August 5, 2024 • 26 mins
Laura Renner is a nurse-turned-author who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2021, which only added to her list of major health scares over the previous five years. This prompted her to dig deeper into her past and led to the realization that she had complex post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from childhood.
She spent the next year and half exploring all the trauma healing modalities she could find to heal her mind and body. Laura details this experience in her book, "No, I'm Not Fine. Thank You." where she discusses her journey of identifying her traumas, healing deep wounds, and how she reclaimed her power.
Check out her website to learn more about her book and to check out resources: Website: https://www.laurarenner.me/
Laura's book: No, I'm Not Fine : https://amzn.to/4fl7sR4
Connect with Laura:
https://www.instagram.com/laura_renn/
https://www.tiktok.com/@laura_renn
Join our supportive Facebook group community:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthrivedream
Connect with me:
Gmail: healthrivedream@gmail.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthrivedream_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthrivedream
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@traumarecoveryexpert
Twitter: https://twitter.com/healthrivedream
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenrobinson2022/
Website: https://www.healthrivedream.com/
Podcast: http://healthrivedreampodcast.com/abuse
Loved this episode? Leave us a comment below.
She spent the next year and half exploring all the trauma healing modalities she could find to heal her mind and body. Laura details this experience in her book, "No, I'm Not Fine. Thank You." where she discusses her journey of identifying her traumas, healing deep wounds, and how she reclaimed her power.
Check out her website to learn more about her book and to check out resources: Website: https://www.laurarenner.me/
Laura's book: No, I'm Not Fine : https://amzn.to/4fl7sR4
Connect with Laura:
https://www.instagram.com/laura_renn/
https://www.tiktok.com/@laura_renn
Join our supportive Facebook group community:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthrivedream
Connect with me:
Gmail: healthrivedream@gmail.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthrivedream_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthrivedream
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@traumarecoveryexpert
Twitter: https://twitter.com/healthrivedream
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenrobinson2022/
Website: https://www.healthrivedream.com/
Podcast: http://healthrivedreampodcast.com/abuse
Loved this episode? Leave us a comment below.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Heal Thrived Dream podcast, where trauma survivors
become healthy thrivers. Each month will feature a theme in
the trauma recovery and empowerment field to promote your recovery,
healing and learning how to build dreams. Here's your host,
Karen Robinson, transformational coach and therapist.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, Welcome to the Heal Thrived Dream Podcast. Today, our
guest is Laura Runner. Laura is a nurse who's now
an author. She suffered a TBI, a traumatic brain injury,
in twenty twenty one, which added to her list of
major health scares from the past five years. This prompted
(00:49):
her to dig deeper into her past and led to
the realization that she has complex post traumatic stress disorder
resulting from childhood. She spent the next year and a
half exploring all the trauma healing modablities she could find
to heal her mind and body. Laura details this experience
(01:10):
and her book No I'm Not Fine, Thank You, where
she discusses her journey of identifying her traumas, healing deep wounds,
and how she reclaimed her power. So, Laura, thank you
for being with us today. Oh, and you're frozen can
(01:35):
you hear me, Laura?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Okay, So thank you for being here today. Yeah, thank you.
I'm very, very excited to chat with you today. Awesome.
Anything about your bio that you want to expound upon
that maybe I didn't mention.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Sure, So I was a neonatal intensive care unit nurse
for nine years, so ironically someone involved in healthcare who
unfortunately had to experience a lot of the bad side
effects of health care. And really starting in twenty seventeen
is when kind of everything broke down in my body
(02:13):
and with my health, but I really didn't recognize it.
I just kept thinking, Oh, this is just a freak
accident or these things happen, and never really looked inward
until the traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
That's really what forced me.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
To really just look inside myself, why do these things
keep happening with my body? And that's how I was
able to identify and get really deep into trauma healing
and realize just how much trauma I experienced as a
kid as an adult, and just how much those traumatic
events really shaped most of my life, starting as a
(02:47):
young kid through Now.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, what about your story your childhood? Are you willing
to share with us today, which everything.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I detail a lot of in my book as well.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
But really I had a lot of significant events that
started at a really young age. And the interesting thing
with complex trauma is it can be a lot of
building on events that maybe seemingly at the time were
not traumatic. For instance, I broke my leg when I
was two, I fell out of a treat or when
I was three, excuse me. And also I was bit
(03:23):
by I had multiple dog attacks before the age of five,
Just little things like that that don't really seem to
be traumatic or someone would just think, oh, that's an
unfortunate event.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
But then around.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Age five, I suffered some sexual abuse from a distant
family member, and at age seven I almost drowned in
a river. And so basically all of these events just
created this deep level of lack of safety in my body,
and lack of safety with pretty much anyone, caregivers, parental figures, everyone,
(04:02):
and that just kind of perpetuated itself over time, leading
to very intense anxiety. Pretty much I lived in a
constant state of fight or flight or hyperactivated sympathetic nervous
system because my body just never felt that it could
kind of cool off and take down, being off the
high alert that kind of place, and so I pretty
(04:23):
much just lived constantly with very high anxiety, a lot
of issues with shame and self worth, just constantly being
worried that I'm making a mistake or the need to
be perfect and things like that, and that just kind
of built over time and really just bled into every
facet of my adult life, with my career, with my relationships,
(04:45):
and then ultimately kept leading to more breakdown in my
body because we're not supposed to live in a constant
state of hyperactive nervous system, and my body could just
never really keep up with the demands that I was
unintentionally putting it. And through a lot of very deep,
deep reflecting, deep mindset shifting, and many many many hours
(05:10):
of therapy, I have been able to really identify that
and learn how to create more levels of safety in
my body. And that's manifested as health and decreased anxiety
and actual happiness in my life and things that I
didn't realize that I wasn't actually experienced, but experiencing that
I thought I was at the time.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Wow, that sounds like a lot, yeah, yeah, And you
know that's the interesting thing, is it didn't feel like that.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
I really glorified a lot of my childhood years. A
lot of these things I either forgot about or just thought, oh, well,
that's a normal part of growing up.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know, bad things happen.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
But looking back, there really were a lot of pivotal
moments that really shaped truly everything about who I became
as an adult and everything about my childhood. And I
know that that can sound kind of dramatic, but really
it did. And I've been able to pinpoint a lot
of these even I mean these more intense traumatic moments,
(06:09):
but also even just single moments of feeling ashamed by
an adult figure or things like that that kind of
train your brain because our brains are so still deep
into primitive survival mechanisms where we just constantly are on
an unconscious level, trying to fit in because that's how
(06:29):
you know, cave men survived things like that, and so
our brains are still wired to focus on the negative
and to remember basically whatever it can to keep you
fitting in so that you survive. But which no longer
is that the case for the most part. Now it's
mostly emotional fears and things like that, but those still
(06:51):
hold the same weight in your brain. And so just
little moments like that can really have such a strong
impact and shape a lot of different directions for how
your life goes and how you think about yourself and
how you act and behavior and whatnot. And so it's
it's kind of crazy when you think about it from
that perspective, but yeah, single moments in time like that
(07:11):
can have huge impacts on a lot of areas of
your life.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Right, And did you say you're no longer a nurse.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I'm no longer a nurse. Yes, So I recognized after
the traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I mean, frankly, I was doing pretty well in the
scheme of how bad it could have been.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
So but still I was struggling. I couldn't really do math,
I was having trouble with speech. I was having constant
physical symptoms, migraines, just complete fatigue, exhaustion, couldn't really stay
awake for more than a couple hours a day, and
just really struggling. And when I tried to go back
to nursing, even in a limited capacity, it really kind
(07:52):
of opened up my eyes to how unhealthy I was
in that environment. I constantly was working over time, I
never took I did whatever I could to help my
coworkers at my own expense and at my patient's expense.
And I was just running on fumes for pretty much
nine years, constantly, especially during the COVID ages, and I
(08:13):
realized that I don't think I'm able to be healthy
in this kind of environment. I don't think I'm able
to set the boundaries that I need to for myself
to be a healthy employee and just be a healthy person.
And I decided to walk away from nursing. And it
was terrifying and sad in a lot of ways, but really,
(08:34):
as I've stepped back, it's really exposed just how unhealthy
I was in that environment. And not to say that
all nurses are, many aren't. I could see behaviors in
myself that were very different from my coworkers that were
just doing myself a disservice with my health, with my life,
with my life outside of work, I pretty much had
no work life balance, and so I stepped away, and
(08:58):
that's when I started writing, And frankly, it's one of
the best decisions I've made. As much as I love
being a nurse's, this is definitely more of a path
for me that's aligned with a healthy lifestyle what I
want to do with my time and the rest of
my life.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, so what are you doing other than writing? Are
you doing any other work like coaching courses? Sorry now
about what you do?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Oh sure?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
So right now, I'm still I'm a lifelong learner. I
love learning, and so I've been constantly taking personal development courses.
But also I've been doing a lot of nervous system regulation,
a lot of courses around gut health, stress, physiology, things
of that nature. So I'm still kind of in the
knowledge building phase and just kind of seeing where that
(09:49):
takes me, doing a lot of stuff with my book
and really just trying to get it out there. So
I just published my book in June, so it's still
pretty fresh, So working on a lot of things around that.
But yeah, like I said, just right now, it's a
lot of learning and kind of developing that framework to
eventually hopefully do some teaching.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I love teaching. I did that a lot in the
hospital and just kind of seeing, yeah, where that takes me,
just kind of for the first time in my life. Actually,
it's crazy to say that.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
It's not terrifying that I don't have a plan and
I don't know where I'm going, but I'm just seeing
where everything falls into place and what feels best, and
I'm loving it. And there's still a couple a couple
occasional moments where I get a little anxious when I
think about that, but I'm also able to reframe it
and recognize that I'm really fortunate to be in this
position and that has showed tremendous growth from where I
(10:37):
was before.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It sounds like you feel hopeful with what will happen next.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Very yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, it's exciting to think that I don't really know
where I'm going, and that's okay. I think that's something
that societally we're told you should not do, and that's
frankly part of what led me to nursing. Nursing was
a very objective, logical career where I could just go
to school to become a nurse, and then I become
a nurse and I work as a nurse, and I
(11:04):
can do that for life and I can just settle
into that world.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
But now it's it's actually pretty cool to think that
I can just kind of figure it out as I
go and go from there.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Okay, so let's see where should we go next? I
kind of think I want to know more about your
healing journey, like what modalities seem to help you the most.
Like everybody has a preferred way of being in therapy,
whether it's talk therapy or more structure like EMDR or
(11:44):
cognity processing therapy. Do you have favorites?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
So, I actually therapy was not new to me. I
was a child of therapy and it never really clicked.
I think I was never really especially as a teenager,
I wasn't able to fully be vulnerable.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I was still afraid of being shamed, and I wasn't
I just kept those walls up, so it wasn't very effective.
And I continued therapy often on as an adult, just
kind of more traditional.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Talk therapy and saw some.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Benefits but not really tons of growth. And then the
first therapy that I started exploring was sematic experiencing.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And that was.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Really paramount in my trauma healing journey. So sematic experiencing,
for those who don't know, it is essentially it's almost
like body psychotherapy, where you have your body basically holds
onto trauma and kind of stuck phases of acute stress,
and so stematic experiencing allows you to help resolve and
(12:50):
release those you know, patterns and states of stress from
you know, even holding on to potentially for your entire life,
which was the case for me. There's been research about
that since the seventies, and that that was what I
was most drawn to first. And I think a lot
of that is also because you don't necessarily have to
completely relive all of the experiences. And for me, I had,
(13:15):
I mean, for my entire adult life pretty much so
much tension in my body. I you know, clench my
jaw in my sleep, My muscles are always tight. I
would always be in a lot of pain, and I
was looking to release that pain. And through somatic experiencing,
I was able to realize just how many events that
my body was holding on to, which was really interesting
(13:36):
and it was It's something that.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I wasn't really ready for the amount of.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Healing that was going to come from it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
It really set me just down the path of Wow,
I have so much.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
More trauma than I thought I did.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
I thought that it was just these you know, a
couple experiences, but my body's been holding on to this
lack of safety and constant state of feel for the
entirety of my life, so that would be the one
that really has that set me in motion for trauma healing.
I loved EMDR as well. Through MDR, I was able
to identify a lot of single moments in time that
(14:14):
kind of were the catalyst to feelings and beliefs I
had about myself. Like for me, I had a lot
of worthlessness, a lot of shaming, a lot of just
constantly being overly critical of myself, And through MDR I
was able to kind of pinpoint a lot of oh,
this was kind of that root cause for where I
(14:35):
started thinking that, which by getting to those root causes
kind of enabled me to resolve them and heal them.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Other therapies that I loved, I really like.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Cremio sacral therapy, which is kind of another type of
somatic therapy where you don't have to necessarily relive the processes.
That's it has similar similar mechanism, I guess essentially to
smatic experiencing, but it's a little bit more of showing
your body how to regulate itself and kind of releasing
those kind of stuck areas of trauma.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
For me, a lot of.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
It was I completely dissociated from my body in so
many ways, I just couldn't really feel a lot of
my body, and that's you know, kind of a survival
mechanism from dealing with a lot of trauma, and so
craniosacle therapy allowed me to really connect more to my
body and be able to listen to it as opposed
to just going a million miles an hour based on
(15:31):
what my brain thought I should do. I also neurofeedback
therapy was really significant for me, and that's another one
where it's not necessarily about reliving. When neuro feedback they use,
it's paintless. They put electrodes on your scalp and measure
your brain activity, and basically it helps you rewire your
(15:55):
brain and teaches through like auditoriy or visual cues your
brain how to have more I say in quotations normal
but healthier I guess brain activity and brain waves and
things like that. So it can help with anxiety, can
help with trauma, depression, all kinds of things. Was very
also helpful from healing for my traumatic brain injury and
(16:16):
just kind of reregulating my brain in that way. But
it's wild how many therapies there are, and I think
that can be yeah, and it can be very overwhelming,
and for me, I just kept thinking, Oh my gosh,
where do I start?
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Where do I start?
Speaker 4 (16:31):
And I think I would suggest for other people if
they're interested in exploring really any type of trauma therapy,
it starts with kind of just doing your own online
research or books or just looking into what's out there
and what sounds best. Because for me, sematic experience, somatic
experiencing I think was the best type of therapy for
(16:52):
me to do at that time.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
That's what I was ready for.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
When I did hypno therapy and emd ARE, those were
much further down the road, and those were kind of
hitting more specific moments in time that I don't know
if I would have been ready to go that deep
in those in those early phases. So, yeah, it can
be very overwhelming to figure out where to go, especially initially,
(17:15):
but thankfully there's so many resources online, lots of free
resources as well to kind of figure out what's the
best path to go. Yeah, thank you for saying that
it can be overwhelming. Yeah, it sounds like you got
lucky with where you started though, at the FC therapy.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Fortunately have found a lot of really good therapists, especially
over the last year and a half. I also have
experienced some that didn't quite work out for me, and
I think that's also another challenge with any type of
therapy is you have to find the right practitioner therapist
for you, especially at that time, who can be most
supportive for your journey. I had a couple therapists that
(17:59):
a little too early, I guess in my path that
we just it just didn't align, we didn't jive, and
they kind of pushed me to places that were a
little too fast for my comfort level and ended up
causing me to kind of regress and have to take
pauses from therapy because I would just get so overwhelmed
(18:20):
and so just filled with fear and anxiety and shame
that it just kind of put everything on hold. So
I think finding a right therapist is also a big,
very important piece as well.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, and it's important what you're saying too about not pushing.
So I know when I was a young therapist, I
was like, let's get to work, absolutely pushing. But as
I got more training and wisdom and experience, my approach
(18:53):
has definitely changed a lot over the years.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, and I think I mean the therapists you pushed
me too, fast. It's all well intentioned. It's you know,
no one's trying to hurt you. But I read about
my book my specific incident of working with a hypnotherapist too,
that's when I uncovered the repressed memory of being.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Sexually abused, and I basically just went into.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
A complete acute stress panic state, And instead of attempting
to calm me down or reassure me that I'm safe,
she kept pushing me to dig deeper into memories and
I just completely shut down, and frankly, it broke me.
It was it was just such a terrifying experience to
(19:41):
relive and recover, I guess. But also when you think
you have someone in your corner who's going to help
guide you and keep you safe and they don't, and
it has the opposite effects, it can be really scary too.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
So that's one of the challenges.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I mean, it's also at the time, I I wish
that I had stood up for myself more and advocated
for myself better in that situation. I just kind of
shut down and panicked because I was so overwhelmed and
didn't know what to do. And I never really spoke
up and said I don't want to do this, I
feel pushed and or said no. Frankly, I didn't do that,
(20:18):
and it ended up causing me to spiral for a
good week. And thankfully at the time I was working
with a Jacomi therapist who does AMDR and somatic therapy
and we were able to process it, and that was huge.
I mean, if I hadn't had that experience with her
and had her in my corner at that time, I
(20:40):
think it would have been a much more difficult process
to really get through.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah. I had experience with the client that was pushed
too hard and prolonged exposure therapy. She ended up being hospitalized,
which isn't what's normal, but trauma is not normal, and
we don't know. It's just not a good idea to
push people. We had to really listen to to teach
(21:09):
clients to listen to themselves, and we have to listen
to ourselves and we know when it's right. Yeah, And
I wouldn't recommend beating yourself up anymore about not advocating
for yourself because you were there to get help, not
to advocate for it to be a safe experience, Like right,
(21:30):
you didn't go into it knowing that it would become unsafe.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, no, you're You're absolutely right. And
it's really just that experience. It just showed how trauma
can completely overwhelm your nervousness to your brain, your body,
where you just are not even really capable of reacting.
I mean, I was in such an acute state that
(21:54):
I wasn't able to really form sentences. I was struggling
to breathe. I was just fully panicking, didn't know what
to do, didn't know what to say, and just had
to remove myself. That was the only thing that I
could do at that time because it just elicited such
an extreme response to me. But on the other end,
(22:14):
I have had so many other therapists that when I've
had these heightened responses, they have had really really helpful, safe,
empowering responses to help me work through it and sometimes
to just say we need to pause and that's okay.
And it's a lot of just kind of being able
(22:35):
to feel supported and especially for me when I would
get into those really heightened states, learning how to bring
myself out of it through the help of someone else,
but also through myself. And that's why I also really
love nervous system regulation and deep breathing and really have
kind of gotten obsessed with stress physiology because your body
(22:56):
is just naturally reacting. My body doesn't know that this
is a past experience that happened that's an emotional trigger.
My body thinks that there's an emergency happening right now. Yeah,
And so learning how to especially deep breathing, is such
a great way to do that because I mean, it
essentially activates your parasympathetic nervous system because if you're deep breathing,
(23:16):
it tells your brain this is not an emergency and
it's okay to slow down, and that can kind of
help start those processes in your body to help you
feel better. And that's something that I utilize often. It's
very helpful for me.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
But yeah, very good. I'm glad.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Now for anyone listening that wants to connect with you
in some way to talk about your book or just
talk more about what's been helpful in your healing journey.
What's the best way, Like, do you have a website
social media presence?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I do so.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
My website is my first and last name Laura Renner
dot me. And through my website you can check out
more in from about my book my book Essentially, it
just completely outlines my experience from starting with kind of
my brain injury and my health problem since twenty seventeen,
and how that led me through all of the trauma
(24:11):
healing therapies that I explored, but also through all of
the big mindset shifts and revelations that I had in
the process, some good, some bad. But it's intended to
be a really relatable way, especially for people who are
new to trauma healing, to kind of get their feet
wet in the process. So you can find it more
info about my book there. Also I have on my
website a free Beginner's Guide to Trauma Healing, where I
(24:34):
have a lot of the free resources that I used online,
a lot of YouTube things like that. To do a
lot of work at home, because you don't have to
just do therapy out, you know, with a therapist or
in group settings. You can also do a lot of
mindfulness work and a lot of various things at home.
So I include that. I also am on Instagram. My
(24:55):
Instagram name is Laura Underscore Wren RNN, and either through
my website or through Instagram, I love to connect with people.
I know that this can be a really scary path,
especially if you're just getting started with it, or even
if you're kind of seasoned in it as well. It's
always good to connect with people who've been there and
who can share their experiences and relate to you in
that way.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
So I'm more than happy to do that.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Wonderful. Well, I really have enjoyed our conversation, and joy
always feels like the wrong word, but I think you
did a little deeper dive than a lot of guests
on the importance and the healing modalities for timing and
(25:39):
pacing and it being okay not to rush through them.
I think that piece, to me stands out, So I
think that was your intention, but that was I feel
really helpful for the audience to hear.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Yeah, I think that's something that you don't really think about.
You just think, oh, cool, like I'll start with this
and this is going to help me. But it really
is a lot of finding the right things at the
right time and also not pushing it too far. That
was something I did. I almost overwhelmed myself with too
many therapies at once, and it really made it more
challenging to process and to heal, and so really kind
(26:15):
of taking it at a slow pace, which can be
challenging for most myself included that was a learning curve,
but taking it slow and just keeping an open mind
and seeing where it goes, and it can really be
transformative in so many areas of your life. That's how
it's been for me. Thank you, Laura, Thank you so much, Karen.
(26:37):
This has been great.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Thank you for listening in today. Please join us next week,
same day and time. Also, I would love for you
to check out my website healthrivedream dot com
Welcome to the Heal Thrived Dream podcast, where trauma survivors
become healthy thrivers. Each month will feature a theme in
the trauma recovery and empowerment field to promote your recovery,
healing and learning how to build dreams. Here's your host,
Karen Robinson, transformational coach and therapist.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, Welcome to the Heal Thrived Dream Podcast. Today, our
guest is Laura Runner. Laura is a nurse who's now
an author. She suffered a TBI, a traumatic brain injury,
in twenty twenty one, which added to her list of
major health scares from the past five years. This prompted
(00:49):
her to dig deeper into her past and led to
the realization that she has complex post traumatic stress disorder
resulting from childhood. She spent the next year and a
half exploring all the trauma healing modablities she could find
to heal her mind and body. Laura details this experience
(01:10):
and her book No I'm Not Fine, Thank You, where
she discusses her journey of identifying her traumas, healing deep wounds,
and how she reclaimed her power. So, Laura, thank you
for being with us today. Oh, and you're frozen can
(01:35):
you hear me, Laura?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Okay, So thank you for being here today. Yeah, thank you.
I'm very, very excited to chat with you today. Awesome.
Anything about your bio that you want to expound upon
that maybe I didn't mention.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Sure, So I was a neonatal intensive care unit nurse
for nine years, so ironically someone involved in healthcare who
unfortunately had to experience a lot of the bad side
effects of health care. And really starting in twenty seventeen
is when kind of everything broke down in my body
(02:13):
and with my health, but I really didn't recognize it.
I just kept thinking, Oh, this is just a freak
accident or these things happen, and never really looked inward
until the traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
That's really what forced me.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
To really just look inside myself, why do these things
keep happening with my body? And that's how I was
able to identify and get really deep into trauma healing
and realize just how much trauma I experienced as a
kid as an adult, and just how much those traumatic
events really shaped most of my life, starting as a
(02:47):
young kid through Now.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, what about your story your childhood? Are you willing
to share with us today, which everything.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I detail a lot of in my book as well.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
But really I had a lot of significant events that
started at a really young age. And the interesting thing
with complex trauma is it can be a lot of
building on events that maybe seemingly at the time were
not traumatic. For instance, I broke my leg when I
was two, I fell out of a treat or when
I was three, excuse me. And also I was bit
(03:23):
by I had multiple dog attacks before the age of five,
Just little things like that that don't really seem to
be traumatic or someone would just think, oh, that's an
unfortunate event.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
But then around.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Age five, I suffered some sexual abuse from a distant
family member, and at age seven I almost drowned in
a river. And so basically all of these events just
created this deep level of lack of safety in my body,
and lack of safety with pretty much anyone, caregivers, parental figures, everyone,
(04:02):
and that just kind of perpetuated itself over time, leading
to very intense anxiety. Pretty much I lived in a
constant state of fight or flight or hyperactivated sympathetic nervous
system because my body just never felt that it could
kind of cool off and take down, being off the
high alert that kind of place, and so I pretty
(04:23):
much just lived constantly with very high anxiety, a lot
of issues with shame and self worth, just constantly being
worried that I'm making a mistake or the need to
be perfect and things like that, and that just kind
of built over time and really just bled into every
facet of my adult life, with my career, with my relationships,
(04:45):
and then ultimately kept leading to more breakdown in my
body because we're not supposed to live in a constant
state of hyperactive nervous system, and my body could just
never really keep up with the demands that I was
unintentionally putting it. And through a lot of very deep,
deep reflecting, deep mindset shifting, and many many many hours
(05:10):
of therapy, I have been able to really identify that
and learn how to create more levels of safety in
my body. And that's manifested as health and decreased anxiety
and actual happiness in my life and things that I
didn't realize that I wasn't actually experienced, but experiencing that
I thought I was at the time.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Wow, that sounds like a lot, yeah, yeah, And you
know that's the interesting thing, is it didn't feel like that.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
I really glorified a lot of my childhood years. A
lot of these things I either forgot about or just thought, oh, well,
that's a normal part of growing up.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know, bad things happen.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
But looking back, there really were a lot of pivotal
moments that really shaped truly everything about who I became
as an adult and everything about my childhood. And I
know that that can sound kind of dramatic, but really
it did. And I've been able to pinpoint a lot
of these even I mean these more intense traumatic moments,
(06:09):
but also even just single moments of feeling ashamed by
an adult figure or things like that that kind of
train your brain because our brains are so still deep
into primitive survival mechanisms where we just constantly are on
an unconscious level, trying to fit in because that's how
(06:29):
you know, cave men survived things like that, and so
our brains are still wired to focus on the negative
and to remember basically whatever it can to keep you
fitting in so that you survive. But which no longer
is that the case for the most part. Now it's
mostly emotional fears and things like that, but those still
(06:51):
hold the same weight in your brain. And so just
little moments like that can really have such a strong
impact and shape a lot of different directions for how
your life goes and how you think about yourself and
how you act and behavior and whatnot. And so it's
it's kind of crazy when you think about it from
that perspective, but yeah, single moments in time like that
(07:11):
can have huge impacts on a lot of areas of
your life.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Right, And did you say you're no longer a nurse.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I'm no longer a nurse. Yes, So I recognized after
the traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I mean, frankly, I was doing pretty well in the
scheme of how bad it could have been.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
So but still I was struggling. I couldn't really do math,
I was having trouble with speech. I was having constant
physical symptoms, migraines, just complete fatigue, exhaustion, couldn't really stay
awake for more than a couple hours a day, and
just really struggling. And when I tried to go back
to nursing, even in a limited capacity, it really kind
(07:52):
of opened up my eyes to how unhealthy I was
in that environment. I constantly was working over time, I
never took I did whatever I could to help my
coworkers at my own expense and at my patient's expense.
And I was just running on fumes for pretty much
nine years, constantly, especially during the COVID ages, and I
(08:13):
realized that I don't think I'm able to be healthy
in this kind of environment. I don't think I'm able
to set the boundaries that I need to for myself
to be a healthy employee and just be a healthy person.
And I decided to walk away from nursing. And it
was terrifying and sad in a lot of ways, but really,
(08:34):
as I've stepped back, it's really exposed just how unhealthy
I was in that environment. And not to say that
all nurses are, many aren't. I could see behaviors in
myself that were very different from my coworkers that were
just doing myself a disservice with my health, with my life,
with my life outside of work, I pretty much had
no work life balance, and so I stepped away, and
(08:58):
that's when I started writing, And frankly, it's one of
the best decisions I've made. As much as I love
being a nurse's, this is definitely more of a path
for me that's aligned with a healthy lifestyle what I
want to do with my time and the rest of
my life.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, so what are you doing other than writing? Are
you doing any other work like coaching courses? Sorry now
about what you do?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Oh sure?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
So right now, I'm still I'm a lifelong learner. I
love learning, and so I've been constantly taking personal development courses.
But also I've been doing a lot of nervous system regulation,
a lot of courses around gut health, stress, physiology, things
of that nature. So I'm still kind of in the
knowledge building phase and just kind of seeing where that
(09:49):
takes me, doing a lot of stuff with my book
and really just trying to get it out there. So
I just published my book in June, so it's still
pretty fresh, So working on a lot of things around that.
But yeah, like I said, just right now, it's a
lot of learning and kind of developing that framework to
eventually hopefully do some teaching.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I love teaching. I did that a lot in the
hospital and just kind of seeing, yeah, where that takes me,
just kind of for the first time in my life. Actually,
it's crazy to say that.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
It's not terrifying that I don't have a plan and
I don't know where I'm going, but I'm just seeing
where everything falls into place and what feels best, and
I'm loving it. And there's still a couple a couple
occasional moments where I get a little anxious when I
think about that, but I'm also able to reframe it
and recognize that I'm really fortunate to be in this
position and that has showed tremendous growth from where I
(10:37):
was before.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It sounds like you feel hopeful with what will happen next.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Very yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, it's exciting to think that I don't really know
where I'm going, and that's okay. I think that's something
that societally we're told you should not do, and that's
frankly part of what led me to nursing. Nursing was
a very objective, logical career where I could just go
to school to become a nurse, and then I become
a nurse and I work as a nurse, and I
(11:04):
can do that for life and I can just settle
into that world.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
But now it's it's actually pretty cool to think that
I can just kind of figure it out as I
go and go from there.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Okay, so let's see where should we go next? I
kind of think I want to know more about your
healing journey, like what modalities seem to help you the most.
Like everybody has a preferred way of being in therapy,
whether it's talk therapy or more structure like EMDR or
(11:44):
cognity processing therapy. Do you have favorites?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
So, I actually therapy was not new to me. I
was a child of therapy and it never really clicked.
I think I was never really especially as a teenager,
I wasn't able to fully be vulnerable.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I was still afraid of being shamed, and I wasn't
I just kept those walls up, so it wasn't very effective.
And I continued therapy often on as an adult, just
kind of more traditional.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Talk therapy and saw some.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Benefits but not really tons of growth. And then the
first therapy that I started exploring was sematic experiencing.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And that was.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Really paramount in my trauma healing journey. So sematic experiencing,
for those who don't know, it is essentially it's almost
like body psychotherapy, where you have your body basically holds
onto trauma and kind of stuck phases of acute stress,
and so stematic experiencing allows you to help resolve and
(12:50):
release those you know, patterns and states of stress from
you know, even holding on to potentially for your entire life,
which was the case for me. There's been research about
that since the seventies, and that that was what I
was most drawn to first. And I think a lot
of that is also because you don't necessarily have to
completely relive all of the experiences. And for me, I had,
(13:15):
I mean, for my entire adult life pretty much so
much tension in my body. I you know, clench my
jaw in my sleep, My muscles are always tight. I
would always be in a lot of pain, and I
was looking to release that pain. And through somatic experiencing,
I was able to realize just how many events that
my body was holding on to, which was really interesting
(13:36):
and it was It's something that.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I wasn't really ready for the amount of.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Healing that was going to come from it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
It really set me just down the path of Wow,
I have so much.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
More trauma than I thought I did.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
I thought that it was just these you know, a
couple experiences, but my body's been holding on to this
lack of safety and constant state of feel for the
entirety of my life, so that would be the one
that really has that set me in motion for trauma healing.
I loved EMDR as well. Through MDR, I was able
to identify a lot of single moments in time that
(14:14):
kind of were the catalyst to feelings and beliefs I
had about myself. Like for me, I had a lot
of worthlessness, a lot of shaming, a lot of just
constantly being overly critical of myself, And through MDR I
was able to kind of pinpoint a lot of oh,
this was kind of that root cause for where I
(14:35):
started thinking that, which by getting to those root causes
kind of enabled me to resolve them and heal them.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Other therapies that I loved, I really like.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Cremio sacral therapy, which is kind of another type of
somatic therapy where you don't have to necessarily relive the processes.
That's it has similar similar mechanism, I guess essentially to
smatic experiencing, but it's a little bit more of showing
your body how to regulate itself and kind of releasing
those kind of stuck areas of trauma.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
For me, a lot of.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
It was I completely dissociated from my body in so
many ways, I just couldn't really feel a lot of
my body, and that's you know, kind of a survival
mechanism from dealing with a lot of trauma, and so
craniosacle therapy allowed me to really connect more to my
body and be able to listen to it as opposed
to just going a million miles an hour based on
(15:31):
what my brain thought I should do. I also neurofeedback
therapy was really significant for me, and that's another one
where it's not necessarily about reliving. When neuro feedback they use,
it's paintless. They put electrodes on your scalp and measure
your brain activity, and basically it helps you rewire your
(15:55):
brain and teaches through like auditoriy or visual cues your
brain how to have more I say in quotations normal
but healthier I guess brain activity and brain waves and
things like that. So it can help with anxiety, can
help with trauma, depression, all kinds of things. Was very
also helpful from healing for my traumatic brain injury and
(16:16):
just kind of reregulating my brain in that way. But
it's wild how many therapies there are, and I think
that can be yeah, and it can be very overwhelming,
and for me, I just kept thinking, Oh my gosh,
where do I start?
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Where do I start?
Speaker 4 (16:31):
And I think I would suggest for other people if
they're interested in exploring really any type of trauma therapy,
it starts with kind of just doing your own online
research or books or just looking into what's out there
and what sounds best. Because for me, sematic experience, somatic
experiencing I think was the best type of therapy for
(16:52):
me to do at that time.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
That's what I was ready for.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
When I did hypno therapy and emd ARE, those were
much further down the road, and those were kind of
hitting more specific moments in time that I don't know
if I would have been ready to go that deep
in those in those early phases. So, yeah, it can
be very overwhelming to figure out where to go, especially initially,
(17:15):
but thankfully there's so many resources online, lots of free
resources as well to kind of figure out what's the
best path to go. Yeah, thank you for saying that
it can be overwhelming. Yeah, it sounds like you got
lucky with where you started though, at the FC therapy.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Fortunately have found a lot of really good therapists, especially
over the last year and a half. I also have
experienced some that didn't quite work out for me, and
I think that's also another challenge with any type of
therapy is you have to find the right practitioner therapist
for you, especially at that time, who can be most
supportive for your journey. I had a couple therapists that
(17:59):
a little too early, I guess in my path that
we just it just didn't align, we didn't jive, and
they kind of pushed me to places that were a
little too fast for my comfort level and ended up
causing me to kind of regress and have to take
pauses from therapy because I would just get so overwhelmed
(18:20):
and so just filled with fear and anxiety and shame
that it just kind of put everything on hold. So
I think finding a right therapist is also a big,
very important piece as well.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, and it's important what you're saying too about not pushing.
So I know when I was a young therapist, I
was like, let's get to work, absolutely pushing. But as
I got more training and wisdom and experience, my approach
(18:53):
has definitely changed a lot over the years.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, and I think I mean the therapists you pushed
me too, fast. It's all well intentioned. It's you know,
no one's trying to hurt you. But I read about
my book my specific incident of working with a hypnotherapist too,
that's when I uncovered the repressed memory of being.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Sexually abused, and I basically just went into.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
A complete acute stress panic state, And instead of attempting
to calm me down or reassure me that I'm safe,
she kept pushing me to dig deeper into memories and
I just completely shut down, and frankly, it broke me.
It was it was just such a terrifying experience to
(19:41):
relive and recover, I guess. But also when you think
you have someone in your corner who's going to help
guide you and keep you safe and they don't, and
it has the opposite effects, it can be really scary too.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
So that's one of the challenges.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I mean, it's also at the time, I I wish
that I had stood up for myself more and advocated
for myself better in that situation. I just kind of
shut down and panicked because I was so overwhelmed and
didn't know what to do. And I never really spoke
up and said I don't want to do this, I
feel pushed and or said no. Frankly, I didn't do that,
(20:18):
and it ended up causing me to spiral for a
good week. And thankfully at the time I was working
with a Jacomi therapist who does AMDR and somatic therapy
and we were able to process it, and that was huge.
I mean, if I hadn't had that experience with her
and had her in my corner at that time, I
(20:40):
think it would have been a much more difficult process
to really get through.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah. I had experience with the client that was pushed
too hard and prolonged exposure therapy. She ended up being hospitalized,
which isn't what's normal, but trauma is not normal, and
we don't know. It's just not a good idea to
push people. We had to really listen to to teach
(21:09):
clients to listen to themselves, and we have to listen
to ourselves and we know when it's right. Yeah, And
I wouldn't recommend beating yourself up anymore about not advocating
for yourself because you were there to get help, not
to advocate for it to be a safe experience, Like right,
(21:30):
you didn't go into it knowing that it would become unsafe.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, no, you're You're absolutely right. And
it's really just that experience. It just showed how trauma
can completely overwhelm your nervousness to your brain, your body,
where you just are not even really capable of reacting.
I mean, I was in such an acute state that
(21:54):
I wasn't able to really form sentences. I was struggling
to breathe. I was just fully panicking, didn't know what
to do, didn't know what to say, and just had
to remove myself. That was the only thing that I
could do at that time because it just elicited such
an extreme response to me. But on the other end,
(22:14):
I have had so many other therapists that when I've
had these heightened responses, they have had really really helpful, safe,
empowering responses to help me work through it and sometimes
to just say we need to pause and that's okay.
And it's a lot of just kind of being able
(22:35):
to feel supported and especially for me when I would
get into those really heightened states, learning how to bring
myself out of it through the help of someone else,
but also through myself. And that's why I also really
love nervous system regulation and deep breathing and really have
kind of gotten obsessed with stress physiology because your body
(22:56):
is just naturally reacting. My body doesn't know that this
is a past experience that happened that's an emotional trigger.
My body thinks that there's an emergency happening right now. Yeah,
And so learning how to especially deep breathing, is such
a great way to do that because I mean, it
essentially activates your parasympathetic nervous system because if you're deep breathing,
(23:16):
it tells your brain this is not an emergency and
it's okay to slow down, and that can kind of
help start those processes in your body to help you
feel better. And that's something that I utilize often. It's
very helpful for me.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
But yeah, very good. I'm glad.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Now for anyone listening that wants to connect with you
in some way to talk about your book or just
talk more about what's been helpful in your healing journey.
What's the best way, Like, do you have a website
social media presence?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I do so.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
My website is my first and last name Laura Renner
dot me. And through my website you can check out
more in from about my book my book Essentially, it
just completely outlines my experience from starting with kind of
my brain injury and my health problem since twenty seventeen,
and how that led me through all of the trauma
(24:11):
healing therapies that I explored, but also through all of
the big mindset shifts and revelations that I had in
the process, some good, some bad. But it's intended to
be a really relatable way, especially for people who are
new to trauma healing, to kind of get their feet
wet in the process. So you can find it more
info about my book there. Also I have on my
website a free Beginner's Guide to Trauma Healing, where I
(24:34):
have a lot of the free resources that I used online,
a lot of YouTube things like that. To do a
lot of work at home, because you don't have to
just do therapy out, you know, with a therapist or
in group settings. You can also do a lot of
mindfulness work and a lot of various things at home.
So I include that. I also am on Instagram. My
(24:55):
Instagram name is Laura Underscore Wren RNN, and either through
my website or through Instagram, I love to connect with people.
I know that this can be a really scary path,
especially if you're just getting started with it, or even
if you're kind of seasoned in it as well. It's
always good to connect with people who've been there and
who can share their experiences and relate to you in
that way.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
So I'm more than happy to do that.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Wonderful. Well, I really have enjoyed our conversation, and joy
always feels like the wrong word, but I think you
did a little deeper dive than a lot of guests
on the importance and the healing modalities for timing and
(25:39):
pacing and it being okay not to rush through them.
I think that piece, to me stands out, So I
think that was your intention, but that was I feel
really helpful for the audience to hear.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Yeah, I think that's something that you don't really think about.
You just think, oh, cool, like I'll start with this
and this is going to help me. But it really
is a lot of finding the right things at the
right time and also not pushing it too far. That
was something I did. I almost overwhelmed myself with too
many therapies at once, and it really made it more
challenging to process and to heal, and so really kind
(26:15):
of taking it at a slow pace, which can be
challenging for most myself included that was a learning curve,
but taking it slow and just keeping an open mind
and seeing where it goes, and it can really be
transformative in so many areas of your life. That's how
it's been for me. Thank you, Laura, Thank you so much, Karen.
(26:37):
This has been great.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Thank you for listening in today. Please join us next week,
same day and time. Also, I would love for you
to check out my website healthrivedream dot com
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