Trauma & Transformation

In this episode, Dr. Sally Adnams Jones and Dr. Jen Peer Rich explore the relationship between trauma and Transformation. 

0:18 Sally says both she and Jen came to studies of transformation because of trauma in their lives, and needed to figure out how to heal it. They both learned as much as they could. Both are here to help alleviate people's suffering. Episode 14 will be about turning the trauma wound into the gift. Episode 13 focuses on a couple of definitions, including Adverse Childhood Experiences, (ACE’s), how adults carry that trauma, and how to heal trauma. Their ideas are drawn from experts like Gabor Mate, Peter Levine, Steven Porges, and Bessel van der Kolk. One of the definitions of trauma is an injury to the nervous system, either from chronic exposure over time, or from a sudden, dramatic incident. If it's early chronic exposure, trauma can affect brain development, as well as the nervous system. If it happens as an adult, you've probably already done a major part of your brain development, but trauma can still damage memory, and also how we experience time. The limbic system, or the emotions, can be split off from the prefrontal cortex, in other words, from our thinking. And so trauma can block transformation, and prevent us over time, from reaching our full potential. We may have some distorted parts to our nervous system, and feeling, thinking and relationships can be negatively affected. Some self development teachers are not interested in your past or your story, and suggest just opening to the present moment. Some people can do that, but most people cannot, because the injury to the nervous system will prevent them from being present. Some gurus continue to act out from shadow that they refuse to look at and that's dangerous. The prefrontal cortex can continue to be brilliant, while the limbic system has an injury. Sally then takes a deeper dive into the ACE’S. She describes these, and explains how they prevent us from being in the present moment, and the long term effects of that. 

16:48 Jen agrees that trauma is an injury to the nervous system. Trauma impedes transformation. Episode 12 talked about what prohibits transformation. And episode 13 goes deeper into one impediment to transformation. It can alter brain development and neuro-chemistry. The good news is that we can also reverse a lot of that damage, and heal ourselves. The podcast takes a developmental view. If you can identify where you're at, on a developmental trajectory through your healing, you can identify the strategies and supports that you need. Thinkers, writers and researchers on trauma believe that the root of the wounding caused by trauma is the loss of safety. Jen discusses how that happens in childhood, and how many of us experience negative behaviours later in life because of that childhood loss of safety. There's a fractal relationship between our inner world and our outer world. She cites Bessel Van der Kolk. She suggests body based techniques to help you feel what's happening in the body, so its a deep inside job.