Trauma, healing, and your nervous system explained

An experience enters into your ears, into your eyes

The first thing is a somatic response. Is this dangerous or is this safe

You hear the word anxiety. You think, oh God, this is the thing I want to kick out the door

It's a disease. I have it. I don't know how to get rid of it. The problem with trauma is that it starts off with something that happens to us

but that's not where it stops because it changes your brain. Your body continues to relive it

This negative internal dialogue isn't who you really are at all. The wonderful thing is you can actually change the dialogue

The trauma is not the event that happens. The trauma is how you respond to it

We can use neuroscience and tools from psychology to flip the script on our whole mindset around anxiety

When you take the time to tame the mind, it's really quite extraordinary, the possibilities

One of the greatest challenges of people in the West is they have this negative internal dialogue

And I use the term a DJ. It is a collection of events, experiences, commentaries from your environment

that oftentimes you allow to define you. And not necessarily in a positive way

And as a result, you have an emotional response when you listening to these voices or this dialogue or the DJ if you will Oh my God this person hates me I never going to get the job I never going to lose the weight that I want to lose

All these things become part of the big stone of anxiety dragging along with you

Anxiety is the feeling of fear or worry, typically associated with situations of uncertainty

The amygdala is a brain structure that is automatically activated when you hear that bump in the night that launches your anxiety

And the brain area that could help that calming in that situation is the prefrontal cortex, the area that's involved in executive function

But unfortunately, in situations of high stress, high anxiety, what happens is not only is your amygdala activated, but your prefrontal cortex gets shut down too

So that makes the situation even worse. Cognitive flexibility is the idea that we are able to look at and approach situations in lots of different ways

What is it about my anxiety that is difficult? Can I bring a superpower or a gift from that

If there's a realization, there are other ways to approach it. You have the ability to do just that

First one is a superpower of productivity, that what if list. What if you didn't do that or what if you did that and you didn't do it right

And so here is the trick. Anxiety evolved to have us put an action on it

2.5 million years ago, it was either you fight or you run away from it

The way to transform it is to turn that what if list into a to list Put an action on each one of them Tick through them one by one That is how you get productivity from your anxiety

People usually think about the military when they talk about trauma, but trauma is actually extremely common

Basically, trauma is something that happens to you that makes you so upset that it overwhelms you

There is nothing you can do to stave off the inevitable. You basically collapse in a state of confusion

maybe rage, because you are unable to function in the face of this particular threat

And what may be traumatic for you may not be traumatic for me

depending on our personality and our prior experiences. Much of the imprint of trauma is in a very primitive survival part of your brain

that just picks up what's dangerous and what's safe. And when you're traumatized, that little part of your brain

which is usually very quiet, continues to just send messages. I'm in danger. I'm not safe

The problem then becomes that you are not able to engage or to learn

or to see other people's point of view or to coordinate your feelings with your thinking

That event itself is over, but your body keeps mobilizing itself to fight

You have all kinds of immunological abnormalities and endocrine abnormalities, and that really devastates your physical health also

I get asked this question of geez I haven meditated How do I get started The first thing is to simply breathe in and out consciously Think about the air going through your nose and exhaling through your mouth

And once you've done that for a period of time, then you suddenly realize the very nature of that action and the consistency of that

You're no longer having that same emotional response or you're not starting to listen to that dialogue

So when you stop the DJ and then change the dialogue to one that is nurturing, supportive of yourself, your physiology changes

And then the manner in which you react or interact with other people becomes completely different

One of the largest mitigating factors against getting traumatized is who is there for you at that particular time

when, as a kid, you get bitten by a dog. It's really very scary and very nasty

But if your parents pick you up and say, oh, I see that you're really in bad shape, let me help you

That dog bite doesn't become a big issue because the foundation of your safety has not been destroyed

Think about that anxiety that is most familiar to you. You know what it feels like, you know what it looks like

All you have to do is notice when others might be suffering from that same form of anxiety

And here's your superpower. All you have to do is give a kind word, a simple helping hand in that situation

And it changes not only that other person, it changes the entire environment around you

Thank you