How Trauma Gets 'Stuck' In The Body & What To Do About It
Modern life throws a lot at us. It's important to understand the effects of chronic stress and how it can change the brain and body, as well as shape our consciousness, health and overall wellbeing.
Before you begin: Take a breath. Turn your attention to your body and release any tension. Breathe slowly into the area of your heart for 60 seconds, focusing on feeling a sense of ease. Stay connected to your body as you read. Click here to learn why we suggest this.
Trauma is certainly becoming a buzzword these days. Is it for a good reason? I think so.
The problem I do see around the popularization of trauma is, we aren’t on the same page collectively when it comes to the definition of trauma.
When it comes to trauma, people typically think of some major event that occurs in someone’s life like a car accident or a life threatening experience. People also think of things like a soldier returning from war with PTSD. Those people have trauma, but the rest of us don’t.
But research over the last 30 or so years invites into a different lens of trauma, and a different definition for it.
More recently, especially through the work of Dr. Stephen Porges and Polyvagal Theory, we’ve learned that trauma is not in the experience we have, it’s what happens in the body… more specifically in the nervous system.
This means how we respond to an event or series of events or stressors is what produces trauma, not the fact that it happened. This also means two people can experience the exact same thing and come out of it with different outcomes.
What we’ve also learned more deeply is that trauma can occur through everyday overwhelming stressors of our modern life. That is to say, our nervous system can rewire toward unhealthy patterns from experiencing consistent stressors in life.
The end result is what is called nervous system dysregulation. Essentially the nervous system begins doing the wrong things at the wrong time.
This is because our body is designed to handle stress, but only in small doses. When stressors are consistent we move toward allostatic load and our brain and nervous system begin to maladapt causing us to lose our health, vitality, and develop chronic health conditions.
A healthy and regulated nervous system is crucial for optimal health. It ensures our body can maintain homeostasis and have capacity and resilience to show up to everyday life.
Beyond major traumatic events, if we experience too much chronic stress, early childhood adversities, poor diet and nutrition, underlying health conditions, or a poor or toxic environment, we can end up with nervous system dysregulation.
Common signs of nervous system dysregulation (trauma) are feeling overwhelmed or on edge often. Feeling angry, snappy, irritable, or overly reactive. Feeling consistently fatigued and having poor sleep patterns. Experiencing chronic pain or illness. Being very sensitive to external stimuli. Being highly sensitive to other people’s emotional states. Attention or concentration challenges.
Trauma & My Experience
For me, trauma became very loud in my life during a period when I became burnt out. The constant everyday stress of trying to pivot my business through impossible conditions had me on alert every day. I couldn’t relax, my sleep sucked, I put on a few extra pounds and could not get rid of them. I even lost the deep connection to myself I had worked for years to build.
As tough as this experience was, there was immense wisdom in the experience. It sparked a journey to take my knowledge in the healing arts and consciousness to a whole new level.
I’ve spent the last four years studying nervous system health, somatic, and embodiment at a whole new level. Through this, and working with some clients, I’ve come to the belief that all of us have maladapted (to various extents) to exist within our modern world.
That is to say, I believe all of us can benefit from learning about trauma and how our life experience shapes our vitality and ability to thrive. In fact, it feels a necessity to thrive in our existing world until we can collectively re-design our world to produce healthier humans.
Four years ago, I began studying the world of nervous system health, embodiment and trauma with deep inspiration and passion. I learned from many incredible teachers, but one more than all others. That was Irene Lyon.
Below is my latest conversation with Irene as we explore what trauma is, how it gets stuck in our body, and what to do about it. We also explore various sources of trauma from childhood to developmental years as well.
One last quick note, one of the main courses I took during my learning was Irene’s Smart Body Smart Mind program. I can honestly say, it was one of the most impactful learnings I’ve done, and I will carry this knowledge with me for the rest of my life. It has been hugely impactful in my own healing as well as what I help bring to others.
At the tail end of our discussion, we talked about her upcoming live cohort for her Smart Body Smart Mind program. Registration is open from Sept. 12 to 19, so if this topic piques your interest and you want to learn to become your own medicine, be sure to learn more about her program here.
Listen to our conversation on:
On Spotify here.
On Apple Podcasts here.
Or watch on YouTube below.
Any disregulation of the CNS is trauma. You have a whole paragraph of “chronic stress”
But fail to draw the line that when you can’t handle the stress of every day life .. you are in fact, in a trauma response. You also fail to accurately acknowledge medical insult as a biological trauma to our bodies, which does register as trauma to the brain, although perhaps not the mind. As a survivor of trauma who works to help others regain their sense of power, I would offer that you look more closely at trauma as you discuss it.