We dig deep into two very important aspects of trauma; establishing the awareness of where the trauma stems from, and then identifying how the trauma is affecting you in the present.

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[Music]
all right
welcome back to another episode of
finding peaks
i’m excited to be with you all today
thanks again for joining us um really
appreciate
you guys following along giving us
feedback along the way for
you know what to speak about on an
ongoing basis
and um i’m just feeling filled with
energy today
um and caffeine and caffeine nearly
finished my uh
my starbucks americano here so we’re
we’re rocking hard here
um in any case we were in our office
yesterday afternoon
having a chat like we do and in the
process
we got into a little snafu about trauma
and how it works and what’s the best
approach to trauma and trauma is a hot
topic
in this industry um there’s many
opinions about it in regards to
addiction
and how it you know resolves internal
issues maybe that’s causing an intensity
in somebody’s life
um in that regard and i kind of just
wanted to
recreate that match up you guys got into
yesterday
well good news it hasn’t resolved yet
and it’s not resolved so
yeah so i’m hopeful we’ll experience it
ever will honestly
yeah yeah and i think it’s worth talking
about so we’ll just do a little
round one here right go wow you didn’t
even introduce us this time
oh gosh i forgot seriously this is my
friend jason friesman
chief clinical officer peaks recovery
right chief clinical officer
the chief operation chief operating
officer wow
now i’m not even his friend or or i’m
fired
yeah i couldn’t they’re already cutting
they’re right they said i only have to
pick up his drug cleaning two more times
and i could be his friend
[Laughter]
so you got off easy yeah okay yeah okay
good clean up there
yeah a little bit of filler too right we
were talking about the
the track experience and i think uh
several episodes ago about you know
people are doing shot put the hundred
meter dash the two mile around the track
there’s a lot
there’s different starting points for
this and from your guys’s feud
tensions feud yesterday it sounds like
there’s different starting points for
um trauma work and
two seemingly different perspectives
in that regard so again round one go
okay
start us off mr friesman feelers yeah i
mean i i guess
i propose that
trauma is a stuck emotion
and it tends to be
we carried around i’m a fan of
the body keeps the score
book talking about how we store trauma
in our body and that
we are bound uh to have
triggers or fall back into experiencing
our trauma through
a lot of times through our body or
through simply
shrinking our lives down in a way to
avoid triggers
and in my mind
[Music]
when i look at walking through trauma
like there is certainly a stabilization
that needs to happen in the moment
through mindfulness or through
some skill building and resource
development
and that can be like an emdr type safe
place or
just learning how to how to do grounding
and some distress tolerance in the now
uh as an opportunity then access uh
using those resources to then kind of
process and work through
past trauma and then
clinton has a counter point like you
you scratch the surface on your
perspective but that’s all right yeah
yeah yeah yeah
i mean it really goes it’s an
introductory like it really is a broad
question
yeah yeah yeah all right so round one
right so um
pers i actually don’t disagree with a
lot of what jason said i do think that
trauma is something that is
stored in the body and
is something that we carry around with
us i think that is something that um
is there’s a level of
sort of permanence or at least an
imprint of
that can be somewhat permanent if it’s
not addressed
i guess i go more into the brain at that
point though
and start to focus on the trauma health
when we experience trauma we start to
develop neural pathways that help us to
avoid the experience that
recreating that experience right so we
start to um
kind of it becomes a process of avoiding
it becomes a process
and which can either which can lead to
some really maladaptive behaviors like
jason was saying where we’re actually
trying to
like shrink our lives down so we don’t
experience these triggers or we actually
are unable to really access certain
emotions because of these
neural pathways the way that they
developed and so um
for me again taking a i take a bit just
a bit more of a mindfulness approach
like jason started to talk about as far
as like skill building and being able to
ground in the now
and my my personal approach to
trauma is one of that is much more
present focused that is about
how you’re experiencing your trauma in
the present moment
rather than going back and sort of
excavating what has happened it’s
about identifying how your trauma
continues to live on
and then in these in the moment working
through it
rather than falling backwards so
and in my experience i’ve you know i’ve
i have a
trauma in my history and certainly in my
uh more youthful life but going through
i i did a trauma intensive at a fairly
infamous program here in the country
over a five-day period and it was sort
of a going-back experience
and for me it was really drawing forward
an awareness
of the situation and bringing to light
what actually happened to me
that caught you know differently from my
brothers in those settings and so forth
and so
i think there is a power to going back
in a way and creating that awareness and
that foundation of understanding and i’m
i’m just a little bit more curious about
you know kind of that
process you know through your lens and
the importance of doing that in the
from the clinical perspective
i mean being familiar with your process
a bit brandon but like
i i do think it’s important
i i appreciate the here and now piece
and you know like we did debate pretty
heartily uh though i think it is more of
a venn diagram we were just kind of
arguing our margins a little bit um
but i do really think that that like we
can’t
in my opinion like it it’s hard to
change things that we’re not really
conscious or aware of and so i do think
there’s a nes there’s a piece of trauma
whether it’s people dissociating or
choosing not to remember or being unable
to bring up memories or that sort of
thing where
where i think trauma can still be
effective without ever becoming
conscious so i think it can also be
difficult
in the here and now to work on things
that that haven’t been brought at least
forward
to some degree in the consciousness now
i’m not an advocate
either for taking three years and
sitting on a couch like this
you know for two or three hours a week
and just hashing out every detail of a
trauma like i don’t think that
is helpful at all like i think that’s i
think there are a lot more innovative
modalities and approaches to addressing
trauma where you don’t
necessarily have to um
verbally excavate your trauma if you
will but i do think
um in a lot of ways to me it’s about
learning strategies for how to interest
introspect or acknowledging like okay
i’m i’m noticing
this i’m noticing i’m irritable i’m
noticing i’m shrinking my world i’m
pushing my support
group away i am um i’m just making my
life
simpler and that might mean that that
something is happening inside of me that
i can’t quite put a finger on
and so to me that is the value also in
looking back and developing strategies
for looking back to say okay this is
likely how this is showing up in the
moment
well what you described is actually
identifying trauma in the present though
i mean that’s really what you’re
describing like because i’m doing all of
these things i’m sort of
expressing all these behaviors or making
all of these choices which feel
maladaptive in my world right which are
actually affecting me negatively
i there’s that moment of
why right like why am i
which is now you’re taking my word and
for the viewers we’re in round two
at this point yeah for sure right okay
so i guess
and why i think is an important
component like why am i doing the things
that i’m doing i think
what i think once you realize though
that
there is a reason that i’m doing this
you don’t necessarily have to go
all the way back and work through that
reason you can actually strategize
how to work how to change that behavior
and in the process of
mindfully in the present moment changing
and
really addressing the behavior and the
emotions that come up when you’re
experiencing it
you’re you can work through that trauma
in the present moment without
actually having to excavate or go
backwards
yeah a home like that i did you slammed
your foot down so yeah
that’s authoritative good thing i was
working first because that would have
been really loud
yeah it would have been if it was a
cowboy boot um
i don’t fully disagree with what you’re
saying either like i appreciate
i i don’t disagree with a lot of what
you’re saying and in some ways you’re
saying what i’m saying as well that like
these things
are the past coming and knocking on
the president’s door if you will and
like but to me
um there is some value in
in looking back um because like
sometimes the maladaptive behaviors are
almost seem way out of context for what
had happened or
um the lack of awareness for the process
to get to the point where
this happened in my childhood and
now i can’t say these words to my wife
like that
there’s such a long
circuitous journey to get there and and
do you need to take
every step along the way maybe not
probably not but
but is there like okay in the moment i’m
feeling this i’m feeling something in my
body i’m feeling
heat or i’m feeling black or i’m feeling
like i can’t look somebody in the eyes
because of
whatever’s happened in the past like i i
hear that those are present related
things but i think there’s a value to
kind of hold those two things in tension
right and then balance because like it
won’t do any good to go excavate it
doesn’t change the moment of course like
that’s
that’s absolutely the goal is like you
know to move forward and not
have those triggers but i i think the
only spot where we
differ maybe is how much value there is
in in exploring some of those past
things and of course i think that there
is
value in getting down to the why like
really
uh which is kind of where you know your
approach lands is in this sort of
week you end up in this thing of like do
we focus on the why or do we focus on
the what what
right and so he’s a y guy i’m a what guy
slash howl guy and uh you know round
three
right okay
and i do believe that there is value in
bringing to a certain degree
um unconscious behaviors con to a
conscious level
because that way you can work on them
very directly
um i just don’t necessarily believe that
it’s
uh an absolute
necessity you know i think that there is
value to that
in certain moments and in certain and in
certain
cases and with certain clients i just
don’t know if it’s actually something
that has to happen
because when doing that all you’re
actually doing in my perspective is
reinforcing that synapse connection
right you’re re-forming and actually
sort of strengthening that synapse
that synapse processing rather than
breaking it and creating a new one
science i mean and i recognize that
that feels like a mic drop moment for
you like i just don’t
and i i guess to me
because you are right like okay so i
mean if we’re going to get into the
weeds a little bit about it like
trauma usually does create really pretty
negative
self thoughts right like we could
probably track it down to
you know i any sort of i am statement
that’s
horrible like i’m i often times in group
um when i begin to talk about shame or
something like that i will i literally
will sit in a group with 10 guys and be
like
who in here raise your hand if you think
you’re the worst person on the planet
and it every time five or six hands goes
up
and i’m like so five or six of you of
the billions of people on the planet
think you’re the worst
like think about that that means
billions of people
think they’re the worst person on the
planet in in a lot of times that
has its uh origins in some sort of
trauma or where that was
reinforced and like um
i guess i just don’t know that exploring
backward and then learning how to
unweave and find new messaging for
oneself
or learning how to break the behavior to
challenge the shame message i don’t know
how that’s reinforcing that synaptic
part right well it made a lot of sense
in my head i mean it sounded great
but it is there is actually join us next
week when we find out the earth is flat
right well i think it’s it’s around that
i do think it’s important to
be creative and think about what it’s
doing as a brain mechanism because
you know strangely enough we’re
operating within the brain nearly the
entire time
um in a lot of ways especially really in
relationship to addiction but
our industry and for a variety of
different reasons
uh is one of the you know few medical
side of things where we’re not going to
crack open head and look exactly what’s
going on there
and so i think being able to bridge
gaps in the absence of that real
scientific information
it creates great conversation and felt
like a great mic drop moment so
oh okay yeah you guys are going to put
that in your book you were talking about
it
yeah yeah well and i i i like
actually i like the idea of the venn
diagram right where we are kind of uh
arguing our margins and sort of
because there is there is crossover
without a doubt and i would say
probably my perspective is not the most
popular the most common i think that
there is a lot more
evidence out there for this sort of
excavation process
because that’s kind of where trauma has
come from and it has actually moved
closer and closer and closer to the
moment
as time has progressed i mean they’re
back in the day there were
um trauma approaches where you were
literally like reliving your trauma and
re-traumatizing clients and so we’ve
moved away from that i think very
um rightfully so
i think that we guess
my perspective is when you
somebody realizes that they realize
that they’re the worst person in the
world right and
what do you do with that right like so
you know
and then you figure out why because you
had a traumatic experience as a
child like this is why you feel that way
so then what do you do with it you know
what happens then
you know how do you utilize that
information into
um to transformative um change
which is what counseling and therapy is
all about it’s all about change
yeah right and i can’t tell if you’re
asking a question
or like are you yeah making a point
your voice not go up at the end yeah i
mean
kind of although it did it could appear
rhetorical as well but like i do think
it’s both you know from my perspective
there is there is
value in fostering empathy for oneself
sure
because a lot of a lot of times i’m the
worst person on the planet because
when i was four i didn’t defend myself
against my dad
whatever that might be and and like we
take our adult perspective
and expect the little kids version of
ourselves to have done
or behave differently is what i found
sure and so fostering some empathy
for that past part of myself is
um a valuable part of doing the
cognitive and behavioral part of the
process
and i think that that’s where i would
pick up the baton right so you’ve got
the empathy you’ve got the awareness
you’ve got the empathy so now how do i
actually change
now to how do i make this tren this
information transformative and
meaningful in my life
and what ways am i actually living out
this idea that i am the worst person in
the world
and how do how do i directly
address those and change those both on a
behavioral level on a synaptic level on
an emotional level i think the process
does begin to
resolve you start to find a resolution
through actual change and so i think
that that’s where
we bridge in those that moment um
because i do think that it’s
you know we really are like you know i’d
mentioned er when we
had this conversation multiple times uh
we’re two sides of the same coin to a
certain degree i think it’s just a
matter of
approach and um
what we choose to focus on yeah yeah and
in our own biases probably in how we’re
wired
right and then probably our own
experiences along the way as well that
have informed us what’s beneficial to
ourselves personally what’s not
making it about feelings that was
that wasn’t even close to a feeling it
wasn’t maybe approaching it
like don’t worry yeah no tears yeah
we’ll be fine
if you can if you don’t experience it
from the viewers side of things i i
think in the ven dem
diagram sort of way they’re actually
hugging now it’s no longer a fight
this is a coming together but i i want
to
uh exit this episode on
so on on two important things here that
i think have
are are coming up for me namely that um
you know trauma is a stuck in time thing
it’s an event that happened whether it
was physical emotion
emotional intellectual abuse um it’s an
event
it’s what is the experience though of
trauma when i feel like i’m the worst
person in the world it sounds like shame
is the word that i just want to get in
here that’s actually
the experience of trauma is shame that i
no longer
have value or i lack value resulting
from this stuck-in-time experience
um and just want to make sure that’s uh
that’s accurate from my
non-clinical lens and reading of this i
think that’s a good reason absolutely
yeah
i think that and if uh
i think again another place where jason
and i would really overlap is the idea
that in the end you’re working
on shame you know like when you’re
working on trauma you’re working on
shame
and um i think that you know part of the
curriculum that we’ve developed is based
around that it’s this idea that you know
we don’t have a
a trauma week but we have a grief and we
have a shame week
right where we’re really exploring that
and again they do some deep diving on
in the beginning with jason and then on
the end they sort of ground themselves
and um focus more on the what and the
how and
so i think um but you hit the nail on
the head
you know in the end it’s shane yeah
i read brene brown so yeah you know it
comes up from time to time
yeah yeah and i haven’t played i’ve
watched youtube some ted talks
[Laughter]
any going out thoughts for you guys or
uh
to be clear i’m quite fond of these
discussions
absolutely i find them to be very
valuable yeah honestly
and we’re always kind of hugging so yeah
yeah yeah
it’s always yeah yeah a warm gushy
feeling here somewhere
okay yeah absolutely all right curious
where that goes inevitably
but uh we’ll stop we’ll full stop it
here
uh i just want to thank everybody again
for joining us today
uh check us out on uh what are the kids
look watching the spotify spotify
listening on the spotify the tube the
youtube yeah
insta thing the facebook apple store i
think there’s several ways to find this
episode or these episodes of course
please continue to look for us follow us
um send us your comments your feedback
it’s so valuable to us to know where to
take it from here and we promise we’ve
talked about it i think
we i don’t know
you’re making but at least 10 times
we’ve talked about it
we’re going to change this dynamic up a
little bit moving forward we just kind
of wanted to get
a foundation and a feel for this
environment that we’re in
under those the hot lamps and so forth
and so we look forward to changing up a
few things inviting some folks onto the
future episodes coming up and engaging
more with
the why that jason is going to bring
forward to us next week so
until next time thank you absolutely
bring your kleenex
[Music]