Episode 005 : What is trauma really and have I experienced it?

Summary

In this conversation, Odelia explores the multifaceted nature of trauma, emphasizing that it is not solely defined by significant events but also by the absence of support and love. She discusses how trauma manifests in the body and mind, the different types of trauma, including generational trauma, and the importance of healing through understanding and compassion. Odelia highlights the role of the brain's amygdala in trauma responses and the necessity of rewiring these patterns for true healing. The conversation concludes with a call to self-love and reflection on personal healing journeys.

Takeaways

Trauma is not just about dramatic events; it includes what didn't happen.
The amygdala triggers trauma responses without understanding time.
Generational trauma can be passed down through families.
Trauma manifests in various ways, including physical and emotional symptoms.
Healing requires both understanding and a compassionate approach.
Limiting beliefs are defense mechanisms formed from trauma.
True healing involves rewiring the brain and body.
Self-love is crucial in the healing process.
Curiosity and observation are key to understanding trauma responses.
It's never too late to begin the healing journey.

Chapters

00:00 Understanding Trauma and Its Impact
03:02 The Journey of Healing from Trauma
03:06 brighter-days-oliver-massa-main-version-18619-01-57.mp3
03:11 Understanding Trauma: An Introduction
06:06 The Brain's Response to Trauma
08:36 Types of Trauma: Acute, Chronic, and Complex
11:49 Manifestations of Trauma in Daily Life
13:50 The Importance of Healing Trauma
16:24 Reflection and Moving Forward

Transcript

Hey guys and welcome back to the Midlife Awakening. This is a podcast about transformation for women who are waking up to who they really are while navigating everything that comes with midlife. I'm so glad that you are here. So I've been in full on hermit mode in the last couple of weeks. Lots of reading, reflecting and just sort of sitting with myself. And through that stillness, something has become really clear. Over the last year I've

started to notice just how much my past trauma still shows up in my everyday life. In my thoughts, my reactions, my relationships, even in the way that I speak to myself. If I just sit quietly and observe my thoughts on a conscious level. Now

Have you ever found yourself reacting to something and thinking, why did I just do that? Like your body reacted before your brain could catch up. Those reactions, the ones we don't fully understand, the ones we often beat ourselves up for are actually survival strategies. They are what we call trauma responses. these are automatic responses your brain and nervous system develops to keep you safe.

These can show up in ways that you might not expect. Think mood swings, anxiety, people pleasing, procrastination, chronic illness, burnout. I honestly thought that I had dealt with my past trauma. Therapy? Done it. Journaling? Loads. Talking it up? Absolutely. Consciously I got it, but in my body, in my nervous system, in those deep automatic reactions, I was still

And now in midlife standing here looking at who I am and how I show up I see this so clearly. Healing has to go deeper. What I've learned is this trauma that hasn't been processed doesn't get stored as a memory it gets stored as a current reality. That's right a current reality. That's why we keep reliving it not mentally.

but physically. So today I want to talk about trauma, what it is, how it manifests and why healing requires more than just understanding. Trauma isn't just about a dramatic or violent event. Sometimes it's about what didn't happen, the love you needed and didn't get, the safety you lacked, the support that never came. In this episode we're going to explore how trauma forms.

what a trauma response is and why it's not about being too sensitive or overly emotional, how trauma lives in the body and how we can start moving from just surviving to truly healing. And if you're someone who thinks, well, I've never experienced trauma, I invite you to listen with an open heart, you might be surprised. I want you to know you're not broken, your responses are valid and healing is absolutely possible.

Let's get started.

Odelia (03:11)
Hey guys and welcome back to the Midlife Awakening podcast. My name is Odelia and I'm your host. I'm so grateful that you're here today. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. I've missed you. And if you're joining me for the first time, I'm really glad you found your way here. Today we're diving into the topic of trauma. We're to break it down so we can better understand what it actually is. What are the different kinds of trauma and what a trauma response looks like. If you've never heard of what

trauma response is, today is the day you're going to be enlightened. So we're also going to talk about how trauma can manifest physically in the body and emotionally in our behaviors. Why it's so important to do the work to heal it.

We'll also talk about how trauma can manifest physically in your body and emotionally in your behaviors and why it's so important to do the work to heal it. So let's start with the basics. What is trauma really? So the official definition is that trauma is what happens when we experience an extremely stressful, frightening or distressing event that is difficult to cope with or that makes us feel like we have no control.

It can be a single event or an ongoing experience of a long period of time. And the truth is, most of us will go through something in life that could be considered traumatic. Think back to your own childhood. Was there abuse, neglect, abandonment? Perhaps something that seems less intense on the surface, like a lack of approval, affection, or affirmation. It could even be, you know, moving from one town to the other.

to another is something as simple as that could be a traumatic event. So these less obvious experiences can still create trauma. And let me be clear, this is not about blaming your parents or anyone else. It's about acknowledging what happened and asking yourself, what is traumatic for me? Some people like to categorize trauma into big T and little t, but for me personally,

I don't find that language very helpful saying, well, that's a small trauma and this is a big trauma. I really don't like those definitions. What I really connected with is how Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps Score, describes trauma. And he says, trauma is not the event itself. Trauma is what happens inside when no one comes to help you. Now, when I first heard that,

I cried, I literally cried, it hit such a deep place inside of me, because yes, that is exactly how I felt. Helpless, alone, not supported. And that is what caused the most pain, not just what happened, actual event, but that feeling of being alone in it and not being supported, no one coming to help. Our life experiences, especially those ones that happen in our childhood,

They shape how we perceive the world. And in those early experiences, we create a kind of a filter in the brain. And it's through that lens or through that filter that our trauma responses are triggered. Now, let's talk about how this works in the brain. And I promise I'm going to keep this simple. So there's a small almond-shaped part of the brain called the amygdala. This is your brain's alarm system. And its job is to detect any danger and to keep you safe.

When something reminds you of a past traumatic experience, even slightly, the amygdala goes danger, this feels familiar, and it sets off the alarm in your body. That alarm floods your body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, and before your logical brain has time to weigh in, your nervous system is reacting. So you might go into fight, flight, or fawn. Now if you go into fight mode, this means you're trying to control or defend the situation.

If you go into flight, this is you wanting to escape or avoid the situation. If you go into the freeze response, this is going to be where you, you know, you withdraw, you become numb, you shut down. And then if you go into the fawn phase, this is where you're now people pleasing or abandoning your own needs for the sake of trying to feel safe again.

And here's the key thing to understand. The amygdala, that alarm system, has no concept of time. Now when I read this, this was just life changing for me because I could automatically see how reactions that I've had in the past.

just felt out of my control. And it's because this part of your brain has no concept of time. So if something happened to when you were five years old and something similar now happens to you at the age of 42 and your brain signals the amygdala to say this is the same situation. It's as if you're still that five year old. You're no longer the 42 year old who is in a safe space. You know,

It doesn't know that you're 42 now and safe in your living room. It reacts as if you're still that five-year-old and it's happening right now. That's why trauma responses can feel so overwhelming and out of proportion to the present moment. And that's also why logic doesn't really help because your logical brain actually switches off and it goes offline. So you can know now that you're safe.

but your body doesn't feel it yet. takes a couple of seconds before your logical brain comes back online and is able to say, on a second, this is not the same situation, I am actually safe. So true healing is gonna start when we help the brain and the body rewire these patterns. When we teach the nervous system slowly and gently that it doesn't need to live in survival mode anymore. It's not something we choose, it's something that has been wired into us as a protection mechanism.

and thankfully with the right tools and support it can be unwired too. So it's not a hopeless situation. Now let's talk briefly about ⁓ the three types of main trauma So you have acute trauma and this is the result of a single or distressing incident. So something sudden like an accident or an assault. It's a one-off event. Chronic trauma number two comes from repeated or prolonged exposure

to distressing situations, for example domestic abuse, bullying or living in an unsafe environment. And then there's complex trauma, which is the result of multiple very traumatic events, often involving relationships or situations where you didn't feel safe, seen or protected. It's often more subtle, more long-term and harder to recognize, but it is just as impactful. And if you're listening and thinking, I don't think I've experienced trauma like that.

I want to offer you this. I want to gently offer you this. You may be carrying something that didn't start with you. Generational trauma, also called intergenerational or inherited trauma, can be passed down through families, even if the original event happened decades ago. research shows that trauma can be stored in our DNA and passed down for up to seven generations.

So if you find yourself carrying anxiety, shame, fear, or any other pattern that you can't quite explain, it is possible that you're holding something that was never yours to carry in the first place. And just like personal trauma, generational trauma can be healed with awareness, compassion, and a willingness to do the inner work.

So how does trauma actually show up in our lives? the answer is in so many different ways. Trauma can manifest physically, emotionally, mentally and behaviorally. Sometimes it shows up as physical illness or chronic tension. Other times it plays out in our relationships or in the repetitive patterns we just can't seem to break. Some of the common signs include intrusive thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks.

confusion, difficulty with memory or concentration, mood swings, depression, anxiety, agitation, disassociation, numbness, and these are just a few. So for me personally, I struggle a lot with mood swings. find memory and concentration really hard and anxiety has been a constant companion in different forms throughout my life. I've also noticed patterns of behavior. Ones I now see are rooted in self-limiting beliefs and

at the age of 42, I really want to change them because these patterns, they've held me back for way too long. One book that really helped me understand this more deeply is Hurt Healing Healed by Emma Mumford. She writes, when something traumatic happens, the feelings from that moment can remain stuck in your subconscious mind, causing you to replay this memory over and over again whenever your subconscious perceives that same threat. She also explains that limiting beliefs are actually defense mechanisms.

unconscious thoughts that form to protect us from pain. But over time these beliefs are starting to shape our reality. They show up as procrastination, as anxiety, imposter syndrome, overthinking, perfectionism. I mean the list goes on. And what is the result? Is that they actually block us from joy, from connecting with others, from the freedom to fully be ourselves and to appreciate ourselves.

So why is it so important to heal this trauma and these beliefs? Well, if you think about your own limiting beliefs, like take a moment and just think about them consciously start to recognize them. How have these affected your relationships, your career, your self-worth? If you have a self-limiting belief around not being good enough, think about how that is reverberating throughout your life and how that's stopping you.

throughout your life. You know and it's not in a good way because otherwise it wouldn't be a limiting belief.

holding you back from having an abundant life, right? And when I talk about abundance, I'm not talking about manifesting millions. I mean emotional abundance, living with more peace, more authenticity, more freedom, more of the good stuff in life. Maybe for you that means building a fulfilling business or deepening your relationships or just finally feeling like you can breathe. Whatever your reason, you know what is calling you.

And here's something else we need to understand. Trauma doesn't just live in the mind, it lives in the body. Even long after the traumatic event is over, the body can still carry it. We'll dive into this more in future episodes where I'll talk about the work of people like Bessel von der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps Score, Gabon Matei who wrote When the Body Says No. Both of them talk extensively about how unprocessed trauma contributes to chronic stress and disease.

One thing we'll talk about is the ACE scores, which is something that is also linked to chronic stress and disease, which stems from childhood trauma The late Louise Hay, she used to say that disease is just ease in the body. And I really believe that there's some truth to that. We'll also start exploring some somatic practices like yoga.

breathwork and nervous system regulation. I'm such a big fan of breathwork. I'd be excited to share that with you in future episodes and you know, to go more in depth into that because these are tools that can help the body feel safe enough to finally let go. And that's key here to healing any trauma is the body has to feel safe. That's the key. But before you can release anything, we also have to recognize that we have to name the trauma.

We have to observe how it's still showing up and we have to identify the beliefs that's planted and then start working to rewrite them. Only then can we begin to forgive both the people who caused the trauma and ourselves. I've come to realize that of all the trauma I've experienced in my life, the harshest abuser has often been me. Yes, that's right, me. Others have hurt me, but...

I was the one who continued to speak to myself in those same voices long after the events were over. So now I'm working to break those cycles. I look forward to the day when I can stop hurting myself through these all patterns and instead fully choose self-love. Because here's the truth, we don't choose to be traumatized, but we can choose to heal. That's the vision I have for myself and I want to ask you what is your vision? What is healing?

look like for you? what kind of life could you create if you weren't carrying all of this anymore? having a why, a vision for the life you're trying to step into is what will carry you through the harder parts of this journey. So before we close out I want to invite you to pause for a moment and reflect.

Are there any patterns in your life, in how you react, how you relate to others or how you speak to yourself, that feel bigger than the situation calls for? Can you trace them back to something you experienced? Or do they feel like they might not even belong to you? Maybe they're inherited, maybe they're absorbed, maybe they've just always been there. Just notice what comes up. No pressure to figure it all out. This is just about curiosity, observation and not judgement.

Whatever arises, just meet it with compassion. That's where healing really begins. Now, if you've made it this far, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you more than you know, and I truly hope this episode resonated with you. If it did, I'd be so grateful if you'd share it with someone who needs to hear it too.

This podcast is a true labor of love and it means the world to me to be able to share it with you every week. If I could ask just one small thing in return, it's this. Please take a moment to follow, rate and review the show. It helps more than you know in keeping it going and helping it reach others on their healing journey. I truly cannot do this without you. We are only just getting started. So make sure to click that follow button.

or the little bell so you're notified when the next episode drops. If you want to stay connected between episodes, come follow me on my healing journey on Instagram and TikTok. You'll find the links in the show notes or just search The Midlife Awakening on either platform. Until next week, be kind to yourself and take care of your heart. And remember, it's never too late to begin again. Bye for now.