[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the healing trauma podcast, a compassionate guide for those seeking to heal and thrive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Introducing your host, Monique Cohen, a certified trauma recovery coach and fellow traveller on the path to healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: In this podcast, we will engage in heartfelt conversation with experts in the field of trauma healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll explore ways to cultivate feelings safe in our bodies and in connection to others, so that we can be present to live the life we've been given, more fully and with more joy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Join us as we navigate the way towards a life restored.

[SPEAKER_00]: Introducing your host, Manik, Kobin.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am welcome to the Healing Trauma Podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Dr.

Mark McNair.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am excited to have with me Tim Fletcher.

[SPEAKER_02]: Tim, welcome to the Healing Trauma Podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a pleasure to be here.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, Tim, if there's people out there listening that are not familiar with your work, maybe you could introduce yourself?

[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I, forty years ago, became a pastor and within eleven years had burnt myself out and really they're looking back the reason was that [SPEAKER_01]: Because of my own complex trauma from childhood, I didn't know how to take care of myself properly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thought that love was constantly giving and sacrificing and that taking care of yourself was being lazy or selfish.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I burnt myself out and also there was some not good at boundaries stuff that was part of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I went on.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome in fibromyalgia and clinical depression.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I went through seven very, very dark years.

[SPEAKER_01]: Part of that was on disability.

[SPEAKER_01]: Part of that was just trying to get back on my feet.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I worked on a lot of farms, which actually was quite therapeutic for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then one day a lady came to me at church and she worked at [SPEAKER_01]: Addiction treatment center and she's just a Tim we need a male counselor and I think you might be the guy for the job.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I don't think I am the guy for the job.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just blew it off.

[SPEAKER_01]: And part of that was just wasn't on my radar or something that was of interest.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I really didn't think I was healthy enough physically to be able to do that to handle that again.

[SPEAKER_01]: She came back about six months later.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she said the job's still there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Would you at least come for the interview?

[SPEAKER_01]: Just be willing to check it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, OK, but no promises.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I went and [SPEAKER_01]: like what I heard and I said, okay, here's, here's the deal.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will try it for three months.

[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I really don't know if this is the right fit.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I can handle it health wise, but I'll give it a three month commitment and then we'll assess.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they said, okay, so I started and within the first week, I said, I think I found where I belong.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what [SPEAKER_01]: all of my life journey and past has been preparing me for a family home, my family people.

[SPEAKER_01]: What what I didn't realize at the time was the treatment center.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was that was the only treatment center in Canada.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's our addiction as a symptom of deeper issues.

[SPEAKER_01]: Their focus wasn't just on putting mandates on symptoms and doing relapse prevention stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was really what's the root being that you've been trying to solve with drugs in alcohol.

[SPEAKER_01]: what caused that not fitting in feeling that deep emptiness that you felt that you've been trying to solve with drugs in alcohol.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they really complex trauma wasn't even a term back then.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't even in the vocabulary, but they were already kind of exploring this is coming at a childhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is stuff that happened that affected the child in such a way that [SPEAKER_01]: They had this unresolved pain, and this unresolved emptiness, and this unresolved shame that I'm not good enough I don't belong, that they've been trying to solve with drugs and alcohol.

[SPEAKER_01]: So once Dr.

Gabramate's book came out in the realm of hungry ghosts, I read that, and he said, hundred percent of the people that he worked with who struggle with addiction have childhood trauma, [SPEAKER_01]: That just set me that makes sense that of all that I've been working on and researching and figuring out on my own.

[SPEAKER_01]: That sent me down kind of what is this trauma in it and it wasn't just kind of one event trauma was that ongoing sense of danger complex trauma that a child has from not just abuse but also neglect and that just opened up this whole the world defined all of this stuff that I had been working on.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the bottom line is I never intended to get into this field.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of [SPEAKER_01]: through a whole bunch of events, my own trauma and my own going through burnout hitting a very, very dark place and then trying to come out of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was put on my plate.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even want it, but I ended up trying it, fell in love with it, and then it opened up this whole new field of complex trauma, which I've had the privilege of [SPEAKER_01]: being part of kind of developing and exploring.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's been lots of academic learning, but it's big part been just my journey of figuring stuff out as I go.

[SPEAKER_02]: Kerry, you talk about, you know, some of the symptoms you had in the burnout, was there any realization that there was trauma in your life at that point?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so at that point it was either this is because I'm working too hard or this is because I've got some disease that they just need to find a cure for.

[SPEAKER_01]: Had zero concept that this comes from deep childhood issues that I wasn't even aware of, much of it came out of kind of the [SPEAKER_01]: religious upbringing that I had and kind of how they viewed service, love, work and all of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a whole teaching training element of my childhood that indoctrinated me a certain way that set me up for this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then once you're in that environment, you're actually creating your own complex trauma environment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because your go, go, go, go in your sympathetic nervous system constantly.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you go to your pair of sympathetic to relax, you feel guilty, you feel you're not loving enough, you feel you're not being what you should be.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so you just keep yourself in this very, well, ends up being a very unsafe environment based on all of the teaching they had.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I had zero concept that I came from complex trauma and was creating complex trauma for myself.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought I had some sickness or I had worked too hard.

[SPEAKER_02]: Or something was wrong with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think you alluded to it, but I just want to go back to that idea of trauma or PTSD versus complex trauma, could you?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's found on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so PTSD basically sums out of the terms are simple trauma and complex trauma and they come from mass.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've got simple numbers and complex numbers is basically what he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Simple trauma is one time events.

[SPEAKER_01]: So her horrific event that's out of the normal [SPEAKER_01]: car accident array or whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's very significant.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we call that big T trauma complex trauma.

[SPEAKER_01]: It can have a whole bunch of one time big events that are horrific, but it also is much broader than that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's [SPEAKER_01]: when a child doesn't feel safe.

[SPEAKER_01]: So complex is ongoing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so what causes child to feel safe?

[SPEAKER_01]: So this now gets into little T trauma, which is more neglect.

[SPEAKER_01]: So big T trauma is that one time event is something horrific bad happening to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: little tea trauma is something good that should have happened to you didn't it's the trauma of absence that something should have happened but didn't so it's almost like it's invisible trauma so your need for acceptance should have been met but it wasn't you were always judged and criticized your need for connection should have been met but it wasn't because everybody was too busy or angry your need to be authentic [SPEAKER_01]: It should have been met, but it wasn't because you were judged for that, so you always had to be somebody else to try to fit in.

[SPEAKER_01]: The child doesn't feel safe in that environment, because they can't be themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're not connecting with anybody.

[SPEAKER_01]: They feel alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: They feel judged.

[SPEAKER_01]: They feel not good enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's trauma.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's subtle, but it's powerful.

[SPEAKER_01]: But to me, has been significant in understanding, CPTSD is it's the ongoing [SPEAKER_01]: mainly very subtle forms of neglect that most people don't see as trauma, but they affect the brain the same way as trauma.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we know that over eighty percent of people have that little T complex trauma that comes out of something in their home [SPEAKER_01]: wasn't healthy enough to meet certain emotional needs consistently.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they lived with this pain of not having the need met.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then they couldn't get it resolved because nobody was helping them or meeting that need.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they felt unsafe.

[SPEAKER_01]: They felt not seen, not heard.

[SPEAKER_01]: They felt not good enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: It must be my fault.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is where trauma.

[SPEAKER_01]: Very subtly comes in, but it's rampant.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's big.

[SPEAKER_01]: What the child then does is if it's my fault, I must adapt.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I need to be somebody different than a who I really am.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't be authentic.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I will wear mass.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will try to be a hero child, a funny child, whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: In order to get my needs met in order to be liked in order not to be judged.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they're adapting, adapting.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it seems to be helping.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then, thirty years later, they're realizing me not trusting anybody, me lying, me wearing masks, not being authentic.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, those are the bedrock foundations of a healthy relationship.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I basically adapted to survive, but I learned tools that prevented healthy relationships.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now all my adult relationships are not working.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I wonder why?

[SPEAKER_01]: What's from thirty years earlier?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's from forty years earlier that your adaptations really were maladaptations.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the subtlety of CPTSDs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Often you don't see their results till thirty years later.

[SPEAKER_02]: I find that a lot of people get, you know, just a handful of diagnoses.

[SPEAKER_02]: I did at least that I had this handful of ADHD depression.

[SPEAKER_02]: Generalized anxiety on and on and on and just medicate medicate.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just doesn't work.

[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: You talk about and I love this.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've heard you talk about the need for love and affirmation in childhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's all kinds of different ways to understand complex trauma or CPTSD.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's the lack of connection.

[SPEAKER_01]: So a child's trying to connect.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can't.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the child can't be authentic.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so all of those things have a traumatic response.

[SPEAKER_01]: What we teach our clients is that we give twelve basic needs, so physical needs, emotional needs, intellectual needs, relational needs, spiritual needs.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the emotional needs that are the key needs that usually aren't met that cause complex trauma.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's connection, authenticity.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of them is validation that a child needs to be [SPEAKER_01]: told you have value just the way you are.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're good at this.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is your personality.

[SPEAKER_01]: We accept you.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of those are so critical for a child.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those meeting of needs when a child gets their needs met.

[SPEAKER_01]: They feel love.

[SPEAKER_01]: They feel a matter.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel complete.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel whole.

[SPEAKER_01]: Love isn't just an emotion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Love is the experience of having my needs consistently met by somebody else.

[SPEAKER_01]: What happens in complex trauma is those needs aren't being met.

[SPEAKER_01]: The child is adapting to try get those knees met, but what the child is beginning to believe is you have to earn love.

[SPEAKER_01]: Love is conditional.

[SPEAKER_01]: You only get love if you do certain things.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they don't understand unconditional love because they've never experienced it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that becomes a huge learning thing in recovery for people is they don't trust love because this always had strings attached.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's always been a hit in the genders.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so to actually experience unconditional love feels wrong, weird, it makes them suspicious, creates fear, that's stress.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because they're expecting some bads going to happen here, there's going to be an expectation of me, but it's such an important part of the healing journey.

[SPEAKER_01]: But typically what happens when a child doesn't experience love and they begin to feel that all love is conditional, you've got to earn it.

[SPEAKER_01]: and that if people express love to them, like I love you or they do things for them, there's always a hidden agenda, there's always strings attached.

[SPEAKER_01]: What they do is then develop kind of a protection system around themselves that is suspicious of love.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like they become waterproof to love.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you express love to me, it's like water off a duck's back.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's your agenda?

[SPEAKER_01]: What are you after?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or you're just saying that to be nice or because you don't know me, but they have all these built-in defense systems to automatically [SPEAKER_01]: negate love, true love, because their past experience with unsafe people is that love as expressed you can never be trusted as truly love.

[SPEAKER_01]: So a validation and love to me become such a healing part of trauma recovery.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if I can take it farther, Mark and it would be this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So a child needs love and validation from others.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as they receive that consistently, they learn to give it to themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: They learn to accept themselves, love themselves for who they are, forgive themselves and failure, validate themselves without getting a big head.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of those very important things they learn to do for themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when they don't get it from others, they don't think they deserve it so they don't give it to themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now instead of loving themselves, they kind of despise themselves and want to hide themselves and they reject themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: instead of validate himself that criticize himself, they put themselves down.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so part of the healing journey is you can't just expect others to give you the love and validation.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have to learn to give it to yourself as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you got to shut that internal critic up or place it with compassion and empathy and seeing yourself in a more positive way.

[SPEAKER_01]: That often is a more difficult part of the healing journey for some.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because it changed all that internal dynamic is huge.

[SPEAKER_01]: But to me, I don't see people get very far in recovery unless they learn to silence that internal critic replace it with love empathy, curiosity, compassion, and learn to love and be kind to themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is such an essential piece in beginning and maintaining this journey.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I just want to add in there.

[SPEAKER_02]: It takes time.

[SPEAKER_02]: It takes a lot of time.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not one in done or it's not, you know, you go so far and then okay, I've arrived.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's an ongoing process, not a procedure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the biggest challenges.

[SPEAKER_01]: for people in recovery at the beginning is often we just think in terms of the physical medical healing model like you got a broken thumb you go you get a x-ray you get a cast six weeks you're basically fixed we just think we got an emotional wound we go and get diagnosed six weeks we're basically fit fixed if we follow these simple three steps [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, no, the trauma healing model is two to ten years.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's up and down.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's super slow.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's super messy because you're working with your subconscious brain, trying to make it conscious, trying to be aware of all the programs that are happening automatically without you in rising it, that are getting triggered without you even realizing it, that are sending you back to old tools without you in realizing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a slow, messy process, so be patient with yourself.

[SPEAKER_02]: So Tim, I want to ask you words with so many people, what have they taught you about trauma?

[SPEAKER_01]: What's fascinating to me is I didn't learn about trauma from initially from books.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've read hundreds of books now and I still read books every week, but all of my initial understanding of trauma [SPEAKER_01]: was working with clients before the word trauma was even developed.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just knew there's something in their childhood stuff that was really causing them to have so much pain that drugs became the solution to their problem.

[SPEAKER_01]: So every workshop that I would teach in the early days, I would finish that workshop because they were very interactive.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't just me talking.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would teach.

[SPEAKER_01]: They would ask questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would ask them questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would go and write pages of notes because I had learned so much just from story somebody shared a question somebody asked, and it would just kind of make click, click, click, click in my brain.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of these little dots would get connected.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I go, oh yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I got to add that to the next workshop.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got to add that.

[SPEAKER_01]: That just fills up my thinking.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was this growing by nuance of understanding as I interacted, counsel, taught.

[SPEAKER_01]: with clients that my understanding just built and built.

[SPEAKER_01]: When I started, I came across Janet White's book on adult children of alcoholics and she had the thirteen characteristics of adult children of alcoholics.

[SPEAKER_01]: I started teaching that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Clients loved it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I started seeing other characteristics.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I built it up to twenty-five characteristics.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I kept getting more than I built it up to fifty characteristics.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we're at eighty-seven characteristics as I worked with clients and began to see patterns and behavior patterns and thinking.

[SPEAKER_01]: Characteristics and the how they responded emotionally to stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: I began to build my understanding more and more.

[SPEAKER_01]: So most of my understanding was built on the foundation of experience of my own life and working with clients.

[SPEAKER_01]: The book learning all that came later and really confirmed validated gave clarifying language that just helped me further.

[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things I've heard you talk about a lot is [SPEAKER_02]: the need for safe people in recovery.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I just want a, uh, prophecy, that statement with how hard it is for people who have not had safe people in their lives to even consider.

[SPEAKER_02]: the idea of getting around people, being around people, trusting people, I'm gonna hand that to you now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Probably the question I get asked the most when I do question answer sessions is where do I find safe people?

[SPEAKER_01]: That is a reality challenge that everybody in recovery has to face.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what I want people really to reframe it in their mind is [SPEAKER_01]: There are safe people out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're not going to be show up at your doorstep and introduce themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got to keep trying, keep looking.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're desperate enough to heal, you may go through fifty people before you find a safe person, but you're determined enough to keep trying until you find safe people.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's really [SPEAKER_01]: I think so often in our Western culture, we've outsourced our recovery to the professionals and we don't realize how hard we have to work ourselves to make recovery happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in trauma recovery, you can't just outsource it and everybody else fix you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got to keep trying and trying and trying and it just takes tons and tons of [SPEAKER_01]: Hard work, so you got to build that agency and determination and commitment to just keep working away, even though it's frustrating and not working out as smoothly as you hoped.

[SPEAKER_01]: That becomes an important ingredient in this butt.

[SPEAKER_01]: To me, then there's a whole bunch of other issues around the safe people that [SPEAKER_01]: need to be understood and I'll just quickly kind of highlight them.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you've tried to connect since you are a little to mom and dad, but you haven't developed a secure attachment with anybody, you don't know how to have secure attachment.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have the tools for secure attachment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Secure attachment actually scares you because what happened when you tried to securely attach to mom and dad is you got criticized and hurt.

[SPEAKER_01]: with secure attachment and your mind means pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: It means getting hurt.

[SPEAKER_01]: It means rejection.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a huge fear around secure attachment.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you've got to learn the tools of secure attachment which takes time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then you've got to realize that to start attaching to somebody is actually going to create more fear for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to feel weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: That leads to the next piece, which is all of your relationship templates have been with emotionally unavailable people.

[SPEAKER_01]: That feels normal to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: That feels comfortable to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know how to live there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now when you actually are with somebody who's emotionally available.

[SPEAKER_01]: That feels scary.

[SPEAKER_01]: That feels wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't match your childhood templates of what relationships are like.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it adds more stress to you to be with somebody who's emotionally available.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so what I want people to realize is that transition time is three to six months where you're going from your unhealthy relationship templates that felt normal [SPEAKER_01]: to a healthy relationship.

[SPEAKER_01]: It adds more stress and more fear for three to six months until it becomes your new normal.

[SPEAKER_01]: You just got to get through that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got to be willing to give it a chance.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then you got the next thing which is [SPEAKER_01]: Every time a child got its hopes up to connect the moment dad, they got dash.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now you just gave up hoping.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now whenever hope starts to grow in your chest, it scares you and you want to sabotage it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't want to get my hopes up too much, because I'm going to get hurt again.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what's always happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's been my history.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's realizing that this getting my hopes up again is actually a very scary event for people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just assumed self-suppotage, then to give this a chance.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you got a whole bunch of factors that all are coming into play now that make this a very difficult thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Another piece for many people is growing up in complex trauma.

[SPEAKER_01]: The child's needs weren't being met.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they basically felt inferior, not good enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they just adapted.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's my responsibility.

[SPEAKER_01]: to be something else to make this relationship work.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't sit boundaries.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can express my needs.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't see myself as an equal and put myself out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have to make myself smaller.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have to deny my needs.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when they meet somebody instead of [SPEAKER_01]: going, this is what I need, this is who I am and putting themselves out there, they go to small, which attracts unsafe people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so for them to get to safe people, they have to willing to fight their own [SPEAKER_01]: Shame and programming and come right in and say, here are my needs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what I need set boundaries right away.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's going to scare the unsafe people away because they can't now manipulate you or groom you or love bomb you because you [SPEAKER_01]: have a confidence in what you need and require as far as respect.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a certain amount of healing of your own shame that has to happen before a person can actually change the dynamic of how our relationship should operate.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's so good.

[SPEAKER_02]: Appreciate that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Another question for you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why are emotions so hard for people with complex PTSD?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, such a good question.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you look at a child whose needs aren't being met or who is being abused, they're experiencing pain as a result of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can't resolve that pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: They tell mom that dad and mom and dad just judge them and punish them more.

[SPEAKER_01]: So pain just leads to more pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can't resolve the pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can't talk to anybody.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have the tool.

[SPEAKER_01]: All they've got is this growing pain inside of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: The second piece to me with that is when you look at the chemicals of connection, they're the same chemicals as joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so when a child truly connects with a safe person, they experience dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are that I feel loved, if you'll save, I feel secure.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of those are positive chemicals.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if a child can't connect, they're not getting those positive chemicals, they're getting cortisol.

[SPEAKER_01]: So their emotional world is not mainly positive, their emotional world is mainly negative.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they've got a negative empty emotional world and then pain that they can't resolve.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the brain goes, well, what do I do?

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't resolve this pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's just shut it down, dissociate from it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's disconnect from it, or let's medicate it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they go to freeze or medicate as the only way to try to fix these unresolvable emotions.

[SPEAKER_01]: And part of that is I see emotions as bad.

[SPEAKER_01]: They make me weak.

[SPEAKER_01]: They make me vulnerable who needs emotions.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to escape to my head and become a walking brain.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be super analytical and logical.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's all I need to be who needs emotions.

[SPEAKER_01]: What they don't realize is they've only experienced negative emotions they couldn't resolve.

[SPEAKER_01]: Emotions were designed to be wonderful guides.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're designed to enrich life to [SPEAKER_01]: fill out and make life full.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're they're designed to be kind of an alarm system telling me what's going on in my world.

[SPEAKER_01]: But to a child and complex trauma, the emotions were trying to do that, the child was trying to follow all of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: but they couldn't fix it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so who needs to get rid of it?

[SPEAKER_01]: So most people from complex trauma basically suppress emotions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's stuff them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't fix them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't resolve them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's stay busy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's stay distracted.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't have to feel them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's medicate them somehow.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then let's see them as bad as something that makes me weak.

[SPEAKER_01]: What then happens is they get into adult life because in childhood, that kept them safe, that's their vibe.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they get to adult life and all of a sudden, they're supposed to, you have no emotions.

[SPEAKER_01]: That connect with you and also they realize this solution is no longer working.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's causing my relationships to be very unsatisfying.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't connect with me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like my children's emotions.

[SPEAKER_01]: They make me uncomfortable and that's hurting my children.

[SPEAKER_01]: Also, they realize, [SPEAKER_01]: out.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a whole element of my life where basically I became a robot and thought that was strength, but it's made me less human.

[SPEAKER_01]: And because I'm less human now, it's hurting my relationships.

[SPEAKER_01]: I need to somehow get this emotional thing figured out.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say to clients, this is going to be [SPEAKER_01]: One of the most difficult, longest processes for you, because you're learning a new language, you're learning a whole area that you have repressed and shut down for years.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is going to be a very slow gradual learning journey, and you've got to be really patient with it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I often tell clients that I use this in my book.

[SPEAKER_02]: I use the phrase, the past is not the past.

[SPEAKER_02]: My show's up in the present.

[SPEAKER_02]: So often we are here today and we become very disregulated, hyper-roused, hyper-roused because of what has happened back here.

[SPEAKER_02]: So as people become aware of that, I think sometimes they become more disregulated to begin with, I'm curious what are some tools?

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I always talk about building a toolbox, but what are some tools?

[SPEAKER_02]: You could recommend for listeners that can be helpful.

[SPEAKER_02]: When you are too low, too high, [SPEAKER_01]: not just right yeah so before I get to that just let me comment on here the past is not the past what it shows up in the present and it's really realizing that [SPEAKER_01]: many people from complex trauma go through and experience in the present and their responses over the top.

[SPEAKER_01]: Their response that they give isn't warranted by the situation that just happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we call that something was triggered from your past.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you're not just reacting to what's happening in the present.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're also reacting to something that is unresolved from your past.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what I want to do in helping people understand that is [SPEAKER_01]: Our brain processes from the bottom up.

[SPEAKER_01]: So everything that happens to us first goes through our brain, stem, then it goes through our limbic brain, then the finite goes to the cortex, the thinking part of the brain.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're walking down the street, you hear a car backfire.

[SPEAKER_01]: It first goes through the brainstem in it.

[SPEAKER_01]: The brainstem compares that sound to anything in its memory that's similar to that sound.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're a war veteran in that car backfiring sounds like a gunshot, then the brainstem is going into survival mode.

[SPEAKER_01]: It hasn't got to the thinking part of your brain.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is going ducking and rolling on the sidewalk.

[SPEAKER_01]: before you've even become aware of what's going on because your subconscious brain has processed already.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then after that goes to the limbic brain, the child brain compares it to all its memories of that sound.

[SPEAKER_01]: Both of those go through safe, safe, then it goes to the cortex to the thinking part of the brain.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it is able to process it in the here and now.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what happens when you get triggered from something in your childhood, [SPEAKER_01]: You might be having a discussion with your wife, but all of a sudden you're yelling, you're throwing things, you're over the top, and they're freaked out going, what is going on with you, and you're saying, well, it's because you're doing this, no, your brainstem is connected and reacting to something it remembers from a long time ago that you haven't dealt with yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: bottom-up is how we process.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most Western techniques for helping people regulate their motions are actually top-down.

[SPEAKER_01]: We start with the cortex and we say, learn this information, talk to yourself this way, and that's going to work as long as the trigger doesn't get too intense.

[SPEAKER_01]: As long as it doesn't [SPEAKER_01]: send you to ducking and rolling on the pavement the top down approach works you can control a certain amount of anger irritation responses by counting to ten by talking to yourself by a top down approach.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if it gets too intense, top down no longer works.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got to use bottom up.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is, you got to calm regulate the brain stem, regulate the limbic brain.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't think your way out of those emotions.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's such a good point.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's somatic therapies.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where people use yoga tapping.

[SPEAKER_01]: breathing, going for a walk, pet therapy, art therapy, music.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you look at a baby that's disregulated, what does it need to regulate it?

[SPEAKER_01]: It needs to connect to a regulated person.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we need to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It needs a rhythm, mum to rock it, mum to padded on the back.

[SPEAKER_01]: The reason is because that reminds the baby of being in the womb, where they only heard the mum's heartbeat, sixty-d-d-d beats a mimic, met at that regulated, calmed, that's their safe place.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why rhythm has such a powerful effect.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the baby, once it's calming down, it takes a deep breath and shutters and it kind of relaxes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's getting out of its sympathetic back to its parasympathetic nervous system.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we know, if you look at a baby breathing, its stomach goes up and down.

[SPEAKER_01]: Its chest doesn't move.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's diaphragm.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when somebody's in fear, they're breathing its shoulder and their chest starts going up and down.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so most people from complex trauma [SPEAKER_01]: haven't learned how to breathe properly.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so learning to breathe properly again has a regulating effect to use rhythm in walking and tapping in music as a calming effect.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of those things become super, super bottom-up somatic therapies that begin to help a person regulate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Other things that are being found is just like cold water therapies, sticking your face in cold water, splashing cold water, jumping in cold water.

[SPEAKER_01]: It gets you out of that sympathetic into your parasympathetic, earthing, walking in bare feet, stimulates parts of your [SPEAKER_01]: polyvago nerve that helps you calm down.

[SPEAKER_01]: So to me, there's somatic things, but the baby primarily needs a connection with a safe person who they can co-regulate to.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where we need that safe person that we can co-regulate to when we get this regulated, it's so important.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to ask you, what is your passion currently and what gets you up in the morning?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's still what I do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's what a person goes from kind of a job to finding their vocation.

[SPEAKER_01]: What job matches with my deepest passion.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in that first week when I found like I'd always and thankfully my mom and dad both allowed [SPEAKER_01]: me to connect my mom especially at a deep level where I could ask deep questions I could explore stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I became kind of a deep thinker at a young age and was always in that world that was my comfort zone.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when I [SPEAKER_01]: would go out into social settings and groups of people and they just wanted to talk about football and the weather and in the latest it was just like boring like this does nothing for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I found it very frustrating when I went that first week in the treatment program and found people that [SPEAKER_01]: We're talking at this deep level of pain trying to understand being authentic.

[SPEAKER_01]: I went, that's life.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the way we're designed to operate.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't find this kind of connection anywhere else.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when people are coming at a pain and there's an openness and a vulnerability and an authenticity that begins to happen, [SPEAKER_01]: in a safe environment that that is where life begins to happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where change happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where healing happens and that's where leads to joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: That leads to connection.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't just stay connecting only around trauma.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to broaden that to have deeper and deeper, broader types of connection.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was a starting point.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so to me, it's [SPEAKER_01]: I've worked with so many organizations that have all the information and they're great at presenting information, but they don't have the safe connection points for people where people can really do the healing.

[SPEAKER_01]: When I connected with my coach and facilitators, then something shifted inside of me that I'd never saw coming and it's been life changing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So as people listen to this and they want to learn more about you, where can they go?

[SPEAKER_01]: So our website TimFletcher.ca is where you can go only have a YouTube channel TimFletcher that you can watch for five hundred videos on complex trauma that are available to people.

[SPEAKER_02]: This has been wonderful.

[SPEAKER_02]: I really appreciate getting together with you and look forward to having this out for people to listen to.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Mark.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a pleasure.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you to you.