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May 7, 2025 39 mins

What if the inner voice telling you "I'm not good enough" isn't just an occasional thought, but a core belief driving everything you do? Sabrina Troback, registered counselor and author of "Not Good Enough," reveals how these deeply-held beliefs form through generations of family patterns and personal experiences—sometimes even before birth.

After two decades teaching children with learning disabilities, Sabrina discovered her true calling helping clients understand and challenge their core beliefs. Her approach dives beneath surface behaviors to address the fundamental feeling of unworthiness that fuels anxiety, self-doubt, and disconnection. As she explains, "That core belief is kind of that inner voice that drives everything that we do... for a lot of people who have had trauma throughout their life, often that core belief is feeling not good enough, not important, not valued."

The conversation illuminates how trauma passes through families in surprising ways. Even well-intentioned parents who avoid harmful behaviors like addiction can transmit the same "not good enough" message through impatience, anger, or emotional unavailability. This generational transmission explains why similar feelings of unworthiness persist despite outwardly different family environments.

Sabrina offers practical wisdom for those struggling with anxiety, explaining that most people only recognize anxiety symptoms when they're already overwhelming. Her book provides tools to identify subtle early signs—sweaty palms, jaw clenching, shoulder tension—and address anxiety before it escalates. She also shares transformative strategies like making specific plans for anxiety-triggering situations, which builds confidence in your ability to handle challenges.

Whether you're wrestling with past trauma or simply feeling perpetually inadequate, this episode provides compassionate insight into how these patterns form and practical steps toward healing. As Sabrina reminds us, "Evolution, not revolution." Small, sustainable changes create lasting transformation in how we view ourselves and engage with the world.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hi everybody, my name is Russ Tellup, the host of
Trauma Talks.
It's a weekly podcast where wediscuss all things trauma,
trauma-related and give youtools to understand your nervous
system better so that you canlive the best possible life that
you can.
Today we have a guest namedSabrina Troback.
Sabrina is a registeredcounselor in British Columbia

(00:32):
and the author of a book, andwe're going to let her kind of
give us her journey and whereshe's headed, Sabrina.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hi, it's nice to be here.
As you said, sabrina Trobach,I'm in northern British Columbia
.
I was a teacher for over 20years, working mainly with kids
with learning disabilities, andthen, towards the end of my
teaching career, I became aschool counselor.
I went to a workshop presentedby a man named Tony Martins, who

(01:01):
talked about suicide, but fromthe perspective of our core
belief feeling not good enough,not important, not valued.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
And how trauma.
You said that was Tony Martins.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, m-a-r-t-e-n-s.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Okay, thank you, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
And so Tony talked about suicide from that
perspective, of that core belief, and at the end of the three
day workshop I just thought thisis what I need to do.
And so I went back and forthwith Tony for about a year and
he agreed to teach me his modelof therapy.
So I quit teaching and startedmy own private practice in
counseling and after about sixmonths I had a waiting list

(01:46):
counseling, and after about sixmonths I had a waiting list.
Now what I'm really doing isgoing back, helping people
understand how their core beliefhas developed throughout their
life and then what we need to doto challenge that core belief
so they feel more good enough,important and valued.
So the model that I practice isa long-term model of therapy.
Most clients are with me for atleast a year, if not longer.
So I have a waiting list.
I've had a significant waitinglist since about six months into

(02:09):
practicing.
So I decided to write a book asa way to provide a resource for
some people who maybe can'taccess counseling, who want to
try to work on things, get abetter understanding of their
trauma, the impact it's had ontheir life, and so I wrote the
book.
Not Good Enough, understandingyour core belief and anxiety.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
And that's, and that's where I am now and that's
the book that's sitting on thatbeautiful chair behind you,
right.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
That is yeah, you're correct.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Where could they find your book if they're interested
in reading it?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
My book is available on Amazon.
Yeah, amazonca, amazoncom, allthe Amazons.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
And uh, it's not good enough.
And what was the second linethere?
So I can make sure I put it inthe show notes so people can
find that sure it's not goodenough understanding your core
belief and anxiety awesome.
Okay, uh, how, how long ago wasthis?
That's a huge transition to gofrom education to therapy, right

(03:08):
?

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I started as a school counselor in 2008, 2009, and
then started my own privatepractice in 2010.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Cool, and do you practice remotely everywhere, or
just in British Columbia?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Mostly in British Columbia, for sure.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
But you do work with people remotely.
If they were interested insigning on to us.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
And I only do virtual .
I during COVID I gave up myoffice space and so now I just
work virtually, even for peoplewho live in Fort St John it's
still just local.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, I think the majority of us did that during
COVID.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
It was silly.
I was going into my office andtalking virtually and I thought,
you know, this works just aboutas well as one on one in person
and can save me a bunch ofmoney and not having to pay for
that extra space.
So I switched over, yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, put your money and your focus where it can be
more impactful.
Right, right Cool.
So you said that you learnedyour modality for healing from
Tony.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
That's correct.
He created and developed themodel of therapy in the 1980s or
so, and that really is what itis is getting a better
understanding of your corebelief, so that core belief is
kind of that inner voice thatdrives everything that we do.
And so for a lot of people whoare struggling, a lot of people

(04:38):
who've had trauma throughouttheir life, often that core
belief is feeling not goodenough, not important, not
valued.
So what we're doing in themodel of therapy is we're going
back, getting a betterunderstanding of how that core
belief has developed and thenworking on challenging it so
that we can change it, so wefeel more good enough, important
and valued, and we're doingthat by going back and resolving

(05:02):
a lot of the traumas that we'veexperienced throughout our
lives.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Now do you find that those that that belief is
developed typically duringchildhood, early childhood?

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Honestly, I think it even starts before you're born.
You're growing into anenvironment and generally if
your parents core belief is notgood enough, not important, not
valued, it's pretty hard forthem to teach you anything
different.
But then it's all the differentexperiences that happen

(05:34):
throughout our life, you know,definitely starting.
You know, before you're evenborn early childhood, later
childhood, youth, adult it justkind of keeps going and it's
like a snowball rolling downhill.
It generally just kind of keepsgoing and it's like a a
snowball rolling downhill.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
It generally just gets bigger and bigger and
bigger over time yeah, some ofthe some of the studies going
into to, uh, generational traumaare absolutely incredible.
I mean, they're talking abouttrauma that can affect down
seven, seven generations later.
Um, I was talking with a friendof mine recently and about this
phenomenon and if you thinkabout it, you have somebody that

(06:09):
served in the Revolutionary War, for example.
That's seven generations ago.
That's pretty crazy.
So they're going to act andreact differently, raise their
children differently, and thentheir children are going to be
raised differently, and then ondown the line and some of those
traumas that that you pass downfrom generation to generation
can go on forever.

(06:30):
So it's not not surprising.
Plus, in utero trauma too,right?

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Right, you know the behaviors can look a bit
different but the message behindthe behavior is is the same and
that's often what gets passeddown.
You know I'll work withfamilies where you know work
with a client who says you knowI'm I'm never going to drink.
I grew up in an alcoholic home.
I do not want my kids to everhave to go through that.

(06:58):
So I'll say to the to theclient okay, you know, on a
scale from one to 10, how goodenough or how not good enough do
you feel in your dad's eyes hesays you know seven or eight out
of 10.
And then I'm working with thatguy's son, because I work with
families, and I say to the sonin your dad's eyes, how not good

(07:18):
enough do you feel?
He says a seven or eight out of10.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
I go back and tell the dad that and the dad goes I
don't understand.
I never drank, I have neverdrank in my house.
There was never alcohol in thehouse and there's not.
But he's impatient, he's got abit of anger.
He's not really present whenhe's there because he's
struggling with his core beliefthat he hasn't really resolved,

(07:44):
because he's struggling with hiscore belief that he hasn't
really resolved.
So his ability to be able toreally connect and be present
with his own family is stillvery guarded as well.
So, even though the behaviorhas changed and the intent was
there to create something verydifferent, that behavior, that
core belief, continued to bepassed down, even though the
behavior looked very different.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, and a brain can find a lot of different ways to
validate a core belief.
I mean, we spend our livesvalidating a core belief.
It's not true to begin with.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, it driveseverything we do for sure, and
when something comes up thatdoesn't support that core belief
, we just minimize it.
Oh, it's not really that big ofa deal, don't worry about it.
Brush it off.
But when something comes upthat we can use to feed that
core belief, we absolutely will.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, and you and we can come up with just about
anything to feed those corebeliefs.
I mean, when you're lookingthrough that filter and and yeah
, I mean you're you'll yourbrain will try to find every way
it possibly can to validatethat belief.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Absolutely, absolutely Cool.
Can you tell us a little bitabout the book?

Speaker 2 (08:50):
So the book is written as a bit of a handbook,
so you're reading a little bitof information and then you're
applying that information toyour own personal experiences.
It is written for people whohave anxiety.
As a learning assistant teacherfor 20 years, I know that
people with anxiety strugglewith reading.
So how do you write a book foranxiety?

(09:11):
For people who have anxiety, itmakes it really challenging.
So the book is written wherethere's very few pages that are
full texts on both sides.
It's broken up into very smallchunks, lots of diagrams, lots
of charts, where you're reallyjust reading a little bit at a
time and then you're doing anactivity that applies that
information to yourself.
It's definitely something thatneeds to be read over a period

(09:35):
of time, not something you wantto kind of get through in a
weekend.
The more time you take to readthrough and process it, the more
you're going to get a differentunderstanding of the
information.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
And then what?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
kind of exercises would you expect to find in the
book there?
So it's looking at you knowwhere is your core belief?
How has your core beliefdeveloped?
So you're looking atexperiences that you've been
through, how those core beliefshave developed, and it's looking
at how that core belief isreflected in your own actions
and behaviors.
What is your anxiety like?
Often, if that core belief isnot good enough, we're going to

(10:13):
have more self-doubt, moreinsecurity, which is what
anxiety is.
Anxiety is not believing inmyself that I can handle
something.
So it gives you a betterunderstanding of how that
anxiety looks.
What does your anxiety looklike?
We often know what our anxietylooks like when it's really,
really high, say, you know a 10out of 10.
But we don't necessarily knowwhat it looks like as a three,

(10:34):
four, five, six.
That means we're not doinganything about it until it's
really really high.
So in the book we're looking ata whole bunch of more subtle
symptoms of anxiety, like sweatypalms, picking at your
fingernails, clenching your jaw,tight shoulders.
We're looking at these moresubtle ones so we can start to
get an idea of what our symptomlooks like at a, three, four,

(10:57):
five, six.
And then we also look atstrategies.
What are strategies we can putin place so that we can bring
that anxiety down before it getsreally really high?

Speaker 1 (11:06):
So you're really approaching it from a somatic
type of space, right?

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Very much so.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, we also look at anger andhow we say.
Anger is not a standaloneemotion, anger is a coping.
It's an emotion, but it's alsoa coping strategy we use to push
down other emotions.
So we generally don't like tofeel any of our emotions.

(11:33):
But you know, emotions likefear, sad, loneliness,
vulnerability, rejection wedon't like to feel those.
So if I get angry now, I canfeel angry.
I don't have to feel thoseother emotions.
So the book looks at what aresome of the emotions that you
think are underneath your anger,what are some of the emotions
you've experienced throughoutyour life.

(11:53):
Over time, if we just keeppushing those emotions down,
they get bigger and bigger andbigger and bigger.
So we often see things likefeeling unheard, feeling
powerless, feeling vulnerable.
We don't like to feel thoseemotions because we felt them so
many times throughout our life.
They get bigger and bigger andbigger.
So now, when something happenstoday, it's not just about today

(12:14):
, it's about all those timesthat we've held in that emotion
as well.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, sure, that makes total sense.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah.
So the book kind of goesthrough and looks at all those
different areas and more as well, and you know by the end of the
book the goal is is that you'vegot some new understanding and
some significant tools to helpyou better challenge that.
As you're doing that, you'realso challenging that core
belief not good enough, whichthen means you're developing the
core belief good enoughdeveloping the core belief good

(12:46):
enough.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
So would you say that the book is a standalone
healing tool, or is thissomething that you would use in
lieu of working with you lateron to to solidify some of the
stuff you learn in the book?

Speaker 2 (12:54):
I think it's something you can do.
I wrote it for people who can'taccess counseling, so it
definitely is something that youcan do and, um, it can be used
as a supplement.
A lot of my clients have thebook as well, but it definitely
is something that takes you doand it can be used as a
supplement.
A lot of my clients have thebook as well, but it definitely
is something that takes youright from the very basics, very
beginning, and helps you reallyunderstand it at a very

(13:15):
detailed, in-depth level, almostmore scientific than it is kind
of the counseling fluffy piece.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, yeah, but imagine you talk a lot about
polyvagal theory.
Come up in the book at all, ornot specifically with the terms.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
I don't go into a lot of the different models that we
use.
We're just really digging into.
These are some of theactivities that we can do for
sure so you do.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
You are giving some exercises and things in the book
that people can do to releasesome of that stress and some of
that sympathetic energyAbsolutely, yeah, cool.
So if someone was to work withSabrina, what does that look
like?

Speaker 2 (13:56):
So in the beginning, what we do is really just spend
a lot of time understanding ourown anxiety, what anxiety looks
for us, strategies that we canput in place.
Then we start by gatheringinformation.
So this is really where I'mgaining all of my information I
can about you.
I get you to tell me your wholelife story.

(14:16):
Now we go slow.
We start with things that are,you know, a little bit easier,
slowly moving more into thattrauma.
As we start talking about ourlife experiences, we build more
confidence in being able to talkabout it.
So then, when we get to thetraumas that are harder to talk
about, we're already feeling abit more confident in being able
to do that.
So we go through, as we'regoing through that, I'm looking

(14:39):
for things that I think thathave developed and created that
core belief.
But also what happens is theclient gets to see things from a
bit of a different perspective.
Often with pretty much everyonein our family or that we talk to
, we're a little guarded rightBecause we don't want things to
be held against us.
We don't want to be judged, wedon't want to take up too much

(15:00):
time, we don't want to upsetsomeone else.
I'm the therapist, that's it.
So they can just talk openlyabout everything to me.
So they often make connectionsand get a better understanding
of why they're struggling now,why their anger is the way their
anger is now, by looking atsome of these past experiences.
Then we go back and look atspecific areas and really work

(15:22):
on getting resolve and getting abetter understanding of why
those things happened, beingable to let go of the
understanding, the consequencesof you know life now, trauma.
That happened 20, 30 years ago.
What's the impact of that today?
And then how do we work onchallenging that and letting it
go?
So today can just be abouttoday.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Sure, today can just be about today, sure.
So I get this question a lot.
It sounds like a silly question, but maybe you can help me pull
it apart and dive into it alittle bit.
What is trauma in your opinion?

Speaker 2 (16:02):
And I think that's a good question, and I think
trauma can look very different.
I don't think we need tocompare trauma to other people's
trauma, because there's alwaysgoing to be someone who had it
better and there's always goingto be someone who had it worse.
Trauma is something that has areally significant impact on you
.
That has likely caused you toput your guard up.

(16:24):
It's created a wall where youfeel I need to protect myself.
That trauma is often theinstigator of what we needed to
do that, so it could be anythingfrom yelling as parents who
yell to extreme violence andabuse.
It can look like a lot ofdifferent things, but if it's

(16:44):
something that's kind of alteredhow we deal with things, where
now we feel like we need to keepeverybody at a bit of a
distance, we need to protectourselves because we don't want
to get hurt again, traumausually fits within that
guidelines.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, I would almost say that it's.
It's anything that createsthose core beliefs, right?
Any?
And, like you said, that couldbe something that happened prior
to birth.
So I think that, yeah, traumacan be.
I don't think there's anyone onearth that does not have trauma
to some extent in their lives.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
For sure.
You know I think, yeah,everybody's going to have.
I think we can.
That core belief can develop inexperiences that may be not
seen, as you know, traumatic,but trauma is definitely going
to build and develop those corebeliefs for sure.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, there are people that you can talk to and
I've had clients where we'lltalk about their childhood and
they're very fond of theirchildhood.
They don't really have anythingthat they can point to that was
traumatic, but maybe their dadput a lot of emphasis on
education and it created thisI'm not good enough type
mentality when it comes toeducation or athletics or

(18:05):
whatever it may be.
I got my certification from theTrauma-Informed School of
Positive Psychology.
It's in the UK and the womanthat teaches the courses her
name is Caroline Strawson.
One of the things that she talksabout is when she was little,
she was in gymnastics and shewould try these little
gymnastics moves in the livingroom to show the parents and get

(18:27):
praise Right, and her dad wouldalways say 9.9, 9.9.
He would never give her a 10and he thought it was kind of
funny and they would joke aboutit.
But what it did is it instilledthis belief in herself that she
, she's never going to be enough, she'll never be able to get
that 10, and so something thatcan be just purely um, innocent

(18:53):
from the from the perspective ofthe parent can cause some
pretty, pretty, pretty bigdamage for sure, and I see that
a lot in a lot of um the clientsthat I work with, even where
where there is trauma, often thethings that they remember are
more of those subtle littlethings where it was just one
more time where they didn't feelgood enough for sure.

(19:16):
Yeah, yeah, and there's some ofus like myself.
I've had, I had, a highlytraumatic childhood with plenty
of physical, emotional, sexualabuse.
I mean, if you can think it up,it happened.
But compared to somebody whohad a relatively good childhood
but developed those beliefs inother ways, it's basically the

(19:37):
same thing.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, and I really encourage my clients to not
compare themselves to others.
Your experiences are yourexperiences.
Your trauma are your trauma.
They're real to you.
It doesn't really matter whatgoes on for anyone else around
you.
If you're hurting, you have aright to work through and try to
figure that out.
Yeah, you know a lot of peopleminimize it and go.

(19:59):
Well, you know I could be a lotworse, so I'm not going to
worry about it.
No, your trauma is your traumaand know I could be a lot worse,
so I'm not going to worry aboutit.
No, your trauma is your traumaand it's okay for you to figure
it out and sort through it.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, I served in the military and I live in a
military town so there's quite abit of military here in
Colorado Springs where I live.
So there's a lot of peopledealing with PTSD, combat
related PTSD, things of thatnature.
So it's easy in this type ofenvironment to fall into the
trap of big T, little T.
My trauma isn't as bad as yourtrauma.

(20:31):
You are more deserving of helpthan I am.
It's hard to get out of thatand it's very systemic.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
For sure.
I think that's been going on,for you know, just like we
talked about generational trauma, that idea in society has been
going on for generations andgenerations and generations.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Tools that you can think ofthat pop into your head.
As far as podcasts that peoplecan let, do you have a podcast?

Speaker 2 (21:00):
first of all, no, I do not have a podcast.
A podcast, first of all.
No, I do not have a podcast.
I have a youtube channel andI'm on instagram and facebook
and tiktok, but I do not have apodcast channel.
I do, I do a lot of podcastinterviews, but I don't do.
I don't have my own.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, uh, we'll definitely have to get the link
to your youtube channel so wecan include it in the show notes
as well.
So, people for sure.
Yeah, are there any podcaststhat you enjoy listening to that
that you might be able to pointpeople toward that could?
Um, you know I've listened.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
My, my, my favorites are.
I listened to a couple crimeones that I listened to quite a.
The things that's really reallyreally important for trying to

(21:57):
resolve trauma is we have to getbetter at feeling our emotions.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, we have to feel to heal.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Exactly.
We see, you know, if we take,if we take two kids, let's say
they're seven years old and they, they, they grow up in two
different environments and theyare, let's say, abused by a
neighbor and they come home andthe one child comes home and
there's a lot of chaos.
There's a lot of violence, alot of yelling, a lot of

(22:27):
fighting.
Parents are really disconnected.
There's a really good chancethat child's not going to talk.
There's a really good chancethat child's not going to learn
how to feel their emotions andsort through things.
The child's probably even goingto try to say, hey, I need some
help here and they're going tobe exhibiting some behaviors
that are different, that areconcerning, but the parents are

(22:49):
dealing with so much of theirown chaos they don't see it.
Whereas I take another familywhere a child's been abused
comes home, there's a reallyhigh likelihood, if that family
is connected, they talk abouttheir emotions.
The child is able to have avoice.
The parents feel they are goodenough, important and valued.
There's a really good chancethat that child's going to tell

(23:11):
the parents what's going on.
When they tell, the parents aregoing to get them the help.
They're going to get them thecounseling.
Whatever they need to do,they're going to help them sort
through their emotions around it.
And even if the child doesn'ttell, the parents are going to
go something's off.
They're just acting a littlebit different.
This isn't quite right.
They're going to keep talkingto the child until the child

(23:32):
gets comfortable, where they cantell them, and then they're
going to get them the help.
Now both those kids experiencethe same trauma.
Grow those kids up to 25 yearsold?
Their lives are going to lookvery, very different.
So it's trauma significant.
But how it's dealt with is alsoreally, really, really
important.

(23:52):
The better we get at sortingthrough it and dealing with it
and dealing with the emotions ofit, the more we're going to be
able to let it go.
Generally, the sooner we dealwith the trauma, the less impact
it has.
If we don't deal with it and wewait 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years,
the experience is over, it'sgone.
We can't do anything to do tochange that.

(24:13):
But the emotions have built andbuilt and built for all those
years, making that trauma moreand more and more significant.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, I think emotional intelligence
definitely plays a major role inthat too.
Right, being able to vocalizethe way that you're feeling.
When I was a kid, the only twoemotions I knew was angry, and
really angry.
So there was no way for me toexpress that I was hurt or that
I was scared or any otheremotion other than angry.

(24:42):
So as you become an adult andyou don't have a way to
verbalize, even to yourself andacknowledge the way that you're
feeling, it's really hard toprocess those emotions.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
For sure when I start with a lot.
Most of my clients that I workwith are adults, and when I
start with a client I'll askthem how they feel and a lot of
them will tell me a thought Well, it just shouldn't happen.
I don't believe that's not anemotion.
What's the emotion that youfeel?
We have spent so much timesuppressing and pushing down

(25:14):
those emotions often unconscious, not even aware we're doing it
that when we actually have tothink of an emotion, it's blank.
We don't even know where tobegin.
So one of the things I do withmy clients is they all get an
emotions sheet and it's got alist of a whole bunch of
different emotions on it.
So when they're feelingsomething, rather than trying to
have to figure out what it isin their head, go to the sheet,

(25:38):
read through it.
They will jump out the page atyou the emotions that you are
feeling.
So now you can get a bit moreof an idea of what those
emotions are.
After you practice that for awhile, you don't need the paper
anymore, but it can be a reallygood guideline.
Part of what makes feelingemotions challenging is it's
actually very rare that we feelone emotion.

(25:59):
We're usually feeling acombination of three, four, five
, seven emotions at the sametime.
So to try to identify them whenI've been pushing them, pushing
them down for so long, can bereally, really challenging.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, and certain topics become vacant when you
try to come up with trying to.
For example, I did anexperiment on my Facebook page
where I asked everybody whatdoes love feel like?
And I kept getting responseslike it feels like a warm summer
day, it feels like butterfliesflying through the air, or you

(26:35):
know all these differentexperiential type of
explanations for what love feelslike.
And then I asked what betrayalfeels like?
And it's my stomach feels likeit's flipping upside down, I
can't breathe, my heart rategoes crazy, my blood pressure
goes crazy.
So all these somatic typeexperiences for something like
betrayal, that minute it sticksin your head.

(26:57):
The way you're feeling sticksin your head.
Your brain takes a snapshot ofthat so that it can bring you
back to it whenever it needs to.
But something like love is somuch more difficult for us to
put into words what it feelslike.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
And I think we have to be.
We have to be a bit carefulwith that word love.
We've gone from the oldergeneration where you never heard
, it was never said, and nowit's said all the time.
So I can say to my child I loveyou and then at supper say I
love spaghetti.
Well, right, and I've heard.
You know I, you know, I've hadkids.

(27:33):
What is what is love?
Love is keeping a secret.
Love is keeping the peace.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
That's scary.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Love is, yeah, exactly, so we really need to be
careful.
If you, if you have a lot oftrauma, there's a really good
chance that your, yourexperience of what love is isn't
very healthy.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Or or if you've even felt it at all.
Right, Exactly, Many of us havenever felt love and connection
and couldn't tell you what thatfeels like.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Right.
And the scary part about thatis that then becomes your normal
Right, and so if you grew upwith disconnect, you're
comfortable in disconnect, andso having a relationship, having
a family, is really, reallychallenging.
There's going to be some ofthat disconnect there just
because that's your comfort zone.

(28:27):
You may not like it, but youknow it so well, it's
comfortable for you, it's yoursafe place.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Well, our brains are definitely drawn toward the
familiar, whether that familiarserves us or not.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Absolutely yeah, and a lot of times it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, yeah, I do an exercise with clients when I'm
kind of getting to know them.
If I already told you this, Iapologize.
I've done a few recordingstoday so some of them are all
running together.
But I'll do an exercise with myclients where we talk about a
nervous system mapping, where wewe go in and we write out

(29:02):
triggers that bring us tocertain States, whether that's a
safe, connected space, a fightor flight, like a sympathetic
energy type space, or more oflike a dorsal, vagal kind of
freeze state freeze at FON stateand along with that we'll put
the triggers what it feels likewhen we're there, what beliefs

(29:22):
we have when we're in that state, and then the percentage of the
time that we spend in thosestates.
And it's amazing to me when Idid mine the first time, I was%
of the time is stuck in freeze.
You know 30% of the time stuckin fight or flight and 10% of
the times connected and and andthat you know that prefrontal

(29:44):
cortex and it's amazing howlittle time a lot of us spend in
that state.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, I, you know, I think 10% you're probably doing
okay.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
I mean when you think about how much time when you're
driving down the road, are youthinking about something that
happened two weeks ago that'sbothering you, or you know?
We're constantly ruminating onthings in our head rather than
just being in the moment andexperiencing the moment for what
it is.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Right, or thinking about things that haven't even
happened and probably are nevergoing to.
But we're running all thesewhat if?
Scenarios in our head andthat's all time that we're not
getting to be present, we're notgetting to connect with family
and friends and even withinourselves.
Most people don't like to justsit still.
They're driving, they got themusic blaring because sitting

(30:34):
still in their own thoughtthat's way too scary.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
We don't do that Very scary, yeah yeah.
So I've got a couple exercisesthat I do when I catch myself
wandering, you know, to bring meback to present Some breathing
exercises and some other somaticstuff.
Do you have anything that youthat's kind of go-to to pull
yourself back into that presentplace?

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Breathing is, you know it, what?
Working with my clients,breathing is one of the very
first strategies we talk abouthow it does bring you out of
that fight, flight freeze.
It drops the cortisol levels inyour brain, allows you to kind
of use more of that logic andreason and thinking through
things for sure.
The other big strategy that wetalk a lot about is making a

(31:21):
plan.
So anxiety is often about lackof confidence, not believing in
yourself.
You can handle things.
So even when we look attriggers, it's not really the
trigger that creates the anxiety, it's my belief in my ability
to handle the trigger.
So some people might say youknow, I have a trigger of
yelling, but not everyone has atrigger of yelling, and so if it

(31:44):
was really yelling, everyonewould have a trigger of yelling.
But if I grew up, my trauma isconnected around yelling.
That's going to be a triggerfor me.
I'm not going to believe inmyself as much that I can handle
it.
Well, what makes us feel moreconfident in handling something
is making a plan.
So if I have a worry, thought orsomething that I'm ruminating

(32:04):
over and I actually take thatthing and write it down on a
piece of paper and say, okay, ifthis happens, what do I do?
And I make a plan of what Iwould do to handle it.
Now I'm going to feel moreconfident.
Now that's going to bring thechances that that thought's
going to keep coming over andover again down significantly.
But if it does come up, I needto answer it and go oh, I made a

(32:27):
plan for that, I know what I'mgoing to do, and so I'm
retraining my brain from, ratherthan just getting caught in
these scenarios and spinning andspinning and spinning.
Actually, when those scenarioscome up, stopping and making a
plan and realizing on the otherside of it, I can handle it.
Might not be comfortable, mightbe a lot of work, but I will
handle it on the other side,once we realize that we don't

(32:50):
need to worry as much about allthose things that brings that
fight flight freeze response,because much about all those
things that brings that fightflight freeze response because
that fight flight freeze that'swhat it is is I don't know how
to handle all these things oncewe believe more in ourselves,
then we can be overwhelmed down.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
For sure, yeah, for sure.
Um, you know what I?
I have like a list of things,of tools, you know, that are
go-to tools I can.
I can remember and use rightaway to pull myself back into a
connected space If I feel myselfgoing into a trauma response.
A lot of that is like patternedbreathing or visualizations, if

(33:25):
I'm able like, if I'm notdriving things like that.
Would you, would you equatethat to having a plan or making
a plan, or are you thinkingabout more like making a plan as
it's happening, rather thanalready having a plan in place?

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Breathing often can be a part of the plan, for sure.
Right, or visualizing would bea part of the plan, but it could
go deeper than that for sure.
So say, for example I'm youknow, I'm going out for dinner
tonight with some friends, butthere's going to be new people
there that I don't really know.
And I'm you know, I'm going outfor dinner tonight with some
friends, but there's going to benew people there that I don't
really know and I'm having someanxiety about that going into
that freeze where I'm thinking,trying to think of excuses so I

(34:02):
can avoid not going.
So, what's my right.
So what's my, what's my anxietythat's creating that is I.
I, you know I'm scared of goingto dinner with people I don't
know.
So I write that down.
So then I say, OK, well, sowhat can I do to help me manage
that situation better?
Well, I want to drive on my ownbecause I want to be able to
leave whenever I can leave, butI don't want to go in by myself.

(34:26):
So I'm maybe going to ask oneof my friends to meet me in the
parking lot.
I'm going to arrive a bit earlybecause I'd rather be the first
one there than the last onethere.
Now some people might say no,I'd much prefer to be the last
one there.
Great, Then be the last onethere.
Where do you want to sit?
Do you want to sit so you cansee people coming in and you can
see the door, or do you preferto sit more where you're kind of

(34:48):
facing something that there'snot a lot of stimulus, like a
wall?
So now my plan is I'm going todrive by myself, I'm going to
meet my friend in the parkinglot and walk in together about
five to 10 minutes early, andI'm going to sit so I can see
people coming in.
I feel more comfortable when Ican see the entrance of a
building that I go into.
Now I have a plan for how I'mgoing to handle going for dinner

(35:11):
with people.
I don't know that's going tobring my anxiety down If it
starts to come up.
I remind myself of what my planis and that I can handle doing
it.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, and I would imagine, after doing it multiple
times, you start to rewire andyou just go for dinner with
friends.
You don't know, that's right,you don't even have to
consciously think through it forsure.
I always kind of equate it togoing sledding.
You have this brand new hillfull of brand new fresh snow and
you go down the hill and you goa little slow.
You go down again, it goes alittle faster, and then a little

(35:44):
faster and a little faster andyou go about halfway down and
decide to turn right.
You're not going to turn right.
You got to start a whole newpath and get that to dig into
the snow.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, Cool, Um any other?
Anything else you'd like toshare with the listeners?

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Uh, I, I just think you know.
If you're, if you're listeningto this and you're trying to get
a better understanding of yourtrauma, you're on the right
track.
You're doing something that alot of people aren't even doing.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Probably the majority .

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Exactly.
There's so many people whoaren't even willing to take this
.
So just keep working at it.
We want small steps.
Don't worry about taking greatbig leaps.
Little tiny changes over asignificant period of time is
much more beneficial.
I always tell my clientsevolution, not revolution.
So just what's one little thingyou can do different?

(36:43):
Practice that for a while.
And then what's one new thingyou can do different?
Practice that for a while.
Small steps is way moresustainable than great big steps
and steps really fast.
We need to take time andpractice.
We gotta, like you said, withthe sled, we gotta build that,
that trail, so that we feel moreconfident going down it.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah, we need to practice.
Yeah, big steps can be reallyscary.
We're really small.
Actionable steps can be a lotmore manageable, especially if
you're in a freeze or a fight orflight state.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
For sure.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I think even if you're in a conscious connected
state, it's still scary to takethose steps.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Smaller the better, the more we feel like we can
handle it for sure.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yeah Well, Sabrina, thank you so much for joining me
today.
I really appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Thank you for having me.
It was nice chatting with you.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Do you want to just tell everybody about your book
one more time, so we can get itout there one last time?
People can write it down.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Sure.
So the book is called Not GoodEnough Understanding your Core
Belief and Anxiety and it's anactivity book where you're going
through and sorting throughinformation.
It is on Amazon.
You can also go to my websiteat trobackholisticorg.
On my website is a link to allmy socials.
I also have a blog on therethat's got a lot of information.

(38:08):
It's got a page of all thepodcast interviews that I've
done and of course, it has alink to my book my book sales as
well.
I am also on YouTube andFacebook.
Those ones are Troback holisticcounseling.
I am on Instagram at uh, ngefor not good enough, so NGE,
underscore Troback, and on TikTOK.

(38:29):
I'm NGE, underscore core,underscore belief.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Awesome, and if you don't mind just shooting me an
email or a Facebook message withlinks to all that, I'll include
those in the show notes too, sopeople can find them easily.
Sure, once again, thanks somuch, sabrina.
I really appreciate yourinsight and your knowledge.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you, have a great week.
All right, guys.
Once again, my name is RussTellup.

(38:54):
I am a trauma-informed somaticcoach with MindBodySpirit and
BrainspottingCScom.
This is Sabrina Troback and sheis the author of Not Good
Enough Understanding your CoreBeliefs and Anxiety Anxiety and
we'll get some links to all ofthat in the show notes that you

(39:14):
guys can go purchase that bookon Amazon and go check out her
website and her YouTubes and allof her socials and connect with
her.
So thanks again for joining usand we'll see you guys next week
.
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