The AMPcast with Aliza Marie Prokop

Episode 11-Understanding Trauma: How the Brain and Body Heal with Sharon K. Ball

• Aliza Marie Prokop • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Your trauma is not your fault—but your healing is your responsibility. In this episode, Aliza Prokop sits down with Sharon K. Ball—author, speaker, trauma-informed therapist, founder of 9Paths, and owner of Cereset® Franklin—to unpack what trauma really is and how it affects the brain and nervous system. Sharon explains why trauma can linger in the body long after the event is over and why healing is often more complex than simply “moving on.” Together they explore different healing modalities and practical steps people can take to begin restoring safety and balance in their lives. If you’ve ever wondered why your mind or body still reacts to past experiences, this conversation offers clarity, hope, and a path toward healing.

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SPEAKER_00

Good evening. We begin tonight with an issue that continues to affect millions long after the original events have passed. Trauma. Mental health experts say trauma from earlier life experiences often resurfaces years later, influencing emotional responses, physical health, and relationships. While the incidents may be in the past, the body and brain can remain in a heightened state of survival.

SPEAKER_03

I wish I could just forget about what happened to me so long ago. But these memories haunt me.

SPEAKER_04

I know it's over, but it doesn't feel over. I need help, but I'm afraid to open up about my past.

SPEAKER_06

I survived, but I don't feel alive. I want to heal, but I'm scared of what that means.

SPEAKER_07

We have honest conversations on this podcast about trauma, healing, and faith. But today I'm joined by someone who knows all about all of that. And her name is Sharon Kay Ball. She's a counselor, fellow counselor, speaker, founder of Nine Paths, and owner of Saracet Franklin. Sharon is passionate about helping people understand how they're uniquely wired and untangle the impact of past wounds. She helps them to step into greater emotional and spiritual health. So she's a trauma-informed therapist. Sharon, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have a fellow trauma-informed therapist. Me too.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Lisa, for having me.

SPEAKER_07

So tell everyone a little, give us a little overview first about yourself, and then we'll get into some of these questions I'm dying to ask you.

SPEAKER_02

Sure. So I have sat in my chair for the last 25 years, like you, probably listening to stories. And of course, when I um got my master's, there was little to almost no information about trauma or any type of, you know, research on the brain science behind trauma. And so along the way, picked up uh extra certifications because I realized as I was listening to clients, there's more to this story much than just talk therapy and working things out. Um, what they were working out has also impacted their body, yes, their brain, um, and even on a physical level, their heart.

SPEAKER_07

Yes. So wow, and so you decided you were gonna go deeper. When did you graduate? When I'm wondering if we graduate around the same time.

SPEAKER_02

So that would have been, you know, my daughter, I I got pregnant the year I was graduated. So that would have been 2000. Okay. Um, mine was even more old. Mine was 1994. Okay. So I was graduating with my criminal justice degree. Okay, cool.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

I had my master's then, but even back then, that's why when you said that it resonated, there was nothing about trauma at all. So people think typically trauma is about just a single event. How would you define it in a way that people can understand a little bit better?

SPEAKER_02

So the impact of trauma and trauma itself is anything that impacts a person's physical body well-being from a threat, a perceived threat, or an actual threat to their physical well-being. So that can overwhelm the nervous system. So it doesn't have to be just um, you know, car racing towards you or a fire in your house. It can be a little person with a big person screaming at them, and the little person feeling like their physical body is not safe. And so it overwhelms the nervous system, and that is the impact of trauma. And to each his own. So you could I could put 20 people in that house that's caught on fire, and each person is going to respond differently to the impact of that traumatic event. Um, which is why it's so important for us as providers to really work with each individual, you know, just like your fingerprint. Right. To make each session count for them and not just cookie cutter. Right.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah. And I think that's how therapy is, at least in my experience, you know, when you go to school, you can remember way back when we had, you know, cognitive behavior, here's what you do. Until you get client X that doesn't exactly follow into that pattern. So you often say that the trauma responses are adaptive. Is that what you're referring to then? Yes. Okay. Can you explain what that means and why that's important?

SPEAKER_02

Sure. So no matter how old you are, um you're faced with something that is threatening you. Right. Your your body feels in danger, it's going to adapt in that scenario to keep yourself safe. Right. It's going to move into survival mode, and so the nervous system is going to send messages to the brain to, hey, you are not safe. The brain is going to respond in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode. Yep. And then what we see is if that person doesn't receive care after that experience, whether it be acute or a chronic trauma, then the brain, their their brain gets stuck in a trauma feedback loop. Yep. And it stays stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode. And the person then operates out of that and they become reactive to scenarios rather than receptive. And we can understand why. Because those strategies are actually brilliant. They're keeping that person. Yes. Yep. Yes.

SPEAKER_07

The brain and God designed the brain to do that. But I I called it, I live in the country. I live out in a little town called Vienna, props to Vienna, Ohio. And I I ran a lot of lawnmowers with a lot of throttles that got stuck.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_07

Right? Is that kind of that's what I said it was like because it felt like you can't get it unstuck. So your way of unsticking it is how?

SPEAKER_02

Can you tell us about what you do? Sure, I think there's many different types of modalities, and it's just really important for a client to understand that what works for one person might not work for them, and to keep trying. That not every modality. So you mentioned cognitive behavioral. Well, that's still the go-to for the Department of Veteran Affairs for our veterans. But all of us who do work with veterans know that that doesn't really work with PTSD. So we do more somatic work with them, working with their bodies to relax their bodies, working with their brains. So I just want to make sure that people know, keep trying. Now with the the Brain Wellness Center, SARACET, we're seeing tremendous results with the brain echo sessions that we do, where we're working with the left and the right hemisphere and the temporal lobes and regulating. So when you think of what it does to your brain and you get stuck, sometimes you can't get unstuck through talk therapy. That's right. And those neural pathways learn how to continue to work around. You know, so great example of that is you're on the freeway and it's bottlenecked. So you decide to go off on the next exit. And you work around the bottleneck and you pop back onto the freeway two miles down. Yeah. That's what your brain is doing. And it's why it's ingenious. Yes. It's why it's so fatigued too. Brain fog. Tired, you know. So then we have people who've gone through trauma trying to recover, but then their brain isn't on working on f all full cylinders, but we have to admire it because it at least is keeping them alive. Right. It's surviving. Right. Um so combine that with talk therapy and um What do you think of I'm I'm a practitioner in TFCBT.

SPEAKER_07

So that's what I do. Okay. And it seems to work for the ones that I have some that go to EMDR. I'm not a practitioner in that. But it does go through the body and it does do relaxation and it does psychoeducation and all of those things. So I think if you just do straight CBT, I mean that's just not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02

And you said the word psychoeducation, which I get fired up about because so many of my clients, if I can just put language around what their experience is, then they feel normal.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, that's why I have this podcast, because the one of the very first things we talked about was, you know, it's not your fault. It's not your fault, your behavior and your healing is your responsibility, but the trauma that happened to you is not your fault. I think that's my theme because they go, well, what do you mean? It's and I think that's kind of what you're saying a little bit, is it?

SPEAKER_02

Oh yes. So if you can eliminate or lift some of that guilt or shame just by giving language to what they're experiencing and then supportive, a supportive network around them, you're providing an environment for the brain and the body to relax, to repair. And the most important thing for me with clients is to make sure that they're sleeping well, they're eating well, and they're drinking water. I know it sounds so simple. True, but if you think of you're trying to do that repair work, the brain needs to sleep in order to reset. So if you're not getting seven hours of sleep, is that the minimum I think yes. Your brain can't rest and repair. If you're not feeding and fueling your body with good nutrition and drinking water, your body is still gonna be guarded up. You know, it's still gonna be ready for the next shoe to drop. So you know, looking at those are steps, easy steps, separate from therapy that anyone can do.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, yes. It works with it. So the people you see, are they a certain demographic or are you just across the board? You see everybody in your practice?

SPEAKER_02

Sure. So when I first started out, it was primarily children going through trauma. Yes. Um and then I have moved into more just specific trauma cases and and kind of keep my practice fairly small and focus more on uh giving me time if I get called out. I work with the Red Cross too, so I will deploy and so it gives me kind of more movement um to work across the board for any population or community.

SPEAKER_07

So you get mobilized when there's a hurricane or really? Wow. Yeah, yeah. Wow. So you've seen a lot of acute cases, immediate cases you have to deal with. Yeah. Do you handle those differently, like if you have a person that needs to be taken care of in the moment as opposed to taking time to work through all these things?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, so it's interesting. I learned that really quick. I was deployed, I think it was 2004 when the tsunami hit. I don't know if you remember that. Yes, I do remember seeing, wasn't that in was it? It was Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and India. And I got sent to Sri Lanka for a couple weeks. And um what I thought I it was my first deployment for natural disaster overseas. What I thought I was going to do didn't work. It it I I scratched it once I got there because it was all about meeting the people, food, clothing, shelter. Right. That was it, and providing uh a psychologically safe person, me, an environment for them to just sit um, because we were working with children who who had gone mute um because the trauma was so severe. So in those cases, um I show up just very internally regulated, and I am working with my mirror neurons to make sure that I am providing that safe space to calm down their nervous system without them even realizing what I'm doing. Because I am taking care of myself, I am regulated, and they just need somebody to just follow. That's different than if somebody were to land in my office and I know I got to work with them. For time, over time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I I didn't realize that you were deployed. That that's traumatic on you. So how did you handle self-care?

SPEAKER_02

Sure. So a lot of our providers that do deploy or work in situations like that um experience vicarious traumatization um or compassion fatigue. And I think I didn't realize I had experienced the secondhand trauma till about six months later. And I was in active therapy anyways. My therapist said, Hey, I mean, you're you're you're mentioning these things, and I think this could have impacted you. Because I came home and hit the ground running.

SPEAKER_07

You never slowed down, did you? We can't slow down.

SPEAKER_02

You had clients waiting. I step kept going. So I he helped me recognize it. And then this last deployment I did in October was we had a huge, horrific blast go off here in Tennessee. Um I remember that. And it killed several people, tore the community apart. And when I got the call, I was at the beach with my son and his buddies for sp for fall break, but we went ahead and came back, and I remember thinking, hey, how are you gonna prepare yourself going into this? Because you don't know who you're gonna be helping, what stories you're going to hear. And I scheduled to take off the the next five days. So once I was there, um I took time off so that I could not necessarily cognitively process, but take care of my body. Yes. And give my brain the space to kind of reset. Yes. And then I processed.

SPEAKER_07

After.

SPEAKER_02

So I've learned, I've learned along the way what what I need to do.

SPEAKER_07

It's hard though as a therapist to do that, isn't it? I mean I am thinking when I go home from this this NRB convention that I'm gonna need a few days to regroup because not because it was bad, just because it was really, really good and I'm overwhelmed with the good.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, you know, and most of us can just jump right into our regular schedules. Right. We're just not thinking and being proactive, and then that's when it kind of ends up biting you on the back end. So, what are some of the common ways then trauma shows up if you see it on a person? Yeah, so I think again I want to reiterate every person is different, just like our fingerprint. But there are some commonalities that we can look for. And I think after about six weeks, I'm looking for someone who um is having a hard time sleeping or sleeping too much. We're looking for extremes.

SPEAKER_07

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

You know, so weepiness that is appropriate for what they experience, but it it continues, and we're not seeing any hope come into the storyline. Um not wanting to eat or overeating, vacancy. You know, I really look for someone who's showing up, but not present. They're still tied to that event, and that just tells me there's there's nothing wrong with them. It just tells me they're still surviving. Right. They haven't processed it. Yes, their their body doesn't believe that they're safe. And that's one thing, your body will be the last to believe that you're actually safe from the event that you've experienced. So if you have an acute trauma, it's a lot easier, like a natural disaster, to go, okay, I can pinpoint this is where this happened. But many people are in chronic traumas, um, whether it's an illness, um, you know, a nasty conflictual divorce, and they're caught up into, you know, court proceedings, to unemployment, to poverty, and it it goes on and on and on, and they just get used to being in that. That's a little harder to discern and label trauma because they figured out more workarounds. I was just gonna say they they make it work.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, and it's a part of who they are, it becomes their identity in a way. Yep, yep. Wow. So you have said that sometimes we call personality protection. What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_02

Well, you know, without getting into all the ego structure and everything. You know, our personalities, we they they were birthed out of um our childhood and and wanting to figure out how to survive in our environment. And it doesn't always mean a traumatic environment. Right. It's just, hey, when something feels uncomfortable. So for me, you know, I grew up as a pastor's kid and I learned very quick how to perform and make people feel good. Keep everyone happy. Yes, yes, smile. Yeah. So that kept me, you know, when I felt uncomfortable, that's what I would kick into. That would be your personality. And underneath your personality is the more vulnerable side to you, you know, the the the the truest form of who you are that doesn't need protection. Um but we all move every day through these parts of us, um, the personality that just shows up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

And I think we adapt. That word is just like like you said, your brain adapts, we adapt. And as women, at least I can say, you know, we've as a mom, as a therapist, as a stepmother, uh, as a business owner, you know, if you're not adapting, you're you have to adapt in some regards.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

But it's the adaptation that becomes too much, right?

SPEAKER_02

Is that kind of where you're yeah, it can, you know, just like the ceiling in this room, you can use it and then you reach a ceiling with it and it no longer works for you. So so then you have to adapt and figure out what does.

SPEAKER_07

Mine was people pleasing. That was, you know, and hypervigilance. Like I said in an earlier episode, people can walk in a room and okay, that person looks angry. That person are ups they're upset with me about something. Are you okay? Are you mad? All of that.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_07

I have a PhD in that. Not anymore. I relinquished my degree. But so the coping patterns develop out of stress or trauma.

SPEAKER_02

And you know, again, to each his own, I'm gonna cope in in this way differently than you will cope. So that's why you can have a whole family experience the same trauma and they all come out interacting with that trauma differently. Because their brain is different, each brain is different, and each body is different. So um it's why I always encourage clients to just huge amounts of compassion and kindness towards yourself when you're recovering from a traumatic situation. And then I wonder, are there people that come out of it unscathed? So that might go back to their personality and what they've learned as a child. So, yeah, there are some people that can encounter um situations and not have adverse um effects. Okay, take a look at our military. Oh, yes, they have to. We can train them not to have an adverse until they get back into civilian life. And their wife is like, why don't you respond to me? They need those mechanisms that we actually worked out of them. Wow.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah. I could talk to you for a whole nother day. I because it's just nice to see a kindred spirit with this. Um where can people find out more about you and the resources you have?

SPEAKER_02

Sure. So you can go to Sharon K Ball.com and reach me there. I've got some courses that are coming up. Um I've got a book that's out, and you can just find all of that on the website.

SPEAKER_07

Oh, this has been a very meaningful and extremely like close to my heart, because this is what it's all about with me, founder of Nine Paths. Got to look into that a little bit. Yes, that's corporate work for psych workplace psychological safety. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you hear that? That's good. Sharon, thank you for sharing your insight on all this emotional health, healing, and understanding. And I hope to talk to you again soon at some point. Thank you. And that's it. That's all the time we have today. So if today's discussion did encourage you, we invite you to share this episode with someone who could benefit from it. And be sure to follow the show so you don't miss future conversations like this. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on the Ampcast.

SPEAKER_05

You've been listening to the Amp Cast with Elisa Marie Pro Cop. To find out more, go to Ampcounseling.com. You can discover more information about all our services that we offer. Be sure to follow our social media platforms using the icons at the bottom of the page. Don't forget to check out our show notes for today's episode, where we will have links and contact info for today's guests. Well, that's all the time we have for this episode. Thanks for joining us, and we will see you next time for another edition of the AmpCast with Elizabeth Pro Cop, Dealing and Healing from Trauma.