October 19, 2022 • 51 mins
As a program coordinator for Oregon State University Extension's Natural Resources Education Program, Yasmeen Hossain, Ph.D. supports educators by providing educational resources in environmental education. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and destructive wildfires have been impacting the lives of many in the west, including students. Consequently, Hossain noticed that the educators she worked with were asking for tools and resources to help support students who may have personal experiences with these potentially traumatic events. To fill this need, in 2021 Hossain published the Trauma-Informed Toolkit. A Resource for Educators.
For more full episode details including the transcript, visit https://www.buzzsprout.com/1819551/episodes/11532402
“I kept wanting to have some kind of written document, like a resource document that I could give them before the workshop, or that they could come back to after a workshop. And I couldn't find one that encompassed everything I wanted them to have at their fingertips. And so at some point, I was like, Well, I guess I just got to write it myself,” said Hossain.
Wildfire can be very stressful, and it’s possible for children and adults to experience a trauma response related to wildfire, for a variety of reasons as Hossian explains. “So the topic of fire wildfire it is has a lot of potential to activate our nervous system to again create that overwhelming out of control feeling that we might have. And the reason for that is because of the magnitude and the impact that it can have on our lives.”
Hossain emphasizes that when someone is experiencing a trauma response, especially a child, it is more important to help them manage their stress than to try and explain why it is happening. “So really knowing about and utilizing tools and strategies and information to help them balance their nervous system again, and boost their resilience.”
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Yasmeen Hossein (00:00):
So the topic of fire, wildfire is is has a lot
(00:06):
of potential to activate ournervous system to again create
that overwhelming, out ofcontrol feeling that we might
have and the reason for that isbecause of the magnitude and the
impact that it can have on ourlives and thats a lot for us to
hold, a lot for us to sit with.
It really, if you think aboutit, it really affects our basic
survival needs. It can threatenour physical safety, having
(00:31):
shelter. Whether our house issafe or not, emotional safety
can be threatened because wemight experience loss or you
know grieving the loss ofsomeone or again in material
belongings and then of course wemight not have clean air to
breathe.
Megan Kay (00:52):
This is the Living with Fire Podcast brought to you
by the University of Nevada,Reno extension.
Hi there. Welcome to the Livingwith Fire Podcast. I'm your
host. Megan Kay, OutreachCoordinator for the Living with
Fire Program. So this year onthe podcast, we're focusing on
stories that deal with impactsof wildfire that we haven't
really talked about before andthat are more under the surface.
(01:15):
This episode is about trauma. Sojust be aware that we're going
to be discussing some stressfulevents. We're going to focus
particularly on understandinghow children can experience
trauma related to wildfire andother events, and how educators
and adults can support childrenby talking about wildfire in a
trauma informed way. What doestrauma informed mean? You ask?
(01:38):
Well, we're going to learn abouttrauma, informed communication
on this episode from our expertguest, Yasmeen Hossein.
Yasmeen Hossein (01:46):
My name is Yasmeen Hossein and I currently
work at the Oregon NaturalResources education program, or
ONREP. That's our acronym, whichis part of Oregon State
University Extension. My currentkind of job role is to design
and lead professionaldevelopment workshops and
trainings for preK-12 educators,both formal and non formal in
(02:11):
the environmental educationfield, and pretty much all of
my, not all of my, most of myprofessional and academic
background is all in theenvironmental field. But before
I came to ONREP and Oregon StateUniversity, I worked for many
years in the trauma preventionand recovery field. So that was
(02:32):
like a little detour I did fromthe environmental field.
Megan Kay (02:36):
So earlier this year, in February, Yasmeen published
the trauma informed toolkit, aresource for educators. We'll be
talking about the toolkit onthis episode, and it's also
linked in the show notes below,so I highly recommend
downloading it, especially ifyou work with kids in any way.
But I also think it's a reallygreat resource just for the
general public to understandtrauma. Helping me interview
(02:58):
Yasmeen was our manager, Jamie Royce-Gomes.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (03:01):
Hi, this is Jamie Royce-Gomes, the manager
of the Living with Fire Program.
Megan Kay (03:04):
And we are also joined by Spencer Houston, our
Special Projects Manager.
Spencer Houston (03:08):
Hi, this is Spencer Houston. I'm a Special
Projects Manager with the Livingwith Fire Program, working on
building high school sciencecurriculum.
Megan Kay (03:16):
Real quickly. Let's just hear what Spencer and Jamie
had to say after our interviewwith Yasmeen.
Spencer Houston (03:21):
So as we at Living with Fire, we're building
our own high school sciencecurriculum, we started to
connect and get into touch withother groups across the country,
also building youth educationalmaterials and programs related
to wildfire. And that's where wewe came across this group in
(03:41):
Oregon that Yasmeen is part ofand they just do a really
incredible job of taking thisvery like frankly scary topic
and working with students whohave had trauma related to
wildfire, and taking it from ascary topic to one where we can
(04:03):
give and help them provide toolsto understand what's happening
and to have more agency to beable to that. I think that was
my, my favorite part of thisepisode was when we talked about
things like, Hey, these arethings that you can do with the
children that you you know orwork with, or your own children
to help them, kind of ifsomething bad does happen and
(04:25):
before something even badhappens, so that we're all more
strong and resilient andprepared for if and when a
wildfire or rather traumaticevent happens.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (04:34):
You know, I so as a side note, my family, I
have family that lost theirhomes during the paradise fire,
and I remember during that time,and I remember trying to look
for information for just helpingkids through the trauma of
(04:54):
dealing with wildfire, and I wasgoing to send it to my family
and I and it was kind of a hardtopic to find. So I'm really
excited that this really fillsthat niche. And I this is an
incredible episode, and I'm I'mso excited that we did it.
Yasmeen Hossein (05:14):
When I started in my current position, I was
working with educators and justkind of tuning in and asking
them, what do they need? Whatkind of support do they need to
you know, work with kids, andagain, we're all about
environmental education, butwhat kept coming up is they
really wanted some tools ontrauma. And so that's where I
started weaving it in to theworkshops I was designing and
(05:39):
leading. And I realized reallyquickly that one workshop is
just not enough time for such ahuge, deep, complex topic. So I
kept wanting to have some kindof written document, like a
resource document that I couldgive them before the workshop,
or that they could come back toafter a workshop, and I couldn't
find one that encompassedeverything I wanted them to have
(06:02):
at their fingertips. And so atsome point, I was like, Well, I
guess I just got to write itmyself.
Megan Kay (06:09):
So my first question before we start talking about
the toolkit is I was wonderingif you could just give us a
definition of what is trauma.
Yasmeen Hossein (06:19):
Yes. And as you might imagine, that could be a
day long workshop, all in intoitself. It's just, it's such a
big, deep topic, and it's socomplex that it's, it's really
hard to just, you know, in onesentence, this is what it is,
but, and I'm happy to brieflyshare some understandings about
(06:40):
trauma that might be helpful.
And then, of course, there's somuch more in the toolkit. So
this is just a brief overview,and please, you know, kind of
continue your learning aboutwhat trauma is. That would be my
recommendation. So I have foundthere is no like global,
accepted definition of trauma.
(07:01):
And I think that is because itis such a unique experience for
each individual. You know, thereare some common experiences, but
it's so highly subjective andindividual. So the word itself
trauma, it comes from ancientGreek, Greece, Greek. It's an
ancient Greek word, and it meanswound, and it's not so. For
(07:26):
example, trauma having a traumareaction or trauma response is
not the event itself. So I liketo kind of liken it to a car
accident. The accident is notthe wound. That's not the trauma
the accident. I mean, the traumais what happens physically and
emotionally to you. What are thewounds that you carry away from
(07:47):
that accident? So the SubstanceAbuse and Mental Health Services
Administration has a definitionthat I like the best, if I had
to pick one, and so they defineit as lasting effects and
adverse experience, orexperiences or a circumstance
has on a person's mental,physical, social, emotional or
(08:08):
spiritual well being. So itreally has this multifaceted
impact on us. And what's reallyimportant to note is that trauma
comes from an experience thatfeels life threatening or
otherwise completelyoverwhelming. It just overwhelms
all of our senses, and most ofall, it gives us a feeling that
(08:32):
we have no control, so we haveno control over our life, our
well being. And that's thatfeeling that's kind of what can
turn into a trauma stressresponse.
Megan Kay (08:44):
So what do you think are some key things that
everyone should understand abouttrauma?
Yasmeen Hossein (08:50):
Yeah, so the first one is, trauma is
pervasive. It is everywhere,everywhere we look and it's not
often. It's not visible. It'snot like a broken arm. It's, you
know, these internal wounds thatwe carry around. And so I really
believe, and this is from mypersonal and professional
(09:11):
experience, that every singlehuman on this planet at some
point experiences something thatfeels overwhelming and out of
our control, and can lead tothat trauma response, and
oftentimes we're not even awareof it. We're not aware that this
has been imprinted in ournervous system, so it can be
conscious or it can becompletely unknown to us, and
(09:34):
then we just react in certainways, and we don't know why. And
then the second one is thattrauma is unique to each
individual. I mentioned thisbefore, but everyone experiences
events and circumstancesdifferently, and there's such a
wide range in how the symptomsshow up in somebody's life and
how they might impact us. Andthen the third one and the last
(09:56):
one is that these stressfulevents I was talking about these
adverse experiences, they don'talways automatically lead to
someone having a traumaresponse. All trauma comes from
stress, that's how it starts.
But all stress doesn't alwayslead to a trauma response, and
there's a couple of differentreasons for that. I call them or
well, research, we all, thefield, calls them risk and
(10:21):
resilience or protectivefactors, and so some things
might be, has the person like,what about the history? Has the
person had a similar experiencebefore, or something else, super
stressful? What kind of supportsare available? Is there access
to health care and otherservices, and then a really big
factor in trauma risk is howmany healthy, supportive
(10:43):
relationships does the personhave in their life? Do they have
someone they can confide in,they can talk to, who will
support them? And then it alsodepends on underlying factors
such as, you know, historical orancestral trauma, systemic
oppression, racism, familyculture, cultural beliefs, and
just so many more.
Megan Kay (11:05):
I wanted to take a quick break to talk about the
Living with Fire Program. Maybeyou found this podcast and
you're wondering, what is theLiving with Fire Program? Well,
we've been around since 1997we're managed by the University
of Nevada Reno extension, andwe're really a collaborative
(11:26):
effort amongst federal, stateand local firefighting agencies
as well as resource managementagencies to help people adapt,
prepare and live more safelywith wildfire. So if you haven't
already, check out our website,livingwithfire.com where you'll
find all of our resources andtools that will help you live
more safely with wildfire. Okay,back to the show.
(11:47):
So I had some questions abouttrauma and children specifically
relating to wildfire, which iswhat our program is all about.
Could you explain how wildfirecan impact children and
(12:07):
potentially cause trauma?
Yasmeen Hossein (12:09):
Yeah, absolutely. And I will also
preface that it's not justchildren, right? I mean, adults,
we experience this overwhelmingstress response to fire as well.
We might, it shows updifferently in our lives. But so
I just want to get, yeah, justkind of to put it out there that
what I'm sharing with you, likeis both for children and adults.
(12:33):
So the topic of fire, wildfireis, is has a lot of potential to
activate our nervous system, toagain, create that overwhelming,
out of control feeling that wemight have. And the reason for
that is because of the magnitudeand the impact that it can have
(12:53):
on our lives. And that's a lotfor us to hold, a lot for us to
sit with it really, if you thinkabout it, really affects our
basic survival needs. You know,it can threaten our physical
safety, having shelter, whetherour house is safe or not.
Emotional safety can bethreatened because we might
experience loss, or, you know,grieving some the loss of
(13:15):
someone, or again, materialbelongings, and then, of course,
we might not have clean air tobreathe, access to food and
clean water. Nourishment mightbe interrupted because, you
know, the fire pathway might beacross a road, and so the road
is blocked, and trucks can't getto a grocery store, or we can't
get to the grocery store. Ofcourse, health concerns, you
(13:39):
know, such as asthma can beexacerbated with smoke heart
disease. So even if someonedoesn't have that direct
experience with wildfirethemselves, like so many of us
on the west coast have,unfortunately, even the smoke
from fires can impact us and andwe can, you know, have that
(14:01):
like, Oh no, what about myhealth? I'm breathing this
unhealthy air. Like, I'm sureall of you remember the bootleg
fire last summer in 2021 thesmoke from it blew all the way
across the US, and people in NewEngland had smoky skies and were
smelling the smoke and hadunhealthy air quality. So it it
(14:21):
really, it's just so the impactsare so wide reaching, and it
impacts all these very basicthings we need to survive. And
so that is why having thatoverwhelming, out of control
feeling is easily triggered whenit comes to wildfire and for
kids and again, especially hereon the West Coast, they might
(14:45):
have already have directexperience with a previous fire,
so they have that previousexperience of needing to
evacuate or just a threat of it.
They might have indirectexperience with fire, so they
might have heard families orfamily members or friends or
other community members havingto evacuate or losing their
house, news stories, socialmedia, of course, or they might
(15:07):
have experienced a similarcircumstance to fire. So this is
where if someone experiencedhouselessness or having some
kind of illness or physicalinjury that impacted health or
they lost material belongings,maybe because it was stolen, but
that's like that similar kind ofimpact that wildfire might have,
(15:31):
and so that could again haveoverlapping pictures and then
trigger that overwhelming stressresponse, or even just learning
about how wildfire can impact usand that it has the potential to
threaten our house and ourlivelihood, that could be really
overwhelming and stressful. Sostudents learning about it in
school, even if they have noprior experience with it, they
(15:54):
could still be experiencing thistrauma stress response. I just
want to point out that it'salways, we always wanted to
know, why, like, why are wefeeling this way? Why are we so
anxious, or, you know, feelingstressed and having these
responses? And that canobviously be helpful to know and
helpful for the future so we canput certain things into place,
(16:15):
so we don't, you know,experience it again. But with
kids, especially, it's it's lessimportant why that they're
having this reaction or thistrauma response, and it's so
much more important to have sometools and figure out, how can
you help them process thisstress and process this
heightened emotion that they'refeeling so really knowing about
(16:37):
and utilizing tools andstrategies and information to
help them balance their nervoussystem again and boost their
resilience. That's kind of whatI would like to encourage
everybody to like put yourenergy behind. Put your focus
on.
Megan Kay (16:54):
I was wondering if you could describe for us how
trauma can manifest inchildren's behaviors, so that
adults and caregivers, we canlook out for maybe some red
flags or signs that childrencould be in distress.
Yasmeen Hossein (17:10):
Trauma is such a unique experience, and it can
show up in so many differentways that I always I like to do
you know, let just give thatcaveat before I talk about how
it might impact children oradults as well, but there are.
So there's really no one formulaor a list of symptoms that would
(17:30):
apply to everyone, every time,in every circumstance. So that's
just my caveat. But you know,research over the years, of
course, has shown somecommonalities of ways that
trauma might show up. And sobefore I go into that, just want
to give a quick reminder thatthese, you know, some
experiences could be incombination, or only one and not
(17:55):
all the others, or a child mightexperience a totally new symptom
that is not listed here at all.
I like to group them into fourdifferent categories. So the
first one is physical symptoms.
How might that show up often? Itcould be some kind of a pain,
whether it's chronic headache orstomach ache or a body pain of
(18:16):
any kind, just feeling like thebody is physically not doing
great is feeling the pain. It'sfeeling the emotional pain, if
that makes sense for students,of course, lots of learning
disruptions. For example, theremight be some difficulty
concentrating memory, memoryretention or grasping new
(18:39):
information or new concepts thatcould be really hard and then
internally so the in theemotional inner world, students
or children might beexperiencing more anxiety than
usual, social withdrawal, lowself esteem or perfectionism or
emotional numbness that canhappen to depression, increased
(19:03):
sadness, fear, persistent worryover safety of self or others.
And then, if a child hasexperienced a fire directly, and
you know, their family is isfine, nobody was harmed, and
their house is fine, they mightalso experience what's called
survivors guilt, if people theyknow did lose their house or
(19:27):
somebody was physicallyimpacted, so that can lead to
feelings of guilt and anger. Andthen the last category is
externally. So as childrenengage with others in their
connections and theirrelationships, it could show up
as increased aggression ortantrums or any kind of
disruptive behavior, weakimpulse control, irritability,
(19:51):
engaging in more recklessbehavior than usual. And then,
for younger children, behaviorregression, so going back to
bed, wetting or thumb sucking orclinging to caretakers and not
being able to be separated andso on and again, these there's
so many more, as I keep saying.
Megan Kay (20:09):
And I think it probably goes without saying,
but maybe we should also mentionthat it seems like being patient
is a key part of this process,because even if you're talking
to kids in a trauma informedway. There's probably no road
map to getting them to wherethey need to be, right?
Yasmeen Hossein (20:28):
That is so true, so true. And also, and
this might happen more in aschool setting, but simply
telling students or asking themto change their behavior like,
you know, pay attention,concentrate in this lesson, or
or for parents, just saying,stop sucking your thumb, or
whatever it might be, simplyasking them to change their
(20:50):
behavior. That that doesn't workbecause the trauma response,
what it does in our in ourbrain, the brain science of it,
it literally cuts off access toour thinking brain, our rational
brain, so everything ishappening as an automated
response. We're not in controlover it. We're not like, Oh, now
(21:10):
I will be really angry. And sotuning into that is so
important. And again, instead oftelling, telling the children
what's what they're doing wrong,using some tools and strategies
to help them calm down, to helpthem balance their nervous
system. Again, that's that'skind of where the gold nugget is
(21:34):
in this work.
Megan Kay (21:44):
Hi there. Thanks again for listening. We hope
that you're enjoying ourinterview with Yasmeen Hossain
from Oregon State Universityabout the trauma informed
toolkit that she publishedearlier this year. Just wanted
to let you know that we're goingto include the toolkit in the
links in the show notes below,so after you listen to the
episode, don't forget to go intothe show notes, download the
(22:04):
toolkit and use it. We hope thatit's helpful. Okay, back to the
show.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (22:14):
I was just thinking maybe just we can help,
help the children emotionally,so that they're able to better
understand things mentally, isthat kind of what we're talking
about?
Yasmeen Hossein (22:28):
Yeah, that's, I think that is definitely one of
the great steps to do, and notas you know, sometimes I think
the misnomer is thinking, Oh,they're just children. They
don't need to know all theinformation or it would scare
them too much, or any otherreason why we don't feel
comfortable sharing informationwith children like we would with
(22:52):
an adult. But children are sointuitive and sensitive. They
pick up on things. They knowsomething is wrong, and if we
don't share with them, at least,you know, age appropriate
information, and loop them inand let them know what's wrong,
they might get that feeling ofnot having control, and then
that could lead toretraumatization, or a trauma
(23:14):
response, which is what we'retrying to avoid. So I think
looping kids in and again, doingit in an age appropriate way.
But I think you're right, Jamie,that is so important.
Megan Kay (23:27):
So now I wanted to pivot into some of those tools
you had mentioned and learnabout some ways that adults and
caregivers and educators cansupport children and talk about
wildfire in a trauma informedway.
Yasmeen Hossein (23:40):
Yes, I'm so glad you asked about that. So
there are a couple of strategiesthat could be applied to talking
about wildfire and also keepingin mind these strategies
translate so easily to any allkinds of other topics, all kinds
of other situations in life. Soif you're working with a student
(24:03):
or your your children, and youcome across any other kind of
emotionally difficult topics,feel free to apply these
strategies for that as well. Allright. So as I already
mentioned, I think again,modifying your language and how
much detail you give students, Imean children based on their
age, but I definitely recommendsharing information with
(24:26):
children, even even the veryyoung ones. Again, you might
really downscale how much youtell them and the language you
use, but definitely share withthem what is going on. So before
you have this talk, I alwaysrecommend to first take care of
(24:47):
yourself, put the oxygen mask onyourself, before you help
others. And this might look liketuning into your own nervous
system, regulating your ownnervous system, making sure that
youare coming from a place offeeling grounded, you know,
feeling balanced, feeling calm.
And some things I like to dowhen I know like, oh, I need to
(25:07):
quickly regulate my nervoussystem and I don't have a lot of
time. I like to do jumpingjacks. It activates the physical
body. I also do some breathingexercises, some deep breathing
exercises. And actually wouldlove to share one later with
everybody, maybe at the end, sowe can all end this podcast with
a regulated nervous system.
Megan Kay (25:31):
I think that's amazing. And yes, I definitely
think we should do that.
Yasmeen Hossein (25:34):
Great. You know, things like walking
barefoot in the yard, I like toeat chocolate or ask to have a
little pep talk with, well, withone of my friends or my husband,
really, anything that feels goodto you. So just to make sure,
before you have this talk withwith the child, that you're
(25:54):
feeling grounded and calm, andthen help the child do the same.
So you might do some thingstogether, you know, maybe you
first go for a walk out in thepark or in nature. You have some
play time. You give a healthysnack. You might do some
breathing exercises. If it'sappropriate, you might have a
little cuddle time. Obviously,probably not in an educational
(26:17):
setting, because you don't wantto have a potentially stressful
conversation if somebody'salready feeling a little bit
stressed out. And then the nextthing after that is, you know,
just share information with thekid about the fire situation,
you know what's going on, andask if they have any questions.
(26:39):
And if you don't know the answerto some of their questions. I
think you can just be honestabout it and say, Oh, I don't
know. Let's look it up together,or I'll look it up and then
I'll, you know, let you knowtomorrow what I find out,
something like that. And thenalways emphasize this is one of
the cornerstones of traumainformed care, but emphasize a
(27:01):
solutions focused approach and astrength based approach. So
focus on the solutions and thechild's own resilience. For
example, you might talk abouthow previously, how fires were
contained. You might talk aboutall the skills and tools that
firefighters have their uniqueknowledge and how many
(27:23):
firefighters are working tocontain the fire right now. You
can also talk about what is theschool or the community or your
own family doing in terms offire safety protocols. You know
you have your safety plan, a gobag, a meet up location. That's
all like showing the child like,yes, there this is happening,
(27:44):
and here's how we're going tokeep ourselves safe. Here is all
the things we have in in place.
And then again, emphasizing thatthe child themselves has
resiliency, because they'veovercome situations in the past
where they might have beenscared or anxious, and so
talking about that, like, howdid you do that in the past? You
know, when you felt X, Y and Z,and then asking, just ask. I'd
(28:08):
say, just ask. How are youfeeling about this? You know,
just invite, create space forthe child to share themselves
how they're feeling. Not just betalked at, but have it be a real
discussion, a real sharing. Andthen it's so important to
acknowledge, validate andnormalize any emotions that are
shared. I always say emotionsare always valid, because it's
(28:32):
it's our truth, it's how we'refeeling. There is no, this isn't
right. This isn't you know, thisis wrong, because, no, it's not
wrong, it's how I'm feeling. Sohopefully that helps everybody
feel good about validatingemotions always and normalizing
it. And so you might say thingslike, Oh, I also feel scared, or
I'm also anxious, or it makessense that you are feeling
(28:56):
again, whatever it might beangry right now, I can
understand why you're scared. Sothings like that can make such a
big difference, and thenafterwards, or maybe you
intersperse this, but giving thechild and yourself plenty of
opportunities to process whatcomes up, like process the
(29:19):
information from the talk,process the emotions that might
have come up. And I recommendthere's three main categories of
ways you might process the firstone, of course, is verbally. And
depending on the age of thechild, not all children have
access to all the language orfeel comfortable talking about
emotions, you know? And so thereare other ways you could do it
(29:43):
verbally. You could do thatemotional weather report check
in, you know, what's your what'syour weather report right now?
And it might be stormy or thesun is peeking through. So you
can use metaphor. But thenthere's also other things, like.
They can do some silentjournaling, some writing, and
then creative processing, Ithink, is huge. So drawing,
(30:05):
using art, using the body, youcan do some dancing around, or,
you know, go to the playground,anything like that. That brings
the body into it as well. Isreally important. Play hide and
seek, yeah, and then again,well, I already said it, but art
is huge, like visual art, justdrawing can be really, really
(30:26):
great at processing and theseemotions. You know, in an ideal
world, when we're experiencingheightened emotions, if we could
process it right away, then wedon't have the lasting effects
of it. It doesn't linger. So inan ideal world, if you have time
building in these processingopportunities right after you
talked to the child or after youboth watched a news story,
(30:50):
maybe, or something like that.
But even if you don't have timeright away, building time in
later or later on, the next dayor that week, is still going to
have a beneficial effect. Sodon't feel like if you couldn't
do it right away, there's nopoint in doing it anymore.
Megan Kay (31:14):
Wildfire is stressful and wildfire evacuations are
stressful. That's why the Livingwith Fire Program has created
our wildfire evacuationchecklist. It's a really simple
checklist to help you learn howto pack a go bag and prepare
your home and your family, evenyour pets, for wildfire
evacuation. I've included thechecklist in the links in the
(31:36):
show notes below, so be sure tocheck that out, and you can also
find it at our website atlivingwithfire.com, now back to
the show.
So you mentioned resilience.
What is resilience?
Yasmeen Hossein (31:53):
So trauma resilience is the ability of
again, a child or adult appliesto both to cope, process and
adapt to a traumatic event orcircumstance. And the goal of
trauma resilience is to helppeople who are experiencing this
heightened stress response or anadverse situation to either stay
(32:17):
regulated, stay balanced, orbring their nervous system back
into balance in a very shortperiod of time with minimal
distress, and having it notreally affect day to day living.
And so I want to emphasize it'simportant to know that having
that having a trauma response,such as fight, flight, freeze or
(32:38):
fawn, that's how we survive. Imean, if we see a bear and we
can have the trauma responserun, that's fantastic. That
might mean we get to live andwe're not eaten by the bear. So
it's totally normal toexperience it when it when it
starts impacting our day to dayliving, and it lasts a very long
(32:58):
time, and, yeah, it just impactsour normal life. That's when we
might want to look at it furtherand do some of the processing
and trauma informed care andhelping our then we know we need
to help our nervous system comeback into balance, into
equilibrium. So traumaresilience specifically informs
(33:20):
how long that you're going toexperience this stress response,
and what areas of your life areaffected, and then the level to
which your daily functioning isaffected. And so for example,
for a student's response to atraumatic experience, it might
affect school performance for afew days, or it might affect
(33:41):
school performance for months oreven years, or it might be just
school performance, or it mightalso be their sleep cycle and
their relationships with theirsiblings, or something like
that. So as a very general ruleof thumb, the faster someone
bounces back and resumes dailyfunctioning and engages in
healthy coping mechanisms, thehigher the person's trauma
(34:03):
resilience is. And I also wantto point out that resilience,
it's not an either or. It's notlike either I'm resilient or I'm
not. It exists on a spectrum.
And again, we all have a certaindegree of resilience. It's just,
it's our birthright, and soit's, just, how can we move the
needle, you know, to thespectrum, to the other side,
(34:24):
where we have some moreresilience? So I touched on this
before briefly, but the risk andprotective factors, or
resilience factors, that's kindof what trauma resilience hinges
on, and even to what degreesomeone might experience a
trauma response or overwhelmingstress response. And so earlier,
(34:44):
I mentioned some of the riskfactors, such as, you know,
having underlying, underlyingsituations, oppression,
historical or marginalization,things like that. But now I want
to talk about the protective orthe resilience factors, so they
foster stability and thrivingand independence and safety, and
(35:09):
then the risk factors is, youknow, deteriorates that feeling
of security and the ability tothrive and have control over
life choices. So some examplesof protective factors that I
think might this might be easyor not easy, but it's accessible
for adults to implement andfoster with with children. I
(35:32):
nothing. None of this is nothingis easy. I just want to say that
that is definitely true.
Everything takes work, but onething is practice coping skills.
So even when the child is notstressed out, practice coping
skills and and build it into adaily routine. So whether that
(35:55):
is having like doing a littlebit of art at the end of the
day, or having a regular eatingschedule, or regular bedtime
things like that, routine andcoping skills, and then that way
or go, you know, run around orscream into a pillow when you
(36:17):
feel angry. But that way, whensomething super stressful
happens. They're easier to reachfor because we've already
practiced it. And then the otherthing I already talked about a
little bit is practice thatstrength, strength based mindset
and solutions based approach tochallenges. So always focus on
what's going well. I found inour society, or at least me, if
(36:40):
I see that someone's not doingwell, I'll come over and say,
what's wrong. But when do we askeach other, what's right? What's
what's good, what's right? Likewe rarely start a conversation
with that, but that's how we canstart building in and shifting
our mindset to that strengthbased approach, and that's
something you can start doingwith kids now, just focus on on
(37:02):
what they're good at, what arethey talented in? What can they
do? And then as to the extentpossible, having a stable
routine, a stable family homeenvironment, can be very
important. I know it's notalways possible. People are
facing all kinds ofcircumstances, but things that
we that you might be able to dois again, having that regular
(37:25):
routine. You know, at 7am we eatbreakfast. At 10pm we go to bed,
whatever that might be, having,maybe family dinners on Sundays,
or going on a field trip, goingto the park, things like that.
But having it be regular andstable is really important, and
that counteracts that feeling ofnot having control, right? So if
(37:48):
there's something that childrencan count on every Sunday, we do
this that is in their control,and it gives them that framework
and the grounding. Now, onething I haven't talked about a
whole lot yet, is having healthyrelationships and social
connections, that, again, iskind of one of the keys to
trauma resilience. The researchhas shown that for kids who have
(38:13):
even just one healthy, trustingrelationship with an adult, it
makes a huge, huge difference inhow trauma shows up in their
life. So that adult could be,you know, it could be a teacher,
it could be a neighbor, it couldbe the librarian, it could be a
parent, it could be a familymember, grandparent, but having
(38:36):
someone who they know sees theirstrengths, supports them, that
they can talk to, they can goand process verbally anyway, if
not in many other ways. And sofostering those connections for
your child maybe you, and itdoesn't even have to only be an
adult. All like the wider oursocial network is, the better,
(38:58):
as long as it's healthy trustingrelationships. So you might
foster more play dates orparticipate in community events,
especially for children, andthen for yourself, it's so
important right to take care ofyourself and so make sure you
have those healthy, supportiverelationships in your life,
whether again, it is family or apartner or friends or a
(39:23):
professional. I think, I thinkit takes, I know it takes
courage to break through thestigma of seeking help, seeking
help of a mental healthprofessional, but I think it's
so incredibly worthy, worth it.
It makes such a difference, andI applaud anyone who does it, so
don't, don't let that stop youfrom reaching out. That's what
(39:45):
they're there for.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (39:50):
I really, really like Yasmeen, you
bringing up about the the stablehome environment, and I'm going
to kind of give a little likepeek into my life. Life. So I
have a precocious five year oldat home and and every night at
dinner, we ask everybody in thefamily. We even ask our dog
this, what is one struggle andwhat good thing that happened
(40:13):
that day, and it has reallyopened up our it's deepened our
relationships and help usunderstand how her date went.
And then we laugh about, youknow, our dog struggle and the
good thing, like he went on awalk today, or he was excited
because I work from home and Iwas with him the whole day, or
(40:34):
something like that. But Ireally love everything that
you're talking about so, sothank you.
Yasmeen Hossein (40:41):
Oh, I love that so much, Jamie, and especially
that you're including the dogand also your it seems like
you're modeling for your fiveyear old that it's okay and
normal to not always have afantastic day. And that is so,
so important to normalize havinghard days or having things
happen that don't feel fantasticor are uncomfortable and that's
(41:05):
okay, that's fantastic. I justlove that.
Spencer Houston (41:08):
One question I had in listening to some of the
suggestions of activities likeparents could do with their
their child or or educatorscould do with children to help
them be more resilient was us atLiving with Fire and all of us
think about wildfire year round,all the time, and have many
(41:30):
things that we encourage peopleto do. If you had thoughts of
like, when would it beappropriate to, say, involve
your child in kind of defensiblespace around your house? Whether
you're you're raking leaves. Arethere ways that you could, you
could do that in a way thatwould or ways you could do that
to focus and help build some ofthis trauma resilience?
Yasmeen Hossein (41:52):
Yeah, I love that. Spencer. I think
involving, involving the kids inthat preparation, right in in
the plan, the Community Plan,the state plan of keeping home
safe, having that defensiblespace is fantastic. And of
course, I think it depends onthe age of the children. Like
(42:14):
for little ones, you wouldn'twant to do that with them every
single day. That might get a bitmuch, but but involve them
absolutely. They can be outthere picking up some leaves, or
even be out there playing in theyard as you're doing it, and
then you can talk to them aboutit. You can say why you're
raking leaves. And even that, inand of itself, might be enough
(42:34):
older kids, of course, highschool age kids, or middle
middle school, they might, youmight be able to involve them a
little bit more even, and askfor their help and let them know
that their participation is isvalued, that you know their
contribution is needed, whichthat always helps for self
(42:54):
esteem and feeling like you're apart of the family, part of the
community, And, of course,packing the go bags, I think
that all children might want tobe involved in, and even though
it can be really scary, butreally thinking through, what
would I want like, what, whatcan I not live with that? What
do I need to pack in my go bag?
And that could open up a wholedifferent conversation about
(43:18):
material things and the value weassigned to them. And in the
end, what do we really need tofeel happy and joyful and have
what we need? And so again, thatwe don't have time to get into
that, but that could be a wholeother talk that we could have.
Megan Kay (43:40):
Yes, you have definitely given me some
inspiration for the future. I'mgoing to think about that. But
yeah, it seems like having kidsinvolved in packing their go
bags would add to, you know,give them a sense of security
and control in such a stressful situation.
Yasmeen Hossein (43:57):
Yeah, that's so, so true. I know a friend of
mine was saying that she waspacking her go bag, and she has,
well, middle school and highschool aged kids, and she didn't
ask them to participate. Shejust wanted that, you know, the
basics, the flashlight and thefood and water. But her middle
school daughter, aged daughter,saw her doing it and asked her
(44:19):
about it, and then all on herown, went upstairs and packed
her own go bag, because shewanted that control. She wanted
to feel like she's in control ofher own well being and safety
and if they have to evacuate,she wants to know that she
packed what she needed.
Megan Kay (44:35):
And this has been such a great conversation. But
before we wrap up, I just wantedto ask in addition to the
toolkit, if there are any otherresources that you would like to
recommend to adults andeducators who are interested in
supporting children and talkingabout things in a trauma
informed way.
Yasmeen Hossein (44:54):
Oh, there's so many, and so many good ones. I
feel like there's even nowthere's resources. Popping up
left and right, and the toolkitdoes have a resource page with
links and recommendations. Andso I would kind of direct you
there again. But I know thereare children's books for all
(45:14):
ages now that kind of go overwhat fire is, and somebody
surviving, you know, the threatof fire, and so that could be a
really important way to a toolto use to talk to kids about
fire. There's so many excellentwebsites and resources online
and and for educators who areinterested, the toolkit, because
(45:39):
it's so word heavy and and long,I am offering a complimentary
workshop to go along with it,and I'll offer it probably twice
a year, every single year, andthe workshop is the application
piece. So we could do some roleplaying. We can do, you know,
discussion, talk throughpractice, some of the tools and
strategies. So that's kind ofthe hands on piece, and for I'm
(46:04):
sure, other organizations areoffering those kinds of hands on
practice sessions as well. Ithink that could be really
useful too.
Megan Kay (46:14):
Thank you again to Yasmeen for coming on the
podcast to talk about the traumainformed toolkit. We are so
grateful for the discussion, andwe hope that everyone listening
goes to the show notes, clicksthe link and downloads the
toolkit and uses it. Now, we'dlike to share with you a little
bonus content earlier on thepodcast, Yasmeen mentioned a
(46:36):
simple breathing exercise thatshe likes to do and that anyone
can do that will help regulateyour nervous system if you're
experiencing stress, we recordedthat, and we're going to play it
for you now. We hope you enjoyit. We hope it helps, and thank
you for listening.
Yasmeen Hossein (46:57):
Okay, so I just want to talk very briefly about
breathing and breath and why Imentioned it a lot like, oh,
take a deep breath. Why that isuseful in times of high stress,
but also in building ourresilience. And there's so many
different breathing techniques,but I'll share a very simple one
(47:18):
with you today that you could doin the car or walking to work or
doing dishes, whatever thatmight be. So deep breathing,
what it does for our nervoussystem is it really helps
balance it and kind ofmanipulating our breath
consciously, because we'rebreathing all the time, right?
(47:40):
And we're stressed too whilewe're breathing so so simply
breathing, our autonomicresponse of breathing, that's
not what I'm talking about. I'mtalking about consciously
breathing and really mindfullybreathing, and that can really
impact our body stress response.
So when we inhale naturally, itstimulates our sympathetic
(48:01):
nervous system, and that is ournervous system that helps us act
in times of stress. So that'swhat activates the fight,
flight, freeze or fawn mode. Sothat's our survival response.
And then when we exhale, weactivate and stimulate the
parasympathetic nervous system,which controls rest, digest,
(48:21):
restore and brings us back intothat regulated state. So in an
ideal world, if we're breathingconsciously and our inhale and
exhale is equally as long, wewould remain in that balanced
state forever. But what happenswhen we get stressed is
oftentimes we shorten ourbreath, you know, we breathe
(48:42):
shallow, and then that's whenthings get wonky. And so if it's
available to us, and if we, youknow, have control over our
breath in that moment, what wecan do is to consciously make
our exhale longer than ourinhale, so that we're
overstimulating ourparasympathetic nervous system
(49:03):
and telling our sympatheticnervous system pipe down. We
don't. We don't need you to besuper active right now. Yeah,
and so, so I would like toinvite you to join me. We'll in
just doing a couple of rounds ofa breath where you make your
exhale longer than your inhale.
(49:26):
And I can count for us. Ifanyone would like to join me for
this, I will count for theinhale to three and then exhale
to five. And I just want toinvite you to adjust and modify
these counts and the breath tosuit whatever your needs are
today, make it work for you soyou could you might want to
(49:48):
inhale to the count of two andexhale to the count of four, or
again, anything that works foryou. This is meant for you to
feel good and not to feelstressed out by this. Or like,
oh. I can't hold my breathanymore. Okay? Everybody ready?
So I invite you to get into acomfortable position. If you can
(50:09):
uncross your legs and arms,that's always a good practice,
just so that the breath and theenergy can flow through you. And
I will count to three. So Iinvite everybody to take a deep
inhalation. One two three andexhalation. One two three four
(50:30):
five and one more time inhale,One two three and exhale. One
two three four five and lasttime, and I won't say anything
this time, you do it in your owntime. Excellent. And whenever
(50:56):
you would like, I invite you tocontinue doing this breath or
use it whenever you need it intimes of stress, but also
practice it when you're notstressed, so that it just
becomes like second nature toyou, a tool that you reach for
when you need it.
Megan Kay (51:18):
Thank you for listening to the Living with
Fire Podcast. You can find morestories and resources about
wildfire at our website,livingwithfire.com the Living
with Fire Program is funded bythe Bureau of Land Management,
the Nevada Division of Forestryand the US Forest Service, and
were managed by the Universityof Nevada, Reno extension, an
equal opportunity institution.
So the topic of fire, wildfire is is has a lot
(00:06):
of potential to activate ournervous system to again create
that overwhelming, out ofcontrol feeling that we might
have and the reason for that isbecause of the magnitude and the
impact that it can have on ourlives and thats a lot for us to
hold, a lot for us to sit with.
It really, if you think aboutit, it really affects our basic
survival needs. It can threatenour physical safety, having
(00:31):
shelter. Whether our house issafe or not, emotional safety
can be threatened because wemight experience loss or you
know grieving the loss ofsomeone or again in material
belongings and then of course wemight not have clean air to
breathe.
Megan Kay (00:52):
This is the Living with Fire Podcast brought to you
by the University of Nevada,Reno extension.
Hi there. Welcome to the Livingwith Fire Podcast. I'm your
host. Megan Kay, OutreachCoordinator for the Living with
Fire Program. So this year onthe podcast, we're focusing on
stories that deal with impactsof wildfire that we haven't
really talked about before andthat are more under the surface.
(01:15):
This episode is about trauma. Sojust be aware that we're going
to be discussing some stressfulevents. We're going to focus
particularly on understandinghow children can experience
trauma related to wildfire andother events, and how educators
and adults can support childrenby talking about wildfire in a
trauma informed way. What doestrauma informed mean? You ask?
(01:38):
Well, we're going to learn abouttrauma, informed communication
on this episode from our expertguest, Yasmeen Hossein.
Yasmeen Hossein (01:46):
My name is Yasmeen Hossein and I currently
work at the Oregon NaturalResources education program, or
ONREP. That's our acronym, whichis part of Oregon State
University Extension. My currentkind of job role is to design
and lead professionaldevelopment workshops and
trainings for preK-12 educators,both formal and non formal in
(02:11):
the environmental educationfield, and pretty much all of
my, not all of my, most of myprofessional and academic
background is all in theenvironmental field. But before
I came to ONREP and Oregon StateUniversity, I worked for many
years in the trauma preventionand recovery field. So that was
(02:32):
like a little detour I did fromthe environmental field.
Megan Kay (02:36):
So earlier this year, in February, Yasmeen published
the trauma informed toolkit, aresource for educators. We'll be
talking about the toolkit onthis episode, and it's also
linked in the show notes below,so I highly recommend
downloading it, especially ifyou work with kids in any way.
But I also think it's a reallygreat resource just for the
general public to understandtrauma. Helping me interview
(02:58):
Yasmeen was our manager, Jamie Royce-Gomes.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (03:01):
Hi, this is Jamie Royce-Gomes, the manager
of the Living with Fire Program.
Megan Kay (03:04):
And we are also joined by Spencer Houston, our
Special Projects Manager.
Spencer Houston (03:08):
Hi, this is Spencer Houston. I'm a Special
Projects Manager with the Livingwith Fire Program, working on
building high school sciencecurriculum.
Megan Kay (03:16):
Real quickly. Let's just hear what Spencer and Jamie
had to say after our interviewwith Yasmeen.
Spencer Houston (03:21):
So as we at Living with Fire, we're building
our own high school sciencecurriculum, we started to
connect and get into touch withother groups across the country,
also building youth educationalmaterials and programs related
to wildfire. And that's where wewe came across this group in
(03:41):
Oregon that Yasmeen is part ofand they just do a really
incredible job of taking thisvery like frankly scary topic
and working with students whohave had trauma related to
wildfire, and taking it from ascary topic to one where we can
(04:03):
give and help them provide toolsto understand what's happening
and to have more agency to beable to that. I think that was
my, my favorite part of thisepisode was when we talked about
things like, Hey, these arethings that you can do with the
children that you you know orwork with, or your own children
to help them, kind of ifsomething bad does happen and
(04:25):
before something even badhappens, so that we're all more
strong and resilient andprepared for if and when a
wildfire or rather traumaticevent happens.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (04:34):
You know, I so as a side note, my family, I
have family that lost theirhomes during the paradise fire,
and I remember during that time,and I remember trying to look
for information for just helpingkids through the trauma of
(04:54):
dealing with wildfire, and I wasgoing to send it to my family
and I and it was kind of a hardtopic to find. So I'm really
excited that this really fillsthat niche. And I this is an
incredible episode, and I'm I'mso excited that we did it.
Yasmeen Hossein (05:14):
When I started in my current position, I was
working with educators and justkind of tuning in and asking
them, what do they need? Whatkind of support do they need to
you know, work with kids, andagain, we're all about
environmental education, butwhat kept coming up is they
really wanted some tools ontrauma. And so that's where I
started weaving it in to theworkshops I was designing and
(05:39):
leading. And I realized reallyquickly that one workshop is
just not enough time for such ahuge, deep, complex topic. So I
kept wanting to have some kindof written document, like a
resource document that I couldgive them before the workshop,
or that they could come back toafter a workshop, and I couldn't
find one that encompassedeverything I wanted them to have
(06:02):
at their fingertips. And so atsome point, I was like, Well, I
guess I just got to write itmyself.
Megan Kay (06:09):
So my first question before we start talking about
the toolkit is I was wonderingif you could just give us a
definition of what is trauma.
Yasmeen Hossein (06:19):
Yes. And as you might imagine, that could be a
day long workshop, all in intoitself. It's just, it's such a
big, deep topic, and it's socomplex that it's, it's really
hard to just, you know, in onesentence, this is what it is,
but, and I'm happy to brieflyshare some understandings about
(06:40):
trauma that might be helpful.
And then, of course, there's somuch more in the toolkit. So
this is just a brief overview,and please, you know, kind of
continue your learning aboutwhat trauma is. That would be my
recommendation. So I have foundthere is no like global,
accepted definition of trauma.
(07:01):
And I think that is because itis such a unique experience for
each individual. You know, thereare some common experiences, but
it's so highly subjective andindividual. So the word itself
trauma, it comes from ancientGreek, Greece, Greek. It's an
ancient Greek word, and it meanswound, and it's not so. For
(07:26):
example, trauma having a traumareaction or trauma response is
not the event itself. So I liketo kind of liken it to a car
accident. The accident is notthe wound. That's not the trauma
the accident. I mean, the traumais what happens physically and
emotionally to you. What are thewounds that you carry away from
(07:47):
that accident? So the SubstanceAbuse and Mental Health Services
Administration has a definitionthat I like the best, if I had
to pick one, and so they defineit as lasting effects and
adverse experience, orexperiences or a circumstance
has on a person's mental,physical, social, emotional or
(08:08):
spiritual well being. So itreally has this multifaceted
impact on us. And what's reallyimportant to note is that trauma
comes from an experience thatfeels life threatening or
otherwise completelyoverwhelming. It just overwhelms
all of our senses, and most ofall, it gives us a feeling that
(08:32):
we have no control, so we haveno control over our life, our
well being. And that's thatfeeling that's kind of what can
turn into a trauma stressresponse.
Megan Kay (08:44):
So what do you think are some key things that
everyone should understand abouttrauma?
Yasmeen Hossein (08:50):
Yeah, so the first one is, trauma is
pervasive. It is everywhere,everywhere we look and it's not
often. It's not visible. It'snot like a broken arm. It's, you
know, these internal wounds thatwe carry around. And so I really
believe, and this is from mypersonal and professional
(09:11):
experience, that every singlehuman on this planet at some
point experiences something thatfeels overwhelming and out of
our control, and can lead tothat trauma response, and
oftentimes we're not even awareof it. We're not aware that this
has been imprinted in ournervous system, so it can be
conscious or it can becompletely unknown to us, and
(09:34):
then we just react in certainways, and we don't know why. And
then the second one is thattrauma is unique to each
individual. I mentioned thisbefore, but everyone experiences
events and circumstancesdifferently, and there's such a
wide range in how the symptomsshow up in somebody's life and
how they might impact us. Andthen the third one and the last
(09:56):
one is that these stressfulevents I was talking about these
adverse experiences, they don'talways automatically lead to
someone having a traumaresponse. All trauma comes from
stress, that's how it starts.
But all stress doesn't alwayslead to a trauma response, and
there's a couple of differentreasons for that. I call them or
well, research, we all, thefield, calls them risk and
(10:21):
resilience or protectivefactors, and so some things
might be, has the person like,what about the history? Has the
person had a similar experiencebefore, or something else, super
stressful? What kind of supportsare available? Is there access
to health care and otherservices, and then a really big
factor in trauma risk is howmany healthy, supportive
(10:43):
relationships does the personhave in their life? Do they have
someone they can confide in,they can talk to, who will
support them? And then it alsodepends on underlying factors
such as, you know, historical orancestral trauma, systemic
oppression, racism, familyculture, cultural beliefs, and
just so many more.
Megan Kay (11:05):
I wanted to take a quick break to talk about the
Living with Fire Program. Maybeyou found this podcast and
you're wondering, what is theLiving with Fire Program? Well,
we've been around since 1997we're managed by the University
of Nevada Reno extension, andwe're really a collaborative
(11:26):
effort amongst federal, stateand local firefighting agencies
as well as resource managementagencies to help people adapt,
prepare and live more safelywith wildfire. So if you haven't
already, check out our website,livingwithfire.com where you'll
find all of our resources andtools that will help you live
more safely with wildfire. Okay,back to the show.
(11:47):
So I had some questions abouttrauma and children specifically
relating to wildfire, which iswhat our program is all about.
Could you explain how wildfirecan impact children and
(12:07):
potentially cause trauma?
Yasmeen Hossein (12:09):
Yeah, absolutely. And I will also
preface that it's not justchildren, right? I mean, adults,
we experience this overwhelmingstress response to fire as well.
We might, it shows updifferently in our lives. But so
I just want to get, yeah, justkind of to put it out there that
what I'm sharing with you, likeis both for children and adults.
(12:33):
So the topic of fire, wildfireis, is has a lot of potential to
activate our nervous system, toagain, create that overwhelming,
out of control feeling that wemight have. And the reason for
that is because of the magnitudeand the impact that it can have
(12:53):
on our lives. And that's a lotfor us to hold, a lot for us to
sit with it really, if you thinkabout it, really affects our
basic survival needs. You know,it can threaten our physical
safety, having shelter, whetherour house is safe or not.
Emotional safety can bethreatened because we might
experience loss, or, you know,grieving some the loss of
(13:15):
someone, or again, materialbelongings, and then, of course,
we might not have clean air tobreathe, access to food and
clean water. Nourishment mightbe interrupted because, you
know, the fire pathway might beacross a road, and so the road
is blocked, and trucks can't getto a grocery store, or we can't
get to the grocery store. Ofcourse, health concerns, you
(13:39):
know, such as asthma can beexacerbated with smoke heart
disease. So even if someonedoesn't have that direct
experience with wildfirethemselves, like so many of us
on the west coast have,unfortunately, even the smoke
from fires can impact us and andwe can, you know, have that
(14:01):
like, Oh no, what about myhealth? I'm breathing this
unhealthy air. Like, I'm sureall of you remember the bootleg
fire last summer in 2021 thesmoke from it blew all the way
across the US, and people in NewEngland had smoky skies and were
smelling the smoke and hadunhealthy air quality. So it it
(14:21):
really, it's just so the impactsare so wide reaching, and it
impacts all these very basicthings we need to survive. And
so that is why having thatoverwhelming, out of control
feeling is easily triggered whenit comes to wildfire and for
kids and again, especially hereon the West Coast, they might
(14:45):
have already have directexperience with a previous fire,
so they have that previousexperience of needing to
evacuate or just a threat of it.
They might have indirectexperience with fire, so they
might have heard families orfamily members or friends or
other community members havingto evacuate or losing their
house, news stories, socialmedia, of course, or they might
(15:07):
have experienced a similarcircumstance to fire. So this is
where if someone experiencedhouselessness or having some
kind of illness or physicalinjury that impacted health or
they lost material belongings,maybe because it was stolen, but
that's like that similar kind ofimpact that wildfire might have,
(15:31):
and so that could again haveoverlapping pictures and then
trigger that overwhelming stressresponse, or even just learning
about how wildfire can impact usand that it has the potential to
threaten our house and ourlivelihood, that could be really
overwhelming and stressful. Sostudents learning about it in
school, even if they have noprior experience with it, they
(15:54):
could still be experiencing thistrauma stress response. I just
want to point out that it'salways, we always wanted to
know, why, like, why are wefeeling this way? Why are we so
anxious, or, you know, feelingstressed and having these
responses? And that canobviously be helpful to know and
helpful for the future so we canput certain things into place,
(16:15):
so we don't, you know,experience it again. But with
kids, especially, it's it's lessimportant why that they're
having this reaction or thistrauma response, and it's so
much more important to have sometools and figure out, how can
you help them process thisstress and process this
heightened emotion that they'refeeling so really knowing about
(16:37):
and utilizing tools andstrategies and information to
help them balance their nervoussystem again and boost their
resilience. That's kind of whatI would like to encourage
everybody to like put yourenergy behind. Put your focus
on.
Megan Kay (16:54):
I was wondering if you could describe for us how
trauma can manifest inchildren's behaviors, so that
adults and caregivers, we canlook out for maybe some red
flags or signs that childrencould be in distress.
Yasmeen Hossein (17:10):
Trauma is such a unique experience, and it can
show up in so many differentways that I always I like to do
you know, let just give thatcaveat before I talk about how
it might impact children oradults as well, but there are.
So there's really no one formulaor a list of symptoms that would
(17:30):
apply to everyone, every time,in every circumstance. So that's
just my caveat. But you know,research over the years, of
course, has shown somecommonalities of ways that
trauma might show up. And sobefore I go into that, just want
to give a quick reminder thatthese, you know, some
experiences could be incombination, or only one and not
(17:55):
all the others, or a child mightexperience a totally new symptom
that is not listed here at all.
I like to group them into fourdifferent categories. So the
first one is physical symptoms.
How might that show up often? Itcould be some kind of a pain,
whether it's chronic headache orstomach ache or a body pain of
(18:16):
any kind, just feeling like thebody is physically not doing
great is feeling the pain. It'sfeeling the emotional pain, if
that makes sense for students,of course, lots of learning
disruptions. For example, theremight be some difficulty
concentrating memory, memoryretention or grasping new
(18:39):
information or new concepts thatcould be really hard and then
internally so the in theemotional inner world, students
or children might beexperiencing more anxiety than
usual, social withdrawal, lowself esteem or perfectionism or
emotional numbness that canhappen to depression, increased
(19:03):
sadness, fear, persistent worryover safety of self or others.
And then, if a child hasexperienced a fire directly, and
you know, their family is isfine, nobody was harmed, and
their house is fine, they mightalso experience what's called
survivors guilt, if people theyknow did lose their house or
(19:27):
somebody was physicallyimpacted, so that can lead to
feelings of guilt and anger. Andthen the last category is
externally. So as childrenengage with others in their
connections and theirrelationships, it could show up
as increased aggression ortantrums or any kind of
disruptive behavior, weakimpulse control, irritability,
(19:51):
engaging in more recklessbehavior than usual. And then,
for younger children, behaviorregression, so going back to
bed, wetting or thumb sucking orclinging to caretakers and not
being able to be separated andso on and again, these there's
so many more, as I keep saying.
Megan Kay (20:09):
And I think it probably goes without saying,
but maybe we should also mentionthat it seems like being patient
is a key part of this process,because even if you're talking
to kids in a trauma informedway. There's probably no road
map to getting them to wherethey need to be, right?
Yasmeen Hossein (20:28):
That is so true, so true. And also, and
this might happen more in aschool setting, but simply
telling students or asking themto change their behavior like,
you know, pay attention,concentrate in this lesson, or
or for parents, just saying,stop sucking your thumb, or
whatever it might be, simplyasking them to change their
(20:50):
behavior. That that doesn't workbecause the trauma response,
what it does in our in ourbrain, the brain science of it,
it literally cuts off access toour thinking brain, our rational
brain, so everything ishappening as an automated
response. We're not in controlover it. We're not like, Oh, now
(21:10):
I will be really angry. And sotuning into that is so
important. And again, instead oftelling, telling the children
what's what they're doing wrong,using some tools and strategies
to help them calm down, to helpthem balance their nervous
system. Again, that's that'skind of where the gold nugget is
(21:34):
in this work.
Megan Kay (21:44):
Hi there. Thanks again for listening. We hope
that you're enjoying ourinterview with Yasmeen Hossain
from Oregon State Universityabout the trauma informed
toolkit that she publishedearlier this year. Just wanted
to let you know that we're goingto include the toolkit in the
links in the show notes below,so after you listen to the
episode, don't forget to go intothe show notes, download the
(22:04):
toolkit and use it. We hope thatit's helpful. Okay, back to the
show.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (22:14):
I was just thinking maybe just we can help,
help the children emotionally,so that they're able to better
understand things mentally, isthat kind of what we're talking
about?
Yasmeen Hossein (22:28):
Yeah, that's, I think that is definitely one of
the great steps to do, and notas you know, sometimes I think
the misnomer is thinking, Oh,they're just children. They
don't need to know all theinformation or it would scare
them too much, or any otherreason why we don't feel
comfortable sharing informationwith children like we would with
(22:52):
an adult. But children are sointuitive and sensitive. They
pick up on things. They knowsomething is wrong, and if we
don't share with them, at least,you know, age appropriate
information, and loop them inand let them know what's wrong,
they might get that feeling ofnot having control, and then
that could lead toretraumatization, or a trauma
(23:14):
response, which is what we'retrying to avoid. So I think
looping kids in and again, doingit in an age appropriate way.
But I think you're right, Jamie,that is so important.
Megan Kay (23:27):
So now I wanted to pivot into some of those tools
you had mentioned and learnabout some ways that adults and
caregivers and educators cansupport children and talk about
wildfire in a trauma informedway.
Yasmeen Hossein (23:40):
Yes, I'm so glad you asked about that. So
there are a couple of strategiesthat could be applied to talking
about wildfire and also keepingin mind these strategies
translate so easily to any allkinds of other topics, all kinds
of other situations in life. Soif you're working with a student
(24:03):
or your your children, and youcome across any other kind of
emotionally difficult topics,feel free to apply these
strategies for that as well. Allright. So as I already
mentioned, I think again,modifying your language and how
much detail you give students, Imean children based on their
age, but I definitely recommendsharing information with
(24:26):
children, even even the veryyoung ones. Again, you might
really downscale how much youtell them and the language you
use, but definitely share withthem what is going on. So before
you have this talk, I alwaysrecommend to first take care of
(24:47):
yourself, put the oxygen mask onyourself, before you help
others. And this might look liketuning into your own nervous
system, regulating your ownnervous system, making sure that
youare coming from a place offeeling grounded, you know,
feeling balanced, feeling calm.
And some things I like to dowhen I know like, oh, I need to
(25:07):
quickly regulate my nervoussystem and I don't have a lot of
time. I like to do jumpingjacks. It activates the physical
body. I also do some breathingexercises, some deep breathing
exercises. And actually wouldlove to share one later with
everybody, maybe at the end, sowe can all end this podcast with
a regulated nervous system.
Megan Kay (25:31):
I think that's amazing. And yes, I definitely
think we should do that.
Yasmeen Hossein (25:34):
Great. You know, things like walking
barefoot in the yard, I like toeat chocolate or ask to have a
little pep talk with, well, withone of my friends or my husband,
really, anything that feels goodto you. So just to make sure,
before you have this talk withwith the child, that you're
(25:54):
feeling grounded and calm, andthen help the child do the same.
So you might do some thingstogether, you know, maybe you
first go for a walk out in thepark or in nature. You have some
play time. You give a healthysnack. You might do some
breathing exercises. If it'sappropriate, you might have a
little cuddle time. Obviously,probably not in an educational
(26:17):
setting, because you don't wantto have a potentially stressful
conversation if somebody'salready feeling a little bit
stressed out. And then the nextthing after that is, you know,
just share information with thekid about the fire situation,
you know what's going on, andask if they have any questions.
(26:39):
And if you don't know the answerto some of their questions. I
think you can just be honestabout it and say, Oh, I don't
know. Let's look it up together,or I'll look it up and then
I'll, you know, let you knowtomorrow what I find out,
something like that. And thenalways emphasize this is one of
the cornerstones of traumainformed care, but emphasize a
(27:01):
solutions focused approach and astrength based approach. So
focus on the solutions and thechild's own resilience. For
example, you might talk abouthow previously, how fires were
contained. You might talk aboutall the skills and tools that
firefighters have their uniqueknowledge and how many
(27:23):
firefighters are working tocontain the fire right now. You
can also talk about what is theschool or the community or your
own family doing in terms offire safety protocols. You know
you have your safety plan, a gobag, a meet up location. That's
all like showing the child like,yes, there this is happening,
(27:44):
and here's how we're going tokeep ourselves safe. Here is all
the things we have in in place.
And then again, emphasizing thatthe child themselves has
resiliency, because they'veovercome situations in the past
where they might have beenscared or anxious, and so
talking about that, like, howdid you do that in the past? You
know, when you felt X, Y and Z,and then asking, just ask. I'd
(28:08):
say, just ask. How are youfeeling about this? You know,
just invite, create space forthe child to share themselves
how they're feeling. Not just betalked at, but have it be a real
discussion, a real sharing. Andthen it's so important to
acknowledge, validate andnormalize any emotions that are
shared. I always say emotionsare always valid, because it's
(28:32):
it's our truth, it's how we'refeeling. There is no, this isn't
right. This isn't you know, thisis wrong, because, no, it's not
wrong, it's how I'm feeling. Sohopefully that helps everybody
feel good about validatingemotions always and normalizing
it. And so you might say thingslike, Oh, I also feel scared, or
I'm also anxious, or it makessense that you are feeling
(28:56):
again, whatever it might beangry right now, I can
understand why you're scared. Sothings like that can make such a
big difference, and thenafterwards, or maybe you
intersperse this, but giving thechild and yourself plenty of
opportunities to process whatcomes up, like process the
(29:19):
information from the talk,process the emotions that might
have come up. And I recommendthere's three main categories of
ways you might process the firstone, of course, is verbally. And
depending on the age of thechild, not all children have
access to all the language orfeel comfortable talking about
emotions, you know? And so thereare other ways you could do it
(29:43):
verbally. You could do thatemotional weather report check
in, you know, what's your what'syour weather report right now?
And it might be stormy or thesun is peeking through. So you
can use metaphor. But thenthere's also other things, like.
They can do some silentjournaling, some writing, and
then creative processing, Ithink, is huge. So drawing,
(30:05):
using art, using the body, youcan do some dancing around, or,
you know, go to the playground,anything like that. That brings
the body into it as well. Isreally important. Play hide and
seek, yeah, and then again,well, I already said it, but art
is huge, like visual art, justdrawing can be really, really
(30:26):
great at processing and theseemotions. You know, in an ideal
world, when we're experiencingheightened emotions, if we could
process it right away, then wedon't have the lasting effects
of it. It doesn't linger. So inan ideal world, if you have time
building in these processingopportunities right after you
talked to the child or after youboth watched a news story,
(30:50):
maybe, or something like that.
But even if you don't have timeright away, building time in
later or later on, the next dayor that week, is still going to
have a beneficial effect. Sodon't feel like if you couldn't
do it right away, there's nopoint in doing it anymore.
Megan Kay (31:14):
Wildfire is stressful and wildfire evacuations are
stressful. That's why the Livingwith Fire Program has created
our wildfire evacuationchecklist. It's a really simple
checklist to help you learn howto pack a go bag and prepare
your home and your family, evenyour pets, for wildfire
evacuation. I've included thechecklist in the links in the
(31:36):
show notes below, so be sure tocheck that out, and you can also
find it at our website atlivingwithfire.com, now back to
the show.
So you mentioned resilience.
What is resilience?
Yasmeen Hossein (31:53):
So trauma resilience is the ability of
again, a child or adult appliesto both to cope, process and
adapt to a traumatic event orcircumstance. And the goal of
trauma resilience is to helppeople who are experiencing this
heightened stress response or anadverse situation to either stay
(32:17):
regulated, stay balanced, orbring their nervous system back
into balance in a very shortperiod of time with minimal
distress, and having it notreally affect day to day living.
And so I want to emphasize it'simportant to know that having
that having a trauma response,such as fight, flight, freeze or
(32:38):
fawn, that's how we survive. Imean, if we see a bear and we
can have the trauma responserun, that's fantastic. That
might mean we get to live andwe're not eaten by the bear. So
it's totally normal toexperience it when it when it
starts impacting our day to dayliving, and it lasts a very long
(32:58):
time, and, yeah, it just impactsour normal life. That's when we
might want to look at it furtherand do some of the processing
and trauma informed care andhelping our then we know we need
to help our nervous system comeback into balance, into
equilibrium. So traumaresilience specifically informs
(33:20):
how long that you're going toexperience this stress response,
and what areas of your life areaffected, and then the level to
which your daily functioning isaffected. And so for example,
for a student's response to atraumatic experience, it might
affect school performance for afew days, or it might affect
(33:41):
school performance for months oreven years, or it might be just
school performance, or it mightalso be their sleep cycle and
their relationships with theirsiblings, or something like
that. So as a very general ruleof thumb, the faster someone
bounces back and resumes dailyfunctioning and engages in
healthy coping mechanisms, thehigher the person's trauma
(34:03):
resilience is. And I also wantto point out that resilience,
it's not an either or. It's notlike either I'm resilient or I'm
not. It exists on a spectrum.
And again, we all have a certaindegree of resilience. It's just,
it's our birthright, and soit's, just, how can we move the
needle, you know, to thespectrum, to the other side,
(34:24):
where we have some moreresilience? So I touched on this
before briefly, but the risk andprotective factors, or
resilience factors, that's kindof what trauma resilience hinges
on, and even to what degreesomeone might experience a
trauma response or overwhelmingstress response. And so earlier,
(34:44):
I mentioned some of the riskfactors, such as, you know,
having underlying, underlyingsituations, oppression,
historical or marginalization,things like that. But now I want
to talk about the protective orthe resilience factors, so they
foster stability and thrivingand independence and safety, and
(35:09):
then the risk factors is, youknow, deteriorates that feeling
of security and the ability tothrive and have control over
life choices. So some examplesof protective factors that I
think might this might be easyor not easy, but it's accessible
for adults to implement andfoster with with children. I
(35:32):
nothing. None of this is nothingis easy. I just want to say that
that is definitely true.
Everything takes work, but onething is practice coping skills.
So even when the child is notstressed out, practice coping
skills and and build it into adaily routine. So whether that
(35:55):
is having like doing a littlebit of art at the end of the
day, or having a regular eatingschedule, or regular bedtime
things like that, routine andcoping skills, and then that way
or go, you know, run around orscream into a pillow when you
(36:17):
feel angry. But that way, whensomething super stressful
happens. They're easier to reachfor because we've already
practiced it. And then the otherthing I already talked about a
little bit is practice thatstrength, strength based mindset
and solutions based approach tochallenges. So always focus on
what's going well. I found inour society, or at least me, if
(36:40):
I see that someone's not doingwell, I'll come over and say,
what's wrong. But when do we askeach other, what's right? What's
what's good, what's right? Likewe rarely start a conversation
with that, but that's how we canstart building in and shifting
our mindset to that strengthbased approach, and that's
something you can start doingwith kids now, just focus on on
(37:02):
what they're good at, what arethey talented in? What can they
do? And then as to the extentpossible, having a stable
routine, a stable family homeenvironment, can be very
important. I know it's notalways possible. People are
facing all kinds ofcircumstances, but things that
we that you might be able to dois again, having that regular
(37:25):
routine. You know, at 7am we eatbreakfast. At 10pm we go to bed,
whatever that might be, having,maybe family dinners on Sundays,
or going on a field trip, goingto the park, things like that.
But having it be regular andstable is really important, and
that counteracts that feeling ofnot having control, right? So if
(37:48):
there's something that childrencan count on every Sunday, we do
this that is in their control,and it gives them that framework
and the grounding. Now, onething I haven't talked about a
whole lot yet, is having healthyrelationships and social
connections, that, again, iskind of one of the keys to
trauma resilience. The researchhas shown that for kids who have
(38:13):
even just one healthy, trustingrelationship with an adult, it
makes a huge, huge difference inhow trauma shows up in their
life. So that adult could be,you know, it could be a teacher,
it could be a neighbor, it couldbe the librarian, it could be a
parent, it could be a familymember, grandparent, but having
(38:36):
someone who they know sees theirstrengths, supports them, that
they can talk to, they can goand process verbally anyway, if
not in many other ways. And sofostering those connections for
your child maybe you, and itdoesn't even have to only be an
adult. All like the wider oursocial network is, the better,
(38:58):
as long as it's healthy trustingrelationships. So you might
foster more play dates orparticipate in community events,
especially for children, andthen for yourself, it's so
important right to take care ofyourself and so make sure you
have those healthy, supportiverelationships in your life,
whether again, it is family or apartner or friends or a
(39:23):
professional. I think, I thinkit takes, I know it takes
courage to break through thestigma of seeking help, seeking
help of a mental healthprofessional, but I think it's
so incredibly worthy, worth it.
It makes such a difference, andI applaud anyone who does it, so
don't, don't let that stop youfrom reaching out. That's what
(39:45):
they're there for.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (39:50):
I really, really like Yasmeen, you
bringing up about the the stablehome environment, and I'm going
to kind of give a little likepeek into my life. Life. So I
have a precocious five year oldat home and and every night at
dinner, we ask everybody in thefamily. We even ask our dog
this, what is one struggle andwhat good thing that happened
(40:13):
that day, and it has reallyopened up our it's deepened our
relationships and help usunderstand how her date went.
And then we laugh about, youknow, our dog struggle and the
good thing, like he went on awalk today, or he was excited
because I work from home and Iwas with him the whole day, or
(40:34):
something like that. But Ireally love everything that
you're talking about so, sothank you.
Yasmeen Hossein (40:41):
Oh, I love that so much, Jamie, and especially
that you're including the dogand also your it seems like
you're modeling for your fiveyear old that it's okay and
normal to not always have afantastic day. And that is so,
so important to normalize havinghard days or having things
happen that don't feel fantasticor are uncomfortable and that's
(41:05):
okay, that's fantastic. I justlove that.
Spencer Houston (41:08):
One question I had in listening to some of the
suggestions of activities likeparents could do with their
their child or or educatorscould do with children to help
them be more resilient was us atLiving with Fire and all of us
think about wildfire year round,all the time, and have many
(41:30):
things that we encourage peopleto do. If you had thoughts of
like, when would it beappropriate to, say, involve
your child in kind of defensiblespace around your house? Whether
you're you're raking leaves. Arethere ways that you could, you
could do that in a way thatwould or ways you could do that
to focus and help build some ofthis trauma resilience?
Yasmeen Hossein (41:52):
Yeah, I love that. Spencer. I think
involving, involving the kids inthat preparation, right in in
the plan, the Community Plan,the state plan of keeping home
safe, having that defensiblespace is fantastic. And of
course, I think it depends onthe age of the children. Like
(42:14):
for little ones, you wouldn'twant to do that with them every
single day. That might get a bitmuch, but but involve them
absolutely. They can be outthere picking up some leaves, or
even be out there playing in theyard as you're doing it, and
then you can talk to them aboutit. You can say why you're
raking leaves. And even that, inand of itself, might be enough
(42:34):
older kids, of course, highschool age kids, or middle
middle school, they might, youmight be able to involve them a
little bit more even, and askfor their help and let them know
that their participation is isvalued, that you know their
contribution is needed, whichthat always helps for self
(42:54):
esteem and feeling like you're apart of the family, part of the
community, And, of course,packing the go bags, I think
that all children might want tobe involved in, and even though
it can be really scary, butreally thinking through, what
would I want like, what, whatcan I not live with that? What
do I need to pack in my go bag?
And that could open up a wholedifferent conversation about
(43:18):
material things and the value weassigned to them. And in the
end, what do we really need tofeel happy and joyful and have
what we need? And so again, thatwe don't have time to get into
that, but that could be a wholeother talk that we could have.
Megan Kay (43:40):
Yes, you have definitely given me some
inspiration for the future. I'mgoing to think about that. But
yeah, it seems like having kidsinvolved in packing their go
bags would add to, you know,give them a sense of security
and control in such a stressful situation.
Yasmeen Hossein (43:57):
Yeah, that's so, so true. I know a friend of
mine was saying that she waspacking her go bag, and she has,
well, middle school and highschool aged kids, and she didn't
ask them to participate. Shejust wanted that, you know, the
basics, the flashlight and thefood and water. But her middle
school daughter, aged daughter,saw her doing it and asked her
(44:19):
about it, and then all on herown, went upstairs and packed
her own go bag, because shewanted that control. She wanted
to feel like she's in control ofher own well being and safety
and if they have to evacuate,she wants to know that she
packed what she needed.
Megan Kay (44:35):
And this has been such a great conversation. But
before we wrap up, I just wantedto ask in addition to the
toolkit, if there are any otherresources that you would like to
recommend to adults andeducators who are interested in
supporting children and talkingabout things in a trauma
informed way.
Yasmeen Hossein (44:54):
Oh, there's so many, and so many good ones. I
feel like there's even nowthere's resources. Popping up
left and right, and the toolkitdoes have a resource page with
links and recommendations. Andso I would kind of direct you
there again. But I know thereare children's books for all
(45:14):
ages now that kind of go overwhat fire is, and somebody
surviving, you know, the threatof fire, and so that could be a
really important way to a toolto use to talk to kids about
fire. There's so many excellentwebsites and resources online
and and for educators who areinterested, the toolkit, because
(45:39):
it's so word heavy and and long,I am offering a complimentary
workshop to go along with it,and I'll offer it probably twice
a year, every single year, andthe workshop is the application
piece. So we could do some roleplaying. We can do, you know,
discussion, talk throughpractice, some of the tools and
strategies. So that's kind ofthe hands on piece, and for I'm
(46:04):
sure, other organizations areoffering those kinds of hands on
practice sessions as well. Ithink that could be really
useful too.
Megan Kay (46:14):
Thank you again to Yasmeen for coming on the
podcast to talk about the traumainformed toolkit. We are so
grateful for the discussion, andwe hope that everyone listening
goes to the show notes, clicksthe link and downloads the
toolkit and uses it. Now, we'dlike to share with you a little
bonus content earlier on thepodcast, Yasmeen mentioned a
(46:36):
simple breathing exercise thatshe likes to do and that anyone
can do that will help regulateyour nervous system if you're
experiencing stress, we recordedthat, and we're going to play it
for you now. We hope you enjoyit. We hope it helps, and thank
you for listening.
Yasmeen Hossein (46:57):
Okay, so I just want to talk very briefly about
breathing and breath and why Imentioned it a lot like, oh,
take a deep breath. Why that isuseful in times of high stress,
but also in building ourresilience. And there's so many
different breathing techniques,but I'll share a very simple one
(47:18):
with you today that you could doin the car or walking to work or
doing dishes, whatever thatmight be. So deep breathing,
what it does for our nervoussystem is it really helps
balance it and kind ofmanipulating our breath
consciously, because we'rebreathing all the time, right?
(47:40):
And we're stressed too whilewe're breathing so so simply
breathing, our autonomicresponse of breathing, that's
not what I'm talking about. I'mtalking about consciously
breathing and really mindfullybreathing, and that can really
impact our body stress response.
So when we inhale naturally, itstimulates our sympathetic
(48:01):
nervous system, and that is ournervous system that helps us act
in times of stress. So that'swhat activates the fight,
flight, freeze or fawn mode. Sothat's our survival response.
And then when we exhale, weactivate and stimulate the
parasympathetic nervous system,which controls rest, digest,
(48:21):
restore and brings us back intothat regulated state. So in an
ideal world, if we're breathingconsciously and our inhale and
exhale is equally as long, wewould remain in that balanced
state forever. But what happenswhen we get stressed is
oftentimes we shorten ourbreath, you know, we breathe
(48:42):
shallow, and then that's whenthings get wonky. And so if it's
available to us, and if we, youknow, have control over our
breath in that moment, what wecan do is to consciously make
our exhale longer than ourinhale, so that we're
overstimulating ourparasympathetic nervous system
(49:03):
and telling our sympatheticnervous system pipe down. We
don't. We don't need you to besuper active right now. Yeah,
and so, so I would like toinvite you to join me. We'll in
just doing a couple of rounds ofa breath where you make your
exhale longer than your inhale.
(49:26):
And I can count for us. Ifanyone would like to join me for
this, I will count for theinhale to three and then exhale
to five. And I just want toinvite you to adjust and modify
these counts and the breath tosuit whatever your needs are
today, make it work for you soyou could you might want to
(49:48):
inhale to the count of two andexhale to the count of four, or
again, anything that works foryou. This is meant for you to
feel good and not to feelstressed out by this. Or like,
oh. I can't hold my breathanymore. Okay? Everybody ready?
So I invite you to get into acomfortable position. If you can
(50:09):
uncross your legs and arms,that's always a good practice,
just so that the breath and theenergy can flow through you. And
I will count to three. So Iinvite everybody to take a deep
inhalation. One two three andexhalation. One two three four
(50:30):
five and one more time inhale,One two three and exhale. One
two three four five and lasttime, and I won't say anything
this time, you do it in your owntime. Excellent. And whenever
(50:56):
you would like, I invite you tocontinue doing this breath or
use it whenever you need it intimes of stress, but also
practice it when you're notstressed, so that it just
becomes like second nature toyou, a tool that you reach for
when you need it.
Megan Kay (51:18):
Thank you for listening to the Living with
Fire Podcast. You can find morestories and resources about
wildfire at our website,livingwithfire.com the Living
with Fire Program is funded bythe Bureau of Land Management,
the Nevada Division of Forestryand the US Forest Service, and
were managed by the Universityof Nevada, Reno extension, an
equal opportunity institution.
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