Really look at your lives and think about that moment or those moments that you've had and were you hardened by them?
Were you changed that way or did you become something that was far freer and more flexible and just different but not bad?
Welcome to the Spiritually Hungry Podcast episode 99,
Summer Edition.
Today we're talking about trauma and that we get to choose how it changes us,
Which I think is a very powerful idea.
And I've been reading a book this summer,
Which I'm really excited about,
The Body That Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
Let's assume I'm saying that correctly,
But basically the book is called The Body That Keeps the Score.
So when we get knocked down,
Right?
Fall,
Suffer a significant loss,
Any traumatic life quake,
We're going to be changed forever.
And I think that it's really important for people to stop and think about times in their lives where they feel like they've had a trauma or a life quake and think about what changed that moment.
Because the question often is,
How do you get back up after you've fallen?
How do you go on?
How do you move forward?
The first thing I think is to have the consciousness and the awareness that you are now changed forever.
But the power that you have here is that you can either allow yourself to be changed by this thing that happened to you,
Or maybe that you did to yourself.
And usually that kind of change is not the one that you want.
You're going to change in ways that usually are negative or that you don't recognize yourself later.
But in that moment,
You can actually choose to grow and to become a different version of yourself,
One that's more elevated,
Enlightened.
There's tremendous transformation and growth.
So I think when we talk about trauma or we talk about life quakes,
I think it's to understand that there are a lot of things that are happening.
And I want to go into some of what the book says in terms of the physiological part and the brain.
I'm so interested in the brain,
Really.
We don't talk about that very often.
I think now more and more,
There's a lot more information and conversation around mental health and mental illness and mental care throughout our lives.
But for most of the time,
It's just been really about the body and about spirit and even anti-aging.
But it was more,
I think,
On a superficial level.
I think this concept and some of the things that are discussed here are really powerful.
But I think the first step for me personally is to just know that you are now forever changed.
And I was talking to an acquaintance,
Maria Menounas.
I was on her podcast and we were talking about this idea.
And she's like,
Oh,
My God,
I love that.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
And she shared that she has a picture,
The photograph that she looks at often now.
And it was her last day working at E!
Entertainment.
And she's wearing a pink shirt and red pants.
And she's so happy.
It's one of the best days of her life.
And then the next day,
She found out that her mother had terminal brain.
.
.
Is it brain cancer or just cancer?
I'm not really sure.
And her life was changed forever.
And she's actually,
She lost her mom to cancer.
And she says that she looks back and she's like,
I don't,
That person,
You know,
She doesn't exist anymore.
She's been changed in a way that she'll never be that person again.
And was it positive or negative?
In the photograph.
It's just different because now,
And that's the thing,
Though,
Right?
Because in those moments,
We can either be hardened by things that happen to us or we know that we're changed,
But you still choose growth and transformation.
So she wasn't saying it as a negative.
She was just acknowledging what I was saying that,
Yes,
You are then forever changed.
Right.
But she's really,
She's chosen to be optimistic.
And then she ended up having a brain tumor.
I believe it wasn't cancer,
But she went through her own health issues and she healed it with comedy.
She watched,
I mean,
That's a whole nother episode,
I suppose,
But I was really inspired by the conversation.
And I think for our listeners,
I really look at your lives and think about that moment or those moments that you've had.
And were you hardened by them?
Were you changed that way or did you become something that was far freer and more flexible and just different,
But not bad?
And I think what you're also suggesting is that there's also a way to change that.
Right.
Because,
You know,
You often see people really regardless of age,
But sometimes when they've lived more years,
That they've been changed so much by what has happened to them that they're a different person,
But not necessarily a better version.
So I think what you're suggesting as well is to be able to,
For each one of our listeners,
You can,
I'm sure every one of our listeners can find at least one thing in their lives that happened that probably changed them,
But not in a positive way.
And by rethinking it and saying,
Okay,
What is a different lesson that I can learn?
And then hopefully that'll direct us in a more positive direction of change.
You know,
A few weeks ago we were with friends,
We were talking about the concept of French.
We actually,
The question came up,
What's something that happened in the past that changed you or disappointed you?
And I shared for instance,
That I've had a few experiences with people who were close friends who very much disappointed me.
And I was very conscious of the fact after the fact that I had two choices.
I could make the decision,
Okay,
People are unreliable and therefore I will not invest in friendship anymore.
Or I can say,
No,
That's the way that person behaved.
But there are people who I will invest friendship with and time with who will be stand up when the time comes.
And I think,
But for me it was very clear that I can go either way or even somewhere in the middle.
And I actively made the decision to continue to invest in friendships even though,
Yeah,
Of course,
Even in the future as possible,
They will be disappointed,
But that's,
I will not be hardened by it,
But I will be continued to be open.
I think also it's especially hard for people to choose a positive change when they feel that they were responsible,
Like they were the cause of the trauma or the situation that happened to them.
I have a family member who can't forgive herself for some choices she's made recently.
And so she ruminates about it over and over and over again.
And at first it was easy to go to that place of like,
You know,
Maybe if,
And I guess I was being,
If I'm honest,
A little judgmental,
Like if you were,
You know,
A little more spiritual and you were working yourself,
Maybe you wouldn't go on that mental loop.
And then I read this book and I,
And he shined a light for me to see it in a different way.
And he writes,
But there's a biological process that occurs when we experience trauma.
Our left brain shuts down and that's the part that has the ability to refute false beliefs or stop thought processes that are painful or unhelpful.
However,
Our right brain is still functioning at full capacity and it creates a vivid review of the trauma and feelings surrounding it on a loop,
Completely unfettered by our left brain,
Which explains so much.
I mean,
For all of our listeners who,
You know,
You have those family members or friends and you're like,
Why do they keep ruminating about this?
Why can't they work on this?
Why can't they get past it?
Well,
Chances are,
Because certain kinds of trauma are so painful and so unbearable and devastating that the left brain shuts down and then they have that thought or that feeling or they hear a noise.
You know,
We see a lot of this with veterans and it triggers the thought,
But the right brain is the only thing working.
So for them,
They're actually experiencing all of that over again as if it's happening today,
Not something that happened 10 years ago or 15 years ago.
And he talks about,
I mean,
He talks about a lot of stories in this book and it really just broke my heart,
Some of them.
There's this one story about a mother who,
She was driving her five-year-old daughter and she was also eight months pregnant and the daughter had put her seatbelt on,
But she had put it in correctly.
And so the mother wanted to help her.
So she reached over or leaned back to fix it and a truck came and hit them.
And if she had,
And then she lost the baby she was carrying also.
She lost both of her children.
I know.
I'm sorry.
But she,
I know.
And she can't forgive herself because if she had left in her mind the seatbelt alone,
Right?
And she was doing it to protect her child.
And she was a school teacher.
She was working with children.
They quit her job and they started to study her brain and they took her through the situation again and they saw how her brain lit up and her heart racing and all of her vitals that she was actually living the accident over and over again every time she thought about it because the left brain just wasn't working anymore.
So I think it's so important to bring this awareness,
First of all,
To have empathy and compassion for people that sometimes we can't understand their trauma,
But also for,
And I'm not even speaking about the exam I gave.
I'm saying for us on even smaller levels where we have this kind of thing where we can't get past,
You know,
Understand that you will be changed,
But there's still the choice of how you let that change you.
So have you ever found yourself in a situation like a significant life quake where you,
A significant one,
I mean the friendship story was really sweet,
But that you felt that you couldn't get past?
That I couldn't get past?
Or that it had changed you and then you had to re-choose how you were changed?
Because I think very often we do first go one way.
It's normal,
You know,
We're hurt or we didn't want something to happen,
But then hopefully something kicks in and you choose life again,
Right?
Honestly,
The only thing that I can think of is there was a time in our lives,
In my life that there was a lot of pressure on many levels around the work that we were doing and difficulties and financial challenges.
But I can say,
I remember obviously that time was by a stretch of six to nine months,
It was very stressful,
But I actively worked on a consistent basis of not being perfect on maintaining what we call certainty,
But a positive outlook.
So I don't know that I can say that,
And by the way,
Looking back,
There are a lot of lessons that I learned and that I used to today,
But I don't think that at any point it really hardened me in a negative way because even as I was going through it and being stressed,
I was very conscious of the fact that I wanted that process to make me a better person,
Not a hardened person.
I would love for you to answer the same question.
Do you want me to answer the same question?
I think the biggest life quake that I have had probably,
Not that I haven't had other moments that were definitely challenging,
Was when Josh was born.
And I remember that my initial,
Besides the emotions I've shared in the past,
I remember my initial feeling was like,
I don't know if I want more kids.
I don't want more things.
I wanted to make myself very small,
Almost cut off my desire for good things to come because at that point,
I blamed myself for no good reason,
By the way,
But I just thought that this was somehow something wrong with me and I deserve it.
I was in this negative,
Really negative headspace.
And then I caught myself and I'm like,
You're not that person because you believe in life.
And you believe in God and you believe in beauty and you believe in purpose.
So there is something to this.
And I remember I decided to change my loop,
My belief system.
And I came up with the mantra that in change,
There is great power.
And I had written this at the time that I want to share.
So I wrote,
It was an incredibly painful time,
But as I've learned since,
Such times contain a huge opportunity.
Instead of letting this experience define me,
I chose change.
I chose to embrace my son and discover the beauty of his soul and all he could offer.
I chose change.
In change,
There is great power.
I chose to persevere regardless of the present circumstance because I have come to know that strong people are committed to change and growth every day of their lives.
They live their lives with values,
Passion,
Dreams,
And even when others may not acknowledge or affirm or agree with them,
I know that in change there is great power.
And you've shared this a lot that each one of us is deserving of greatness.
To quote you,
Greatness is not reserved for the great,
The greater those who have risen to meet their destiny.
So it's really about being able to step up and really reach deep within your very being within your soul to find strength and the purpose in the greatest darkness.
Beautiful.
Nothing really much to add to that.
And I think what we want to ask our listeners is whether you're going through a challenge right now or if you've experienced,
As most of us have throughout our lives,
Try to understand how you were changed and maybe try to rewrite that history and maybe learn a different lesson.
Maybe find a way that it makes you more open rather than more closed,
Softer rather than hardened.
Because you've still got lots of life to live,
Right?
Absolutely.
So,
As always,
Make sure to share this podcast with everybody you know.
And I have a podcast,
Five star reviews.
I think since this is the summer edition,
You can shorten this little part too.
Okay.
All questions and comments to Monica and Michael at Koala.
Com.
Thank you.
Go have fun in the sun and stay spiritually hungry.
