Krystel Clear
In this podcast you will experience my unique approach to healing, happiness and following my souls purpose. My intention is to provide a platform that aims to guide and support individuals on their journey towards personal growth, inner healing, spiritual enlightenment or just taking the right steps to reach your highest potential!
My goal is to create a thought provoking, safe and nurturing space for listeners to explore various topics. Healing, self-discovery, mindfulness, wellness, empowerment, accountability, the raw truths of life, love and overcoming everyday obstacles.
I will have my tribe of healing coaches, doctors, colleagues and peers joining me to discuss their journeys in hopes of bringing enlightenment and empowerment to your world.
Life can be messy so let’s talk about that and the worthiness, forgiveness and compassion it takes to face our darkness and shine our light!
I hope this podcast validates your feelings, gives you the permission needed to share your voice, speak your truth and navigate your own journey with strength and perseverance.
**This podcast does not supplement any mental health or medical advice from practitioners. It’s a guiding tool providing resources from my own personal life experiences. The intention is to shed light and love onto the lives of others. You are not alone**
Krystel Clear
Dr Kathy Tolleson, Exploring the Brain's Pathways: Trauma Processing and Healing
Ever wondered how your brain responds to trauma? You're not alone. Our guest, Dr. Kathy Tolleson, an expert in trauma, joins us to unravel these enigmatic mysteries. We explore the brain's limbic system, our decidedly reactive "survival brain" and its counterpart, the prefrontal cortex, which serves as our thoughtful "thinking brain". How do these components of our brain interact when faced with stressors, such as the ongoing pandemic? And what do they tell us about our mental health when our actions contradict our identity? It's a conversation you won't want to miss.
As we traverse down the intricate pathways of the human brain, we also learn how its understanding can help us process and heal from trauma. Trauma leaves indelible memories, often stowed away and triggered unknowingly. So how do we address this? Dr. Kathy suggests methods such as journaling and discussing our experiences as effective ways to unweave our traumatic stories. She also emphasizes the importance of having a guide, perhaps a coach, who can provide essential support through this journey of self-discovery and healing.
The conversation takes a deeper turn as we discuss the need for a safe haven where one can share their childhood experiences and the indispensable power of resilience. We explore the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) and its potential influences on our behavior. Resources, like books and free programming, could be the first step towards understanding the symptoms of trauma and initiating the healing process. We also recommend that you take a look at Dr. Amens brain scans for an insightful understanding of trauma's impact on the brain.
Thank you for joining me today. Please know that this podcast and the information shared is not to replace or supplement any mental health or personal wellness modalities provided by practitioners. It’s simply me, sharing my personal experiences and I appreciate you respecting and honoring my story and my guests. If something touched your heart please feel free to like, share and subscribe. Have a beautiful day full of gratitude, compassion and unconditional love.
Hello, welcome to Crystal Clear. We have a special guest today, Dr Kathy Tollison. She's been on our show before our generational trauma episode and so this time we are going to dive a little deeper into why, like the whys in the brain and she spent many years unraveling trauma, helped me firsthand unravel mine. So welcome, Dr Kathy. Glad to be here again, Glad to have you again. So, yeah, you know you, as I mentioned before in the previous segment, were the one that recommended Matt and I get the brain scans. Yeah, you know, and I'll be completely honest, part of my 10 year dream goal is to have a foundation for people, to help them have the funds and the science behind getting these brain scans?
Speaker 2:for themselves and I can hardly wait to do because I will line up people.
Speaker 1:Like because it's been so pivotal in understanding what my next steps were and why it was happening.
Speaker 1:You know for me, when I got diagnosed with complex PTSD, I will never forget sitting on the call. It was a Zoom call. You were on the call, I was on the call and the doctor was like, yeah, you see this diamond pattern here. That's PTSD. And I was like, what? Like, what do you mean? Like I haven't gone before. And then I'm like, well, but just like people who are in battle, I was constantly in survival mode, yes, and then obviously had some tendency to be a little fiery and feisty and reactive in my behavior patterns and my communication style. And realizing my amygdala was just lit up. My whole emotional brain was lit up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your limbic system All the different parts were firing.
Speaker 1:All the different parts were firing, along with many other parts of my brain firing all at once, right, so, which made sense, because I was on fire at that point in time, and so please help me explain to people, because I mentioned it, but you can explain it way better than I can.
Speaker 2:You know what does that look like, and because I feel like our whole world just from you know, watching the news and the reactivity, especially since you know the pandemic and all these things were all in survival mode, yeah, like we've all experienced this in one degree or another, and I've worked with a lot of people since COVID who had COVID ended up with, and a lot of people that were vaxed and COVID ended up battling depression later on Anxiety I've had people who never had that panic attacks in their life had panic attacks and so it affected us physiologically and it affected us psychologically in a lot of ways. But to understand, I'm going to talk about two main parts in the brain. We're not going to get into every little part, but the two main parts of our brain is the limbic system, which is more in the back of the brain, and our prefrontal cortex. So all animals have a limbic system. Where we differentiate is they don't have any or much of a prefrontal cortex Okay. And so the limbic system is the survival brain. Sometimes they call it the animal brain.
Speaker 2:It is the fight, flight, freeze and fawn response. So let me tell you what that looks like in life. The driver who's having road rage he is in limbic mode and he is in fight. Response Okay. The person who every other day is I want to divorce, I want to get out of here, I can't do this anymore. Flight response Okay. A lot of people when they're trying to have communication, maybe with a spouse, a boss or whatever they freeze? Okay. Breathe respond shut down deer and headlights Okay, and then fawn. Response is I'm going to just be so nice and sweet.
Speaker 1:People pleasing.
Speaker 2:People pleasing. I'm not going to make anyone upset because if I do they could attack me. So all of those responses, and sometimes we tend to one, and then sometimes we're a combination.
Speaker 1:And again I've been a combination and you've worked with me through my combination of all of them, but I feel like my biggest go-to was flight. I was a fighter. I was. I can't fix this, I have to step away. I have to walk away. But that was conditioned from my childhood.
Speaker 2:Right, and at times when really push come to shove, especially if you threw some alcohol on it, I was a fighter. Fight, yes, fight. And so if you look at it in the wild, a lion is a fight animal, okay, you know. A horse is a flight animal. That's why you know riding them. If they get scared, they take off on you. You have to really be careful because they're a flight animal. You know, we have the deer who freezes, say deer and headlights, yes, they freeze, okay. And then a fawn Again, we know little sweet fawns and you're just going to be so sweet and nice. Dogs and cats, yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, depends on the dog, right, right.
Speaker 2:Right. So all of those different things and those responses, so that's what. And the limbic part of our brain is reactive, it reacts. It doesn't think, it just reacts.
Speaker 2:Okay, the prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain that thinks, it's the part of our brain that processes. It's part of the brain that says you know, if I chase that driver down the road, I could cause an accident or I could, you know, hurt somebody or myself or whatever. I'm not going to do that when you're in the limbic brain, you just do it. There's no thought, it just reacts. So the prefrontal cortex is more responsive and it processes out what could be the consequences. It thinks Things through. It also is where we have identity from, you know, where the limbic system doesn't say well, that's just not who I am, that's not what I'm going to do. But the prefrontal cortex basically says you know, that's not who I am, I'm not going to respond that way.
Speaker 2:And so you find in life, like working with people, I find in a lot of people and again we've talked about trauma before Trauma wires our brain to be very limbic, because a lot of times we've had to be hypervigilant. We have to be on guard. No one's around to protect us. No one's around to really caretake. They might be dealing with addictions or whatever it is, or we've been abused. No one knew what happened so we are hypervigilant. So that keeps that part of the brain lit up, so it's just waiting to react to something. And then the prefrontal cortex. I would advise everybody to go online and look up some of Dr Amin's brain scans of what the alcoholic brain looks like, what the different drug brains like, what marijuana brain.
Speaker 1:Like common stuff. Yeah, just look at the brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'll probably be shocked because you'll see brains that look kind of like big holes of cottage cheese sort of things. And it's not that the physical brain has damage, even though we can shrink our physical brain to them but it is where there is no brain activity. So if you're already limbic and then you throw alcohol on that brain, that's where, like you said, when that would happen, that's where you would get into. I'm not going to fight. I'm going to fight Because there wasn't enough of the prefrontal cortex there to say oh, this is not a good idea, crystal, right, and it's not going to end well.
Speaker 1:Just to know that my brain wasn't in a state to have any alcohol. Yes, but so when you get the science behind it, then it's like well, I can't have a drink now because it's not safe for my brain.
Speaker 1:I feel like at this point in time I could have one and be totally fine. I wouldn't go flight or fight or anything like that, but we just don't know. Yes, and so, just to add on to what you're saying, prefrontal cortex I mean limbic system is, I feel like, almost environmental. It could be from your environmental factors, is what lights up the limbic system and conditioning Prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 1:Damage can be from lack of emotional neglect like not exercising that part of your brain also from concussions and falls and things like that. So that's important to know and I think we see that when we look at professional athletes. Yes, these professional athletes that become suicidal or they become very depressed or very rage-like when they have alcohol. It's because that prefrontal cortex is so damaged in the first place. And just to throw that in there to give people a little context no, and all of those are important.
Speaker 2:You can have a child who's just had really good behavior and they end up taking a really bad fall and OK well, he didn't crack his skull, he's OK Well, but he could still have major prefrontal cortex. And all of a sudden that child's behavior changes. And why is that? Why did it change so much from fourth grade to fifth grade? And when it's tracked back, and especially when they have brain scans and I would advise everybody who's listening, dr Alman does a great TED talk on and if you look him up on having looked at 83,000 brain scans Now that was a long time ago and he's looked at a whole lot more and he's got several clinics in America.
Speaker 1:And that's where we got our brain scans.
Speaker 1:And he actually had a thing that came out the other day that I sent it to our kids and he was talking about OK, well, what's worse for us, alcohol on the brain or marijuana on the brain? And he's like, honestly, overall and he was comparing, I think, to like 67,000 scans that they looked like for people that were allowing them to do the case study or whatever Alcohol is more outwardly oppressive, it's more consequential you can get a DUI, you can have fights, you get more domestic violence, you're more prone to outward injury per se or consequences than marijuana, even though it's more widely accepted and you're a little bit more low key.
Speaker 1:It doesn't fire up your limbic system. It numbs different parts of your brain. However, that excels the aging of the brain more than alcohol does in a different way.
Speaker 2:In a different way.
Speaker 1:yes, Because it's like the alcohol brings out the fight or flight and more of the limbic system, and then the marijuana.
Speaker 2:It's almost like a silent killer to your brain To your brain and I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:I was a pretty heavy marijuana cooker in college Because it allowed me to calm down.
Speaker 2:It helped your limbic system to calm down, and so I was like, oh I'm cool, I'm cool, everything's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very rarely. You're going to see a bar fight with high people Right, like this doesn't happen. They're going to be in the bar in the first place.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I mean they're mixing it without calling a different story, Right?
Speaker 2:But the alcohol you will. And so we have to understand and it's very interesting, we talked a little bit about with a child's brain. There are a lot of children who start very young using alcohol, using different drugs, marijuana, whatever. It is very young and so the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until around the age 26. And so if you throw a lot of drugs and alcohol and things on that brain as it's developing, it doesn't. It's not getting fully formed. That's why you can have an addict at 40 who doesn't stop and think about things. And even if they just did a 30-day deep talk, they still don't make good decisions when they come out and they still don't really know who they are.
Speaker 1:Right and the impulse control.
Speaker 2:Yes, and again, this has no. The limbic system no impulse control. The prefrontal cortex yes, it can have impulse. No, I'm not gonna. Maybe I'd like to go run over that other car, but I'm just gonna stay here driving the speed limit and I'm just not gonna do that because that outcome's not gonna be good. We talked on another segment about parents. You can begin, even when children are younger, to help that prefrontal cortex to grow by giving them choices, by, as they get older, talking about well, if you did that, yeah, you could do that, but let's talk about what do you think the consequences are? Or you could do that what do you think? Would the results? Stop and help them develop that part of the brain so, when they get there, and also to encourage them not to throw and I have found some of my best results with kids and adults is to say let's take a look at this brain. This is what you're dealing with.
Speaker 1:I mean it was a game changer for me. Yes, it was an absolute game changer for me, and that and I love that you give these examples, because that also helps us as parents yes, or individuals practice patience.
Speaker 1:It doesn't even have to be kids, it could be at work, empowering people. Would you like to take on this project or this project? Do you feel like you would be better to develop in this area or this area? Allowing people a choice to use their voice and their brain, and their brain allows them to develop those pivotal communication skills because, you think about it, like you know, I'm sure, none of us have completely perfect prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:From what you just described. I mean, what do you do when you're 21? What do you?
Speaker 2:do. Oh, I mean, I'm sitting here and I started drinking at 15 and until 29, I was a blackout drunk at times. I mean I can't even imagine the brain cells you know that I killed back then. Now I've just, I've chosen, because I always say some can, some cannot, I am a cannot, I do not have the, I'll have a glass of wine and I'll stop. I know I don't and I'm not going to take the chance to even Right.
Speaker 1:And I don't need it. You learned it's not worth it.
Speaker 2:No, and I don't need it. I can relax without it, I can have fun without it. I don't need it. I'm not medicating anything I don't have. You know, I've dug up all my shame and dirt and processed it. You don't need to add more at this point in time, no.
Speaker 2:No, so I'm not, I'm just not going to do that. But you know, and some people can have a drink now and then and stuff that's not going to just destroy a brain, but they have. There's one brain scan online that shows just a moderate two to four glasses of wine. I think it's like a week or a day and what the brain looks like, and it's like whoa, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And if you stop, you know you can regenerate your brain, you can regenerate.
Speaker 1:You know I'm part of the prescription for our kind of rehabilitation process through all of this. It's obviously like caffeine. I've, you know, I've been one to let go of caffeine completely because that does narrow your blood vessels and kind of cuts off the blood circulation to your brain and I've found that I'm much more clear when I'm not drinking caffeine. And then for me, you know, limiting and monitoring and cutting out alcohol and but really exercising my brain in other ways, like reading books and allowing myself to sit down and journal.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, and process through things and this is something that you taught me, you know in order for your brain to really unravel a lot of the trauma and really and calm that limbic system.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And processing through it, and that's why having a coach along your trauma unraveling journey is so important.
Speaker 2:Well, let me explain, because the connection with the trauma and the limbic system comes from the fact that we have two major memory compartments in the brain. One is called traumatic memory or intrinsic memory. Okay, and they can see all of this in brain scans. Now you know, what we've accomplished in the last 20, 25 years with brain scans is amazing. But so we have traumatic memory.
Speaker 2:We have another memory called narrative memory or extrinsic memory, and the beauty of these when you understand it and how to use it, even if you're doing self-help with people or counseling, or you know, I was just in Ukraine, actually a year ago, last fall, teaching people on how to help process, because there's so many people traumatized through the war and there's refugees everywhere and you know, teaching people how to help other people process their trauma, because it's not that complicated but it has to get done. And a lot of times people have had trauma and they either have shame with it, they've never talked, they're in a don't talk, don't tell family sort of environment and you know men used to come back from war and they, they were taught just leave it on the battlefield, go home to your family. They never talked about things.
Speaker 1:Same with helping professions or teacher, like people that see even small amounts of trauma.
Speaker 2:Right, you know firemen rescue people, but the thing about it is is, when it's in trauma memory, it is connected to the limbic system. So if something triggers that trauma memory, even subconsciously maybe a smell, maybe a color, maybe music playing I always say if there is, let's say, a woman's going shopping, she's going to a department store, she's going up in the elevator and there's music instrumental playing in the background, she doesn't even, not even aware of it, but it's the same song that was playing when she got raped at 15 one summer and all of a sudden, she doesn't know why, but she wants to go home, she wants to leave, she's with her friends.
Speaker 1:I feel sweaty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got to go home. I'm not feeling good. She, you know she gets out of there. She may not even have realized that that was what was triggering it, so that used to happen with me.
Speaker 1:I mean the smell of cigarette smoke and like stale alcohol breath.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me. Oh yeah, trigger, trigger, trigger yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but. But the thing about it is if you can take that memory and talk it out in detail in story form, put it into a story out loud. Journaling is good. It helps, I think. Another level of shame when you can talk it out to another person. But talking it out and putting it in a story form and I always tell people, even if you journal it, read it out loud. Back to yourself.
Speaker 1:You taught me that and it helped. Yeah, and I talk it to myself on my walks a lot, yeah.
Speaker 2:And taking that memory and when I always when I tell people I've had to help people process some unbelievable unbelievable trauma and and sometimes I think people don't want to make people go there.
Speaker 2:You know Right. But when you whenever I'll have a client say, yeah, I was abused, when I was told but I'm here to see you, but I don't, I'm not going to talk about that, I've already forgiven I'm like okay, but have you ever done this? No, and I'm not doing that. And I explain the brain, they kind of sit up on the coach and say, okay, I want to do it, let's get started.
Speaker 1:Well, because it's understanding how it really unravels it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because you can't get that. I know this because I've experienced it firsthand, as you cannot get to a completely.
Speaker 2:You can be alright, yes, and you can navigate, but you're not going to completely be able to carry on and break those generational cycles and the cycles within yourself, unless you truly process it, yes, and so when you talk it out in story form, it moves from traumatic memory to another part of your brain called narrative memory, which is not connected to the limbic system in the same way. So you're not getting those subconscious triggers. And it's amazing because what happens is you have distance on it, you know what happened, you can even kind of picture the memory, but no reactions. Now I was, one of my most traumatic experiences was after when I was kind of in my late 20s and I had a man who stalked me. I mean very, it was a very bad situation.
Speaker 2:I mean knives to the throat, you know, breaking into my house and I'd be like you can't keep doing this, you can't, and sharpening a knife. And because I'd say we got to talk, you can't sharpen a knife, so you want to talk, well, you sharpen the knife. I had him shoot at me and my girls. There were a lot of things. So that I went through and this is one of the things that I process myself and and found out this stuff really, really works, because I used, if I heard a sound of a certain loud truck and there's a lot of loud trucks out there, you know I could feel anxious, I could feel shaky and stuff and sometimes not even connect it, but it was because he had a very loud truck.
Speaker 1:OK, for a knife sharpening I can imagine yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, I didn't have a knife sharpener for a long time I had dull knives.
Speaker 2:but no, you know, he worked his best friend on a construction company. They did a lot of highway work. A lot of times he would be. I wouldn't realize it a lot of times, but I remember when, when I finally saw, oh that's what's going on, is, if I was going by highway construction, I would, I would just feel so irritated, so thing I just wanted to get out of there, you know despite response.
Speaker 2:Right, and I, you know, going into a grocery store, if you know, if I saw somebody that sort of looked like a resembled, I mean I have backed out of places, not turned my back, backed out of places, and you know what? I don't, I don't see them anymore, Right, I don't see them everywhere. I don't hear, I don't. I.
Speaker 1:I believe every one of my triggers is gone because I have not been anything but I had understood how start processing them, yes, and the importance of processing them, and I feel like you don't understand that until you've tasted it yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had no idea. Yeah, and and.
Speaker 1:I was kind of at first like, oh, I don't want to go back there.
Speaker 2:Yes, why would I go back? Yeah, I don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 1:And when we started unraveling some stuff, I was able to feel things and then it's like oh, there's a lot more of that to unravel.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I thought it was this issue which was current day, but it really went back to when I was 13 years old.
Speaker 2:Yes, and whenever we're having overreactions to something or maybe under sometimes I was more an overreactor, volatile, and some people are underreactors, they just shut down.
Speaker 2:But both of them say we had some damage because of how we're responding and to be able to have the power. I mean I felt so empowered when I really took ownership of my anger, when I took ownership of processing the things that happened. It is really empowering. Instead of blaming the rest of the world, but you made me angry and if you hadn't said that, I wouldn't have broke that, if you hadn't done this. We like to project it and when we take that full ownership and really begin to work with how we're designed and created, we have and it's just amazing. I mean I have had how people process some trauma that is like, oh, this better work. I've had people say, look, if this doesn't work, I'm suicidal, I'm going home and killing myself and so but I have seen it work and one of the places I got training in this partly because I had to really study trauma because of people who were coming to see me, especially sexual abuse victims.
Speaker 1:I have worked with some vets different things, the neurophosphate, for instance, to speak to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so. But when 9-11 happened I knew our world had changed in ways that weren't good. And then with some of the school shootings and things, so I went and got special training. It's called critical incident stress management and in that training, like when 9-11 happened, they called teams from all over the place. I got my training after but that came in and they would take like four or five people and then you'd be the facilitator and basically introduce yourselves and then go around to those people and say, well, each one tell me what happened and they talk it out from their perspective.
Speaker 2:And then tell me what you were thinking when that happened and they talk that out. Tell me what you were feeling when it happened and they talk it out and what kind of symptom. What are you dealing with now, Like maybe I can't sleep or I just feel anxious, I've had panic attack. Talk it out, Help normalize those symptoms. That's very normal. But studies afterwards have found that they have cut down long-term counseling needs 80 to 85% by them just having them process that trauma after the event. That way, and you can do it and that's what I was training when I was in Ukraine training people how to do this, because it's really not that hard. You don't have to, you know, but it's effective.
Speaker 1:Right, and what came to me when you were saying that is like this is why it's important to have open listening skills, whether it's someone in your business, whether it's someone a friend, a peer, whether it's your children, your spouse, really emphasizing that okay, instead of oh, you'll be all right, brush it off, let's go along, it's like, but obviously they're not all right. Give them the opportunity to talk about it now so they don't push it down and regress it and it goes back into that limbic system. You know, like even you know kids playing sports.
Speaker 1:Oh, I can see that you're really upset that you lost that game. Is there anything you want to talk? About no and if they don't want to, that's fine. Or you know something happening with kids at school. I mean the world of bullying.
Speaker 2:Bullying yes. And it's like you know allowing them a safe place to even talk about how they feel. I get so many adults that I mean they had traumatic things happen in school and they're adults now and they never told anybody.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm reading a Bernie Spears book right now and I mean, bless her heart. Yeah, I mean she never had a safe place to talk about her feelings or her trauma or, and it's just layers and you know, and we and it's just living in that public eye and I'm just thinking for my own PTSD issues, like all the people in her face all the time, and just I just have so much heart for her story. Yes, and so I love that she wrote a book because that's part of her Peeling her trauma.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, wow. Yes, and it's just really interesting, like I said, the ability to do this, but everybody's judging everybody's fruit Instead of understanding there's a root. Right, there's always a root, there's always a why. That's what you told me.
Speaker 1:There's a root, there's a why.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And someone's outward behavior honestly sometimes really has nothing to do with them, it's their childhood experiences. I mean, like, this is why I love resilient retreat and the work that they do. And one of the things I had to take before you know it was like in the whole process of becoming a board member is the ACE, the adverse childhood experiences. I was a nine. I have every odd against me as to being high risk for drugs and alcohol and abuse and I mean I had literally seen or done every type of you know, had every kind of adverse childhood situation happen except for getting kidnapped or severely sexually abused.
Speaker 1:However, a lot of my friends who didn't have, I mean they had like a one or a two on the ace, but in our previous episode, as we talked about generational trauma, they had that emotional neglect, the type A trauma, type A trauma. You know, and understanding the differences and knowing that, wow, there's something that comes along with the resiliency of having to pick back up and having your narrative and having a safe place Like it really allows you to become more of a resilient person when you have a safe place to talk to Like I was lucky enough to have my nana I could always talk to her about everything, or talk out loud to myself or journal or you know whatever. And I remember reading my journals. Those little kid, I just made up these stories, but I'm like apparently that was therapeutic, yes.
Speaker 1:Or having you know exercise, or again the dopamine hits and things like that, the healthy ways of creating the dopamine to balance out those other and process through it Right. It's just intriguing to me that you know, if you don't have that safe place to process, it creates more of the emotional like.
Speaker 2:Yes, your trauma is just all bound up inside then. And then all, and then addictions happen, all the different things. And it's kind of like, too, sometimes you can sit back because sometimes people are processing like, let's say, someone's been in a bad accident, okay, and they're telling everybody about this is what happened, this is what happened, you know, and da, da, da, and then the next person they retell the story. It's really their brains processing, healing themselves. It's the things that we don't talk about, that we keep inside, that we don't, and a lot of those things you know we there's not been a safe place, a safe person. We don't understand. We think we're just going to distance ourselves. But I mean, I've helped people process trauma in their late 70s and 80s, right, and when that trauma comes out too, and they're talking it out a lot of times.
Speaker 2:You know they can be shaking, or I feel like I can't breathe or I think I'm going to throw up and the body holds that you know. Emotional trauma, that's a whole other. I mean we go on two hours. The body keeps the score. The body keeps the score. Great book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, I mean and this is an event and you know, I've done it a lot of different ways, processing through, with someone, processing it on my own If anything in this episode really hit home for you which I'm sure it did for most of us, because we all have it in some way, shape or form you know whether it's the way that you might communicate. And if your kids bring something up to you like oh mom, you wrote this one time when you did this and you slay my finger in the door, blah, blah, blah, blah, oh well, let's not talk about that, let them talk about it. Yeah, because they're processing their trauma. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Or doing it on your own, listening to books, journaling, whatever it is, getting help for yourself. You know I'm on the board of this awesome organization, resilient Retreat, and we provide free programming for people that have survived trauma and abuse and helping professions, and I'm just honored to be a part of that because the world needs more of that. Like, you don't necessarily have to pay and not everyone has the resources for paying for a counselor, but you can pick up a book or you can, you know, go to a program or an outreach or connection or buy a journal.
Speaker 1:Or buy a good journal and just start somewhere with unraveling it and in researching it. You know, I mean we have the it's not encyclopedia days anymore. We have the world at our fingertips with these, with technology, and utilize it wisely to educate yourself on, maybe if you're not in a place to share your feelings yet, just educate yourself on, maybe some of the symptoms you might be having.
Speaker 2:And I always know when someone sits on my couch and says I've never told anyone this before.
Speaker 1:Clear the calendar Bingo.
Speaker 2:They're on their way to health.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's just it. Yeah, and that's so healthy and, honestly, I've experienced that a lot since, you know, having this podcast and stuff, and I've been able to refer people to a lot of different places in you know, and it's it's brought me so much joy to realize that, like by sharing the vulnerability, there's so much that comes for that and I really appreciate you giving us some tidbits on the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex and I mean it was we literally just maybe shaved the surface, we didn't even scratch it. There's so much more. But a little tidbit for people to something to take away with them from all of this. And is there anything that you want to add before we wrap up today on all this?
Speaker 2:No, but I really encourage people to study Dr Alman and the brain scans and and really look at them, because it it paints such a picture.
Speaker 1:It really does and it really has for us firsthand and we appreciate you for being on today and for recommending the brain scans. And you know, we did it two years later and saw some different results and it was very empowering. So thank you so much for being here today, dr Kathy.