Understanding Collective Trauma, How Trauma Impacts Relationships, and How to Recover from Trauma with Dr. Karol Darsa [Episode 77]

Hello and welcome to the Intentional Clinician Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Kraus, licensed professional counselor. In today's episode, I'm going to be speaking with Dr. Carol Darcia Seidee. We're going to be speaking about all things trauma, including how we know that early childhood trauma and other traumatic experiences can show up with difficulties in current relationships, ways to deal with collective trauma, and the differences between trauma and stress, and much more. Dr. Carol Darca is an accomplished trauma psychologist, author of the Trauma Map. She is also the founder of the Reconnect center in Pacific Palisades, California, and creator of the Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment Model. For more than 20 years, Dr. Darca has helped clients reconnect to their whole selves by treating their physical, mental and.

Spiritual ailments caused by trauma. I think you're really going to enjoy.

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All right, let's get to the interview.

Welcoming to the podcast, Dr. Carol Darca. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Paul. Thanks for having me.

Well, I'm very excited to have you on here. It's my pleasure. And I want to talk a lot about trauma. We had discussed earlier talking about collective trauma, ways to deal with that trauma and stress and things like that. But I want to also make sure we discuss your book, the Trauma Map, Five Steps to reconnect with yourself and your trauma treatment center over in Pacific Palisades, California. So where do we start?

That's a good question. You know, maybe we start with what is trauma? Because a lot of people, I realize, don't know exactly what trauma is.

I think that's a great place to start.

I think, in fact, one of the reasons why I did write my book is because I noticed a lot of people think unless you've been through something severe like a war or rape, that it's not trauma. Right. So a lot of people were really diminishing actually the impact of a trauma. So trauma is any situation that is very stressful that can leave you feeling sort of powerless and overwhelmed. That's what the main definition is. As opposed to stress. Yes, it's very stressful, but it doesn't necessarily leave you feeling powerless or overwhelmed where you feel more functional. And in trauma, you might have a really hard time to function.

Yes, that's a very good way of differentiating it. Interestingly enough, some people might seek treatment right after a major traumatic event occurs, such as a car accident or a breakup. Or they lost their job or something like that, or a death in the family. But other people might notice something in their life where it's just they keep doing this repetitive behavior, or they keep having these intrusive thoughts, or they just notice something that just doesn't seem right. And then oftentimes, if they end up in one of the offices, such as your trauma treatment center or where I'm at here we have the Trauma Informed Counseling center of Grand Rapids, they might discover that this current behavior or symptom may be linked to some past event. What do you think? What are your thoughts on that?

And that's, I think, where a lot of the people don't really notice how trauma has impacted them because they're looking for specific incident. But I think where it's the least known for people, the trauma symptoms are things that are related to their childhood. So if they have had issues in their childhood with their parents, like a neglect, abandonment, and not necessarily sort of physical or sexual abuse, those are still very traumatic. And so people are looking for typical symptoms of like, a flashback or, you know, hypervigilance and whatever. But where the childhood trauma shows the most is actually in relationships. And so this is where I see that people come in with one symptom. And then when we go down, it's often like, oh, you have childhood trauma? Well, let's really work on that.

Yes, indeed. Yes, you're right. In relationships, a lot of people come into therapy for relationship complaints, and they don't often come, and sometimes they're coming in for couples, but oftentimes people will come in just saying, I have trouble with relationships. I'm having trouble with my relationship at work, I'm having trouble with romantic relationships. I'm even having trouble with friendships. And so could you maybe give a couple of examples of how you've seen childhood trauma manifest in a adult individual who may be coming to you for therapy?

Sure. Well, you know, the first relationships that we have with our parents or whoever is taking care of us. Right. Is our first sort of romantic. You think our relationships is with them. And so what happens is, however that relationship is usually leaves an imprint. And one thing that people haven't maybe noticed as much is that however a person is treated by their parents, it ends up being that how they treat themselves or how they're expecting others to treat them. So if a person is yelled at and abused and told they're not good, then either they're going to really treat themselves that way. Right. Or again, find partner that does that. But sometimes it's not easy. It's not a one on one or apple to apple kind of comparison. They just don't see how it's connected. Especially we're talking about laypeople who are not used to looking at sort of roots, root causes of, of things. But it shows up in choosing a person who's unavailable emotionally. Well, guess what? Your parents probably were emotionally unavailable, choosing physically abusive partners or addict partners. Right. And then maybe you're coming from an addict family. I mean, there's just, you know, I can find a bunch of different examples like that where the impact is so huge.

Absolutely. I actually have a friend who was adopted when he was, you know, a baby. And he actually told me recently that he had this phobia of his wife leaving him. And he realized that this was ridiculous because they've been together forever. And so he said, you know what, he's a pretty smart guy. He said, you know what? I really think this is due to me being adopted because I felt my entire childhood that my mother had abandoned me and given me to strangers. And so now for some reason I have this compulsion to make comments around my wife that she may leave me someday. And she gets very upset about that. And I said, well, I can make some great referrals to you for EMDR therapy. He said, maybe, but that's, that's an obvious maybe example in the relationship because he told, he said it was a compulsion to say these comments just to kind of get her to possibly reassure him that she was not leaving him. And there was no sort of reason that she would at this point. So it's interesting that in the romantic relationships and the friendships is where we often see these signs and symbols come up from childhood trauma. And I think also, you know, the mirror neurons probably play a role because we're, we're mirroring how we mirror, we want to mirror what our parents are treating us like. And so if our, if our parents are stressed out or emotionally unavailable or workaholics or alcoholics or going through some sort of depression or whatever they're going through as a child, we may not understand that, but we may pick up on their behavior.

Right. And also children have sort of this natural narcissism, right? They think everything is about them. This is a normal thing, actually. It's a survival strategy if you think about it. It has to be about them in order to be fed and taken care of. So when a parent leaves, they don't have the cognitive capacity to think. Well, my parent must be having a hard time in their life. That's why they're leaving. They're thinking, I must have done something wrong. This is a child thinking. And it's normal for a child to think that way. And so if that is not expressed and confirmed in some way comforted, then that child gets stuck with that belief system and grows into the child, into the adulthood. Even in the adulthood, your logical brain says, of course that can't be. But your child brain is still there, frozen in some capacity. Then each time someone outside does something, you're going, oh, they leaving me me, Meaning I did something wrong probably. And that's how the self esteem is really getting impacted. In the case of your friend, it makes perfect sense to me. It's like he was looking for that reassurance from the parent. In a way, he probably is craving the reassurance from the biological mom. But he never gets that. And because he never got that, then the reassurance gets transferred to someone else, but who can never fulfill that void because the void really belongs to the original person and or to themselves. Eventually, like he will have to learn even asking the question. I'm sort of taking another step forward here in our conversation. But I always teach people, if you are abandoned, you now have to look to see if you are abandoning yourself, because it's very easy to see how others abandon you. But people don't have a habit to look at their own behavior towards themselves, and so they constantly abandon themselves and then that gets projected out as well.

Yes. And real quick, the concept of projection, I would love to just touch on that just for our listeners who may not be in the field. Can you explain a little bit about what you mean by that?

Sure. That's one of my favorite words. It's when something happens to you. So it's basically the way you see things and the way you assume people and everyone else is based on your own experience. It's like a filter in your eyes. It's actually, if you think about the word projection, probably is coming from the movies, a certain image on the back is projected out to the front. And that's exactly what happens. What what's in your mind, in your unconscious or conscious, gets pushed out into the other person. So you think another person is doing a behavior to you that you are doing maybe yourself.

Yes. And it can take a lot of insight work and therapy and journaling to actually find out that you may be projecting. There's so many examples of this. But for instance, I've heard of people who regularly emotionally bully people at work and they can be quite nasty and passive aggressive. But when you ask them about these behaviors, they feel like they're being bullied and they are a victim of some sort and some strange theory, but when you poll everyone in their office and say who's the, who's the emotional bully in this office? Everyone agrees it's that person. But then in that, from that person's standpoint, they're projecting out that everyone else is bullying them and they're just defending themselves. Have you ever, ever heard of that before?

Yes, many times. But again, that's sort of, you know, tying into trauma since our, that's our topic is people often don't look at their own past traumas because it's not an easy thing to face. And so that's the reason why we actually project it out to someone else because it becomes less painful to see it in others than in our, in our own history.

That is such a great summary. I think by now the listeners probably have a decent idea of what trauma is talking about or what we're talking about. When we talk about trauma and we're not just talking about post traumatic stress disorder, there are episodes and books on that as well. So I was thinking about maybe I just want to touch a little bit on your book and the treatment center and then, and then maybe delve into collective trauma. So could you tell us a little bit about your book, the Trauma Map?

Sure. So that's written for general public. That was my goal. I did not want to write a book for therapists actually because I found myself repeating a lot of the same information to the clients. And I was like, oh God, I wish people knew like 101 basic trauma. What it is and what it does to you. And what it does to you is in fact my main passion because of that. My goal is for people to have less shame and less self blame because a lot of the behaviors that people display really do come from childhood traumas, earlier traumas. And so, so I talk about what trauma is, what it does to you, and how it actually causes sort of a disconnect inside of a person. So I outline it in five different ways or five different steps to really sort of work on, on trauma. One is that to understand what trauma is, which is the beginning of the book again, to reduce the shame. Then we talk about how it creates a disconnect from your mind, like the way you're thinking, right. This is when people talk about a lot of self negative beliefs and this kind of a thing, then a disconnect from their Emotions, again, that's the way that people are able to cope with it. But they sort of shut down because it becomes too overwhelming. Another form of disconnect that I talk about is from the body. That's also a form of defense to protect themselves. Rackets. People sort of leave their body, so to speak, with their thoughts, right? And then feeling the body will be too, too painful for them. And then also the disconnect from the outside, so isolating from people, or even from bigger, like from God, spirituality, nature. So this kind of disconnect is what actually the symptoms of a trauma that we are working with in trauma treatment. So I give examples of each and what to do kind of thing.

Well, I like that because you sounds like you wrote this book out of necessity. You kept repeating the same education. Because psychoeducation is part of what we do as therapists to help the person understand what is happening in their mind and in their body and what's happening around them to make sense of it. Because like you said, I think you said something about removing shame and blame and sort of understanding can really start empowering people on the process of healing and working through some of the difficult experiences you've talked about. And you did say earlier that no one really wants to go back and think about those past experiences. It seems evolutionary advantageous to keep moving. But if you haven't processed things out and I guess, you know, the easiest example, of course, is taking from Peter Levine's work about the gazelle who's chased by the tiger or the. Whatever it was, the leopard or the cheetah, and it gets away, but it almost got scratched by it. And afterwards it shakes off this sort of like the scariness. It shakes it off. And if you ever had a dog, whenever the dog gets a little scared or a little bit disturbed, it will shake, and then it will go play or go to the bathroom or whatever it does. So humans, you know, there were, depending on your history, but I'll just zero in on Native Americans. They had a lot of rituals where they would dance and shake things off for hours and hours and hours. And in Europe, you know, in Germany, where my, you know, grandparents are from, they would have giant dance hall things, like every weekend. This is a thing there. Of course, in the US Here we have dance clubs where people mostly look at each other and drink very expensive cocktails. And there's about five people dancing. But this sort of human ritual of dance is a way of sort of shaking off some of the things that happen to us. But we need A little bit more intentionality, such as the dog and the gazelle shaking off immediately this traumatic experience, because it not only stores in our memory, but it stores. Our memory is connected to our nervous system. So it's actually stored in our body. And that can manifest in a variety of ways. And so can you. Can you maybe talk a little bit.

About.

Anything related to that and how people come in with these experiences and they're. They're noticing them?

Sure. I mean, you know, we have a lot of people might have heard of this, the fight, fight, flight, freeze response. Right. To a threat. And so I wish we could shake it off the way that animals do. That's actually what Peter Levine talks about, that as humans, we can't, because we have a cognitive brain that gets in the way and say something, you know, so we just kind of. Either. Most of the people, I think, goes actually more into freeze than. Than they realize. Not in the general sense of freeze, like really, you know, frozen state, but is that it creates this again, this disconnect where they are just not able to access the feelings or the things. And so, as you can imagine, when that's chronic, then you have sometimes years of disconnected parts of yourself, or as Janina Fisher calls it, disowned parts of yourself, where you need to be able to process some of that, you know. But it also makes sense from survival point of view, where we don't want to deal with it. So rather than shaking off, we just kind of put it aside, or we think we put it aside because we need to be able to go to school the next day, or we need to be able to play with our friends or eventually grow up and have a job. So we find ways to compartmentalize these things to deal with it. But. And that's what often people come in and go, why? Why can't I still do that? Well, because after a while, your system can't handle it anymore. There's this accumulation of frozen departments, so to speak, inside of you, or memories and sensations and feelings that are really frozen. And you have to be able to come at peace with them and bring them back so you can actually be full. That's why often people feel like, I want to say, broken almost. Right. It's because of these experiences. But it takes a lot of effort, mindful effort, conscious effort, and compassionate effort to come out of that, to be able to. To be functional and whole again. So it's not as easy for us to shake. Although I know there are some animals, even you're talking about dogs, I know they were abused for chronically and they, they haven't recovered it. So it's not always that they recover. You could see it. They're always scared of humans or running away right away.

Oh, that's a good point. Yes. So I guess I was talk healthy dogs. Yes. But dogs that have been abused. Yes, chronically will, will run away from stimulus, you know, such as you're trying, somebody's trying to pet them and they will bite or they will run away. And so just like that, we've had these experiences in our lives and you talked about trauma accumulation that, you know, you're right. Our body compartmentalizes it. Our cognitive mind latches onto it in multiple ways and that affects our behavior. And, and I. And of course, EMDR is one of the tools people use to work on trauma with the eye movement and the bilateral stimulation and accessing traumas to desensitize, but also to make sense and I think reprocess what happened in a way that makes sense now and can bring us back to being fully present, which is another clinician concept. But sometimes people feel, eventually people who, especially people who have chronic trauma or chronic accumulation, they don't feel like they can be present. They feel that they're always distracted or thinking about the past or thinking about the future chronically, and they have a hard time engaging. And we won't go all into the clinical symptoms, but I'm glad to know that you also are educating people with the book. But so that I think the book could really accelerate their therapy. And then I guess you have a trauma treatment center in Pacific Palisades. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Sure. Yeah. So. Well, I had that center for seven years now. It's actually a body mind eclectic approach to trauma treatment. So it's not just psychotherapy, but we have people who are trained in EMDR in somatic therapies, mindfulness, yoga, acupuncture, neurofeedback, art therapy, music therapy. So it's all. So when a person comes in, they get a whole package. So it's actually an intensive treatment. I mean, you could do just once a week, like private practice. But our most successful programs are anywhere from three hours to five hours every day. And so people come in and do, you know, good intensive boot camp style trauma work, which I actually find so much more helpful because you give hope to someone faster and sooner. And because in two weeks, just yesterday actually I had somebody who came from San Francisco and she's doing one more week and then said to Me, this was literally a life changer. I can't believe I feel completely different in two weeks. Yeah, but it's two weeks of five hours every day. So you can basically do a year of therapy in two weeks of intensive. And also, you know, your mind is fully focused on self healing and you're not like going, you're not working. You take time off just to sort of to turn inwards. And you're very supported by this team of trauma professionals.

That's very interesting. I really. I love the intensive approach. I have a few colleagues who will do two or three day intensives with clients. Mixing sand tray and EMDR therapy, ego state work. You've probably heard of alpha stem. Have you heard of that? And the alpha stim machine that's used by a lot of psychiatrists and other therapies. But I really love the idea of five hours a day. And it sounds like there's a mix of professionals working with them, but it sounds completely outpatient. So people come and then they participate and then they go to their hotel or whatever. Is that what I'm hearing? Go home?

That's correct. They go to Airbnb. They have friends or they're local or we also have sober living houses or residential living houses that we have connections with. They can also say there. I used to have actually a residential facility, but it burned down with some fires that happened here three years ago. Ground zero, completely demolished. It's a sad story, but it was an amazing place and it was for six women at a time. So. Yeah, yeah.

So that's. I think that's great because a lot of. There are some treatment centers that I know about in Arizona that I'm quite familiar with because I'm there half the year and they offer some of what you're talking about, but it's like a fully intensive inpatient center. And so a lot of people don't want to go there because of the cost. And so I'm assuming that your center is a little bit more cost friendly. You don't have to name the prices because this is going to be on the air forever. But I'm assuming because it's a five hour a day and not 24 hours a day with medical supervision, it's a bit more cost effective.

For sure it is. And actually I'm opening in two weeks a second program that's going to be in network with insurance that's going to be even more cost effective. So I'm working on that. I wanted to help more people, so that's my Vision.

Well, we should stay in touch because if you can somehow convince the insurance companies to help people with their trauma, I think that you've obviously got some excellent skills. Because anyway, that's a whole nother topic of a podcast. But in our, in our field, in the trauma field, it's been a long road of, of, of of working on the investment of deep healing which with long term results versus the quick band aid approach of some of the therapies. Even though I love the whole field of therapy, but I'm a little bit biased towards the trauma specific modalities.

Me too.

Well, that is good. We're on the same team, so that's incredible. And I think this is a fantastic resource that I'm actually going to now refer people there because I have people asking me all the time, I don't want to go to this treatment center. Do you know any place that does intensives? I was like, I know a few people that do intensives, but now I know a place that does intensives. So that's great to know. Let's delve into, We've got time. Let's delve into this collective trauma. What's up with this collective trauma? I think we all might be in one right now, but if you could kind of define and explain what you mean by that.

We are in one. I think the word collective trauma is going to be known by everyone now, unfortunately. So collective trauma is when a traumatic situation is shared by a group of people. 911 was a collective trauma for us here in the U.S. a lot of countries already do that because they're often at war. We were kind of lucky until that time, to be honest. We haven't been really at war, but now it is. So there's pros and cons about it, if you will. It's a weird way of saying that, but. So the benefits of being in a collective trauma situation is that you don't feel alone, you are really sharing your symptoms with other people. You can talk about it. Everyone is going through the same problem and similar symptoms. Of course there's a severity of how people handle it, but overall there's the sharing. Right. Well, and the difficult part of it is, unfortunately, is that you can't escape it. So before, if I was having a hard time, I could think, oh good, I'm going to at least have a vacation. I'm going to Spain. So during the COVID I couldn't go anywhere. Me and everyone else. And not only that, but you can't even have refuge in people because if you're having a hard time, but your best friend is actually having a good time, good phase in their lives. They have strength to support you, but if they're also struggling, then who do you go? Right. So that's, that's where it became a very difficult thing. So. And also something a little bit energetically maybe to share, but it's because the whole ambiance, the whole mood of the country, of the world is so down. Even if you weren't in person impacted by the pandemic that much, let's say everyone's mood will be like a cloud. And so that's sort of like an energetic impact that you might feel.

Yes, I agree completely. I think that we've been in a collective trauma since COVID 19 began. And it's a very strange one because of the way the virus has spread. Some places experienced waves, first, second, third, fourth waves, where other places are just experiencing their first wave. And then of course, the rollouts of various treatments and vaccines has been received with various. Well, basically two different sides. And so that's impacted things as well. And I remember at the beginning of it, the first week that COVID 19 supposedly hit the U.S. i think it was here earlier, since I believe I probably had it earlier due to the symptoms and what my doctor thinks. But in March of 2020, actually somebody I knew who worked for the government in Michigan that I was friends with passed away from it. We just thought he had pneumonia or a cold or something. Then he ended up in the hospital. So immediately that first week, a lot of people were like, what is this? And I was already very upset about this friend of mine that passed away. And then there's other symptoms of trauma because there was grief. I've got grief going on. And other people that I had talked to said, oh, it's just a bad cold, it's not a big deal at that point. And they were sort saying you're this is exaggerated moment. Well, yeah, maybe, but my friend's dead. So you know, that then that even caused worse, you know, problems because they have differing. We couldn't agree on the trauma where in 9, 11, I think most the US citizens agreed that we were all traumatized by this event, even if we didn't know somebody at the Twin Towers or a friend in New York I had a friend at who was next to ground zero, who escaped. But you know, we could all kind of agree on that. And unfortunately, in this, in this current trauma, I think we are. There's various interpretations of the trauma which is even making it more confusing to have a collective shared experience where you feel understood by others.

That's a very good point. Yeah. It actually created a split. Right. It's sort of people who think it's exaggerated and people who think, how come you're minimizing it? So you all of a sudden were almost afraid to say, okay, which. Which group do I belong to? Who do I really share my true feelings? That in that way, you are right. It made it harder. But with the 9 11, though, it wasn't an incident and it was gone, and then people sort of healed from it. But this fact that. The fact that this is sort of an endless, like, okay, it's one more month, one more month, one more month. Next thing you know, we're like, still in pandemic, mask on, mask off, vaccination. It's just been this chronic stress. And chronic stress can then turn into really traumatic experience for a lot of people. And there's a fear of death here as well as there was, of course, death in 9 11. But this is like, you don't know you can die any minute. So this anticipation, long anticipation is very hard for the nervous system. It's just there's no space to calm down. There's always this activated state that we are in.

Yes, and that's a good point. And would probably account for the statistical massive increase in alcohol and marijuana sales all across the United States in the last year and a half, as well as the massive increase. When I was running a therapy clinic, and when Covid hit and we went online, I thought, oh, goodness, here we go. This is the end of therapy. I was wrong, of course. About two weeks later, after people realized this was not going away, a lot of people canceled for about two weeks. And then online, you know, they said, I don't want to go online. This is so inconvenient. I'd rather be in person. You know, we'll just wait till this is over and we'll come back. Well, two weeks, three weeks into it, all of a sudden, our phones, you know, collectively in our emails from home, were ringing off the hook. Luckily, we had one of those phone systems you can answer from cell phone, too. So we were able to kind of pivot that way. And then ever since that moment, with only a few, maybe weeks of exception, the amount of people seeking therapy, we don't know the exact statistics yet, since it's still occurring, but seems to have increased at least anecdotally with every therapist I know, in every state that I know people. And so, yeah, that's just a point about that. So back to the collective trauma. It seems like people are starting to seek help more than ever, for sure.

And you are right. Statistics show that unfortunately, more suicides happened in this last year and a half. More drug use, more alcohol use, more depression. Apparently the population that suffered the most is adolescents. And I actually think, because adolescence is the age of the whole focus of your life is friendships. Right. You don't care about your parents, you don't care about school, you care about friends. That's all you care about. It's your identity. So not having the freedom to be with your friends have created tremendous amount of difficulty for adolescents.

Yes, absolutely. So with the collective trauma, what are some things that you, I guess, would, I don't know, give advice or recommendations to people that are feeling the collective trauma that we're currently experiencing or other ones as well?

You know, I'm a big fan of mindfulness, especially the part about sort of this. And DBT would talk about that too. Right? The radical acceptance, like about accepting a situation that you can't change and focusing more on the present rather than going into the future or into the past and just really practicing being here in the moment without judgment. That's sort of the summary of it. And so it really fits our current situation because we do not know when it's going to end. So if we constantly get anxious about the future, we are going to be much more traumatized or much more stressed about it. So finding ways to practice mindfulness at this time in our lives would be probably the best thing. So this along with daily practice of something that makes your nervous system feel better, is it yoga? Is it walking? Is it Tai chi or meditation or whatever it is, but doing it daily and not just when you're in crisis. So this is what I'm seeing more and more. It's very similar to workout. When we work out to be in good health and shape, we can't just work out for a month and go, I don't have to work out now for the rest of my life because I did a very good workout. Right. It requires an ongoing thing. The same thing for mental health. And I think this is what we're seeing now because the stress is so high. If we don't daily take care of ourselves, we are going to have a difficult time to maintain some sense of wellness.

So what I'm hearing you say is basically you're advocating for practices that bring us back to the moment that we're currently in, instead of wishing for some moment to pass where everything's back to, quote, normal, or dwelling on the fact of, well, I lost all this time due to COVID 19 lockdowns and now I'm just going to be mad about that forever. So focusing on things that can help our mental health in the now because that brings us back to more of a state of rest and relaxation instead of fight, flight, freeze, falling and collapse. Is that what I'm hearing?

That's right. And it creates more just presence in the body too. So it's not just like being aware, like, okay, I'm here Friday morning, but I'm also in my body. And then when we focus more in our bodies, we tend to be actually less in our heads. Because the more you go into your head and the more you think, then you're, you're going to have the circular motion of like obsessive thinking going around and around and around and then really have more anxiety or more depression. It really affects the mood. So you can slow down your thoughts and be much more in the present. And again with the presence, just like noticing your body, like as I'm talking to you, I can feel my feet, I can still talk, but I'm still feeling my feet on the ground. So it keeps me here in this room so I'm not traveling to somewhere else. Right. This practice overall really helps the nervous system to be much calmer and more even. So I'm not looking for ups and downs. Right. I'm looking for more evenness.

And so because trauma affects the nervous system, this is why you're recommending some of these practices. Basically because long term stress of the nervous system can create all sorts of mental health symptoms. And so by trying to be more preventative in our daily life, that can help us. For instance, some people, I heard this during the pandemic, would refresh the news websites every five minutes hoping there would be some sort of breakthrough or some sort of news announcement about things going back to normal versus actually maybe going to a yoga class and putting down the phone and putting down the news and sort of getting lost in some fun project or arts and crafts or a phone call with a friend. Things that kind of bring us back to ourselves. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah, that's a very good point. I like your word. Prevention. So it's not just the treatment of what you have to do today. Right. But prevention and maintenance on an ongoing basis. These are very important things as well.

Yes, absolutely. So some of the other things I was curious about were you talked a little bit about it. But the difference between trauma and stress, and, you know, they're definitely intertwined. But can you explain some of your observations on those differences?

Sure. Just like, actually, it's interesting just like how people minimize trauma, there's also a group of people who sort of exaggerates it for every little thing. They call it trauma now. And it's actually not a good message to give to yourself. Like, oh, I was stuck in traffic. I was traumatized. Okay, being stuck in traffic is probably not traumatizing. It's stressful. I feel like it could be retriggering consciously saying, I'm in trauma, I'm in trauma. This is what you're saying to yourself if you can cope with it. Yes, it's upsetting, overwhelming, but you're able to cope. You're not powerless. You have some sense of like, yes, I know where I'm here now. It's stress. And then there's. Then you name it as stress. And you look at stress management techniques and tools and could be again, breathing, mindfulness, yoga, exercise, and all sorts of journaling and expression of the feelings. Hopefully you can then work on it. So I think it's important to make the definition or differentiation really between the two of them.

Right. And stress is something that can be monitored because you can see it with hard outcomes such as your pulse.

Your.

Breathing rate, and a lot of new technology, wearable technology, apparently I don't have one, but an Apple Watch and different things like that can. Can sort of monitor your breathing and your heart rate. I used to like this thing called the Spire. And you can still get it online, but it's this little thing you put on your belt loop and it monitors your breathing per minute. And then it will buzz you if you're holding your breath, which I kind of liked that. Another. Another thing you can do at home, there is a product called. I don't have sponsorships with any of these. It's called the Museum. And it's a really cool thing that it's sort of like a biofeedback device that you put on your head and then you listen to headphones and you work on meditating. And it gives you positive sounds when you're like really resting and relaxation. And it gives you sort of. Not negative, but sort of a reminder when you're. When you're drifting from that calm state. And I find that stuff sort of fun because some people. I like meditation too, but some people find it really hard to meditate. And so I think having like a game element is kind of fun. There's also heart math. Have you heard of heart math?

I was just going to say heartmath is what we use here, actually, and in my center. And I really do like it. And people can do it on their own for sure.

Yeah. HeartMath has some amazing devices you can purchase. And it really helps with the. What's called the heartbeat and the breathing. It's called the variance. Right. Is that the covariance? Am I saying that correctly? Oh, coherence.

Coherence. I'm sorry, I forgot. It's the coherence.

So the coherence between those two and having that. Having it be more differentiated is a sign of more cardiovascular health. And then if you're breathing in that natural way and you learn and train yourself through playing these fun games on a HeartMath app, you can retrain yourself kind of how to breathe naturally without this stressful nervous system activation breath, which can lead to chronic stress and a multitude of symptoms. I mean, people are reporting sleeplessness, insomnia, just all sorts of things through this collective trauma time. So, yeah, those are just some things that I was thinking of when you were talking about that. So what is a point you want to make? Because I know we have limited time left. What's a point you wanted to kind of make before we send off?

I think maybe adding the importance of compassion. I think people are very judgmental towards each other and towards themselves. Right. Whatever your belief system is about what Covid means, we're talking about collective trauma. Drop the judgment. Just understand that everyone comes from a different background. Or people also have been judging each other's reactions. Like, if you're too okay with it, it's a judgment. If you're too scared, it's a judgment. There's no capacity to tolerate. We are different individuals. We want everyone to be like us. So compassion really goes a long way. And also for yourself, actually, believe it or not, you do believe it because you're a therapist. People tend to be harder on themselves than on others. So I think people say the worst things about who they are or their symptoms. So rather than judging your symptoms or your behavior, understanding that it comes from trauma, and showing compassion for the origin of it. Right. For the root of something would be a crucial foundational skill that you can do in terms of trauma healing. You can't heal unless you have some form of empathy or compassion for yourself.

I could not agree more. And I think it is a bit of a lost art, and I think it's been coming back into vogue. What's called self care. But in the therapy world, I mean everyone's gonna have a little bit different opinion. But my idea of self care would be intentionally doing something that makes you feel good that is not addictive, such as you might feel good eating five bowls of popcorn and eating a bunch of sugar, but that is possibly an addictive thing. So everyone's got their little bit a different situation. So doing something that makes you feel good, such as arts or crafts or music or communing and that kind of self care versus I've seen on social media people post a big milkshake and say self care. And I'm like, I don't know about that because there's a trade off with that and there's less trade off with, you know, stretching your muscles. But I think there is a lost art and self compassion in thinking about our lives in a way that's holistic and compassionate. And so I think that's something we could all use right now. Especially at a time where it seems that empathy has been dampened due to, I think what you're talking about. But I was thinking people have been so chronically stressed and traumatized that they are forgetting that we're all people, all suffering, all going through somewhat similar experiences though different depending on where you live and your background. So I agree with that completely and I want to make sure that you get the last word but I want to make sure people can find out about you. So I'm going to be putting your link to your website and websites, I guess in your book and everything in the show notes. So that'll be there and I'm very excited to, you know, connect with you more about your intensives because that's really news to me and I really think that if people learn about themselves and the nervous system and trauma, it can really just completely reshape the paradigm of how you've been living and what you've been and how you've been experiencing things and can be healing even before or even without going to therapy. And so I want to put that out there as well for the people that are listening without resources. So anything I want to let you have the last word.

I think I said all my last words, but compassion was the most important one. Knowing what, why you do certain things, understanding that it's most likely trauma oriented and not giving up. Maybe that's something that I can add. Just knowing that working on yourself is a good thing doesn't mean you're weak, doesn't mean I don't know you're not strong enough is usually sort of the idea, right? But it's just that something you have to do and having a positive, more positive attitude towards yourself can give you the strength to work on your trauma. I'm a believer that everyone should be continuously working on themselves. However, on your own, with friends, with therapy, but do something.

Wonderful. Thank you so much Dr. Carol Darcy for showing up on the Intentional Clinician today. It's been my pleasure to speak with you.

Thank you as well to you for inviting me again.

Sam.

And there you have it. This has been another episode of the Intentional Clinician Podcast. If you are a therapist and are looking to become EMDR trained, I would recommend EMDR Training Solutions. They are an amazing group of people that provide trainings online and eventually in person to help you become EMDR trained and and eventually EMTRIA certified. You can use the code intentional. That's the word, intentional to get $100 off if you purchase a training, especially if it's your first training. A little bit about what I've been up to. I am almost a full EMDRIA consultant and I can provide consultation hours and have a group going every Wednesday. So let me know if you would like to be a part of that consultation group. Also, I have a course online called what Do We Do now for the Parents of Young Adults, which you can find on Udemy. There will be a link in the show Notes. If you are in need of counseling, do not hesitate to make an appointment with a local counselor in your area. You can also make an appointment with the excellent clinicians in the Grand Rapids area at Health for Life Counseling Grand Rapids and the Trauma Informed Counseling center of grand rapids by visiting www.health4forlife gr.com the recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Paul Kraus and his guests, and while these are based upon literature they have read, their experience in their respective fields, and personal experiences, these viewpoints should not be viewed as a definitive opinion on any subject. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for treatment. If you are in Crisis, please dial 911-OR the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. That's 1-800-273- 8255. Are you a young person of color feeling down, stressed out or overwhelmed? Text Steve that's s t e v e to 741741 and a live trained crisis counselor will respond. Did you know you could support your local bookstore by shopping@bookshop.org you can order online from the comfort of your own home while supporting a local bookstore near you that is brick and mortar. If you are not a member of a mental health counselors association, I highly recommend that you join, such as the Michigan Mental Health Counselors association, which you can find on the Internet, or any other state which you live in. There are a lot of things that go into keeping counseling available to the public, so I really encourage you to get involved in your local organization. Until next time, I'm wishing everyone a safe and peaceful week.

I like doing this. The dust can dance again and again and I take a shower just before.

Bed.

Hear the rain on the street Falling asleep at night Falling sa.