Episode 2: Anxiety, Burnout, and the Cost of Carrying It Alone

What if anxiety isn't the problem, it's your nervous system trying to get your attention?

In this personal episode, Dana shares the story of her father's lifelong struggle with anxiety, how unresolved grief can impact both mental and physical health, and why burnout is often the result of a nervous system that has been running on empty for far too long. 

In this episode, you'll learn:

•  Why anxiety is a signal, not a flaw 
•  The connection between grief, stress, and burnout 
•  How unresolved experiences affect the nervous system 
•  Why healing happens through connection, not isolation 
•  How EMDR helps the brain process what feels stuck 

Because healing starts when we stop asking, "What's wrong with me?" and start asking, "What happened to me?"

Ready to Go Beyond Coping?

At Peaceful Living Mental Health Counseling, we help adults heal anxiety, burnout, trauma, and relationship patterns through trauma-informed therapy and EMDR.

📍 In-Person Therapy: Scarsdale, NY
💻 Virtual Therapy: NY, NJ, CT, FL & CO residents

Learn more or schedule a consultation:
 www.peacefullivingmhc.com

Additional Resources

🧠 EMDR Resources for Clinicians & Clients:
www.danacarretta.com/shop

🛠️ Recommended Therapy Tools, Regulation Resources & EMDR Systems for Clinicians:
www.danacarretta.com/therapytools

🎁 Free Nervous System Resources:
www.danacarretta.com/free

If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs the reminder:

You were never meant to carry it all alone. 💙

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to another episode of The Truth About Healing, a podcast that's here to challenge everything you think you knew about therapy. I'm Dana Koretiskine, EMDR and neuroinformed therapist. And I'm on a mission to help 10 million people change their patterns, relationships, and future generations by teaching them how to gain control of their nervous system. Let's go with it. So welcome everybody to episode two of the Truth About Healing Podcast. Today's kind of a special day. If I get emotional, like not going to say sorry because I'm not sorry for how I feel, but just giving you a heads up, I might cry. So today's my dad's birthday. So it's March 23rd as we're recording this. And for anyone who knows anything about my business, it's uh the name of my practice is called Peaceful Living Mental Health Counseling. And that was very intentionally named because peaceful living, those are my dad's initials, Philip Lewis. Um, so today is, you know, the day he came into this world, and it's a day I always celebrate. Um, I don't really celebrate, um, not celebrate, but I don't really like pay too much attention to the day he passed or things like that because that's not what I want to hold on to. But the day he came into this world is absolutely something that I like to celebrate. So later we're gonna have um Herity of Dinner planned with my family. We're gonna have a cake like we do every year for his birthday. And it's a way to honor his life and his legacy and the things that um we all learned from him. And a lot of what I learned from him or what I continue to try to pass down in my work as a therapist, in my work as a mom. And there are some things too that I've learned from him that I don't want to pass down. Um, and that's important too, because I love my father and he wasn't perfect. So little background on, like, you know, why I became a therapist and so forth. We always say it's, you know, I wanted to help people. Um, but a little more details behind it. My dad was the greatest dad in the world, and he had absolutely horrible anxiety, like pure panic disorder, lived on Xanax a lot, um, and had a really hard time coping with stressful life experiences. And there's a million reasons I could go into the history, what you know, that is there. Um, but really what happened for me and the kind of the theme that we're going to be talking about today is this anxiety and burnout, and that's how this all connects. Um, but what really I experienced growing up was being so aware of my dad's anxiety. And so I really was trained to pay more attention to how he was feeling than to really notice what my insides were doing. So so much of you know, my childhood was making sure my dad was okay. And I got it back tenfold because he he did the same for me as well. Um, but then when I think about it as a therapist, I'm like, uh, it's not really a kid's job to regulate your parents' emotions. Um, but that's how I grew up. You know, I was the the joke maker, the clown. I making anybody laugh to try to like break the anxiety tension. Um and I saw how my dad's anxiety affected my mom. It was really hard for her. You know, there was a lot of pressure on her to handle everything. Um, and I'm sure having her adult child now still need calling her for help with, oh my God, can you come help me with my laundry? I'm sure that doesn't help her situation. Um, but you know, love you, mommy. So appreciate you. Um, but I saw how like my dad's anxiety really affected, affected him, affected my mom. Um, and because I'm very big, everyone who knows me, I'm very big on not blaming our parents, but understanding our parents and the dynamic at play. Um, because that you can feel angry as, you know, for the things that you might not have gotten to experience as a child, and you can have compassion for what your parents went through and why, you know, they might have been so anxious. You know, my dad lost his firstborn child, um, his daughter Caroline, and I might get a little emotional, but um I saw how much that affected him every day after, and he never talked about it, right? So like I knew it was a thing because it wasn't something that was talked about. Um, my daughter now is named after my sister, my would have been sister, her name's Caroline. Um, but that really affected my dad on um a lot of levels. Um, as you can imagine, losing a child is not something that any parent should have to go through. Um, but you know, this anxiety, something would happen to me, my sister, my brother, let, you know, always there. Um, and then left untreated, right? A lot of like anxiety or stories that don't get talked about and don't get processed. My dad had terrible panic attacks. And so much of that was not letting himself grieve and not letting himself um be present with those emotions. Some of it is um, you know, he was a guy and he was, you know, he was born in 1943. So, you know, that's silent generation. So let alone being a male, but like feelings weren't even something to consider, right? We're just kind of like everybody's in the middle of World War II and and more direct survival, and emotions are not something we need for direct survival at the moment. So all of that plays in. Um but yeah, I saw that anxiety and what happens to the body over time and and burnout and so forth. Um it's really important, I think, that we notice how untreated anxiety uh affects our nervous system and leads to burnout. And when I say treated, I want to be very, very clear that one of the things that bothers me in the world kind of that we live in is that we look at anxiety as a disorder, which it's not. Like I can't stand when people will say, I have anxiety. No, anxiety is not something you have, it's something you feel. And we all feel anxious from time to time. Where we get stuck on that anxiety, where we feel it a lot more than maybe a quote unquote typical person might, is because there is something in our past or present that is not getting addressed. Where when we feel really, really anxious, there are times where we can self-regulate, and that means we can do things like take a breath, go out in nature, those things that help us calm ourselves. But there is also a point when, especially through like the loss of a child or any loss, like we're not supposed to grieve alone, that we need co-regulation. And this is also so important when we think about childhood development, because babies don't know how to self-regulate. They learn self-regulation through co-regulation. So this ability to co-regulate means that I'm I'm grieving, I'm so distraught, I'm so upset that there is an empathic witness to what I'm going through. So I'm not grieving alone. And that's really, really important because if we don't get that, that energy, that mobilization uh stays stuck in our nervous system. It's in its raw, undigested state. So we are still on edge and anxious, and then the smallest thing can happen and boom, panic attack. Because we really learned that all of those emotions that we we might feel with grief or what have you, that they're not normal. We're not supposed to feel them, even though we we know that we are. Um, but our nervous system thinks that we're not. So, you know, growing up with uh in my house where, you know, I had a very happy childhood and I had parents who weren't perfect, like I'm sure the majority of us. Um, but seeing how that unresolved grief really led to this anxiety in my dad, and that did ultimately lead to burnout. You know, um, I don't know if anyone really knows the story of my dad, but um, he passed away when he was 72 years old from multiple sclerosis. And it's an autoimmune disease. And if anyone's read Um When the Body Says No by Gabor Matei, there's so much that talks about how unhealed things in our body can affect our physical health. Um, and I saw that with my dad. And that's definitely, you know, quote unquote burnout. Burnout's not just um, oh, I can't get out of bed, I'm exhausted. It can unresolved distress, grief, anxiety really can stay trapped in the nervous system and break your body down. And I saw what that did to my dad, and ultimately that's what he passed away from. He was only 72 years old. Um, but it was really, really hard to see how that affected him. And part of, you know, what drives me now is okay, I I've seen what unresolved distress can do. And I want to try, I couldn't save my dad. And I've worked through enough therapy in my life to realize that it was never my responsibility to save him. Um, and we all have to want to save ourselves. But so much of what continues to drive me is, well, here's some information. That's what this podcast is all about, right? Here is information that, if it does help you, give you the information to save yourself so that you can enjoy life and not um die too soon, uh, feel isolated, feel alone with your feelings. You know, I think back to the last years of my dad's life, and they're not great, you know. I didn't love that he was in a nursing home and um didn't get to be with us every second of every day. And I hate that. Um, so if there's information that I can share with others about how to uh embrace our emotions in a comfortable way, even if just me being a person on this podcast listening and talking is making you feel like, oh, someone gets it. I'm not alone and feeling this way, and that helps you, that's beautiful and that's what I want. So anxiety and burnout is absolutely um a topic that we need to pay attention to and being not being alone with our feelings because it's all connected, right? Like anxiety, burnout comes from feeling some most of the time alone with these emotions. And the UCLA loneliness study showed that individuals who scored higher experiences of like felt loneliness, not you know, a state of being alone, but you could be in a room full of people and still feel lonely, those people had a 20-year-less life expectancy. So sit with that for a second of wow, feeling isolated or like nobody gets me, that nobody cares how I feel, that can actually take years off your life.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

So how would what do we where do we start when unpacking burnout and anxiety? Um let's say we have X subject. Yep that that you know has suffered anxiety, does not you know, suffer anxiety all the time, right? But they have suffered, they have experienced it, and definitely burnout. How can they start to lessen the burnout feeling? Um what what what coping skills are there to kind of start working on that?

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yeah, yeah. Um, so burnout is usually what happens when anxiety goes on and on for too long without any relief. So if we think of the state of the nervous system, there's fight or flight, which is sympathetic nervous system activation, and then there's shutdown and collapse, which is okay, we've been in this fight or flight, kind of like revving the edge and revving the engine, and it we don't go anywhere. There's no end in sight, there's no, okay, relief. So the body will then say, okay, I'm gonna start shutting down because it seems like there's um the danger, the threat is not leaving. So I go into this feigned death response. So I start disconnecting from my felt sense, from my emotional sense. I don't experience pain as intensely. I it's not just sadness, it's numb and shutting down because your body is perceiving that death might be sooner than not, because there is no relief from the anxiety. Like we can't run on the think of it like a racetrack, right? Like goes round and round and round and round and round. And if it doesn't stop for a pit stop, right, to get guests in the car, to to change the tires, it's not gonna finish the race at all. And that's exactly how our bodies are wired. Like we need pit stops, we need like these moments of decompression, whether it's co-regulating with supportive people in our life, that can help us um not feel so alone with our feelings. Or if it's with, you know, we need to just be alone and decompress to let that nervous system kind of settle, that's that pit stop. Um, but that's where that burnout comes from, is from anxiety that has not had any relief, any pit stop. So the first way to kind of cope through that to the coping skills are we need to build in pit stops. We need to build in these checkpoints, are when when do we know that we are exceeding our body's ability to cope with this sensation, whether it's panic, whether anxiety, stress, like any of that. Like we are all stressed. It's 2026. Find me a person that's not stressed, and I will find you somebody who's a robot. Um, but we're all um experiencing stress, and stress is a good thing. A lot of people don't realize that um the goal in life is to not have a stress-free life because then we would not be very resilient and we wouldn't be able to tolerate the smallest thing that comes our way. But we need to become more aware of our optimal stress levels and when that ability to tolerate that stress gets exceeded, that's when we need a pit stop. So the first technique, so to speak, is how do you know what's your threshold? Everybody to really like do a self-assessment of how do you know you've hit your max and that's the first step. Like, do you get really hot? Do you start getting tension in your neck? Um, do you start snapping at the people around you? Those are usually telltale signs that, all right, you need a little bit of a break, take a timeout, right? The reason why timeouts were a thing for children is it's not because they were bad to put in a corner. It's okay, it's overwhelming and like let's have a little decompression time. So, first just get really aware of what that is for you. Everybody's different. What are the signs that you know you've hit your max? Then from there, okay, so now I know this. What can I actually do? What do what decompresses me? And again, everybody's different. We all have things that um, you know, fill our tank, so to speak. Uh, for some someone who's very social, that might be like social engagement and going out with friends and doing things. My husband, he loves like to actually go out and do things with others that actually fills his cup more versus when I'm stressed, I need to go to my bed and I need to just like be alone in like a sensory deprivation environment where there's like no sounds and no like overwhelming um smells and things like that because my sensory system is always on high alert. Um, so that's what I need to kind of fill the gas in my tank. So knowing what works for you is gonna be really, really helpful because that's how you can start to implement coping skills and things like that that are actually sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

How do you go about finding what is that thing that I guess calms you or or regulates you?

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Think about the time that you felt like you were your best. So oftentimes we um have trouble like when we're asked on the spot, like, oh, I don't I don't know what works for me. But and this is why EMDR therapy works, right? Memories and things are stored by association. So if you're trying to figure out what works for you, think about the time a time that you experienced joy, that you felt like you were the best version of yourself. I mean, notice what comes to mind. Like, Claudia, do you have like something like when do you feel like um you're like in the zone and you feel really good?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Um so sports was one of them. And obviously I'm on the older side, so now um I think pickleball is one of those like physical activities that that bring me joy and bring me calm. And not even understanding it like that way, yeah. I think as you're as you're talking, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yeah, movement.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

But playing, and it's not just the movement, it's playing and enjoying that little bit of a competitive thing that once used to fill my my life, yeah, is something that I think can bring me some joy. Another thing is which is kind of weird, is I was telling my wife, is like um high thrill kind of things, which is weird to say, but like you know, like driving fast, which that's not the one because that's dangerous, guys. Don't do that. Driving fast on like a track, right? Like a go-kart or like but those kind of experiences that almost like bring a lot of adrenaline to you, yes, those fill me, those make me happy. That that that environment of feeling high adrenaline, yeah, I guess makes me happy if I'm if I'm thinking about this correctly.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

That's very well said, too, for someone who um, let's say if you if your dopamine's lower because based on uh dopamine can be lower for a whole host of reasons, but then our body will seek adrenaline as a replacement for that because dopamine is motivation and reward. And it's usually on the lower side because we might not be engaging in things that are rewarding and joyful. So sometimes we need to rely on norepinephrine or adrenaline to give us the mobilization to do the thing that gives us reward, joy, things like that. So as long as that um at that adrenaline rush is getting you to a point where you actually like experience, like you're enjoying driving fast and things like that, as long as you're producing the dopamine after that, then we're good. We don't want to create a situation where we overly rely on narpinephrine on our adrenaline as the feel-good um neurotransmitter, so to speak, because adrenaline is adrenaline and cortisol are our body's stress responses. When we grow up in very stressful environments, we become addicted to our stress hormones. And so we, in order to quote unquote feel good, we seek situations out that have that same effect. And that usually tells me as a therapist, okay, you might not have had enough experiences when you were younger that were rewarding and that made you feel good. So your body really just learned that the only way to feel good was to feel stressed, to feel overly stressed. So that's where we want to unpack a little bit of yeah, what what brings you joy? Um because see, even that simple question of you know, what are some ways that we can, you know, feel good, and then asking the question, when was last time, that takes us to maybe a deeper layer where there's some work to be done. And it's really helpful to know that. This is why I love like the trauma-informed approach and the neuro-informed approach, because it we look at those neurotransmitters and then we go, oh, I can start to see the bigger picture of you know what's happening in this person's nervous system, and that starts to make the pattern a little clearer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Okay, so I understand um, I understand that portion now. Um so that I would assume that the the regular um, the habitual um way of put giving yourself those times to get calm, to kind of recalibrate, to be at peace, yeah, is the ultimate goal. Having a a a habit that is like whether it's once a day, once a week, twice a whatever, whatever that may look like for you is the goal.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

So for those people that are not there yet, right, and you happen to fall into these moments of burnout, um there's there's a two-part question. One, how, what do you do in those moments to quickly, and I know that's kind of a cop out, right? The quickly portion.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah, there are quick things, but yeah, we'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

But also like understanding the triggers that get you to those places, because that is something that is very real for me right now, is like I'm starting to like identify, yeah. Triggers that happen, I still can't help them. Like it still happens. I see it coming. It happens. Then I'm in it. Then I can't get myself out of it right away. And after the fact, especially like I've calmed down or whatever, then I'm like identifying, okay, that was the trigger. The trigger is this, and I'll still go in deeper as to like where that came from. Yeah. And that's as far as I make it, because I'm not educated in this stuff. But so understanding those two things, how do you kind of like cope with that portion?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

So two things can happen. You can have the self-awareness that your body will um, you'll notice your body and and you'll just be able to say, okay, I need to put myself in a timeout. And if you don't, your body will make the decision for you. And that's it's really usually what happens. Like if we look at um when people get sick and things like that, cortisol is really, really helpful for getting through a stressful situation. However, when left uh unregulated and cortisol is just free flowing through the body like crazy because someone's always stressed, it weakens the immune system. So someone's usually gonna boom get sick. And then your body, it's your body's way of saying, like, get your ass on the couch because you didn't listen, and now I'm gonna have to take over and force you to listen.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Okay, so to to rebut this a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah. Um I love a good challenge.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

No, we go through a a weird uh moment that brings stress, yeah, brings a little bit of that nervous like system kind of breaks down a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

And in that moment, you recognize you recognize it. Yeah, this is starting to affect me.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

I need I need a timeout. Yeah, cool. I time out and I'm like, and remember, this is this is life, right? So sometimes the triggers can be with somebody else in the moment. It could be at work, it could you could be at work with somebody. So you can't just like test out in a moment. I can't be like, well, timeout guy. I gotta go home and and and and recalibrate. So in that moment, the timeout is like, all right, let me remove myself from the danger area moment.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

And what do I do after that to kind of bring myself back down to kind of process what triggered me and kind of move on?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

I love that question. Because let's say, let's use that example. Let's say you're talking to like your boss or something and you're getting activated by something maybe the boss said, and you also know like cognitively, like, okay, well, if I like just exit stage left out of here, like I could get fired. I don't want to do that, like whatever. So, in that moment, when you are interacting with that person and you're getting triggered, a couple things you could do is tapping your feet on the floor left and right, or you know, anything to kind of um engage bilateral movement, that's to get through that moment because when we do two things at once, right? Like listening to the person who's talking to us and trying to, you know, move our hands side to side, count backwards from 10, that's taxing the working memory. So by splitting our attention on two different things, the emotional intensity decreases because we literally cannot multi multitask, so to speak, with all of our attention on both things. So the brain has to boop split. So we split attention on two things, and then the emotional intensity is gonna drop. And that's the working memory theory that basically EMDR is based upon. So that can help while you're in the middle of that distressing event. And then afterwards, like when that event ends, then say, okay, I need to go take a 10-minute break, go walk outside. It's something to just get movement in your body. We're wired to freaking move. We're not meant to like sit still and whatever. So that's when some people are like, oh, I hate meditation. I don't want to sit still. I'm like, you don't have to. Meditation isn't just like, um, it's just go outside, feel the sun on your face. Let yourself think about what just happened. Of like, oh God, yeah, my boss is a dick. That was a really hard conversation and he fucking sucks. Let it rip. You're not supposed to feel good about everything. You're not supposed to like everybody. Like, let yourself have a fucking feeling, but give yourself space for it. And that's usually the decompression that happens afterwards, or you call a friend, right? Like something ever happens, I usually call my sister, like, oh, this person was a dick. Like, and then that's a safe person for me. And she's like, Yeah, no, they suck. And then you feel good because you're like, oh, somebody gets it. And that's support systems that helps us process our emotions and is the decompression time that we kind of need after a stressful experience.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Awesome. That's actually very helpful, especially especially in those moments that it because it becomes very overwhelming when those things happen. And especially when you become overwhelmed, you almost get tunnel visioned and you even forget some of the things that are like that you know probably can be good for you. Yep. And you start in this like downward spiral of like that thought pattern. Um, can you do are you familiar with havening? Uh it's like this this little thing that you like, you kind of touch your let me put the mic up a little higher. You kind of like rub your arm. So I've been learning about this a little bit. Somebody put it in my perspective. Um, and so you basically do this like motion, and the cameras can't see, but hopefully you can do this for anybody who needs to say. Yes, and through doing this and having intentionally putting the thoughts of the and I'm getting better, so I'm not an expert by any means. So that's why I was actually.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

You're a human being and you're an expert on being a human.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

So it's just all but doing this and then like thinking of the traumatic um moments or the things that kind of cause that stress. Yeah. And the it this supposedly allows you to see things more objectively and without that feeling and that attachment to like I felt this way or did this way. And ultimately, right. The more you do that, apparently, is supposed are you familiar with this with that process or not?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

It sounds very I'm not familiar with that, but it sounds very similar to EMDR.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Well, when you start talking about like the tapping your feet or or doing like those kind of things, yeah, it kind of reminded me of it. And then you did kind of touch your arms like this too.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Yeah, like we do this, we call this the butterfly hug with EMDR, where we do just left and right movement. And it can be, it doesn't always have to just be bilateral. It could just be, you know, uh tactile input. So with neuroception and interoception, these, you know, um terms about the nervous system. Anytime I do this, my body is processing a an experience, uh, a sensation, and it's sending signals to my brain to let me know, like, okay, that's a that's a safe touch. It's or you know, if someone was like punching me, it would register as pain. But when we're doing that while engaging in something that's really, really stressful, like focusing on a traumatic experience, again, that splits the attention so that we are not getting re-traumatized. Cause if all like let's say uh a traumatic event occurs, all of our attention was on that moment, like when we experienced it, and it was overwhelming to the nervous system. So it got stuck in that raw state. So the intensity was too big for it to digest. So when we go in with EMDR, we okay, let's go back to that experience with either bilateral movement, uh, you know, some type of input. Then all of a sudden the emotional intensity decreases. So now what that experience was can actually start to get digested because we've kind of spread out the amount of emotional intensity. I always just picture like a funnel in my head. It's like this funnel, and there's all this emotion. And if it's too much at once, it gets jammed and it can't flow through. But if we kind of take a little bit out first, then it could start to flow through and then put a little bit more in. And that's what EMDR is. It's going, okay, now let's go back to the memory and what's the worst part about it now? And then a little bit more drips through. And okay, now let's what's the worst part about it now? And that's how EMDR works because it splits your attention so that you're not focusing on everything at once, and then nothing can flow through. You can't process anything because it's just information overload. It's like a traffic jam in your brain.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

So the way I'm interpreting what you're saying is almost like a it's like the beginning, what sounds like the beginning portions of like rewiring your brain, your pattern, your thought patterns, your thinking patterns, your feeling patterns.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Is that kind of, am I kind of on the right page? Yeah. Um, and the next obvious question is well, how do we get to the end? How do we rewire our brain so that those triggers are no longer triggers, so that those traumatic experiences don't weigh on us in probably the most inopportune moments of life. Right. How do we get past that? How do we overcome that? How do we forget it? Maybe forget is the wrong word.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

We're never gonna forget it. I always say, yeah, unpack it is beautiful. Love it. I say unpack it. Yep, I use it all the time. Because we um I always joke, I'm like when people ask about EMDR, I'm like, it's not like men in black where they're like and they like yeah, they like totally like wipe out your memories. Um, but how it really works is that it all comes down to the brain. So when an experience has actually not been encoded into memory, it is stuck in its raw state. So it gets stuck in like the amygdala, the limbic system, the hippocampus, all of that. And it's not kind of tucked away into long-term memory. So when we go in with EMDR and we actually process that reliving, because it's not a memory yet, that's why it's we're still getting triggered, then it actually gets stored correctly, and then you automatically don't get triggered anymore.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

So is is the the word triggering, the the trigger word, that means it's not uh a part of the core memories. It's it's part of a living raw. Is that what you're you're explaining?

SPEAKER_00 31:57

A trigger is an association to a past experience that has not been fully digested. Yeah. Yeah. A trigger, I would say triggers a doorway to the past that needs healing.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Okay, so hold on. Maybe I stuck. So how do we get how do we how do we unpack it? How do we address it so that it's no longer a trigger?

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yeah. So how EMDR therapy works is that it's based on the three-prong approach, past, present, future. So typically when we create a treatment plan, someone comes in and we're like, okay, tell me about the triggers. Like, where do you notice? Like, if you're coming into EMDR therapy because you have panic attacks, okay. Let's think of um a recent panic attack that you've I talk fast because I get so excited about it. But think of a recent panic attack that you've had. And let's we start breaking down the components of that experience. What thoughts did you have in that panic attack? What emotions did you have? What body sensations did you have? What was the worst part about that panic attack? Was it a smell, a sound? It could be something completely unrelated to what you thought. Human beings love to try to like find the answer. So we're like, well, I know what it was about. It was because of this, blah, blah, blah. But then we actually start EMDR and they're like, this is totally random. I did not know that this, I don't know why I'm thinking of this right now. Because the brain, like neurons that fire together, wire together. So that's how the triggers are associated with past experiences. So when we do that treatment plan, we get a list of those present-day triggers based on the symptoms that you're experiencing. We create a target sequence plan, it's called, which is okay, this trigger is connected to which memories or memory network. And then this trigger is connected to that one and so forth. And then future is how do you wish you could feel in those moments when you get triggered? How do you wish you could respond instead? Like what would your ideal self do if that trigger occurred? And then we process there's a bunch of different ways to do it, and no way is wrong. It really just depends on the client and you know what what's best for them in that moment. But we typically will start with targeting a past experience or past neural network because there's usually multiple memories in one network and start digesting them. And after that, that neural network is clear, so to speak, and we know it's clear because there's rating scales built in with EMDR. There's all these like checkpoints that help us as the therapist to know if there's anything left that's still unprocessed. And then we go to the present-day trigger that that memory was connected to. And then we desensitize that as well. So now just focus on that trigger, whether it's, you know, the smell of uh burning rubber or something, and we just stay focused on that one trigger and we keep doing bilateral until that level of intensity comes down. And then we move on to the future, which is okay, now imagine smelling that smell of burnt rubber and having the thought of I can handle it. Just imagine that right now. How true does that feel to you right now? And then we install that future outcome. So it's kind of like um exposure therapy, but not in vivo. So we're giving the brain experiences. It might not be like actually in the moment, like we would with like CBT and exposure therapy, but we're creating experiences because research has shown it doesn't matter if it's actually really happening or if it's just in your head, it has the same effect on your brain. They've shown research studies that they've told a blind person to imagine color and they told another person with sight to look at the color, and both areas of the brain lit up for same people. So it doesn't matter if it's imaginative or uh actually happening, your brain doesn't know the difference.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

The brain is incredible. It's so incredible.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

It could be our best tool and our worst enemy, depending on a million things.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Um okay, so for the listener out there that maybe like me is taking this information in and really it's resonating. Yeah, is is this what you've what you just described, is it something that people can do on their own at home or practice it or at least get some work in, or is it something that needs to be done by a professional like yourself or therapy? Or can that that's the question. Can can that be done at home, or does it have to be in the scope of a professional? And I definitely understand that there's a difference when somebody that's that's a professional can help you.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Everyone's different, right? Like I am all about people, um, I don't want everyone to be in therapy forever. I'm like, let's get you feeling good and graduate and get you like on with your life, and you can always come in and you know have a check-in if you want, but I believe in everyone's ability to like I don't want to be codependent. I don't want my clients to need me forever. So there are, depending on the person, there are some things you probably can do alone, and there are some things that you shouldn't do alone. For somebody who has experienced a lot of um more traumas of omission, experiences that they didn't have, things like emotional neglect, um, things like that. I wouldn't recommend to do EMDR therapy at home by yourself because then you're going through it alone again. And a lot of times the healing is in the presence of an empathic witness. So that's really, really important. But there are um preparation things, like usually the most ideal candidate for EMDR therapy is someone who's done all the other therapies before and they've kind of gotten to a point. So they've done CBT, they've done DBT, they have all this insight, but they're still stuck. And that's where we know EMDR is going to be really helpful because it is that last piece. So, like, I know what my triggers are, I know what the thoughts are, but it the insight's not enough. And that makes sense because uh the way you know PTSD is a brain injury if we look at it on a functional MRI machine. So we need this next layer of like EMDR therapy to actually help rewire the brain and help a stressful life experience get properly encoded so that like the overactivity in the limbic system, the amygdala, all that can actually start to turn down.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Um when you say I just you just said PTSD. Can you get PTSD from having burnout and anxiety and things? Can that can those reach PTSD? Or is it always PTSD, or does it have to be a certain level of that to become PTSD?

SPEAKER_00 38:49

This is a great question and shows why I hate the diagnosis model, right? Because we can call, like if you're looking at the DSM, which is the diagnostic statistical manual, which basically controls how insurance companies get paid and all that crap, which we all know how I feel about that. Um, but there's a certain diagnostic criteria that someone has to fit for PTSD. If we zoom out and just look at the nervous system and how someone's nervous system is functioning, then it doesn't matter if we call it PTSD or if we call it generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder or adjustment disorder. It's that your nervous system is having trouble doing what it normally does. We have an automatic healing process in our body. And when there is too much too soon, too little for too long, or too much, what is it, too much too soon, too little for too long, or too much all at once, that inhibits our body's natural healing process. And that's when we know, like, okay, we might need a little extra help, we might need to go to therapy. That's why I don't I don't love slapping people with a diagnosis. If we look at if we zoom out, technically everything could qualify, we call it CPTSD, which is complex traumatic stress disorder. Um, a lot of EMDR therapists now call it traumatic stress, not disorder, because it's really just an overwhelming amount of stress that your body couldn't digest, as opposed to you stress, which is the good stress that helps you build resiliency over time. So yeah, it's really not about the diagnosis, it's about the nervous system state.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Um, so just to kind of finish off with a stress portion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

We love it.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Bring it on.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Um I think you alluded to this early, correct me if I'm wrong. Your body can become, I guess, attached to the need of being in that state of stress. You said something like this, correct?

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

One I'm a s I'm thinking, I'm assuming, maybe assuming is the wrong word, that that is something that's almost like a learned behavior. Like that you you weren't born that way. Something or some things happened along the way that made stressful environments something that your body started to crave. So let's say that is the the the our subject. Our subject, we don't know who it may be, that that they have that stress dependency and they their body seeks to be in stressful situations and even knowing that stress is not good and we need to not be stressed.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

How do we get out of that?

SPEAKER_00 41:36

I'm gonna throw you a curveball. Because you said we we're not born with it. You might be.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Well, yes, you you're right.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

So you might be in the sense that an epigenetics, and I'm I'm very um passionate about generational trauma. So epigenetics very much can affect uh generations. So if a mother is pregnant, for example, and is experiencing stress or has PTSD that has not been treated, she has higher levels of cortisol flowing through her body, and that can get transmitted through the placenta. So there, the body will do a thing where it tries to buffer as much as possible, but there's usually high levels in someone with untreated PTSD, and that gets transmitted through the placenta, which means that the baby is getting the stress hormones that the mom has as well. And that affects the development of the HPA axis in the developing baby's brain, which is our stress system in our brain, hypothalamus pituitary adrenal gland cortex. And that means that that baby can be born with either a hyperactive stress response system where they are more easily triggered by stress, or a hypoactive stress response system where they actually their their body wired so much that it can mute out stress hormones, which is why we might seek them out more, because we need them to function. There is an optimal level of stress hormones that gets us to that's why our cortisol levels are highest in the morning because we need energy to wake up. So with if a mom has uh unresolved stress and that creates that hypoactive response in the baby, then we're going to seek out more stressful experience to get enough of the neurotransmitters we need, norepinephrine and things, so that we can function.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

All right. So curveball. So I'm gonna hit you with another curveball right back. Because you just blew my mind. So, okay, so there's two things here. Number one, how do you know what what is your type? Were you born with it or were you not born with it? Because and the reason I'm asking that is I asked you that question very specifically.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Because I know, for me, I've been told that. By a professional that I my body seeks stress. And I almost couldn't even comprehend when he was telling me this because what does that even mean? Because rationally, I'm no, I don't need stress. I don't want stress. I don't like stress.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

You telling me that my body is dependent on stress is kind of throwing a curveball in my head to begin with. So number one, I don't so I don't know personally, I don't know if that was inherited at birth or if there's something that just developed later on in life. Um all I can tell you is that now at the age that I am today and the stage of life that I am today, that's what was told to me. So that's all I have to go off on. Right. And I don't remember a time prior to this decade or a decade in the time backwards where this was an issue more than it is today.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

So that usually what that looks like in EMDR therapy is when the standard approach isn't working. So we'll know, let's say someone comes in and we do all the things we talked about before, like we'll do that past, present, future, we'll identify memories or things like that, like targets to work on, but it's not working. Like their um distress is not coming down. There seems to be more roots under it that's feeding the disturbance. So the things that we're targeting are not the root. That's how we know it's usually more that generational trauma piece. So we we with the MDR, sometimes it's trial and error. It's okay, let's start with standard protocol. That's what we usually start with everybody. And if then it gets stuck, then we go, okay, let's zoom out and see if there's more. Um, we'll do the early trauma protocol, which is that birth to three years of life where there are no visual memories. And that's where we'll start to see more progress. But usually it's, you know, if things aren't processing, we have like people come in, like, oh, I know what the memory is. I know, okay, cool. Let's let's that's what it is, that's what it is. Let's focus. But then if it's not progressing, then we zoom out more. And that's how we just kind of like being a detective.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

So is it fair to say that because there's two two different types, how you approach both are can be different. Yes. As to how you and when I say resolve it, meaning like you wean yourself off of that stress dependency.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

Right. So they are different.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

They're they're different because let's say someone who is um addicted to the stress hormones is going to be different. Somebody who is like hypoactive. Um, because let's say someone who's more anxious is, you know, going, going, going, going. We're gonna have a diff different coping skills, different um intervention strategies versus somebody who is low. We're gonna need more upregulating things to actually get that person regulated enough, uh dysregulated enough to actually process a memory.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Okay. So let's pretend I'm gonna give you a question that may not necessarily have a quick answer right now, but we'll see how you how you feel the the play. Um let's assume that it is the second version. So not that you were born with it, you just developed it over time.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

From experiences.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Um experiences. And that's because I kind of think that's what I have, but again, without knowing, I don't really know.

SPEAKER_02 47:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

How do how do we work towards removing that that dependency on stress?

SPEAKER_00 47:29

We start to get comfortable with a lack of stress. And that's the hardest thing.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Please elaborate. That gave me anxiety in its own.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Yeah. Think of it like I've worked with a lot of first responders. They're literally trained to be on alert. Like work with someone who's like in the army, a Marine, you were trained that if you are not stressed out, like if you are not hyper-vigilant, someone could die. So try telling a Marine to calm down and he's gonna laugh at you or be like, no, dude, like I literally have to. So we do like brief moments, like it's a titration kind of of exposure to calm. And then also inviting in nurturing figures. So it's more about um not just processing experiences of intense stress, but also going um, there's a protocol called the nurturing protocol that is inviting in an experience that probably isn't there to start with. And that's that adaptive information we can't connect to what's not there. And usually when there is um a lot of stress in the body, we need co-regulation. That's really the best way for it to become more comfortable for it to come down. So that nurturing protocol is inviting in an experience where you get that. You get that felt sense of being cared for, being nurtured, and fostering secure attachment. Attachment is really, really important in developmental trauma.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Okay, so that was that was a little bit of a uh a handful. Can are you able to give um an example that's easy easy to relate or easy to understand um for maybe someone that like me that even though I understood what you were saying? Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, it it became overwhelming. A little heavy.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Yeah, yeah. Picture a crying baby. Right? What's the whole point of a baby crying?

SPEAKER_01 49:37

The baby is expressing themselves, whether it's pain, happiness, uncomfort, discomfort.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

I I that's how I would interpret it. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

Yeah, because can a baby take care of itself?

SPEAKER_01 49:48

No.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

No. So that cry is an alert. Heads up caregiver. I I'm either hungry, tired, I've got a burp, I've got a wet diaper, whatever it is, that baby is sending an alarm system. I need help. Babies are absolutely helpless. If we do not get that help enough times, we might have gotten it sometimes, whatever, but enough times for consistent enough for our nervous system to like settle, then that attachment cry is going to continue to come out in our everyday life whenever we feel helpless. That's that hypervigilance. So we're addicted to the stress hormone because we're trying to. That's why I don't like when people say, like, oh, you're just attention seeking. You're not attention seeking. There's a part of you that feels really helpless, and you're trying to get somebody to notice, uh, not because your adult self like needs it, but but there's a part of you that you're disconnected from that never got it or never got it enough. So that think about when a baby's crying, you pick the baby up and you burp or something, even just holding her and then she stops crying. And that's the repair. That's the giving that nervous system what it needed, co-regulation, nurture support.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

So what would the example because I'm I'm sure my wife or my mom cannot pick me up anymore and put by the you know, by the So what would be the example for a grown person to visualize something to de to start that that de-stressing or learning how to not be stressed environment? What would be an example of that that's visual?

SPEAKER_00 51:32

So what we do in attachment focused EMDR is we install figures, so attachment figures. So a nurturing figure, a wise figure, ideal caregiver, and so forth. So a certain protocol I do with the nurturing protocol is we create a visualization. It's like an exercise. So I actually have like a script that I read, and it's you know, the April Steel one that I love is imagine a nursery, and we have to first determine are we working on like a baby part, a 10-year-old self, like which is the part that kind of needs nurturing? Now close your eyes, bring to mind this uh a room that you know feels safe enough, so forth, X, Y, Z. And then imagine that nurturing caregiver, like who's someone who comes to mind, real or imagined. And then imagine that younger you drifting away and then being able to come back to that caregiver, getting its needs met, then going a little further, coming back. And that visualization creates an experience of secure attachment, of getting nurtured. So we're actually creating, and this is like the EMDR part where it's like you can't connect to what's not there. We're creating experiences that you never had or didn't have enough of for your nervous system to like get it and go, Oh, okay, I don't have to be so hypervigilant. I can trust that help will eventually come. And that's basically how anxiety can affect your body, can affect your present-day relationships. All of that matters. So when you think about your anxiety that you feel, ask yourself not what's wrong with you, but are there experiences that you didn't maybe get enough of or something that you experienced too much of that is impacting your ability to feel safe in the present. And if you need help with that, that's what therapists are for. And I know there's a lot of like quacky therapists out there. It might take you a little bit of time to find someone who you really feel like gets you. Um, but keep looking because it does help and it does get better. Until next time, I'm Dana Coretta Stein, and this is the truth about healing, reminding you that if you want to be seen, the first place to look is in the mirror. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Truth About Healing Podcast. If you know someone who's still stuck, share this episode with them. Because as you know, the truth can set them free. And if you're ready to get started to see what you need to repair, contact us at peacefulliving mental health counseling.com and we will get you started. Until next time, I'm Dana Coretta Stein, reminding you we repeat what we don't repair. This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health or medical advice. Listening does not create a therapist client relationship. If you need support, contact a licensed professional or your local emergency services.