Latest / RECOVERable: Mental Health and Addiction Experts Answer Your Questions / Trauma: Why Your Body Remembers What You Want To Forget (Part 1)

Transcript

Trauma: Why Your Body Remembers What You Want To Forget (Part 1) · RECOVERable: Mental Health and Addiction Experts Answer Your Questions

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: People previously thought that trauma was only something that combat veterans could experience, and we actually had a word for it.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was shell shock.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_04: Laurel Vandertorn is a licensed family therapist who specializes in trauma.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Since Vietnam, we have been understanding that trauma is so much more pervasive than we previously understood.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_04: How do you explain the fact that two people can have what appears to be the same experience and have completely different experiences of it, where one is traumatized and one is not.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_04: Laurel, thank you so much for joining us.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: Hi.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us a bit before we dive in about yourself and how you came to specialize in trauma.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I am one of the strange people in the world that is still on Plan A.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I always knew I wanted to be a therapist.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time that I was going through school, there was a lot more attention being paid to trauma specifically.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this really follows the field's understanding of trauma.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be viewed as something that only combat veterans experienced or people that had experienced natural disasters.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really lucky that I had some professors that were on that kind of cutting edge of recognizing, oh no, this is much more widespread than we previously understood.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I benefited from that a lot in grad school.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then as I was trained in EMDR, which is a specific trauma therapy I'm really passionate about, which we'll get to.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: We will.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_04: So what we want to do with this podcast is ask the top 10 most searched questions on the internet.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_04: We checked with, you know, Google and YouTube and all those to make sure that we're answering the questions that people are asking and saving people from having to go down those rabbit holes and encounter incorrect information, certainly incomplete information, and just the time waste of trying to research something that's complicated on your own.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_04: So, not surprisingly, the number one question that's searched is what is trauma?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is a fascinating conversation.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: We could have a whole hour on this.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I mentioned before, people previously thought that trauma was only something that combat veterans could experience.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually had a word for it.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, back after World War I, it was shell shock.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: People were noticing, like, oh, our soldiers are coming back different.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there were symptoms associated with shell shock.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was some research and funding put into understanding that.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then some very astute mental health professionals realized that people who had been sexually assaulted were showing the same symptoms.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then they started looking more and more broadly.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And pretty much since Vietnam, we have been understanding that trauma is so much more pervasive and complex than we previously understood.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, there are specific acute traumas that only people that have been in natural disasters or in a, you know, an active combat zone experience.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: But psychological reactions that people have to less life-threatening situations can be very similar.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that trauma is anything that has a pronounced negative impact on your view of yourself or the world and produces symptoms that make life more difficult.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_04: So we often hear these days that trauma is not what happened to you, but what happened in you as a result of what happened to you.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_04: Is that what you're saying?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: People can be at the same table, having the same conversation and be having a very different understanding and experience of that conversation.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when you apply that to something traumatic, it makes a lot of sense that people have a lot of different responses and a lot of different ways that the brain categorizes and makes sense of it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_04: So since life itself is hard and we all go through things, how do you define the difference between like a really difficult situation or experience and a traumatic one?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's not until after the fact.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, most of the times it's not until after the fact, and you see how did your brain process that information and store it?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of like neuropsychology, because I think a lot of people glaze over.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it is really after the fact that we see how people are reacting to things.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I would look for does someone have their sleep or their appetite impacted?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are they different in relationships?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if something is still with you weeks and months after the fact, then that's when I would start looking at it.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we actually have a helpful guideline.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: If people experience something really difficult, really upsetting, let's say it is an acute incident, within the first 30 days, I would expect there to be some disruption.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's normal as your body and your brain are processing what happened.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: If after the 30-day mark you're still experiencing some of those symptoms, that's a sign that it had a traumatic impact.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some people that go through something, they get through it, that 30 days has passed, and then years later, something pops up.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're just starting to understand why that is as well.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So all of that is completely normal.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with anyone that has a kind of a delayed trauma response or doesn't have an initial trauma response.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I in college was privileged to do a hospital accompaniment with people that had been sexually assaulted, and people had all kinds of reactions in those emergency rooms.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some people were laughing, some people were just completely blank, some people were kind of shaking, and some people were crying, and I never knew what I was gonna see.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it all was just so normal given the circumstances.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_04: Who defines whether an experience was traumatic for a person?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that a person should be able to define for themselves if something was traumatic, if something really deeply affected you in a negative way and you're still experiencing side effects of that, I think that you should be able to call it trauma.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's certain, you know, medical billing codes and whatnot that, you know, a licensed professional would have to be the one to give that diagnosis.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that there's a lot of power in in naming something.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I would hope that anyone that had something really difficult happen to them would feel empowered to name that as a means toward eventually healing it.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_04: My understanding of trauma changed in part, I think stories of lived experience are just extremely powerful.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_04: And this was a podcast.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_04: I wish I could accurately attribute it, but it was years ago and I didn't know it was going to stick with me for years, or I would have uh committed it to memory.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_04: But I'm pretty sure it was MPR, pretty sure it was This American Life.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_04: But it was a story of four brothers, the oldest of whom thought it was whatever, hilarious, to put a mask on.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_04: I think it was a Freddie Krueger mask, and come into the house when the parents weren't there and scare his younger brothers, actually chase them after this went on for a long time and they would hide and they would scream and run.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: And he, you know, I don't know if he had a fake weapon or whatever the the details were.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_04: But it got to the point where one of the boys, little boy, just sat on the couch.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: And this time when, you know, the bad guy came in through the door, he just looked at him and said, do it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_04: Just kill me.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_04: Like I can't do this anymore.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_04: And I I don't think the I hope the older brother didn't understand that this child actually believed he was running for his life when he ran from him, that he believed his life was in danger.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I thought, oh, it it isn't, you know, you don't get back to who gets to define it, you don't get to say, I was just kidding.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_04: It was just a game.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_04: It was boys being boys, because to that child, yeah, his life was in danger.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a classic example of it's not an isolated incident, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and yes, this child really did believe that his life was in danger.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so absolutely that's traumatic.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: What matters here is the perception of the danger or the threat to you or your view of the world or your relationship, your family, whatever it is, your livelihood.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: The perception of the threat is what determines how your body reacts.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I remember during um the 2020 election, and Elian Gonzalez was used as it was a real cultural flashpoint.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there was that picture of him being held, and there was a person holding a gun.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And some people were saying, well, he shouldn't have been scared because the man's finger wasn't on the trigger.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, Yeah, this was a four-year-old child who had people come into his home with guns, and that that's gonna be pretty traumatic.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter that his finger wasn't on the trigger.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_04: It does not.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_04: It does not.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_04: We've talked a bit about it, but as a trauma therapist and someone who has experienced her own traumas, because you've shared that.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_04: How do you explain the fact that two people can have what appears to be the same experience?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe they're even in the same household, and have completely different experiences of it, where one is traumatized and one is not.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Perspective, the way people's brains make sense of any input, it's gonna be different.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you and I are having literal different perspectives on this conversation.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we also have very different internal resources.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: As a trauma therapist, the first thing I do with someone is resource them, make sure that they have, you know, healthy coping strategies that we kind of build up their internal systems of strength and support, because you cannot go into reprocessing trauma if you don't have those.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone is very resourced and they go through something really difficult or scary, they're gonna have a lower likelihood of developing PTSD than someone who just didn't have a lot of resources or was viewing it from a totally different perspective.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So multiple factors, not just perspective and resources, but also their innate resilience.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we're just now understanding how much resilience is a factor in people's outcomes.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And resilience can be built up.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's a part of what resourcing is, is helping people's innate resilience get stronger and louder than some of the other, at one point, adaptive thoughts and reactions to things because all behavior makes sense in context.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we need to do a little correction so that someone's more resilient, healthy adult perspective voice is louder than the voice that had to be loud to help them survive a difficult situation or childhood or home environment.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that loud, maladaptive voice, it's now no longer serving them.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what I view as the arc of trauma therapy is how do we help help you let go of the perspective and the voice and the belief that served you very well at one point, but is no longer serving you as well as it used to.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_04: And when you say loud voice, I know that can be silence, right?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_04: So it doesn't mean like I got to say, hey, this is scary or hey, you're hurting me.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's an internal internal voice and often forms a foundational belief, such as I'm not lovable, I'm unworthy, or I'm, you know, I'm bad in some way, or uh, I am a failure.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like that voice or I don't matter.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: At one point, that voice served you.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it wouldn't have gotten as big as it did.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: So in your previous answer, you also said PTSD.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_04: And I just want to make sure that we define every um term we use so that somebody who isn't talking like this all the time understands what we're saying.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_04: So post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_04: If you could give us a quick definition of that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I mentioned that shell shock was the original diagnosis for combat veterans and PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, is the clinical diagnosis that we give someone that is showing symptoms of trauma in a culturally understood mainstream way.
• 12:08
  unknown: Okay.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's also CPTSD, which is not yet a formal clinical diagnosis.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: It will be.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: But uh that is more and more understood in clinical and kind of everyday uh situations as well.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: The C being complex.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna ask a lot of questions, but I'll also make sure that I tell you which ones are from the internet because I'm just curious that way.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_04: The second most searched question on the internet about trauma is how do I know if I have a trauma?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_04: So how does somebody know if the past is still affecting them?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I like to look at how much is someone in the window of tolerance.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the window of tolerance is something I think we all innately understand, but I like to like lay it out.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you imagine the window of tolerance is your emotional state when you can think, feel, and act at the same time.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to be somewhat grounded in the present.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be like calm but alert.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasant awareness of where you are, or maybe not pleasant, but it feels like a good homeostasis.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_04: Is it what we like to think of as normal?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's what I would hope most people are at for their normal, their baseline.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would say at least 80% of the time.
• 13:22
  unknown: Okay.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: People with trauma, they get knocked out of that window of tolerance totally understandably.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're above the window of tolerance, you're going to be super anxious, hyper-vigilant, you're going to be anxious, restless, like really kind of just keyed up.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're that activated, you can't think, feel, and act at the same time.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably reacting more.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably having racing thoughts that aren't grounded in where your brain would normally be functioning.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you have this physical agitation that's really uncomfortable.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's being up above the window of tolerance.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then below the window of tolerance, you're more dissociated, numb, more depressed, kind of checked out.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And both of these are totally understandable responses to something.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Someone with trauma, they're going to find their window of tolerance is itty bitty.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that they they get knocked out of it much easier than someone that doesn't have a major trauma.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So things that make you really agitated or restless or things that make you dissociate, they're just happening more often.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal of trauma therapy there is to widen that window of tolerance and give you tools to keep you in that window of tolerance so that you're pleasantly aware, alert, but not hyper-vigilant and able to engage with your surroundings in a way that is grounded and adult.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: I'm hearing you and understanding the levels and also thinking how difficult it would be to recognize it in yourself.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_04: Because when you are particularly raised, let's say in chaos, um, well, I read something on the internet that said that red flags don't look like red flags, they look like a Tuesday.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Fish don't notice the water, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you are raised in chaos, chaos is going to feel normal to you.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I work with a lot of healthcare providers, lawyers, people in like high stress environments.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say, well, it's not a coincidence that you ended up there.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: This high stress environment feels so normal to you.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And to some extent, thank goodness, because we need emergency room doctors, we need EMTs, we need people that function quite well in a crisis.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And my goal when I'm treating someone that works in a high stress environment is that, yep, they're on, they're in that like kind of zone of genius at work, and then they can come home and actually come into the window of tolerance and enjoy their personal life.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is the difference between a life of purpose and meaning and a life of just intense stress that doesn't feel meaningful.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_04: So while we've looked at those the levels of the window of tolerance, what red flags, I'll use that phrase, would we notice in ourselves, or perhaps more realistically, might we notice in someone else that we can say this seems like a trauma response?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think that people are relatively good at knowing when they're not in the window of tolerance.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like they know when they're not calm.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: But do you know it's because of trauma, or do you just think coffee or something?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, that's true.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: That they they may not attribute it to trauma.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_04: To trivialize it by saying coffee, but yes.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, there are some people that I'm like, well, how much caffeine have you had today?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, absolutely.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some people that are trauma survivors that are just more sensitive and they may have a more sensitive caffeine reaction.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so how might someone know?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, if you're sleep, looking at your sleep, looking at appetite, looking at mood fluctuations, and then looking at relationship patterns.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: How trusting are you of someone who has acted in a way that is generally trustworthy?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because we see a lot of complex trauma showing up in relationships rather than some kind of like biological functioning.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, first line, I would look at biological function, and then I would look at your social and kind of vocational functioning and how much are maladaptive trauma processes playing out in a way that actually is holding you back.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_04: So, from your vantage point as a trauma therapist, how do you see traumas affecting mental health conditions and substance use disorders and addictions?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_04: Is there, you know, a big overlap there?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there is for sure.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It makes so much sense.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who is predisposed to any mental health condition, you add trauma on top of it, it can be like pouring light or fluid on a fire, or it can be like a little bit of kindling.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you have a biological predisposition to something like bipolar or you know, another condition that's highly biological.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: OCD is another highly biological mental health condition.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this thing called kindling theory that if something happens, and then you would actually start to see symptoms of that condition.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so there's a lot of co-occurring disorders.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you would see often if there's PTSD, there's likely going to be something else.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then as far as substance use, I look at that as like somewhat adaptive, right?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: People that are outside that window of tolerance, 80% of the time or more, they want something to regulate them and get them into that window of tolerance or at least feel a sense of control over it.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that there's, you know, some biological determiners of as well of substance use, but for someone with trauma, like, well, I just want to sleep and alcohol puts me to sleep or whatever it is, makes complete sense.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, all behavior makes sense in context.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And just like some of the ways of explaining experience that someone gets through a difficult childhood of like, well, this was happening because I was bad, or this was happening because I was unlovable, that that it stops protecting them at some point.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the substance use takes on a life of its own and becomes maladaptive, whereas it made sense and it worked in the short term and it doesn't work in the long term.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_04: So if somebody's hearing you talking about trauma and thinks like, oh, maybe that's what's going on with me.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe that's why I think this way, act that way, maybe it's why my partner does, my child does.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_04: What's a good first step to determine if maybe it's trauma-based?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Curiosity is so powerful because it's neutral, it's not judgmental, it's not necessarily looking for specific answer or cause or solution.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I always encourage curiosity.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Listening to this podcast is a great first step.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would caution too much Googling, like you're gonna get into kind of into the weeds and you're gonna read some kind of like worst case scenarios of people if you're going on Reddit or whatever it is.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: But being really curious and just noticing in yourself, building up more self-insight, looking at patterns and being really curious, like, huh, when did this pattern start?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what purpose was it serving?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: How did it help me?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is it still helping me?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And coming to it from a place of self-compassion and wanting to experience healing and be the best version of yourself.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_04: So if I ask myself that question, is this behavior, which I maybe with great insight understand was adaptive and a good thing to do at the time to keep me safe?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_04: It no longer is.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: Is that something that a person can reprocess or change on their own, or is it always require therapy?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sometimes, absolutely.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen people do an incredible amount of self-healing with insight.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you really do need the support of an objective third party to uh to point out patterns and maybe even suggest alternatives.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, okay, your routine is you come home, you put your bag down, you make dinner, you pour yourself a drink.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but what what if it was something else?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like we still engage in a self-soothing ritual and have it be more beneficial for you in the long term.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So put on your favorite music.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Put on your favorite music or make a mock tail.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like still have it be a still have it be a ritual that is around like a sensory experience.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe like what does this juice really taste like?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do I like papaya juice?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and being more present in the moment with it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: So the third most asked question on the internet about trauma is can childhood trauma affect you as an adult?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what else?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: What else can?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and this is some of the most insidious and most difficult to recognize.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: again, the fish don't notice the water.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: You your childhood environment was your normal.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes it's not until someone points out, like well, you you know that not everyone would panic when they heard a car pull into the driveway as a child.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or you know that not everyone would be like checking the trash to see if there are empty bottles in there when you get home.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like that isn't actually normal.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't realize often well into adulthood.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: Or something way lower on the obvious scale.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: I don't mean to make it sound like your examples are obvious, but you know, to to feel attacked when someone says that they you could do something a different way or that they didn't appreciate what you said or something to not take it on so personally.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_04: That can be everything.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: The the assumptions we make about feedback we're given highly influenced by our early feedback that we got from our caregivers.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: So as a trauma therapist, how might childhood trauma show up in an adult's work parenting relationships?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mostly you're going to see it first show up in romantic relationships if someone's having them.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Looking at your attachment style.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our attachment style is influenced almost entirely by our early caregivers.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there are four main types.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people are familiar with them.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Secure attachment it means that you had a caregiver that good enough like good enough parenting.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: They were attuned to you emotionally they met your needs most of the time and you generally had a good relationship and there was not any like major or drip drip drip trauma throughout your childhood.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then anxious or avoidant attachment that's going to be a result of a misattuned parent or an abusive parent or a parent that had substance issues or domestic violence in the home not always a result of those things.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Some people just are anxious for whatever reason but we do see a link there.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then the the final type of attachment is called disorganized and that's you're going to see much more pronounced trauma someone that has disorganized attachment style.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_04: As a parent I appreciate you saying that the secure attachment is from a good enough parent because that idea that there's a perfect one or that you somehow yeah we all fail.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_04: So it's I appreciate that.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect is the enemy of good.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_04: There you go.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: If your parent is emotionally attuned to you 60% of the time that's great.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I I don't know the exact statistic but I just I don't want people to feel like they need to be perfect and respond all we can't be perfect and respond all the time.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: We have our own emotional stuff that comes up work is distracting we have our maybe a partner or or something like we we can't be emotionally attuned to another human being 100% of the time it's just not possible.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_04: Why might old trauma patterns show up at a time in our lives that are really pretty good or feeling pretty safe?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_04: Is it because that now they can?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Often that um the people are in a safe environment now or in a stable environment or in a relationship that feels really different but it not in a bad way.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: In a like this is very unfamiliar and like that's a good thing that this is unfamiliar because I don't want to repeat that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: But uh then when that calm happens then there's that like waiting for the other shoe to drop like well when is this going to get taken from me or when am I going to mess it up or any other or it's just that the body finally relaxes into being able to like actually make space to potentially process some of what happened.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_04: Which is interesting because say your life is now calmer, safer healthier so now you can you have space mental space maybe physical space to remember and deal with childhood traumas.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_04: It might also be something that would sabotage your current better state, right?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: It could, it could, but I like to think of it as like we can't process the fact that we had to run from the tiger while we were running from the tiger.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: We had to focus on getting away from the tiger.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's only after we're really in safety that we kind of go, oh my gosh, I was just running from a tiger.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was terrifying my life was in danger.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe your life was not in actual danger.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: But you were in that elevated state for a very long time.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's only when you're in true safety that all of the like actual hormonal activity of being that activated for that long starts to settle.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_04: So if you're at a point in your life where you can realize I'm not being chased by that tiger or that bear anymore, what are some tools that would help you know stop looking over your shoulder for that tiger or bear thinking it's coming back?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is so individual.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's so based on what a a person needs is it that they need to amplify the part of themselves that is the stable adult, the nurturing parent we all have a part of ourselves that can be that maybe we're not actually a parent, but we have a part of ourselves that needs to be amplified and brought out and be in conversation with the part of us that's still scared and still trying to make sense of something that happened and kind of be like the comforter and the nurturer and protector.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that part often can't come out until there's space for it.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the inner child work we're hearing about all the time?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's more the internal family systems model, which acknowledges that all of us have many parts of self that are true.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when we see people with mental health concerns, substance misuse, trauma, that the parts can kind of get um disproportionately placed and that the the work of therapy is not to squash the part of you that reaches for alcohol entirely, but to make the other parts of you bigger and have more power and voice in the system of self.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Which would result in more balance and feeling like you are in the healthy adult perspective that you are capable of.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_04: So we are going back to the internet questions.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_04: So the fourth most searched for question when people look for answers about trauma is can trauma be healed?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely I I do it every day.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I be in this field if I didn't think it could be healed?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: You might think it could be a little healed or something.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah there are th I think there are some people that have a steep road ahead of them and it's not as steep as a lot of people think.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a great relationship with your therapist if that's the road you're going, if you're going through therapy, um if you have a great relationship with your therapist and they're using an evidence-based practice trauma is not something that you want a therapist who's just like throwing spaghetti at the wall.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: You want someone that actually like okay here's the map.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not good enough to have a just okay relationship with your therapist.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: You need someone that you feel a strong connection with.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, it can absolutely be healed.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I see it every day I have worked with people who um you know survived terrible things 9-11, you know, major sexual assaults uh you know vehicle accidents um all kinds of relational trauma and abuse and I, you know, people can literally and figuratively go back to ground zero and be okay.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that they never fathomed would be possible and I see it all the time.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I think that this job of mine is such a strange job but it's so rewarding and it it's not as difficult as a lot of people might think because I get to see the healing and I get to see the progress and the resilience all the time.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I absolutely love it.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_04: So as a trauma therapist when you say that people including your clients can be healed from trauma what's healed?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_04: We're not talking about a bone that fuses are we talking about better able to manage it or are we talking about not having it affect our daily life?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of nuance in my answer here because managing trauma is what a lot of people are doing prior to healing.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're just managing it and kind of like white knuckling it through life.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Healing it is not forgetting it.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people are put off from trying to heal their trauma because they're like, but this part of this makes me who I am.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me very aware of my surroundings it makes me engaged and involved and caring about my community.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me a good parent it makes me a good employee to have this sharpness to me and this perspective I have.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And to that I say oh you get to keep that you get to keep the part of you that is informed by the trauma.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: You get to keep that no matter what.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be erased and what if you could physically relax and be more at ease most of the time and find greater purpose and meaning in your life rather than just like muscling through everything.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's the healing is when you can look back on something awful that you went through and say it's not okay that that happened but I am okay now even though it happened.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_04: Let's talk about some of the types of therapy that are effective in dealing with trauma.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_04: Because there are a lot of them there are a lot of types of therapy and it would be good to know to be able to target a little bit and say like I if this is most effective I'd like to start there or get there.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well and there's so many acronyms.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I I went to graduate school and I've I'm still hearing of acronyms I'm like what is that?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's totally fine if someone's overwhelmed by them.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the one I'm most passionate about is EMDR because like I said it's that roadmap.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's eight phases you know exactly what to expect and there's a lot of give me the word EMDR before we dive in.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing so EMDR I hear a lot of people say EDMR and I'm like there's no glow sticks there's no there's no party.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But um there's this woman Dr.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Francine Shapiro recently passed actually in the 80s.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: She was walking through a park in New York and thinking about something really upsetting.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as she was walking she was moving her eyes side to side on the sidewalk and she found after about 20 minutes she was no longer disturbed by the thing she was thinking about.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so she's a research psychologist.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So she went back to her lab and she starts researching and they discover that bilateral stimulation which is side to side movement helps reprocess things in your brain.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of like if you have a memory that's really concentrated in one spot of your brain and you get there and it's like you're stuck on an island, EMDR just kind of spreads it out so that there's just like tiny pieces of it and they they're not they don't bug you.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very passionate about EMDR.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's also somatic modalities that are very body based.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would say EMDR is also a somatic modality but it it's it's kind of a comprehensive model.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's somatic modalities there's trauma focused CBT which is an evidence based behavioral therapy cognitive behavioral therapy and um and then there's um I mentioned internal family systems.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would say to use that in conjunction with other modalities um although I'm not trained in it.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I think an IFS therapist would say oh yeah totally great.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: So but people always want to know what's the best modality well it's the one that works for you.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one that the therapist you have the strongest connection with works.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Research shows 80% of the effectiveness of therapy is about the relationship.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you're someone who's like yeah I really don't think this is about my thoughts then trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy is probably not for you.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you're someone that's really not into a more like somatic approach, then maybe a somatic approach is not for you.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you're I don't I'm biased because I love EMDR so much, but I I can't think of someone that EMDR wouldn't be a good fit for because it's so customizable.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, there's so much out there it's it's okay to feel overwhelmed by all of the all of the uh information out there.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_04: So with all of the information and with all the acronyms and most of us of course aren't a therapist who are listening to this and and needing help um how do you start how do you do you have to research all those things or is it just you find if you're able to find a therapist and say, you know, this is what's going on work through what's the best.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_04: But wouldn't you want to pick a therapist who specializes in what would work it's it's a little chicken chicken or hacking.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: I would be really curious it I'm and it depends on the person because if you've got substance use and trauma that um and I I'm not a substance use expert, um you might need to do one before the other there's kind of an order of operations there.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you might want to consult with someone a lot of therapists will do like a free consultation or if you you know talk to your healthcare provider like hey where do you think I should start with this they might have an idea because yeah it is really hard to know where to start.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of therapists will do a free consult with you.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you call and say here, here's kind of the like the the headlines of what's going on, do you think this is a good fit?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_04: What are realistic expectations for both the end result for a result of traumatic healing and a timeline?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: Just so somebody doesn't say like, well I've been talking to her for two weeks and I, you know, I mean what what's what's the way that you can have hope that something could change and yet have realistic expectations?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's one of my biggest frustrations with the there's been a lot of great press around eye movement desensitization and reprocessing and kind of packaging it as this magic bullet like oh three sessions and you'll be good to fly on an airplane.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: You've been terrified your whole life.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And okay there are some stories where that's the case but to me that says someone was extremely resourced and it was a great fit and they they were just kind of primed.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: EMDR is not necessarily like a couple sessions and you're done particularly if you have complex trauma.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking at complex trauma it there's no short-term model for complex trauma unfortunately I know that creates a lot of access issues for people and insurance seems to think that trauma can be healed in you know a 12 week session.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And to that I'll say like you will see some benefit if you have a good therapist match and they're using an evidence based model.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have the ability to see someone longer term for trauma, that's probably where you're going to see like an a longer term healing and that kind of being back in that window of tolerance most of the time happen.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_04: So you named a lot of different kinds of therapies your passion and your specialty is EMDR.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_04: So and please again uh define what that term means but tell us how that works what a session looks like what the process looks like and how it helps and how you've seen it help your own clients.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: So eye movement desensitization and reprocessing I'll just say it it's a weird modality.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's super weird.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And even I will go into a session sometimes be like is this thing really going to work?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like is this person really and then it does and I'm like okay I guess I'm gonna keep using it.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: So um like I mentioned Francine Shapiro was moving her eyes and discovered she was no longer disturbed by something that was previously very disturbing to her.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so they they researched and found that storing things differently in the brain happens when you have bilateral stimulation.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the research is on the eye movement, you know, side to side eye movements, but it can be any side to side movement.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I do a lot of butterfly tapping with people it gives them a sense of control and also keeps them very grounded in their body.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Some people um I also have these like pulsing things that people can hold in their hand and it vibrates side to side.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can also do beeping side to side.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if anyone, you know, let's say someone is vision impaired or hearing impaired, like you can still engage in this modality which I think is great.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: But EMDR is an eight phase model.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: People think it's just the eye movements and then you're done.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Which wouldn't that be great?
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's an eight phase model and I would actually say that the first few phases are the most critical.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the first phase is you get you do a history collection and the therapist wants basically your life story kind of the highlights real low lights.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah the I like to say what would be on the headline of a newspaper about your life that came out once a year.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it can be the good the bad the ugly the in-between anything significant.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we start like tell me about your family like what were you born into and then what happened from there.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that history collection and sometimes people really want to tell their story and it takes a couple sessions or longer.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had someone that really wanted to tell her story and we did that for about five months and you know she had access to be able to do long-term therapy.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: So history and then preparation and resourcing do not work with an EMDR therapist that does not do a lot of preparation and resourcing this is the phase that gets you ready for EMDR gives you the tools to handle the intensity of sitting with upsetting and traumatic material for extended periods of time thinking about it as you're moving your eyes or tapping.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this looks different for every person.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Some people need like physical grounding exercises some people need to do some of that parts work, that internal family systems of like really amplifying the healthy adult perspective or the positive nurturing parent part of themselves or just strengthening your connection and your access to people in your life that filled that role but maybe weren't the biggest role.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that looks different for everyone.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: For someone with pretty severe complex trauma, you might be in that preparation phase for quite a long time because we the last thing we want to do is drop you into trauma processing when you have no resources or ability to tolerate the intensity of it.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: So then the next phase is actually going into talking about the trauma and you actually don't have to give a ton of detail.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was once in an expert training where an EMDR therapist did an entire target with someone and knew nothing about it.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then the person this was in a like in a training for therapists and then at the end the person got up and said that was a sexual assault and the therapist had no idea.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty rare and it would take an expert EMDR therapist to be able to do that.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't have to give a ton of detail to the therapist.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_04: I can't remember the details either.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's true.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they do come out as you are going through it.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the therapist is there guiding you and helping you identify certain parts of the trauma and and then sitting with you as you are processing it, either with eye movements or or whatever the bilateral is.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then with successful EMDR you go from being disturbed let's say you're disturbed eight out of 10 and then over over the course of however many sessions it takes you would actually get down to a zero where you would be able to think about it.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and like you know you can access it people often say it's pretty blurry now.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just not as clear to me and I feel like I'm way farther away from it.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: But like I can see it.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just fuzzy and I'm like great yeah how wonderful and that they can think about it and their body stays calm which sounds impossible to a lot of people that have been through trauma but I I see it all the time that you can think about something that was really disturbing a few days ago and be here now.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not forgetting it that you're changing your relationship to it.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you're allowing it to be in the past.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with trauma is that the brain is storing it as though it's a very recent very important memory.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: If I asked you to describe the last time you went to the grocery store, would you be able to give me a lot of detail?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not because it it was not important information and your brain was like nope.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you didn't ask because I'm like I don't do I go to the grocery store I was lost Terry can forget that it's not important.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: The trauma memory your brain is like that's really important.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have to remember that for survival right and what EMDR and and any good trauma therapy does is basically goes oh we don't need to remember that for our survival anymore.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like we will remember it but it's not critical to our continued existence.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's our history not our present yes and so that then the body comes back into the present because the the problem with trauma is that your body gets jerked back into the past.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm working with someone that had a horrible car accident, they know that they are sitting with me having Session.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: They logically know this.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: And their body's like, no, we're on the freeway.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes total sense because your brain is like, we need to remember this to survive.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that disconnect between what you logically know is happening and what your body is telling you is happening.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's honestly my definition of trauma.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like that split between the logical and the physical.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what trauma therapy does, good trauma therapy, is helps the body come into harmony with the logical brain that knows you are sitting here right now.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_04: It sounds like having a fire alarm or something going off all the time.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_04: And you'd never know if you're actually in any danger, or maybe you always think you are.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's funny.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: My uh my gym that I go to every morning when we do these fitness classes, once a year for a whole month, they test the fire alarm in this gym because it's in a mall and like the shops aren't open yet.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we're always so annoyed when it's this month of fire alarm testing and we stop reacting to the alarm.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: But new people that come to this gym, they're like, uh, should should we, should we get out?
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, no, that's that's just yeah.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it can also be the opposite where like the alarm is going off and you are reacting, but everyone around you is like, no, you're you're fine, you're here.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_04: It makes me think of fireworks with some veterans on the fourth of July, right?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you're hearing that and it doesn't just sound playful or fun or celebratory to no, it's it's very upsetting.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: And with good EMDR therapy, a vet could be hearing fireworks and be like, nope, I'm no longer, I'm I'm I'm not, they're not getting pulled back into the combat zone.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Remembering it.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Be like, oh yeah, I was there.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um or maybe not even associating it because they know it's fireworks.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: And their body knows it's fireworks.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_04: We're to the fifth question.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_04: So another one of the top questions that people search for when they go on the internet looking up trauma is what does it mean that trauma lives in the body?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: That disconnect between your rational brain knowing that you are sitting in your living room talking to your friend, and your body feeling like you're back about to be in that car accident.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: That disconnect.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's adaptive.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your body's trying to keep you alive, your body is giving you important information.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just doing too good a job.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_04: So when I think of the books like the body keeps the score and the body remembers, and the fact that they are so popular tells us so much.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_04: What do you take from that when it's they're even a little academic?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I found them very kids get this.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_04: So what does that say about all the people out here?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think people feel somewhat gaslit.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not using that term lightly.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we've been throwing the term gaslighting around a lot lately.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: But when someone is having a very physical reaction and people are saying, it's just in the past, it's just in the past, and the person's like, I know it's in the past.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: But they're tired of that physical reaction being dismissed or and and not understood as being as disturbing as it is.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_04: You just said about the word gaslit being thrown around, and you hear it all the time now.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_04: The word trauma is very similar.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_04: So before, as you said, you know, we thought of it as veterans, as people who'd been in a war experience or a natural disaster, and now we're understanding uh or applying it differently.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_04: Does that the common use of the term trauma now is that a result of a deeper understanding, or have we diluted the word?
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are using it in a diluted sense, but I I think that it's there are other words that have been more diluted.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think that trigger is actually a word that is being used incorrectly often.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: People are using trigger to describe something that upset them or something they didn't like or something that was uncomfortable.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, a trigger is something that is the thing that pulls your body back into the past, into that full activation.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: You are out of the window of tolerance rather than like, oh yeah, I didn't like the way that person talked to me.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: That was uncomfortable.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if your body was pulled back into like a caregiver yelling at you, right, then yes, that was a trigger.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that that sometimes we we we use the word trigger a little too, we're a little too trigger happy with the word trigger.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_04: Trigger happy.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_04: Well done.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_04: What are some common body symptoms that would indicate to us that this is an unprocessed or a stored trauma?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: Any physiological reaction that feels outsized or confusing to you, um, heart racing, uh, any kind of squirminess, or I have actually worked with people where they had like a very specific physiological reaction, like with their voice, or like there can be sometimes a musculoskeletal more aches and pains.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're understanding more and more every day just how strong that link between the mind and body is.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it would be hard to name just a handful.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I look at the things that are most critical to our physiological functioning.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: So sleep, appetite, and then mobility.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_04: I know I feel it in my voice.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_04: You know, when I hear it getting really high, I wear a necklace often that says uh tell the truth, even if your voice chicks.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just the second I start to do it, I just feel it all up here.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_04: So definitely the physical thing.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_04: So we have divided the top 10 questions search for on the internet into two parts.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_04: So we have just uh completed the fifth.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_04: So we will uh end this podcast, this episode here.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_04: But I'm wondering if you could share a simple body-based exercise as we close this out, just to help people who are experiencing, yeah, have experienced trauma or are just in an uncomfortable or unregulated state right now.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: This one's called calm place.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now obviously, if you're listening in your car, please don't do this.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like only do this if you're in a place where you could comfortably engage with it and safely engage with it.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: But um, what I want you to do is to think of a calm place.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: It can be real or imagined.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it I hear the beach a lot.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm from LA, so I hear the beach a lot, and um, but it can be imaginary too.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I've had a couple people say Hogwarts is their calm place, and like that sounds like the most stressful place ever, but you do you.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: So think of a calm place, and I want you to actually go there and notice what is the weather like, what is the light like.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're thinking about this, you can tap side to side this butterfly tap.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening, I just have my arms kind of crossed across my chest and I'm tapping my shoulders side to side about once as once or twice a second, not too fast.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then just be in that calm place.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anyone with you?
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: A person or an animal?
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: What are the sounds like?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then turn your attention toward your body.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: And just notice how your body is reacting to being in this calm place.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if your body is not reacting with any kind of relaxation, that's okay.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just be curious about it.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you're ready, you can come back into the present moment.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you can do that anywhere.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that anywhere, anytime you are activated.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've even done it, you know, side to side on my legs under a table.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, during a meeting or something.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: During a meeting or something, and you just access, and it does need to be a calm place, or it can be like a really simple, soothing memory.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say you had a great relationship with grandma and you're in grandma's kitchen cooking.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like it can be something positive, engaging, focus.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can use that anytime you need.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_04: I really appreciate it.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_04: Look forward to continuing the conversation.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, me too.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_04: And we'll be back next week with five more of the most searched questions on the internet about trauma.