Latest / Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast / Finding Joy: Learning to Play After Trauma | Sam Jolman, LPC

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Finding Joy: Learning to Play After Trauma | Sam Jolman, LPC · Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast

0:03
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast, where we share stories of resilience, recovery, and hope.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Join us as we sit down with survivors, authors, and leading experts to discuss their experiences and insights, exploring the path towards healing and the power of the human spirit.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: And now here's your host, Dr.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Mark McNear.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: I am privileged today to have with me Sam Joelman.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Sam, welcome to the podcast.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Mark.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: It's such an honor to be here.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna, before we begin, we we have chosen this wonderful topic of trauma and play.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: But but before we move into that, I'm just gonna ask you to introduce yourself to the audience.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, great.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: You know, um I like to say first and foremost that I am a lover.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm a lover of my wife of 20, 23 years, 22 years for coming around the bend to 23.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, I love Jesus.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: I um I'm a father to three sons, father to a dog as well, as you know, all dog owners know how that goes.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: And I'm a therapist uh for my day job and have been doing that for 20 years.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: I work in a lot with men, couples, and sexual trauma, recovery in particular.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I'm a first-time author um with a book that I wrote uh a year ago called The Sex Talk You Never Got, and with an intention of helping, especially men, learn how to embody sexuality in a more holistic, an alive, um and healed sort of way.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that book is awesome for people listening.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: Definitely a book that you want to read.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Mark.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: So so let's go into this, Sam, and and first question I have for you, being a trauma-informed therapist, is why why is trauma affecting play so much in our lives as adults?
2:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I think because it's it it goes back, in my view, to the nature of abuse itself.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, all abuse at some level involves betrayal, it involves a twist where relationship, uh, whether it was for five minutes or five years, was going one way, and then the person who abused us twisted, right, their intentions or revealed some selfish intent um and acted out on us, right?
2:36
SPEAKER_02: And that that dizzying, painful, um, heartbreaking twist um just messes with us, right?
2:46
SPEAKER_02: All the things that we trusted, right, in the relationship to keep us safe, or even you know, the play that may have happened in this relationship with this person, um, suddenly, you know, in the wake of the shock and confusion leaves us wondering what happened, right?
3:08
SPEAKER_02: And did I especially, and this is where shame starts to enter in, did I miss something?
3:14
SPEAKER_02: That's a fair question, of course, right?
3:17
SPEAKER_02: To reflect on were there signs, right?
3:20
SPEAKER_02: Were there red flags that I overlooked?
3:22
SPEAKER_02: Did I tune out my gut at some level or dishonor my own body's voice in relationship to this person?
3:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, and the answer is, you know, at some level, um, those are good questions at recreating um kind of the scene of the crime, but oftentimes they end up just leaving us feeling condemned.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm a fool, right?
3:48
SPEAKER_02: I can't trust myself.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, because apparently I overlooked you know, a person who is a predator or an abuser, and they've attacked me.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I must have missed it, right?
4:02
SPEAKER_02: It might, it's something wrong with me, even though we might say, well, of course, that person violated us.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: We end up condemning so much of our own trust, our own kind of freedom to have trusted and been in the relationship with play.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: And so I think I would just want to honor um it's so vital in our own abuse recovery that we leave room to honor our own innocence in the story.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, nothing is more natural to you.
4:34
SPEAKER_02: And I believe that this originates all the way back in Eden.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: Your first nature, right?
4:40
SPEAKER_02: The way God made you is that you are created to trust.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: You're created to be open, you're created to not even know in the words of God that you're naked, right?
4:50
SPEAKER_02: In other words, that you you you aren't meant to be self-aware or self-conscious in a sense of like always checking yourself, right?
4:58
SPEAKER_02: You're meant to kind of be in the moment living and trusting.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: And that is your innocence, that's your glory as a person.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: And again, I think shame through the realm of evil uh would like you to question that and say, Well, that's bad in me, right?
5:15
SPEAKER_02: I shouldn't have trusted, I should have been more shrewd, I should have been more uh aware.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, but again, at some level, you've got to sit with you were betrayed.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: Somebody played you, somebody violated their own humanity and thereby dishonored yours.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: Meaning they hid who they really were and they took advantage, right?
5:39
SPEAKER_02: They didn't participate in the trust and the vulnerability in the same way.
5:43
SPEAKER_02: They had evil intention.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I think again, back to that hyper-vigilance, you know, we we want to see it as the way to recover.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: I just need to be more aware, I just need to be more shrewd.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: I need to be more uh, you know, on my game, more alert, right?
6:03
SPEAKER_02: We think that's the way forward now with life.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: And in essence, we turn on ourselves.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: Yes, right.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: And again, I would say your shrewdness is a gift.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: You are meant to trust your gut.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: We but we turn on that part of us that trusts, we turn on that part of us that relaxes, that delights, that enjoys, right?
6:22
SPEAKER_02: We say, Well, I need to engage this world with a lot more hypervigilance.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, right, and then we end up turning on that very thing you've described, the trust, that that first nature part of us.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: And and many times that is developmentally appropriate, you know, that trust or that innocence.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: Yes, right.
6:44
SPEAKER_02: I think you weren't meant to have to question every person and their motives.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: You weren't meant to have to live with that level of um, you know, deducing layers of intention in people.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, you were meant for a place in Eden where you could just play, where people were who they said they were.
7:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know how people acted is could be trusted.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: Now, again, I know we live outside of Eden, but you know, again, we have to remember what we were made for.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: And that's it's easy to turn on that part um as bad, you know, as um naive, as stupid, as foolish.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, there's lots of things we end up calling that part of us.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I I I think we end up saying, like, what's the matter with me?
7:33
SPEAKER_01: What's wrong with me?
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Yes, well said.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: Well said.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: And so as we step into play, then, you know, uh we talked about this just a little bit, but that idea, uh, Sam, that we step into it and then we have this immediate shame.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: And we have this internal critic that comes up.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to say more about that?
7:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I I would want to start with, you know, all of us have a protector, a protector voice.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: And um, and that part of us is trying to save us, it's trying to protect us.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it can get overutilized, right?
8:14
SPEAKER_02: To where we rely on that protector voice in us, right?
8:19
SPEAKER_02: We all have anger, we all have boundaries, we all have an alertness that we were, I believe is God-given to attune to danger around us, right?
8:30
SPEAKER_02: To recognize sometimes even before we're self-aware of it, right?
8:34
SPEAKER_02: You see a snake and jump, right?
8:37
SPEAKER_02: That uh is a good instinct in you, right?
8:40
SPEAKER_02: To save you from, you know, uh, here in Colorado, we have rattlesnakes, right?
8:44
SPEAKER_02: And uh to be saved from a rattlesnake bite is a good thing.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, but um, you know, if we over-utilize that, right?
8:56
SPEAKER_02: If we over listen to that voice or give it all kind of authority, you're right, then we can be um self-critical.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: And certainly I would want to honor here, it's easy for evil through the voice of shame to also want to shut us down, right?
9:13
SPEAKER_02: To get us to uh feel stupid for um, you know, playing, for being in our bodies, for moving our bodies, right?
9:24
SPEAKER_02: For kind of freestyling, right?
9:26
SPEAKER_02: If you're you know, you think of like being at a wedding and the the dancing after, right?
9:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, and and just being able to be goofy or you know, trying a new sport, right?
9:37
SPEAKER_02: Or trying a new dance.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it of course you're gonna be new and awkward.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: You've never done it before.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I would want to notice, you know, the voice of shame in the words of Dan Alander.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: Uh, shame is the experience of exposure, right?
9:56
SPEAKER_02: So it's telling us that our free play is only exposing something bad in us, or stupid, or foolish, or ugly, right?
10:07
SPEAKER_02: That there's something about us that's you know uh rejectable in some way, and thereby we need to stop.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, don't learn, go don't go take swimming lessons because can you imagine people seeing you in a swimsuit, right?
10:25
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, that dreaded fear, that's the voice of shame, saying your body, you don't want to expose your body, or oh my goodness, you're gonna go try to run, right?
10:35
SPEAKER_02: Are you serious?
10:36
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's gonna be so embarrassing, or trying a workout routine, or um going to the gym, or even just you know, the play of relationship, taking risks in a friendship, um, inviting somebody to coffee.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, I know it can be any version of play, but again, that that voice of shame says you're only gonna expose something foolish and rejectable.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: That's where the voice of evil resides, I believe.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Say if you if you would, I love how you and uh we were going back and forth in emails, and I love how you bring play into so many different areas of life.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to ask you, you know, to bring that more into our relationship with others, because again, that is really and sometimes we don't even think of it as play, but that's really difficult because we're putting ourselves out there after being harmed in relationships.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, um play is this interesting place neurologically.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it it's there's only a few of these states, I think three, um, if I'm remembering correctly.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: Um and where the nervous system is in what's called a mixed state.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: So a mixed state is where you are in sympathetic and parasympathetic almost almost simultaneously.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: And again, it's not quite both are on, but you you kind of surf both.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: So you're riding this edge of sympathetic um rising and parasympathetic soothing all in one follow swoop, um, you know, or in this sort of wave-like nature.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: And the comparison would be to this is um, I believe Stephen Porgis writes this that play, if you think of like um peekaboo for a baby, right?
12:27
SPEAKER_02: There's um, you know, a mother hides her face, right?
12:32
SPEAKER_02: And and for a second, there's a bit of alarm for a child, a baby, an infant.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: Because where did mom's face go?
12:39
SPEAKER_02: Right.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: And then boo, she pops out from behind her hands and she she gives a startling voice, right?
12:45
SPEAKER_02: And there's this sympathetic shoot-up, right, into a short fight or flight moment, right?
12:52
SPEAKER_02: But then right away she's tickling and laughing, right?
12:55
SPEAKER_02: And it goes right back into this parasympathetic soothing and connection.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: And so this entrance into danger, comfort, danger, comfort, danger, comfort, right?
13:07
SPEAKER_02: Or you think of like a football game, right?
13:10
SPEAKER_02: Suddenly, you know, um one man has the ball and he's running full force, and another man is running full force at him, right, to attack him, right?
13:20
SPEAKER_02: And and I again, you think fight or flight, these men are in fight or flight, they are aggressively running at each other, right?
13:27
SPEAKER_02: And then you know, the guy gets tackled eventually, and the play is called, and then they help each other up, right?
13:33
SPEAKER_02: They give each other hands and they get up and they get high-fived and patted by their teammates right back into parasympathetic soothing and connection.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: So, again, this dance of risk and connection, intimacy and adventure, right?
13:48
SPEAKER_02: That's this beautiful place.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, Stephen Porgis calls it neural exercise.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: It actually is a kind of exercising of danger and risk and expands your window of tolerance, meaning your capacity to handle um intensity and then receive comfort actually exercises your neurology.
14:15
SPEAKER_02: So, and and I would say, in a relational sense, you know, we are wounded in relationship and we heal in relationship.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: And so, play gives us this place to touch fight or flight, but return to genuine comfort.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, whereas, you know, our abuse um often does not have that, right?
14:38
SPEAKER_02: Rarely do we get the comfort and love we needed in the wake of our pain and our abuse.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: So there's not a returning to relationship.
14:47
SPEAKER_02: Most of us have to live with a kind of hyper-vigilant survival, at least for a season, right?
14:53
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes decades before, you know, maybe engaging our stories of trauma.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: And so we're we're used to, oh, I don't have people with me.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: I've had to figure this out on my own, or I've had to shut down, you know, to escape.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, it certainly can be what the moment of trauma feels like is no one's coming for me.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so we don't get, you know, in that football analogy, we don't get the hand up.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: And and the trauma, the fight or flight, is actually traumatic, right?
15:25
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't just sort of dance with sympathetic uprising, it spikes right to into fear and dread that becomes traumatic stress.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: So again, we're inviting ourselves and our nervous system into a place where we've known wounding, um, you know, neurologically and relationally.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna trust that somebody will be with us and be loving and be available when something gets scary.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, that's a risk in itself, right?
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Let alone the play.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think even as as people kind of think about stepping out of their zone, where whatever zone they're in, yes, you know, if they're listening to this, I think that you know, they might even feel arousal in their body or like no.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: Yes, right, right.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: And and again, I I think we're so used to I have to figure that out on my own, I have to handle that, right?
16:23
SPEAKER_02: I have to survive this.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: I can't reach out for people um to help me.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: You know, I can't trust um the person who's playing with me to be there for me.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, and and that risk then into relationship is kind of risking into maybe what our alarm systems are saying, don't go there.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I you know, I I love the words of Esther Perel, she Estare, I think it is, um, Perrell says, you know, play is when risk is fun.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: And again, for a while as a trauma survivor, risk does not feel fun.
17:07
SPEAKER_03: No.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: Or we use risk as a form of self-harm, right?
17:12
SPEAKER_02: We we push ourselves into harmful behaviors or risky behaviors, um, not as a kindness, uh, but you know, as a kind of self-abuse.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, maybe we act out um in certain ways um or drink too much or act out in certain environments sexually that really put us at risk, literally at risk, right?
17:40
SPEAKER_02: We we aren't anymore really playing because we're not aware of kindness and comfort.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: So so we need to it let's just unpack this uh as you're beginning to that idea of you know restorative play versus versus you know doom scrolling, getting involved in things that just are not healthy for us, drinking drugs, whatever whatever it is that that leave us afterwards more harmed sometimes than when we began.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, yeah.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: I love that word, restorative play, that phrase.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, that's beautiful.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: I yeah, you know, I think you know, certainly you can find risk that's genuinely risky, but is not restorative, right?
18:25
SPEAKER_02: Meaning like um, you know, you think of um, you can certainly get a thrill from drug use, alcohol use, um, um, pornography use, right?
18:36
SPEAKER_02: You can go places um where you're putting yourself in that that fight or flight, right?
18:44
SPEAKER_02: That sympathetic hijacking, but you're not really connecting with your own body in a way that you're aware of your needs for parasympathetic comfort.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: And so you're um really in some ways acting out your own abuse, meaning you're you're reenacting through behavior where you're dissociated, right?
19:09
SPEAKER_02: Where you know, you name even doom scrolling, right?
19:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, where you know it's been an hour and you're like, oh my gosh, where have I been?
19:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's a sense of right novelty to you know the next real, the next real.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: And certainly I've been there as well, right?
19:27
SPEAKER_02: And and um, and that can be kind of exploratory, right?
19:32
SPEAKER_02: But it's not really relational, it's not really connecting you.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: Um, and again, I'm not trying to say all scrolling is bad, right?
19:42
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's uh an experience of discovery, um, maybe it's educational, but I would say probably that's fairly short if you're not involving somebody else with you, meaning like you're discussing what you're watching.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: Um, and again, I I think I would say play brings together intimacy and adventure, you know, connection and aliveness.
20:07
SPEAKER_02: And so I I would say, you know, often what we use to nom is not that, right?
20:14
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it it's maybe it has a little bit of titillation or risk, and there's a little bit of aliveness, but probably not connection to ourselves or others.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, and a lot of times that's simply just us reenacting um our stories of abuse, the feeling that we felt in our abuse, right?
20:34
SPEAKER_02: Which was um thrill and numbness, yeah, uh uh terror and disconnection.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: I I love that idea that you you you talk about Sam bringing other people in.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: I I had a client that was having problems with gaming, that he spent so much time on games alone, and then you know, we talked about the fact of not splitting and not making it like all bad, gaming is all bad, but finding a way to utilize it in a healthy way, and so he began to play games with other people and connect with other people, and it just became a whole new experience.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: Yes, oh that's beautiful.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I go ahead.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: I love that you brought again a blessing of the ache for play underneath that, right?
21:25
SPEAKER_02: The goal here is not to simply say, Oh, this is all bad, and I'm a terrible person, right?
21:31
SPEAKER_02: But for us to try to discover what is it we're longing for in our scrolling, right?
21:37
SPEAKER_02: What is that taste of aliveness we're looking for, or in our alcohol use, or in our drug use, or pornography use, or whatever it be, right?
21:45
SPEAKER_02: Like what is that that little taste of thrill, right, that we're looking for?
21:51
SPEAKER_02: Can we can we blast our ache for play um and connection?
21:55
SPEAKER_01: So I want to throw a curveball to you.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: Um that idea of Of comfort.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: And uh Brene Brown talks about this and talks about foreboding joy and that idea that you know and I've had this so much in my life that you know I'll actually feel good, and then there is this absolute feeling of despair of what's gonna come next.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: Can you say more about that?
22:22
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's such a line from her foreboding joy.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: Um I, you know, I I I wanna honor this language of risk that play involves risk.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: It's not just cute metaphor, right?
22:39
SPEAKER_02: We aren't just trying to like, you know, wait a take a risk, right?
22:44
SPEAKER_02: Like um give you cheap um um you know cheap cheers here.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: I mean it, you know, uh there is risk to play.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, literally the language of vulnerability, right?
23:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh in its roots means able to be wounded.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, there's something that we have to honor in um the choice we make to move into risk.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: Um and there can be a kind of, you know, in the words of Brene Brown again, vulnerability hangover.
23:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: Right?
23:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh, which she describes shame at being, meaning you've put yourself out there.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, that that sense of dread can be um our our bodies remembering the bad, right, that came after um the vulnerability with our abuser, right?
23:43
SPEAKER_02: In our abuse, it um it can just be that we um we haven't fully honored how well we've risked.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, that sometimes you can almost outrisk your own comfort level, right?
24:00
SPEAKER_02: To where, like, oh man, I really put myself out there.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: And so finding ways to in that moment um blast your risk to say, well done, right?
24:10
SPEAKER_02: And to comfort yourself with that kind of kindness, but then also some sort of recovery, right?
24:16
SPEAKER_02: And like, you know, you need recovery after you've put yourself out there, you need celebration, you need to have rituals of of blessing, right?
24:25
SPEAKER_02: To where you you honor, you know, at the end of the day, I put myself out there.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: Whether it went well, maybe you don't know, right?
24:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, maybe you're not sure how you looked on the stage, right?
24:38
SPEAKER_02: After that talk you gave, or that song you sang, or that dance you did, or whatever, you know.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, but being able to say, I took a risk and and know that that's real, it's not just fake language we use as therapists um to puff people up.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: That's real.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: That you did it.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: You did it, yeah, and and that in and of itself can be viewed as success.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's right.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: The outcome be what it is, you risked, you played your part.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I've had people say to me, you know, that they get stuck in bed because it feels comfortable and safe.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: And again, somehow I want to bless.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: Well done that you've found a comforting and safe place.
25:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, the fact that you can connect in your body with comfort and safety is a good thing.
25:33
unknown: Yeah.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: And that you have discovered and created for yourself places to retreat to for that.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: Well done.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, my question would be is if that's the only place you ever want to be, right?
25:46
SPEAKER_02: It it begs the question of um, you know, what have you honored um the violation of comfort and safety in your life?
25:54
SPEAKER_02: Have you addressed other places that were meant to be comforting and safe that aren't anymore?
26:01
SPEAKER_02: Right?
26:01
SPEAKER_02: Are there relationships?
26:02
SPEAKER_02: Meaning if you've attached to the comfort and safety of your bed, you know, what what makes relationships not safe or comforting?
26:11
SPEAKER_02: Um or the world itself outside of your bedroom.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I would want to invite people to explore like what keeps you from feeling that elsewhere.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: Again, again, going back to the story.
26:23
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: I I love um last time we talked, you had talked about the fact that, and I'm gonna ask you to elaborate on this, uh, that idea that we cannot change the facts of our story.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: The facts of our story are the facts of our story, but we can change how we enter that story.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Could you could you say more about that?
26:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, again, the facts are the facts, and that, you know, oftentimes people will say, Well, I can't change the facts, so what can really change here?
26:55
SPEAKER_02: And I would say, you know, your story, you know, in reality, your story exists in neurons in your head, right?
27:02
SPEAKER_02: It's it's not this esoteric thing that sort of exists out here floating.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: It's literally stored in neurons in your brain.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so it's embodied, um, literally encapsulated in a collective of neurons that connect through dendrites and store the whole experience, the felt experience, the visual experience, the chronological experience, all of it is stored in brain cells.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: It's embodied.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: So we can't change the facts sort of existentially, but what we can change is neurons, right?
27:35
SPEAKER_02: And uh researchers have found that we don't uh when we tell our story, we're not just remembering what happened, we're also remembering what it was like the last time we told our story.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: So every time you tell your story, that memory literally gets opened up.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: It it becomes enlivened, literally the dendrites fire in your brain, the neurons, um, through dendrite connection.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that that story gets relived a little bit, right?
28:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you think about it, whenever whenever you tell a story to anyone, you're not reading a script in your brain, right?
28:17
SPEAKER_02: Uh on a teleprompter, you're literally watching it in your head, right?
28:23
SPEAKER_02: You're watching the videotape of it or the sensations of it and you're reliving it.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: And then you're narrating what you're seeing in your brain.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: That's literally how we tell our story.
28:33
SPEAKER_02: So, what that does is bring it back alive, and it actually allows that memory to be reshaped by what happens when you tell it.
28:45
SPEAKER_02: So, if somebody is empathetic and kind to you when you are telling your story, and their face registers grief at the painful parts, right?
28:55
SPEAKER_02: And laughter at the funny parts, or comfort and empathy, right?
29:00
SPEAKER_02: When they see you in the scary or hard parts, that's gonna change the memory.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: That literally gets reprinted in the story, right?
29:10
SPEAKER_02: This is why you and I have jobs as therapists, right?
29:13
SPEAKER_02: Is because we get to be that empathetic witness when people tell their stories.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: We get to be a part of helping them change the experience of it.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: So, um, you know, again, now if that went poorly, right?
29:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, I think it's uh said that sexual abuse victims usually maybe attempt to tell one person sometime within a few years of the time that it happens.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: If that goes well, it can be as impactful as the abuse itself.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, meaning if you told somebody and they they registered the depth of alarm for what had happened to you, they cared about it, they sought help for you, they sought justice, right?
30:01
SPEAKER_02: They took action on your behalf.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: That can be as transformative as the abuse itself.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, if they ignored it, right?
30:09
SPEAKER_02: If they didn't pick up on what you were doing or they shamed you or judged you, you know, oftentimes I think it's Dan Alender who says it it's uh on average a decade until an abuse victim will try again to tell their story.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Why?
30:24
SPEAKER_02: Because that shame got imprinted, right?
30:27
SPEAKER_02: The memory got worse because somebody shamed them or mistreated them when they tried to tell their story.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: So again, you know, the meaning of your abuse can change as you tell it, right?
30:44
SPEAKER_02: If it's being told in empathetic spaces, you can actually have your abuse transformed.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: Um, no, again, the facts of it aren't gonna change, but the felt experience of it, the memory of it, how you understand it can actually be transformed, and you can be free of that shame.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, my my sense is people don't bury their trauma primarily because it's just painful.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: I I think people bury their trauma because it feels so shameful, right?
31:16
SPEAKER_02: Now again, it is painful, but it's also that kind of chronic silence about your abuse tends to be the result of shame.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: So so I want to move to the area of play with people.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: If they're listening today and they are very, very ambivalent, which is understandable to you know, kind of step out and to play.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, that idea of practicing.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Can can you talk about that?
31:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is where I'm inviting you to befriend your body again.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: And um that can be a scary even that sentence.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna trust my body, I'm gonna enter my body.
32:01
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'm inviting that.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, that the challenge here is you know, you don't have to like go out and bungee jump and and just like throw yourself off, you know, a cliff, literally, right?
32:16
SPEAKER_02: Or a cage or whatever they you know drop you from.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to go skydive.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: You don't, I mean, I'm you know, you you need to pick something that puts you a little bit into on the edge of parasympathetic, I'm sorry, sympathetic uprising, meaning a little bit of stress, but good stress, right?
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Like I feel challenged.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then in where you can still access a return to comfort.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, this could be as simple as um I'm gonna try to make a joke uh at my next um office staff meeting.
32:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm gonna try to make a joke with my partner.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, or I'm gonna play a card game.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna um you know, I'm gonna dance in my room with music, but I'm gonna do it the door shut.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm inviting you to pick something that you you're you can access, you can choose that doesn't push your body too far.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: You you had mentioned earlier, you know, just inviting somebody for coffee or or to go out for lunch, that might be something people could do.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: A good conversation can be a riveting form of play.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: Right?
33:30
SPEAKER_02: As we know as therapists, and it doesn't have to be deep.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: It could just be that you've asked them to coffee and maybe it doesn't go well, you know.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh maybe you're like, wow, that that didn't end up feeling like good play.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well done at risking.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, again, it's picking something that you that's accessible enough, but not too much.
33:52
SPEAKER_02: And you, you know, where's that line?
33:54
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, right?
33:56
SPEAKER_02: You have to just try stuff and then and then find a way afterward.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: And this feels very important that you you can find a way and you have a ritual of comfort and blessing to yourself.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: I took a risk, I can return to comfort.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, you don't have to stay in that state of fight or flight, you know, forever and ever, amen.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: But like I did a little bit of risking towards it.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: I gave my body a neural exercise, and now I'm returning to comfort.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: And that actually encodes in your brain, oh, this can go well.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: I I, you know, it wasn't me that was at fault.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that idea that that we have to work with our nervous system, and your nervous system is different than my nervous system.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: And and I want to bring a story in.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, uh famous Sam Jolman story.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh you you you tell a story of flying with your soon-to-be brother-in-law on a plane.
34:56
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: And the different reactions.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: Could you could you tell that story?
35:00
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
35:01
SPEAKER_02: So when I was engaged to my wife, uh, we were flying um back from a vacation in Florida, and I was with her family, her brother, and her parents, and we were on a flight that just had we literally were flying through a taking off in a thunderstorm, and there was lightning outside, and the plane was pitching and heaving.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was in the very back of the plane, and we were scattered throughout uh just because of the seating.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, and at one point the plane just dropped um because of turbulence, and it felt like a hundred feet.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it felt like it was free fall, and then it suddenly caught and came out of that, you know, and it was only probably a 15-minute time frame, and then we were out of the storm, and the rest of the flight was fine.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: Now, what you know, after that flight, um, in in the middle of that flight, I had a panic attack.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: So it felt like a javelin stabbed in my chest, right?
36:01
SPEAKER_02: Like I did, it was everything in me, you know, to be able to cope with just not trying to bring myself out of panic, which, you know, if you've ever been there, it is scary and it feels like you can't.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: It feels like I don't know if I'm gonna come out of this.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's why people feel like it's a heart attack.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: And I was there, um, just trying to breathe, just trying to access anything I could do, gripping my seat, right?
36:26
SPEAKER_02: Trying to ground myself, and it took a while.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: And I got off that plane, you know, with a big exhale, still shaken.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we actually had a connecting flight, which was even worse to try to get back on a plane after that.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: My brother-in-law got off that plane and said, he was like, that was amazing.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: He had put his hands up like he was on a roller coaster, right?
36:49
SPEAKER_02: Like it was fun for him.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: No, I don't know why my nervous system at that time couldn't handle that.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: It was too much.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: It was not play for me.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: It was stress and danger and and terror.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, one of the things I've thought about is I was just a couple months from marriage.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: And I I think um, as I reflect back on it, there was something about the vulnerability as I engaged that moment in therapy afterward.
37:18
SPEAKER_02: Like I went to counseling and uh, you know, sought prayer and like uh, you know, really wrestled with flying for a while after that.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: But um thank God that is healed.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: But um, and it took a lot of years to really bring my nervous system to be able to enjoy flying again as play.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: But um it I think it really connected to I was already in this state of risk, right?
37:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm about to get married, I've just had a vacation with her family, right?
37:50
SPEAKER_02: The the just the existential thought of like we're committing for life, and I was all in with my wife, but just that that already relational risk um is really what it came back to when I would engage it in therapy, is I'm I'm taking a risk in life.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that moment was just too much for me.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it wasn't for him, and I haven't talked with him about why it was fun, but it just, you know, he was in a in a more calm state and could handle that from a nervous system perspective.
38:24
SPEAKER_02: So I stay allowed to say exact same details, right?
38:30
SPEAKER_02: Literally the same flight.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: We went through the same experience, and for my brother-in-law, it was fun, it was play.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: For me, it was terror.
38:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so you know, you've got to go at the pace of your body.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: You can't say, well, for that person, it seems so easy.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: You don't know their story, they don't know your story.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: There are probably things that you do that are easy for you that isn't for them, right?
38:58
SPEAKER_02: Like that comparison, um, you know, can be a context where shame can sneak in.
39:05
SPEAKER_02: So that's why I'm saying, no matter the outcome, you've got to find a way to bless your risk and comfort yourself after you've taken a risk, even if it doesn't go well.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, because everybody has a unique experience, everybody's nervous system by default, right, is different from birth.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: You may be a more in tuned nervous system just because, because of your personality, um, or shaped by your story, right?
39:37
SPEAKER_02: Which is what we're naming with trauma and abuse.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: So you've got to let yourself um honor what's risk for you, not somebody else.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: Not well, look what they can do.
39:49
SPEAKER_02: I don't care.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: Who cares?
39:51
SPEAKER_02: What can you do?
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Where are you on the leading edge of your um, you know, that that neural exercise, that that neural play, um place?
40:03
SPEAKER_01: Kind of like Goldilocks, not too warm, not too cold, but just play.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Sam, Sam, this this has been wonderful.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: I I want to thank you for joining me today.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: This has been so good.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: And and I want to ask you to let our listeners know how they can find out more about you, order the book, etc.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
40:23
SPEAKER_02: Mark, I love conversations with you.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, there's such an echo of depth.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for all you do on behalf of uh abuse survivors and you know, hosting these kinds of conversations, um, and and really, you know, by the name of your podcast itself, the pursuit of recovery, right?
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Not just dissecting the abuse, but actually moving through healing.
40:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, that's incredibly sacred work.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for all you do by hosting these conversations.
40:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, and even this feels like play to me.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, I would love for you to buy my book.
41:00
SPEAKER_02: You can get it wherever books are sold.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: The sex talk you never got.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: Um, there is a free study guide, and you can actually get a free preview chapter if you want to check it out beforehand.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: The first chapter is free.
41:11
SPEAKER_02: If you go to my website, SamJolman, J O L M A N.com, you can get uh the first chapter free and also a study guide to the book uh there.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: And you can get it wherever books are sold outside of that.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I would love for you to meet me on Substack.
41:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm writing there ongoing conversations on healthy sexuality and recovery from trauma.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: And I host a monthly conversation on those posts.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: But the the the posts are free, the conversations um five bucks a month if you want to join us, um, and would love to see you there.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: Thank thank you so much, Sam.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Mark.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on the Trauma Meets Recovery podcast.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: If today's conversation spoke to you, we would love for you to like, subscribe, or share the episode with someone to learn more or connect with us.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: Visit our website at trauma meets recovery.com.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, be gentle and kind to yourself.