Flourish in captivity

Keywords

Resilience - Kidnap - Trauma – Change – Challenge – Recovery – Healing – Depression – Stockholm Syndrome

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Gloria Londono shares her traumatic experience of being kidnapped and held in captivity when she was 25 years old and how the experience led her to leave her country and immigrate to the US. Gloria reveals how she developed an attachment to one of her captors due to the Stockholm syndrome and the challenges she faced after her release including a lack of proper support and therapy from her family.

She also recounts her journey seeking employment in the US and talks about the resilience and persistence she needed to apply for 40 jobs before securing a position in a hardware store. She also discusses her subsequent job in a produce company where she overcame language barriers with the help of her manager to improve her communication skills. She eventually started her own business and then met her ex-husband. Together they built a successful company before she decided to leave the company to pursue her interests in coaching and writing.

Gloria's has experienced trauma, depression, and anxiety and she shares the coping mechanisms and tools she used to manage her symptoms, including journaling and therapy. She also talks about how writing her book, "Flourish in Captivity," about her traumatic experiences and journey towards healing, was a significant part of her recovery process.

Action items

You can find out more about Gloria at https://www.glorialondono.co/ Her memoir is Flourish In Captivity and she also has her own podcast, The Unbreakable Life with Glory, which offers audiences seeking healing and peace a blueprint for growth, forgiveness, gratitude, and hope.

 You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

A trauma toolkit

 Keywords

Resilience – Trauma Management – Psychological Safety – Trauma Relief  – Trauma Healing - Nervous System Regulation

 In this episode of Resilience Unravelled, Dr Christy Gibson, a respected physician, international speaker, and trauma clinician talks about trauma management approaches that combine cutting-edge brain biology theories, such as the polyvagal theory and epigenetics, with holistic approaches to offer personalised solutions.

Christy’s expertise extends to international trauma work in countries like Nepal and Ethiopia so provides a unique perspective on post-traumatic growth and workplace psychological safety.

Main topics

•  Deep brain reorienting therapy for trauma processing.

• Focusing on affirmations for flexibility and trust-building

• The importance of social innovation, design change, and policy work in trauma healing and resilience building.

• The need for interactive communication and community engagement in trauma recovery.

• Creating curriculum and onboarding processes for standardising psychological safety in the work environment

 Timestamps

1: Introduction to Expertise and Trauma Work. Introduction to Christy Gibson and her expertise in trauma work. Discussion on the impact of modern technology on reaching and influencing people. 00:02 - 05:26
2: Understanding Trauma and Healing Techniques. 05:26: Different approaches to dealing with trauma, focusing on nervous system regulation. Exploring the concept of trauma and its manifestations in present experiences. 05:26 - 10:54
3: Techniques for Trauma Relief. Techniques for instant relief from trauma. Tension-releasing exercises like humming and singing for trauma relief. 15:23 - 20:43
4: The Modern Trauma Toolkit Book. Discussion on Christy’s book, the Modern Trauma Toolkit, and its accessibility and focus on solutions. 20:54 - 23:58
5: Workplace Psychological Safety and Communication. Highlighting the importance of psychological safety in the workplace and post-traumatic growth. Introduction to safer communication strategies and modern approaches to addressing trauma in the workplace. 27:27 - 29:39
6: Conclusion and Contact Information. 29:39 - 33:38

 Action items

You can find out more about Christy at https://www.christinegibson.net/ http://www.moderntrauma.com or https://www.saferspacestraining.com

Her book The Modern Trauma Toolkit is available here.  

    You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Breaking free from addiction and crime

Keywords

Resilience – Addiction – Transformation – Trauma – Positive Change - Connection

 In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Don Cummins, a transformational coach, speaker, and author, discusses his journey of overcoming addiction, rebuilding his life, and finding success in a professional career after serving a 20-year prison sentence for bank robbery.

Don shares his experiences of overcoming addiction and rebuilding his life and discusses how trauma and a desire to fit in led him down a destructive path of drug use and criminal behaviour. He emphasises the importance of self-acceptance, support, insight, and of recognising when you reach the bottom in making positive change and highlights the need to address underlying issues rather than solely focusing on addictive behaviours.

Main topics

• Why hitting rock bottom can be the turning point in making positive change.

• Why you need support, insight, and self-awareness to make progress.

• The challenges of re-entering society and finding a job after prison

• Why it’s difficult to relate trauma experiences with others who haven't been through it.

• Finding understanding and connection with people who have shared similar struggles.

• Finding true purpose and meaning

Timestamps

1: Introduction and Background - Overview of the podcast episode and introduction of the guest, Don Cummins. Don briefly shares his background and what he does as a coach - 00:05-01:41

2: From Trauma to Prison - Don discusses the traumatic experiences he went through as a youth and how it led him into a cycle of addiction and involvement with the criminal justice system. He shares that this ultimately resulted in him serving a 20-year prison sentence for bank robbery - 01:41-02:03

3: Rebuilding a Life - Don talks about his journey of recovery and the challenges he faced in rebuilding his life after being at the lowest point. He emphasises the importance of support, gaining insight, and discovering one's true purpose and meaning - 02:03-03:10

4: Unpacking the Downfall - Don Cummins reflects on the factors that contributed to his downfall, acknowledging that it is a complex process to unpack. He mentions the struggle of staying clean and employable, and the emotional challenges he faced - 03:10-05:02

5: Gaining Resilience - Discussion on the importance of support, gaining insight, and developing resilience to overcome difficult circumstances. Don shares his perspective on hitting rock bottom and how it can be a turning point for positive change - 05:22-07:05

6: Rebuilding Relationships - Don talks about his experience in rebuilding relationships and finding understanding and connection with others who have shared similar struggles. He shares how counselling and communication skills helped in improving his relationship with his partner - 07:28-09:25

7: Sharing the Journey Through Writing - Don discusses his motivation to write a memoir, "The Prison Within: A Memoir of Breaking Free," to share his story and help others who may be going through similar challenges. He talks about the impact of his book and his upcoming book, "Awaken, Connect, Transform: The Universal Path to Happiness and Success.” - 09:25-14:23

8: The Universal Path to Happiness and Success - Don explains the concept of the universal path to happiness and success, emphasizing the importance of connection and recognizing our interconnectedness. He invites listeners to explore his work and learn more about his books - 14:23-21:41

9: Conclusion and Call to Action - Final thoughts on the power of resilience and the potential for personal growth and transformation - 21:41-24:10

Action items

• Visit doncummins.com to learn more about his work and pre-order or order his books.

• Find Don on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook to connect with him and stay updated on his work.

• Don’s upcoming book is "Awaken, Connect, Transform: The Universal Path to Happiness and Success,"

• Don’s memoir is, "The Prison Within: A Memoir of Breaking Free”.

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Safe conversations for work and life

 Keywords

Resilience – Trauma – Mental Health – Fulfilment – Purpose – Self-awareness – Safe Conversations

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Bill Carson, a visionary leader in mental health, wellbeing, shares his personal experience of childhood trauma and how he overcame it through therapy and understanding brain chemistry. Bill emphasises the importance of taking care of our mental health by focusing on both psychological and physical well-being and also discusses the significance of finding a sense of purpose in life and serving others as part of building resilience. The conversation highlights the need for a holistic approach to mental health that includes addressing biological, psychological, social, and existential factors.

 Bill also discusses his experience as a volunteer crisis supporter and the fulfilment he receives from helping others. He emphasises the importance of not letting external factors overshadow one's own identity, relationships, and sense of connectedness and concept of finding purpose through the three levels of happiness: pleasure, passion, and purpose. He also touches on psychological safety in conversations at work and how it contributes to overall well-being.  

Main topics

• The importance of managing automatic negative thoughts (ANTs).

• The process of negating harm from a childhood incident.

• Cognitive repair and the importance of positive thinking.

• The importance of purpose and learning to learn.

• The importance of self-awareness and identifying suitable resources.

• How safe conversations can still be robust and professional.

• The importance of creating a safe and healthy culture for conversations

Timestamps

1: Introductions. 00:02 - 01:08

2: Impact of Childhood Trauma. Bill discusses the challenges of childhood trauma and how it can affect people's lives, often without their conscious memory of the original incident. He emphasises the importance of learning to manage and change perceptions of trauma. 01.08 - 04:23

3: Overcoming Childhood Trauma. Bill shares his personal experience of dealing with childhood trauma and how he discovered helpful approaches. 04:29 - 06:46

4: Finding Purpose. Bill explores the concept of finding purpose in life and how it relates to resilience. He highlights the importance of having a sense of belonging to a higher purpose and aligning personal actions with that purpose. 06:47 - 14:23

5: Discovering Personal Purpose. Bill discusses the process of uncovering one's purpose and offers an example of building a cathedral as a metaphor for finding purpose through meaningful work. 14:24 - 19:03

6: Psychological Safety and Safe Conversations. Russell raises the topic of psychological safety and safe conversations in the workplace and asks the guest, Bill, to share his insights. Bill explains the importance of creating a safe environment for open and honest conversations to support individual growth and performance. 19.04-25:03

7: Safe Conversations Skills for Managers. Bill introduces his book, "Safe Conversations for Work and Life," which focuses on developing safe conversation skills for managers to foster a culture of psychological safety in the workplace. He explains the process of helping team members become self-aware and identify suitable resources for support. 25.04 – 27.46

8: Emotional Fitness and Resilience. Russell briefly mentions a model of resilience and emotional fitness on Bill's website. They express interest in exploring this topic in more detail and provide information on how listeners can access the resources and contact Bill. 27:47 - 29:24

9: Conclusion: The host thanks Bill for the conversation and provides information on where listeners can find more about Bill's work and his book. 29:35 - 29:50

Action items

You can find out more about Bill at https://inspirelearning.au/skills-for-leaders-managers/

His book is Safe Conversations for Work and Life.

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Preparing the mind for difficult situations

Lt Col Brian L. Slade started as an enlisted man in the US Army as a diesel mechanic. After he got his commission as an officer he then stated flying Apache helicopters. Shortly after a very long and arduous deployment he decided to transition into the Air Force in an attempt to save his marriage.

His first deployment was for twenty-three months and he had only been married for five months prior to that so for the first two and a half years of the marriage they were separated for two. The problem is often not the separation but when you come back together again and military personnel who are dealing with potential trauma in a very strong comrade type team often find it very difficult to go back to a routine husband, wife and children environment.

Brian’s ex-wife had also had a mental disorder borderline personality disorder so the relationship was really tumultuous. In some ways it was more traumatic than some of the things he was being asked to do in the military because he wasn't as prepared for the dynamics. The military prepares you for certain dynamics that you are going to experience. You are used to a certain regimentation and interaction that didn't work with the relationship.

Brian’s book is about trauma and the reason he wrote it was because when he was deployed as an Apache pilot there were crazy, traumatic, intense experiences that he was exposed to. He started asking why would he experience post-traumatic growth rather than the post-traumatic stress we always hear about. He looked at his peers and although they had the same stimulus they had different results. Brian felt he had grown from his experiences and that they increased his resilience and his ability to see things as opportunities rather than obstacles that would drag him down. Other guys on the alternative end of the spectrum were thinking about taking their own lives - that's a very big spectrum for the same stimulus

Brian’s book outlines seven principles. Things like growing a healthy perspective, how do you do that when you experience things that pull you into a myopic perspective but need to maintain that macro perspective?  How do you build a healthy support system and what does that look like. What are we talking about when we say we need to release hate? That's a big one that we don't really talk about. There are a couple of meanings to it. When you are at war, when you have to kill someone it makes it easier to de-humanise them and make them into something they aren’t. Harboring a hate for them is a coping mechanism but it’s not a healthy one.

As well as releasing the hate for the enemy you have to release the hate for yourself. As we start doing the things that the ugliness of war calls for we start painting ourselves as ugly to, that that's part of who we are. You need to remember that just because you’re there doing things other people wouldn't do it doesn’t make you an ugly person - it makes you a proxy for the people who aren’t suited to doing it or cant do it.

This is similar to a disassociation technique and it plays back to one of the other principals of defining and embracing your honorable mission. Brian’s honorable mission wasn't really to get Osama bin Laden, that was what got him on the plane but realised his honorable mission was to make sure that as many of his brothers and sisters in arms made it back. You are going to do ugly things at times to make sure that your honorable mission is accomplished,

How do we avoid festering, emotional wounds? If you're a banker and go to work and you have a transaction or something happens that's interesting you go home and talk about it. It’s so much harder to do when your job is blowing up twelve people but the fact still remains that your honorable mission is to make sure the ground guys make it home safely. It’s harder to talk about it but that’s how you avoid the festering emotional wound. You just talk about it in a matter of fact way.

Building resilience is never ending. With an honorable mission there’s a beginning and end. There are moments of high adrenaline and then lots of time doing mundane things. The mission allows you to compartmentalise things. There is the focal point that we are looking at and around that are lots of ugly things but when we pull the trigger we have just completed our honorable mission. We know there is lots of auxiliary stuff in there but that stays there because you’re in the ugliness because of your honorable mission. You don't have to take that home with you. Part of that is sharing it. You share it as matter of factly as you possibly can. You use humor because it makes it easier to share. Brian realised humor was his stepping-stone to talking about it seriously. In a way it’s doing the same thing with hate – you’re coping but it’s a positive emotion for coping not a negative one. It's a lily pad to being able to talk about it.

Brian also uses chair flying which is an aviation technique. He added the meditation and role playing pieces to the visualisation aspect. A lot of people will struggle with anxiety if they are visulising a very stressful event so you control the environment through meditation and create a safe space where you plant the things you want to grow and get strong. Breathing exercises help to get in the right headspace and then start to visulise an emergency procedure.

One exercise has a co-pilot and engine getting shot out. In a matter of seconds you need to react to the rotors going down. The co- pilot is screaming in the background and you automatically think that's the first thing to deal with but in fact its number three on the list. The rotor is most important. The flight controls are jammed so that’s the second action then the co-pilot but it all needs to happen in one or two seconds. You don’t get through that by thinking about it. In the leadership world they practice so they get it right, in the military they practice so they don't get it wrong. Things do go wrong but the risk reduction is there. The noisy drama is not always the first thing to do!

You can find out more about Brian at https://www.clearedhot.info/ or find his book Cleared Hot.

 You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Recovering from childhood trauma to rebuild the sibling bond

Ronni Tichenor and Jennie Weaver are sisters and survivors who found a way to emerge from a tragic cycle of intergenerational trauma and abuse

Ronni and Jennie grew up in a home with abuse, addiction and mental illness. There is a lot of conversation around these issues nowadays about recovery from childhood trauma, its impact and how it can be difficult to realise that you grew up in a home with these dynamics because denying that these things are going on can be common. Sometimes this denial lasts to adulthood.

Both of them took some time to figure out what had happened to them in their childhood and have spent the last couple of decades trying to recover from their experiences. One of the things they noticed as they tried to get information and educate themselves about the dynamic they had experienced as children is that there is a lot of talk about childhood trauma these days but not a lot of discussion about what happens to siblings.

The relationship between siblings is nearly always damaged in some way in homes like theirs. Its not their fault because the dynamics the parents set in motion often sets children against each other in very explosive ways. Children can grow up and have really tough relationships with their siblings or be estranged from their siblings and not realise that it’s not their fault. The fact that Ronni and Jennie were able to come back together and heal the relationship in addition to healing individually is something they didn't see a lot of people talk about so that is why they are trying to bring that forward in the conversation.

Siblings can have different experiences, especially male and female relationships. Often one sibling is on the side of one parent and the other is on the side of the other?

Jennie was the youngest of three children and she was identified as the patient or scapegoat if you use the terms talked about with addiction. Ronni was the oldest and the hero. She was set up to succeed and to be the champion of the family. Jennie’s role was to be the problem of the family. She was a sensitive child and very intuitive so was constantly trying to read the mood of the room and her parents to try to avoid the next explosion. She really didn't feel particularly closer to one or the other - they were equally frightening in their ability to rage and to afflict pain. She feels Ronni seemed at times to be a confident of father so there was definitely a constant loyalty of ‘who do you love more’. That's probably very common in families with these issues.

Ronni agrees that they had different roles that they played and although neither of them was fun, Jennies’ was terrible. There were times when Ronni felt that her father was trying to draw her into being his confident, especially during her teen years. Her mother did that as well sometimes so there was a loyalty trap. It was also difficult because when her father was looking for looking for someone to talk it was because he felt he couldn't  talk to her mother in that way - it was both flattering and troublesome that she was being put between her mother and father. It was just one of a number of uncomfortable and unhealthy dynamics that were set into motion n homes like theirs.

If you are a single child and you’re abused there is a different set of dynamics going on.  In families are all the siblings involved or is the abuse confined to one and with the others not being part of it?

It’s unusual to have just one sibling targeted. You’re targeted in different ways. Their parents were verbally and physically abusive to all of them but because of her role as the ‘hero’, Ronni received less of that than Jennie did. Jennie got the brunt of it and that disparity intensified into adulthood. It got to the point where they had to break contact with their parents and their brother because they realised what was happening and wanted to get help whilst their parents and brother did not.  This happened when Ronni and Jennie were in their late 20’s/early 30’s and whilst Ronni was getting much less of the abuse, Jennie was constantly targeted. There can be disparities but usually all the siblings get some measure of maltreatment. Their brother was abused as well although he did not see it that way – when they tried to point out the abuse he had endured when he was growing up he couldn't see it and sided with their parents as they were trying to pull out of denial.

It is quite common that you see different roles. They are almost strategic partnerships or relationships that build because sometimes the best defence is to appear to join the enemy. When you were experiencing the abuse did you talk about it or was it only later that you began to unpack it that you discovered what was going on? How did that awareness of each other’s role come about?

Jennie feels it really evolved over time.  They both knew that they wanted very different types of marriage to what they had witnessed growing up. They both married really good men and as they started to have their children they started to talk about parenting and how they wanted to parent. One weekend Ronni invited Jennie to visit alone with her 8 month old daughter. Ronni knew Jennie was really struggling – she was living with their parents as her husband was overseas on Operation Desert Storm and there wasn’t a lot of direct communication with each other. They were still entrenched in part in denial and what therapists would call triangular communication – in order to maintain control somebody in the family had to be controlling the communication. At that time most of the communication was running through their mother who kept a tight lid on what she decided to share, which often wasn't accurate at all. It was all part of maintaining loyalty and keeping them in line.

The weekend was a big deal and Jennie received a lot of flak from their parents but it turned out to be an opportunity for Ronni and Jennie to open up. As soon as Jennie walked in the door Ronni realised she was suffering from severe depression. Over the weekend they started to talk and they stepped out of denial and broke the taboo of silence by discussing the family dynamics and how their parents were treating Jennie.

It’s often the case that each individual sibling treats what’s happening as a secret and doesn't share it. There is a futility to those years where you don't realise that you have somebody else, that you have a supporter or ally. There must be part of the sickening sense of waste that comes from this?

You are so entrenched in the denial and following those ever changing roles of control. Its about controlling each of the children and they realised as they started to talk to each other how isolated they were from each other and their emotional needs. They didn't really talk much directly to each other about what was going on because they were conditioned to keep silent. You are conditioned to believe that after a horrible beating that you’re not hurt, too stop crying, I didn’t mean to hurt you so don't talk about it. When you are conditioned from infancy it takes a lot to break out those patterns and recognise the patterns and then talk about and have someone to talk about them with. A therapist who is well versed in abuse and addiction and the mental illness dynamics in families is imperative to start unpacking but to have a sibling to validate the memories and say ‘I was there’ ‘I remember that’ ‘you’re not imagining it’ accelerates your healing process dramatically.

One of the major challenges is building a relationship with a partner who is taking on someone who has been through such an experience. It creates trust or commitment issues and the need to not have the relationship you had with your parents. You need to construct something that is a figment of your imagination because you can’t use your experience. How do you begin to work with your partners in sharing issues and begin to develop relationship and parenting styles?

Ronni and her partner talked a lot in the beginning about what they wanted. They recognised patterns with both his father and her father and mother’s anger issues. It wasn't until she started going to counselling early in their marriage before they had their children that she started unpacking some of what had happened. Her husband was very supportive, he is a very healthy and loving person in his own right and they just wanted to work on creating the most loving relationship they could have with each other and then when they started having children to be the best parents they could. To parent as consciously as possible.

Ronni and Jennie have both pursued really successful careers and are examples of people who have not been defined by past significantly learned from it.

They have both taken what they were given as children and tried to figure out how to live their lives in a healthier manner and also use that information to help other people. Ronni feels that because we don't talk about these issues they are swept under the rug and society helps people stay in denial about what they have experienced because we don’t talk about it.

You learn from the process of sharing. You learn more about yourself in the process of enabling and helping other people. What was behind the decision to write the book?

Ronni and Jennie both felt that they had done a lot of research and that it was helpful to hear other peoples stories. It also helped them find the name what had happened to them. A therapist told them that it is really unusual for the hero and scapegoat to become as close as the two of them had and they started to think that there might be probably some kind of formulae that they could share in terms of what they did on their path to increase the possibility that other people could heal their sibling relationships as well.

You can find out more at www.ronniandjennie.com or https://www.facebook.com/theheartandsoulsisters

Their book is available at  Healing Begins with Us: Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Abuse and Rebuilding the Sibling Bond 

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

The Bullied Brain - Losing the mind bully

Dr Jennifer Fraser wrote her book The Bullied Brain primarily for people who have been bullied or abused. The focus is on the maltreatment of children by adults and how a lot of adults use this type of behaviour without knowing how harmful it is. Jennifer thinks we are at a tipping point as a society because have outdated beliefs where we think we need to toughen kids up but this is backfiring. She has looked at science surrounding this and it is clear that children don't learn, perform well or have healthy brains if they are treated in this way.

Jennifer looked at bullying thorough the lenses of law, education and psychology but found the most interesting information though neuroscience. Most of us grow up without any mention of our brain unless we have a trauma of some kind. We don’t teach children about their brain or learn about it as adults. We go to our doctor for many different things but they never assess our brain for health. Jennifer was personally invested as he son had been abused by two teachers and been threatened and humiliated as well as suffering physical abuse and homophobic slurs. She started to read about neuroscience to find out what this kind of abuse does to the brain of a teenage boy. She now feels that all kids need to know about this as well as their teachers, coaches and parents.

In bullying situations the neurochemistry works against the brain by allowing it to deselect things that are healthy. If a brain is constantly under threat or feels fear and anxiety of being bullied or abused, it constantly ramps up its stress response system. It should be able to shut down naturally - it's a fight, flight or freeze response - but if you are consequently activating it you are doing considerable damage to your brain architecture. This damage can’t be seen without a brain scan and Jennifer feels we should be listening to the people that are looking at the damage and also measuring people’s cortisol, the hormone that causes the problem. When cortisol, pumps though your brain because you are being abused you can start to identify with the aggressor and lose selfhood to survive. The brain uses this as a coping mechanism but what also happens is that cortisol is eroding your blood and damaging all kinds of other cells.

As well as the fight, flight, freeze mechanisms, increasing with trauma patients there is an additional category that is referred to as flop. People who are abused use this final approach of flopping and accept abuse. This can then create a brain/body link so dealing/coping with these things has to be more holistic rather than just resetting a chemical balance. We have to learn how to realign our mind, brain and body. All three need to be in alignment or they work at cross-purposes and you start to get behaviours such as eating disorders or suicidal idealities.

Bullycide happens when you are trying to kill the bully but the bully has become morphed into who you are and is held in your mind, body and brain. You end up eliminating yourself through your passion, desire and suffering to get rid of the thing you have internalised. The abuser becomes a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde character. They are really good at being a pillar of the community, are charismatic and intelligent but change behind closed doors. Many have a borderline personality disorder and many get like this by being abused. You have to find a way to halt the cycle. It’s not easy to fix your brain but it can be done. You can get better and return a damaged brain into a high functioning again with organic health.

Jennifer developed a mind bully herself. When she was writing the book she tried to why unpack why she behaved the way she did. She had dissociated with the person she was as a teenager who was physically, emotionally and sexually abused by three teachers. She had put this away in a box and not integrated it so it started to operate as a mind bully. She was a high achiever in the academic world but when she came home behind closed doors she bullied herself through cutting and eating disorders. She was hurting her own body because she had no idea she had to take teenage girl and her trauma and work through it. She was as seeing psychiatrists and psychologists and never told them anything about it.

Jennifer could have gone out as a teacher and done what had happened to her to her students. Her personality type, introverted, academic and full of self-expectation meant instead she turned it against herself. That is the mind bully. Many people are holding themselves back from happiness, health and fulfilling their potential because of their mind bully. It takes work on separate it out. You need to become aware its not you, that its something you created that helps you avoid looking at the trauma. If it’s your own problem and the mind bully is your own issue you don't have to take a hard look at what happened to you. You don't have to be the victim, to be vulnerable, to feel what it was like to be a teenager and be treated that way. It’s easier to keep the mind bully beating you up because you don't have to be a victim again. If you find the courage, a good mental health practioner, and a safe network and space to do it, you can go back into the arena again and choose to replace the mind bully.

There seems to be more mental health issues nowadays but this may be because we are more aware rather than there being more. If you've been bullied you are likely to bully yourself, to bully someone else or fix yourself. This explains the growth in bullying and trauma – it is replicating through society. Bullies are victims as well though.  Most help is for the victim but the emphasis should be split. Children have strong brain plasticity. A child showing bullying behaviours should be a red flag that they need help. Society needs to intervene they get the help they need. The conversation needs to shift from a moral issue to a medical one.

It can be a parent that abuses you or a teacher, coach, family member or friend. When Jenifer was bullied the therapists were looking at her family but never asked about teachers or coaches. Children spend more time with these people than they do with their family. One of the key powers bullies use is favoritism. This type of power dynamics can be found in sport. A coach will treat one child properly and at the same time someone else they destroy. This often happens to the most talented athlete in the group – if the coach can ‘destroy’ the best then the rest will fall in.

Jennifer doesn’t talk about being fixed, cured or learning to be better. Rather she talks about people who unlearn and rewire. Unlearning is incredibly hard because you are unconscious of what you have learned. Each person has a default neuro-network – if you burn your hand on the stove the brain never forgets this. It learns this and keeps you safe in the future but as you don’t want to feel anxiety every time you pass the stove, you have to talk to your brain. Jennifer uses her variation of mindfulness to do this - you close your eyes do your deep breathing and start talking to your brain. There are nuances and emotional concepts that are more complex and a richness and diversity of life. It’s not just kick-starting the same old neuro-networks – we have to rethink it.

You can find out more about Jennifer at https://www.bulliedbrain.com/ Her first book, Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom explores what happens when the bully is a teacher or coach whilst her new book, The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health delves into how bullying affects the brain and how the brain can heal.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Energy Medicine Yoga for stress and trauma.

Lauren Walker has been studying and practicing yoga since 1996. She loved the practice and found it helpful on many levels but when she experienced traumatic events yoga was not able to help her overcome them.  She realised she needed to find something else and that was energy or more particularly energy medicine.

When she started studying energy medicine she realised what energy actually was. It changed her understanding of herself as an energetic being and her practice of yoga gradually transformed into energy medicine yoga utilising powerful energy techniques and practices and transformed them in the lens of yoga practice. 

Most people don't have an understanding of ourselves as pure energy beings or that the world is purely energy. Science helps clarify this but can also muddy things. How can we actually apply this science? Where does the science reflect the value and truth of these alternative practices. And where does it come down to people using words like quantum so they feel they are more validated in the actually scientific ways they are meant to be?

Lauren feels there is more room to explore this. Western science is validating these ancient practices in studies to show where these scientific and spiritual practices come together and validate each other. At the end of the day though it’s really a question of ‘does this work for you do these techniques help to you be more in your life better with more ease, peace calm and freedom’.

There has been a lot more understanding of stress and trauma from the medical establishment. Stress causes disease. There is good stress and bad stress. Unresolved trauma also leads to disease and this speaks to that truth that everything is energy. Traumatic experiences are energies that knock your fluid incoherent energies out of coherence and it is the same with stress. Energy medicine and Energy Medicine Yoga speaks to those very specific energies. How they work in the body. How they move in the body. How to resolve them.

Most important we actually move the physical body energy systems animated in the physical body idea of expansion and contraction moving giving space in the body for energy to move and flow. Movement is important for stress and trauma. The more you move in a specific and guided way using the understanding of where the energy flows are in the body, the more freedom we have.

Any issue that you are having, whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual comes down to where the energy is out of balance. It affects everyone in different ways. Whether its stress, trauma, depression or relationships not working, energy medicine yoga addresses the issue and provides the tools to pinpoint where to take the practices depending on what is going on for you.

Energy touches every areas of your life - how you’re feeling or sleeping, how your relationships are working, how quickly you heal, whether you have an optimistic or pessimistic outlook or whether you take action of pull back. All are affected by how coherent all of your energy systems are.

There are nine energy systems and all of those animate the physical systems that all work together synergistically. There is a need to find which area is out of balance energetically and bring it back into balance so that the body does what its meant to do – to heal. It is not at all like a western medicine problem – its much more holistic and integrated and less challenging.

You can find out more about Lauren at EMYoga.net Her new book is The Energy to Heal: Find Lasting Freedom from Stress and Trauma through Energy Medicine Yoga (Llewellyn Publications, May 20, 2022).

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
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Cycle of Lives – Emotional connections with cancer

David Richman is an author, public speaker, philanthropist, and endurance athlete whose mission is to form more meaningful human connections through storytelling. He competes in Ironman triathlons and a wide range of endurance athletic events and has recently completed a solo 4,700-mile bike ride in 41 days. This was to connect with the people who contributed to his book Cycle of Lives, which shares the interconnected stories of people overcoming trauma and delves deeply into their emotional journeys with cancer.

David’s career working for a Wall Street firm was incredibly stressful. During the financial crisis he was managing up and down and things got very tough. He suffered from both external and self-inflicted stress – was overweight and a smoker, did no exercise and had four-year old twins, as well being in a relationship with an abusive alcoholic. He needed to make a change but it wasn’t until his only sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer that he started to change his life around.

He says it was like a light switch going on. His whole life he had been trying to be an overachiever for other people – a good kid, a good student, keeping his boss happy, impressing his employees. Whatever it was doing he was looking for external gratification. Eventually he understood the concept of having to do things for yourself and when he realised this, he took control of his life.

David combined the thought that his best days were ahead with forgiving himself for his past mistakes. He stopped smoking, lost weight and become physically active. He stopped worrying about what other people thought about him and his work and instead concentrated on what he thought about himself and his work. He feels it's very freeing to accept the idea that nobody is watching you and nobody cares about what you do. Everybody has their own problems and own life to deal with. We believe other people are judging us but really they’re not.   When David started doing endurance athletic events he soon realised that no one was taking any notice of what he was doing, what training he was undertaking and where and when he completed an event - he was just doing it solely for himself.

David grew up not wanting to upset his mother and he realises now that is where not doing things for himself or learning self-sufficiency or forgiveness started. Everyone has difficulties so it’s important not to compare yourself to other people. Your life is your life and some people are going though unbelievably traumatic experiences. He talked with his sister through her end of life journey and then went on to do an endurance event to raise money for the cancer centre that had cared for her. Through the contacts he made he realised that many people have great difficulty communicating the emotional side of trauma and cancer.

He decided to write a book that could help people deal with the emotional side of cancer such as how trauma affects the cancer or how we can better relate to someone going through cancer. He found a number of people with a wide range of emotional responses to cancer - doctors, nurses, patients and relatives - and talked to them about their stories. When the book was finished, he wanted to connect with the people he had worked with so organised his bike trip to meet them all. All the profits from book go to charity. Each of the participants came up with a charity they had an affinity to and the proceeds of sales will go to those charities.

As well as raise money, David’s aim is to start the conversation. He feels we all need to try to live our best life but do it because its what we want to do. What matters is the state of happiness that we choose to surround ourselves with and the emotional connections we make with people in life!

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about David here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list and previous blogs also available.

You can find out more about David here.

Never good enough – recovery from an eating disorder.

Faith Elicia has been on a seven-year path of recovery from an eating disorder. Though it there have been many highs and lows, but most importantly, there have been opportunities for growth and change. Her new book, Do You See What I See? Is based on her experiences and follows her journey of recovery from her eating disorder.

Although not a professional in the eating disorder field, Faith has worked closely with psychologists and dieticians during her own recovery. She feels that anyone suffering from an eating disorder has a distorted body image of themselves and also uses maladaptive coping mechanisms to focus on food or their bodies rather than their feelings. It can appear as if they are functioning but their feelings are numbed because their focus is on binging, purging or restriction.

Faith feels that eating disorders are not really talked about as much as other addictive behaviour although there are some very sobering statistics with 9 percent of the U.S. population having an eating disorder in their lifetime. Eating disorders cross gender, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic groups and are among the deadliest of mental illnesses. Anyone caught in the downward spiral of continually obsessing about food, weight, and body image, needs support to free themselves from this dangerous illness. 

The most well known eating disorders are Anorexia, Bulimia and BES (Binge Eating Disorder) but there are a number of others. They can start for many different reasons but a common factor is some type of trauma. This could be emotional, physical or sexual but there is usually an internal belief that the person is not good enough. This belief can then morph into an eating disorder and this can sometimes occur in conjunction with another disorder such as anxiety

Faith’s Father was an alcoholic and although he sought recovery in later life in her childhood her was drinking and she was always in fight of flight mode from a young age. This led to deep routed emotional suffering which was hard to clear away. She depended on her mother emotionally and didn't believe she could do things on her own so no matter how in control she seemed externally, she felt completely different inside.

There are some professions, particularly those with a high media profile such as acting, where there is huge pressure on body image.  In America the ideal is to be very thin and there are constant messages to children that this is the norm. The obesity rate is very high in America and 7 or 8 year olds are talking about dieting to obtain the ‘perfect’ airbrushed images put forward as the ideal. It’s therefore important to use the right language, for instance that exercise is for the right reasons not for maladaptive reasons. It’s also important to be aware of what sites young people are looking at – sites that promote eating disorders and set a pattern that is very difficult to get over.

There are some noticeable signs that someone is suffering from an eating disorder.  Talking about their body a lot, skipping meals, picking around food, disappearing after meals and starting to exercise a lot are some of the more noticeable ones. But sufferers can be very good at hiding their problem and not letting other people know what’s going on.

Faith feels that the smallest things can be the biggest milestone, that small actions add up and can change thinking. It’s hard to believe you’re deserving when deep down you don’t believe it but practicing self care and gratitude has helped Faith change how she looks at herself and now knows that she ‘deserves it as much as anyone else’.

People not suffering from an eating disorder believe that saying “No!” to self-destructive behaviors should be easy but it’s not. It can be a daily struggle with no single solution. Instead it’s a journey of stops and starts but through learning various strategies it is possible to break its hold. 

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Faith here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can find out more about Faith at faithelicia.com

The body, mind and PTSD

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - The body, mind and PTSD.

Laura Khoudari is a trauma practitioner, certified personal trainer, and corrective exercise specialist whose work grew out of her own experience healing from trauma. She is based in New York and works with her clients to turn movement practices into healing practices so most of her work is done in the gym.

During the winter of 2014-2015 Laura designed a holistic program to support her own treatment for PTSD that combined talk therapy, mindfulness, bodywork, and strength training. As she put together a program for herself, she realised that practitioners who worked with the body (doctors, massage therapists, meditation teachers, and physical therapists) often did not fully understand how trauma impacted their clients.

Frustrated that there weren’t more people in the fitness space who were equipped to help clients living with trauma, she decided to become the trauma informed personal trainer and coach she wished she had had. Her holistic programs draw from body-based trauma healing modalities, neuropsychological models, psychodynamic theory, mindfulness practices, and exercise science.

Laura feels that when people think of trauma they link it to medical trauma or emotional trauma and ask why they are working with her in the gym. Trauma can mean many different things but Laura thinks it is unprocessed nervous system energy that is left in the body after you’ve gone through something overwhelming or had to deal with something to fast so your body didn't get the chance to process it.

People generally come to Laura in two different ways. The first group are people who have a trauma history and want to bring movement back in their life but are having a hard time doing it – people who are suffering from things like PTSD or CPTSD and can’t get back to the activity they used to do or their doctor wants them to do. Others are currently in treatment for trauma and are working with a therapist and want to build skills they can use in therapy to process trauma.

Laura feels when you are in therapy you need to be in touch with your body. In therapy you are talking about your thoughts and, to process your emotions and experiences, it is useful to be able to stay with sensations and what happens in our body we are doing this. This means it has a lot more meaning rather than just talking about what’s going on in your head.

Laura’s clients do not have to tell her their trauma story. She feels there is a lot of pressure for people to prove that they need help and to put their story out there through social media. Her clients have suffered a wide variety of trauma including addiction, eating disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, sexual assault, and abusive relationships. Laura has had her own trauma experience and her own fitness story. As a child she didn’t like sport or gym but when she was 20 she suffered a back problem.  Her doctor recommended physical therapy and strength training but it wasn't until she was 27 she decided to commit fully to strength training. Over time she started to love the gym and the fact she wasn’t in pain any more so in her mid 30s she took up the sport of Olympic weightlifting. Outside of the gym she experienced an acute trauma and suffered from PTSD. Her relationship with the gym changed then and it went from being fun to training ten times a week. She got injured because she wasn't resting enough and when she came back after a number of months of physical therapy and strength training she realised what she had been doing was a problem and not the culture she wanted.

She found it difficult to find a trainer who understood that trauma overwhelmed her ability to go to the gym so she figured out how to do it herself. She decided she wanted train people who liked her loved the gym and found it empowering but understood the impact on physiology and the nervous system and work together to get you back to where you were in a slower, structured way.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Laura here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can get in touch with Laura through her website laurakhoudari.com where she writes a regular newsletter and shares resources. Laura is also the author of Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time