Your Nervous System Explained: Trauma, Stress, and Why Healing Feels Hard

Ever feel like you’re doing everything “right” for your health—but still not feeling better?

This episode is for you.

We’re diving into the neuroscience of trauma and the nervous system to answer questions like:
• What’s the difference between stress and trauma, really?
• Can your body be stuck in stress even if your life looks “fine”?
• Why do some people feel worse—even when they’re doing all the “right” things for their health?

We also talk about what’s actually happening in your brain and body, how trauma can be subtle (not just big events), and why your nervous system plays such a huge role in your overall well-being.

Plus—practical ways to start regulating your system, including simple exercises you can try right away.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated, burnt out, or disconnected from your body, this conversation will help things make a lot more sense.

🎧 Listen now and start understanding your body on a deeper level.

#healingjourney #nervoussystemhealth #traumaawareness #wellnesspodcast 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome back to my understanding. Thank you guys for tuning in today. I really appreciate all the support that you guys have been giving us. Um, and I say us because this is my lovely wife. She is the one who edits a lot of all of the videos, not a lot of all of the videos. Um yeah, we I we just wanted to thank you guys so much for all the support that you guys have been giving us. Uh not too long ago, for those of you that are following me on Instagram, uh, we had hit over 250 downloads, and that's just on Buzz Sprout. We've hit even more across YouTube and Spotify. So we just wanted to thank you guys so much for being a part of this journey, uh, really wanting to take an interest in your own health and just growing with us as we are on this journey. Um, so yeah, so today we have a very special episode, as you can see. Special. Uh, but for a few reasons. One of which is because, yes, I've been wanting to, as you guys know, kind of go over more of the mental side to just health and fitness, as opposed to just kind of giving my own like opinion, um, and as opposed to just going over fitness and things like that. So, today's episode, we're gonna be going over kind of like the mental health, how to kind of tell the difference between stress and trauma will be one of our topics, as well as how to tell if somebody is in just a chronic stress state, whether their life is good or not, uh, as well as our final kind of topic we'll go over today is how to kind of regulate your nervous system, whether you're in a chronic stress state dealing with trauma or if your life is okay, the different ways to kind of regulate the nervous system. Um, so those will be some of the topics that we're going over. Disclaimer, real quick. Uh, so if any of these topics trigger you, you know, we apologize. Our goal is not here to, you know, trigger anyone or that sort, but to inform you and to learn. This is meant to be educational. So we're gonna be having fun with this. We will be laughing, we'll be making jokes. Um that is our coping mechanism. Um, but yeah, so we'll be doing that. And the second disclaimer is since I don't have a guest today, our animals are not afraid to enter in here. So you may see a few of our cats kind of wandering around. Um, we figured that was better than hearing the sound of them scratching at our door. So we figured this would be a good alternative. Just makes the episode a little more spicy, you know? Adds a little flavor to it.

SPEAKER_05 2:32

Add some dysregulation to the room.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Exactly. Yeah. It's perfect. Yeah, and we couldn't leave our uh dog out of it, so she is just gonna be kind of napping here because she's just a cutie little pie, and it is close to her bedtime. And by close to, I mean it is basically her bedtime.

SPEAKER_05 2:47

And it's also basically my bedtime.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Yes, and I appreciate you doing this stuff. Um, yeah, so yeah. So thank you guys so much for bearing with us. This is gonna be a fun episode. Um, and we will be doing a second part of this. So for this episode specifically, we'll be going over the differences between stress and trauma, how to tell if you're in, you know, a chronic stressed state, uh, and then how to regulate your nervous system. Um, so Grace, actually, my lovely wife. I know it's weird to call you Grace, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 3:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Um, but yeah, if you wouldn't mind, actually. So I mentioned that you have a master's degree, but I would love for you, if you don't mind, just giving them a little bit more um information kind of about like your history in this field, and then you know, maybe a little backstory if you're open to it.

SPEAKER_05 3:35

Ooh, the lore. Yes. The lore. Um so I uh have my master's in counseling psychology. Um, I also am an associate marriage and family therapist and an associate professional clinical counselor. So those mostly overlap, but there's some intricacies in that. Um I technically I am a therapist. I can do therapy work. It just means that I have a clinical supervisor still, um, and I can't like go off on my own and do a private practice. That's basically all an associateship means. It means that I'm under supervision. Gotcha. Um, but I'm still a qualified therapist, all of the things. Um, I've not taken all of my tests yet, so technically we are untested, but you have to go and get some experience first. So I'm working on my hours under the state of California. Board of Behavioral Sciences. Whoo! Um Yeah, so I have my master's, I have two associateships, and I'm working towards licensure. Um, I also just have a real deep passion um for psychology and therapy in general. Uh, in high school, I actually wanted to be um a neurosurgeon, but my family has benign essential tremors, and I didn't want to kill anybody.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

So I'm sure there's a lot of people thanking us for that.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

Yeah, absolutely. For sure. Uh, and so I was like, huh, how can I continue to learn about the brain and support people? And my dad was like, You'd make an excellent therapist, and we could go into why.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

He was not wrong.

SPEAKER_05 5:11

He was he was not wrong. Thank you. He was not wrong. Um, and so I've kind of been a mini therapist my whole life. Yeah. Uh, and now I just have some letters at the end of my name that really quantify it. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, so that's a bit about me.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Well, awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Yeah, I appreciate it. Um yeah, I mean, I would love to if I mean if you're open to it, I'd love to hear why your dad thought you would be a good, you know, a good therapist. If you're willing to, you can't. Here's the box we're gonna open it. We're all about opening the boxes here.

SPEAKER_05 5:50

We're here.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

But yeah, yeah, you're welcome to share as much as you're willing to. You do not have to, you know, share anything that you don't want to.

SPEAKER_05 5:56

Um yeah, just hmm, why did he think that I would be a good therapist? Um the skill and ability to really be present with people through really hard things. Um, and my dad was going through a really hard thing when I was growing up. I've gone through really hard things. I've struggled with um suicidal ideation uh and attempts. Surprise internet. Um, I've struggled with some self-harm tendencies. I've struggled with depression uh since I was 11 or 12. Um, and I've struggled with anxiety for most of my life. Um, and those were really, really impactful on my childhood, my development, um, pretty much everything. Um, I also have some younger childhood trauma that I am exploring right now in EMDR and navigating the healing process for that.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Um but sorry, do you mind if I take one quick interruption?

SPEAKER_05 7:08

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

So just for all of the viewers at home, uh what it what exactly is EMDR?

SPEAKER_05 7:15

Yes, so it is eye movement, desensitization, and reprocessing. That's a it's a mouthful. I know. I know. Uh basically it's a therapy modality that in a way takes you back through your trauma and creates a new pathway. Um so a lot, and we'll talk about it probably in a bit, but a lot of what um big T trauma is, is it is stress or an experience that um you did not successfully make it all the way through. Um and so for me, I have a couple, just a couple, a couple of really challenging experiences that because of my age developmentally, I had no idea on how to process any of it. Yeah. And so I did not successfully make it through. So my brain and my body created coping mechanisms to help me navigate it. And EMDR is basically going back, okay, we're gonna follow this pathway all the way back to that core trauma. And instead of going this way with that negative belief, yeah, we're gonna choose a new belief, and it's kind of like rewriting over an old VHS player. Like a VHS, you'd stick Gen Z, learn. You'd stick a VHS tape into the little tape recording thing, and then when your show popped on, you had to be home at the right time to put it in there. And then you could re-record like from the TV onto a VHS the thing that's happening, and it would overwrite some of the data. So, like if you weren't careful in labeling your VHSs, you might record over your parents' anniversary.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Oof.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

I didn't do that.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

But I was about to have personal experience or no.

SPEAKER_05 9:07

Nope. Thank goodness. Um, but that's basically what EMDR is you're creating a new pathway in your brain. Um and so that's what I'm getting to do. Um, a lot of times it is a traumatic event that happens. Sometimes it's like a core belief. Um, so my core belief, haha, is um that I'm a burden.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

Nice. Okay. Which I'm sure people will relate to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:35

Um, and I can definitely relate to you on that one. And so it's going um back through that and choosing a new belief and focusing on that. So you use like I do it online, which is odd. Normally you do it in person, and there's like this light bar that's like this long. Okay. And it blinks from this side to this side. And you follow it just with your eyes. Like just like that. And um, and that helps to connect the two hemispheres of your brain. There's um, you know, in have you ever seen like a half brain?

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:12

So you know that white part that's in the middle? Usually it's like gray swirly, gray swirly, and then there's a couple of like weird construct things, but there's this big white like line in the center. It's called, I believe, the corpus callosum, and it is the thing that connects the two hemispheres. So in your brain, your right hemisphere typically controls the left side of your body, yeah, and your left brain controls the right side of your body, and there's this crossing that happens, and it happens in the corpus collosum. And so that's why you do light pattern back and forth, is because you're trying to cross those things to get back into that deeper part of your brain. This is also what happens during REM sleep. If you ever watch someone sleep and they're I didn't need to say it like a creeper. Gosh.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

Do you watch people sleep often? Is this we yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

Surprise.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Do I need to install a camera in here?

SPEAKER_05 11:15

Um, but if you watch someone sleep and they're in REM sleep, their eyes go like this. Yeah. They go back and forth really fast and rapid eye movement. Rap Rapid eye movement. Yep, exactly. And so that is your brain actually processing everything that you did that day. And it's storing all of those memories in your hippocampus.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:38

Which is like the whole memory center. So EMDR, you re What word is that? You go back to that place and do that. So for people who are navigating a traumatic experience, like it often will take them back into that place, and that can be really heavy. So you only do a couple of rounds of the negative, and then you do a couple of rounds of the positive. Sweet tippy. Um, and before you even start doing that, you always want to make sure you always want to make sure you have a lot of like resources. Um, so you'll have what are called like resource spots um and things like that. Um, and those are basically places to go in your brain that are safe. Yeah. Um, and it kind of gives your brain the space to actually process what it needs to process. I don't know if any of that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

It does. Yeah. No, that's very fascinating. I had no clue that that was kind of the pathway that your experiences kind of take.

SPEAKER_05 12:44

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

Yes, it is. I would agree.

SPEAKER_05 12:49

Super fascinating. Yeah. Um yeah, it's super interesting. And um uh a branch off of EMDR is brain spotting, but that's like a whole new podcast episode.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

We do a whole other thing on brain spotting. Yeah, because I've I've remember uh you've told me about that a few times, and obviously I know that you've gone through your own experiences with that as well. So that would be an interesting one, honestly, to kind of hear more about as well. So we can explore that.

SPEAKER_05 13:20

It's trippy in a while.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

Sounds like it. It sounded fake, I'll be honest. The first time I heard you talking about it, I was like, this this sounds for sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Are we paying for this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

Are you really doing work? Yes, I swear I'm doing work.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Yeah. Um, okay, well, that's really yeah, that's really fascinating to see the kind of pathway that your experiences take um as you are just kind of going as your brain is going through its, I guess, process.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

So I guess then one thing that I'm kind of curious about as related to your nervous system and how your brain kind of interacts with the rest of your body is when it comes to stress versus trauma, how can you kind of determine whether somebody is just experiencing like a very stressful moment or if it is traumatic? Or if something, or if like they're sorry, let me rephrase that, if it's like a very stressful moment for somebody, or if they may be reliving a trauma.

SPEAKER_05 14:30

Oh, that's a very different question.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

Right.

SPEAKER_05 14:34

Wow. Um, well, definitions-wise, trauma is so what I words what I love about psychology is that it is a science that is easy more easily accessible to everybody. So the downside of that is there's a lot of things on the social medias that are not true and or are like so to the truth that it a lot of people think that it is true. Um so technically, um trauma is so there's this condition in the diagnostic statistical manual, which is what every therapist and psychiatrist uses in the world to diagnose people. Yeah. Um now there are different versions of that. So, like in the UK, they have different um diagnoses in that manual than they do in the US, which is a piece of contention that I have. Um, I wish we would adopt some of the diagnoses that they recognize into our manual.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:48

I have a bone to pick with the DSE. DSM. That's a whole nother episode, too. But so in the DSM, there is um this diagnosis called PTSD, which is post-traumatic stress disorder. And you have to have certain qualifiers in order to have that. I promise this is relevant. So in that, and what most people define as what we call trauma, right? A big T trauma, is anything that threatens your life. So, like threat of death, seeing someone die, um sexual assault is also that because there is that fear of um threat to well well-being. Yeah. Um it can also be of obviously this was used a lot with veterans, so any warfare that they experience, killing somebody, things like that. All of that is big T trauma. Um that is well, and trauma can also be abuse. In the DSM, technically, it is sexual assault if you have experienced warfare or are living in a warfare zone or threat to life. Yeah. Those are the only things that get you a PTSD diagnosis. Now there is a diagnosis that is recognized socially, but not recognized necessarily officially, okay. Which is complex PTSD or CPTSD. And complex CPT complex CPTSD, it's double complex. It's double complex. Um CPTSD um is the impact of some of those smaller traumas over a longer period of time. So typically PTSD is a specific event that occurs, and within six months you are experiencing nightmares and all of the symptoms, right, of PTSD. Complex PTSD is you have those same symptoms, but you don't have one key event. You have a lot of consistent littler events that create the same response in your body. Gotcha. So this could look like verbal abuse from a caregiver or from a partner or from right? It's it's something that just kind of wears on you the whole time. So that's in my head how I quantify trauma is we have the big T traumas, and those are traumatic a hundred percent of the time.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:27

Whether however that person navigates it, those are traumatic. Little T traumas really depends on the person. They can be traumatic, but it really depends on that person's resilience and how they navigate it to really determine was that just a rough season of life or was that traumatic for them, right? Like that really depends. Um, so part of how to help kind of visualize that is we use a lot at work uh of talk about the window of tolerance. Have you heard of this before?

SPEAKER_03 19:06

I have heard of it before. Uh I would love a refresher on it, though.

SPEAKER_05 19:11

Yes. So your window of tolerance is basically what you can tolerate. It's in the name.

unknown 19:22

Great.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

It's a window of tolerance.

SPEAKER_05 19:28

So basically, your um your body always wants to be at homeostasis, correct? Your brain and your body always want to be at homeostasis. When you interact with the environment or you have an experience that is uh heightening, right? Your emotions go up a little bit. And then you kind of have a crash afterwards and you kind of go down a little bit and then you go back up. The easiest way to think about this is like a toddler. You they're doing fine, they're so excited to eat a lollipop. They're excited. Oh, I'm gonna take away the lollipop. What? You're taking away the lollipop? Not the lollipop. Right? And then they're screaming and throwing a fit, throwing a fit, and then what happens after that? They cry and they want to take a nap. They drop down. Yeah. And they're so tired and so sorry, and they're all like right, all the way, right? And then eventually it's like, okay, yeah, thank you, honey. And then they're back and they're like, cool. Right? Yeah. So a window of tolerance is like this kid can deal with a level of things. Yes. Right. I'm excited about the lollipop. He's probably within his window of tolerance. Oh, we can't have the lollipop until later. What? So any so dysregulation um is when you operate outside of your window of tolerance. Same for stress, same for trauma. So everybody interacts with stress. Everybody has stress. Stress is normal. Stress is good for you, actually. Yeah. Sorry, everybody. Stress is good for you. In appropriate amounts. Inappropriate amounts for appropriate time periods, right? So if you have stress, yeah, if it's within your window of tolerance, you're good. Stress is helpful, it helps your body, it helps your brain, it helps you build endurance, resilience, all the things right that we want in our life.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:30

But when that stress goes outside of your window of tolerance or has gone on for so long, so consistently, that now it's outside your window of tolerance, that's really what I would call trauma. Gotcha. Is if it stays out of your window of tolerance and you cannot get it to go back, right? Okay. Because then if you are in that heightened state, or it can happen low too, right? So there's different ways that you're Brain deals with um experiences or triggers. So if you're up here for forever, like let's say a whole month, it's the most stressful month you've ever had. If you don't process that adequately, that can become a trauma that's stored in your body.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 22:26

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 22:28

It does. That's just that's an interesting concept because I don't think that was something that I had ever I had ever thought about because sorry, I'm still processing it. So just to clarify that, so stress can become trauma when it's outside of somebody's window of tolerance for a prolonged period of time. So I'm trying to think of like a good example. So if somebody is like, let's say potentially just like getting bullied at school, cool could be an example. Okay. And it's something that continues just year round. Yeah. That could that's something that can obviously become traumatic because it's like, cool, the one time, hey, maybe they are like pushed into a locker. You know, cool. Okay, rough day, you know, maybe it, you know, maybe it really sucked. It was painful, they said some mean words to you. Sucks. Might not necessarily be traumatic, but it's you know, it's a hard thing to go through.

SPEAKER_05 23:28

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

But if it's something that continues to happen year-round over long periods of time, that's when it starts to become traumatic because it's something that is taking them out of that window of tolerance and it is not coming back down.

SPEAKER_05 23:41

Yes. And I would say that an additional piece of that too is like if you are not processing effectively. So even if a thing is happening forever, if you're really good at pro I wouldn't expect like a high schooler or middle schooler who's being bullied all year round to know how to process things effectively. Yeah. Right. But um, if they're really doing their nervous system work, if they're really doing their therapy work and they're processing through a thing, that doesn't have to become a trauma. So trauma is how I view it is like stress that gets stuck. You don't process it effectively enough, either in your brain or your body, and that's what creates a traumatic a more of that little tea trauma. But um like kids who grew up in um neglectful households or abusive households, right? Like that's traumatic.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 24:40

Um and that's more of a bigger T trauma, right? Because they do not that is a threat to life.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:48

Kind of a situation. So I don't know if that made sense or if I made it more confusing.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

No, no, that's good. So uh it kind of explains why it's much easier for like kids to kind of experience trauma than it is for adults.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Uh obviously, adults can still experience trauma. Uh it just it shows up in different ways, I imagine. The form of where how it happens can look a little different, but it is much easier for kids to experience trauma.

SPEAKER_05 25:17

Yeah. Because much more vulnerable.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Yeah, they don't know how to process everything, and it it's a lot harder. It's a much they still have that innocence, and so things that adults may seem of like, okay, big deal, can be huge to a kid.

SPEAKER_05 25:31

Absolutely. And I think a lot of adults can write off traumatic experiences, and that's their coping skill, right? Even that dismissal of like, not a big deal. Was it is it not a big deal? Like, or are you avoiding doing your processing, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:49

And so it's like, oh never done that before.

SPEAKER_05 25:52

No, me either.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Yeah, definitely not.

SPEAKER_05 25:54

Yeah, no, definitely haven't talked to my therapist who've got avoidance this time for five minutes. But um it's more visible, I would say, in children. Um, but a lot of people really dismiss um young people's experiences uh because they expect them to behave a certain way, right? So a lot of dysregulation comes out as behaviors, like throwing things at you, cussing at you, crying, screaming on the floor, shutting down, people pleasing, like it can look a lot of different ways, dysregulation can. Some of those ways are more socially acceptable and some of those ways are not, right? So um a lot of kids are coached on how to be regulated, but they're not actually doing nervous system regulation, they're just putting up a wall, basically a facade of how to process. Um, that's what at work we use animals from Robin Goebbels um the way that she talks about the brain. There is your owl brain, which is like your thinking brain, which is interesting. When you're regulated, your prefrontal cortex, just your forehead basically, um, is that's your decision making. That is your logic thinking, that's your learning, that's your brain. Yeah. When you get to a heightened level or a dysregulated state, we call it your watchdog. And there's different states of watchdog. One is like, am I safe right now? I'm kind of like checking, you know, when like the mailman's coming down the street and the dog is like, I can hear it. I know it's coming, it's 11 o'clock, right? So that watchdog, right? And then as the mailman gets closer, it starts to escalate and posture, right? Yeah. And you can see, and then it starts to bark, right? And it is pissed off, like it is, right? So that's your watchdog brain, and that's the one that's trying to figure out am I safe or am I not? An escalated watchdog is that fight response that we most often see. Most often, most people know about the fight or flight, right? You fight it or you book it out of there. Yeah, most people don't know about what I call the possum response, which is what Robin Goebbel calls it. Credit where credit is due. Her podcast is really great as well. Um, but it's also the fawn response. So that is if you get mad at me, not you as my husband, you as any random person, if you get mad at me, my first tendency is to people please and to say, oh, I'm so sorry. Here, let me get out of your way. Right? And it's this like, yeah, please don't do it. I'm not freezing because I'm not like not saying words. It's like, oh, let me accommodate you any friggin' way I can, right? This is where we get a lot of kids who are mature for their age, people pleasing, right? Where they're like, oh, if I make myself small, my environment gets safer, and my parents don't get mad at me as much. Good to know. And they learn that, right? That's what the social learning does. And a lot of this is the worst. A lot of parents, sorry, parents, if you do this, a lot of parents, um, if they see a child who is well behaved, they'll say, Oh my gosh, you have such a good kid. They're so calm, such a good, well-behaved child. Oh, he's so respectful, blah, blah, blah. And what I see is that's a possum. That's a kid who does not feel safe enough to scream and cry, does not feel safe enough to speak up, does not feel safe, right? It's dysregulation, it just is more socially acceptable because everybody expects us to all be put together all the time. Little adults. Oh, such a well-distinguished gentleman, like a hundred percent of the time. But kids aren't supposed to do that. Yeah, kids are supposed to need their parents for co-regulation. So our nervous systems are always talking to each other. And when we have a dysregulated nervous system, everyone else in the room can tell.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

Animals can tell when you have a dysregulated nervous system. It's actually really fun. It's some of the work that I do going into a family's home and working with their kiddo. I can go in and tell who the dog likes more, who's dysregulated, who right?

SPEAKER_03 30:51

The dog is so helpful therapeutically to be like you hate that person.

SPEAKER_05 30:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:58

Hurt now. I know the family system just from watching the dog, right? Yeah. Because animals feel our nervous system before we do sometimes, right? Dogs know. They know. Um, cats know too, but they don't, they're more aloof. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

And they're just in their own world. Right. Yeah. We're just living there.

SPEAKER_05 31:18

Our nervous systems talk to each other, so even if someone is coming across as calm or fawning, like people pleasing, like, oh, he's so charming, he's so accommodating, he's the nicest person ever, right? Like that kind of language. I used to get that all the time. Yeah. We're a covering people pleaser. Through and through. Um, and part of that is a train of thought and then it just goes, yeah.

unknown 31:48

Go.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I I think that is one thing where I'm kind of right there with you on. I I find myself to be more on the people-pleasing side, yeah. Rather than the the side that's like, no, I need to kind of stand up for like, you know, what I believe in, or like, even just like, you know. She is very chaotic. There we go. Oh, she's that's bad. That's I don't, she just does that sometimes. She just are for those of you on Spotify, our cat just came bolting into the room. Not nothing chasing her, she just does it sometimes. She just came running in and jumped right next to my wife's head, and it was and then just looked at her with those just beady eyes.

SPEAKER_05 32:34

Yeah, her eyes are massive.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

It was adorable. But yeah, she's better than it. Um, but yeah, so I I tend to find myself more on that like people-pleasing side. Yeah, um, and you know, I'll be honest, I could I couldn't really tell you exactly like what it comes from because you know, even you were with me, obviously, when we were visiting my parents and we saw the video. Like, even as a kid, I was very quiet, like a very young kid, I was very quiet. And so I don't, I mean, part of it is just like I know I'm definitely like more on the shy side. Um, but yeah, so I I I think that's what I tend to just be pulled towards more, is just being a little bit more reserved and being that people pleaser. And you know, I really couldn't tell you what it comes from. Like I feel like I was raised pretty well, like I love my parents, I have a great relationship with them. Um, obviously nobody's perfect, so I know that there was stuff that I've had to work through from you know growing up in that environment. But yeah, so I I think that's something interesting that I would love to kind of look into a little bit more to find out about myself, is just okay, hey, why, you know, why am I that way? What happened? What if anything, or is this just who I am? And it's interesting that you say you're recovering people, please. Because, you know, I'm I'm that's something that I've I've I think I have big admiration for you about. And I'm a little jealous, uh, is you do a very good job when it comes to like authority and just being able to speak your mind and just speak on like facts. I feel like whenever I have come across like authority or something, I tend to just back down. I don't know how to like speak that. And so I think that's something that I admire a lot about you. Is you say you're a recovering people pleaser, but from my perspective, you do a really good job of you know staying true to who you are.

SPEAKER_05 34:35

Thank you. Yeah, it's um that means a lot uh because I am a recovering people pleaser. Um, and so it it means a lot to hear how far I've come. That's so helpful. So thank you for being generous and for being vulnerable, right, about your own story too. Um yeah, it it's super hard to know, right? We see videos and things like maybe it's just shyness, maybe right? Yeah, it's hard to know, but the more that you are able to kind of assess and take that like inner heartwork serious, um it really reveals a lot of things. So, um, and and also there's hope, right? Like it is any skill that you work on in the realm of psychology is exactly the same as any skill you work on in the gym.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:37

It is a muscle and it just takes practice, yeah. Right? It takes good practice, right? Like you're not gonna get better at your deadlifts if your back's all like, right? Like you there's some technique, yeah, right. So I would encourage the appropriate technique, but that's kind of what we're talking about today, too, right? Yeah. So practicing how to do regulation, right? What what is that what is a regulation even mean, Grace? Like, is it a state of being or is it like a fluid thing? And I would tell you it's a fluid thing, it's not a state of being.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:16

Um, but there is hope. Like everything is a skill. It just takes practice because really your brain, it's called neuroplasticity, but it's really your brain's ability to adapt and change. And your brain, we used to think this is me pulling out like a textbook, like a ye old YouTube video being like, so in 1925, we thought this. I don't actually know the year, but we used to think that the amount of neurons that you had when you were born, that's it. That's it, yeah. That's all you get. No more neurons for you. But we then learned, right, that oh no, your brain is constantly creating new neurons up until a certain age, and then you start to die. Brain death, right? Yeah. And turns out that's not true either.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

It's wild. It's like science keeps evolving or something.

SPEAKER_05 37:10

Crazy. New research comes out all the time. Yeah. So the reality is that as we know it right now, I'm sure in 30 years we'll learn more, which is great.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

Um This is not this isn't you know, this is what we know for right now.

SPEAKER_05 37:24

I'll have to get a whole new master's degree.

SPEAKER_03 37:27

Oh, goodness. Hopefully not. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:30

Um, but what we know right now is as a baby, right, you grow crazy fast. Crazy fast. And your neurons and your brain also go grow crazy fast. Um, and so your brain is taking in lots of inputs and really figuring out your brain, your brain is kind of like it's kind of like when you create a character sheet for DD.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Perfect.

SPEAKER_05 38:02

You have to figure out what class you're gonna be. Yeah. Like all of these things, and then that determines what skill set you pick, and that determines where you prioritize your points to go. For anybody who doesn't play DD. Rough.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

You're out of luck. We got no references. DD is all we got.

SPEAKER_05 38:23

Basically, in DD, you pick out certain characteristics, and there are certain um thingies. Clearly, I'm an expert in DD. There are certain thingies that you have to pick, certain skills, like constitution is like your life source, things like that. So you pick out those things, and then you get to roll dice and assign points to those things, and that's kind of like your starting character, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:47

Your brain does that as a baby. So when your brain when your brain, when you're brain, is my brain braining? No. When you're we all have those moments. Man, today's today's a lot of them. You're doing great. Thank you. So when you're a baby, your brain is really assessing what inputs and things that it needs. And so it it looks at like, cool, is is this an auditory household? Like, your brain is assessing how much auditory input is he getting. Okay, I have to make these pathways to get to this thing to elicit this response. Like your brain is doing some real crazy computerizing without you even knowing about it, right? Which is why babies sleep all the time. And they eat all the time, because they need to grow all the things. So babies do that, right? And you grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, and then in this is rough. So then you hit puberty. And you gotta love puberty. So so after you hit babyhood, your brain grows, creates all these new pathways, and then it destroys everything that it's not using. It says, Great, we have these seven trees, kill everything else. And it's called pruning. It's dendritic pruning. It's basically to clear out more space so that those pathways can get stronger. Yeah. Because you only have so much space in your brain. It's a lot of space.

SPEAKER_03 40:15

Yeah, I was gonna say, don't we? I remember us knowing that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:20

Don't don't stress. You won't run out of space. Your brain will just get rid of song lyrics to create space for the master's program.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

Careful, that might turn some people off. People really into their song lyrics.

SPEAKER_05 40:31

Hey, just throw out something else. It's fine.

SPEAKER_03 40:34

Um I threw out people's names. I can't remember people.

SPEAKER_05 40:37

Oh my gosh, yeah, it's so hard. It's so hard. I kept the song lyrics and I don't have song lyrics in psychology.

SPEAKER_04 40:45

I got movie quotes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:46

Movie quotes, yeah. Exactly. So then when you hit puberty, your brain says, cut, we gotta start from scratch again. And it basically be with the giant flood of hormones, all of your body changing, all right. You hit that grow spurt usually in high school or whatever. Girls hit it in middle school. That's why we're always taller when we start high school, and then boys grow later because they develop a little bit slower. Slower. Um, but your brain goes through this dendritic dendritic pruning again. Close enough, yeah. Basically gets rid of all the stuff that you're not using, all the connections you haven't been using. And then when you're 26-ish, you enter early adulthood, right? And your brain it's not that your brain stops growing, it's just that it the rate of it slows down. Your brain grows until you die. Your brain is always making new connections, always producing new neurons, always, always, always. Because that is what your body's made to do. It's made to create new cells. Neurons are cells. Surprise, your brain is always growing. That's why people who hit retirement can learn new things. They're like, I'm gonna go learn bird watching, right? And they memorize a crap ton of birds, right? And they do all the things. So um you can always you can teach an old dog new tricks, you can learn all of these skills, whether you're learning them at 50 or learning them at 25, or learning them at 12, right? The challenge is if you were to try to learn a new skill at 12, you'll pick it up real quick. Within like six months, you'll be intermediate, right? Like totally because your brain is like, yeah, let's learn, right? All the things. Versus when you're 30 and you're picking it up, like you can pick it up, but man, you gotta put some work in, you gotta put practice in. And then if you try at 50, gotta put some real effort in. But the nice part is you've developed enough of those skills in another area of life that you can transfer it, right? So, like, well, I've worked at my job for 30 years, I guess I can learn this new psychology skill, right? Like anything's possible. Um 12-year-olds probably only have the attention span to do a thing for a shorter period of time. Makes sense, that's how their brain works. Right. All the things.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

Pick up one thing, put down another.

SPEAKER_05 43:25

Yeah. Or juggle 75.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

You know.

SPEAKER_05 43:27

And then you get diagnosed with ADHD.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

We're killing it.

SPEAKER_05 43:32

We're killing it. Killing it. So that's kind of the like your brain is always growing and learning. And so you can pick up any skill at any time. There is this um phrase uh jack of all trades, master of none, still better than a master of one. So we have yeah, so most of most people can. Cut off that phrase. They're like, master and nun, I suck. And it's like, that's way better than being excellent at one thing. And part of that is a lot of people, it's kind of like looking at those um savants or whatever, who are like, oh, they excel. So they start here. That's their starting point. Yeah. They can grow, but their growth is usually a lot slower, but it feels like they're growing real fast because they started here. Yeah. Versus someone can get up to this level. It just takes a longer period of time for them to root, but eventually they'll reach the same pinnacle.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:45

So never be afraid if you're like, I'm just not good at that thing. I'm just, I just can't do that thing. I'm just I just don't get this whole psychology thing that Grace is talking about. I just don't get the whole gym thing. I just that's an excuse. That's your brain trying to take an easy way out, which is what it's designed to do. Your brain is tricking you all the time. Trick it back. Right? You can always learn and build those skills. Always. There's an asterisk with that. If you have some developmental delays or things, like it is possible and it is significantly harder. Yeah. Right. So there's always there's always an exception. But pretty much everybody can always learn how to do these things.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Yeah. Interesting. So then I'm kind of curious. So what happens with like what happens with your brain? Sorry, how should I how am I trying to word this? So trauma can be stored inside the body. So what is going on with your brain when something like that happens?

SPEAKER_05 46:02

When trauma happens?

SPEAKER_03 46:03

Yeah. So if we're constantly trying to make new connections all the time. I know that there are certain times people don't always remember their trauma and it can be stored inside their body at different points. Um so what is going on with your brain then in those situations?

SPEAKER_05 46:19

Yeah. So I would uh just a small correction. I think your body always remembers. Your brain helps your body out if it remembers and can do some of the processing, but that's where a lot of people's autoimmune diseases and aches and pains really come from. It's from trauma stored in the body. Another podcast episode. We have like seven at this point. Um, so what's happening in the brain is your brain is scanning through partially your vagus nerve, which is why trauma is stored in the body. Your vagus nerve, for those of you that don't know, is the longest nerve in your whole body, and it runs from your brain all the way to your big toe. Um, and it is kind of like an alarm sensor. Okay. Um so it's always taking in information. Your brain is also assessing for safety like 11,000 times a second. It's a stupid, crazy high number. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:22

And if you and your brain favors what you've already thought. So if you grew up in an unsafe household, your brain is scanning for safety and it is more likely to favor the cues of unsafety. So that is so fascinating, so interesting. And it makes sense, right? Your brain is there to create patterns and to identify patterns in your environment to keep you safe. Yeah. And if your pattern has been for 25 years, you're not safe. Man, that 26th year, it's gonna be like, well, let me guess. We're gonna be unsafe again, right? Like it takes a long time, it takes a lot of added cues of safety, felt safety, not just like I no longer live in a war zone type of safety. It takes added cues.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:20

So that's like context, which feels helpful. So your brain is constantly scanning for cues of safety or unsafety. And so when your brain determines that it is unsafe, your amygdala takes over. So you're normally what is online in your brain is your prefrontal cortex. This is always thinking, always assessing, always making decisions, always on, always, always. And it is the logical. It is like, oh, well, I shouldn't eat those berries because those berries are poisonous, right? Very logical. This is how we can do our deep learning. This is why home life is so important for kids in school. Because if they do not feel safe at home, they cannot learn at school. Because their prefrontal cortex goes flat line, like offline.

SPEAKER_03 49:24

Just not doing it.

SPEAKER_05 49:24

Nope, can't do it. I'm closing the door. Goodbye, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 49:27

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 49:28

So your prefrontal cortex goes completely offline when you're dysregulated. Yeah. If you feel unsafe. Your amygdala takes over, and that is the what's happening? It's the alarm part of your brain. So that's the part that gets your body activated. Your hippocampus is the memory part of your brain. It shrinks. Especially if you're in chronic stress, you can see studies. This is where my nerd comes up. But you can see studies in chronic stress, their hippocampus shrinks significantly.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:02

So, like in a normal person, if it's this big, in someone with chronic stress, it's like it's like a P. Their memory is like shook gone. It's crazy. You can also regrow it, right? You can get it back. Just takes a whole lot of work. So your hippocampus, yk, nope. Memory is offline, right? Because basically, your brain turns off every function that it does not need for survival. You don't have to remember things for survival. Very minimal. If a bear is chasing you, I don't need to remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Everything's gone. Whole day, gone. Can't remember anything. I remember the bear. Right?

SPEAKER_03 50:47

Like nothing else mattered at that point. Nothing else. Just the bear.

SPEAKER_05 50:50

Where was the bear? How far away? Right? How do I measure right? Your brain really only focuses on the things it absolutely needs. We are designed this way. Or if you don't believe in design, the universe created us this way. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Whatever your own on that belief system is.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 51:12

Our human operating system operates that way. It's to keep us safe. Survival is the end all be all for humans. It's the core drive. Stay alive. Yeah. Um, so what's happening in the brain is your amygdala takes over, your prefrontal cortex says, what the mic. In at uh work we call it lid flipping. Um so you have different parts of your brain, right? Yeah. We use it like this. This is the amygdala and hippocampus part. This is the amygdala hippocampus part. It's all in like your brain stem. Um and so this is the prefrontal cortex. And so when you are gone, lid flipped, their their thinking brain is not on.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 52:01

Their hat's off. So then they're just high emotion, low memory, high reactivity. Like you go into lizard brain, or your reptilian brain is actually what it's called, and it it is that um brainstemy section of your brain. Yep. And that focuses on your core drives food, water, shelter, alive, and sex. Those are your core drives. Alive, I think, could be sleep. I might have mixed that one up in my head. Irrelevant. It's fun. You can Google that. Yeah. Google it. Um, so what happens is your brain then floods with oh shoot. I'm really bad at all the chemical names. No, it floods with a chemical. Cortisol. Floods with cortisol. Stress, stress hormone. Yes. Right? And then that triggers your pituitary gland.

SPEAKER_04 53:05

Your pituitary grand.

SPEAKER_05 53:06

Your pituitary to release adrenocorticus. Basically, it triggers all the stress things in your pituitary gland to fire. And it also triggers your adrenal glands above your kidneys to fire as well.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:24

And so that adrenaline is the thing, and then that leads to all of the things that happen in your body, right? Your heart rate increases, your lungs expand to get more oxygen in. Your body is prepping to fight or run.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:39

Right. And so it's that like, oh God, right? And people breathe more shallowly because they're trying to get as much oxygen in their body as possible. Yeah. In order to go do whatever they need to do. They are in a ha! Yeah. Ha! Kind of, oh sorry. Oh yolly. They're in a heightened state. She's like, I'm asleep. I also don't need to yell. But they're in a heightened state, right? And so that's what happens in your brain is it gets flooded. It basically dumps all of the, it's like if it was behind a dam, you hit the emergency and it floods with all of these hormones that trigger all of the things in your body to keep you safe. So that's why when a crazy thing happens, oh my god, oh my thing. Right. But for someone who, and that's in like a big T trauma situation, there's a bear in the room, oh my god, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_03 54:42

Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:43

You have that response.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

Terrifying.

SPEAKER_05 54:45

Terrifying. But for someone who has experienced a lot of trauma or has just had a poor experience one time, their body remembers that experience. Their brain remembers that experience. And so the next time that they experience something even remotely similar to that, their brain can go, Nope, there's a bear. Yeah. Right? So if someone got attacked in by a bear in an orange grove, never would happen, probably. I don't think bears exist in orange groves. But strong smell of orange, right? Yeah. Horrific bear attack, medical trauma, all the things. Also, sorry, trigger warning if you've been attacked by a bear.

SPEAKER_03 55:31

In an orange grove.

SPEAKER_05 55:33

Or in general. Sorry. Um, the next time that person smells oranges, their body might respond with that, oh, shoot, there's a bear. Right. That kind of a response. Um now, most people don't interact with bears on a regular basis. So other things that can show up is like if someone's been in a really bad car accident, the next time they step into a car, oh God. Right? And so we see those stress responses, that dysregulation response, which is normal and acceptable and totally in an unshaming way. That is your body keeping you safe. It's saying, Oh, I've been here before, I gotta leave. I know that it this is unsafe, right? And so that's what a trigger is. A trigger is an experience that recalls this stress response. Um, now some people, not some people, should rewind that everybody experiences triggers, but everybody responds to them differently. So this also goes back to your window of tolerance, right? Yeah. So after a car accident, your window of tolerance for being in the car might be this big. Yeah. You can barely look at a car, right? Versus someone who's been in a car forever and has never had an accident, their window of tolerance is like this big, right?

SPEAKER_04 57:08

Like no big deal.

SPEAKER_05 57:09

And so what the work of processing that trauma is, is taking your window of tolerance and slowly increasing it back to a place where you can handle a lot more triggers without being flooded, yeah, right, with all of that emotion, all that hormones, all the things, and without feeling too unsafe, right? So that's that's we go back to that window of tolerance. So triggers, everybody, everybody on the social media is like, oh my god, I'm so triggered by that.

SPEAKER_04 57:42

Just like that, too. Just like that.

SPEAKER_05 57:45

On my social media, they really are, and I'm like, oh my god. Okay, maybe. And like I'm not dismissing triggers, but like triggers are a very real, awful thing for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 57:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:00

And it's really frustrating when people on social media take that really hard thing and make it like a little joke, like a little jokey joke. It can feel really invalidating. Just as a side note, if you do that, you may consider stopping. Just food for thought. Just food for thought. Um, but triggers are a real thing. And you can learn how to navigate them, right? Like you can build your window of tolerance to a thing. You might need support in doing that.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:33

Like from a therapist or from medication, but you can do it.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

Okay, so then how how can you kind of tell between being stuck in like just a chronically stressed out state versus, oh hey, I'm I'm you know, experiencing trauma through this through something and I haven't processed it. Does that make sense? Do I need to reword that?

SPEAKER_05 59:00

I think what you're asking is how do you determine whether it is just like a lot of stress happening versus we're in this traumatic lots of stress happening. Yes. Okay. Yes. So the biggest thing, and you're wondering how I tell.

SPEAKER_03 59:22

Yeah, how could well, not necessarily like just like how can somebody assess that for themselves?

SPEAKER_05 59:28

Got it. Um a big part of that is knowing what your trauma response is. So there are a couple of tests online that you can take. I don't always find those kind of tests helpful because a lot of them are not empirically backed and all the things. Um but uh it really takes a level of self-awareness, it takes a level of introspection, and it sorry, but you have to like actually slow down and sit with yourself.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

Careful now, all right.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:03

I know that's a lot to ask, especially in our culture, in our society, and in such a go, go, go, go, go, go world, right? Everybody has access to us. We rarely get time to just sit with ourselves. It's usually so uncomfortable. And it is uncomfortable, it's normal for it to be uncomfortable at first. And you have to do a level of self-introspection to be able to know, oh God, how am I feeling? Like what is going on for me? What is my typical response? If a lot of people are already aware uh balloon pops in front of me, I'm fighting you, right? Or if a balloon pops in front of you, you might go, oh, God. Yeah. Like you just might go, mm-hmm, like a little toddler and panic and just freeze.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:51

And and some of some if a balloon pops in front, they might go, whoo, whoa, that was loud. And other people might go, ha ha ha ha ha, I love balloons. And inside they're like, freaking hate balloons. Oh my gosh, but I have to be happy, right? Like in this place. And some people might be like, I love it. Yeah. Right? Because they're just crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:12

Same, same event, just people dealing with it differently.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:14

Absolutely. And so you have to really decide that for yourself. You are the only person that can really decide how you're feeling. And that means that you have to kind of get to know yourself a little bit. Sorry, but I think most of you are pretty cool people. I would agree. You're worth getting to know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:34

Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

Crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:35

Crazy. Um, so part of it is that level. Part of it is you could really ask people. If you're feeling brave, be careful about who you ask. If you wouldn't trust their opinion, they're not someone you should be asking advice from. Word of warning.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:54

I would agree.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:55

But if you have someone that you trust, their opinion, and you're like, yeah, they they're usually pretty spot on, you could go ask them, hey, how do you receive me when this thing happens? Right?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:09

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:09

You can take information from other people, you can get feedback. That's all feedback is. It's it's information. And sometimes you get information when you don't want it. Um so like you might have uh like I've worked with kiddos, and their response is uh fuck you to the face, right? Like just a straight fuck you, Miss Grace. And I'm like, well, at least you use Miss Grace. Like that's nice. There's a level of respect there. But um their response is fight. Yeah. And it's like so evidently clear, and right, and so I could give that feedback of like, oh man, you seem like you are really having a rough time. What do you need right now? Right? Like, and letting them in. You might have a couple of clients, or if you've ever worked customer service, or if you're ever in like a relationship, right? Like I get feedback from you. This is our relationship. I get feedback from you a lot about how I show up in a space, right? If I'm dysregulated, you're like, what in the heck is happening? And it's like, oh, okay, right. I'm I'm not mad at you. I'm triggered from this thing that happened before, and you said a key word that made me want to fight you, right? Like that's happened, and that's honestly been a struggle with the gym, right? It's like body issues, everybody has them.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

Very true.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:41

Or at least most women I know have them.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:43

Yeah, I mean, hey, there's it's a it's a very serious thing, you know, body dysmorphia and just the amount of standards that are put on people, it's it is a huge thing in the gym.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:51

So it's a huge thing, and it's super real. So, like if you have a personal trainer, right, who's like scale's not where you want it to be. You're like freck, right? Like, and it's like, oh, okay, oh, okay. Yeah, very clearly that person's response is yeah, okay, they're fine. Or if you have someone who's like, oh yeah, I know, da da da.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:16

Yeah.

unknown 1:04:17

Do you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:17

Yeah, similar thing, just a different response to it.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:20

Different response. So I don't know if that answered your question at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

Yeah, it did. Great. Um, it kind of actually leads me into my next one because you were talking about the body and the trauma, and so when you do experience with the body kind of holding on to trauma, yeah. So when somebody is doing certain like movements and it can cause a traumatic response, um, and we you may have kind of talked about this already, or like kind of brushed over it like with the bear attack in the orange tree. Is it a similar kind of event then that happens? So like it has you have that traumatic event, and when you're you know around orange trees or when you had the car crash and you're in a car?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:02

If you have experienced a traumatic event when you were younger, or even just at any point in time, and then you're in the gym and you're working out, something could potentially trigger that response. And so is it is it a very similar kind of like thing that occurs in the brain of like, oh shoot, like I'm no longer safe here.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:21

It can. It depends on how much you've processed. So I'll share about some of my triggers. So um for lots of women too, in general, a lot of our trauma and stress is stored in our hips. So any glute, hip workout, anything around the pelvis, because really your inner oh, I learned this. Your inner inner groin muscles are so they hold so much. They hold your bones together, they hold, they hold your whole bone the X right here, holds everything together. Together, including all of your stress, all of your trauma, all of your history, right? It ends up being stored right here.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:08

Um, and for women, a lot of our additional stress is stored in our hips. I think that's also actually why a lot of people have back issues, is not just because they're not working at their back, which I think is valid, and a lot of people do that. Um, but I also think that people have a lot of trauma stored in their body that they don't even know is there. I didn't know I had trauma stored in my hips until I was doing hip thrusts at crunch oof with you. And I completely broke down hyperventilating, full-blown panic attack, yeah, full weeping, ugly, at the gym in a public place, which then was like, Oh god! But I remember yeah, you remember that time? But that time there was another lady in the gym who said, Hey, I see you. You're doing a great job, keep breathing.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:04

And I was like, Oh wow, I need it. Right, okay, okay, we're okay, we're okay. Right? And it was very clear to me that she'd had a similar experience. And and still, to this day, you can even ask my personal trainer, Eric. I still have panic attacks occasionally when I'm doing hip thrusts or glute workouts or anything. We did those hip airplane things. I was like, oh no, this could be bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:30

Gotta be careful.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:31

Could be bad. Um, and so for me early on, I didn't have the memories, but that's because my coping skill is to forget and to disassociate. So I wasn't gonna have the memories regardless.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:45

But my body remembered, and it was this I feel completely unsafe. I don't know what's happening to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:55

Like total flooding, right? And as I've worked more, now I can go probably.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:01

I'm so sorry. No, it's just being difficult, apparently.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:03

That's exciting. I can go probably like a month or two without a panic attack. Yeah. Like working out glutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:12

You are doing every week. Amazing. You really are. You've been putting in so much work, and I I see it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:18

Appreciate it. Um, and I like, yes, I've been putting in work in the gym, but I've also been putting in work like in therapy. And that's been really the key that has helped me navigate my triggers is building all of these psychological skills with nervous system regulation and things like that, because now I can start to feel the trigger come up because I've gotten so in tune with my body and my mind, like really unifying them. I kind of was a floating head for a really long time. Literally. I did not feel my body ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:53

Ever, ever. Totally numbed out, literally a floating head. Um, and it's taken a lot of work to reconfigure a lot of these things, and it brought up a lot of trauma uh that I didn't even know I had.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:08

Surprise. Surprise. Kind of the worst surprise to have. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

Yeah. Doesn't sound like a fun one.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:14

It's not. And um, yeah, so doing this skill building that I've gotten to do and doing therapy and um practicing all those things has really helped me. So now I can work out glutes and hams twice a week and do it for about a the last time I had a panic attack was about a month and a half ago at the gym. Uh and that's really great progress. That's huge for me. It was every single time.

unknown 1:09:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:45

And it was like big ugly crying, like really public ugly crying and like shaking and like, okay, I can't do anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:52

It was intense.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:53

It was really intense. And as I started to unlock memories in EMDR, then when I was working out, the memories would come too.

unknown 1:10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:03

So if you have someone who has remembered all of those things and is triggered at the gym, it is very likely that those memories are reappearing. And sometimes those memories are really awful, really awful visuals to have. And then to like be okay afterwards. Um, it's really, really difficult. Um, and there's hope, right? Like you can always navigate your way through a trigger. It just takes skill, it takes practice, and it's totally a common experience. I'm not gonna say normal because nobody should have to go through those types of traumas and have those memories kind of burned into their brain.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:46

But it's very common, and so like don't shame yourself. I think that was a hard part uh before I was with you. Um was I would shame myself, right? Shame comes up in a lot of those things, and especially if your body's doing a thing and you're like, I don't even friggin' remember anything bad that's ever happened, I don't know what's going on, right? Like, what why am I crying? This is weird.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:13

Hold on.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:14

It's uh it's not my time of the month, what is happening kind of a thing. And there can be a lot of shame with that, and a lot of shame with trauma. Um, because you a lot of the time that you go through something unspeakable or horrific, or even just a lot, you it's very easy to think that you should know how to process it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:39

And that's why some of those big T traumas, nobody knows how to process it. Yeah. We're all doing the best we can.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:47

Yeah. Which is interesting because I mean, the idea of being able to kind of process sometimes can be in the moment, sometimes it can be over, you know, long period of time, you know, weeks, months, years.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:59

Um but when it comes to just trying to regulate your nervous system, I'm curious, what are some of like the tips and like tricks that you use to try and help regulate your nervous system as you're going through as you're going through these experiences, as you've yeah, because you've clearly you've had your fair share. Maybe even some more. And so what is how what do you do uh to help kind of regulate your nervous system, whether it's from trauma or stress?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:29

Absolutely. So the biggest thing for regulating your nervous system is you don't want to start when you're dysregulated. So interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:37

So you want to, in the same way that you do an emergency drill before you have the emergency, right? Your your learning cap is gone when you're in those dysregulated states. Uh and so that's not a good time to learn how to do the things. You have to do the things when your thinking cap is on so that your brain and your body actually learn how to do it. So, similarly to like an airplane, when they do the emergency exit routes, they do it before they take off. When everybody's good on the plane, everybody's paying attention. Surprise, we can't go anywhere until you freaking look at this. Look at it, right? Because in an emergency, I know where the exits are, my learning brain was on. The amygdala will help me out a little bit, right? And you still will be like, oh God, what do we do?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:30

But the most important people who need to know that are the flight attendants. Because they're the ones. You have two exits up there, go to this exit, put your emergency mask on, right? They're the ones, and they do it like a million times a day.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:45

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:46

Right? They can do it in their sleep. I've seen some of them be like, and you blow in the thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:51

Just eyes closed, just nailing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:54

Yeah. Right. And they're nailing it. It's crazy. And that's what you have to do with nervous system regulation. So uh the biggest the biggest thing for nervous system regulation is the breath. So it's hard, but ideally, especially if you have a stressful job like I do, like you do, it's really, really important to build in time throughout your day to be practicing this thing. So you kind of view it as like the vagus nerve is a muscle, right? And you have to tone it. So that means that you have to do a lot of reps. Right? You're not lifting heavy all at once.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:39

While that works. To tone the muscle, you kind of gotta do more of like a swimmer exercise where it's lightweight but high repetition. High repetition. So the easiest one, the quickest one, I call them bunny breaths. I don't know why. But I do. It's the quickest way to regulate real quick.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:01

And so what you do is you inhale twice quickly. So you take an inhale and then you inhale again on top of that. And then you exhale really, really long. And it sounds a little silly, but it's really cool if you do it in a room with everybody, like a lot of people, yeah. In sync. Oh, it's so cool. There's something just especially if you go to like a yoga class and she's like, breathe out, and everybody goes, like, yeah, it's so cool to hear people breathe like together as a unifying thing. There's something very unifying about it. That's a little woo-woo. So, what you do for the breath um is you breathe in kind of like you're crying, like a ha. And the biggest thing is you want your exhale to be long, way long, as long as you can. Yeah. Every single time. You definitely want it to be twice as long as your inhale. And part of the reason for that is because when you are stressed, right, your lungs expand to get as much oxygen in as possible. So if you're taking in a deep breath, that's why they say to breathe in through your nose, you get less air through your nose and out through your mouth.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:22

You can breathe forever out of your mouth, right? But that's the thing. It's it the inhale is actually dysregulating.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:32

Whoops.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:33

So it's an upregulation. Yeah. And the exhale is the thing that actually regulates you. So being mindful of that, even just like first step probably is to notice your breath. Like if I'm having a panic attack, I'm breathing like that fast, and I have to go and like try try really hard, right? Is everything okay? I know. She's like, oh gosh, to do that exhale. So um, like a lot of people will say, like, box breathe, right? You breathe in for four, you hold for four, you exhale for four, you breathe out, or you hold for four.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:13

That's dysregulating. Box breathing is not helpful at all. You heard it here first.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:21

Not happening. Don't do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:22

Don't do box breathing if you're having a panic attack or if you're stressed. It's not helpful. What you need to do is like a four, six, seven or a four, six, eight, which is you breathe in for four. You hold for six, which feels like an eternity. And then you exhale for eight. And actually, if you exhale for eight and then hold with nothing in, that is even more regulating than just that longer. Exhale. Because what happens if you're being chased by a bear? You're usually not exhaling really long until you make it to safety. And then you're and then you're going, yeah. Okay, we made it. Okay. Bear's gone. I'm safe. Where am I? Like you're checking all of your vital signs, all the things, right? But you're doing that with long exhales just naturally. So that is the natural way that your brain and your body know. Oh, hey, we made it back to safety. Oh, hey, actually, I'm okay. Oh my gosh. The color orange isn't actually that bad. Okay, great, right? Like, yeah. Some people have real triggers. Um, so that bunny breaths is the quickest one. Two quick inhales. And you do it three or four times in a row. Um, that mimics the natural breath that you do when you have a really hard cry. Yeah. Um, where you're like kind of a that thing. Silly, but uh, you gotta be silly. That's the other advice I would give. Be silly. Disra like nervous system regulation is silly. We're supposed to be silly. Surprise. So uh animals do one, they do that shake, they'll shake their whole whole body anytime something happens. It's also uh notice like you can notice that they do it after something slightly stressful. If you play a little bit too hard, they'll sneeze to let you know that they're playing, and then they'll shake because they're like, oh, that got a little too intense, right? And they're regulating their nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:35

Similarly, for humans, if you really want to get regulated, throw on some music. Music is really regulating, and jump around and wiggle your arms around, wiggle your body, wiggle your head, like like be silly. Yeah. Okay, if you have to go into a room because you're embarrassed, fine. Go into the bathroom, turn on the fan, put headphones in, and just jump around and wiggle.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:02

Yeah. That will out, kind of let it loose.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:05

Let it all out, let it loose, like wiggle it out. It'll help your lymphatic drainage, it'll help your calf muscles jumping on. So many wonderful things. So that's really good. A formal one that you can do is called tapping. Um, and I've done this during a panic attack. You were there for it. I don't know if you remember it because you weren't having a panic attack, so it's fine. Um, but you can do it. Um, you basically focus on do you want to try it with me? Can I put you in here? Yeah, okay, cool. So you're gonna take a deep breath in through your nose.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:43

Just and no specific time.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:46

No specific time. And then exhale out longer. Breathe in through your nose again. And exhale out longer than your inhale. It doesn't have to be crazy. And then I want you to kind of go inward for a second and notice how you're feeling, and come up with one word about how you're feeling. And you don't have to share it. So if I go inward as I'm breathing, my right hip hurts. So I'm gonna say hip.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:36

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:38

And then you make kind of like a karate chop with your hand, like your quatcha. Yeah. You go like this, with go like this, with your left hand or whatever, doesn't matter. And then with your right hand or your left hand.

unknown 1:21:52

Okay. Wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:53

So you have you have one in a karate chop, like haya, and then you have the other one, and you're gonna tap kind of that like pinky side about halfway down. Um, so it's that big meaty muscle on the side of your hand. You're just gonna tap there, not too fast. You don't want to be like and you don't want to go too slow, like one, two, three. That's too slow. But find just something kind of in the middle, and then as you breathe, so take another deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. I want you to think about that thing that you identified. Yawning is good. Yawning's good. That's actually really good. So yawning is a sign that your nervous system is regulating.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:43

Great.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:44

Could also mean you're tired. But but so oh, this story time for after the tapping. So we'll tap here as we're breathing, and I'm just gonna think about my word, right? Um, I'm gonna say it out loud for teaching purposes, so I'm gonna breathe in. Hip. Right? And you say your word in your brain or out loud if you thought of one. Hip. And then I'm gonna move and we're gonna tap the top of our head.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:19

And you breathe in through your nose. And out. Hip. And then you tap, let's see, you tap the top corner of your eyebrow. You can do it with one hand or both hands, but it's like where your eyebrows, if you had a unibrow, just where that top corner of your eyebrow is, and you tap there and you breathe in. Hand out. Hip. And then you're gonna tap the outer corner of your eye on that occipital bone right there.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:57

Both or just uh depends.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:00

It doesn't matter. Okay. One or both. I typically do one, but I'll show both, and you do one. So you tap there and breathe into your nose. And out.

unknown 1:24:14

Hip.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:16

Right for me. And then you can tap below your eye on that same occipital bone, just right right below your um, what are those called? Irises. Breathe in. And out. Hip. And then you tap the side of your nostril. Kind of like if you did this, you would tap like that. You tap there. Breathe in. And out. Hip. And then you tap you top you tap your frenulum, which is right below your nose. Your little mustache part. You tap there. And you breathe in. And out. See, I'm yawning. That's good. And then you tap right below your lips on your chin. Breathe in. And out. Hip. And then you tap your collarbone. I know it's a lot of tapping plot. Yeah. You tap your collarbone in.

unknown 1:25:35

Hip.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:37

Yeah, I could. Excuse me. If you're not flexible, you stay there and you do that one more time. If you are flexible, you reach around to kind of if you're a girl, you reach to your bra strap line and you tap right there. If you're a dude, it's like right kind of where your trap ends.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:54

You mean your lat.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:56

Yep. See, see, I'm not doing it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:00

We're new to the gym.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:01

See, you tap your lat um and you do that same thing. So in hip. Right? And then you go back to your little karate chop hand. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:19

So what exactly, sorry to interrupt, what is the tapping for?

SPEAKER_05 1:26:23

So the tapping, there are specific points that help your body move. It helps your brain and your body connect. So the tapping keeps you in your body as much as you can.

unknown 1:26:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:40

Um the specific points that you tap, they do a lot of um, there's been some studies about the specifics of each of the points, and I don't know all of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:52

You're totally good.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:53

But the main key is you focus on the thing that's bothering you. Yeah. You can also focus on like a corrective phrase, kind of like we talked about in EMDR, um, where I would say, instead of saying hip, I would say, even though my hip hurts, I know I'll be fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:15

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:16

And you and you repeat that phrase.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:18

So it's kind of okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:19

Even though my hip hurts, I know I'll be fine. Even though my hip hurts, I'm not sure. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:23

It's just trying to connect your body and your mind and help reinforce kind of almost like a um a mental state.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:31

It helps your brain and your body process it.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:34

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:35

So that's that's an easy one to do. It takes longer. Yeah. So the cry breath is really quick. Um there's lots of them online. You can buy even a whole like card deck on Amazon of Vegas nerve exercises. Most of them work.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:50

That's a really cool idea.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:51

The other thing that's really great for your nervous system working out. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:59

It's helpful. It's helpful.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:01

But anything with bilateral stimulation is also regulating. So if you there's different zones of regulation. This will be my last like long explanation, hopefully. But there's different zones of regulation. So we have the blue zone, which is kind of like you're down because ever the world is too much kind of a thing. The green zone, where you're like, I'm good. Yeah. Life is good. I feel regulated. Everybody's happy, all the things. Yellow zone is either excited, like, oh, I'm so excited about a thing, right? That's a little bit dysregulated. Or it's like, oh my gosh, I'm getting hungry and I'm about to kill some. Like, we're getting up there, kind of a thing. So yellow can be happy or not happy, kind of a thing. So you can be dysregulated when you're like, yeah, I'm so excited. That's dysregulation.

unknown 1:28:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:54

It's positive. Dysregulation is a bad thing. And a lot of people weaponize it against you. Dysregulation's not bad. It's just a state. Like it's just a movement kind of a thing. And then there's red zone, which is like lid flipped, either, oh my god. That's when people meet like their dream person. They're crying and they don't remember anything that happens, right? A lot of people who uh get engaged, they don't remember what their partner said to them because their lid is flipped because they're so excited.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:27

They're like, which I think is a good distinction to make. Your lid flip could come just from an extreme elevation of almost any emotion.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:36

Any emotion outside of your window of tolerance can be a lid flipping situation. Your brain doesn't know the difference.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:42

Which is crazy. Or it could be a F U. Okay, like that could be red too. So in those like zones of regulation. What was your question? Darn it.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:04

You're doing great. I'm so you're doing fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:08

Oh, I know what it was. So you can have some people really don't do well with the whole Zen take a deep breath situation. Yeah. Some people are like, that makes me dysregulated. And I'm like, I hear you. And also have you tried it, but I hear you. So if breathing's not for you, there's lots of the tapping, right? Is great. Lots of things. Walking.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:34

Yes. Yeah. Great.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:36

Walking is huge. Anything bilaterally. Um, and then if you're low, even like I've made adults march in place, which is very fun. Um if it helps, it helps. That's the thing. It totally helps. Or doing wall push-ups, yeah, wall squats, like anything that either meets a sensory need or gets some sort of movement going, that bilateral stimulation is really the thing that will help because that helps with that corpus callosum in your brain. It helps that connection.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:10

Yeah. Okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:14

Dang. Well, that's so fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:17

I know. I know. And there's so much more I could say.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:20

There is. Well, and you know, we'll have to we'll have to do another one of these then because they're I I'm I feel like this is something that we could just continue going on with and on and on. I feel like there's so much information. So much out there. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. This has been a very fascinating conversation. I've learned a whole heck of a lot. So I hope I hope everyone out there has as well. You know, thank you guys.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:44

Thanks for sticking on with my squirrely explanations everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:48

No, it was it was fantastic. I appreciate it so much. And yeah, this has been great. And I I appreciate you being willing to come on and do this. So thank you so much. And uh for everyone out there, I hope you guys had a wonderful time and stuck with us through all of the chaos that was this episode. Yeah, just between like the animals and everything going on. No, you were fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:13

Um, but yeah, so thank you guys for all for tuning in. Uh, if you guys enjoyed this, I would love it if you guys could you know leave a like, subscribe, share it with a friend. Uh, it would really mean a whole lot to me. I appreciate everything that you guys have been doing. You guys have really showed up in full force, and this pod doing this podcast has been so much fun. So I look forward to continue doing this. Um, thank you guys so much again, and I hope you all have a wonderful night. See you guys.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:39

Bye.