April 10, 2025 • 29 mins
Clinical psychologist and applied neuroscientist Dr. Kate Truitt shares the powerful science behind telling your story as a method of healing from traumatic events.
To access Dr. Truitt’s “CPR for the Amygdala” exercises, including mindful touch and cognitive distractions, visit Dr. Truitt’s YouTube channel or the free resources section at www.drkatetruitt.com.
Her memoir “Keep Breathing: A Psychologist’s Intimate Journey Through Loss, Trauma, and Rediscovering Life” is available now.
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is a special bonus episode
of Betrayal. Our team loves to dive into the science
and psychology behind betrayal and the trauma it can cause.
We often talk about the power of storytelling as a
tool for healing, so we got curious about how the
science of storytelling really functions in trauma recovery. That's how
(00:42):
we found applied neuroscientist and clinical psychologist Doctor Kate Truett.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
An applied neuroscientist straddles the line between what's going on
in the labs, what I call the ivory tower of
the educational space, and the clinical realm. I view myself
as a translator of the brain to best help people
connect with what's happening in their mind body system, I
(01:09):
specifically focus on the brain areas tied into both trauma
and empowerment.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Doctor Truett also has her own clinical practice in Los
Angeles where she sees clients who've experienced trauma.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
The true line, though, and what really really lights me up,
is helping people disseminate the impact of trauma and better
understand the weird, painful experiences that happen in our mind
body system when we've been deeply harmed.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
She's very open about her own lived experiences and how
they impact her work.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'm also a survivor. I am a survivor of traumatic grief.
I was widowed a week before my wedding, and I'm
harnessing my own vulnerability and knowledge of neuroscience to shine
the light on how change and healing is possible.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I wanted to start by asking doctor Truett what trauma
really is in a clinical sense, For instance, what makes
something a traumatic experience to our brains.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
When I look at trauma through the lens of neurobiology,
I like to distill it down to the concept of threat,
safety or a lack of safety. As we can experience
something that feels threatening, such as getting on a roller
coaster and plumbinating out the earth at a very very
(02:36):
high rate of speed, but also knowing that supposedly, if
the engineers did their job, we're okay, so therefore we're safe.
If that's the case, and we like roller coasters, then
it's not traumatic. On the other hand, somebody who gets
into the same roller coaster, maybe totally safe, hates roller coasters,
but is forced to get on that roller coaster and
(02:57):
ride the roller coaster. That could be very traumatic because
there's no choice. So threat in of itself is a
critical three line of what makes something traumatic could be
threat to life or perceived threat to belonging, loveability, threat
to one's ability to make choice in their life, to
have agency, or threat to the baseline safety.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
There's one part of our brain responsible for processing safety.
It's the amygdalah. Doctor Truett actually personifies the amygdalah. She
affectionately calls her Amy by making the amygdala into a
character that can help us see its reaction as separate
from who we fundamentally are.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Our little friend Amy, the amygdala who that's what I
do call her Amy. The amygdala. The amygdala is a
part of our brain whose primary job is to keep
us alive, and when we feel threatened, she's assessing in
our brain these core values of am my safe in
my lovable or do I belong? And can I create
changer I call be successful in my life? And if
(04:02):
there's a direct threat to any of those values, then
there's the possibility of something being encoded in our brain
as traumatic.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Sometimes the amygdala struggles to determine the size of a
risk and it can be activated in all kinds of situations.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Now there's this concept in society on social media in
the clinical realm of big T versus small T trauma.
Big T trauma being something that we just lived through
here in Los Angeles, these fires, or any natural disaster,
or a direct assault, or something that is very clear
that if you told another human this happened societally, that
(04:42):
other person would say, yeah, that's definitely traumatic. Small T
trauma are often just as impactful, but they're missed in
the trauma dialogue and they create ongoing traumatic stress as
well in the system. But there's things that directly threat
in those our values in more subtle ways, such as
(05:02):
course of control, feeling assaulted or humiliated or intimidated all
of the time, in ways that don't leave an actual mark,
perhaps on the body, those small TI traumas can be
just as impactful on how the mind body system is
experiencing and processing data, whether it be a big tea
or small T trauma. When those experiences happen, it fundamentally
(05:26):
changes the way our brain and our body are making
sense of the world around us.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
What the amygdala considers to be a threat changes all
the time. Based on the things we experience.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
One of my favorite examples of this is if we
go back to February of twenty twenty, if somebody sneezed,
then it may have been a simple kazoothe bless you,
not an entire fearful mind body reaction to, oh, my gosh,
is that person sick with a virus that could kill us?
(06:00):
Forward to August twenty twenty, A sneeze for many people
had a very different connotation. That's a type of neuroplasticity
known as stress and do structural plasticity now sitting here
in twenty twenty five, a sneeze for many people, Once again,
it's just a sneeze. That's how our brain is supposed
to respond to threats and then also unlearn threats when
(06:25):
it's no longer actually threatening to us.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Whether we're aware of it or not, our amygdala is
always reacting to experiences. Doctor Truett says that traumas that
occur in early childhood, even ones we're too young to remember,
can still have a strong impact on the amygdala sense
of safety.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
When we're living in a state where there is constant
internalization of fear of trauma, where our brain has learned
and started to design itself around traumatic experiences, even if
the trauma is no longer happening. The traumatic event might
have been for two years during one's childhood, but if
those two years were impactful enough, the brain is still
(07:07):
going to be harnessing and utilizing the neural pathways set
down during those childhood years.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Regardless of the degrees of trauma we experience, it always
takes a toll. Trauma exists on a spectrum, and so
do the effects.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It's a rewiring of our mind body system into feeling
chronically unsafe, oftentimes too though it becomes an internalization. It
changes how we experience ourselves in the world. We start
having negative viewpoints on our capacity, our lovability. We start
feeling as though there's something wrong with us, we're shameful,
(07:46):
or that we're a chronic failure. We can't make change
in our world. Our body may be rewired into a
state of chronic stress or vigilance, meaning that all of
a sudden, our gastrointestinal system simply stops functioning the way
used to, which is a part of a trauma response.
Or we can't sleep very well or feel rested when
we're sleeping. So the impact of whether it be big
(08:09):
TI or SMALLTI, trauma happens in many, many layers across
the course of our mind body functioning.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
It's fascinating to hear her unpack how one event in
our lives can impact our brain wiring and how it
can also put our body in trauma mode. So without
proper intervention, we could stay in that state for the
rest of our lives. It can keep us from achieving
our goals or experiencing joy.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
The really good news about our brain is it's changeable.
It's plastic. That's where the buzzy word neuroplasticity comes from.
Because of neoplasticity, we can help the brain carve new
nural pathways and strengthen the ones that we want, while
either desensitizing the ones that we don't want, or even
helping the brain shift through and release the ones that
(08:57):
are anchored in by trauma and creating space for new
learnings going forward, a new way of being in the world.
And we can play a very active role on that
when we know how.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And a lot of doctor Truett's work is teaching people
how after we have a traumatic experience, our brain starts
to develop a story, a narrative to explain what happened
and how it happened. We can become very attached to
that story. For example, if your partner has an affair,
(09:31):
your brain's initial story might be I'm not good enough,
but here's the thing. Oftentimes, our brain writes this story
while we're in trauma mode, and the first draft is
full of self blame.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
What that looks like at a neurobiological level is when
our little friend amy the amygdala, when she starts looking
at the world through a lens of threat, she disrupts
the story making parts of our brain, such as our
hippocamp This what she focuses on memory consolidation, our thinking brain,
which is our prefrontal cortex, which helps us pay attention
(10:07):
to things and make decisions. The amygdala changes the capacity
of those other parts of our brain to function in
a balanced, resilient manner, and instead starts pulling all of
our other brain parts into a direction of survival mode,
threat based looking at the world through those trauma glasses.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
And when the brain is stuck in that survival mode,
seeing through trauma glasses, this is what it can feel like.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The world is scary or it could be I'm a
bad person, I make bad things happen. It could be
I am not deserving of love. Whatever the brain has
learned is the thing tied into what is painful, scarier heard,
and the amygdala reinforces those types of stories over and
(10:58):
over and over again. The more those stories get to
exist within our neurobiology, the stronger they become, which means
they can start to feel like truth. So the impact
is pretty profound, and the stories are still going to
be happening. It's just that the stories are being written
by a very unkind narrator.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Part of doctor Truett's approach is understanding the amygdala's response
and even empathizing with it, because its biological intention is
to keep us safe.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
That's the irony about amy the amygdala. She can be
very disruptive and how she guides our brain in order
to keep us alive, but fundamentally she does really have
our back, and that's the opportunity in the neurobiological healing
work and integrating that with meaning making and simply storytelling.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
We are wired to make stories, but we're also allowed
to revise the story our brain rights.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
There's a lot of very effective different types of intervention
for trauma because as humans were narrative creatures, and until
we can support the system changing the narrative the meaning
making of what has happened, the system can continue to
be paralyzed or run by the pain of the past.
And we're always going to be leaning into the meaning making,
(12:21):
which is fundamentally the story that our brain has around
what happened and identifying new opportunities for finding escape from
what feels inescapable after the break.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Doctor Truett delves into specifics about storytelling as a tool
for trauma recovery. We're talking with doctor k. Truett, who's
(12:54):
an applied neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and educator. So it says
that when it comes to identifying the stories your brain
has written about trauma, you can take the first step
on your own.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Journaling is proven scientifically to be an incredible way to
help integrate our story. Putting something on paper is a
way of honoring your own story and your own truth.
Sharing our journaling. Sharing our story in a healthy way
also can be incredibly healing. It can also be very
vulnerable to journal We can be tapping into sensory data
(13:30):
that's tied into our traumatic experiences. Sharing our story can
be incredibly vulnerable, and our migdalah may have fears around
being rejected or feeling even more isolated after sharing.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
But working through that fear and vulnerability is part of
the process. Doctor Truett helps her clients develop tools for
navigating the difficult feelings that come up when they're telling
their story.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
The main focus that I always recommend to my clients, friends, colleagues,
and when we're doing this type of work independently is
to also have a toolkit of self regulation tools next
to us in case we tap into something that carries
a lot of emotional weight as we're journaling. And so
if we have our self regulation tools on hand as
(14:18):
we're journaling or writing or sharing our story, we can
actually proactively heal any of those reactive responses that are
coming up. And one of my favorite tools for this
is an exercise I created a long time ago called
creating Personal Resilience for the Amygdala CPR for the amygdala.
As we're doing our narrative work, as we're journaling, if
(14:41):
we're noticing our amygdalah starting to get reactive, it's just
time to push pause and take a breath. And utilize
something known as mindful touch in order to downregulate the brain.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Mindful touch is a meditation practice of clearing your mind,
bringing your awareness to body, and gently running your hands
together or running your hands over your arms like a hug.
It's a way to ground yourself and help calm down
your amygdala. It seems simple, but this practice can build
a sense of safety around traumatic memories.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It's a way of saying this happened, rather than holding
it inside, of acknowledging the pains of the past and
starting to create a new way forward, imagining different outcomes,
creating a way that you would like to respond or
react to something. We can help the system find ways
(15:39):
to renarrate and free our brain of being stuck locked
into what happened and know that, hey, we're not there anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Another important step in this process is detaching from labels.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
A tool er exercise I do with my clients quite
a bit is to have them notice the difference between
the statement anxious person versus I am experiencing anxiety. As humans,
we tend to label ourselves, and when we give ourselves
big emotional labels, it's hard for our mind and our
(16:13):
body system to dig ourselves out of that label. I
am bad, I am depressed, I am unlovable, I am unworthy,
I am powerless. Our brain buys into that as a
self identifying component of self, as opposed to saying I'm
feeling powerless in this moment, which then creates space for
(16:35):
the brain and the body to go, Oh, I can
do something to feel more powerful right now. What might
that be? Oh? I can control my breath, Oh, I
have control over that. Or I am experiencing anxiety, which
creates the opportunity to zoom out a little bit and
say why am I feeling anxious, which immediately starts the
(16:55):
positive neuroplastic experience of being curious, which gives us dope
mean and opens at our visual sphere both internally and
externally to seeing a larger picture around us. And the
value in that is there's space for curiosity and even
possibly beginning to move into a state of self compassion
(17:18):
and deeper self awareness and self acceptance, which fundamentally is
a critical part of healing through trauma.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Certain labels have more power than others, like the label
a victim. It's a word that comes up a lot
in our interviews. It's a polarizing and emotionally charged label.
Some people adopt it, others reject it.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
A common label that I hear is the idea of
I am a victim or the polarizing opposite, I'm not
a victim, And I can see a lot of damage
potentially being done on either side of the aisle. If
we are a victim and that is the label that
we're putting on our mind body system, it can feel
what we call in psychological terms, very much of having
(18:04):
an external lucus of control. Things happen to me. I
am powerless and I cannot create change in my world.
And for the Imigdella's core values, you can possibly tune
in there that Amy's going to hate that, and when
she really feels powerless or weak, she's going to create
a way of interacting with that statement for the good,
the bad, or the ugly. But however it shows up
(18:25):
for her to keep us safe, oftentimes I can mean
isolating or creating ways of being in interpersonal relationships that
are not preferable or are unhealthy for us. The flip
side of I am not a victim again, great, if
you're not a victim, that's fine, But if that's a
(18:45):
trauma reaction. It can bypass the reality of things happen
out of control, scary, difficult, painful things did happen and
the mind body system wasn't in control in those moments,
and so the label of victim and of itself becomes
self identifying and either side of the aisle, I don't
(19:06):
believe it's supportive or helpful for my clients or anybody
in the world to have an I AM statement in
one direction or the other. When we look at the
term of victim, it means something has happened that was
really bad, and it's a concept, it's not a label,
it's not a self identification.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Still, having a word for that experience and the changes
it caused can be a way to acknowledge that it happened.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
In the field of survivalship, when working with trauma survivors,
we've taken victim off the table because when we're a survivor,
it's giving an acknowledgment to that something did happen. So, yes,
there was a moment where I was a victim of
something really bad happening, and I'm standing here right now.
I made it through. I have survived, and therefore there's
(19:59):
space to look at what happened and to build through
survivalship into resilience and empowerment.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
A major barrier to building resilience and empowerment is shame.
Doctor Truett explains where shame comes from and why we
hold onto it so tightly.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Ah shame, shame, shame, shame. Our brain can be a
shame junkie, and shame is fundamentally a feeling of being
flooded with a lack of self worth, feeling completely and
utterly like somebody is bad, they are broken at their
core and they are bad. And the interesting thing about
(20:40):
shame is our little friend Amy theam Magdalah loves it
is when she's feeling shamed, She's like, there is something
clearly not okay here, and she gets to make up
even more stories about how we are bad, believing that
she's keeping us safe. She really does have her best
interests at hearts, but feeling shame or feeling bad or broken,
and for Amy the Amigdalah, actually gives her power. It
(21:03):
helps her feel like she has agency and choice. I
know it's weird, and it's real.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Shame is baked into our brain's normal functioning, and it's
something we have to learn to work.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
With the problem is hindsight's twenty twenty, and so we
can look back and see every flag that was messed
and hold ourselves accountable for it. And when I say
hold ourselves accountable for it, of course it's not us.
It's our little friend Amy the Andmigdala spinning up a
narrative of saying, see you miss that. That's your fault.
That's your fault. That's your fault. That's your fault. You
(21:38):
miss that too, aren't you so bad? How do you
fail on that account? What's wrong with you? So on
and so forth again, all as a way to create
internally a sense of safety, because when we're so flagellating,
when we're beating ourselves up and holding ourselves responsible for
things that we could not control, did not know about,
(22:00):
did not see. Are a megdala saying remember it, remember it,
because you don't want this to happen again. And so
this is her way of being a LUCKI loo. When
there's a car accident on the freeway, people slow down, Yes,
perhaps for the safety of the passengers in the car accident,
but also people look because the brain's going I need
(22:22):
to learn something over there, our megdala's version of doing
that with shame and trauma is to do a hindsight
review and have twenty twenty vision about every single thing
we missed and hold us accountable for it so we
don't get into danger in the future.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
As we often hear on our show, healing from trauma
isn't linear, and healing doesn't always bring back the person
you were before. That's one of the hardest parts. So
we asked doctor Truett what healing looks like when she's
working with clients.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
One of the interesting things that happens with my clients
when we not everybody, but a lot of them when
we begin the work is ask them what is their goal,
and they say, I just want to be happy. The
problem is our brain is not designed to be happy
all the time. In fact, our brain would burn out
neurochemically if we were. Our brain and our body are
designed to flow an EBB and navigate through all types
(23:31):
of feelings and emotions on a daily basis, the good,
the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the calm and
the neutral, and all of those feelings become flags for
helping us better understand what's happening in the world around us.
The beautiful part of being in the work and doing
the work is that those red flag moments no longer
(23:53):
spiral us into shame. If shame comes up and go oh,
that's also an interesting data point, is a part of
me now feeling bad again? What's happening? And we can
get curious or in the aftermath of a red flag moment,
if we've really leaned into narrow plasticity and helped our
system come home to self with loving care, we can
(24:15):
give ourselves an internal hug or even an external hug,
and wrap our arms around ourselves and go, they're there, girl,
It's okay, what's going on and have that compassionate, loving
response that for so many of us we may never
have ever had to begin with.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Instead of making happiness a marker appealing, a more realistic
approach is to build self compassion.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Self compassion is a skill. We're not born to be
compassionate towards ourselves. We are born to be compassionate towards
other beings, animals, living things, even inanimate objects, because we
need other entities for survival. But frankly, to survive, we
don't have to be nice to ourselves. So that's a
(25:01):
skill that we get to learn, and that's a really
critical part of the trauma healing journey is learning how
to hold the space for ourselves that we neurobiologically freely
give to everybody else.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
This is the work she's actively doing with her clients.
But doctor Truett acknowledges that therapy isn't always accessible. That's
why she's committed to online education and sharing free resources.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So therapy is a privilege, and I'm very aware that
not everybody has access to it. I also know that
mental health and wellness is a human right, so dedicated
an extensive amount of time to providing resources and tools
that are neurobiologically based to help people heal the experiences
(25:46):
of their past, finding ways to show up in the
present moment and do proactive healing in the here and
now while building the neuropathways they want for their future
as we honestly can partner with our own brains to
create incredible change. And on our YouTube channel, it's doctor
k Truet, which is a Google Health channel. It's approved
(26:07):
by ANIH and IMH as well as World Health Organization.
As an educational resource, we provide therapeutic tools guides, information
so as guided meditations, and all sorts of ways to
support people in safely moving into their own healing journey
along those same lines. I have two books that I've written.
(26:28):
The first one is called Healing in Your Hands, which
the title leans into exactly everything we're talking about. It's
a full healing experience for going on a guided relationship
with oneself and navigating how our life experiences have shifted
and changed the way we experience the world around us,
(26:50):
while providing actionable tools and resources for curating and creating change.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Her most recent book is a memoir where she uses
her own story as a lesson in trauma recovery.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
My memoir, which is called Keep Breathing, really goes into
a deep dive, and I use myself as a case study,
which was quite terrifying, to be honest, to unpack the
complexities of having PTSD.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
In writing her memoir, she experienced firsthand how healing it
can be to tell your story, and it's a story
she hopes other people can learn from.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
It was really one of the hardest choices I've made
in my life to put that book into the world,
partially because as psychologists, there's an old idea that we're
supposed to be blank slates, But fundamentally, what I realize
is there's a lot of people who are just like me,
who are struggling, who could possibly benefit from the information.
And it was so healing to even write my own story.
(27:51):
It took five years and to have the space to
share my story and to have my story be held
by others and reflected. So it's an incredible, incredible, powerful
testimony to the power of narrative work and how in
our story is held by others, that and of itself
is really really healing.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Thank you for listening, and a special thanks to doctor
Kate Truett for sharing her expertise with us. In the
spirit of storytelling for trauma healing, We're going to spend
the next two weeks sharing listener essay submissions. The theme
was Resilience in Recovery after a devastating betrayal. We received
so many incredible submissions and we're excited to share them
(28:34):
with you, So stay tuned and we'll be back next week.
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email
us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal pod
at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
(28:54):
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
(29:16):
Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Melcuriy and Caitlin Golden.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from
Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
(29:40):
provided by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is a special bonus episode
of Betrayal. Our team loves to dive into the science
and psychology behind betrayal and the trauma it can cause.
We often talk about the power of storytelling as a
tool for healing, so we got curious about how the
science of storytelling really functions in trauma recovery. That's how
(00:42):
we found applied neuroscientist and clinical psychologist Doctor Kate Truett.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
An applied neuroscientist straddles the line between what's going on
in the labs, what I call the ivory tower of
the educational space, and the clinical realm. I view myself
as a translator of the brain to best help people
connect with what's happening in their mind body system, I
(01:09):
specifically focus on the brain areas tied into both trauma
and empowerment.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Doctor Truett also has her own clinical practice in Los
Angeles where she sees clients who've experienced trauma.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
The true line, though, and what really really lights me up,
is helping people disseminate the impact of trauma and better
understand the weird, painful experiences that happen in our mind
body system when we've been deeply harmed.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
She's very open about her own lived experiences and how
they impact her work.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'm also a survivor. I am a survivor of traumatic grief.
I was widowed a week before my wedding, and I'm
harnessing my own vulnerability and knowledge of neuroscience to shine
the light on how change and healing is possible.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I wanted to start by asking doctor Truett what trauma
really is in a clinical sense, For instance, what makes
something a traumatic experience to our brains.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
When I look at trauma through the lens of neurobiology,
I like to distill it down to the concept of threat,
safety or a lack of safety. As we can experience
something that feels threatening, such as getting on a roller
coaster and plumbinating out the earth at a very very
(02:36):
high rate of speed, but also knowing that supposedly, if
the engineers did their job, we're okay, so therefore we're safe.
If that's the case, and we like roller coasters, then
it's not traumatic. On the other hand, somebody who gets
into the same roller coaster, maybe totally safe, hates roller coasters,
but is forced to get on that roller coaster and
(02:57):
ride the roller coaster. That could be very traumatic because
there's no choice. So threat in of itself is a
critical three line of what makes something traumatic could be
threat to life or perceived threat to belonging, loveability, threat
to one's ability to make choice in their life, to
have agency, or threat to the baseline safety.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
There's one part of our brain responsible for processing safety.
It's the amygdalah. Doctor Truett actually personifies the amygdalah. She
affectionately calls her Amy by making the amygdala into a
character that can help us see its reaction as separate
from who we fundamentally are.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Our little friend Amy, the amygdala who that's what I
do call her Amy. The amygdala. The amygdala is a
part of our brain whose primary job is to keep
us alive, and when we feel threatened, she's assessing in
our brain these core values of am my safe in
my lovable or do I belong? And can I create
changer I call be successful in my life? And if
(04:02):
there's a direct threat to any of those values, then
there's the possibility of something being encoded in our brain
as traumatic.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Sometimes the amygdala struggles to determine the size of a
risk and it can be activated in all kinds of situations.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Now there's this concept in society on social media in
the clinical realm of big T versus small T trauma.
Big T trauma being something that we just lived through
here in Los Angeles, these fires, or any natural disaster,
or a direct assault, or something that is very clear
that if you told another human this happened societally, that
(04:42):
other person would say, yeah, that's definitely traumatic. Small T
trauma are often just as impactful, but they're missed in
the trauma dialogue and they create ongoing traumatic stress as
well in the system. But there's things that directly threat
in those our values in more subtle ways, such as
(05:02):
course of control, feeling assaulted or humiliated or intimidated all
of the time, in ways that don't leave an actual mark,
perhaps on the body, those small TI traumas can be
just as impactful on how the mind body system is
experiencing and processing data, whether it be a big tea
or small T trauma. When those experiences happen, it fundamentally
(05:26):
changes the way our brain and our body are making
sense of the world around us.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
What the amygdala considers to be a threat changes all
the time. Based on the things we experience.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
One of my favorite examples of this is if we
go back to February of twenty twenty, if somebody sneezed,
then it may have been a simple kazoothe bless you,
not an entire fearful mind body reaction to, oh, my gosh,
is that person sick with a virus that could kill us?
(06:00):
Forward to August twenty twenty, A sneeze for many people
had a very different connotation. That's a type of neuroplasticity
known as stress and do structural plasticity now sitting here
in twenty twenty five, a sneeze for many people, Once again,
it's just a sneeze. That's how our brain is supposed
to respond to threats and then also unlearn threats when
(06:25):
it's no longer actually threatening to us.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Whether we're aware of it or not, our amygdala is
always reacting to experiences. Doctor Truett says that traumas that
occur in early childhood, even ones we're too young to remember,
can still have a strong impact on the amygdala sense
of safety.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
When we're living in a state where there is constant
internalization of fear of trauma, where our brain has learned
and started to design itself around traumatic experiences, even if
the trauma is no longer happening. The traumatic event might
have been for two years during one's childhood, but if
those two years were impactful enough, the brain is still
(07:07):
going to be harnessing and utilizing the neural pathways set
down during those childhood years.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Regardless of the degrees of trauma we experience, it always
takes a toll. Trauma exists on a spectrum, and so
do the effects.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It's a rewiring of our mind body system into feeling
chronically unsafe, oftentimes too though it becomes an internalization. It
changes how we experience ourselves in the world. We start
having negative viewpoints on our capacity, our lovability. We start
feeling as though there's something wrong with us, we're shameful,
(07:46):
or that we're a chronic failure. We can't make change
in our world. Our body may be rewired into a
state of chronic stress or vigilance, meaning that all of
a sudden, our gastrointestinal system simply stops functioning the way
used to, which is a part of a trauma response.
Or we can't sleep very well or feel rested when
we're sleeping. So the impact of whether it be big
(08:09):
TI or SMALLTI, trauma happens in many, many layers across
the course of our mind body functioning.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
It's fascinating to hear her unpack how one event in
our lives can impact our brain wiring and how it
can also put our body in trauma mode. So without
proper intervention, we could stay in that state for the
rest of our lives. It can keep us from achieving
our goals or experiencing joy.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
The really good news about our brain is it's changeable.
It's plastic. That's where the buzzy word neuroplasticity comes from.
Because of neoplasticity, we can help the brain carve new
nural pathways and strengthen the ones that we want, while
either desensitizing the ones that we don't want, or even
helping the brain shift through and release the ones that
(08:57):
are anchored in by trauma and creating space for new
learnings going forward, a new way of being in the world.
And we can play a very active role on that
when we know how.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And a lot of doctor Truett's work is teaching people
how after we have a traumatic experience, our brain starts
to develop a story, a narrative to explain what happened
and how it happened. We can become very attached to
that story. For example, if your partner has an affair,
(09:31):
your brain's initial story might be I'm not good enough,
but here's the thing. Oftentimes, our brain writes this story
while we're in trauma mode, and the first draft is
full of self blame.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
What that looks like at a neurobiological level is when
our little friend amy the amygdala, when she starts looking
at the world through a lens of threat, she disrupts
the story making parts of our brain, such as our
hippocamp This what she focuses on memory consolidation, our thinking brain,
which is our prefrontal cortex, which helps us pay attention
(10:07):
to things and make decisions. The amygdala changes the capacity
of those other parts of our brain to function in
a balanced, resilient manner, and instead starts pulling all of
our other brain parts into a direction of survival mode,
threat based looking at the world through those trauma glasses.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
And when the brain is stuck in that survival mode,
seeing through trauma glasses, this is what it can feel like.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The world is scary or it could be I'm a
bad person, I make bad things happen. It could be
I am not deserving of love. Whatever the brain has
learned is the thing tied into what is painful, scarier heard,
and the amygdala reinforces those types of stories over and
(10:58):
over and over again. The more those stories get to
exist within our neurobiology, the stronger they become, which means
they can start to feel like truth. So the impact
is pretty profound, and the stories are still going to
be happening. It's just that the stories are being written
by a very unkind narrator.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Part of doctor Truett's approach is understanding the amygdala's response
and even empathizing with it, because its biological intention is
to keep us safe.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
That's the irony about amy the amygdala. She can be
very disruptive and how she guides our brain in order
to keep us alive, but fundamentally she does really have
our back, and that's the opportunity in the neurobiological healing
work and integrating that with meaning making and simply storytelling.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
We are wired to make stories, but we're also allowed
to revise the story our brain rights.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
There's a lot of very effective different types of intervention
for trauma because as humans were narrative creatures, and until
we can support the system changing the narrative the meaning
making of what has happened, the system can continue to
be paralyzed or run by the pain of the past.
And we're always going to be leaning into the meaning making,
(12:21):
which is fundamentally the story that our brain has around
what happened and identifying new opportunities for finding escape from
what feels inescapable after the break.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Doctor Truett delves into specifics about storytelling as a tool
for trauma recovery. We're talking with doctor k. Truett, who's
(12:54):
an applied neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and educator. So it says
that when it comes to identifying the stories your brain
has written about trauma, you can take the first step
on your own.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Journaling is proven scientifically to be an incredible way to
help integrate our story. Putting something on paper is a
way of honoring your own story and your own truth.
Sharing our journaling. Sharing our story in a healthy way
also can be incredibly healing. It can also be very
vulnerable to journal We can be tapping into sensory data
(13:30):
that's tied into our traumatic experiences. Sharing our story can
be incredibly vulnerable, and our migdalah may have fears around
being rejected or feeling even more isolated after sharing.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
But working through that fear and vulnerability is part of
the process. Doctor Truett helps her clients develop tools for
navigating the difficult feelings that come up when they're telling
their story.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
The main focus that I always recommend to my clients, friends, colleagues,
and when we're doing this type of work independently is
to also have a toolkit of self regulation tools next
to us in case we tap into something that carries
a lot of emotional weight as we're journaling. And so
if we have our self regulation tools on hand as
(14:18):
we're journaling or writing or sharing our story, we can
actually proactively heal any of those reactive responses that are
coming up. And one of my favorite tools for this
is an exercise I created a long time ago called
creating Personal Resilience for the Amygdala CPR for the amygdala.
As we're doing our narrative work, as we're journaling, if
(14:41):
we're noticing our amygdalah starting to get reactive, it's just
time to push pause and take a breath. And utilize
something known as mindful touch in order to downregulate the brain.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Mindful touch is a meditation practice of clearing your mind,
bringing your awareness to body, and gently running your hands
together or running your hands over your arms like a hug.
It's a way to ground yourself and help calm down
your amygdala. It seems simple, but this practice can build
a sense of safety around traumatic memories.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It's a way of saying this happened, rather than holding
it inside, of acknowledging the pains of the past and
starting to create a new way forward, imagining different outcomes,
creating a way that you would like to respond or
react to something. We can help the system find ways
(15:39):
to renarrate and free our brain of being stuck locked
into what happened and know that, hey, we're not there anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Another important step in this process is detaching from labels.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
A tool er exercise I do with my clients quite
a bit is to have them notice the difference between
the statement anxious person versus I am experiencing anxiety. As humans,
we tend to label ourselves, and when we give ourselves
big emotional labels, it's hard for our mind and our
(16:13):
body system to dig ourselves out of that label. I
am bad, I am depressed, I am unlovable, I am unworthy,
I am powerless. Our brain buys into that as a
self identifying component of self, as opposed to saying I'm
feeling powerless in this moment, which then creates space for
(16:35):
the brain and the body to go, Oh, I can
do something to feel more powerful right now. What might
that be? Oh? I can control my breath, Oh, I
have control over that. Or I am experiencing anxiety, which
creates the opportunity to zoom out a little bit and
say why am I feeling anxious, which immediately starts the
(16:55):
positive neuroplastic experience of being curious, which gives us dope
mean and opens at our visual sphere both internally and
externally to seeing a larger picture around us. And the
value in that is there's space for curiosity and even
possibly beginning to move into a state of self compassion
(17:18):
and deeper self awareness and self acceptance, which fundamentally is
a critical part of healing through trauma.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Certain labels have more power than others, like the label
a victim. It's a word that comes up a lot
in our interviews. It's a polarizing and emotionally charged label.
Some people adopt it, others reject it.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
A common label that I hear is the idea of
I am a victim or the polarizing opposite, I'm not
a victim, And I can see a lot of damage
potentially being done on either side of the aisle. If
we are a victim and that is the label that
we're putting on our mind body system, it can feel
what we call in psychological terms, very much of having
(18:04):
an external lucus of control. Things happen to me. I
am powerless and I cannot create change in my world.
And for the Imigdella's core values, you can possibly tune
in there that Amy's going to hate that, and when
she really feels powerless or weak, she's going to create
a way of interacting with that statement for the good,
the bad, or the ugly. But however it shows up
(18:25):
for her to keep us safe, oftentimes I can mean
isolating or creating ways of being in interpersonal relationships that
are not preferable or are unhealthy for us. The flip
side of I am not a victim again, great, if
you're not a victim, that's fine, But if that's a
(18:45):
trauma reaction. It can bypass the reality of things happen
out of control, scary, difficult, painful things did happen and
the mind body system wasn't in control in those moments,
and so the label of victim and of itself becomes
self identifying and either side of the aisle, I don't
(19:06):
believe it's supportive or helpful for my clients or anybody
in the world to have an I AM statement in
one direction or the other. When we look at the
term of victim, it means something has happened that was
really bad, and it's a concept, it's not a label,
it's not a self identification.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Still, having a word for that experience and the changes
it caused can be a way to acknowledge that it happened.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
In the field of survivalship, when working with trauma survivors,
we've taken victim off the table because when we're a survivor,
it's giving an acknowledgment to that something did happen. So, yes,
there was a moment where I was a victim of
something really bad happening, and I'm standing here right now.
I made it through. I have survived, and therefore there's
(19:59):
space to look at what happened and to build through
survivalship into resilience and empowerment.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
A major barrier to building resilience and empowerment is shame.
Doctor Truett explains where shame comes from and why we
hold onto it so tightly.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Ah shame, shame, shame, shame. Our brain can be a
shame junkie, and shame is fundamentally a feeling of being
flooded with a lack of self worth, feeling completely and
utterly like somebody is bad, they are broken at their
core and they are bad. And the interesting thing about
(20:40):
shame is our little friend Amy theam Magdalah loves it
is when she's feeling shamed, She's like, there is something
clearly not okay here, and she gets to make up
even more stories about how we are bad, believing that
she's keeping us safe. She really does have her best
interests at hearts, but feeling shame or feeling bad or broken,
and for Amy the Amigdalah, actually gives her power. It
(21:03):
helps her feel like she has agency and choice. I
know it's weird, and it's real.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Shame is baked into our brain's normal functioning, and it's
something we have to learn to work.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
With the problem is hindsight's twenty twenty, and so we
can look back and see every flag that was messed
and hold ourselves accountable for it. And when I say
hold ourselves accountable for it, of course it's not us.
It's our little friend Amy the Andmigdala spinning up a
narrative of saying, see you miss that. That's your fault.
That's your fault. That's your fault. That's your fault. You
(21:38):
miss that too, aren't you so bad? How do you
fail on that account? What's wrong with you? So on
and so forth again, all as a way to create
internally a sense of safety, because when we're so flagellating,
when we're beating ourselves up and holding ourselves responsible for
things that we could not control, did not know about,
(22:00):
did not see. Are a megdala saying remember it, remember it,
because you don't want this to happen again. And so
this is her way of being a LUCKI loo. When
there's a car accident on the freeway, people slow down, Yes,
perhaps for the safety of the passengers in the car accident,
but also people look because the brain's going I need
(22:22):
to learn something over there, our megdala's version of doing
that with shame and trauma is to do a hindsight
review and have twenty twenty vision about every single thing
we missed and hold us accountable for it so we
don't get into danger in the future.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
As we often hear on our show, healing from trauma
isn't linear, and healing doesn't always bring back the person
you were before. That's one of the hardest parts. So
we asked doctor Truett what healing looks like when she's
working with clients.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
One of the interesting things that happens with my clients
when we not everybody, but a lot of them when
we begin the work is ask them what is their goal,
and they say, I just want to be happy. The
problem is our brain is not designed to be happy
all the time. In fact, our brain would burn out
neurochemically if we were. Our brain and our body are
designed to flow an EBB and navigate through all types
(23:31):
of feelings and emotions on a daily basis, the good,
the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the calm and
the neutral, and all of those feelings become flags for
helping us better understand what's happening in the world around us.
The beautiful part of being in the work and doing
the work is that those red flag moments no longer
(23:53):
spiral us into shame. If shame comes up and go oh,
that's also an interesting data point, is a part of
me now feeling bad again? What's happening? And we can
get curious or in the aftermath of a red flag moment,
if we've really leaned into narrow plasticity and helped our
system come home to self with loving care, we can
(24:15):
give ourselves an internal hug or even an external hug,
and wrap our arms around ourselves and go, they're there, girl,
It's okay, what's going on and have that compassionate, loving
response that for so many of us we may never
have ever had to begin with.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Instead of making happiness a marker appealing, a more realistic
approach is to build self compassion.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Self compassion is a skill. We're not born to be
compassionate towards ourselves. We are born to be compassionate towards
other beings, animals, living things, even inanimate objects, because we
need other entities for survival. But frankly, to survive, we
don't have to be nice to ourselves. So that's a
(25:01):
skill that we get to learn, and that's a really
critical part of the trauma healing journey is learning how
to hold the space for ourselves that we neurobiologically freely
give to everybody else.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
This is the work she's actively doing with her clients.
But doctor Truett acknowledges that therapy isn't always accessible. That's
why she's committed to online education and sharing free resources.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So therapy is a privilege, and I'm very aware that
not everybody has access to it. I also know that
mental health and wellness is a human right, so dedicated
an extensive amount of time to providing resources and tools
that are neurobiologically based to help people heal the experiences
(25:46):
of their past, finding ways to show up in the
present moment and do proactive healing in the here and
now while building the neuropathways they want for their future
as we honestly can partner with our own brains to
create incredible change. And on our YouTube channel, it's doctor
k Truet, which is a Google Health channel. It's approved
(26:07):
by ANIH and IMH as well as World Health Organization.
As an educational resource, we provide therapeutic tools guides, information
so as guided meditations, and all sorts of ways to
support people in safely moving into their own healing journey
along those same lines. I have two books that I've written.
(26:28):
The first one is called Healing in Your Hands, which
the title leans into exactly everything we're talking about. It's
a full healing experience for going on a guided relationship
with oneself and navigating how our life experiences have shifted
and changed the way we experience the world around us,
(26:50):
while providing actionable tools and resources for curating and creating change.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Her most recent book is a memoir where she uses
her own story as a lesson in trauma recovery.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
My memoir, which is called Keep Breathing, really goes into
a deep dive, and I use myself as a case study,
which was quite terrifying, to be honest, to unpack the
complexities of having PTSD.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
In writing her memoir, she experienced firsthand how healing it
can be to tell your story, and it's a story
she hopes other people can learn from.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
It was really one of the hardest choices I've made
in my life to put that book into the world,
partially because as psychologists, there's an old idea that we're
supposed to be blank slates, But fundamentally, what I realize
is there's a lot of people who are just like me,
who are struggling, who could possibly benefit from the information.
And it was so healing to even write my own story.
(27:51):
It took five years and to have the space to
share my story and to have my story be held
by others and reflected. So it's an incredible, incredible, powerful
testimony to the power of narrative work and how in
our story is held by others, that and of itself
is really really healing.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Thank you for listening, and a special thanks to doctor
Kate Truett for sharing her expertise with us. In the
spirit of storytelling for trauma healing, We're going to spend
the next two weeks sharing listener essay submissions. The theme
was Resilience in Recovery after a devastating betrayal. We received
so many incredible submissions and we're excited to share them
(28:34):
with you, So stay tuned and we'll be back next week.
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email
us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal pod
at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
(28:54):
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
(29:16):
Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Melcuriy and Caitlin Golden.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from
Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
(29:40):
provided by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Andrea Gunning
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