The Real Root Cause of Chronic Pain, Autoimmune, and Fatigue

We are talking about trauma today and not the kind of trauma you maybe are thinking about. I think a lot of times we put this big, scary description around the world, trauma. We think it has to be this horrible, awful event that happened. And sometimes it is. But there's a lot of different meanings to the word trauma. And I believe by the time we've reached midlife, we have all experienced cumulative trauma in a lot of different ways. Even if your brain doesn't recognize a specific event or situation or thing that happened, and if we don't dive into a deeper understanding of what this actually means for us, it can affect our health. It can affect how we age, it can affect how we regulate emotions. It can affect how people navigate relationships with us. It can affect all areas of our life. I wanted to dive into this conversation today with no other than Dr. Amy Opigian. She is amazing when it comes to this topic. In fact, she has a new book out about the biology of trauma and why this is so relevant and important to us. Thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Amy thank you, Natalie. I love this topic, but especially I'm really excited to dive into it with you. And I think that there's some gems that we can really uncover for people in your audience.

You know, I used to hear the word trauma and just and literally think it was an event. Like, oh, it was for the person that this happened to them this thing happened. And I almost was looking at it as an overused word sometimes. Like, people either they had their big event and that was really real, or I would see people use this word trauma, just kind of flippant, like just in everything, like, oh, the tr. And I'm thinking, like, what kind of what. What are you talking about? What is this trauma you're talking about? And I know when I was navigating my original back injury, I was super triggered by any kind of concept or book that talked about stored trauma is creating that. I like, I didn't want to hear that. I'm like, no, I am athletic, I am strong and I am, you know, grow up in the 70s with, we don't do that. Like, we brush it off and move on. And I had a real injury, so I didn't want to hear it. But I will tell you, coming full circle, having just at the time of this recording, completed a disc replacement surgery, a major back surgery. I was really going down a whole extreme of rabbit holes on what creates injury, what creates pain. And trauma kept coming up and I kept thinking I didn't have like, an event. So perfect timing to have you back on. I want to talk, dive all into this.

Let's analyze your life, Natalie.

Well, not just mine.

I don't want to just make.

But I wanted to share that is why that's like of interest to me big time right now.

And it's a real conversation that we need to have because whether we're talking about back pain, whether we're talking about autoimmunity, whether we're talking about general fatigue, there's this idea that it is connected to trauma. But without understanding why and how and what that means, then there can be that tendency to brush it off, to dismiss it and. Or even be insulted by it.

Yeah.

And. And so part of my process was looking at, oh, let's forget the word trauma. There's such a label around that. And if that's gonna be a stumbling block, let's. Let's leave that word aside because what happens inside the body is really what we need to look at. That's what is creating long term problems. And so what is happening inside the body, and that's when I started to reframe it as this is just a trauma response rather than this is trauma. It's just a trauma response. And a trauma response is a very specific biology state. And I know we're going to go into that, but that's all it is. It's just an inner biology state. It doesn't make it bad, it doesn't make it good. It's just, it's our body. This is literally how our body navigates life. And so yes, by the time that we are teenagers, middle aged people certainly going into menopause phase of our life, we have accumulated trauma. And the more that we think that we don't, the more that we have accumulated trauma because we haven't done anything with it. So it's just been, it's just been stored. And what that means is it's continued to create a biology that will only result in more dysfunction in our life.

Now you're a medical doctor, like this is your background. Was that. So where a lot of doctors would kind of shun this and go, what? No, that's kind of whatever. That's pseudoscience that's in your head. That's not. Did you always have this understanding or is this a new understanding for you? And where did you decide this?

I went through medical school with that very conventional thinking. And now I call it corporate medicine. So corporate medicine is very much based on this idea that there is a diagnosis and you diagnose a condition based on certain patterns, and then there's a pill for that diagnosis. And then when I started hearing about these kinds of concepts, I was also one that really made fun of it. I would joke about it, be like, oh, is trauma stored in your kidneys or is it in your liver? Right. Like, it's just I, I was one of those because I didn't know what to do with it. And then I became a foster parent and that changed my life. Part of that process was deciding to adopt my foster child even though I was single, even though I was in medical school. And part of the reason was that his trauma was affecting him to such a large degree that he was not able to function well in life. And he was going to be in the foster care system in a group home for the rest of his childhood. And I was having a hard time grappling with that, that a four year old would have this kind of trajectory for his life. So I take him in and I commit to being his mom. And I realize in the process, Natalie, I don't know anything about trauma. I too have just seen it as an event. And he certainly had had lots of events that I could clearly label as you have had trauma. But why then was he still living as if he were in trauma? Because he has a very different environment now. He has a great mom now. I am very stable. I'm loving. He has everything that he needs now. So if the trauma is over, why is he still living as if it's happening right now? And that was when I really came to understand no trauma does get stored in your body. It is not just something that is in your past that you can move on, that you can get over, that you can make a decision about. I'm not going to let that affect me anymore. It has become everything about you, everything about what you think is safe, everything about what you perceive as might go wrong in your life. And your brain and your nervous system are then recreating this danger, constantly keeping you in your trauma responses. And then I'm seeing patients in the hospital at the same time, and I'm seeing the adult version, that of my son. And I'm seeing the autoimmunity, the fatigue, the fibromyalgia, the chronic back pain. I'm seeing the cardiovascular like I'm seeing it all. And I'm starting to now make this connection because it had become my personal home life as well.

So your foster son had some very extreme, real things that happened to him that most people, if they heard those Stories would say, okay, that is real trauma. Like, people like to have this black and white. Like, that's real trauma. But what about people that maybe didn't have those extreme things? You have still shared that there's still trauma. Our body still perceives things as trauma. Can you explain that a little bit more?

And this is why I wrote my book, because there are so many people who did what I did, which is compare my past to someone else's, and we can always find someone who had it worse. And they need to know what is happening in their body so they can do something about it. So as we look at what is the inner experience, we really can simplify the inner experience that qualifies a moment as creating a trauma response. And that moment is one in which we feel all alone. We feel that there's nothing that we can do that will make this bad thing stop. So those two elements are essential. If I can't do anything to make this bad thing stop, but I'm not alone. I have a friend here with me. That's not a trauma response. Or if I don't have anyone with me, but there's nothing that bad happening in my life, well, that's also not going to create a trauma response in my body. It's the combination of those two. It's the combination of something bad is happening and there's something I can do to stop.

So, for example, it doesn't have to be what somebody would think of as this awful, tragic, horrible event. But, like, let's just say I'm just making up a story. You were a child that we were a lot latchkey kids, like many of us were. You come home, your parents are working, right? And you go to put your key in the door. You're in, I don't know, fourth grade, fifth grade, and it doesn't work. And we didn't have cell phones then. And, you know, and I'm just. I'm literally making up the story. But your parents, like, didn't mean to lock you out, like nothing happened. But here you are in this moment, you're feeling all alone. You're thinking, nothing is going to make that. Like what you just said, nothing that will make this stop. Because you don't have a cell phone. You don't know like that. Like, as an example, I'm taking it, that could create this trauma response. Is that. Am I hearing this correctly?

The trauma response is something that happens inside of us. And so there are so many scenarios that can happen, but it's the inner experience. So yes. For many children, that experience could have created that inner feeling of there is nothing that I can do and my life feels like it's at threat and I feel all alone.

Now, is there any specific time frame that these events would happen? And if you have one event, does that make you more likely to have that similar response to future events?

Oh, well, let's take it really young because this is where it can start. What if someone were born premature? Natalie, what if someone were born premature? Is that a trauma? Well, they could have had great parents. Going to the NICU or the neonatal ICU is a life saving measure. So why would that be a trauma? No, this was life saving and they had great parents. But you take the experience of that baby, it's born before it's ready. Its nervous system knows that it's not ready, and so it's already in this panic mode, feeling like my life is at threat. I don't know if I'm going to make it. It's born. And rather than having that comfort of the only voice and heartbeat that you know, you get taken away to some place that's sterile. It's cold because you've just been inside a tummy for however many months. Like you're, you're not used to this earth and its temperatures. And then they poke you and cause you pain and you don't know why, but you can't stop it.

Yeah.

And they come at for you what is unpredictable times. They come when you're sleeping, they come when you're not sleeping and you are too small to be able to crawl away and make it stop.

Makes sense.

So people who are born premature are another group of people that often don't recognize the trauma that their body went through. And so they're having all kinds of challenges in their life today, not realizing that it actually is connected to those early days, early weeks, however long that experience was, because the earlier that our body has this inner response, it starts to create the neural pathways. So there's time when stress happens, our. Our nervous system is like, oh, we already know. We already know our response. We don't have to think about this. We already know that we are too small. We already know that we're not strong enough. We already know that we're not good enough. We already know that. We already know this. And so we're going to just respond with the same response that we've. That's become our default.

So as you're talking, I'm thinking of most of us in midlife, listening a lot of us were raised in the 70s. So I was, I was born in 71 and in the 70s we were parents were taught maybe you were one of the lucky ones that didn't have this. Parents were taught that infants, infants should self soothe. So no, we should not rock you to sleep. No, if you're crying in your crib, no, it's good for you, you just cry yourself to sleep. That was one big thing. The other thing that was happening in the 70s was they didn't understand the huge connection between breastfeeding and the importance of it. Which is wild to me. Some of you are lucky. You had moms that breastfed. I had the mom that learned to get an injection to stop her breast from producing milk. That was a thing in the 70s that was the thing. Many of us had moms that did that. So if you think of self soothing yourself to sleep as an infant and not being breastfed and I'm not saying this for any of you that can't breastfeed or whatever to as a guilt. I'm just connecting dots here based on what you're saying. Those could be examples of where trauma starts.

Those would be examples where this trauma response starts to get wired into our nervous system as our default way of living life.

And Natalie, like we, we can often underappreciate what that experience would have been like for us as babies as children because now we've grown up, now we have this adult perspective, now we know that we survived. But in that moment when you're crying and you need something and no one is coming, they are ignoring you, you don't know if you're going to survive because as a baby you need someone else's nervous system to co regulate your physiology for you to survive. And you're literally calling for help to help you survive and no one is coming.

So you've mentioned nervous system a lot and can you explain how that connect? I know you, you're giving some examples but I want to be really clear because I think there's also a theme with again Gen X 70s, early 80s with the same sort of things happening like the anxiety that, like high functioning anxiety or autoimmune or there's like a. And they always tend to be. And I'm like, I'm not even poking fun because this was literally me too. So I'm just saying like it's the same people that had problems. Well they got breast implants and they had problems with their breast implants and they had mold exposure. Then they had gut health issues like it's like this whole bucket. I mean, I kind of. It's me, literally. But I also laugh at it a little bit, like, oh, of course you had mold. I did too. Like, it's like, of course, forth. So why is it that this group of people has those same things? Right? But then there's some people like my husband, who has gets none of that, right?

And this is the concept of the biology of trauma. These experiences of survival caused our body to adapt. And so when we're growing up, we either adapt to a safe environment and a healthy family dynamic and, and adults who love us and who guide us and give us the just the right amount of space for us to explore and learn new things in the world, or we adapt to the actual environment that we had.

The environment where we were crying ourselves asleep every night. The environment where you were on your own, hope you get home from school, hope that you're safe. I hope because we're at work and.

That was the environment that we adapted to. And those adaptations don't go away. Those adaptations actually become our immune system. They become our digestive system, they become our lymphatic system. And so now we're seeing the price of that. But it's not coming out of nowhere. It's been building over the years and we just haven't known that. Actually, Natalie, we've still been in survival mode. We actually never had that reset to safety that our body needed to stop accumulating more of these inner trauma responses.

So it's interesting because there's so much talk about toxic load, right? And I believe in toxic load from, especially in midlife. You know, you've had these years of exposure to things and that's real. But what I think is not talked about enough is this emotional toxic load too. And I think we are too quick to say, well, oh, that's just an in your head thing or that's just the woo woo like. But no, there is really that stored trauma is part of that toxic load, if I'm hearing you right, and I.

Even call it the trauma load. So the more trauma load that you have, and I have an assessment on my website where people can calculate their trauma burden because the more trauma burden that your body is weighed down with, the more toxin load that you will have. Why? Because it actually is impacting your detoxification system. It's shutting down those natural healing pathways that our body engages when we feel safe, when we feel calm and alive. And people refer to that state as the parasympathetic vagal state. So we have these healing strategies, but the more times that our body has had this inner experience of going into overwhelm, the less it's able to engage its own innate healing strategies. Which is fine for a time, Natalie. It's fine for a time because our body is so amazing in the load, or if you want to call it the stress that it can carry. When we think of not just the emotional stress that we go through, but then also the environmental stress and the different toxins that we're exposed to from the air, from the food, from the water, it's all around. So this is all a stress in our body, just carries it around for us. But for how long? There will come a time when that load will become too heavy and then that's when we get symptoms, maybe even a diagnosis. And we're like, where did this come from? And it's been there all along. It just hasn't actually erupted into the full blown symptoms that you're experiencing now because your body was doing such a great job of trying to hold it all for you.

You know, it's really quite amazing because I really, I don't even know if I'm gonna explain this right, but I'm gonna try. I've really noticed this interesting divide, especially this year because of politics and how health got involved in different ways. If you look at like the western medicine community and evidence based science versus like a lot of like naturopathic holistic people that are like kind of, they're not really western medicine, but they've like veered more towards like the natural holistic. There's this like big divide. And when I look at anyone that I respect or know that's like in the naturopathic side, pretty much all of them have this big story of western medicine. Couldn't help them. They had something wrong. Whatever it was, they had to become a detective, figure it out for themselves. And because of that they've gotten very passionate about all these extreme things. Like whether it's your oils or the, like whatever, the mold and DNA, just all these things, right? And then you've got this whole evidence based community. Like that's ridiculous. And like, it's like, you know the divide I'm talking about, it's like either or it's like a fighting divide. And when you hear the evidence based and the traditional western and obviously there's a place in the middle too, but I'm talking about the extremes for a minute. When you hear them kind of attacking the holistic or whatever, what it does is the holistic community gets like even more defensive and more triggered and more and it's like this forever thing. So as you're talking, I'm really seeing this on a different level. So if those people on this holistic natural side, they are, because that's how they, they became who they are. They also have these stored trauma burden and the trauma response, it literally is going to keep feeding the other side. Right? And then the other side, if they didn't have that, like they didn't, of course they think the other side's crazy because they're like, I didn't experience that. That's because for them these things don't affect them. So I'll like my husband, I'll make as an example, my husband could eat Doritos and donuts all day long. He will still have an eight pack. He will still be, he will like nothing will affect him. He's got this like wild. He doesn't have any of that.

Right.

We can live in a moldy house and he might have a cold while we're there. But like nothing, no issues. Me, I'll get all the issues. Right. So it's this interesting things. So we see things differently. But I'm like, but we're wired different. So anyway, I just wanted to point that out because I think what you're saying really ties a lot of that together. And like that's why the more natural, like they're not going to ever kind of fall to this other side. And that's why that evidence based side will never really fully understand. Does this make even sense what I just said? I don't even know.

Well, and this is, this was the big challenge when Dr. Felitti came out with his adverse childhood experiences studies and he showed by evidence, the evidence based studies show, look, there is a huge connection between stress in childhood, which we now know is actually a trauma response and adult health outcomes. And yet, Natalie, still to this day conventional medicine is like, well, what do we do about that though?

Right?

Right. There's no medication, there's no pill, there's no surgery for childhood trauma. So why would we even ask? And so that's what has perpetuated this great divide, is because they're still focused on, this is just the disease. And this is what we know is some treatments that are available. But yet the holistic group is more looking at. But what's driving it? How can I go to the root. And when you want to go to the root of things, you do find the nervous system. And at the root of everything.

And that's what I was just going to say, because there really ends up being no root. It. Is that what you said? Because you can, you can go down the rabbit hole on like, okay, oh, it's my gut. Oh, I cleaned that gut. No, wait, I had mold fix that. I removed my amalgam fillings. Did that. Okay, check thyroid. Optimize that. Like you keep going, right? And then like, why is it. But where, where does it end? I hear what you're saying. It is that piece. So what do we do and what do we do with that information?

And that's the second principle of the biology of trauma. And is that all of this biology that we have, whether it's from the trauma that we've experienced or from genetics, because it can be a combination of both. But that same biology now keeps our nervous system in survival mode. Natalie. Our own biology keeps us in survival mode, keeps us going into trauma responses. And so this is why, until we actually find all of the things that are still creating danger for our nervous system, our nervous system will still stay with the message of, you may tell me that everything's fine, but I can sense things that you don't know, and I can sense that there is danger. It goes by sense, it goes by perception, not by reality. Which is why we can have a relatively good life and yet still have that background anxiety.

So I'm going to ask you what to do about it in a minute, but before I do that, because, gosh, that's going to be a loaded question. I already know and I already have my list of like, well, that's not gonna work. So it'll be an interesting conversation here. Cause that's what we do in that place. But what's the danger of not fixing this and not looking at this?

And this is important for people to know because I don't want them to feel obligated to have to do trauma work. You're not. You don't have to. It is a choice. And when I'm working with someone and they're deciding whether they want to come work with me or not, we come to this decision point. We come and we look at, this is how it has affected you, this is how it is currently affecting you. At least what we've been able to identify. And we look at three different areas that it still impacts us today. Our general life and our stuckness in life, our relationships and our physical health. So identifying the present day impacts of this is then allowing us to make a decision. Is this how you want Your life to continue. If yes, you don't need to do anything. You don't need to do personal development and trauma work and nervous system healing. That is only if you want a different tomorrow.

Okay, and when you say a different tomorrow and you don't do anything, what does that mean for disease and for our bodies?

And. And the burden continues to accumulate, which means that the damage continues to express.

Itself no matter what you're chasing. Like, you can clean up the mold and you can clean up the things, but it's gonna keep happening.

Exactly. Because the nervous system is designed to keep us alive. And it is still sensing from somewhere that there is danger. And so it will continue to react to things. It will continue to be closed off to things. It will continue to stay in survival mode.

Okay, so that's choice one. You can stay there. But that doesn't sound very promising. That didn't sound very like, wow, it's not promising.

But, Natalie, it's important. It's important for people to know that. Right. Because otherwise, I mean, here's. Here's what happens. So, you know, part of my career was being an addiction medicine physician, so I'm working with addicts. Yeah, hard core addicts. People who are in their 50s and they've been using since their teenage years.

This was the same conversation I had with them. Natalie, you don't have to stop. I'm not going to force you.

Yeah. This.

This gets to be your choice. What do you want for your life?

Knowing that just like trauma, whether it's substances or trauma, they both have a cost and you're paying the price. But if. If you want to continue to pay that price, it's fine. There's no judgment on my part. You get to choose what you want your life to be.

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Yeah. And people shut down to some of the traditional ways, like. Yeah, like, so. So can we talk about that?

Let's do that. Yeah. Let's talk about your back pain. When was this when maybe do you remember when it first happened? Like, how old were you when you first had, you know, kind of had an injury or threw out your back or had some.

Let's see. Okay. When it comes to that, I think I had probably go back 20 years where I thought I had hip pain. Right. So it was like. It was. Because that's where. That's where sometimes if it's actually your spine or your back, you'll feel it someplace different. So I thought it was hip pain. So I used to get cortisone injections years ago in my hips, and it, like, never really solved the problem. And then I on an mri learned I had a degeneration. So that can happen to a lot of people, degenerative discs. So I knew that. And then I would get what they call a bulge or a. Like a slip disc every now and then. Like, it would stick out and it would hurt. And it was like that kind of thing. But it wasn't until I was on a workout set nine years. Eight years ago. Eight years ago. And doing hardcore workout stuff and my back was hurting. And instead of Natalie stopping and saying, you know, oh, this is just too. This is. I'm not good. I'm in pain. I was like, I will power through. That's what you do. Like, nope, not important. And it ruptured. My disc ruptured. So I created an injury. Now the doctors will all say, well, that would have happened anyway. Maybe it would have. But I think a lot of people that don't maybe have that same nervous system would not have even put themselves in that situation. Right. So. So ruptured. So that's what started it. So. So that's. That's his background story on that. So I probably answered my own question.

Let's go back to that hip pain. Yeah, let's go back to the hip pain. It's when you first notice that something was off. You thought it was hip pain. Ended up being back. But that time 20 years ago, ish. With hip pain.

What was stressful in your life at that time? What was going on? Where did you have some fears around what is happening? What might happen?

See, when that happened, I had just moved to California, so kind of started over. I just met my first husband, so I was engaged. So about to get married. Yeah. Probably around then.

So I. I don't want to make up things.

Yeah.

And I have spoken with enough people to know that. I want to share. I want to share some insights. And I have no idea if this relates to you. The insights Are that people who've spoken to me before. And as we've done this deeper exploration of the timing of when certain back pain started was because they were in a relationship that their body knew was not right.

That very well could be true. I mean, clearly we're divorced, so it's very true. So you know what's interesting about right.

Like their mind was like, no, this is a good choice.

No, it's very good. So it's been interesting because when I first started was navigating like the serious back, like when I had the rupture and I had to have emergency surgery because I had foot drop and everything. I remember people tossing that book to me like that Dr. Sarno book. And I was so triggered. Like I read it and I was like, this is a bunch of hogwash. This is so stupid. Because it was like all it did was talk about emotion. I'm like, I had a real frickin injury. Like I was, I was annoyed and I'm still kind of annoyed, but you can't tell.

So.

So yes, but now I see it a little different now. Yes, I did have a real injury. But why are you now My friend Cash, I think you know him, he's my DNA expert guy, he explained this to me in a way that I never really connected the dots before. But he said that your DNA, how you're wired and this is also could be the way you talk about it with stored trauma. All of that puts you in these situations where that is going to happen because you'll push your body, you'll push the envelope on things that other people would not do. So yes, you can make the argument it was a real injury, this really happened. And it did. But why did you even in that situation where that happened, that. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Why would you push through? Yeah. Instead of listen to your body. Yeah. And there's five patterns of trauma that I talk about in my book that you can use to recognize if you have stored trauma. Disconnection from your body is one of those patterns. So just this sense of disconnect, meaning my mind thinks that it can push through things that my body actually can't.

Which we've all taught. I was taught that. And mind over matters.

Yeah, right.

What I, I talk about it. Yeah. Yes.

So being able to look at, you know, the, the whole, the whole thing, the whole system. Okay. So back in our 20 or 20 years ago when we started to have this, you know, back problems, it was possibly perhaps related to I'm getting into a relationship A really committed relationship. I'm marrying the guy and my body is saying, this is not the right person for us. This does not feel safe. And that creates changes in our circulation that make us more vulnerable to injuries.

Makes total sense. Yep, totally get that.

And then now we have that vulnerability. So just like when we first start going into trauma responses, then that creates a default response. Well, same thing now with an injury. Now we've injured our back, so now that's a vulnerability. And it's easier for us to re injure it, which may be fine. If our nervous system is back in a state of calm and safety and aliveness, then our nervous system will protect us from those vulnerabilities. But if our nervous system is still in a state of, I don't know if this is going to work out, I don't know how things are going to turn out, I don't know if I'm going to make this one, whatever it is, then that insecurity continues to make us vulnerable to those areas that we are already susceptible. Some of those are injuries. So I've broken my collarbone four times. So I am very much right with you in terms of I seem to have a susceptibility to falling on this shoulder and breaking it and being able to look at why, why is that a specific vulnerability for me? And then, and we haven't talked about this yet, but the effect on structural issues to our sense of safety and stability. And this is another aspect where, Natalie, what we want to look at is what are all of the things that will affect our nervous system? What are all of the things? Because then it doesn't matter whether it's a traditional therapy approach or it's a holistic therapy approach. If it's going to have an impact on the nervous system, then we can either use it as a tool or it will be a signal of danger. And so a structural issue, a structural issue is going to create signals of danger to our nervous system. So knowing that, knowing that we have that vulnerability, we get to support it rather than push through it, try to ignore it, pretend it's not there. We get to support it so that it can do better for us and not lead us into ongoing problems that only create more frustration and pain for us.

So how do we do that?

It depends on the issue. And this is where, you know, a one size fits all protocol is not going to work. People need to learn how to, to work with their nervous system. They, they can't depend only on other people for knowing their own inner world.

So can you give us like, I know you. It's just like that's like saying, well, how do you fix your gut or how do you do this? Like, there's like so many different methods.

Right.

Can you give us kind of like a. An example or like maybe, maybe if it's not a one. This is one thing that everyone can start to do. Like give us an example of where someone was able to change this or fix it.

Yeah. So the way in my book, this is why it was really hard for me to write my book. Because like, how do you take such a big topic and make it accessible, give someone their clear path forward. And what I did was I really walked you through, like how your body experiences trauma. Why it's very different from stress. Stress is not trauma. Trauma is not stress. Trauma causes stress, but stress is not trauma. So that can be clear for people to know. My body is experiencing a trauma response, not just a stress response. And then what is the long term impact of that? That's section two of the book. So that section three is in. And here's what you do about it. And the way that I organize it, Natalie, is I think of it in three levels that need repair. Trauma impacts us on three levels. The mind level. So our self talk, for example, you got to fix your self talk. You've got to fix yourself talk. You can't keep telling yourself that you're a failure and expect.

But it sounds like it's also not a suck it up, buttercup talk.

It is.

Right? And that's what I think. That's what people do. That's what I do.

Yes, yes. Mindset will not be enough. And it is part of the. You can't talk to yourself like that anymore. You've got to bring in other talk that is more understanding and at the same time also kind of holding yourself accountable for the change that you want to make. We look at the next level, which is the body level, the somatic work. I know that we did some somatic exercises with your community before and remember how fast it works. And they were shocked at how quickly they could do a movement or do touch, do something physical with their physical body and experience a shift in their inner state.

It was like, like safe. You had something. Can you. Because a lot of the listeners didn't have that experience. Can you like say a little bit about what that was?

Yes. So there's different aspects of the somatic work that I do. And it's all built around creating a felt sense of safety since for our nervous system it's all about the sense, not about reality. It's about the sense. So even something as simple as bringing a pillow or a blanket over your stomach can help create a felt sense of safety, which is weird to think about. How, how could something so simple actually work? But the way that our anatomy is designed, our belly is a very vulnerable place. And if someone were to hurt us in our belly, we might die because there's vital organs there. There's vital arteries and veins, and they could also have access to our heart. So our belly is actually anatomically quite a vulnerable place. Which then, if we are feeling any kind of insecurity in our life. Natalie Oftentimes what a person will notice is that their abdominal muscles have become tense, which may have been part of the hip pain that you were experiencing is all of those abdominal muscles, the pelvic muscles, they tense up without us even realizing it because they're just feeling unsafe as they walk around the world. And so for us coming in and just saying, you know what, why don't I give you a moment of protection, just for a moment, I will hold something over you, in front of you. I'll protect you so that you don't have to protect yourself. And so often what happens is that as people do that, they feel their muscles just melting into relaxation, and they hadn't realized how tense they were before. And that relaxation then is what helps create that felt sense of, ah, right now I'm safe not realizing that this background tension of their muscles was actually creating that sense of anxiety. It's. It is so far beneath our conscious level of what our nervous system does to just help us survive our day.

You mentioned there's kind of three buckets. You said mine, the body. What was the third?

Yep. So the third is the biology. So what we do with this, and let's take the example of, I mean, we can take any example. We can take your back pain, we can take autoimmunity.

Take autoimmunity because that's a lot of problems.

Yeah, just like your back. They can look at their numbers and say, no, this isn't woo woo. This isn't emotional. My immune system is out of whack. And look at these numbers. It's a real diagnosis. And what we know is that there is an association between childhood trauma, especially attachment insecurities, and autoimmunity. And do we say that? Well, if you have autoimmunity, then the only thing that you need to do is go work on your childhood and process and heal that and you'll be fine. No, because at this point, that trauma has become your biology. It has become your autoimmunity. And so you will also now need to work at the biology level. Your cells are still in a state of danger. Your immune system is in fight mode, survival mode, danger mode. Those need shifting as well. Because if we only do the childhood processing, maybe we do it on both a mind level and a body level, but we neglect the biology. Our own cells, our own immune system will continue to give signals of danger to our nervous system. There's been many people that have come up to me lately and said, women, in fact. And they've all been, you know, the pusher throughers, the people pleasers, the perfectionists. Just not surprising, that is what, how, how the trauma patterns manifest often with autoimmunity. And they've said, I feel like my mind has healed. I have done so much reading and study and therapy. I know why I do what I do. I understand it all. And I've even worked to change those patterns and those, you know, relationship dynamics. My mind, I feel, has healed, but my body is still sick. And that's because they're missing the body and the biology level that will continue to give their nervous system cues of danger.

Can you supplement or biohack your way out of this?

My answer is you probably will need to take supplements and you probably will need to do what some would call biohacking in order to address the biology level. Because again, if we don't address the biology level, our body still stays stuck. So it's all of it. It's all of, all of it. All of the somatic work, the mind work, the biology work, we've got to do it all, and only one piece will not be enough.

Do you think, and I, and I think that most people that you've described, that is their go to, they want to skip 1 and 2. They want to go right to those things, right? Like, well, I'll just take CBD oil or I'll just do this. What do you want to say about that?

This is one way in which a trauma pattern shows up in our life. So one of the other trauma patterns, again, there's five of them. This one is that sense of depletion. So depletion, feeling like you don't have enough energy. When we don't feel like we have enough energy, we will always want to choose the easiest route. Our nervous system will drive us to choose what feels easiest. And so when I notice myself having those kinds of thoughts, no longer do I criticize myself or judge myself. But no longer do I entertain that that actually could be true. It's that balance of compassion and wisdom and so realizing that this is just, ah, this is a sign that my body right now is expressing a trauma pattern and it believes that we don't have enough energy to do it. Well, to do it right, to do it the, the holistic way that will give us the best results. And as long as my nervous system believes that it doesn't have enough energy, well then it's going to tell me, ah, let's just do this, let's just find the pill, let's just find the psychedelic journey, let's just find that, that one thing and just get it all done. When actually again, like that's just an expression of the trauma that I have already decided that I am working through and I'm working on. And I can take it just as that, ah, here's just another expression of that.

Can this be turned around?

Oh, Natalie, I have, I have worked with so many people now that I have so much hope. And for me the biology of trauma is a message of hope. It's that message of once we understand the science, once we understand like how our body actually gets us through life, how it makes these subconscious decisions that are sometimes illogical, but once we understand the science of this, it gives us so many new tools and so much hope for where we can make a difference in our life, where we can support our body, where we can affect change that we haven't even known sometimes needs to be made. We've just continued to struggle. So for me there is so much hope. And as long as someone is still breathing, still alive, that means that their nervous system is still running the show. And it really all comes down to the nervous system. And there is so much that we can do. And one of the reasons for that is this aspect of neuroplasticity, this aspect that our nervous system always adapts, are always, there's, it's always changing. And so if we can create an environment, both an external environment but also internal environment, changing our biology and the inflammation and the structural issues and these things that have created signals of danger. When we can change our environment, our nervous system will adapt to that and be like, oh, I guess we are happy and safe and well now, I guess that's the life that we need to live and it will adapt to that. It just has never had the chance because it has still been stuck in danger mode. So good.

I want to add, just from our perspective, I feel that people that live in this state, me included. I'm not, I'm not trying to hide behind it. I definitely recognize myself in all this stuff that you're saying. I think we'll tend to attract other people like that. And I think that's part of that regulating of that because it's makes you think, well, this is normal, this is the way it's supposed to be.

This is so true. And this is where we, we can go, woo woo. And there is science to this. So our nervous system chooses people, places and things based on what feels safe. And Natalie, until we've healed some of our past pain, what feels safe may not be what is healthy.

Yeah, it makes sense.

The unhealthy may feel safe. I often think of the family members of substance users or alcoholics and especially taking a child who grew up in that environment. They are used to chaos. They are used to loud fights or whatever it was that happened in their family. They are used to that. Their nervous system adapted to that. So that's what feels safe to them. And you put in front of them someone who doesn't use, doesn't drink, is healthy, is emotionally mature and that doesn't feel safe to them because they don't, they don't understand that. They don't know what to do with that. So they will pick the unhealthy simply because it's what feels safe.

Oh, so good. So much to think about here. Gosh. Everybody needs to get your book Biology of trauma and where do you want them to go to get it? I know you mentioned it was you can get it on Amazon. Is that where you want them to go? Is there a different place? Where would you want people to go get this?

They can go to Amazon. They can also come to biologyoftrauma.com where I have some bonuses that are being offered right now with the book. So biologyoftrauma.com and they can get grab their copy of the book.

So good. And where can people find you other than that? Do you want obviously everyone go get her book. Where do they follow you on social? Do you. Where do they want want them to go?

They can go to biology of trauma.com that's a great place for resources. I have my podcast there. They can follow me on socials. It's under Dr. Amy. So if they search Dr. Amy biology of trauma, they will find me on socials. But biology of trauma.com is where I've got so many resources for people. So that's a great place to start.

Thank you so much Dr. Amy thank you.

Thank you. Natalie.

Sam.