Trauma and How It Impacts Our Lives with Grace Scarborough (Part 1) | Ep #16

I love this episode because of the impact it has had on my personal life. I had no idea how much trauma had built up in my nervous system until I began scheduling Somatic Experience sessions with today’s guest. Grace Scarborough is a Somatic Experience Practitioner, and she has taught me so much about the lasting effects and subsequent impact in our relationships and quality of life… due to trauma.

What is trauma? When a nervous system registers or perceives ‘threat.’ It means “too much, too fast.” In the simplest of terms “too much” was happening for us to cognitively process so the emotional aspect gets stuck and stored in our nervous system. It can be a single incident or cumulative incidents (multiple incidents). This is followed by a cascade of hormones (adrenalin and cortisol).

Trauma is a moment stuck in time. As far as our body is concerned, what happened 30 years ago or 30 minutes ago are the same. Life threat excites the survival mechanisms in the body of fight or flight. It can happen in the moment, or it can happen in the memory of that moment or the memory of a series of incidents.

Somatic Experience is a gentle but powerful way to release nervous system responses (trauma) that are stuck (sometimes for decades or even lifetimes).

If anything in today’s episode triggered a trauma memory or response, Grace shared some tips for how to get support right away:

1. Go outside. Put your bare feet on the ground and breathe.
2. Orient yourself… wherever you are, look at everything around you. Get present to your surroundings.
3. Walk through the woods or forest, or on the beach. Get into nature.
4. Look at something beautiful: A flower, the lush green grass, the color of the sky, whatever holds beauty for you.
5. Call a friend or family member and just touch base. Relational connection will most definitely support you. It is important not to talk about what triggered you though, or it might set you back!

Believe it or not, everyone is walking around with some form of trauma. It impacts your quality of life. It impacts your relationships. It impacts your choices. If you have recognized a trauma response after listening to today’s episode, please reach out and start healing it! You can reach Grace through her website: https://sewithgrace.com/ She comes HIGHLY recommended.

You can also learn more about SE and look up SE Practitioners here: https://traumahealing.org/

We’d love to hear from you about today’s episode… Leave us a message here: https://www.instagram.com/wholehearted_coaching/