Episode 7, Season II: “When the Past Keeps Bleeding In: The Science & Stories of Retraumatization”

Hosted by Dr. Sarah Hensley, Specialized Social Psychologist, Attachment Theory Expert, and Founder & CEO of The Love Doc Relationship Coaching Services with Co-host Raina Butcher, Owner/CEO of Joyful Consulting, LLC. 

Welcome to "The Love Doc Podcast" Season II, where Host Dr. Sarah Hensley and her co-host Raina Butcher dive deep into the intricacies of love, attraction, attachment, relationships, and self-awareness. Dr. Hensley brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to help listeners navigate the complexities of modern romance. In each episode, Dr. Hensley tackles burning questions about love, relationships, and the mind’s complexities, drawing from her psychological research, real-life experiences, and her own individual expertise, to provide insightful perspectives and practical advice.

In this raw and revealing episode of The Love Doc Podcast, Dr. Hensley and Raina dive deep into the rarely understood—but widely experienced—phenomenon of retraumatization. What actually happens to the brain and body when we’re retraumatized? Why does it sometimes feel even more painful than the original event? Dr. Hensley walks us through the neurobiological process of retrauma, explaining how trauma is stored in the brain differently than typical memories—lodged in the amygdala and body rather than neatly filed in the hippocampus. So, when a familiar cue triggers that trauma, we often relive it with the same intensity as the original moment—except now it’s stacked on years of previous pain.

From a clinical and evolutionary perspective, Dr. Hensley explains how the human nervous system is wired to remember pain for survival. “When you’ve been traumatized over and over, especially in relationships or systems of power, your body becomes hypersensitive—it’s not just hypervigilance; it’s your body trying to keep you alive,” she shares. The repeated trauma essentially short-circuits our ability to regulate emotions or assess danger accurately. The nervous system begins to perceive safety as foreign, and threat as familiar—especially when our trauma stems from people we loved or trusted.

The conversation takes a personal turn as both Dr. Hensley and Raina open up about recent experiences of being retraumatized—Raina through an emotionally manipulative exchange with a co-parent, and Dr. Hensley through a recent betrayal that echoed a childhood wound. They both reflect on how these moments didn’t just “remind” them of earlier traumas—they reactivated them, sparking physical symptoms like shaking, shutdown, and dissociation. These aren’t overreactions—they’re biological responses to perceived survival threats, and they’re devastatingly real.

The episode also links retrauma to insecure attachment patterns, especially those who find themselves in repeated dynamics with narcissistic or dismissive avoidant (DA) partners. “People with insecure attachment often unconsciously seek out what’s familiar, not what’s safe,” Dr. Hensley explains. “That’s how the retrauma cycle continues—we don’t just remember pain, we recreate it.” The cycle becomes especially dangerous when one’s nervous system is so accustomed to chaos that anything resembling peace feels threatening. They discuss how the body learns to expect harm in love and how, without awareness and healing, retrauma becomes a repeating loop.

Lastly, the episode ties into The Love Doc’s ongoing Family Court Series, highlighting the retraumatizing impact of legal systems. From both personal experience and client stories, Raina and Dr. Hensley reveal how courtrooms can become breeding grounds for PTSD—especially when survivors are forced to continually interact with their abusers, relive past harm, or defend their truth in a system that doesn’t always protect them. Even the mere mention of court in a co-parenting text or email can trigger days of dysregulation and panic.

This is a must-listen for anyone who’s ever wondered why they “overreact” to certain people, places, or patterns—or why healing sometimes feels so hard. Dr. Hensley and Raina blend science with soul in an episode that’s as validating as it is empowering.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Love Dog Podcast. I am your co
host Raina Butcher here with our host doctor Sarience.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Like, what's up, what's up? How are you?

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Oh, I'm okay, just over here with the hurt bag.
You're old lady.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
She's got an old lady back, and I have an
old lady name yep.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
And you know the crazy thing is, it's like I
bent down to get something today before I did my workout,
and that's when I was like, ah, all right.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
We never hurt ourselves like doing things that you would
think you would hurt yourself doing. It's always like sleeping.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Wrong, yeah, or picking up your phone off the floor
or something.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah. Yeah, I've got a bumny too. We're just officially there.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yeah. There was this video a long time ago and
I laughed so hard because my husband's a veteran and
he has to go to the VA. But it was
like going to the VA with like a new complaint
and it was like, oh, you just have a shitty
knee now, like I don't know what to do, Like
there's really nothing wrong with you. It's just kind of
a shitty And that's.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Just the threshold and everything kind of it's funny because
I was watching something a video Trey Kennedy, and hopefully
I can mention his name, but I'm giving him credit.
He did a video on like thirty five and I
was watching it.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I was like, dude, you don't even know.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
I am almost forty four. So I'm like in that
mid forties range. And they say that like you accelerate
your aging at certain points, and it's forty five is
one of.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Them, and sixty excellent.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, start to approach that, like I get hurt easier,
and just like I need to make sure I get
my eight hours of sleep. If I don't get my
eight hours, and I'm like, you can't function, I can't
function as well. And I used to be when I
had horrible insomnia from trauma, which is something that we're
going to talk about today, I could. I mean I
survived on such a little sleep, and like when my

(01:57):
kids were little and not sleeping, I was like, how
do I do that? Because now if it's just like
seven hours, I'm like, oh man, I could have really
used that extra hour.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Same even thirty minutes, fifteen minutes right snows as many
times as I possibly can.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Be able to never hit this snooze button.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, that's Josh too.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
He will jump right out of bed and we will
get going like immediately, and he's like, well, I figure,
what's fifteen more minutes going to do. I'm like, my
brain just thinks that it will do something great.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Same, I'm the same way.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
But you know when you're when you have trauma and
your adrenals are so you know, just depleted. Yeah, and
so actually that's what we're going to talk about today,
not specifically trauma, but retraumatization.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Re traumatization, because so many of my clients go through
re traumatization because they are repeating their insecure attachment patterns,
because they are finding partners that put them through the
same type of hell over and over again. And even
if someone has maybe a narcissistic partner and then they

(03:00):
jump to a dismissive avoidant, which I see all the time.
I see narcissists to a DA because people are so
like I should say, bamboozled by the stoicism and the
emotional control of the DA at first that they're like, oh,
this is so opposite of the narcissist.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Like I'm gonna say, I think it feels like it
displays a sense of safety.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, it makes them at first feel very safe until
they become profoundly emotionally neglectful, and then they're re traumatized.
And although their trauma might not happen again in the
same way, some of it is overlapping. Like a narcissist
can be very neglectful, so can a da So those
specific circuits are activated, and we just need to talk

(03:42):
about retraumatization in the brain because it is a different beast. Yeah,
and your initial trauma. And a lot of people doubt
about my.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
First question, like what's the biggest difference between initial trauma
and then retraumatization.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Right, Well, if you have initial trauma, even if it's
complex trauma and it's not repeated after you get out
of the situation, like say you had a really bad
upbringing and your parents were really abusive, and then you
actually find a really secure partner, which is a little
bit more unlikely because you're likely to come out with

(04:13):
attachment insecurities that would make you pick an insecure partner.
But you have people sometimes that just land in the
right hands early enough that they can do some healing
work because that person who they're with creates such a
safe space that they're able through therapy and through inner
work to overcome their childhood right, and so they have

(04:35):
these trauma circuits in their brain. I want everybody to
think of a trauma circuit as like a groove in
the brain. Like if you were to walk across your
lawn from your front porch to your car every morning
in the driveway, if you walk that same path, it
like digs a groove. Right. That's what happens every time
you have an old circuit from old intimacy patterns, whether

(05:00):
those are from your caregivers or from adult relationships, that
is essentially lit back up because it fires, right, because
there's some stimulus or something about the interaction that your
subconscious goes, oh wait, no, that happened to us in
the past, and it's the same thing, right. So the
initial trauma, it's sort of like getting cut in the
same place one time, and then you leave it alone,

(05:20):
and then you do some work, You baby it, you
doctor it, maybe you get stitches, whatever, you might come
out of the minimal scar. Right now, let's say you
take a razor blade to that scar over and over
and over again. You're gonna start damaging nerves. You're gonna
start sensitizing the area around the cut. So these pathways

(05:40):
like expand and they become more sensitized over and over again,
which makes the healing work harder later because you have
to understand that it's like a physical injury happening over
top of the same place. So it's a neural circuit
that is getting reused. And we know that what fires

(06:01):
together wires together. So if you're lighting those circuits up,
those neural connections inside of those circuits are getting tightly
wound every single time.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
That's why it's so important to learn things the first time. Yes,
we don't be one of those people that likes to
learn things the hard way.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, like I take or like me, where it.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Takes so many times or so many bad relationships before
you're like okay, no more.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Right before, your brain is just going to tell you enough.
I mean eventually, if you don't have enough, your brain
is going to say enough, yeah, and you're gonna end
up with some kind of disability or autoimmune disease or something.
You're gonna end up with something because the body and
the brain can only handle so much relational trauma. Because
access to safe connection is the core fundamental human need

(06:47):
aside from safety and food and physiological needs, like access
to safe connection is a fundamental human need. And when
it is denied from us and actually we learn the opposite,
that connection is so unsafe. I mean, our brain just
becomes profoundly changed. And like the tipping point is what
we call central sensitization. And I've talked about this on

(07:10):
previous episodes, but I'll just remind my listeners of what
that is. It is essentially where the brain becomes so
oversensitized that the smallest little environmental triggers will set off
funky firing. So the brain actually can start misfiring a lot.
Think about it, like a car engine that's like puttering
out right, it's gonna misfire. Maybe it starts up once

(07:32):
and then it doesn't start and then the transmission slips
or like you know, who.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Knows, right, So, what are some real life examples of that,
like ailments showing up in the body?

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, ailments showing up in the body. I think one
of the biggest signs that you have central sensitization is migraines.
I know we've talked about that ad nauseum as as
well as gut issues. But skin issues are such a big, big,
big like aladinia, which is essentially when your skin like
you can start you touch it and it feels like
pain or it feels like burning. We which we have

(08:05):
that experience.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
It's like why do I feel sunburned when I just
like this?

Speaker 3 (08:10):
And it even can be what people just laughingly joke
about is like I'm so overstimulated, like the lights are
too bright or people are too many people are talking. Yes,
that's a fundamental condition associated with like autism and ADHD,
but also can be in trauma survivors, especially people who
have had multiple traumas or been re traumatized, and these
circuits have been lit up and lit up and lit up,

(08:32):
and you have HPA access to regulation and sensual sensitization.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, so I have really really strong sense sensitivity. So
like my sense of smell, my sense of sight, my
sense of touch, all those are hyper hyper sensitive.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Let's put these clues together. You've had a lot of trauma.
Why do you think your nervous system behaves that way?
Why would your senses be heightened since.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
You've had trauma, Because it's stored trauma.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
It is stored trauma. But think about it from an
evolutionary perspective of trying to keep you alive, survival, survival, right,
because it's trying to make you uber aware of what
is around you to try to keep you safe. And
I mean I have it too, and I actually freaking
beat it till this last year. And if you don't

(09:20):
know what I'm talking about, go what two episodes back?
So what can I say? And then you will know why? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (09:27):
And I think this is you know this is.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
It correlates with the last two episodes that we did
on our series about family court because so many times
when you're getting a divorce sometimes the divorces can last years, years,
and child custody cases and hearings you're in and out
of court.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
And I know about what? Yeah, what's up with that?

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Why?

Speaker 1 (09:54):
And I mean even with me having Meg on and
I don't think she you would care that I said
this because she knows it. You could tell that what
she's been through over the past year and a half.
And again, if you haven't watched that episode it's called strip,
it's two episodes ago. I highly recommend her nervous system
is shot.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's shot. Yeah, And you can tell.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Her voice is shaky. Yeah, she's very breathless.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, and she'll tell you it is. Yeah, like she'll play.
She speaks about that on our platform, like, yeah, you know,
she's had a lot of central sensitization, a lot of
the skin stuff where the skin just starts behaving in
really bizarre ways. And she's had it all. She's had
all the things.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
And that makes sense because I mean, you're really talking
about the biggest organs in the body.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
And so when you're when you are triggered and you
go into a level one response, which is fight or flight.
Level two is dorsal vaguel freeze, okay, which a lot
of my more avoidant folks live in more of a
functional fealous of the right, whereas more anxious folks are
familiar with fight and flight. Your immune system actually changes

(10:59):
and it sends out all of these like inflammatory side
of kinds and inflammation and starts firing because it's preparing
for an actual physical wound. Because your brain doesn't know
the difference between an emotional wound and a physical one.
It does not know the difference, it prepares itself like
a like an attack of any kind, right, And so
it's just crazy the things that the body will do.

(11:22):
But central sensitization is essentially being oversensitive in just about
every way. So you become emotionally over sensitive, which means
that little triggers make you feel stressed out and out
of control. Your body is over sensitive, so your senses
can be heightened and.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
You don't respond to stress, don't respond.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
To stress as well, and your sensory systems can get
so bad off they start misfiring. That's what the bestibular
migraine was for me. So that's why people get dizzy
or they get you know, headaches or vertigo or whatever.
And retraumatization all it does. It's like taking a razor
blade and just swiping it right over that old wound

(12:06):
and everything gets amplified. And eventually it's like that wound
gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, these circuits get
bigger and bigger and bigger, these grooves in the brain.
And I know specifically what happened in my case was
I had this three years of bliss, three years of
an incredibly safe relationship after I had spent a whole
year doing healing work, somebody who just was very sensitive

(12:27):
to me as a person and loved me in a
safe way and then boom, what happened to me happened,
And it was so similar to the manipulation and the
past abuse of the system that my ex engaged in
that I just know there were certain circuits that although
they had been diminished and I hadn't had to call
upon them, which is why my symptoms were gone and

(12:52):
they all returned because they're all tied up in that
same groove and that same pathway associated with someone's trying
to hurt me and after my kids. Somebody's trying to,
you know, drop me through the court system. Someone's trying
to you know, just punish meulate.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Me, attack, attack you. I mean, that's what it feels,
just to.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Grade my sense of safety and my sense of safe
connection and security in the world.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
And we so, you know, something happened to me over
the weekend, and we've talked about it. We talked about
it on the way here, you know, with one of
my exes. And you know, it's interesting because just when
we crossed the finish line of you know, our son
being eighteen, and there's some healing that took place. I

(13:36):
feel like I even talked about that on an episode
where like we were able to have this exchange of like, okay,
we did this, you know handshake, all right, Wow, that
was really healing, simple.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
After eight years of no contact, after eight.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Years of like having me blocked, and I was like,
this is really good, Like we're making you know, we're
making we're covering some ground here and then you know,
lo and behold over the weekend, it was just and
it was like you said, like you let your guard down,
and then it happens again, and it's almost worse. I spiraled,

(14:13):
not to give him any power because he doesn't deserve it,
but you know, he basically threatened me with something, and
I was extremely triggered. And here were the responses in
my body. Heartbeat, out of control, like out of my chest,

(14:34):
and immediate, like immediate like as soon as the text
came through, body temperature dropped so like shivers, brain fog
and really just like emotional reactivity.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
And I wish so badly.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
And I told you this on the way here, that
my husband had been home because Josh knows how to
calm me down and because he again he's secure, he's
our born secure, and he's able to say, you know,
take that breath, walk away, you know, don't respond right now,
think about what you want to say. And you know,

(15:12):
I'll say this because I don't want to give him
any power over me in any way, because his threats
and his lies like they were old a long time ago. Dude,
Like just stop, just stop.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Like it's like if you know that you're full of cry.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, and if if you feel the need to do
what you said you were going to do, I mean,
fucking bring it, like that's what I yeah, just bring
it because I'm not afraid of you anymore. Like I'm grown,
I'm married, Like I'm happy, I'm secure for the most part.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
Gosh, your son is eighteen.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, and I mean like our son is raised, like
we can just kind of like he can yeah yeah,
like flipe our hands clean of it and just be
like have a nice life. With that said, I still
have a right to tell my story as I.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Say fits I said it in that episode. What can
I say? We have every right to share our lived
experiences because they happen to us. We are not lying.
We are not committing any defamation because it's true. It's
not defamation if it's not If it's if it's true,
it's not defamation. And it's not our job to protect

(16:25):
the reputations of people that gravely hurt us. We're talking
like they treated us a little poorly. We're talking about
like severe types of abuse, right, And I feel this
way so much about again my husband's family, Like I
feel I am so torn a lot at the time
because I'm like, my whole platform was built off of,

(16:47):
like me recovering from this horrific abuse and everything I
endured in the family court system and finding a happy
relationship and the work I had to do to make
myself secure to make that happen. I can't tell that
story unless I've told you where I've been.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Right, Like, how do you show up authentically without telling
that story? Which is the whole foundation of this podcast.
This is the whole thing that we've said along all along,
is that we like, this is our chance to come
on and not just speak for ourselves, like we know
y'all have heard our stories. This is speaking for the
masses and the people that maybe don't have a platform,
and so that we can and they're screaming into a pillow, yeah,

(17:23):
so that we can cultivate change, right, So that we
can cultivate healing in the world, okay, And so people,
I want people to trust me on their journey, not
just because I was trained in school for how to
do this or because I've been doing it for so long,
but because I've lived it and I and that is
what it took for me to actually change. I actually

(17:43):
had to hit rock bottom and live with my choices,
which it's hard. Again, it's hard to admit, but i'ms
a freaking volunteer for a lot of it.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, and I'll say that too.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
I mean, I absolutely participated in the toxicity that was.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Me and my ex, and that I know how to
take accountability.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
There's that internal shame though, tied up in that right,
So becoming securely attached largely, not all all of it,
but largely is about healing internalized shame, which is one
of the best things you can do for your nervous system.
It's not the only thing, but it's one of the
best things because shame is sort of like it's it's
like this cockroach. Yeah, it just you can't kill it.

(18:31):
You think you've killed them all, and then it just
more shame just comes out of the corner, right, and
you're like, oh, dang it, it didn't get it all.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
And that happened, I mean that happened, this, it did happen.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
This speakin I mean the amount of shame. I know
you felt like this huge shame response because he shames you,
because it calls you.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Horrible names and lies about things and says awful. There's
this element of shame too when you're re traumatized. This
is a big thing. When you're re traumatized or retriggered
by someone who doesn't deserve to take any of your power,
you feel shame because you.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Allowed it to happen, right, even if it's short lived,
And that's a good thing about your situation, is like
you can wash your hands of this.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, Like, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
I don't feel like I'm ever gonna be safe until
all my kids are at least eighteen. Yeah, I don't
feel like I'm gonna feel safe. And I gotta work
on that because and I'm working on it, and and
this is the thing. It's like, I know this about retraumatization,
and I'm just like, but I still question why is
this happening? As soon as like the legal battle with

(19:34):
what happened to me was over, like just the symptoms
just started ramping up like I couldn't relax, and I'm like, okay,
trauma expert, nervous nervous system healing expert, sit down and
apply what you know. And I was like, yep, you
know what. This is happening because I'm finally trying to
feel safe and trying to relax and my nervous system

(19:57):
has become resensitized and it's like, Nope, you can't. You
can't relaxgerous. If you relax, something could jump out of
the corner and get you and you didn't predict it.
Therefore you couldn't be safe. So you need to be
on guard twenty four to seven, three sixty five. And
I'm like, you know what, fuck that? No, yeah, I'm
not doing that. I'm not living my life like this.
So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna sit with
my chest tightness and I'm gonna welcome it and I'm
gonna breathe through it, and I'm gonna use my tools

(20:18):
that I know work, and I'm gonna keep repeating them
for as long as it takes until this is better,
because I am not going to allow my life to
be sabotaged and to stay a victim of somebody that
wanted to hurt me. No, I will not be.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
A victim, right, and that's and I won't either not
be silenced. Yeah, and that too, most definitely I will.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
I will not be silenced because again, you know, the
people that were involved in my situation, they're forgiven you know,
by me. You know I forgive them, and if it
affects them in any way, then that's between them and God.
I don't, like, I can't if they're affected by the
things that I say that are fact, Like you know

(21:03):
that my excess parents signed affidavits you know through you
know that said I put the emotional and physical well
being of my child in danger, which had no truth
to it at all. If they feel threatened by that,
I'm sorry, but it's not my problem, right.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Because you did it right like you did it. Don't
not people to know you've done bad things. Don't do
bad things. Don't expect the people who you have traumatized
and abused to work to protect your feelings, feelings and
your reputation, your guilt, your guilt. No, speak about it,
But I always say, like, if you're speaking about it
to get revenged, that's the wrong thing. If you're speaking

(21:39):
about it to heal and to help people, that is
the right thing. So speaking of that and re traumatization
and in the brain, I know you had questions about
like I wish I could have responded better. I wish
I could have done this. And I have clients that
come through and they're like, if I could just step
back and think before I respond, I would be in
such a better position, And like, yes, but you have

(22:00):
to realize every time you get re traumatized, like if
you're in a really unhealthy relationship and that person is
like triggering you over and over again, it is harder
to heal because it's like having that open wound and
somebody's just sticking a dirty finger in it. And it
does reduce the prefrontal cortex activity and your prefrontal cortex.
And this is the main strategy behind my coaching program

(22:22):
is I teach people how to get so deeply aware
of their mindset and so good emotional processing somatically that
they can essentially activate their prefrontal cortex more at will,
Like it becomes something that they can sort of turn
on quicker, right, And when you have your prefrontal cortex activated,

(22:44):
you become curious, open, mindful, compassionate, and pathetic. You can't
be those things when you're in fight, flight, or freeze.
You can't be those things. There would be no evolutionary
benefit to being those things, because that's like trying to
ask the grizzly bear standing in front of you, like,
how do you feel about maybe eating me?

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Like?

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Are you feeling bad about it? You're gonna just try
to either run away, fight it off, or play dead.
Those are your three choices, and those are the three
trauma responses we're given. Sorry, it's all we got right.
And so what's happening to my clients is they've had
history of bad relationships or they have a long history
in a bad relationship, and they're at the point where
their nervous system has become so sensitive that they just

(23:30):
it takes the slightest thing off the handle, would they
either fly off the handle or they shut down or
whatever their trauma response is. So like avoidant people may
get kind of defensive and then hardcore shut down or
maybe they even fond which is a form of freeze.
It can be a form of fight too, but it's
mainly a form of freeze where they'll be like, Okay,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Like the AP will do that,

(23:51):
or even DA's will do that. But then the end
AP will activate and go into over controlling mode, over
clinginess mode, trying to sell, lidify the connection, trying to
get the reassurance they need. DA's will back off fas. Yeah,
I mean they hit below the booms, will sabotage everything.

(24:12):
And that's what I did.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
I mean everything, That's exactly what I did.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Like I I punched back and said some things. And
this is where like shame again comes up, because I
mean I spent time all day Sunday just like repenting
not just for my reaction but for all of it.
Because at the end of the day, this has nothing

(24:37):
to do with my ex like, it's not about you, bro,
like has nothing to do with you. And but I
also can empathize with your like your pain like you have.
He has pain, Yeah, obviously he has pain.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
For PROD users have so much pain.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
It's probably more, probably more pain than me, because you.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Know that was one of his things. I thought you
were so passed this and us, well I am.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
I am past us, And I doesn't mean you can't
talk about it, right, how.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Can I not talk about it on a podcast that's
about relationships? And that was my longest, I guess relationship.
I mean it by far was the unhealthiest, you know,
And I mean that was a big thing. He said too,
like I'm not your MANX, I'm not even your ex really, dude,
we were together for twelve years off and on, And

(25:26):
I mean my response was, nobody ever said you were
my MAINX.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
You just happen to be my worst.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
You know, I get it, I get it, you know,
I get it. It's and I wish I'd have.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Been so much more mature and like calm.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
And essentially, again, you had been separated from that BS
for like eight years, and then that pathway's not gone right,
it's limping along. But then you just gave it like
some robot shoes where it could run right, like those
neural circuits just fired down that old pathway associated with
his specific type of abuse, because if you read his stuff,

(26:02):
it was the same shit you were dealing with eight
years ago, and just calling you horrible names and saying terrible.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Things about you, using my son as employee.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yes, bringing you know, JP into the situation. And so
even though that pathway was just like a little glimmer.
You just gave it a fireworks show. Oh you know,
and so you can't expect when you know when. For you,
time was a big part of the healing. And I
mean you've done intentional healing work too, but you really

(26:31):
don't know how healed you are until you get retriggered.
And that's what a lot of people ask me going
through my program. It's like, Okay, well now I'm out
of this bad relationship, but how do I know I've
actually healed? And I'm like, well, I wish I could
tell you that you will know, but you really won't
know until you get into a relationship, and then that
person's gonna shine a light on what work you still
have to do. But what I do know is that

(26:53):
these tools they do work long term, and if you
practice them, you're going to be one. You're gonna be
attracted to more secure people because insecure people they wave
their red flags. Don't tell me you ended up in
this bad relationship and there was not one red flag.
That is a lie. If you're telling me that, you're

(27:13):
a lie, because there's always at least some subtle red flags.
Even the master manipulators have some red flags, even if
it's just their love bombing, right, master manipulators almost always
love bomb and you fell for it, and that at
some point, yes, we get to go shame on them
for love bombing you, but then shame on you for

(27:34):
continuing to allow other people to come and love bomb you.
And I say shame on you, not because I think
shame is good. I'm saying, like, it's time to realize
that I have these patterns and I am attracted to
these types of people, and a lot of times it's
just the same package wrapped up with a different color

(27:55):
bow on it. And you have to get to the
root of what is going on with me that continues
to attach to people once they show me their true colors,
what is going on with me? And you can always
trace it back to their attachment wounds. It's like it's
just a very predictable puzzle.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
I want to go back to the one thing that
you said, because it was a question that was in
your Facebook group the other day and I was curious,
and you know, even when I saw it, I was like,
I don't really know how to answer that. Only you,
I feel like, would know how. But like, you know,
somebody who does get out of a relationship and then
a single for a period of time, you know, is
are there any ways to know that they've reached security

(28:34):
without dating or getting into another relationship.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah, that's a complex question, and I will say that
there are some signs. One is, overall you're more resilient
to stress. So becoming secure doesn't just make you resilient
to stressful situations in your intimate relationship. It's fundamentally about
creating resilience in the nervous system and again overriding those

(29:01):
old pathways with new stronger pathways around the resilient mindset
and around the resilient you know, behaviors. You are able
to fully process emotions in your body to completion. So
that's one of the fundamental things that I teach in
my program is you have to be able to actually

(29:23):
complete emotional processing cycles and what does that look like
in the body. And so if you are processing to
completion and you're getting those signs that like, Okay, I'm
completed in this processing cycle. So I had my cry
and then I was able to do the breathing through it,
and I was able to do the scanning and the
sematic awareness techniques that we talk about. And then I

(29:45):
end up with this just like sigh, and I feel sleepy,
and I feel like I can just go fall right asleep.
You've completed, You're done, You're in safety. Right. So if
you notice that your body is responding and you're able to,
actually you're not band aiding or so pressing anxious people
band aid of what did people suppress? So we all
know band aids, shopping, eating, venting to your friends.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Right, I did do a few of those things, but
just you talking about the process of Like, that's why
I spent all day Sunday pretty much like I spent
it in prayer. I spent it journaling because I knew
that there were some things that I had to actively right,
really actively other than having a good cry, but to

(30:31):
write out to get out. Yeah, and so I can
say from just being retraumatized literally less than forty eight
hours ago, that I experienced all those things that you're
talking about.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, And luckily, I think for you it's just a
trigger and it's not going to be this last thing
thing because you do have the ability to He.

Speaker 4 (30:51):
Did blocked party again, but lasts for me, and like again,
I don't.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
I want to be careful because.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
I want to say this, there's no malice behind it,
like now that I have processed it, Like I don't
have hate for him, I don't have love.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
He is just reactivity in the moment.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, I don't have love either. I just I don't.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
I'm kind of indifferent, right, Like I'm just very indifferent
to him. And of course I wish him well because
you know, he's the father of my son, and I
you know, I want good things for him because that
is that reflects on JP. But I mean, I I
don't want to block him out of resentment or out
of you know, retaliation. It's just that I know I'm

(31:44):
at a point in my life where health wise, like
I just can't handle it anymore. Like it's just too
it's detrimental to my health.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Right because he's the dirty finger.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, that's the wound.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
And that's why I tell people you going through this work,
going through my program as a couple is so powerful
and not that one person in the couple can't get
so much out of it if they do, because oftentimes
what happens if one person goes to it, they come
out of the other end feeling more resilient, feeling secure

(32:15):
in their boundaries, know what is the right thing to
be doing, what is the wrong thing to be doing,
to not abandon themselves, but also to show up as
a respectful person on the for their partner. And it
may not land their partner in a place where then
they want to match that energy and change, but it
sures heck will land them in a place where they
either know how to cope with it better or they

(32:38):
finally set the ultimate boundaries. And usually it's more of
setting the ultimate boundaries after a while, which sometimes is
the only thing that actually gets their partner to change
when they're like, oh, shoot, they're not going to be
that anxious person that runs after me and tries to
apologize and bring me back in when I go silent
for a couple of days and I pull my avoidant stuff.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
And even if the ultimate boundary has to be set.
And it's interesting because I just had a call today
talking about this like divorce, you know, and having to
maybe go through the court system if once you, I mean,
I would suggest anyone who maybe is on the verge
of divorce and maybe thinks it's too far gone, like
the you know the potential client that I spoke to
today that your program is still an answer because again,

(33:20):
it's helping your nervous system become resilient. And so if
you do have to go through a divorce or if
you have to go through custody, you're going to be
better equipped to.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Handle it and to co parents.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yes, abs of freaking lutely, And I guess the whole
point of what we started talking about what I want
to circle back to, is like just people repeating the
same patterns and then this awful, awful myth that well,
if I can just get away from this one person,
then I'll be okay. Because we got away from our

(33:53):
quote one person that was the most toxic in our lives,
and we chose other toxic people because we didn't do
the work on ourselves, and then maybe they weren't as
toxic or abusive. So maybe it was quote unquote a win.
But I don't think profound neglect was a real win.
After being in a toxic relationship, I think I needed somebody,

(34:13):
you know, like my husband, But I wouldn't have been
ready for him. He wouldn't have put up with me
at that point because and I see these people that
are just like man, I was finally in a good
relationship and then I sabotaged it. Those tend to be
the fas. And they either sabotage it if they're anxious
because they felt a little bit hurt by their partner,
and they way reacted. Their trauma circuits were retouched and

(34:36):
they lost their marbles and they acted like an idiot.
Either said a bunch of really mean stuff or shut
down really hard and slam the door literally or figuratively
in their partner's face, and then regretted it and begged
it and acted like a sorry, you know what coming
back begging, you know, Or they were very avoidant and

(34:56):
they just ghosted and then it's been too long and
they're like, oh, I don't know how to come out
of it ghosting phase and like reconnect and they just
you know, and I'm like, you went to hardcore and
you sabotaged it with your old FA behaviors. DA's do
it to aps do it to You're just going to
repeat your patterns. Even if it's with a different partner
who has a different attachment style, You're still it's not

(35:19):
going to work because your brain circuitry is wired towards intimacy,
triggering you in these ways. Even if it's somebody relatively
secure that's triggering you in a small way, you know,
it's still a retrigger, right, and if that happens enough times,
it becomes a retraumatization.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
And I can't even give a real life example of
this what you're talking about, because guys, it's all I got. Okay,
she's got the big brain, I got the real life experience.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Okay, this is why this works.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
But you know, when Josh and I first started dating,
and I would say, like Josh, for the most part,
I mean, he has some some anxious qualities sometimes, but
for the most part.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
He's pretty nobody's one hundred percent secure.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Right exactly. And so there was an there was a
night that we had been out with friends. Of course,
drinking was involved, as it always has been if we've
ever fought, but I still, you know, he got triggered,
you know, because I wasn't ready to leave and he was.
And just to give you an idea of the dynamic,
like I do tend to be the extrovert in our

(36:22):
relationship and he is a little bit more introverted, and
he kind of threw this many temper tantrum, right, And
this was very early on in our relationship. And where
he he just left, he left the party, left me
there with no ride, and then went to my house
and like grabbed us stuff and left, right, little mini

(36:44):
temper tantrum. In the past, I would have handled that
in a very similar temper tantrum manner.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Oh yeah, you would. You would have hit back hard, right.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
And I would have hit back really really hard. And
instead I said, I just simply said, this isn't gonna
fly with me. That type of behavior is not going
to fly with me. And if it continues, this is
this isn't going to go any further. And that firm boundary, Yeah,
that firm boundary with compassion, right, Like it was direct,

(37:18):
but it was compassionate. It really changed the trajectory of
our relationship. It's really what took our relationship to the
next level. And those are the things that should take
your relationship to the next level, because I think sometimes
what would have happened if I had bounced back in
a way that was you know, even more toxic, which
would have been my old behavior, right. And so that's

(37:41):
that's a real life example. I think of when you're
early on in a relationship, how those secure behaviors start
to show up. Boundaries just become easier to set, yes,
because you're just not willing to jeopardize your piece for
any reason.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
Right, So yeah, that's exactly kind of where I wanted
to go, is like early on in the relationship, you're
going to respond to red flags with boundaries. So that's
one one thing that you can count on knowing. Two,
you know, friendships are gonna be You're probably gonna let
some friendships go. I think that's a big sign because

(38:13):
you're gonna start seeing people and their toxicity and their
emotional immaturity, and you're gonna be like, that doesn't feel
like I don't want to be around that. Where before
maybe it was a source of bonding or gossip or
just just being able to relate and have that you know,
sort of common ground. It's not your common ground anymore.
You don't live as a victim, you don't live as

(38:34):
somebody who reacts really poorly to these same circumstances. Like,
my goodness, we all know one friend that she was
more my friend than your friend. But oh my gosh,
like how many times could I be like, you just
did the exact same thing you've always done, and then
you're asking for a different result, right, and you're you're

(38:55):
looking for a different result here, and you can't do that.
And of course then she's she like be my friend
anymore because I told her the truth, and I was like,
I get it.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
You don't have to be my friend and handle this.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
No, but you're gonna you're going to start giving secure
advice to people, and your insecure friends are are going
to reject it. At They're going to make every excuse
in the world for their current crappy partner or for
their own bad behavior, and you're going to see through it,
and you're going to be like, man, you got work
to do, and you know I can't. I can't. I
can't hear the same problem anymore because if I keep

(39:26):
giving you advice and you keep not taking.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
It, this doesn't feel like at feel like a friendship.
Yeah yeah, And it.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Just feels like you're you're using me for just a
soundboard and nothing else. And then this happened, you know,
obviously with one of my friends too, which again is
so ironic. Listen, guys, Sarah, because I get asked all
the time on calls like how do you and Sarah
know each other?

Speaker 2 (39:48):
And like what's the other story?

Speaker 3 (39:49):
And I'm like, that is what I did to you?

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Well it is, but that wasn't That's not what I
was going to say. All Right, I'm glad that our relationship,
you know, we were able to repair it. And but
like our timelines and the things that happened to us
through like really like our childhood, the way we were raised,
the way you know, our toxic exes, you know, when
we let go of our toxic friends. Our timelines are

(40:14):
just so uncanny in terms of how they play out.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah, like our growth and improvement and self improvement journey,
attachment security and all.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Let us right here to her say exactly for sure.
And that's why it's like.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
And that's why I love having you here, because you
validate how previously crazy I used.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
To be girl with cuckoo all right.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
And cuckoo girl was I mean, how many times could
you have told me that my ex was never going
to meet my needs? He did not have it in him.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
And I was just I would be like, just end it,
just like a little bit, but he did this, and
it would be like the lowest form of attention humanly possible,
Like he.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Liked a social media Yeah, I would, and I would.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
Make that I like get anything. It didn't mean anything.
And you know, it's just because again those circuitries around neglect,
even though you know it wasn't necessarily like at that
point a form of an abuse. I think when you
get in a marriage with somebody like that, it becomes
a form of abuse for sure, because it's prolonged neglect.

(41:21):
But I think just my ex husband would do similar things,
like when he was upset with me, go silent or ghost.
I mean, of course he would usually scream at me first,
but then but you know, but the whole like being
ignored thing, there are circuits in my brain around that, right,
So then I get into this relationship with the DA
person and then neglect circuitries where you know there's trauma

(41:42):
around that is all lighting up. So I'm just being
retraumatized by a new relationship.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
This ball of anxiety, just ball of anxiety.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
I was, I couldn't even function.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
You were and you know, and I mean I've talked
about it before, but like I remember your breaking point,
oh yeah, and it was it was messy.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
It was very messy, and it was scary.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
I mean, it was scary as your friend to witness
it and see it and kind of feel helpless and
feel like, you know, I'm at capacity here on what
I feel like I could do, you know, And I
knew that you were at rock bottom, and you know,
having to cut a friend off when you know they're
at rock bottom, I mean, it was one of the
hardest things I've had to do, you know. And I
didn't do it like we won't get into I didn't

(42:23):
do it the best way. But eventually, you know, it
did come to a head where I was just like,
I love you, sis, but I can't be your counselor anymore.
And this doesn't feel like a friendship. It feels you know.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
And that's the thing. Your friends are gonna get worn
out with your same old patterns. And sometimes ratraumatization isn't
your fault, Oh no, you know sometimes you know a
lot of times it's not your fault. A lot of
times it's not your fault, but it can be your fault.
When you look back at your last five relationships and
they're all like either abusive or neglectful. Yeah, then it's

(42:59):
like Okay, what's going on with you that you you know?
Or I have a lot of people, a way more
people than I can have ever imagined, especially those that
come through my group that say my partners had multiple affairs,
multiple And if I hear the word multiple affairs, like
if I have that phrase, I'm like, it's a no go,

(43:20):
it's a done, it's a done, it's a you are done.
You need to be done now. You need to be
in right now, right because some people can recover after
an affair, but you can't recover after multiple because that
people don't just decide to be different, Like those are
character issues.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Well, and even if there is accountability, like accountability plays
such a big role in infidelity. So even if they
do take accountability, but they repeatedly do it, the accountability
means nothing.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
It doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
It's just words.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah, and that was my marriage, you know. And and
also what people need to understand is like you can't
love somebody into changing them. I have we have a
friend who thinks that she can love a dude into
changing himself, and you can't.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
We love her soul so much.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
We won't say who you are, but she's so precious
so precious, beautiful and successful, and I just just like,
why are you taking the bottom of bear?

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Bear? Like so obviously the bare minimum too, Like it's
so obvious. Listen, if they haven't taken you on a date,
and you've known them.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
For over a year to know.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
If they haven't met your friends, if they haven't, like
I mean, if they're only coming over to your house
after ten pm, it's no, it's.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Your hook up.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Yes, yes, And I know, Like I just have so
many clients too that come and they're just accepting the
same stuff. I have so many clients that are on
their second marriage and they're like, how did I end
up in this exact same place time number two? And
I'm like, okay, we'll tell me what the timeline was
after your divorce and what you did to heal. You
know what? It was nothing? Yeah, I practically nothing. They

(45:06):
either cheated on their spouse with this person, or they
were with this person right after their divorce, or like
as they were going through their divorce it took no
time to heal. They blamed everything on their partner that
it was just an incompatibility or their partner had all
these issues. They didn't have the ability to see their contributions,
or if they did see it, they thought the awareness
was enough, And that's another big mistake. Yeah, people think

(45:28):
that awareness of your issues is enough to change. It's not.
I wouldn't have had a nervous breakdown if it was,
because I was incredibly self aware. Okay, I knew it
at all, and I couldn't change anything about myself. My
brain was tapped out. My prefrontal cortex was probably like
tissue paper at that point, had no thickness around it

(45:50):
at all, because your prefrontal cortex does thin out with
repeated trauma, which, again that's your rational brain, that's your
self control and self regulation, that's your empathy, that's your compassion.
Your amygdalah, which is your threat detection and anger center
of the brain gets enlarged every time you are re traumatized.
That grows, so you know, there's this competition between your

(46:12):
prefrontal cortex, which is your rational brain, your responsible brain,
your empathy towards yourself and others, your compassion, your mindfulness
of your behavior, that is competing with your emotional mid brain,
specifically activity in the amygdala that is enhanced. So it's

(46:33):
like your more primitive brain. Your mid brain is like
it's the middle brain, and it's the It is not
the most primitive part of our brain, but it is
a very primitive part. The most primitive part of our
brain is your hind brain, which is like controls your
breathing and like your balance and your heart rate and
stuff like that. But your mid brain is where all
of the emotional centers, and it's really tied to a

(46:55):
lot of memory, and it's very highly tied to the
subconscious mind. And so when your attachment wounds are in
the driver's seat, you're operating from a subconscious level, and
you're operating from this place of emotion instead of from
a place of logic and emotion. So people say, oh,

(47:15):
we'll throw your heart out and just listen to your head. Well, nope,
don't do that either, because then you'll end up super
avoidant and you'll end up suppressed. You can't stay in
logic either. You can't think your way out of feelings.
You have to think and you have to feel, and
you have to be able to do those in ways
that are actually healthy and going to benefit you towards
your healing. When most people are just trying to think
their way out and they're thinking in these old grooves,

(47:38):
in these old negative thought patterns that are just they're
literally re traumatizing themselves by engaging in these old thought
patterns and they don't even know it well.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
And that's what I want to hit on. Memory specifically
around trauma and re traumatization. I think is huge because
I know and you probably experienced this obviously more than
I do. But there's so much that people don't remember.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
So much.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Like I mean, I do remember things, but like my
mom almost say things. She'll be remember one time when
Jared did this, and I'm like, and it's something horrible, right, No.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
I know, She's like, you can't remember that. My sister just.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
Today said something. I was like, you remember when he
did that? I was like, oh, no.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
No memory, no memory at all. And you know.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
And so I'm curious how well and I know the answer,
but yeah, how the lack of memory or the effects
of memory and the initial trauma affects the re traumatization.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Yes, so trauma memories are encoded and stored differently than
regular memories. Okay, so you have to understand that first
and foremost, trauma shrinks the material of the hippocampus, which
is your memory center, and it reduces top down prefrontal
cortex activity, which is what keeps you from having the
brain fog. Like when you have good prefrontal cortex activity

(48:56):
and that is the dominant sort of circuitry that's working,
you're not in brainfall. You're clear, you have clarity, you
are strategic, you can make good decisions. So some trauma
memories are going to be I if you're like in
perpetual complex trauma, you're going to have a degradation of
the hippocampus. You're going to suffer with a lot of

(49:18):
brain fog. You might have memory gaps of things you
just don't remember, even big periods of your life that
you don't remember. Whenever somebody comes to me and we're
doing an attachment assessment and they say they don't remember
a lot of their childhood, I can bet all of
my money that they're about to tell me that they
had a traumatic childhood yep, and what they do remember
was traumatic. Major, big traumatic events can actually be recorded

(49:42):
in ways that are almost like photographic. So that's like
true PTSD where you get like the photographic flashbacks, but
complex trauma where it's happening all the time, Like you
don't have the resources to encode everything that way, so
a lot of stuff gets dumped or it's they but
it's very blurry and very foggy. And then you might

(50:04):
have some shock traumas interwoven in there that are incorded
in like this photographic way. So for me, like I
have these really really distinct memories of like the major,
major crisis things, but the smaller crisis things are like
wiped out in my brain same and so it's like

(50:26):
the more traumatic and if it's like a shock trauma,
it's gonna get encoded differently than to your everyday like
complex trauma. And I always get the question. It always
seems like fearful of Wood's have ADHD, And I'm like,
they probably do, and we need to start asking ourselves
a question if ADHD is just a component of attachment
trauma and CPTSD pathology. And a lot of people are

(50:49):
gonna give me some hate for that because they're gonna
be like, well, my kid has ADHD and they weren't traumatized, right,
but maybe they were in ways that you don't understand.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
In utero, in the womb anything anything.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
Yeah, And if did you do cry it out as
a you know, when they were an infant. That's a
major trauma in the brain and it affects the development
of the brain. So little traumas that are repeated over
time can be just as damaging as a big shock
trauma to the nervous system. It's just that the way
that those circuits are created and encoded are a little

(51:19):
bit different. You might again, those little traumas create a
blank whereas the big shock drama you have that sort
of like photographic like image imprint of when it happened, and.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
I would say, what is going on? It affects the
re traumatization part of it. And you can correct me
if I'm wrong, simply because you don't remember, right, like
you don't remember some of the initial trauma.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
But here's some also interesting things that I want to
touch on. The body is where your trauma is stored.
It's stored not just in the brain. It's stored in
the fascia of your body, which is like connective tissue.
And so you know, a lot of the reason we
can have chronic pain is not just because of central sensitization.

(52:03):
A big part of it is where the brain just
becomes oversensitive and pain signals just start going wonky. We
call that neuroplastic pain, and it's a big reason why
people have chronic pain and they still keep going after
physical causes and really it's trauma, but also the fascia
in the body will start modeling itself towards these like

(52:24):
braced positions. So like when the trauma thing happened to you,
which I don't know, pick one of the hundred like
traumatizing things that have happened to me. When it was happening,
my body took on a certain position and literally down
to a cellular level, your fascia remember, and it tries

(52:44):
to continue to protect you by staying in that position.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Knowing you as well as I do and as close
as I am to you, I've witnessed this in.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Like real life because I have horrible postures.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Well no, I mean I can just think, I can think,
and you probably have witnessed it with me too. I
mean we're just that close. Our husbands have probably witnessed it,
could we could probably witness it within our husbands, just
anybody that you're that close to. You know, but when
you went through this last situation, like I was with
you a few times where you may have gotten a
text from an attorney or your whole body structure changed, right,

(53:20):
it was your whole demeanor changed.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
I mean one you were.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Just like like laser focused, you know, and then like
you said, your body took on this position.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Yeah. And I really still struggle with my posture because
I have to, Like I will be sitting there doing
something and I'll be like, okay, Sarah. This is where
the sematic work comes in, because you cannot heal from
trauma if you don't do sematic work. And the biggest
mistake I made was I jumped into all the sematic
work without having my mindset correct and without having and

(53:52):
knowing what I was doing, and without tight trading my experience.
I think the thing that pushed me over the edge
to my nervous breakdown was actually something called tre trauma
release like exercise or forget what the stands for. But
it's all these posturing and positions to allow trauma to release.
And I was like trauma dumping. I was dumping this
mass amounts of energy of stored emotion too soon after

(54:15):
I was traumatized, and I didn't have the you have
to do prep work. So I take my clients through
a very strategic journey of before we even get to
emotional processing, we have to do the mindset work. We
have to do the awareness work, and then the mindset work,
and we prep and we prepare to finally then do

(54:36):
the emotional processing and we trate it. We have to
get to know what is your specific window of tolerance
for feeling your feelings inside of your body, and how
can you process at that stage and then try to
increase your tolerance.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
And I think that this is really just what sets
you apart, honestly from because I mean that piece right
there that you just expe blamed, I mean it's something
that I really hadn't even thought of prior to you
saying it, because I've always thought, you know, you just
work through the body, get to know your body, get
you know, so that you can release all these things.

(55:13):
But you're right, You've got to be in the right
mindset way to do that.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
And that's why a lot of people think, oh, well,
I just why I cry a lot, Like I have
a client, this is a cry all the time. Why
am I not better? I'm like, well, your brain has
learned that this crying experience is extremely painful, and it
started to associate that with being a negative thing. So
and then you your mindset around it, being like why
do I do this? My eyes are horrible after I cry? Like,

(55:39):
why you know? Do I have to keep doing this?
I don't want to do it. You're shaming yourself and
you're associating these release of emotions inside of the body.
We call them feelings because they're felt okay with shame,
and then your brain is learning that's a bad thing.
And when I go through it, it's you're going through
it in this really unregulated way or disregulated, which is

(56:00):
sort of like a form of trauma dumping of like
it's over releasing, right, it's pushing past your window of
tolerance for your own emotional experiences. And so you have
this like unregulated, like forty five minute cry, and of
course your brain goes that was horrible. I never want
to repeat that ever again. But you thought you were
quote feeling your feelings. Then you're coming back and shaming
yourself and being like why am I still crying? Well,

(56:23):
then that's a double whammy to your nervous system. Now
you're hitting it with shame, which is the ultimate dysregulator.
So there is really a science and a strategy behind
healing your nervous system and doing so in a way
that involves a mindset shift. That is the absolute foundational
prep work. You will not be successful if you don't

(56:44):
first do the mindset stuff. So people either just try
to go headfirst into the somatic work and it's too
much for their nervous system. They end up like re
traumatizing themselves more, or they're trying to just do the
mindset work with no somatic healing and then they're also stuck.
We have a strategic calm, a nation of prep work,
and then the emotional experience somatic true emotional processing work

(57:06):
that has to be done. And I hate to tell you,
but if you get re traumatized, you're just gonna have
to start over.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
You need it.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
So I mean, honestly, if you're looking for that strategic process,
if you want to learn that strategic process, doctor Hensley, teach.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Join my group.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
I mean, don't let the word group make you afraid.
You can be anonymous in the group.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
And again, like you know, I was talking to the
client today and I was like, the group is another
whole intervention that's a part of it because you can
learn so much from other people or you you know,
the sense of community that comes along with the group.
The group is an added part of it. It's it's
a beautiful part of it. You really you have couples

(57:47):
that you know are in same situations as you are,
and then you're able to not feel as a loan
or not feel as crazy.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
Right because you're like, oh, these are actually predictable patterns. Yes,
everybody comes in you say it all the time, thinking
their relationship is unique and different, but you don't understand.
But we've got this going on, So what how are
you fighting about it? How are you handling it? How
are you guys able to meet each other's needs? Well,
there you go, because couples that can meet each other's
needs well and handle conflict can get through a lot

(58:16):
of problems. They can get through parenting issues, they can
get through issues with family of origin, they can get
through money problems, they can get through somebody becoming sick
or injured. But when you don't have those fundamentals in place, yeah,
you add another stressor it's going to wreck you.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
I need to go through your group again. Yeah, I
really do, I really feel like I do sit in. Yeah,
I think I will.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
I mean, it's just always such a good refresher and
I always feel I mean, even when I first started
and I came on, I would sit in on group
just to learn, you know, more about the foundation of attachment.
So I set in, you know, three or four times.
And I've always said, and I relay this to people
that I talk to. I learned something every time that
I set in each time, and so I think, I mean, gosh,

(58:59):
I learned something every time we sit here and talk,
you know, and it helps it helps me and and
you know, just my experience over the past weekend.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
I it's always a.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Good reminder that. And I want to I want to
say this lightly because healing healing. I don't want to
ever put the stigma on healing that healing is like
this bad thing, right, it's this beautiful thing. It's beautiful,
and it's you know, even when you're you realize, oh wow,
that's still really got to me. You just have to

(59:33):
meet yourself where you are.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
A lot of it is catching and correct thing like
that was a catch and correct moment for you. Now
had you been spiraling and texting him days later, and
like yeah, then we would be looking at like okay,
well this is a pretty big regression. Yeah right, but
you have one moment yeah, okay, So what I have
moments in my marriage that I have to be like,
you know what, babe, I just messed up.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
I immediately regret saying that I take accountability, we say
earning your security. It is somewhat of a catch and
correct game. You learn to respond better off the cuff
a lot, lot lot more. But sometimes like those old
pathways are just sitting there waiting to be lit up,
and something is said in just the right way or

(01:00:16):
done and just the right way that triggers you in
a way that your subconscious goes, wait, this is really bad,
and so your neuro transmitters go and they go over
to that old pathway and light it back up.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
And I want to get you know, I want to
shine light on my husband because and I'm going to
try not to cry. But you know, safe connection and
safe love, I mean, if I can, if I can
give y'all any hope, I mean, that's helped my re
traumatization more than anything. Yeah, because he he met me

(01:00:49):
where I was first off, you know, he gave me
my space and gave me my time that I needed
to cry out. But later on when I was when
I started to ruminate because I did you know, he
just held me. He held me, and that that that
body to body, skin to skin connection, and he didn't act,
you know, And this is this is what's so beautiful.

(01:01:10):
You know, I have a husband that can hold me
and not ask for anything else, you know, but of
course not not in that moment. He knows what I'd
just been through and he saw what it did to me,
and it you know, I just want to give him
props because so many times, you know, our partners do
want to fix and they do want to you know,
right then and there fix it. Yeah, and he you know,
he I think he knew that he couldn't and that

(01:01:31):
I just needed I just needed a minute. And and
that's what I was just going to say. Is that
safe love, which you can only or secure love, right,
you can only find that truly through finding secure attachment.
But it's the true answer when you do get re traumatized,

(01:01:54):
because you will, everyone does, right, That's life. I mean,
retraumatization can look like a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
It can, it can ca.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
I mean, but when you have that safe love and
that safe connection.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
It makes it. It's huge, It's just massive.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
And I mean, honestly, I don't know if I could
sit here today and not feel I mean, I'm still
a little disregulated, and I told you that on the
way here, but not as much as I would have been,
you know, years ago without Josh, you know, absolutely, And
not to give him all the credit, I give myself
some credit.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Sure, absolutely, And I think you know again, access to
safe connection, especially safe intimate connection, is a fundamental human need.
It's how the human mating strategy works. We form long
term intimate relationships by which then we have children, and
we stay with those partners to help protect the children,
to help them grow. We're not like animals. They just
go out mate with everybody and it's a numbers game, right,

(01:02:46):
So we got to stop treating ourselves as if it is.
We need to realize that these intimate connections profoundly influence
our nervous system. And if you don't fix your own patterns,
you will just find another verse of some person that
traumatized you in a different package.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Or I mean, even like everyone, I mean, everyone's going
to lose a loved one at some point in their life. Right,
everyone's going to experience death. And so I mean, this
is why achieving your attachment security it covers everything, It
covers everything.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
It takes what if to even if it's like, okay,
well even if this happens, because my whole brain beforehand
was what if? What if? What if? Now it's just like, okay,
even if.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
I'll be okay, I'll be okay. I can handle this.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
I can and okay might look a lot of different ways.
You know, it might look like just getting by, but
ultimately it will end up as overcoming and being smarter
and being more resilience. And you know, I can't I'm
not gonna lie. I can't say I'm glad this last
year happened to me. But it was a test, if anything,

(01:03:55):
and I've been able to pass it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Which, well, in your marriage, your marriage is more resilient
because oh.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
For sure, we're a way, We're closer than we ever
thought we could be because we endured it together.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
That's what safe connection does. Connectors are things.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
For sure, and you know, we get to know each
other a little bit deeper about what helps and what
hurts and in what somebody needs where in those states
where maybe you you're so justsregulated you can't communicate what
you need very well. And we were able to learn
that him and I definitely cope with drama or drama,
drama and trauma in a very different way, and that

(01:04:37):
I'm much more of an externalizer and I want to
talk at talk it, talk it, talk it, talk it
talk and talk a talka talk it to death because
I'm somebody who I understand things as I externalize them,
Like if I talk about it, then it helps me
understand it better. For him, he's an internalizer, so he
is very much in his head and he doesn't want

(01:04:58):
to talk about it out loud would be me and John,
and he wants to like think it through and he
doesn't want it to take over his life. I'm like, no,
let it take over my life for a little while
and then I'll get it all out and I'll be okay.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
And let's talk about it all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Yeah, let's keep talking. Wait, we ended that conversation, Let's
go back to it. Yeah. Donald's more of a like, no,
there's a time to fight and there's time to rest.
I think he learned that in the military, they'd ingrained
that into him, and so before we would have like
a court hearing or something, he'd be like pacing the floor.
But I was like, that was when I was bringing

(01:05:32):
to action, I'd be cool as a cucumber. I'd be
ready to go because I had been anxious beforehand. See
he had shut it all down, and then he was like, okay, wartime,
war time. Now it's time to Now it's time to
like really like red the nervous system up. And I'm like, no,
now I'm cool.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
And there's really no right or wrong way.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
I mean, I think that both ways could be you know,
especially in a marriage, can actually be kind of constructive.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Yeah, because if we were both externalizers, oh my gosh,
we would never shut up of anxiety.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
So it's probably a good thing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
But speaking of of course, doctor Hinsley services that can
help with nervous system regulation. In terms of re traumatization,
we have to name our affiliate and thank them Armor,
which again, if you've had trauma, you probably most likely
have some tummy issues or some skin issues, and Armor,

(01:06:28):
I'm telling you guys, it has. It has helped me tremendously.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Even chat GPT verified that Armora was a really good
supplement for me because of my past trauma, because of
the immune disregulation and the gut dsregulation that my body
is always trying to fight and reregulate. That Armora is
a fantastic supplement for the gut and for the skin
and for the immune system to actually you know, calm

(01:06:52):
the inflammation which is just such a big part of
what we experience with trauma and retrauma and re traumatization.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
So you can go to Armora dot com and put
in lovedoc for fifteen percent off for first purchases. So
thank you, Arma, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
It's in my cup right now.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Yep, mind you always every week, every week.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
So and then of course please go check out doctor
Hensley services at the lovedoc dot com. For our listeners,
we offer promo code love dot twenty seven for twenty
seven percent off any of her courses or any of
her hybrid group programs because we love you guys so
much and that's extremely generous, So please go check her
out at the lovedoc dot com And until next time, peace,

(01:07:36):
love and perspective.