Breaking Free of Your Own Trauma Cycle

As I, Erin Anderson, navigated the winding roads post-accident, my eyes were opened to the relentless grip of trauma and its ability to steer life off course. This episode is a map for those seeking to liberate themselves from the emotional whiplash of past hurts. With a torch of understanding, we illuminate the shadowy corners of the mind, where negative cycles lurk and ensnare. My decade of coaching has equipped me with insights into the patterns of thought that chain us to our fears and inhibit trust, and I'm bringing these revelations directly to your ears. We address the brain's craving for the familiar, even when it's painful, and how to courageously interrupt these patterns to reclaim joy and freedom.

Journey with me as we trail the complex path of trauma recovery and trust reconstruction. Sharing my own scars from severe car accidents, I lay bare the challenges of post-trauma anxiety and mistrust, particularly in the dance of male-female relationships. The conversation takes a turn towards the light, revealing the beauty in balanced, respectful connections, and the steps we can take to not just survive, but thrive. We also extend a hand to lift you into our supportive online communities, where practical advice and encouragement are in abundance. Whether it's through our "Immune and Unashamed" group for couples or one-on-one support, this episode is here to bolster your journey to healing.

For the Powerful and Profitable Trauma Informed Coach 5 Day Challenge, click on this link to join the challenge: https://www.kushlachadwick.com/5day-powerfulandprofitable

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:03

Hey everyone, it's Erin Anderson with the Erin Anderson B-Trail Trauma Coaching. I am super excited that you tuned in today. Let's keep talking about how to heal from B-Trail Trauma. Welcome to the other side of the struggle. This is a podcast where we talk about trauma, how to heal it and then how to take it and use it to unlock your mission and your potential and to use it to live your very best dream life. When you're dealing with B-Trail Trauma, it can be hard to know how to heal it, how to stop the pain and to know what your next steps are to take in your own life, and these are the questions that we try to answer here.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Trauma has the ability to rob us of our joy and identity, which is why it's so miserable to experience. But with the right tools and with the right mindset, we can totally reclaim that joy and even use this trauma to strengthen ourselves, so that way, trauma does not knock us off of our joy again. Living your dream life should be a non-negotiable, but trauma tends to try to negotiate that with you and even though trauma is not something that we will completely ever be free of in our life, the pain is negotiable. This is why I created Aaron Anderson B-Trail Trauma Coaching and this podcast is because I want my listeners, I want my clients, to live truly live free from the prison that trauma can put you in. I want you to live on the other side of the struggle. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the other side of the struggle. So glad you're here. I think that this episode is going to be one that you guys are really, really going to connect well with, and I think it's going to be major in helping you guys step out of trauma and maybe make the first steps into healing and progress and more of what it is you really want out of your life At least, that's my hope for you.

Speaker 1: 4:02

So today we're talking about understanding your own trauma cycle and how to break it. And why that's really important is because, as I've been coaching I've been coaching for 10 years, I've coached easily over 100 clients at this point, and one thing I've noticed is they think in cycles. Remember, your brain loves predictability, like loves it, and it wants to go from point A to point B. But the problem with that is oftentimes, if we just let it go from point A to point B, we find ourselves in destructive thinking habits, and those thinking habits often lead us to self betrayal, often lead us to feeling unsafe, feeling like we can't trust again. Do any of these kind of start to sound familiar? Right and granted, I'm not saying you need to trust. Sometimes if somebody is just not showing up, that doesn't mean you have to give them all of your trust again. I think there's different levels of trust, right, and maybe the person you love really doesn't capable of holding your trust. But the problem with us wanting to trust that person again though they may not necessarily deserve that trust is we know that it's necessary if we're going to continue relationship with that person. We don't want the pain of divorce, we don't want to have the pain of separation, we don't want to have the pain of a failed marriage, because oftentimes, what does that mean about me? Right, there's so many different levels of fear behind that, and so our brain takes us from point A to point B really quickly and we tend to get into this fish and cycle that we feel like we can't ever break.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Okay, so if you guys remember the trauma cycle, if you don't go back and listen to it, but I'll kind of or I should say, go back and listen to the episode Again. You'll have to search through. I don't remember what episode it is, but there's an episode about understanding the trauma cycle, right? Well, today I'll go back through the different pieces of the trauma cycle again, but I definitely would recommend you also listen to that piece, that episode again, first. But you have the trigger, then you have the re-traumatization, you have the reaction of blame, coping, avoidance, control, trigger re-traumatization and so on and so on and so on. Okay, that's how the trauma cycle works and there's many things that can trigger us. Okay, and basically, what that trigger means is you're going to have an emotion go off, okay, such as anger, frustration, fear, worry. Those are all really good indicators or also good signals that we need to pay attention to something. Right, like, what do we do? But too often we go straight into reaction, okay, after we're re-triggered, because something that has happened has caused us fear, anxiety, and so we react instead of give our brain and our body a chance to kind of just check in and listen to what's going on.

Speaker 1: 8:03

I'm going to give you an example of the trauma cycle in my own life. Okay, so, for example now, before you guys think I'm a bad driver, I'm actually a very good driver. I've never had a ticket in my life never once, okay. And I've been driving now for 24 years. All right, we're going to go with that 24 years. So I've been driving a while and I've never had a ticket. But I've had three major car crashes, all of them very bad.

Speaker 1: 8:41

The first time I drove off a cliff the first time I was ever driving I was with my dad, drove off a cliff, landed upside down in three feet of water yeah, that was a, by the way. The cliff was at least 20 to 30 feet. I ended upside down three feet of water. Thought I killed my dad. That was a very traumatic day. When they finally pulled my car out of the water, it had boomeranged and, yeah, it wasn't a pretty sight at all. So there was that day.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Seven months later I had a friend that pulled out in front of my mom and I when I was heading home from high school and we t-boned her and pushed her several feet down the road because we were going 55 miles an hour and we hit her in the driver's seat. Our entire front of the car was completely destroyed. Her car was completely destroyed. Luckily we all walked away from that, but that was another very traumatic day for me. I thought we killed my friend right, and then, several years later I had somebody push me out of my lane on I-15, which is the freeway we're going 80 miles an hour, pushed me out of my lane and the axle on my car broke as I tried to use an evasive maneuver and because I lost complete control of the car at that moment, I spun across all lanes of traffic and hit the center divide. How I didn't get hit by another car, I don't know. I'm glad I didn't. But I had my kids with me that day, my boys, and that was also a very deeply traumatic day.

Speaker 1: 10:48

I've had all of these car crashes. They are all been very severe. They've been hard on my body. I to this day have still pretty severe back pain from so many car crashes, right, and I still feel just a bit of anxiety when I get behind the wheel. Now, granted, I had to tell my brain what to do, right, because I could have just completely avoided driving altogether. But where would that have left me, right? I mean, we live in a day and age where I'm a mom of six kids. If I didn't drive, they wouldn't have the care that they need. That's important. That I drive, then, and these are things that I realized. So I forced myself back in the car and kept driving.

Speaker 1: 11:48

But that doesn't mean that there's still not that little piece in my brain that freaks out. So the trigger for me is going to be driving right, and that does retraumatize me every single time I get behind a wheel and I have to sometimes really calm myself down, especially going in for long distances. Or I do refuse to drive in ugly weather. I don't like that at all because I've got all kinds of triggers going off at that time, at that point. But I can easily retraumatize myself by thinking about those horrible moments and then I easily want to go into reaction and blame. I tense, there's your reaction, right? My heart rate speeds up. My brain is seeing all of these horrible images Like what, if, what if, what if, what, ifs right, and I start to blame other drivers. Or I'm like you, stupid idiot, why can't you drive right? I have a problem with that, to be honest with you. Okay, if people don't drive well around me, I get a little ticked off and I'm sitting there like as I'm driving. Okay, it's a weakness I need to work on.

Speaker 1: 13:15

But from reaction and blame I would get into coping and avoidance. Right For me. I cope with it because I have to drive, I have to get back in back behind the wheel, right. Or I might see if somebody else can do the driving right, avoid it completely, and then I try to control it by maybe yelling at drivers when they're not being smart right, or maybe I try to control it by I could. I don't do this, but I could reach over and grab the steering wheel if, if I feel like somebody isn't being smart right, but that can cause another really major crash. So we've got all of these things that are happening in my brain when I get in the car or I get behind the driver's, the driving wheel. Right For me, that is my trauma cycle.

Speaker 1: 14:25

But for you, you're probably here because you've been betrayed, and so relationships in general, especially with men, if you're a woman, this is a big thing that we get called into question a lot. We don't trust men because men have shown up as untrustworthy. You've been betrayed by your father or an uncle or a grandfather or a husband right, a friend, a neighbor, and we tend to think that men are nothing but sex addicts right, they can't be trusted. They can't be trusted. They can't be trusted. But the problem is, is that leads us into avoiding relationships with men in general? And they can be some of the most wonderful, beautiful relationships, because the relationships between men and women, if they're both a healthy person, are beautiful.

Speaker 1: 15:38

Like for me, I'm a very independent person. I can figure things out. I can go out and do things. If I need something repaired or fixed. Yeah, I live with my husband does those things, but I can learn how to do it and I can go out and do it. If I need to right, absolutely, I can do it. I love having my husband change the oil in my car, take care of automobile things. It I can do it if I have to. I'm a very deeply independent person. However, I love it. I love being in the energy of the masculine. I love it when my husband is protective of me. I love it when my husband sets the rules with my family to respect me right. I love it when my husband is deeply respectful of my needs and my wants. It's a beautiful thing to witness and I love it when other men respect me. I live in a fantastic community of fantastic men, and I know for a fact that any single one of them, if they ever saw me being hurt or threatened in any single way, they would stand up and say no, right. I love that, but I also love my feminine abilities to nurture, to support, bring truth to the table right and to create from those places. It's a beautiful harmony, two pieces of a puzzle that fit very perfectly together.

Speaker 1: 17:46

When we mistrust one or the other, we are literally refusing the other half of something that's very beautiful to ourselves. And that happens when men mistrust women or women mistrust men. But we get into our heads, we get into the trauma cycle deeply when we're saying those things and again, no judgment, if you've had these experiences with men or with women we tend to kind of follow in that line of mistrust right. But we never stop to ask ourselves what is actually true, not what has actually shown up for me, but what is actually true. You know, I talk to a lot of women who also feel like, because God is a man, or they believe God is a man I believe God is a man that he can't be trusted either, and that's a scary place to be in Because that leaves us completely alone and so vulnerable to attacks from evil.

Speaker 1: 19:18

So how do we change our own trauma cycle? Number one we have to understand it. It takes some time to sit back. And number one get checked in with your emotions. Your emotions are literally the siren going off telling you that you've got to pay attention to this. Something is going on. We've got to pay attention and if we can sit with that emotion for a few minutes without re-triggering it, without sitting there thinking about why it happened, if we just sit with the emotion, it will burn out of our system within 90 seconds. If you re-trigger it, it might take another 90 seconds. Okay, and it's okay. If you really have to process something for a minute, you might have to sit with the emotion a little longer than 90 seconds, okay. But if we don't re-trigger it, it will burn out in 90 seconds and then sometimes we can think about what happened.

Speaker 1: 22:55

It's important to identify what the emotion is. Maybe there's several emotions Fear, anger, worry, jealousy all really good examples of emotions that we really need to start paying attention to. We can learn a lot from them and we ask ourselves why they are here. Okay, so we have the trigger, the retraumatization, right, and we ask ourselves in the retraumatization what is the emotion I'm feeling? Let me identify it.

Speaker 1: 23:44

And the question in the reaction and blame is why is this here? So you can kind of hear that question there, can't you? Because we often ask ourselves that just really quickly in a blip and we blame ourselves, we blame someone else, right, but the problem with the blame is, remember that's the adversary to ownership, even when you blame yourself. It's not about blame, it's simply about like, okay, how can I change the situation to reflect what it is I want? Right, we're going to get curious, we're going to think about things for just a minute. We're not going to react immediately, we're not going to take action immediately, and that's okay Sometimes when you sit back and really think about it and give our brain some time to go a little slower down this path, so that way we can kind of see where we need to turn off, so we're not consistently going back to the same place over and over and over again, so we're not constantly getting re-triggered.

Speaker 1: 24:55

So we do that and then we ask, like I said, we ask ourselves why is this here? What is this emotion here to teach me? And we can write down everything. It's here to teach me that so-and-so is a horrible person. It's here to teach me that I should never trust mine again. It's here to teach me that all men are horrible. Right, we can write all that down, but I want you to go deeper, because eventually you'll get to an answer like it's teaching me that I need to set a boundary, that something is being violated inside of me. What is it that's being violated? Is it my value or is it who I am? I value who I am right. So it's definitely still a value, but is it an outside value or is it something that's deeper inside of me? Like why am I being triggered? What is being called into question? What is being threatened here? Why do I feel threatened? Okay, and then that's actually a great question that takes us into the opposite of coping and avoidance. You know, like what is it? I need to learn, go deeper, because you're neither coping with that nor are you avoiding it. You're sitting with it, you're learning from it, you're giving yourself the time to process, and then you can ask yourself the opposite of control what can I really do? What is within my control? Can I really control this situation? Yes or no? If it's yes, okay, if I have control over the situation.

Speaker 1: 27:14

How Asking yourself really good questions anytime that you find yourself stuck in a cycle is beneficial to getting out of that cycle? Questions are really the thing that causes the interrupt in the way that we think, and oftentimes, and again, it's not necessarily your fault. Human nature is just to quickly think about something and act, think, act, think, act, think, act. Right, but we don't give ourselves enough time for the think. So when we sit back and we ask ourselves really good questions, we often can find holes in our thinking process, and those holes often lead to a completely different thought process that gets us the result that we're looking for in the first place, right? So one of the things I would really suggest you do is sit down and ask yourself well, what is my trigger? How do I find myself re-traumatized, like, what are the emotions that come up? How do I react? Is there somebody I blame or people that I blame? Is there more than one?

Speaker 1: 28:39

Ask yourself questions like how do I cope with this and is there something I'm avoiding and am I trying to control? What are the thoughts there? Are they true? Are they truly true or is it possible that something else could be true. Check in with how it's making you feel. Oftentimes, if you're believing a lie, it makes you feel hopeless. It makes you feel like there's nothing you can do. But there's always something. Always you might not be able to control another person and I do not recommend that anyway but there's always something you can do within your control to get you the results you're looking for, to get you happier, healthier, with relationships that show up to love and support you. You do not at any time have to settle for what it is you don't want. So ask yourself some questions.

Speaker 1: 29:52

What does your own personal trauma cycle look like? Then ask yourself what is the emotion? What is the emotion here to teach me? What do I really need to learn? What is the truth here? What actions can I take on the truth? What can I do because of this truth? And then ask yourself what is it that I can truly do? What do I actually have control over? Do I have control over this thing, yes or no? If I don't have any control over this, what do I have control over? Like I cannot control my husband's pornography addiction. That's a great example. You don't have any control over that. What I do have control over is my home. I can decide if I allow that in. I can have control over how I'm going to react. I have control over how I'm going to view the situation. I have control over myself and my agency. I have control over how I influence, how I show up. Those are all very powerful things that help you get out of the trauma cycle. All right, my loves, I hope this is helpful.

Speaker 1: 31:20

Go ahead, create your own trauma cycle. See if you can identify what your triggers are, how they're traumatizing you, what your reaction is and maybe who you're blaming. How are you coping, are you avoiding? How are you trying to control? Then ask yourself those questions on the outside. See if that can bring you some clarity. See if that can bring you some progress forward.

Speaker 1: 31:47

Again, if you want some help with these specific areas, if you want help with your own trauma cycle and how to heal it and how to correct it and get out of it and break your own trauma cycle and really see what your own cycle needs to look like and how to change your own thought patterns, make sure to book that call with me right now. Go click on that link schedule some time. Let me know how I can help, how I can show up to support you. That's what these calls are for. They're no pressure, no cells conversations, just me showing up to love you and help you into your next step of life. Alright, my loves from my heart to your heart. I'll see you on the other side. Bye, okay.

Speaker 1: 32:52

So I've got a question for you. Have you joined my free Facebook group or Instagram Instagram page yet? If you haven't, go and do that, and this is the reason why I always post my freebies, updated information and all kinds of goodies for my community in that page. I'm also really active. I post videos, I answer questions. So if you guys really really want to get in and interact with me, go like me on Facebook, go join my group.

Speaker 1: 33:29

The other side of the struggle healing from betrayal trauma. Come find me on Instagram, aaron Anderson, betrayal trauma coach, and come follow me, because I always have something good there just for you, my audience, and I love connecting with you there. I also post any time that I have groups going on. I talk sometimes about my programs. So if you guys are interested in working with me or even just following me and getting as much free content as you possibly can go hang out in my group, go connect with the ladies that are there. Also, come and join Immune and Unashamed for those married couples that are following me, because in that group, me and my business partner, kaisen Kidd, are also talking and offering some great content.