All About Trauma Healing & How To Approach It

Learn all about trauma healing in this discussion and gain insight into how trauma affects our body-mind alongside trauma resolution approaches. Topics covered: what is trauma, trauma and the nervous system, Peter Levine's Titration Model, what is being "out of body", release vs transmutation and more... enjoy!

Transcript

Welcome,

Welcome.

My name is Keith Parker,

And this is a talk about trauma healing.

So this is a bit of a hot topic in the sense that that word,

That keyword,

Is something a lot of people seem to be looking into at the moment.

And this talk is going to give us some insight and some overview and maybe even some sense of what it's like to get into trauma healing work,

Particularly for yourself,

But understanding it from a lot of different angles.

So I think that you're really going to enjoy this talk if you're interested in learning how and understanding what trauma is in the body,

In the mind,

In a sense energetically,

And how it is maybe that we can understand a model for working with trauma towards resolving it and towards actually alleviating ourselves of the density of how trauma leaves an imprint.

So my name is Keith Parker.

I'm really glad that you're joining me for this talk.

And I'm co-founder of Field Dynamics Energy Healing.

And so a brief overview of this talk.

We're going to define trauma and understand what it is in a general sense,

Understand how it affects us.

And then we're going to look at the psychology associated with it,

The physiology associated with it,

The energetics behind it,

In a sense,

How to look through the lens of the energy field or the energetic way in which trauma affects us.

Then we're going to look at a model for healing trauma.

And we'll be drawing from a very popular,

Maybe the most prevalent model of trauma healing that is out there today.

We'll get into that in a bit.

And that paves the way for understanding how it is that you might look to start resolving things of a traumatic nature.

And we'll close with a little reflection on what is it truly like.

What does it really require?

What's the mature perspective on trauma healing?

That's kind of the overview of the talk.

So here we go.

Let's get going.

So what is trauma?

Trauma,

By definition,

Is something that has overwhelmed the system.

Now,

Our system is,

If we think of it holistically,

It's body,

Mind,

Spirit.

And we could just stick with body,

Mind,

For simplicity's sake.

So trauma is when our body,

Mind,

Has had an experience which has overwhelmed it.

And because it was overwhelmed,

It has left an imprint.

It has left some kind of vestige of that experience.

Now,

In a sense,

You can understand it as experience is something that we need to digest and metabolize,

Just as we do with food.

And those words are obvious in suggesting so.

So when we have experiences that are very intense,

Very disturbing,

Very fear-invoking,

Very shocking,

Many,

Many different kinds of experiences can be simply overwhelming.

And to be overwhelmed by an experience means that we can't process it.

We can't take it in.

We don't let it in through our senses,

Through our body.

We don't let it in through our mind,

Through the thoughts associated with that experience.

So what happens is that in trauma,

We are in this overwhelmed state.

And what happens is that instead of being able to digest it in real time,

Right then and there,

And be present with it,

We actually put some of it off to the side.

We repress it.

We suppress it.

We compartmentalize it.

And what it does is it gets stored somewhere in the body-mind system.

If we think of it as information,

Experience as information,

That traumatic experience,

That overwhelming experience,

Gets stored somewhere in the system.

And it stays there latent.

And it becomes a background.

And it becomes a filter.

And it isn't resolved.

It hasn't been processed.

So that's what trauma is,

And understanding it.

It is unresolved experience.

And many things can be unresolved with us where we continue to hold on to the vestiges of those experiences.

But trauma is when it is of a significant nature.

It's of a truly comprehensive nature that affects the whole system,

The body,

And the mind,

And if,

Again,

If we look holistically,

End relationship to spirit.

And what it's done is it's really left quite an imprint.

So we must realize that our body and our mind are incredibly intelligent.

There is embedded in the underlying intelligence of the functioning of the body-mind a tremendous amount of ingenuity as to how to survive,

How to continue on,

How to adapt.

And when trauma happens,

When there are experiences of this kind of nature,

The ingenuity of the survival mechanism really kicks in.

And so what happens is in those experiences,

We do things like protect ourselves.

The body-mind has mechanisms in place,

Survival mechanisms,

If you will,

To protect ourselves when things are overwhelming.

And yet those protective mechanisms draw upon our resources and create unresolved experience.

And it becomes compartmentalized.

And here's the thing.

We don't know how compartmentalized it is.

We don't know how deeply affected we are often by traumatic experiences.

So here's a way of thinking about it.

Let's just say that ideally we're working at full capacity.

Your body's functioning really well.

Your mind is really fluid.

You're smooth.

Everything's in equilibrium.

And if that was the case,

We'd say our energy is being used well.

We're in flow.

And imagine this as being in a room.

And the room has the light on.

And you see that the light is on.

And you say,

OK,

A certain amount of energy is going into that light.

But what you don't know is that that room is the energy being supplied into that room to power that light actually is working on a number of different generators.

And there are 100 generators as backups.

So just in case the electricity dims,

If the light dims,

A backup generator gets turned on.

And these are our reserves.

These backup generators are our reserves.

Now,

When we talk about health,

It's healthy to be working with no extra generators.

We're just right at the front edge.

We're flowing.

But as we deplete our resources,

Our vitality drains,

And we start working on our backup generators.

And we don't necessarily know that.

Now,

With trauma,

What happens is we deplete some of our resources.

And the thing is you're just in the room.

The perspective that we have is just being in the room.

And we often don't have access to seeing these backup generators clearly.

So what happens is we're in the room.

The light is on.

And we have an experience that is of an overwhelming nature,

Of a traumatic nature.

And the light dims.

And then it comes back on.

And we go,

Oh,

That's fine.

The light's still on.

I'm still seeing all is well.

But what we don't realize is that we're using some of our backup resources.

Now,

To bring this back into a much more practical sense,

What it means is that we might have a severe experience of a traumatic nature and,

In some sense,

Acknowledge or know how intense or how troubling the particular experience was.

But the thing is,

As we move on through life,

In the days that follow,

In the weeks that follow,

In the months that follow,

What happens is despite the fact that we have compartmentalized that experience,

That we've stuffed it,

That we haven't processed it,

We actually normalize around it.

We actually start to feel and think and see as though everything were normal after the fact.

And yet,

We're working with these backup generators.

We're working with depletion in our vitality.

We're working with stuff that's really stuck deep down inside.

So trauma has this effect of activating the ingenuity of the compartmentalization in our body mind system and,

At the same time,

Bringing us into a depleted or bringing us into using our deeper resources,

Whilst,

At the same time,

At the conscious level,

We sense a normalization around that.

And we feel like things are the same,

Or our self-reference becomes normalized to that.

And yet,

There's a lot that's happened that is quite imbalanced underneath.

So let's look at some of the traditional ways that psychology would describe this.

One is dissociation,

The word dissociation.

Another is disconnection,

Or PTSD,

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

Phobias may ensue from traumatic events.

Deep levels of suppression and repression,

Obviously.

All of these,

In general,

Are psychological profiles or descriptors relating to trauma.

Physiologically,

A lot has to do with the nervous system.

And that's the primary thing that I'm going to drill down on in looking at the physiological nature of trauma.

It is how is the nervous system affected.

And we're going to look into that a little more deeply.

And before we do that,

I'm going to mention the energetic aspect.

So how energetically might we think of how trauma affects us?

Now,

Energetically,

When I do say energetics,

What I'm referring to is our energy field,

The human energy field.

And we all have an energy field.

It's electromagnetic.

It surrounds and interpenetrates the physical body.

And it's actually made of light.

It's electromagnetic in nature.

So when we think of it through that lens of seeing the energy body or the aura or the light field around the person,

What's happening there?

Well,

In some senses,

From psychology,

We can understand that trauma results in dissociation,

Meaning some kind of disconnection from being here and now.

Dissociation is generally defined as it's a break in how your mind handles information.

You may feel disconnected from your thoughts,

Feelings,

Memories,

And surroundings.

It can affect your sense of identity and your perception of time.

That's a definition of dissociation.

Now,

What's happening in dissociation energetically?

We could say it's being out of the body.

And this is a very common thing that we say almost casually with language.

We say,

Oh,

Well,

I was really out of my body in that experience.

Or I was really triggered,

And I was really out of my body.

And certainly with trauma,

You're out of your body.

Or there's something disconnected.

And that definition of dissociation I just read from you to you exemplifies that.

Now,

How can we think of that from an energy anatomy perspective,

What might be happening?

Goes something like this.

You have a central channel,

Meaning you have a core.

And that central channel is where all of the chakras are.

This is all part of your energy field anatomy.

So you have a central channel,

Which is your crown chakra down to your root chakra.

It's the vertical axis that your whole energy field is spinning around.

And then you have chakras lined around that.

Now,

In a sense,

Your energy field can be aligned with or misaligned with the physical body.

And the key alignment structure is the central channel.

In a sense,

We might say that if you can bring your attention and focus and be in your center and connect to your core from the top to the bottom,

You're going to be very,

Very connected energetically and physically.

In a sense,

The energy field is overlapping or aligning with the physical body very,

Very well.

And in doing so,

The information,

I.

E.

The sensations from the physical body,

Can be clear to the perceiver.

So what's happening in trauma energetically is that the central channel,

Your core,

Is actually misaligned.

It's off center.

It's out of body.

Now,

Sometimes and most commonly,

It would be up and out,

Meaning that it would be moving up into the higher centers,

Which is away from being grounded in the physical body,

Or it would move out,

Meaning it would come out of center and move forward,

Sideways,

Backwards,

Whatever,

But out of the center.

So it's a misalignment that tends to be up and out.

But in general,

It certainly requires there being an out of center,

A misalignment of the energy field aligning well with the physical body.

So this is an energetic understanding of what's going on with trauma.

And it can be very helpful to learn to meditate and to practice placing your attention and settling your awareness into your central channel,

Into your core,

And all the way down through the body,

Into the root,

Into the pelvis,

And even as well down through the legs,

Down through the feet,

Into the ground.

So where we,

Though,

Can really look at things and where we're going to connect is the physiology and then into a very,

Very common popular model of trauma healing that is most really prevalent today.

Now,

Physiologically,

The nervous system is really the master physiological system.

And we can understand this.

Your brain is really the primary integration physiological system.

Everything kind of is communicating up through the brain to coordinate things,

Through nerve impulses,

Through the spine,

Up through the brain.

And then the brain as a cascade into the endocrine system is working with hormones.

It's even talking,

For instance,

Helping to regulate cellular and biological signaling systems.

So your nervous system is a really big deal.

And we know that increasingly so in contemporary biological science.

Brain science is an exciting frontier and a very,

Very rich place for learning about how the body and biology is working.

What happens,

In particular with trauma,

It can be very well pinpointed and understood through examining how it affects the nervous system.

So we have in the nervous system two different functions.

We have a parasympathetic and a sympathetic nervous system function.

Parasympathetic and sympathetic.

Sometimes these are called fight and flight or rest and digest.

Parasympathetic is rest and digest.

Sympathetic is fight and flight.

You've probably heard these traditionally or casually.

You've heard these terms used before.

If you're really activated,

If your nervous system is in an activated state,

If you're in a heightened state,

An active state,

And almost an alarm state,

An emergency state,

You're in fight or flight and you're in sympathetic activity.

And those correlate with certain tracks in your nervous system and certain brain function.

In the opposite direction would be parasympathetic function,

Which is rest and digest.

And in a sense,

Rest and digest is when things are able to slow down,

To smooth out,

To go into a regenerative mode,

A healing state.

Fight or flight is when things are speeding up,

When things are very active,

When things are on red alert,

When there is a sense,

In a sense,

It is the detection of some kind of predator or some kind of emergency or some kind of a threat.

So it's like a fear activation.

Your adrenal glands,

Your kidneys are going to be very active.

Cortisol is going to be really being excreted from the adrenal glands.

And there's going to be stress hormones being pumped into the body.

So there's a very,

Very,

Very clear one way versus the other.

Now,

When we do things like constantly wind up in circumstances where we feel threatened,

Where we feel alarmed,

Where we feel that there's a fear activated,

We're going to be in fight or flight.

When we're working towards being in a relaxed state,

A peaceful state,

Being at ease,

Then we're going to work towards rest and digest.

So we can just see this basic function within the nervous system of speeding up or slowing down,

Of going into alarm emergency mode or going into restful regeneration mode.

What happens in trauma is that we go into an activated state in general.

This is the majority of trauma patterning looks like this.

It's that we go into an activated state.

We go into fight or flight.

And that fight or flight puts us into an arrested state,

An alarm state,

A suspended state,

And a shock state.

And what's happening physiologically is a lot of cortisol,

A lot of stress hormones,

A lot of activation.

What's happening psychologically is,

On some level in the background,

There is a sense of it's not safe.

It's not safe.

So what generally is being described in a lot of trauma healing circles nowadays is what's called nervous system dysregulation.

And what it describes is it describes this very phenomena,

OK?

The general description goes something like,

Nervous system dysregulation is a novel term to describe the clinical symptoms that result from repeated activation or extended conditions of stress on the nervous system.

Essentially,

Your nervous system is going haywire.

Essentially,

Your nervous system is not communicating well with other systems in the body,

Right?

It might not be working well with signaling process with other organs,

With other hormonal systems,

With other signaling systems in the body.

Things are out of whack in your nervous system.

And it's through repeated activation,

Meaning repeated fight or flight.

You keep going into fight or flight,

You keep stressing your nervous system,

And you keep heightening up this baseline of being in an activated state.

So everything about trauma healing is about,

Essentially,

Is about re-regulating your nervous system.

Meaning,

Moving out of fight and flight and moving into rest and digest.

Moving out of fight and flight,

Being in a fast mode,

And being able to move into a slower and slower mode,

Into a sympathetic mode,

Right?

So that your body can actually heal,

You can regenerate that physiology,

That physiological refinement takes place,

And psychological calmness takes place.

Destressing takes place.

OK,

Now the primary practitioner out there who's put forward this model,

It's very popular,

Is Peter Levine's work.

He started the modality called Somatic Experiencing,

And he has a number of different books.

He's like the main spokesperson for this model of trauma healing.

And it works with bringing the nervous system out of fight and flight,

Out of sympathetic activation,

And it re-regulates the nervous system by down-regulating it,

In a sense,

By slowing it down and bringing it into rest and digest.

Now,

You could do this a number of different ways,

But that is the model for trauma healing.

Now,

The way of doing that is known as a titration model.

As we spoke about at the beginning,

Trauma,

By definition,

Means that you experience something of an overwhelming nature.

It was too much to take in.

It was too much to handle.

So how do we re-engage that?

How do we re-engage that?

Now,

If we think of a traumatic experience as being something that we want to get to,

As an object to get to in the body-mind system,

Let's say it's at the deep end.

Let's say it's at the deep end of the pool.

The titration model says you take a little bit at a time.

The titration model says you touch or you attempt to contact it very,

Very little at a time.

So it means you start in the shallow end.

You start where you have ground to stand on,

And you enter into the pool,

Meaning if you have a traumatic experience,

You learn to recall it,

To remember it,

To feel it,

Et cetera,

To re-engage it consciously a little bit at a time.

So if you had a trauma that,

Let's just,

Again,

Let's say it had like 100 units,

And you had to metabolize.

You had to re-experience 100 units for it to be fully metabolized,

Fully processed.

What the suggestion is in the titration model is you would work with maybe one or two units at a time.

Maybe if you got really good at it,

You'd work with five units at a time.

But the point is is that you're taking off a little bit at a time,

Piece by piece.

And in doing so,

What the titration model allows you to do is to re-engage the trauma but not be overwhelmed.

By only taking a little bit at a time,

You're not overwhelmed by re-engaging it.

That is titration.

Now,

How do you engage with titration?

How do you take a little bit off at a time?

There are two key words.

It's called pendulation and resourcing.

Pendulation means that you pivot between the trauma and something of a resource.

You pivot between the trauma and something of a resource.

Now,

A resource is something in you that has very,

Very positive association.

It could be a place,

It could be a person,

It could be a quality,

It could be a feeling,

But something that you've identified that is very,

Very safe and positive,

Positively associated in you.

So what you do is,

In short,

And I'm not teaching you how to do this now,

I'm giving you an overview.

In short,

You learn to identify a resource in yourself,

You identify the traumatic experience you want to work on through the titration method,

And then you pendulate to that trauma from the resource.

So I might think of,

Oh,

I love being on the beach and feeling the rays of the sun,

And I might do a practice where I connect to that very deeply,

And then I pendulate,

Meaning I pivot from that state of a resource,

And I connect that to the traumatic experience,

And I touch into,

I feel the traumatic experience ever so lightly,

Ever so gently,

And then I come back,

I pendulate back to the resource,

And I come back to a very positive state,

And I build that,

And I strengthen that in myself,

And then I pendulate back to the trauma,

And I take a little bit off.

I feel it a little more,

Right?

And then I come back again to the resource,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

And you do these titration practices where you take a little bit off at a time,

Okay?

I think that makes sense.

This is a very common and a very effective way to work with trauma with stability.

Now,

There was a period of time where there used to be approaches to trauma some 20,

30 years ago that used to have a cathartic model where people would very,

Very deeply re-experience the trauma.

They would kind of go,

They would dive into the deep end,

Okay,

Without getting used to the shallow end.

They'd dive into the deep end,

And what would happen is they might have these explosive kinds of emotional releases,

Explosive kinds of re-experiencings of the trauma,

And feel as though something had changed.

But in general,

What happened over a number of decades is that it was found,

Actually,

That it was a very unproductive approach to trauma healing in general,

And the primary reason being that it actually wasn't changing this nervous system re-regulation that I've described.

It's very hard to switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic function.

It takes a bit of practice for your nervous system to keep learning to switch gears and to keep slowing down,

In a sense,

And knowing that it's safe.

So this titration model has become prevalent and proven to be considerably more effective from all of the studies and practices that I'm aware of.

So that's an overview of trauma work,

And I want to leave you off with a reflection on a mature understanding,

A mature and sober understanding of really,

Truly what is it to work with trauma.

And that is the difference between release versus transmutation.

Now,

Sometimes,

Or in general,

When we're looking at something like trauma,

We say to ourselves,

I really want this to go away.

I really wish this hadn't happened.

And to,

Ideally,

One might think,

Well,

I wish this was just gone.

I wish I could take that experience right here and right now and all of the pain and all of the suffering and all the dysfunction that that has caused,

And I would wish that away.

I would like to just release it,

Just release it.

But in truth,

Traumatic experiences are of a very significant nature for each person,

And we all have different forms of trauma to a greater or lesser degree.

Releasing something is simply,

In general,

What I would suggest is a naive relationship to trauma.

It's as naive as thinking,

Well,

I'll never remember that ever again.

A memory is a memory.

It's there,

It happened.

And to be courageous and to confront life,

And especially the things which are most challenging for us,

Is to be able to look at them clearly.

And looking at something means that you can change your relationship to it,

Change the meaning,

Change the relationship to it.

And so that is to transmute it.

So as opposed to thinking something can simply go away,

It's rather for you to actually transform or to transmute how you relate to that very same thing.

It's the same as a scar,

Right?

We have a bad accident,

We get a scar,

And guess what?

The body heals very well,

Yet it leaves this imprint,

It leaves the scar.

That scar will remain there as a reminder for the rest of your life,

Just as a trauma will remain there for the rest of your life.

And the idea is to learn how to become stronger as a result of it,

Not weaker,

To grow as opposed to wither as a result of it.

And that is to transmute the trauma rather than to naively wish it away.

And so with that,

I'm going to leave you.

I really appreciate you checking out this talk.

My name's Keith Parker with Field Dynamics Energy Healing,

And I hope to see you here or elsewhere on other platforms sooner rather than later.

So thank you very much and many blessings to you.

Have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Thank you for providing a greater understanding of trauma and how it may be released effectively!

Having studied and experienced severe trauma I feel qualified to say that this was one of the most informative, and perhaps the best laid out explanation of trauma, its causes and conditions, and the titration that he described is the most recent preferred treatment. I am glad that he mentioned Peter Levine, because he is extremely knowledgeable about somatic healing, which is helping me to let go of the hypervigilance and triggers of trauma!

Excellent overview! I just found your tracks and I’m hooked on your knowledge. I really appreciate You.

Excellent talk! Very informative

THANKYOU perfect
I gained a better understanding to repressed emotions fight and flight...namaste 🐦

Thank you Keith, this very topic has been on my mind lately; you’ve given me a lot of hope as how to deal with this. I love how you can explain this in layman’s terms, much love 🙏🙏🙏