Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / how your trauma is hurting you (and how to heal from it)

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how your trauma is hurting you (and how to heal from it) · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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Trauma. It's a word we hear a lot, but
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so many of us don't fully understand what it means or how
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it affects us. When we think of trauma, we
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picture something extreme, something obvious, something
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that qualifies as traumatic. But the truth is, trauma isn't
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just about what happened to us. It's also about how it shaped
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us. It's about the ways it lingers
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and our thoughts, our behaviors, our relationships, even when we
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don't realize it. And for so many of us, that
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trauma starts early on in childhood.
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But here's the thing, healing from trauma isn't about
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minimizing our experiences, comparing them to others, or
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pretending that we're fine. It's about understanding,
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processing, and learning how to move forward.
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And that's exactly what we're talking about today.
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And to help me in talking about this topic, I am really excited
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to be joined by Alex Howard. Alex is an author of three
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books, CEO of the Alex Howard Group, an international group of
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organizations focused on making physical and emotional healing
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accessible to everyone. Alex is a leader not only in the
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world of mental health, but also in the world of trauma recovery.
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This is someone who has not only personally done the work, but
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also guides others in doing the same.
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And I'm so excited to have him on to give his own insight into
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the world of trauma and recovering from it.
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Just a reminder, I'm not a doctor, a psychiatrist, or
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professional in the mental health industry whatsoever.
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I'm just somebody who is very passionate about mental health,
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has felt some very big feelings, feelings and has talked to a lot
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of other people who have felt some very big feelings.
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And today I want to talk about trauma.
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My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
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Feelings Alex. Let's start plain and simple.
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How are you doing today? I'm doing very well, Ethan.
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I'm very happy to be here, happy to have this conversation.
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And it's an area that I'm super passionate about.
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Often people hear trauma and it means lots of different things.
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So yeah, I'm just happy to be here to unpack it together.
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Let's just start off simple by defining what trauma is because
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I do think it's kind of a buzzword that's thrown around in
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the mental health community. We always start talking about,
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yeah, our traumas. And many people hear the word
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trauma and think of something extreme, you know, an abuse, a
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life threatening event. And although it can be that, it
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can also be a little more quiet. Trauma can take a lot of
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different forms. So can you break that down for
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us, elaborate a little bit on how trauma can appear in our
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lives, how it can be more dramatic or it can be more
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subtle? One of the distinctions that I
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make is between overt traumas and covert traumas.
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Overt traumas would be what would be classified as adverse
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childhood experiences. So things like physical abuse,
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sexual abuse, emotional neglect, the things that I think most of
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us would recognize that those experiences are trauma.
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Covert traumas can be traumas which are much less obvious,
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they're more subtle. It can sometimes be as simple as
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not getting our core emotional needs met.
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You know how we all have physical needs, like as
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particularly, you know, in childhood, we're dependent upon
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our caregivers to meet needs for food, for water, to have
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physical safety. The same is true of our
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emotional needs, the need to feel emotionally safe, the need
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to feel love. And when those needs are not met
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in the ways that we need them to be met, then that has impacts
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that shapes us. And one of the things that
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particularly happens just to make a bridge between what
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happens in childhood and what happens in adulthood is often
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our nervous system becomes dysregulated.
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Like we feel a sense of unsafety inside of ourselves.
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And we can get so normalized to that state that 10:20 40-50
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years later, we have this state of dysregulation in our nervous
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system. And that's really how these
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events in childhood, they really echo through our lives when we
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don't get these core needs met. So even if it doesn't feel as
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big, even though it doesn't seem life changing, it can be and it
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can stick with us for decades and decades and kind of just
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hover there under the surface, just quietly stabbing at us.
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And sometimes it's because those experiences are so normalized in
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the environment that we're in that we just don't see them.
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I just came out of teaching a session on embracing
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neurodiversity and talking about things like autism and ADHD and
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dyslexia and how when we grow up in a neurotypical world as a
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neuro diverse person, that has all kinds of impacts, right?
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And so let's say that we are hypersensitive to large crowds
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or to being around a lot of people.
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So being at school may be like super challenging in that
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situation. But if we grew up in an
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environment where everyone just expects that we should be
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neurotypical, we can suppress, we can mask, we can hide the
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experiences that we're having. We may do that for many, many,
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many years. We don't see that as a trauma.
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We often the conclusion we come to something wrong with us or
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something broken with us, but we get so normalized that we don't
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recognize the things that are happening inside of us.
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In response to that. A lot of the work that I do as
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people is helping them understand how things that
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happened in childhood that may not have been optimum, may not
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have been because the people around them didn't care or
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didn't love them, but it may be that they didn't meet those core
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emotional needs. And one's nervous system, one's
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emotional body have to respond to that.
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And often the suffering we have is not just what happened, but
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it's the defensive strategies we put in place to help us survive
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what happened. Fascinating, I'm so glad you
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said that. I hardly ever think about that.
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Traumatic experiences or or stresses on that nervous system
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could literally just come from what everyone else views as
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normal but is incredibly difficult for you.
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And in that way, not having your emotional needs met and always
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feeling perhaps overwhelmed in a situation equation that's normal
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for others. That could almost be a result of
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other people just simply not knowing, not realizing that hey,
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this might be a incredibly stressful experience.
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I think that's why we have to have conversations like this.
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Something I hear a lot, I've received DMS, I've heard it in
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my own personal life. I've even had these thoughts
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myself. Is this idea of, well, my
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childhood wasn't that bad, kind of piggybacking off of the
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normal experiences that can cause trauma?
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My childhood wasn't that bad. So I don't think I should be
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struggling. I don't think I ever had like a
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traumatic event. And there's a lot of comparison
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in the world of trauma. It's almost like this trauma
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Olympics that's going on. So what do you say to people who
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minimize their own trauma because they think others have
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had it much worse because they are comparing their own trauma
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and their own experience to what other people have possibly
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experienced? Yeah, it's a great question.
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Part of what we have to recognize is that just because
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someone has experienced greater pain than us, it doesn't mean
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that our pain isn't painful, right?
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It's like, it's a bit of a tripe example.
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But let's say, you know, you whack your thumb accidentally
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with a hammer and it really, really hurts.
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And then someone says that doesn't hurt because I lost my
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thumb. It's like, well, losing your
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thumb hurts a lot more, but this still really hurts right now,
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right? And in a way, often those
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narratives are really used to diminish and squash and shut
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down feelings and emotions because a lot of us have grown
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up in society. The is much more comfortable
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with reason, logic, and intellect than it is with the
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heart and feelings and emotions. And so there's this kind of
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hyper rational world where you can explain away and you can
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rationalize away one's feelings, one's heart, but that doesn't
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mean that that experience isn't important or isn't valid.
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One of the examples I used in my last book was this guy that came
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to see me in his 20s suffering from debilitating fatigue
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issues. And part of what we traced it
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back to was being 8-9 years old and sent off to boarding school.
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He was a very kind of artistic, musical, creative kid that kind
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of needed a certain amount of of space and freedom to move with
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it and was sent to a very rigid, strict British boarding school.
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And was also a kid that I think probably it's true of most kids
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at that age, but certainly true for him that really needed that
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holding and comfort from mom and dad.
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Now, mom and dad didn't send him to boarding school because they
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didn't love him or because they were trying to send him away.
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Actually, they weren't a particularly wealthy family.
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It was quite a big financial sacrifice to be able to pay the
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school fees and to facilitate this, but they believed that
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this was the best opportunity they could give their child.
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So it was an act of love to send him away, even though it was not
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an easy thing to do. So he gets to boarding school
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and this next bit of the story is something I've heard a number
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of times over the years, just basically that he, you know, was
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totally devastated, desperate to go back home again and back in
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those days particularly, no mobile phones or anything like
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that. So the first contact that with
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home is a couple of weeks in where you can write your first
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letter. He's I've just got to get
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through the first couple of weeks, then I can write to my
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mom and tell her how desperate I am.
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And of course then she's going to come and come and rescue me.
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So he writes the letter and then the next day his housemaster
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comes into the dormitory and says, you know, we can't send
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that letter to your mother because it'll be far too
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distressing for her. You need to write another
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letter. And he basically learns that if
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he stays in his heart and he stays in his feelings, he's
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going to be destroyed. So the only way to survive is to
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cut down the feelings. And he does that so successfully
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that by the time he goes home for Christmas at the end of the
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first term, apparently, supposedly he's thriving.
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He's doing great in sports and he's doing well in class.
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And it's only decade, couple decades later that it becomes
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clear that he's basically completely shut his heart and
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his feelings. And that's now having real big
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impacts in his life. But what's part of the point I
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want to make here? This is not an act of cruelty.
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Often what's true in life is 2 things can be true.
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Our parents can have deep, deeply cared or a caregivers
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kind of deeply cared and loved us, and they can also deeply
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have hurt us and wounded us. It's not always bad people that
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hurt you, this distinction that only something bad must have
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happened from somebody bad in order to have bad things in your
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life. I really appreciate you sharing
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that story because I think some people might find that really
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impactful. There can be good intentions and
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there can be good situations and there can still be bad outcomes.
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And I think understanding what that trauma can look like in our
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childhood is important towards understanding and healing that
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side of us, but also understanding what it looks like
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as we grow up past those situations is equally important.
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So are there any common themes in ways that childhood trauma
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shows up in adulthood? Or is it more different for
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everybody? Like are there potential
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symptoms or patterns that we can recognize in adulthood in order
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to recognize, hey, maybe something bad happened to my
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childhood and I didn't even realize it?
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Yeah. And actually, I'm just going to
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have one more piece that Ethan that sometimes it's things that
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happened, but other times it's things that didn't happen.
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Things can happen to us that can hurt us, but things kind of not
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happen that we really needed. To answer your question, there's
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lots of individual differences of how childhood experiences
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echo through our lives. But the piece that for me is is
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the kind of universal glue that holds a lot of this together is
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what's happened in our nervous system.
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Our nervous system is basically designed to activate when the
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world doesn't feel or we don't feel in the world safe.
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And so, you know, if you and I were walking down the street
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here, here in London and you know, we have electric buses
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now, so you don't hear the buses coming the way that you used to.
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That's so we're walking down the street by big red buses coming.
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We haven't seen it. And then suddenly last minute we
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see the bus and like we got a leap out of the way.
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It's the same thing, you know, thousands of years ago with a
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Saber toothed tiger. In that moment, we get a big hit
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of adrenaline, of cortisol, effectively our stress hormones
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to help us either fight. But obviously fighting a bus is
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nice. It's a bit of a pointless
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exercise to flight, like to run away or to freeze and stay where
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we are. So then it doesn't then hit us.
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So that response in our nervous system to fight flight or freeze
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is sort of survival response that's designed for immediate
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physical threat in danger. But what often has happened in
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trauma is that response has activated and then it's stayed
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activated. That's what I call a maladaptive
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stress response. So a healthy response to stress
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that has now become effectively our default, the homeostasis,
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the balance of our nervous system has shifted.
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And this is how trauma often presents in our adult lives
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because there's a number of different symptoms of that.
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It could be anxiety. It could be that we just always
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feel anxious and unsafe because of that dysregulation in our
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nervous system. It could be depression.
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It's almost like our nervous system has become so overwhelmed
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that it started to shut down. People often think about
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depression as feeling sad all the time, but actually that's
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not my observation, my experience, it's more an absence
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of feeling and a sense of pointlessness and hopelessness,
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which often comes from this kind of shutdown as a response to
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this over activation. Addictions is another example.
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I think the misconception of addiction is that people that
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are addicted to alcohol and drugs, for example, are doing it
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to get high or to feel lots of wonderful things.
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But typically what they're just trying to do is get to baseline.
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They're actually trying to self regulate trauma, emotions that
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are unprocessed. So a lot of the, the symptoms
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that people struggle with, a lot of the things that people go and
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see mental health professionals, doctors about anxiety,
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depression, you know, also self esteem issues, attachment issues
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to me are often symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system,
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which is the outcome of these experiences in childhood.
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Wow. OK, Sorry, I just got to sit
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with that for a second. I mean, that was that was
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excellent. Obviously, healing this trauma
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is incredibly important. And from my understanding, your
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approach is not just about understanding that trauma, but
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also healing it. I mean, that's why you've done
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all the amazing things for mental health that you've done
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within your group, within the books on this podcast.
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I'm all about action. I'm all about taking real steps
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towards healing. I'm always encouraging my
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listeners to take those first steps because they are, of
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course, the hardest. If we're climbing this mental
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health ladder, those first rungs can feel miles apart, and that
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can really impact our ability to heal.
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What would you say are some general first steps that people
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can take if they recognized that some unresolved trauma is
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affecting them? A couple of things to start
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with. The first thing is really just
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recognizing what's happening. A lot of mental health
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intervention, Often what happens, one goes and sees a
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sort of physician with some of the things that we've been
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talking about. It's sort of saying like
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something's broken, like something's wrong and it needs
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to be fixed by, you know, a sort of drug or intervention or
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whatever. How I look at it is often the
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things that people are struggling with are intelligent
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responses from their system to try to navigate may not be the
15:58
best response, but there's an intelligence behind their
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response. So if we can just recognize and
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understand that actually maybe the reason why we have anxiety
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is because our nervous system doesn't feel safe, or the reason
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why we're struggling with addictions is because we're
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trying to regulate our system, or we feel depressed because our
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system feels overloaded, we can start to have a different
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relationship to what's happening.
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We're not broken and there's not something that's fundamentally
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wrong with us. We have an adaptive response
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that if we can have better options, then a lot of this can
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change. And this brings us to the second
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point, which I think is often a really good starting point,
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which is if we're recognizing that part of the issue here is a
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dysregulated nervous system, then we can't just talk our way
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to feeling different, to feeling better.
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And I think this is one of the limitations of certain talking
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therapies. And I think particularly, you
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know, there's two men having a conversation about trauma.
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There is an enormous crisis of men's mental health and
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particularly suicide around young men.
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And my observation is often for young men, trying to just get
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them to talk about their feelings isn't necessarily the
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thing that's most helpful. That often we need to have some
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practical solutions and tactics and strategies and things we can
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actually learn to do to change our experience.
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To me, some of those things would include practices where we
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learn to regulate our nervous system.
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You know, if we're going back to the point that we've been been
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exploring around, we have these experiences, we develop this
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maladaptive stress response, our nervous system becomes
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dysregulated. If we can learn practices to
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start to better regulate our nervous system, I'm not saying
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it's the only piece, it often isn't the only piece, but it's a
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very helpful piece. It's also a piece that often
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helps the other things we may need to do to be more effective
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and to be easier. So even something as simple as a
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daily meditation practice, or if sitting to meditate feels
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particularly difficult, a moving meditative practice, something
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like yoga or chi gong or Tai chi or something like that, where we
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are practicing conditioning our nervous system into a calmer
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state. That alone can really start to
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change the impacts of the past. I'm so glad that you brought up
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meditation or just sitting with those feelings.
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The whole reason I started this podcast was to encourage people
18:25
to make those first steps even on bad days.
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And this whole idea of, you know, feel your feelings.
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It isn't just a clever little title that kind of sounds nice.
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It's something that I urge my listeners to do all the time.
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I mean, if if anyone listening now has has been with me through
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all 70 episodes, I'm sure you're getting a little sick of hearing
18:45
this, but I'm so glad it came up again.
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Truly believe that just feeling those feelings, just sitting
18:50
with them is a powerful and crucial part of healing that a
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lot of people overlook because it feels too simple.
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It doesn't feel like a large enough action when in reality,
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just sitting and acknowledging those feelings and letting them
19:05
come and go and really learning about yourself and being
19:08
comfortable with that can be a incredible way to learn more
19:12
about yourself, an incredible way to become more comfortable
19:15
with those feelings. And maybe in a way, a excellent
19:18
way to help regulate the nervous system response that we have.
19:22
And it could be walking, it could be lifting weights, it
19:26
could be anything where we are just allowing our minds to sit
19:30
with any feelings we have, any turbulence we have inside of our
19:35
minds. I think that is so important.
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There's a level of self trust that is built there, and I think
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that self trust is crucial on this healing journey.
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If somebody right now listening to this episode is just now
19:48
realizing, wow, my childhood experiences really did shape me
19:51
more than I thought, So much of this is resonating.
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What is one final thing that you would like them to take away
19:58
from this conversation? Something to help them moving
20:01
forward that you would really like to stick with them.
20:04
The healing is possible, right? The same wisdom inside of us
20:10
that maybe shut some things down, that maybe our nervous
20:15
system did activate because that's how our system is trying
20:17
to keep us safe. There is enormous wisdom in
20:21
that, you know, to think, you know, six months old or three
20:24
years old or 10 years old, that our system has these adaptive
20:28
responses, that it just figures out how to respond.
20:31
That same wisdom that was there then is there now.
20:36
The difference is an adult is as a child, we are utterly
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dependent upon our caregivers to meet our needs for US.
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One of the great blessings of being an adult is we can learn.
20:49
We can practically learn to meet those needs for ourselves.
20:53
And that's really what a lot of the work of trauma healing comes
20:56
down to is learning how to build inner safety, learning how to
21:01
cultivate self love, learning how to put in healthy
21:04
boundaries. And we can all take big steps on
21:09
the journey to do that. And where we focus is where we
21:14
progress, right? And what often happens is we
21:17
spend a lot of time being aware of the suffering or the problems
21:21
or maybe to trying to deny the suffering in the problems.
21:24
But if we can put our energy into practical things to help us
21:27
move forwards, it is incredible the healing that can become
21:32
possible. Absolutely.
21:34
People are more capable than they think.
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And you, the listener, you are more capable than you think.
21:40
You are able to make a change in your life anytime.
21:45
You are able to adjust the way that you feel these feelings,
21:49
the way that you deal with any traumas, the way that you heal.
21:54
And you are capable and you are more than enough.
21:57
Alex, thank you so much for being here.
21:59
Thank you for giving me this insight and for helping us learn
22:03
a little bit more about our traumas.
22:05
My pleasure Ethan, thank you for having me.
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I enjoyed the conversation. That's going to wrap it up for
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today's episode. Thank you so much for joining
22:12
me. If you need help feeling your
22:14
feelings, please check out my music on all platforms under the
22:17
name of Ethan Jewell. And I almost guarantee it'll
22:21
make you cry. Also, please shoot me a message
22:24
on my Instagram at Jewel Boy with an I under score and let me
22:27
know what you thought about today's episode.
22:29
So thank you so much for being here.
22:31
Thank you for understanding that you are more than your trauma
22:34
and that healing is always possible.
22:36
And thank you again to Alex Howard for joining me.
22:38
And as always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
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I'll see you next time.