[E205] Stress & Trauma 101

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the Empowered to Connect podcast where we come together to discuss a healing centered approach to engagement and well being for ourselves, our families and our communities. Hey, everybody. We are here today to talk about stress and Trauma 101. As much as we are walking alongside parents, caregivers, professionals in so many different contexts, the conversation around trauma and stress has really changed a lot over the last couple years. There's a lot more awareness about trauma. There's a lot more openness to discuss how it impacts us, how we can walk towards healing. But sometimes stuff can get a little muddy. And so we were talking and it's like, sometimes we just need to go back to square one. Like, what is stress and trauma kind of 101 foundationally? And then we can springboard off, off of that. So much of the time we're trying to understand someone or understand their behavior or how they're, how they're processing the world or their experiences. But if we can kind of go back to the basics and get into, hey, what is stress and trauma? How does it impact people? It can just really help us see people with eyes of compassion, see ourselves with eyes of compassion, and then just walk towards those healing relationships that we want to cultivate. So we're here today to kind of jump into the basics of stress and trauma together, and we're excited to do that. Um, Jesse's gonna kick us off with, with just thinking about that first question, like, what are the types of stress? [00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we often know when we're feeling stressed, but did you guys know that there are actually different types of stress? Um, the first type would be positive stress. And so I think that highlights for us that not all stress is bad stress. There is actually a type of stress that is positive. For this is when somebody experiences something that causes a stress response. But what makes it positive is that they're able to adapt and meet the challenge at hand. And so this is actually what allows us to grow and develop resilience and the capacity to handle more stressors. It's something that needs to happen in our lives, and it happens every day. So if you think about an infant, a newborn that's experiencing positive stress, that's just like the discomfort of having your diaper changed is positive stress. Right? They're, they're needing to be able to experience that, to, to learn that their body will go through cycles of feeling discomfort and then comfort again. What are some other types of positive stress? Becca and Tana, when y'all think about. [00:02:49] Speaker A: This type, the first one that comes to my mind is just from working in schools for so long. Like, math test, learning to read, learning to make friends. Like, kind of like so much of a kid's experience at school is positive stress. Like, studying for a math test is not fun or easy, but it's how your brain grows. Like, it's how you develop those different things that you need to develop. [00:03:12] Speaker C: Um, I have a funny one that's, like, very real and relevant right now, and that is our younger two kiddos are just started middle school, and they have their first middle school dance coming up. I know, it's, like, so cute. It's kind of killing me, but we went shopping last night to the mall, and, you know, we're buying, like, fancy clothes, right? Like suits and, you know, dresses, and, you know, we're buying all kinds of things that are not their normal clothing. And before we went to the mall, I kind of gave them a little pep talk, and I'm like, guys, you might feel, like, self conscious in these clothes and you might feel a little awkward and, like. Because I could tell they were just resistant to even, like, doing this whole thing because it was something new. And so I was like, you're gonna maybe go into the dressing room and put this on and feel kind of funny in your own clothes and. But you'll do it more, and it'll become more natural and normal, and you're not gonna know what to do when you hit the dance floor in sixth grade, you know, so that's a positive, stressful experience. Like, they. They did not run to the car to go shopping at the mall for, quote, unquote, fancy clothes last night. You know, we had to do a little bit of, you know, bribery with. We're going to go get pizza in the middle, and y'all can wear new Nike sneakers with your fancy clothes. You know, we're supporting them as they go, but it was fun. But it was a perfect example of this to me. They. They were. There was some resistance, but I know once we get through it, they will have grown through the stress. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the whole thing. They're getting the support they need, and they're growing as a result. [00:04:48] Speaker A: I have to say one more. You know, Jesse is a half marathon runner. And so I've been thinking about, like, all the training put in that whole time. Like, that is all also, like, positive stress that we experience even as adults. [00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I have trained for a full marathon one time in my life. I'm so glad it was before I turned the age of 30. I'm now in my mid-40s, and I'm feeling really happy to have checked off that box. But I used to joke that it was just training your body to suffer because if you do it for many, many hours, then you can handle the marathon. And I could barely handle that one. But. [00:05:24] Speaker A: But you did. [00:05:25] Speaker B: That's what that. [00:05:26] Speaker A: All that you did. And you met that challenge. [00:05:28] Speaker B: So a lot of times when we teach this, we're showing graphics and there's a graphic of like this block that a child is standing on top of. And they're like, they have their arms raised. You know, it's like, yes, they made it to the top of the. You know that feeling when you've done something hard and you were like, I did that thing. And it's kind of built your self confidence. [00:05:50] Speaker C: When I think about this. For kids, it can be things like starting a new job. [00:05:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:56] Speaker C: No. Changing schools. Maybe a teenager that's resistant to drive but figured it out. You know, there. There's. Maybe it's your young, you know, kiddos stayed with a new babysitter. Like, there's all kinds of things that are new experiences that when done, they're on the top of that block. Like, I did it. That that sense of accomplishment is what follows. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Or you may not even know that you. You have that feeling. I'm thinking about. I had about five major moves in my childhood, and they weren't fun. I didn't enjoy leaving friends and going to a new place. I mean, there were exciting things about that, but there were also things that I didn't like about it. And the older I got, the more resistant to the. To the idea of moving. I bec. You know, a couple of years down the line, I had new friends and I had a new place that I had rooted myself in. And the result as an adult now is I'm pretty good at making friends. I am pretty extroverted. Like, when it comes to going to a new place, I actually kind of crave it, and I like to go into new environments. So we may not even realize the growth that's happened as a result. Um, I'm thinking, you know, for our caregivers listening to this, these are things that we may feel some anxiety letting our kids go into, you know, dropping them off for the first day of school or letting a new babysitter stay with them for the first time. And maybe they cry a little bit when you leave or you're worried about, you know, Tana. Tana's talking about, like, you know, that feeling of dropping Your kid off to the. To their first middle school dance, and you're like, oh, I hope the wolves don't eat them, you know? Right. But. But allowing kids to experience positive stress is part of connected parent caregiving. It is. It is an important and crucial part of being a human, of being a healthy human. So we need that positive stress in our lives. Another type is tolerable stress. And this is when you're experiencing something that causes a significant stress response, but you have support and time to heal and recover. And so what still happens is that you grow and develop resilience and the capacity to handle stressors in the future. But this is going to be something that is a little more serious. It might be the loss of a loved one. It might be the loss of a job or getting in a car accident. What are some tolerable stress examples that are coming to your mind, y'all? [00:08:41] Speaker C: Well, since you talked to Jesse about the block, right in our graphic, I think it's important to highlight that if you're just thinking about the last that we talked about, there's a little guy standing on the top of a block with his arms raised. Well, tolerable. The block got a little bit bigger, and, you know, the kiddo is trying to make their way up. But what's standing on the top of the block is some. Some helpers that are lending a hand and helping kiddo get up the block. And so sometimes even some things that are positive, if they don't have support and they're redundant and repetitive and coming hard and fast and the support's missing, then. Then things just kind of can go wonky. And so what makes something tolerable is. Is that support and the time to heal and recover. So I really think this, and I know we'll get into this in a little bit, but this is a very individual difference right here. And it's about the support and the time to heal and recover. So y'all. Y'all understand this. Just think about a time in your life when, you know, you were going through a hard time and you picked up the phone and called a friend and you processed it out loud, and they gave you some words of encouragement and a listening ear, and you felt, you know, empathy and compassion and. And it's not that the thing went away, but you just weren't in it alone. And it's. It's really, really important for us to understand the power of support and time to heal and recover and. And what happens, you know, to our brains and bodies when we have that support and. And maybe when we don't. So I think there's a lot of things that we need support for. You know, even my example of the going to the first dance, like if when I said that, I was like, yeah, I gave him a little heads up and we went together and I put some support pieces in place and I said, you don't have to wear, you know, super tight fancy shoes. You can wear your Nikes, like maybe to some kiddos having to go to a. A middle school first dance with no support. Right. It was so it. We need the support and time to heal and recover. When we think about tolerable stress, I think we can grow and develop. Yeah, go ahead, Becca. [00:11:02] Speaker A: I think that's. It's a line that gets tough as a caregiver because there's the, you know, you want the bird to fly out of the nest, right. So it's not like pushing the bird out of the nest is stressful. Is it positive stress or tolerable? Well, it depends on the baby bird. Did the baby bird adapt to it and spread their little wings or did the mom bird have to catch it? Like, there's that kind of like, visual of how much stress can your kiddo withstand? And then at what point do they need some support? And some of these examples, like if you lose a loved one, you may or may not know that you need support, but you do if you go through, I would say, like in childhood, bullying, kiddos that go through disordered eating, kiddos that experience any kind of like lockdown drill. Like, there's these big things that kids go through and it is very stressful and they're going to need the helpers that Tana mentioned to be able to help them, and they're going to need time between the stressors to be able to recover. So your kiddo may be able to recover beautifully from being bullied with the right support and measures in place. But if they then turn around and also they have this other stressful thing, and also they have this other stressful thing, then it can get. It can pile up pretty quick for a kiddo. [00:12:26] Speaker B: You're going to hear this as. As we move into talking about trauma too, but nothing really falls squarely into one category. You know, even giving those examples of my childhood moves, that last one came two years after the pre. Previous move. And I had just, you know, made my solid group of friends and it was hard. And I moved in the middle of sixth grade, which was the tough year to move. That was not positive stress probably it was probably a little more like tolerable stress. I'm even listening to Becca and thinking, some of these things are things that we introduce to our kids or encourage them to do. Some of them are things that just happen to us. You. You can't control whether a child is bullying your child at school, but you can control how you can support them. [00:13:19] Speaker A: That's right. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Right. So as a caregiver, listening to this, stress is happening, trauma is happening. These things are happening in our lives. Sometimes there are things we can introduce because we know that they're going to help our kids grow, and sometimes they're going to happen, and. And the way that we respond is going to be crucial in allowing our k recover and grow and heal. So the third type would be toxic stress, which we've kind of murky, kind of started talking about a little bit. But this is when someone experiences something that causes that very significant stress response, but it's happening once, frequently, or over a long period of time. And what makes that stress toxic is that they're lacking support, they're lacking those helpers. They're maybe even lacking time to heal and recover. You know, maybe something's happening. Boom, boom, boom. I'm thinking of someone I know who had a bullying experience, and then Covid hit right away, and those. Those things like, boom, boom, right in a row just felt very, very overwhelming. And the way that it was processed was. Was a little different that maybe than if it had happened not right in a row. [00:14:39] Speaker C: In our visual image, toxic is that same block, but the kiddo is alone again and is under the block trying to lift it entirely alone. So it's a picture of truly them just getting crushed under the weight of what they're having to carry. And so think about toxic stress that way. I mean, this is where we would think about abuse, neglect, you know, exposure to, you know, consistent sort of ongoing substance abuse by a caregiver. I mean, there's just lots and lots of things, especially in the world that many of us operate in. And I know a lot of our listeners are in the adoption foster care communities. And so we're thinking about kiddos that are just experiencing and exposed to far too much difficulty. You know, maybe there's violence that they're exposed to, and. And maybe there's somebody in their life that's trying really hard to be that support, but it's just not, you know, slowing up on them. You know, the things are just coming one right after another. So their nervous systems and their hearts and their minds and their Brains and bodies just cannot recover from the ongoing stress. So they're, you know, this is a difficult one, but unfortunately it's a one that many, many, many vulnerable children and families would fall this, fall into this category. [00:16:02] Speaker B: So, yeah, and as you're hearing this, I think it highlights how important relationships are. This is such a big, big reason for connection and for, for relating with the people in our lives. You know, there's so much research coming out about how being alone and loneliness truly affects us. And I think that is what they're talking about is really the effects of toxic surv. Stress and of trauma. Becca, tell us a little bit about how trauma plays into this. [00:16:36] Speaker A: When you hear about toxic stress, your brain is probably going to places that you would think, oh, that's trauma. Like, that's, you know, how I would define trauma. Before I make that jump, I just want to say you highlighted this, Jesse. But toxic stress we might not think of as trauma right away because it could be. Well, yeah, we move every couple years. We're in the military. That's not, that's just part of life. But for a kid who's experiencing that and they've been bullied and they are lonely, you know, six, seven, eight moves in, all of a sudden they're being crushed by the weight of the stress, even though they haven't been through what we would consider trauma. So I just want to highlight that's kind of the, as we wrap up toxic stress, it's that line. It's either the big, scary dramatic events that happen or it's that cumulative stress over time. And so as we think about trauma, if you, if you clicked on trauma and stress 101 because you wanted a really short, concise definition of trauma. I'm so sorry, our definition is like a whole paragraph long. But that's because whenever we try to boil down trauma to like a cute three word phrase, we just miss the nuance of it. Trauma is, is not, it's not easily defined. So here's our definition that we're going to work with today. Trauma begins with a stressful event. We just talked about all kinds of stressful events just a second ago. Then a person experiences that event and their experience individually and uniquely affects them. So what makes the experience traumatic or not is the person's response. In other words, it's what, how someone experiences what happened. An example that we, that we talk about a lot is, look, I like Jesse and I could be driving to lunch after this podcast recording. We could get into a car accident. Jesse might Walk away from that and be okay. Because Jesse's life experiences, she has some resilience that's not traumatic for her. I might struggle to get into a car for years. I might have flashbacks. I might shake just at the thought of having to get in that car. Our experiences leading up to getting in the car for lunch have so much to do with it. Our temperament, our personalities, lots and lots and lots of different effects of things. Maybe even just, how was my day going before that car ride? Right? All of it comes together and so you could look at it and be like, look, Jesse's fine. Becca, what the. Like, what are you doing? Like, what's going on with you? Like, that was a fender bender. It happens every day. Nobody got hurt. Like, snap out of it. This is often how we. How we think about trauma, is we filter it through our own lens. Well, yeah, you that you went through that stressful thing. I went through a much more stressful thing when I was a kid, and I'm fine. So, like, what's going on with you? Whether we like to admit it or not, it's really hard for us not to filter the definition of trauma through our own experiences, which is why we want to do that long blown up definition, the nuanced one, to say it's up to each person. And so as we support ourselves and others, we're not here to label someone's experience as traumatic or not. Oh, well, you went through this. That was traumatic. Therefore, I have compassion for you. Some people go through things that I'm like, that would crush me, and they're okay because they have support, support and resilience and the temperament to withstand that kind of stress. So it's really, really important to take this complex approach, Allow people to tell you and show you their personal experience instead of trying to be like, trauma detectives out here. Like, oh, well, you know, Becca was in this situation, and so therefore, let's treat her with kid gloves, because that was traumatic. But Jesse, snap out of it. This, like, that's kind of the temptation here. What would you guys add as we kind of just blow up the definition of trauma? [00:20:28] Speaker B: I think we're in a little bit of a cultural moment, maybe a battle of generations or a battle of mindsets where some people are being labeled as oversensitive and some people are. Some people are being labeled as not sensitive at all. You know, it's like, this is my trauma. You need to be sensitive to that. And then on the other hand, there's like, why is everything trauma? Why is everything toxic? And so I think I just want, I want to acknowledge that we don't get to say what is traumatic for somebody else. And part of relating to children and relating to other adults in our lives is honoring their experiences and believing what they say they've experienced and getting to walk alongside them with that. I mean, we're going to talk about how this, how a traumatic experience can impact a person and at empowered to connect. I think we believe that we need each other. We need to be able to believe each other when something is traumatic for us and to know that that has impacts and to know that we're going to walk alongside each other and provide the support that people need. [00:21:51] Speaker C: Becca, when I hear and Jesse even just you re highlighting that, I think for me in my journey of trying to understand the nuances and complexities of trauma, it was helpful for me to think about that. There's different types. Again, I know we can't judge what is trauma for someone, but I think me just learning a little bit about, ah, this really is a very complex kind of idea and maybe I was trying to make it really simple and if I can just expand my knowledge and learn a little bit and then maybe what will spur up in me is some compassion. Although I may not always know how to respond, I can at least move towards understanding. So why don't we just kind of quickly hit some of the different types of trauma that might help expand our understanding a little bit about what might be going on or what a person might be experiencing. So when we think about, about that one, one type is acute. We've mentioned some of that already on this episode and that's one time traumatic experience, something that happens once. And look, there's something similar might happen again. But it happened one time. Maybe you were in one car accident, maybe you've experienced one natural disaster. Okay, that's an acute trauma. Chronic is something more ongoing. Ongoing experiences. We' we've talked about some of those. It could be living with food scarcity, maybe having a family member with a terminal illness. It's happening over time and you're living in it for a season of time and being exposed to it for a season. Another one to think about is complex. This is similar to chronic. So it's an ongoing scenario, but it's happening in the context of relationships. So this is when maybe the person that should be your trusted, safe person is part of the traumatic ongoing experiences. So this could be those things like neglect or abuse. It could be witnessing domestic violence, having a caregiver with mental illness. Or addiction. And so it's sending some confusing and mixed messages to a child in their important stages of development about what's related relationship here and what are safe people and how do I organize my thoughts about the world and myself and people based on my relationship with these other grownups. So it's, it's got a relational component to it that cannot be underscored as we think about the impacts it has on the kiddo and even young adults as they're growing. Another kind is vicarious or secondary. And so this is the ongoing experience of witnessing or hearing about other people's traumas. Sometimes we like to think about this as like compassion fatigue. It's how it might impact mental health professionals or medical professionals or parenting kiddos who've experienced trauma or illness. We talked about this a lot during the season of COVID right? We knew our healthcare providers were burning out and it is because of the secondary or vicarious trauma they were experiencing. If you are a parent and you are caring, caring for a kiddo with a mental illness or even an ongoing terminal illness, this, this could be something you're experiencing. Like, you know, that you're fatiguing based on the experience or the experience you are having for someone and with someone that, that you're close to. Another type is collective. This is when an entire group of people experience trauma. So think about natural disasters, community violence, genocide, also systemic, systemic discrimination and oppression. Like what, what is happening to a community or a culture, a group of people, and how is that impacting them collectively? What are their shared collective experiences? And then, especially if you're in the, in the field of helping and being in any kind of social services or helping field, we need to understand the history and how a community is impacted by collective trauma. And we don't want to underscore the reality of that. And then lastly, just for the sake of this episode, we'll talk about generational. And this is when those impacts of trauma are passed down from generation to generation. So we want to think about the psychological effects that this could happen. So if, if a group of, you know, adults experience something really difficult, how might they be, you know, not maybe even intentionally passing some of those impacts on to the subsequent generations? So think about if, if a culture or communities experience genocide, how's that going to trickle down into their parenting or caregiving or responses or secondary trauma or it's, it's. You kind of said Becca, like it's the collective impact of that. So there's going to be some things passed down. This is When Jesse, you kind of said, like, we're in a, a moment in time. We are. There's a, if you're, if you've been listening, you're hearing people say, like, I'm going to break the, you know, the generational trauma I've experienced. Like there could be something here where we're trying to heal from things that maybe have been passed down in our family over time so we can think about that. There's lots of different types of trauma. It's not this clean, you know, like the other things we've talked about, they're going to mix all together. But what we want to do is think about the. There's, there's likely more going on than we might notice at first glance. And this is when we get to move into curiosity and compassion. [00:28:03] Speaker A: And when you hear all of these things, like, what is stress? What is trauma? How is it impacting people? It can feel pretty heavy, like it's hard to hear all of that. And if you're listening and you're listening to the types and the examples that we've thrown out, your brain might be going, and, and you might be processing, oh, what about this? What about that? Like, there's so many things that we go through. So a lot of our resources here at Empower to Connect are about how to be a safe adult. Because if you think about our positive, tolerable, toxic stress, what made the difference? The helpers. So if you're listening, you can be a child safe adult. And we have lots of resources on how to do that. But just know that the antidote to trauma, the path towards healing, the helping that can happen, happens in safe adult relationships with people that are trustworthy, that are respectful, that are compassionate and that are consistent. So as we turn the corner, that's what trauma is, that's what stress is. It impacts us in some huge ways, you guys, like some big, big ways. We like to think about it in three categories here. So it impacts our bodies, our minds and our spirits. How trauma impacts the body, especially in childhood, is, you know, you think about, I've seen so many different things trending right now of like parents that buy like a one year old size sweater and they put it on their newborn and it, their newborn is just swimming in it. And then they take a picture every month and by the time that baby is a year old, they fit into the big huge sweater that you never could have imagined that they would fit into. Babies and young children are developing at a rapid, rapid, rapid rate. So when they experience trauma it impacts, affects their brain development, the way they process the sensory world around them. It can contribute to neurodiversity. We know that it affects bodies for a lot of reasons, but in part because the ACEs study, the adverse Childhood Experiences study studied folks for a long time and they linked, hey, when people go through these stressful, traumatic adverse childhood experiences, we're looking at them as adults and they've got high blood pressure, diabetes, they've got mental illness, they're dying early. There's actual physical impacts. Doctors were really surprised by this. I don't think they were surprised about the mental health impacts, but they were surprised about the physical health impacts. So we store trauma in our bodies. It also affects our minds. We're going to talk about that in just a second. Basically our brains can just become organized around survival. And when that happens, when we're real young, it can come out in some big ways and that's what where we're headed next. But lastly, it affects our spirit, which is our beliefs. It's our beliefs about ourselves, others and the world. I was thinking about something that we used to talk about a lot here. We would say abuse sends the message I don't like you. Neglect sends the message I don't care. So if you're a kid that's receiving messages like that, it can lead to rage, it can lead to shame, it can lead to apathy. You can begin to believe about myself, nothing I do matters. Everything's out of my control, so why would I even try? Or everything's out of my control, so oh my goodness, I better work, work, work, work, work to try to keep control about other people. People aren't trustworthy. I got to manipulate people to get what I need from them because no one's going to take care of me. The world is completely unpredictable there. Nothing can be trusted. So these beliefs can be deep rooted and it can lead to just a lot of shame. This is especially important to think about as caregivers because a lot of our traditional discipline methods use embarrassment to get kids to do what we want them to do. When our kids have experienced stress, trauma and adversity, they have enough shame, we don't need to add to it. It's actually going to drive negative behaviors. It's going to get them to places that we don't want them to go. It's not going to support them in long term growth and healing. All of these things that we've just talked about impact our actions. But as we, as we think about that, it affects our bodies, our Minds and our spirits. We do want to put kind of a special note on how it impacts our brain and how that comes out in stress responses. So Jesse's going to talk through just how stress, trauma and adversity impacts the developing brain. [00:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah, let's talk about our minds. When we think about brain development, your brain is wired for survival. From the moment you were conceived and growing in the womb and born out into the world, your brain has been wired for survival and it is constantly scanning for danger. We've got two portions of the brain we want to highlight today. Sometimes people talk about the right and left side. We want to talk about the upper and lower side. When we talk about stress and trauma, particularly the upper brain is that part of our brain that is logical and includes executive functioning. You might have heard that term before. Those are all of those things that develop over time, like cause and effect thinking, like, like empathy, like the reasoning that we need, you know, for. For emotional regulation. And all of these kind of complex processes that are. Are maturing and developing in us as we age. Some of these things I feel like are still developing in me. You know, your working memory, like being able to remember like a set of instructions or I'm still forgetting where I put my coffee or where I put my. That's all part of your upper brain. And access to that upper brain, your executive functioning, it decreases as the stressors in your life are increasing. So we think about it a little bit as, like, if you're regulated, you've got full access to that area. If you're thinking about it like a house, it is like that area of your brain is maybe that room that you're renovating and building out upstairs. When you're a kid, it is maybe just the be. And you're going to need to be careful walking around up there. But it's slowly being renovated. It's slowly being built out to be a full room that you can live in and have access to. But you might have a baby gate at the bottom of those stairs. And when you are under stress, that baby gate is closed and you don't have access to what that room can give you. It's still under construction until we're about. Researchers are still kind of defining when this is fully developed, when your upper brain's fully developed. But it's probably somewhere between 25 and 30 years old, which is terrifying to think of all of the decisions that we've made before those ages. But as safe adults, we're constantly trying to help expose our kids to experiences that are building those executive functioning skills. It's something that's being practiced and scaffolded throughout their childhood. Now that lower brain is really emotional and instinctual, that is fully functioning at birth. You were born with a fully built out, ready to go lower brain, and that's what keeps you safe. It's perceiving threats, it's handling your survival instincts. That's the part of your brain that's telling your heart to be in, your lungs to breathe and your eyes to blink. And all those things that you don't even have to think about, you're just doing them because that's what your body does instinctually. Well, part of our emotions, emotions and our instincts are being driven instinctually as well too. So this can become overactive if we are experiencing prolonged trauma or chronic stress and it ends up causing us to live in a constant state of fear. We say our lower brain is oversensitive or overreactive because in those early years when the brain was developing, we've basically been taught that we need to access it more and the most. So when a brain is impacted by trauma, when a mind, when your mind is impacted by trauma, that lower brain is over developed, overreactive, and that upper brain development might be lagging. There are different diagnoses that have to do with an underdeveloped upper brain. But truly, really, if you trace the source of this so many times, it's going back to the way that brain was developing in early childhood. And that's going to have to do with the stress and trauma that we're being experienced. [00:37:09] Speaker A: There's so much hope for healing because our brains are so malleable. Like there's so much neuroplasticity. Like our brains can grow even in our 40s, even in our 60s. Like we can still be growing and building new pathways. Um, but I think it's really important to, to know that when someone's experienced these things, like Jesse said, you can be stuck in that lower brain and like anything that's happening around you is being perceived as a threat. Um, the way our bodies respond in our, in survival instincts, you've probably heard of three of them. Fight, flight, freeze. There's another one called Fawn. Um, basically that is a good thing. Your body needs to protect itself. Right? Like if we're in the woods and a bear is attacking us, we need to fight flight or freeze. Like need to run away, we need to play dead or we need to fight back, that's helpful. But when we're stuck there, when we're stuck in that fight flight, freeze spawn. It can come out in ways that are just really, really tough with interpersonal relationships. So what you've got is a kiddo who is experiencing something as a threat or as stressful or as fear. And then what they're showing on the outside is defiance. Verbal aggression, physical aggression. They're getting big and loud. That's a fight stress response. Why does this matter? Because if we're looking at that kiddo and we're diagnosing them as, hey, that kid is being mean, they're being bad, they're being disobedient, we're going to respond in some of those upper brain logical, hey, is that the way we treat our friends? But if this kiddo is stuck in that fight, lower brain stress response. We got to regulate them. We basically, like Jesse said, got to open that baby gate so they can access that part of their brain. Brain first flight is when a kiddo is just going to get out of the situation by any means necessary. Some kids literally run away. When I was a school counselor, I went to school in running shoes every single day because kids literally would run out of the building away from the stressor, even if the stressor was a math test. They could also appear silly to deflect, cover their face, even fall asleep. Freeze. We're going to avoid by any means, but this is more so going to be upstairs stuck. I look blank. You're looking at me like, hey, buddy, are you listening to what I'm saying? It can be frustrating because a lot of times as adults, we're talking to a kid who's frozen, and we're like, you're ignoring me. That's disrespectful. But I don't know about you. There's been times in arguments or stressful situations where my brain actually has gone blank. That is a not good feeling when you can't find your words, when you can't access that upper brain, these kids can also fall asleep sometimes. Fawn is one that's a little harder to pick up on. And that's when someone's way over the top, people pleasing, they're going to defer to other people. Appear compliant. Say yes to avoid conflict. This is especially hard when you don't know a kiddo very well. And you're like, oh, that kid's just so kind, so compliant. Here's why that's dangerous. Two things I'll point out here. One, this is common in intimate partner violence victims, domestic violence victims. Fawning is when we're trying to outrun the abuse. We're trying, trying to do enough things the right way. The other thing that can happen with our kiddos is they can be super, super compliant to peers, even if peers are not telling them the right things to do. And so this is important to notice. And all of these fight, flight, freeze and fawn. When we can see them as what they are, lower brain stress responses, we can support them as adults to get them regulated, to get that baby gate back open so that we can access the upstairs brain and we can. Can be fully online with what we're saying. What would y'all add to that? [00:40:54] Speaker C: When I remember, I literally have this visceral memory of my first time learning this information. And it was. It was hard for me. I felt some. Some things come up in me that sort of wanted to push against this because of what I had already been told or what I thought or what I understood about willful behavior, honestly. And this concept of, of the brain and this baby gate and upstairs, downstairs, hyper, vigilant, reactionary, instinctual, like this was such new information to, to Mo and I, my husband. And it was. But it was incredibly important and vital for us to allow this information to help shape the way we understood what was going on in our kids. And eventually what started happening is in. This took a lot of time. It took time for us to see this as something that in reality, we could even honor it. And honor like when, especially if you've got a kiddo or a person or you yourself have experienced a lot of toxic stress or trauma or adversity over time, and maybe you are reacting or your people that you love or your kids are reactionary, you would use that word, impulsive, and they react big or quickly, then that's actually a sign to you that their nervous system is activated and that it's probably quite likely out of their control. Becca, you said earlier, like, shame is not, you know, a good teacher. It just isn't. And I think that really applies to understanding this concept because you're right, the brain is neuroplastic. And Jesse, you talked about how it's organizing itself in childhood. And you know what? That takes years and years and years. And you know what also takes years and years and years? [00:43:07] Speaker B: Years. [00:43:08] Speaker C: The healing process of the brain. It can happen, but it does not happen overnight. It needs time and repetition and compassion and understanding and practice. So if I can begin to understand that my kiddo's stress response, I'm just going to use this in, in the. The context of parent, child, okay, if I'm thinking about my child and I can understand that, that quick reaction, maybe they freeze up, they can't talk, they can't give me an answer, they can't use their words. They're frozen. And I'm ready for them to tell me why they did X, Y and Z, but their little nervous system and brain and body are frozen, then I need to understand what's going on, that that's not willful, that they need support from me in order to regulate, in order to sort of get back online in order to access their upper brain. And guess what happens over time? They might be less likely to freeze, but their stress response probably still going to be to freeze. So some of this is just human. Like, this is what it means to be human. We all have stress responses, we all have ways we react when we experience difficult times. And so what does it look like to be like, hey, that's just what it means to be human. Now you may be a human that's experienced a lot of difficulty, so your stress response might be overactive. But the good news is over time, with safe people in a safe environment, it can relax and not activate as quickly. But I think what happens with, especially with parents and with parenting and caregiving is we want this to be a quick fix. It's like, oh, we understand why Johnny reacts that way. So since we understand it and we're trying a few tools, he shouldn't react that way anymore. But by golly, the brain needs time to rewire. It needs repetition and patience and practice. It's this idea of healing takes time. You know, our, our organization, we have a mascot, Hope the Sloth. And when we opened our clinic, we picked a sloth for this very reason. Because a sloth requires a patient approach to movement. And when we think about the, the trauma and stresses impact on the brain, the body and the spirit and those long term impacts, they are not hopeless. But we got to be persistent in our patience as we journey alongside people that need time and compassion to heal and grow and change. I want that, I want people to approach my healing and growth and change with compassion and patience patients. So as we're thinking about these big ideas, I think that might be my call to us as the, as the listeners and those that are trying to listen to understand is keep pushing into understanding. Be curious about what's going on, but then let that move you to compassionate patience with healing. [00:46:15] Speaker B: Can I tell you what that's looked like for me? I think, I think in the beginning I thought about what this means is I need to stop the stress. I need to stop the stress from happening in my kids lives. [00:46:30] Speaker C: Right. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Or in my life. And that is not living a human, that's not being a human. Right. Life involves stress. Trauma will happen. Stress responses are protective. [00:46:46] Speaker C: Yes. [00:46:46] Speaker B: Our kids have survived, we have survived. Those stress responses are built into protect us. And I think I just thought all of this stuff is bad and I've got to get rid of it. And what it ended up meaning was that I tried to avoid it at all costs. I tried to avoid invoking stress or provoking stress in my kids lives. And there's, there's a place for that. Yes, we can be the mitigating factor for stress and trauma but it doesn't mean that we're walking on eggshells avoiding any stressful experience. Because what we know is stress can be positive with support. And so I think my journey through this information, it has led me more to supporting the stress in my kids lives. That's what a safe adult is for. Right. And we need people that will support the stress in our lives. It's going to happen, happen. It needs to happen in many, in many ways. But we can be supportive. And, and that's what I'm hearing from Tana too as you're talking about that. [00:47:54] Speaker C: And, and that, what that doesn't mean is it doesn't mean, you know, look, all reactions are acceptable. Like we're not talking about permissive responses here. That's not, I don't want us to end this episode with that being the takeaway. That's not what we're talking about. There's all kinds of ways that we can support. We have episodes specifically about each one of these stress responses by way where we go into each one of them in a lot of detail and talk about how to, how to support fight, flight, Freeze and Fawn. So if you're curious about one of those, I'd put that in the search bar and find that episode. We can talk about some support there. This is not making excuses. That's not what we're talking about. We were talking about understanding the why so that we could move to helpful support which is very complicated and very complex. It can, it can involve repair and recovery and, but, but we, we want to support the learning and the growing as we're all on a human journey to understanding how our experiences are impacting all of us. Me too. Yeah, right. Which is where Becca started us off. Like a lot of times we can come to this information because we are trying to Understand someone else that experienced that poor trauma, when in reality we're like, holy smokes, folks. I've experienced a lot of things, and I have my own level of stress, and I have my own way of responding to it. And my way of responding to it might be up in the middle of me trying to support this other person because I'm judging that I respond better than they do or something. I mean, it can get so deeply complicated in the midst of the relationship. So we want to journey through it and have a lot of, like, kindness to ourselves and the people that we love. Like, let it move us to compassionate action and support. Not pity, not empathy. Well, maybe empathy. Just not pity. Don't pity anybody. Move to empathetic, compassionate support. Right? [00:50:02] Speaker A: Yeah. You guys highlighted, I think, the two pendulum swings. When you learn about trauma, I think that you can pendulum swing to pity. And let's make sure you never experience anything stressful, even a math test like, oh, you have no idea what this kid went through. They can't possibly adapt and meet that positive stressor if they've been through too much. [00:50:23] Speaker B: We go to that birthday party, she's gonna have a meltdown. [00:50:25] Speaker A: So we can't. We can't ever do that. So, like, we jump to pity or we jump to. Do you have any idea what I went through as a kid? And look at me. And I did this positive thing, and I've accomplished this degree behind my. And I'm. So you better suck it up, buttercup. Like here we, like, we can pendulum swing when we hear and learn about trauma. Our hope today is that you will take steps to being a safe adult for the kids in your life, a safe relationship for the adults in your life, and that you'll be open. Be open to someone showing you or telling you how they are experiencing the world around them, how they are processing those experiences that they've been through. And then be the person on the top of the pyramid lifting someone else up. That's what we want to do, that we want to support one another. We want to lift one another up. Sometimes you're going to be the guy at the top of the pyramid lending a hand. And sometimes you're trying to climb that pyramid and you're reaching up, trying to find somebody to help you. So we're going to be on both sides of that. And as we kind of wrap up trauma and stress 101, I hope that you've heard a couple things. Things to. To jar your thinking. Like Tana said, every concept that we tackled today, we have more and more and more resources about. So we hope this kind of sparked your interest and that you'll keep talking with those around you about stress, trauma and healing, and that we can take steps together towards that hope. Thanks you guys. [00:51:52] Speaker C: Thank y'all. [00:51:57] Speaker A: We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, the best way to support us going forward is to subscribe. Subscribe. We'd love to hear from you. Leave a review, drop us a comment, or email us to let us know what you hope to hear in future episodes. Thank you to Kyle Wright, who edits and engineers all of our audio, and Tad Jewett, the creator of our music. On behalf of everyone at etc, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on the Empowered to Connect podcast. Until then, we're holding on to hope with you.