeth
27:08
to set boundaries.
27:10
We're supposed to use our words.
27:13
Words like no, words like not a chance,
27:17
and even words like go away
27:20
and its ruder variations.
27:23
Often, if we're not permitted
27:25
to use these kinds of words
27:27
or if we have this kind of false
27:29
morality that we're good if we say yes
27:30
and we're bad if we say no,
27:32
then that's one of the ways we become
27:35
out of touch with our moral centers. I
27:37
mean cats should have their claws
27:40
not because they're gonna scratch you,
27:42
but because on a longer timeline they're gonna
27:45
come across some jerk who needs to be
27:47
told off.
27:48
Guess one of the points we're trying to
27:50
make here is you don't have to become
27:51
a moral philosopher
27:52
in order to get in touch with your
27:54
moral center. Trauma kind of disconnects you with
27:57
your moral center.
27:58
So if you kind of feel your feelings
28:01
again
28:02
and recognize that sometimes the parents are wrong,
28:05
sometimes the authorities are wrong,
28:07
and you feel your feelings including anger,
28:11
then
28:12
you don't have to become a moral philosopher.
28:14
You're connected with something much
28:16
deeper than what you might read in a
28:17
book.
28:19
So
28:20
so now we're coming to point 5 which
28:22
is believing in your own senses. Mhmm. That's
28:25
something which
28:27
is
28:28
surprisingly
28:30
difficult for many of us. In the sense
28:32
that we are often projecting ourselves into an
28:35
unknown future or we're coruscating ourselves or feeling
28:38
an echo and judging the world according to
28:39
something that's passed and gone. Mhmm. An exam
28:42
again, I'll bring up the example again of
28:45
echoes
28:46
of emotional triggered emotions that put you your
28:49
body back into a state that it was.
28:51
Because of course the the limbic system has
28:53
no idea about time. As far as the
28:55
limbic system is concerned,
28:57
you're back there. You're not
28:59
it doesn't have a perception of time the
29:01
way the cortex does, right? But what that
29:03
can mean is that you feel that, you
29:04
believe that to be the truth about now.
29:07
You feel it to be the truth. You
29:08
feel it to be the truth now. Whereas
29:11
that's a signal, it's not 2020 vision. And
29:13
so, a lot of the things about grounding
29:15
for example, are trying to pull you back
29:17
into the present, into the here and now.
29:20
And that means
29:22
guiding yourself with the evidence of your eyes
29:24
and your ears and over what is accurate
29:27
over what is under your control. I think
29:28
that's probably one more that I'd add. Mhmm.
29:31
The incredible thing is
29:33
for for a cat to be able to
29:36
bring down like a moth or like a
29:38
wild bird for example. The cats got to
29:41
be very much
29:43
in its senses.
29:44
It's not imagining what it's going to do
29:46
in the future when it finally catches a
29:48
bird. It's not remembering the last 5 birds
29:50
it's caught.
29:51
We human beings we have the capacity
29:54
to be in our senses.
29:56
We also have the capacity to ignore our
29:58
senses
29:59
and either flash back to the past or
30:01
imagine ourselves at some point in the future
30:04
I think part of the reason so many
30:05
of us neglect the evidence of our senses
30:08
is that we're gaslit.
30:10
We're young.
30:11
George Orwell, of course, wrote the very insightful
30:14
book 1980 4. Mhmm. And one of the
30:16
lines just from memory is the first and
30:19
final command of the party is to disbelieve
30:21
the evidence of your own eyes.
30:24
And that's, of course, an authoritarian
30:26
control tactic.
30:27
There are many households
30:29
that have employed
30:31
this authoritarian
30:32
control tactic.
30:34
And then one doesn't believe the evidence
30:38
of their senses.
30:39
They don't believe what they see, what they
30:41
hear, what they experience. They don't believe that
30:44
any of it is valid.
30:45
So where do they go to instead?
30:48
Past or future, memory or imagination
30:52
and this episode of course is about living
30:55
well with trauma
30:57
so
30:58
it's especially
31:00
when you've experienced
31:02
trauma and then your experiences have been ignored
31:04
or denied.
31:06
That's where your sensory perception becomes undermined.
31:11
You start questioning, can I believe my own
31:12
eyes?
31:13
Is that authority figure right? Did it really
31:16
not happen?
31:17
And our listeners, if you're listening this far
31:19
into the episode, you've probably gone down spirals
31:22
like that
31:23
that lead to no satisfying
31:24
conclusions.
31:25
I can tell you the lifeline out of
31:28
that spiral is to be very well grounded
31:31
in your senses.
31:32
So so to see what you see and
31:34
believe it and feel what you feel and
31:36
believe and hear what you hear and believe
31:39
it. So grounding as you mentioned Pascal that
31:41
you're basically grounding yourself again in the here
31:43
and the now.
31:45
It's true that senses are imperfect
31:48
as a guide to reality but your senses
31:51
are a whole lot better as a guide
31:52
to reality than either childhood memories
31:55
or the imagination
31:56
of
31:57
potential features, most of which don't actually materialize
32:00
before you.
32:02
Another way
32:03
out of having been gaslit
32:06
is to recognize who knows what. Because if
32:08
you were present
32:09
for whatever is claimed
32:12
and the other person was not, if you
32:14
saw with your eyes and they're just speculating,
32:17
you're the person with knowledge. You're the person
32:19
with empirical knowledge.
32:22
So it doesn't matter if the other person's
32:23
older than you or it doesn't matter if
32:25
that person has a position of authority over
32:27
you. It's important to recognize
32:30
who knows what and
32:33
when it comes to matters pertaining to you
32:35
specifically as an individual,
32:37
you are definitely the person who knows the
32:40
most.
32:41
So any time someone says to you you're
32:44
crazy, you're making stuff up, these are very
32:46
overt forms of gaslighting of course but those
32:50
kinds of statements if taken seriously
32:53
would take you out of this concrete reality
32:57
we exist in
32:58
and into potentially endless spirals inside your own
33:02
head.
33:03
The 6th point I want to make about
33:06
how we live well despite trauma
33:08
is to immerse ourselves in
33:11
physically
33:13
immersive experiences
33:15
or sensations.
33:17
So for example taking a hot bath is
33:19
going to help
33:21
and It's because it brings you into the
33:22
here and the now you're not remembering the
33:25
bath you took 2 weeks ago or feeling
33:28
that the bath what a cold bath or
33:30
a cold shower
33:31
Whatever floats your
33:32
boat if it gives you sensory stimulation
33:36
Then
33:37
it brings you to the here and the
33:39
now
33:40
The situation you want to avoid is lying
33:42
in bed with your eyes closed,
33:45
thinking of things and ruminating and imagining possibilities
33:49
and thinking could've, should've, would've. And getting yourself
33:51
into a healthy situation.
33:53
So, you're talking about doing things that engage
33:57
you and take you out of
33:59
the negative rumination for example? Yes. So, holding
34:02
an acoustic guitar Mhmm. Fingering a chord and
34:05
even just strumming the chord.
34:08
Now you're connecting
34:11
your body
34:12
and the motion
34:14
with a sound you hear through a different
34:16
sense. Mhmm. Something as simple as that. I'm
34:20
assuming the guitar's in tune by the way.
34:23
Something as simple as that
34:24
asserts that you're not just subject to the
34:27
world.
34:27
You're a subject in this world.
34:29
You're supposed to act upon the world to
34:32
make it a little bit better even if
34:34
you're just moving sound waves
34:37
through this instrument. And to to a degree
34:39
it doesn't really matter what that is. It's
34:41
just that that first step of doing almost
34:43
anything
34:44
is likely to put you on track to
34:47
getting you out of your head so much.
34:49
Yes. And those who don't have so so
34:51
much of a trauma history,
34:52
they might not have to go out of
34:54
their own way to give themselves this kind
34:57
of antidote
34:59
to ground themselves, right? If you're thinking
35:03
about having to ground yourself over and over
35:05
and over again you might have a trauma
35:06
history.
35:07
I just wanna say that, you know, for
35:09
those of you who are listening, you have
35:11
no idea what I'm talking about.
35:13
It's probably because you don't have too much
35:14
of a trauma history. So you can be
35:16
in the here and the now
35:18
and it doesn't take much great effort
35:20
and you don't really flash back to past
35:22
memories or ruminate about the past and you
35:24
also don't really try to figure out the
35:26
infinite branching paths that could go forward in
35:29
time and you could actually, like, enjoy a
35:31
sunny day. Mhmm. Our goal with this episode
35:34
is to get our listeners as close to
35:36
that idea as possible.
35:38
Yeah.
35:39
I want to account
35:40
for experiences that go beyond just
35:44
physically grabbing
35:45
yourself in the world. I want to account
35:48
for transcendent
35:49
experiences
35:51
like really good music,
35:54
good storytelling,
35:55
even if the storytelling is through a screen
35:57
and speakers as it often is in this
35:59
modern world.
36:01
Time spent in beautiful natural scenes,
36:04
walking through an art gallery.
36:07
When
36:08
you are
36:09
witnessing
36:10
something that goes beyond
36:12
just your pain
36:14
or just one individual's pain
36:17
when you're witnessing something that kind of speaks
36:19
to a transcendent human experience
36:22
this is another way beyond just the physical
36:24
and the sensory
36:26
to be in the here and the now
36:29
so when you're watching a movie you're not
36:30
really doing anything you're not creating in this
36:33
world as I've advocated for But watching a
36:35
really good movie,
36:37
here's what's happening.
36:39
The filmmakers
36:40
reached deeply into their humanity
36:42
to
36:43
look at some aspect of that humanity
36:47
which you share too.
36:49
And then through their craft, they've brought forth
36:51
into this world an expression
36:55
of their collective humanity
36:57
so that now you can recognize your own
36:59
pain as part of a shared human experience
37:02
and not just individual to you Or maybe
37:04
you'll recognize your anger to be part of
37:07
a shared human experience
37:09
and not a problem with you individually.
37:11
Or maybe it opens up the possibility for
37:14
joy which has been kept hidden from you
37:17
or that you've hidden from yourself. Yes.
37:20
The kind of catharsis
37:22
that follows from witnessing tragedy,
37:25
right? It's not just for the ancient Greeks.
37:27
They were human beings like us.
37:30
You know,
37:31
dark films,
37:33
so called depressing films, even films that are
37:35
not that joyful, not that happy
37:37
have a lot of use in this world
37:41
because now you know when you witness such
37:43
things
37:44
that your pain is not just yours And
37:47
other people are suffering too and you are
37:49
not alone. Does,
37:51
the idea of transcendence or transcending experiences
37:54
go beyond
37:56
the human? So would you say or
37:58
would be going even further into, for instance,
38:01
extending your
38:03
sense of self
38:05
in respect to the truly transcendent.
38:08
So gazing up at the stars Yeah. Or
38:10
Going to the Grand Canyon.
38:12
Massive churches with vaulted ceilings designed Right. To
38:15
create that sensation.
38:16
Yes. And I I don't really have like
38:19
the vocab. I'm not really like an aesthetic
38:21
philosopher So I don't really have the vocabulary
38:24
to talk about those kinds of experiences But
38:26
all I think is a good word
38:28
Now, an interesting thing I've noticed among some
38:31
of my clients with a fear of heights
38:33
is that what they're actually experiencing
38:35
is uncontained
38:36
awe.
38:38
And once we describe their fear of heights
38:41
as a sense of awe that they're capable
38:44
of containing,
38:46
then they don't feel so overwhelmed.
38:49
Then they feel like their feet can be
38:51
on the ground and they're not gonna be
38:53
overwhelmed
38:54
and like jump into the Grand Canyon or
38:56
something as one often imagines.
38:59
So yeah I think that we should make
39:01
room for a sense of awe
39:03
And I also think that a human mind
39:06
can in a way contain it even if
39:09
we can't comprehend it.
39:11
In many aspects, those things that do create
39:13
awe
39:15
are things that are
39:17
extraordinary
39:18
in their
39:19
presence outside the human sense of time and
39:23
space,
39:24
but are constrained enough that we can perceive
39:27
them. So if you look up a trees
39:29
for example,
39:30
the trees
39:31
are present. It's not empty space. It's describing
39:34
it's actually
39:35
limiting space.
39:37
But the multiplicity of light, the leaves, these
39:40
are all constraints, but they're constraints enough that
39:43
implicate
39:44
something which is transcendent.
39:47
The same with the church roof
39:48
or a mosque roof, they're very vaulted. They're
39:50
vaulted because
39:52
if it was the open sky and you
39:53
couldn't see anything obstructing the sky, it'd just
39:55
be the sky. It'd be unfathomable. You wouldn't
39:58
feel that sense at all necessarily.
40:00
Mhmm. But you bring a roof in and
40:01
suddenly you sense the great feeling of space
40:04
and Right. Once you look up. If you
40:06
look at stars for example,
40:07
you don't get necessarily the same feeling when
40:10
you're looking at a big blue sky. I
40:11
mean, you could do, don't get me wrong.
40:13
But the stars actually create a canopy that
40:17
brings in, constrains the sense of the incredible
40:21
depths of space and time and distance
40:25
that is implied by the stars. And that's
40:27
why that sense of awe. I think I've
40:29
seen studies where awe is considered again one
40:32
of those things that
40:34
can really bring you out of your rumination
40:37
on negative self. If that makes sense. Any
40:39
experience that is more interesting
40:43
when your attention's out there
40:45
compared to lying in bed with what you
40:48
think is the most interesting thing you could
40:50
think of is gonna help you. And another
40:53
experience that kind of you would have to
40:55
immerse yourself into to get the most out
40:58
of
40:59
is trauma therapy.
41:00
So EMDR for example.
41:03
And, you know, I'm not actually a trauma
41:05
therapist. Most of what I know about trauma
41:07
comes from personal experience,
41:09
which is why I think I can kind
41:10
of
41:11
describe the experience from the inside.
41:14
But I have gone through trauma therapy
41:16
and the experience of immersing
41:19
yourself in your feelings while there's a lifeline,
41:22
namely your therapist, to pull you out if
41:25
they have to. That can be helpful
41:27
within those parameters.
41:29
So 0.7 is pretty succinct. Keep away from
41:32
harms.
41:33
Yes. So many of us
41:36
gravitate
41:37
to alcohol
41:39
to drugs
41:40
to careless sex
41:42
to careless spending
41:45
as a trauma response
41:47
because it makes us feel
41:49
at least okay if not good it makes
41:51
us feel okay
41:52
temporarily
41:54
So that's why we have to make the
41:55
7th point
41:57
that because you have a trauma history you
41:59
might not respond to stress the way that
42:01
someone with a better upbringing does.
42:04
You might gravitate
42:05
to these kinds of coping mechanisms.
42:08
We want you
42:10
to use one of the other coping mechanisms
42:12
that we've been talking about, so you're not
42:14
wasting your time by going out to the
42:16
countryside,
42:17
finding a hill and looking up at the
42:18
stars for 12 hours until the sun comes
42:21
up. You now have our professional encouragement and
42:23
validation
42:24
to do precisely
42:26
that.
42:27
The point is
42:29
to stay away
42:31
from these kinds of temporary
42:34
band aid fixes that I know you've been
42:36
trying
42:38
and
42:39
to try something different
42:41
and social media is another one of those
42:43
mindlessly
42:45
engaging activities that makes you feel okay but
42:47
not actually good. But this is this is
42:50
interesting in the sense that, well, we've always
42:52
stated that almost
42:54
all behavior including maladaptive behavior, including for instance
42:57
drink or smoking, whatever it is, is still
43:00
an attempt to heal it, it's just maladaptive.
43:02
What you're trying to do is trying to
43:03
heal yourself from that pain. You're trying to
43:05
avoid it, you're trying to to overwhelm it,
43:08
you're trying to
43:09
get your mind off it, take a break
43:11
from it.
43:12
The urge if you like is not wrong
43:15
because there's a side of you which is
43:16
trying to take care of yourself. It's just
43:18
that
43:19
you're going in a direction that ultimately creates
43:21
harm.
43:22
And one of the thoughts that brings me
43:24
to is that the repercussions of doing something
43:27
which does you harm is sort of often
43:30
quite deferred,
43:31
right? So,
43:32
you can get a drinking habit and it
43:34
might be years until it really actually affects
43:37
your life to the degree that it's it's
43:39
appalling, you know. It is possible we could
43:41
get there. But at first it's not that,
43:43
right? So it's not not only that it's
43:45
a
43:46
short term solution, it's one where
43:49
the cost is somewhat deferred.
43:51
And what are you deferring the cost for?
43:54
What are you doing it for? And part
43:55
of that is is because there is immense
43:58
discomfort
43:59
somewhere.
44:00
It's the the wound if you like, is
44:01
being felt
44:03
in one way or another. And I think
44:05
that part of recovering from trauma and actually
44:09
growing from trauma is learning
44:11
how to sit and be okay with those
44:14
sensations and be the adult to yourself.
44:16
Allowing yourself
44:17
the time to not just go knee jerk
44:19
reaction must escape. Yeah. And instead
44:22
have an approach which is what how can
44:24
I treat myself well? Bearing in mind I
44:27
feel this bad. Bearing in mind that this
44:30
makes me wanna run for the hills. Bear
44:32
in mind this makes me want to to
44:34
hit myself over the head so that I
44:35
don't have to think or feel this way.
44:37
It can be awful but coming to understand
44:39
that you have the ability to sit with
44:41
those
44:42
emotions
44:43
without the repercussion of some
44:45
some diversion
44:46
or some,
44:48
yeah.
44:49
Just doing that is a is a is
44:50
an extraordinary act. One of the points we
44:50
made at the beginning Mhmm. Is
45:02
So if you have a kid
45:04
and they're plainly upset,
45:06
are you gonna give them a cigarette?
45:09
Are you gonna give them some whiskey?
45:11
Are you gonna advise them to go spend
45:14
their allowance on stuff they don't need?
45:17
Probably you're gonna do just what you said.
45:21
Sit with them.
45:23
Be with them.
45:24
Help them recognize that things are still gonna
45:27
be okay, though they feel all of this
45:29
awful feeling.
45:31
Now we can teach a child how to
45:33
do that.
45:35
So I have complete faith in you as
45:37
an adult that you can learn how to
45:38
do that, too.
45:40
And let's also account under this point for
45:43
people who are harmful because of the ideas
45:46
or the worldview that they espouse
45:49
These so called toxic people
45:52
with toxic ideologies
45:55
that don't even recognize you're a living human
45:57
being with an independence of thought and morality,
45:59
for example.
46:01
Keep them away from yourself
46:03
just like you keep them away from anyone
46:04
else you love. Mhmm. Or at least if
46:07
they're around,
46:09
recognize in your own head and heart how
46:11
completely wrong they can be. Because sometimes the
46:13
other person is the jerk, and it's not
46:16
automatically you even if your trauma response says
46:19
it's automatically you. And and this goes back
46:21
to the evidence of your eyes and ears.
46:22
If you
46:23
do teach yourself to go with what you
46:25
can perceive
46:26
in the here and now, that you will
46:28
pick out the psychopaths, you'll pick out the
46:30
narcissists,
46:31
you'll pick out the dark triads.
46:33
And
46:34
instead of continuing the belief that somehow you
46:36
wouldn't be able to tell that and you
46:38
must be wrong and that this other person
46:40
must be right,
46:41
you can develop a skill in being able
46:43
to identify who is not good to be
46:46
around. It comes with being connected with your
46:49
moral center too.
46:50
Because the dark triad personality,
46:53
you know, are famously immoral.
46:56
Mhmm. And often charming and engaging and many
46:58
things. Which just puts salt in the wounds
47:01
and, you know, it kicks someone when they're
47:04
down.
47:05
So when you're connected with your moral center
47:07
and then you're believing the evidence of your
47:09
senses,
47:10
it's so much easier Yeah. To to pick
47:13
out these so called toxic personalities.
47:15
And then you get to say, nope. No.
47:17
Thank you.
47:18
Exactly. As an expression of your morality.
47:21
So those are our 7 main pointers
47:24
for how to climb the mountain of trauma
47:27
recovery
47:28
so that you don't have to feel like
47:30
you're doing it on your own or that
47:33
you're only left with
47:35
the scarce tools that your childhood gave to
47:37
you.
47:38
If you've already stumbled across these methods on
47:40
your own, you know you're not crazy, you
47:42
know you're not alone
47:45
and at least we hope to have underscored
47:47
that you are doing the right things.
47:50
Our intent with this of course is to
47:52
foster post traumatic growth which is a phenomenon
47:55
that's becoming increasingly recognized where it's not just
47:58
post traumatic stress that people experience,
48:01
there is a response called post traumatic growth.
48:05
And even though it's kind of a new
48:08
field of study,
48:09
I believe that when you're fulfilling all your
48:13
needs,
48:14
the physical needs, the social needs, the love
48:16
needs
48:18
that's where,
48:19
like rehabilitating the rescue dog,
48:21
you have a good chance of post traumatic
48:24
growth.
48:26
Thank you again for listening and all the
48:28
way to the end.
48:29
Pascal and I are available for hire through
48:31
the Morpheus Clinic For Hypnosis in Toronto, Canada.
48:34
We do free consultations and treatment plans for
48:37
our private clients. And recently we've also started
48:40
doing
48:41
free shared hypnosis sessions
48:43
twice a month.
48:45
So you don't even have to pay us
48:48
anything
48:49
to come into our space
48:50
and listen to more of this way of
48:53
thinking please take us up on that offer
48:56
and please tell your friends too don't be
48:58
put off too much by the h word
49:01
that's
49:02
just a
49:03
way to listen closely
49:05
so that we can act as practical philosophers
49:08
and think on your behalf
49:11
and help you adopt these ideas as your
49:13
own. And if you like these ideas and
49:16
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49:23
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49:28
So, we look forward to, doing this again
49:31
in another few weeks or so. See you
49:33
then.