PSP 32 | Finding Hope After Trauma - Women & Mental Health Seminar Break-Out

Day-to-day challenges can be hard but many of us have lived through bigger events. These traumas can deeply impact every aspect of our life or those we love; influencing emotions, physical well-being, relationships, and faith. In this break-out session, we learn how to recognize trauma's effects and discover practical, compassionate steps toward healing and restoration. 

This episode was taken from a break-out session at our Women & Mental Health Seminar. While the seminar was for women, the content applies to all people - both men and women! This session is taught by Dr. Stephanie Van Deusen, an expert in helping people heal from trauma and its effects. She is a licensed therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) with over 25 years of experience in the field of mental health and trauma. 

In this episode:

• Understanding the nature and impact of trauma on individuals, particularly women.
• The importance of safety when discussing trauma and healing from it.
• Exploring the effects of trauma on relationships and attachment styles.
• Identifying triggers and understanding trauma responses, including fight, flight, or freeze reactions.
• The concept of trauma as an "invisible wound" and its implications for self-perception and personal development.
• The role of social accommodation and people-pleasing behaviors in relation to trauma.
• The significance of connection and community in the healing process.
• Encouraging self-reflection and the sharing of personal narratives to facilitate healing.
• Envisioning a future beyond trauma and the importance of passing on healing to future generations.

To find out more about Reality Church in Lancaster, PA go to:
www.pursuereality.org

Transcript

Automatically Transcribed - Please Forgive Any Errors

Podcast Host 00:00:02  Welcome to the Pursuit Reality podcast. In this special series, we're sharing breakout sessions from the Women in Mental Health seminar held here at Reality Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. While the event was designed for women, these conversations, led by mental health professionals, offer valuable insight for everyone. Let's get started.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:00:24  All right, ladies, are you ready for this? You're ready. Ready? I know it's a funny question. Is it? When we begin to talk about trauma, like Amy said, I've been doing trauma work for a really long time. probably 25 years. and to do this here in church really touches my heart. Like the bring the conversation of trauma here and begin to talk about how trauma affects us, infects us and our families and changes us. It's really important. So what we're not going to do today? Like I said, I'm not going to do any group therapy, okay. Amen. Right. But what I do know is just the topic of trauma brings everybody's story in the room.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:01:11  And I can tell just by the way you're breathing, right? And I know it's hot in here. we have the cool air zone, but everybody's stories here, whether we say it or not. And a lot of the work that I do in trauma work is working with our bodies. It's working with what lives inside of us. Right? It's not even telling the story because we don't have to tell the story. That's not even how we heal. that's not how trauma lives. That's not its legacy. It's storytelling. It's important, but it's something that happens to us and lives inside of us. So the first thing I want to do, the most important thing. I don't know how many people have done their own work. I know this today is a road map of what work looks like. The first and most important thing is what safety looks like. Like how do we know we are safe, right? People come into my office all the time. They sit down, they bare. How do they know they're safe with me? How do you know you're safe in a relationship? How do you know you're safe in a church? Like, what is that construct of safety? So we're gonna talk a little bit about what safety looks like, because no trauma work can be done if you're not feeling safe, right? So the first thing we're going to do an exercise.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:02:35  How many people love exercises. Yeah a couple of things. And I'm going to try to limit the psychobabble. But it will come out of me. is what is safety? So feet on the ground sit bones in the chair. Feel your sit, bones. Right. The idea of grounding. doing this kind of being here. I want you to hear, you know, this. This invitation that Marisol offered us to tend and befriend is really, really wounded by trauma, right? We want to tend to befriend. We're made that way as women. We're made that way as people. To trauma really injures that. so figuring out how do we be here? Feet on the ground. Sit. Bones, wiggle in your chair a little bit. And I want you to think about this idea of inside sensation. Like, what are you noticing inside, in your gut, in your heart, in your neck and your legs and your feet? Like, what is the sensation inside you? What's outside? Right? Stimulus could be what I'm going to show you here.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:03:59  It could be being a lecture. It could be being a reality church. What's outside of you that gives you a cue of safety, right? Our nervous system looks for two cues. Two of danger, cue of safety. And the more trauma that we have, the more we're oriented to look for cues of danger. So to teach our bodies and our minds how to look for cues of safety, or notice the cues of danger and figure out what to do right. So the first task is inside you, in your body, as you know, again, how well, how well do we live in our bodies, babies? How many wars are we at with our bodies? Right? Even in church culture, what do we do with the body? We don't even know how to language that in church culture. Right. So being in your body and then I want in between relationships. So in between is where we're at in relationship. Are you sitting by somebody you know? Are you sitting by a stranger? Are you in a relationship with someone that's with you or someone who's not with you? Are you in a work relationship with hostility or like so inside, outside, in between? Okay.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:05:09  The first task I want you to do is imaginative. And this just came as I was listening to Marcel this morning, this idea. If he is with us, because I want us to start there. Right. I want us to think what that image looks like in your brain when you pull this idea of he is with you, a shepherd, somebody that can feel and can see and holds all our tears. That image that she painted this morning. When you pull that up, I want you to notice what you feel inside. And I want you to sit there with that and find that track that in our system. I want you to kind of be with the image. Can you see that or not? Can you see that image of a God who can be in that vortex in those trenches? Tell me what you notice in your body when you do that. Give me some language what you experience doing because some of you are nodding your head so some of you didn't move at all. Okay.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:06:30  And we're going to talk about that trees because that's here in the room. What did you notice. Just trying to image a God is actually with you. Yes. Protected. What did that feel in it? It was comforting. And because being in a room with you. No, not really knowing anybody. And trauma is a very sensitive topic. And it's like, ooh, and when you put the, you know, God is right there with you. It made me feel like, protected and comforted and like, it's okay. You're okay. Okay. And what I would ask, where do you feel it? I feel I actually do feel inside and outside. Okay. And again, the language. I feel my shoulders go down. I feel because you were the one nodding and smiling. I could see the smile on her face. Right. Some of you did not nod or smile. Right? And again, that image is going to be hard because trauma affects that relationship too, right? But as you go through, notice what's inside and find language.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:07:42  Because oftentimes we don't have language like what is that sensation? Do you notice your shoulders are up in your ears Do you notice your stomach get a knot in it? Do you notice the tightening in your legs? Right. To find where that is. Because safety starts here and trauma takes us away from here. Right. When we begin to talk about what trauma is, we leave our body to survive something. I'm going to give you another image, and we're going to try this again. Inside. What do you notice? You can breathe deeper. Did you hear it collectively? Like everybody said, there was a breath in the room. Like, what is she going to show us? Like there was a release. What else did you notice just with that image?

Speaker 3 00:08:44  I personally feel more relaxed just because the beach is my happy place. So.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:08:49  Right? So it pulls a memory for you of a place that is safe and happy. Right. When I sit here personally, relax. What does that look like?

Speaker 3 00:08:58  Like the shoulders.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:08:59  Down. Okay. They kind of come into that. Let go. Okay. So hold those first two. What do you notice with that.

Speaker 3 00:09:22  It's a trigger.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:09:23  Trigger. How do you know what to do. Like what happens.

Speaker 3 00:09:26  Yeah. Right away. Sorry. Yeah. Seems like I've done something wrong.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:09:34  Okay. So what does that feel like.

Speaker 3 00:09:36  In my.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:09:37  Chest? Okay. So you start to have those heart palpitations. Okay, I'm going to move her back. Okay. What else did you notice?

Speaker 3 00:09:47  About Longer as deep is more shallow again. It was like everybody was always looking for a way out immediately. Okay.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:10:02  So to pay attention to those cues that that picture cues us back to a time that's dangerous. Right. To begin to regain the ability to track it. And again for me some of you I could see the emotion move it away. Right. Because we want to pendula you back. But understanding what happens, what makes what's unsafe. Shoulders up. Tears in your eyes.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:10:28  Trigger constriction. Everybody tighten a body up for me for a second. That's trauma release. right. Right. One more picture. Again. Hear that noise?

Speaker 3 00:10:46  And.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:10:52  Again, you hear it collectively. Inside, outside, in between. This is the Sequoia space. I was just in California with my sister, and I stood. This is I was right here at the bottom of this like massive trees. What does it feel like to go into the forest? To be outside? There's a release. Right. To learn. Part of as we talk about what naming trauma is like. To understand what lives in our bodies. You guys did a good job. We got to figure out where what picture fits us. When I take you towards trauma. Where do we go in our nervous system? Right. Connection. That's the tended to befriend. This is a really hard thing to do with Charlie, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. Or do we want to get the heck out of it? Move away.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:11:52  Right. How many move away ers. Listen. Raise. All of us raise our hand. Right. Because when it happened that that instinct was flaunted by whatever happened like. So we have to regain the ability to mobilize away. We have to regain the ability to fight. Or this one. How many have felt that? Great collapse. And again, I really want you to look at the picture. What is she doing? What is this? Is it. Is she this human? This person? All right. Everybody mimic her for a second. Right. Feel that flaccid state. Feel the shame in that. Like there is no ability to do anything. Right when we start to look at what is trauma, what is what. When you think of a definition, what's trauma, what is it? Because it's not an event, right? There are events that traumatize us. Experiences that create fear, helplessness, horror, humiliation, loss. Right. Those things are traumatizing. Adoption. Traumatizing, right.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:13:16  The inability to connect with that like can be traumatizing witnessing it. So in the DSM, this is the psychological Bible that we all look at diagnoses. It talks about happening to us and us witnessing it. Like if we're in a relationship where we're seeing someone hurt, we've experienced injury watching. If we're living in domestic violence and we don't have all the time in the day. Kids are just as traumatized as as as the people being hurt. Domestic violence is an event that hurts an entire system and creates this. This for kids and the person being hurt.

Speaker 3 00:14:03  Right?

Dr. Van Deusen 00:14:04  The Greek word for trauma is wound. How many wounds do we have? How many surgeries do people have.

Speaker 3 00:14:14  To.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:14:15  Bring to head back surgery? A couple of years ago, and I have a great story, but I won't show you because it'd be like getting on an ambulance, and I don't.

Speaker 3 00:14:21  Want to get it.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:14:23  Where it is. The six inch long scar that's healed, but the implications of having a double arm and ectomy in my back, there's many implications.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:14:33  You will never see you. You can't see the chronic pain. You can't see the sciatic pain. You can't see what happens when I try to roll my traumas like that. It's an invisible wound. You know, I've said many clients. I just wish there was a physical manifestation for you to see it. But trauma's this invisible wound that derails our development, it affects our relationships. It affects the way we see ourselves. It's in that place that it kind of weaves itself. And the statement here in this paragraph. Can be triggered at any moment. How do you feel about that? Could this legacy left inside of you? Not your fault, but your responsibility to address, like at any given moment, something could happen where you're activating. And what does that activation look like?

Speaker 3 00:15:43  By the day?

Dr. Van Deusen 00:15:45  Varies by the day. And again I put a few little you know when Marcel talked about fight flight freeze. Those are the behaviors that we see, right. Irritability judgment controlling behaviors suicidal behaviors. All of those guys are fight responses, right? They often get pathologized.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:16:10  We often create a story around them, but they're the body's way of trying to work something out. Freeze! Flight. Let's go.

Speaker 3 00:16:21  Flight first.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:16:24  Irritability goes to anxiety. We worry a.

Speaker 3 00:16:28  Lot.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:16:29  We fidget a.

Speaker 3 00:16:30  Lot.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:16:31  We get very controlling. And we. We manage everybody. How many managers do we have? Right. We're in people's business. We're constantly, constantly on that rumination train, right? That is a trauma response. So somebody can say, hey, I think I have generalized anxiety. I think, no, no, maybe. But the story underneath the symptoms, remember symptoms are always stories. And treating them is to get to the story. You know in somatic Work we talk about incomplete self-protective responses. Right. Some of these things that we'll see when we look at fight or flight are incomplete self-protective responses. What does that mean stuff. Tell me what that means. It means there's this set of behaviors that were right that we could not activate because there was no we were trapped.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:17:29  Right? Little kids cannot flee. They can try. They can run away. But ultimately, can they move away from the people they need. No sexual trauma. You're trapped. And our instinct would be to push away when that is taken. That florid movement leaves us kind of in more of a blue place of freeze. Right? So when we think about these behaviors, fight flight, freeze. Right. Because right here you love in my map. I love this map. I didn't put it on here for you. This is tendon befriend ladies. This is how many people have heard of attachment. Yes. Right. Very early in our lives, the first three years of our life, we create a map. And we're going to talk about that a little. That map gives us directionality. Do we go towards people or away from people? Can I be in the present? Do I have to get out of here? Can I stay in a place of strength, or do I have to make myself small? Right.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:18:35  And what happens here when this is not accessible is we move into fight or flight and notice and fight or flight. There's still this ability to I can I should we're still have the ability to manage some of that mobility. And then we go into freeze which is trauma response. We're trapped. It's tonic immobility. It is the lion coming after the zebra. What is going to happen to the lion coming after the zebra? The zebra is going to flock. These are our trauma responses. These don't come with labels. What labels do we get when we act anxious and control it? How many times does someone have to be called crazy or sick or messed up? How many labels do women have to carry around? Borderline, right? One of my worst, most like. What is that about? On the border of what? Right. Like, yes, it feels crazy, but are you crazy? Maybe you're not crazy, but there's something that has happened to you that has not been able to come out through you or have validation.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:19:46  So when you think of what trauma looks like, here it is what trauma looks like. And this, this one over here in the green. This is very specific to women often. And we call it social accommodation. How many people pleasers do I have in a room? How many times do you abandon yourself to make the relationship work right? How many times do we go for attachment over authenticity? Yeah. And we over and over again reenact this abandonment crisis of leaving ourselves to leave. That's what fawning is. And fawning is an interesting blend of two nervous system platforms. And literally these are platforms that God built into our nervous system. Right. The most primitive freeze. Then we have fight or flight. That sympathetic system here. Right here, ladies. This is our sympathetic system. Everyone find it right. You feel that breath? All of that's happening in your sympathetic system right here. Gut anybody that's had irritable bowel, any GI symptoms, all of that. That's the dorsal system, right.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:20:56  That's that free spot. Right. Kind of moving through those things and watch how they create. Wreckage for us first right. In our relationships how we relate to ourselves, how we relate to other people, how we relate to our kids, how we relate to who God is. When I said he is our shepherd, Great. Depends on what platform I'm in. Maybe when I'm here and I'm feeling like I'm in the I'm here. I'm in the green, right? I'm in the sequoias. But what happens when I'm not enough? Can I access God as my shepherd? It's harder, isn't it? Is God part of it? Did he do? Did he protect us? Some of those questions are really, really important to us. So that's trauma. How do we map those wounds out? You know, what does it look like? What is the consequences of sequelae of trauma for you specifically? Because they're different for everybody. And there's two points that are important with trauma. The earlier it happens the more vulnerable you are.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:22:17  If it's an attachment based trauma, the people that were commissioned to protect us because relationship that was to be our regulator, because attachment is about regulation, trauma is about a rupture in that. Not right without a repair. When you think. Attachments. Connection. Rupture. Repair. Trauma is not about the rupture. It is about the absence of repair. Right. And what happened? What are the wounds we carry around? The earlier it happened, the more vulnerable we are. And the second point is who helps you? People spend years and years in therapy because they weren't protected. It isn't the sexual trauma, which is horrifying. It is the moment of disclosure when it went silent. It was the moment a parent took a child and said, we got to keep this to ourselves. It is the moment when it went down. And the next day we're at breakfast and everything is like, what? Like, wow. Like where you have to begin to second guess yourself. Right? And to begin to look at what are those wounds to our behaviors.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:23:39  What are we doing, guys? Because if we don't have this platform, what do we do to self-soothe? What do we do to function as if we're okay out there? How many masks do we have? What are those behaviors that keep us in this trauma cycle? Food. Food. Cutting relationship. What are those things that are your things? Right. Because we have to name it as trauma. And then we begin to see where does it live. Right. We have these behaviors, social habits. You know, when you look at this little box here and this is we should spend weeks talking about this box. This is our attachment story. When you begin to look at some of these things and these boxes, are you able to have healthy boundaries? Are you able to trust mutually? Can you be in conflict? Yes. Because if you avoid conflict, there is no intimacy. Right. We are a very conflict averse county, right? We don't do conflict. Well, then I say to clients all the time, if you're not able to differentiate and disagree, then you're not able to be connected.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:25:08  But in that box over here on the side, I have a positive view of myself and I have a positive view of other people. Right. That's that secure attachment. It changes as I have more negative view of myself all of a sudden. Am I afraid of abandonment? If I show up authentically, is someone going to leave? If I differentiate and push back, is that going to be okay in relationship? Right. Do I need to keep elevating people and making them feel like they are above me in order for them to stay right? Do I need constant validation? Do I live in this codependent place? Where relationships are meant to be like this and depending on personality, it could be this did it. It's not meant to look like this where everything about me or is is about you. Before I think about what I'm going to do, I have to figure out what you are going to do, and I can't shift accordingly. I don't know how to negotiate that. I live in this place where I tend to elevate others and devalue myself.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:26:17  Right. And then that person finds this dismissive person who's a rock in an island, you know, the Simon Garfunkel song. They don't need anybody. Right. Avoidance. Don't need anybody. And again, that is not true. Right. I'm not going to ask how many avoidance I have in a room. I can identify that I might have some avoided tendencies in you. Right. And what an avoided person didn't have their needs were too much for their caregivers. Too much. So I learned to live in a relationship without having needs, right? I just constantly live over here and leave my needs here and over function. I got it. I don't ever reach out. You know, when Marisol said we need me? Like, is that risky? Am I going to be too needy? Are people going to leave because of it? Right. Were we disconnect from what we need? We disconnect from what we feel. We struggle to be in relationship. Right. And then we go to this next quadrant where I don't know how to connect.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:27:29  This is the fearful avoided dynamic is push, pull. Come close. Get away. I need you. No I don't. I love you, I hate you. It's this complexity. Because they never had a way of relating a childhood that was consistent. So they're constantly trying to figure out what relating looks like. So when we talk about different wounds, which one of these can you relate to. Because this is the map. Like to see where it is that the trauma specifically hurt us because it will continue to impair our ability to tend and befriend. It will continuously create a dynamic where we're living in fight or flight or freeze, which keeps the trauma as a current present reality. So learning to explore. We don't want to keep reliving trauma. Right. But how do we make it safe enough to revisit this? Because the goal that is to revisit and figure out how do we rework this? Like, what does it look like to rework trauma? And how do we take a piece of each of these.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:28:55  And understand that they're adaptations. It's not about pathology. Right. It's kind of going back to that beginning exercise. Go in your body and find something. And then I want you to exhale. Right. I want you to pendulum to that beach. But I need you to go back here just for a second. Into that constricted place. Because if we don't go back into constriction, we never get to release. So what happens when we begin to see it? Wake up. You know, I think of the image of sleeping, the poison. We wake up and then we look around and we see it. How does it feel to begin to see it? How are you feeling right now? Breathe out for me. What does it feel like to wake up and look around? Tell me what you're feeling right now. Distressed. Distressed. Sad. Sad. Some of you aren't feeling anything at all, are you? It's here. Notice what's in your body. Some of you kind of want to go right back to this little picture of Some of you would like to do this.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:30:24  And this is why Lindsey gave you windows so you could escape out into the trees. Thank you Lindsay. Right. Or we can try also to figure out this tab. And what does it look like that we're in this together. Sad stressed silence. There's a lot of silence because it is a grief story. Right. What does it mean to move towards that story? Right. Because the antidote to traumas. Connection. Right. People hurt us and people will help heal us with all our boxes. Wherever you fit in one of those quadrants like this is not a linear path. Not for me anyway. Right. If I'm hurting, I'm going to the woods by myself. I am Like I've had to learn to go towards people. I've had to learn to go back into my body. I have to go back into the chronic pain. I have to experience what that story is about, because the only way through this is through connection. You know, I've sat with clients for 100 years, as I told you.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:31:39  Self-knowledge doesn't do it. And I appreciate Lindsay giving us all books. Thank you. Lindsay. We can read as many books as we want to understand the neurobiology of trauma and attachment, but until we find the legacy in our bodies, we can't heal because we know something and we can't heal knowing something and feeling. And without a container that's relational. And this is what's tricky. God created this on purpose. We can be mad at him like people need people. And that's this is the trick because we have to first get in our body. We have to hear the story because we're not kind. When I put on here. Bring curiosity and compassion. We have some mean inner critics, don't we? We have created managers, and we could do a whole workshop on hearts that would be so fun for me, and talk about these parts inside of us that manage us, that are mean to us and try to keep pushing us and pushing us. And what I loved about what Marisol said, Jesus comes kind, doesn't he? He doesn't reprimand.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:32:55  He doesn't look at us like you are crazy. He just leans in. And for us to learn how to lean in. Listen. These symptoms are stories. They're not about you being crazy. They're not about you being weak. They're not about you being dysfunctional. They're about you being hurt. And really being bad ass. And I know I'm in a church, and I'm not supposed to say that out loud. But what it takes to survive is pretty Herculean. And guess what? When I said in Invisible Wounds earlier, they are invisible. Nobody knows how much you're working. Nobody knows what it's like to step forward when you want to go back. Nobody knows what it's like, how big our jars are and the Jesus is carrying, right? My image of this was not. It was like, how big is this? What container does he have that carries all those tears? Right? It's allowing ourselves to connect and figuring out what is healthy relationships, what a healthy community look like. Because how many of us have been in a community for a very long time performing? Nod your head, ladies.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:34:14  We have performed great, great scenarios. So people think, but what does it mean to be a healthy community? What does it mean to show up authentically? Not always about attachment. Trying to belong. Trying to fit in and trying to belong. Trying to fit in. That's exhausting. And it isn't the kind of connection that's going to heal us. It's yet another system I'm performing. And then I'm going to go home. And what am I going to do when I perform? I'm going to question it. Sometimes I don't even remember it. Right. Like I'm not really present. So there's no benefit to going through the motions and wondering, what did I say? What did I look like? What did they say? Right. We're not present to it. Fitting in. How many people have read Brené Brown's work? She's spent a lot of time fighting vulnerability. This one. Right. Not wanting it to mean opening self off right into me. We see I say to clients, that's what intimacy is in to me, you see.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:35:32  That's what it's missing is fitting in is a is a hustle. It's figuring out the rules of the game and trying to accommodate people. It's not about belonging. Right. If the antidote to attachment is belonging, somehow we have to show up. So when you think of showing up, how does that feel to you? Bringing this stuff? Are you with healthy people? And how do you know? Inside. Outside. In between. What do I feel in my system when I'm around this person? What happens when I try to be vulnerable? What is their response to my vulnerability? And again, baby steps. Guys, don't dump your stuff. You know, my my 19 year olds dating this person who has some pain and he's trying to figure out what that is. And in his language he talks about trauma dumping. I don't want us to trauma enough. Sometimes we test people out. We bear it, we dump it. You see it. So go. And oftentimes it's a way. You know, I've had clients say it's like booby trapping relationships.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:37:12  It's like seeing how bad, how big, how intense can I be to see if they're actually going to be with me? Well, that's not how we build intimacy. Intimacy and attachment are slow. Connection. Rupture. Repair. Rinse. Repeat. Connection. Rupture. Repair. Right. I have three boys. I told you this daily I rupture. Guys, I am not a perfect person. If you think you are, we need another workshop later. I'm not. There are many moments, especially with my oldest who is so neuro spicy. It's like where I have lost my mind as Nate has lost his mind to with Benjamin. Like said, like boom. I don't know if you've had these moments with your children, the neuro spicy children. And his name is Benjamin. What does Benjamin mean? King Benjamin. And I've told him his whole life. Either you're going to be a leader or a president or a criminal and a convict. Now those children. Great. Rupture. Repair. Rupture.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:38:25  Repair. Rupture. Repair. Over and over again. But tethered to connection. I love that. I love that. And I watch his bigness and his struggle and try to figure it out. Staying tethered to the relationship. To build this relationship of connection. Rupture, repair authentic relationships and community can tolerate rupture. They don't demand sameness. You emerge separate. You differentiate you intellectually. You become a person. And here's the thing. If we don't name trauma, if we don't explore it, we never actually heal. You know, I was thinking of what she said that, like, if we can't name it, how do we bring it? Right. People come to me all the time. Say, Doctor Van Dusen, I have post-traumatic stress disorder. Generalized anxiety disorder? No. You don't. Stop it. Tell me your story. Like, what is the story that makes your nervous system feel afraid? What makes you feel like you are not enough? Right? Finding what those stories are so we can create safety here.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:39:48  The interesting thing about this ventral vagal system. I don't think I use that psychobabble. Steve is a blanket. This system of connection, it's more risky. It's more risky than fight or flight. For many people who have trauma. You know, I have clients who sit in my office and they start to come down, they come down. They and I can see the immediate terror in their eyes, like, are they safe there? Can they tend to it? Am I able to be friendly? All of that story is still there. As our system comes to us. Right. But we've got to be able to begin to name. What are the Booboos ladies? What are they? You know, this this mysterious connections. Oh, I don't need it. Everybody has that little graph in your head. All right. What does it mean to redeem something? Somebody tell me what it means when you think of that word. What does it mean? Here's the story. Restore. You take me.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:41:04  Take back. Take back. Okay. Restore. Renew. Take that. Other hand up right here. Right. Restore. Renew. Take back doesn't erase. It doesn't erase. Redemption is not erasing. Sometimes we think that when God restores us or redeems the input for himself, he said that it's going to be this. I have clients come together for SAP. Why is it still here? You're different. You know the story of Thomas. It's part of the story. You know, we dove Thomas, Doubting Thomas. That's us. I don't think that's what it's said in the Bible. Right? Thomas needed to go see the wounds. He needed to touch Jesus's wounds. What did Jesus do with that? Intentionally found Thomas just like he did. Peter. Peter. Deny, deny, deny. What did he do? He came back. And who did he go looking for? Right. He wants. It's okay to say I know I can't. It's not real. It's not that bad.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:42:29  God, my time is not that bad, right? Look what's going on in the world. Don't look what's going on in the world. Don't tell me it's not that bad. It is bad, right? It's not what happened. It's how it lives in you. What is the story going on and on and on. Great. Redeeming is this moment. Touch it. It's not going away. It's this moment that she talked about this morning. What does lament mean? Because the moment we touch it and we realize you can't get it back. Right. It makes me emotional. You can't get it back. What they took is real. You know, when we talk about grief, it means something's taken from you. I can't get that back. I can't get that developmental moment where someone took something from me sexually. I can't get it back. I can't get them back. The moment where somebody hurt my mom or hurt my. I can't get it back. What I can do is go here.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:43:38  Find it. Ladies. I can go and honor it. I can sit with it. Right. Because that moment of touching my. It's like this that we share in that moment. Jesus can touch that. He's not going to take it away. You know, I think of stories in the Bible, and one of my favorite is job's wife. What did job's wife say? Curse God and die. Job. Your friends suck. People suck. They say the dumbest things. We've lost ten kids. We've lost our livelihood. Why? Because God sets you up to see how well you're going to do with it. They curse him and die. What do we have to say about her? Do you ever hear anybody talk about your life like she's irreverent? Think of every store in that story. They got McNeil. Did he? Do you know the story? What? Didn't God return to this family? Once they lost. Right. I don't know how many people have lost a baby or a child, But she lost ten.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:45:05  God returned fortune. God gave more kids. But those ten kids were gone. Renew. Us. Like they're here. They're both here. And trauma is the reason people don't do that. Like this work is hard. And eventually we can hold this higher. But this is here. Those losses are not. You know, when we think of closure. Trauma doesn't come with that kind of closure. Trouble is like an ambiguous loss. It's arthritic. Anybody have arthritis in the group? Great. We're. I'm good, I'm good. I had knee surgery in college playing basketball. My body was told the story when it's humid or it's raining, I feel it. My gate's changed. I get inflammation. Traumas like that, it's arthritic. We're good. And in any event, something happens and we're triggered. We turn on the news. We're triggered. There's a loss in a friendship. We're triggered. It's arthritic. And the question for you guys. And. Right. We're not doing therapy, I promise.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:46:33  But some of these questions I put on here, put is my time. Maybe ten minutes. Ten minutes. Okay. What does it look like to lament? Right. Some of these questions. What loss, pain or wounds still weighs on your heart? One that you have yet to fully name, express or grieve. Like, what is it? Because we have to name it. And what? What does lament look like for you? It's important. You know, I thought of this story this morning, and it's probably not good to say out loud and record it, but when I was 15, I was going through it. I was young and something, and I remember this was my ritual, so don't judge me. I would go outside of my house, I would light up a Marlboro light, and I'd walk the streets. Just walk. And I was having a full on cast down with God. Like, why in the heck? Why do you why? Like, I was mad, I was angry, I was hurt.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:47:49  I was like, people must have thought I was crazy. I'm sure they did. But it was a moment I remember, like, if you ever watched The Chosen, that moment with Mary Magdalene, I could hear Jesus saving me and guys, I was smoking. I was irreverent. But it was a moment he said, I want you to do this. I want you to do this. I want you to take this and talk to the people about this. I was 15 and I was so hurt. What does redemption. Well, I wasn't a feel good moment for many guys. And when God brought it to me like, this is what I want you to do. That's 15. And I'll never forget that place. It's like the card she mentioned. It's this moment I pendulum back to think, okay. It's not all for naught. What does it mean to change pain into wisdom? Because when we start to get towards lament and I was lamenting, that was my form. I don't smoke cigarettes anymore.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:48:55  But that was a moment in history. I was in lament. I was I was yelling, and I believed enough that he was there enough to hear. Because Christian sucked, quite frankly, people were not great. And that was a moment that I'm here. I'm 50 years old. That was a long time ago. I remember that moment because that next step of lament is envisioning, what is this going to look like for you? What does future look like? What does healing look like? Because whatever your marble moment looks like and it may not be mine, it is a moment of laying it down like man. Like what? Because he can handle that moment. Like, what am I going to do with this? And I'm telling you, I went through many rough moments after that. But that moment of this stuff, this Because you know what trauma takes is future. You know, if you read PTSD literature for short and future, it can rob us of the ability to envision something bigger and that does not want that away from you.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:50:11  Right. So when you're in this journaling and you're lamenting, I want you to answer these next questions. What does rebuilding yourself look like? What does it look like to first look at the wreckage? What does it look like to feel sad? To feel triggered? To feel mad? Because it isn't your fault? Hear me guys? It is. Remember the goodwill hunting moment? Does anybody want that movie right at the end when they got. Will. Will, it's not your fault that moment. Because as much as we can say, I know, I know. I know. He didn't know. And there isn't anybody, any committee that lives inside of us that wants to tell us that we didn't do something right, or we should have done something else. What is it that you can envision beyond the trauma. And what is that that you envision giving to your kids and your family and your friends and the people? It might be an audience like this or your standard friend. It may be your kids all the time.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:51:26  I have conversations with my kids. I know generational trauma. I know what it's like when there's domestic violence for my mother and my grandmother, and I know what that story trickles into them. We talk. I see their feelings, I see big, I see little, I see shame. We talk. We allow it to be real. We make space for it. And then I help them envision Benjamin. I'll let you have and the women they put in his life. These people, what are they going to do? My healing affects them. My strength and vulnerability. Here we go is a gift to them. But if I only live in one side of this. They're going to inherit that too. So these questions are imperative for you. The ritual of grieving. You've got. There's no way through it. The grief, not trauma, is not healed with time. Trauma is not healed with some pop psychology. It's not even healed with a piece of scripture. And I know that might be sacrilegious to say.

Dr. Van Deusen 00:52:36  We've got to go in. We've got to connect. We've got to feel it, and we've got to envision what that's going to do differently. In that work, it's hard, and you need people look around the room for a second Try to look around the right people, and there's 40 more coming after you. Like, people want to be good. They don't want to. People know it's important and sacred to touch it. Right. That moment where Thomas touched it. And what did that scripture say? What did it say after that? Reach out your hand. Put it into my side. Stop doubting and feeling.

Podcast Host 00:53:29  Thank you for joining us on the new Reality podcast. We hope these episodes help you in your journey towards greater hope, healing, and growth. If you're interested in finding out more about Reality Church, you can find us online at Pursue Reality.