Why Trauma Makes Learning So Hard—And How to Fix It | #42 Podcast Highlight

I like how you call it big T trauma or little T trauma, but it can impact an individual sometimes very similarly, no matter what that trauma is. And what was really eye opening for me is that it's possible to reboot your brain in what that trauma loop has done previously. And for those that are listening that haven't been through the program, what really resonated for me was was that that trauma lives as this high definition memory in your brain. And so your brain doesn't know that it's not happening in this moment. So your body's having the reactions as if it's happening in that moment. So for an executive that might be out there and dismissive of his or her employees, and it can be a trauma response to always feeling like maybe they had a parent that put them down all the time. And until you process that and reboot your brain to say you don't need to dismiss others as a self soother of your own trauma, you see it not existing anymore in your daily habits. And that's what I've experienced, but also numerous clients that I've now had go through the program is that those old sort of things you wish you could shake about you based on trauma from way long ago is possible to shed, which I don't think anyone's really been able to prove is possible. Which is what I think is so incredibly groundbreaking about what you do.

The thing that we're loving with the studies that we're doing, we even showed that in brain plasticity. So when we did the study, we had 15 years of age, up to 63 years of age, dealing with post traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, panic attacks. That was the average of what people were going through. We did a brain map on them before the session and then a brain map after. And what we found is after going through the program, the average amongst that entire group was a 45% change in brain plasticity. Which the guy doing the study with us said if you get 10, you've hit a home run. And so what that means is that when we're in this constant trauma response, the brain doesn't want to learn. It's focused on survival. So I always use the store, I use lions a lot. Right. But if you're being chased by a lion, are you going to read a book? No, you would not be able to focus even if you tried to read the book when you were running and being chased by a lion, you won't absorb very much. So but that's the way the mind deals with trauma. So it's not trying to say, oh, we don't want to learn. It's just saying it's not right. We're not in the right frame. We're not in the right place. This is not the right time. But as long as the trauma keeps running, it never becomes the right time. So you see a lot. I can't tell you how many people, Lynn, I've seen that come in and say, I was never very good in school, right? And they're brilliant. My wife being the prime example. She said, you know, I really struggle in school. I was like a c. B student. She's my best researcher now. She said I could read a page in a book and not remember what I just read. And now, at least once or twice a day, I'm getting research articles from her saying, you got to read this. You got to read this. And she's absorbing it now. Never could do that before. And it wasn't about intelligence. It was about survival. And so she lived in a survival world. And so, like she said to me, she looked at my report cards one time from school, and she goes, wow, school was so easy for you? And I went, well, of course it was easy for me. I'm not worried about what happened to me last night. I'm not worried what's going to happen to me when I get home. I said I could just learn and I could absorb. And I said that wasn't about intelligence. That was about safety. And I said, you were in flight your entire childhood. I said, you had nowhere to land. Home wasn't safe. Outside wasn't safe. I said, imagine being a bird and not letting the bird rest, right? That bird's gonna get exhausted, and it's not gonna perform.

And what's really resonating with me, what you're saying, is that there's a. In the program. There's a real level of acceptance of that past trauma. Big T or little T that you call it atmospheric conditions could not have been any other way. And so anytime and you see these themes pop up in inspirational speakers like, don't look back or don't look forward. Live in the present. Well, why is it so hard for us to take this advice? We know it's true, just like we know failure is a fuel. But we can't take that advice because we are stuck in those old, limiting beliefs. And when you truly look at what it is that you're. You're teaching, which is those atmospheric conditions of your wife's family and the dynamics and what happened to her that couldn't have happened a different way. So there's no need to look at the past and say, oh, I wish it could have been this way, or I wish it could have been that way. Or what if, you know, that didn't feel that way? That couldn't have happened any other way. And it's such a simple phrase, it couldn't have happened any other way. There's a level of acceptance that comes from that peaceful statement. And once you have that acceptance, then you are able to move on to what it is that the work is. There's, there's important work to be done after that point. But you need that first level of acceptance.

Yeah. Because everybody wants to sort of, they keep going through it in their mind saying, well, what if I had like my wife was doing that all the time. She'd say to me, don't you wish we never met that person? Or don't you wish that never happened? And because of the way I grew up, that made no sense to me. And I used to just go, why do you want to do this exercise? And she'd go, but think about it, wouldn't it have been better? And I go, but I don't need to think about it because it couldn't. And that's sort of what sort of got me to that point of saying she wasn't doing anything wrong. That was the way her mind was trying to protect her. It was trying to create these new scenarios that would make her feel better. Ah, let's think about this for a second. If I had have done this, and what is that bringing her some relief even though it couldn't have happened any other way. So some people will use drugs, some people will use alcohol, some people will use all kinds of things to try to feel better. But that was her. She never got into drugs or alcohol, but she was always what if in her life. And that was her little way of relate to. Yep. And so yeah, she would do it all the time and I would just go, okay, yep, yeah, it would have been better if happen, but it did. But it was easy for me to do that. And so if people are saying those kinds of things, that's where it's all coming from. And as I say to everybody, there's nothing wrong with anybody's mind. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do. It's just dealing with some faulty intelligence, owns them all data.