Welcome to the mending trauma podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Amy Hoyt. And along with my sister Lena Hoyt, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, we want to help you recover from trauma. Whether it's childhood trauma, complex trauma, PTSD, or any other traumas sustained from abuse or narcissistic relationships. We want to help you develop skills and ways that can help you to recover from the symptoms and the effects of trauma. We are so glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, Amy here, are you feeling stuck or overwhelmed by things that pop up in your daily life. And perhaps these are because of past traumas or toxic stress? Have you tried traditional therapy and found that it wasn't enough? I know that was the case for me. That's why we developed the whole health lab. Mini trauma has put together a program that combines the latest research with proven methods to help you recover from trauma and move forward from these daily stressors and triggers. We use somatic therapy EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy and internal family systems therapy. We use nervous system regulation, and many other tools so that we can combine the best methods that are identified in the research to help you recover without being completely overwhelmed. So you can work on trauma on your own pace, your own time. And still with the mentorship and support of a highly trained certified staff. That's us no more waiting for appointments or sitting in traffic driving to see a therapist with our online program, the whole help lab. You can access it from anywhere, anytime, even on an app, visit mending trauma.com backslash whole health lab and learn more, get your questions answered. We've got a Frequently Asked Questions section and sign up so that you can have this life changing program in your world today. Don't let your past hold you back any longer. Take control of your future, and we can't wait to see you in the whole health lab. Hi, welcome back to another episode. We are excited about today's topic. It is a very interesting topic for both of us. And it is how trauma creates hyper vigilance. So we're gonna go into what hyper vigilance is how trauma affects us in that way. And also kind of the underbelly of living hyper vigilantly, which is a sense of overwhelm in daily activities. So Lena, talk to us about hyper vigilance, what is hyper vigilance, hyper vigilance
is something that comes out of difficult traumatic experiences, that keeps the brain on high alert for potential danger. And, again, this is not something that we do purposely or consciously it is a survival wire that gets wired into the brain. And the way that trauma affects the nervous system can then create hyper vigilance. And we talk a lot about in our program about how trauma changes the way you see yourself and the way you see the world. And the hyper vigilance is one of the most common symptoms that alters the way we see the world. When you've had very overwhelming, scary, terrible experiences, your brain creates this wire that has it on high alert for other potential dangers. The problem is, is that the brain doesn't accurately gauge threat. And so anything can be perceived as life threatening. And the nervous system just responds to the perceived threat as if the threat were real. So you have this hyper awareness of potential catastrophe.
Yeah. And I think what has been really surprising for me, when I was beginning, the certification journey in trauma is realizing that for me, hyper vigilance and hyper awareness showed up in social relationships. So who does that person like me? Are they? are they responding positively to what I'm saying? Did they frown just now? Because they don't like what I'm saying. It was like these. I mean, over the top reading people constantly, and scanning for social danger.
Yes, that makes so much sense.
And so hyper vigilance can show up in very explicit ways where we're, you know, sitting in a restaurant, we won't ever put our back to a door I feel like that's a very stereotypical hypervigilance example, which is very real. It's just I think a lot of times hyper vigilant shows up in relationships and in social situations where we are feeling emotionally in danger.
Yeah, there's a sense that there's a lot of danger. And it's coming from the motional. part of us
is you and I have talked about so we have this core drive that all humans are born with is the drive for safety or survival. But the second drive, the second strongest drive that we have is for connection and for relationships. And so it makes sense that hypervigilance is going to show up in our physical safety as well as our emotional or relational safety.
Yes, excellently said, That's a great, great way to put it. Because those drives end up connected when we've had childhood trauma. So then relationships actually prompt the drive for safety. And they become intertwined. So connection, and danger, get kind of wired together when we're having a lot of relational trauma when we're growing up. And so one can prompt the other. So we're, we're striving for connection. But there's also this wire in our brain, this neuro pathway that says, connection is dangerous.
Yeah, because it was dangerous, especially those of us with childhood trauma or complex trauma, this produces a really interesting result, I think, when we have this drive for safety, and this drive for connection that are bumping into each other, it produces this person, it can produce this type of person who holds both of these things at the same time. And so what we've seen with trauma survivors, is a sense of overwhelm, during every day, relational activities. And a at the same time, this sense of real commanding and confidence during an emergency or a crisis. Talk about how those two things coexist in trauma survivors.
I think this is such an interesting phenomenon. And a lot of trauma survivors will have these coinciding things that are seemingly opposite that exist together. And so when we're in our everyday life, and we're having a lot of hyper vigilance and fear about being rejected, or abandoned, or thought not enough, or not worthy or not a value that can lead to these experiences with overwhelm. And when we're overwhelmed, we have this flooding, typically of emotions, and it's hard to think and feel at the same time, we're disconnected with our executive functioning part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex. And the overwhelm can be really big, it can be really hard, and, and depending on your typical fight flight, freeze fawn response, you're gonna go into one of those four. The interesting thing is that, it's because I think when we are in the situation, we're in the middle of it, and it's happening to us, and we are impacted by it. Whereas when you encounter a crisis, a lot of times there's a, there's a switch in your brain when you've had trauma that can go into this commanding, Confident, Assertive directive mode, which means that we are awesome in crisis, which is delightful and lovely. And I think about how I've observed some of my friends do this. And it is because we are no longer in the middle of it being acted upon. Typically, when we see a crisis, there is this sense that we are observing it and we use our hyper vigilance to notice all these things. And then we become the actor and direct people or engage in activities that help resolve the crisis in a really effective way. But that's not the way we exist in our personal relationships. We tend to be more overwhelmed by those.
I think that's really interesting. Uh, explanation and that it helps us understand how these can coexist in the same person. The other thing I was thinking about in my own life when an emergency happens, I had one happen yesterday, a dear friend called, it happened to be a holiday yesterday and she needed help, she needed me to go to the hospital and help. And I went into go mode. And there was no hesitation, no questions. And part of that as I've been reflecting on that experience, yesterday, I realized that growing up in an environment that was very chaotic, I was always ready for action. I was I was constantly scanning, who was going to start yelling, who was going to start hitting where were the dangers. And so it was a little bit like growing up in a war zone. Right. And so there were reprieve there were there was definitely reprieve. It wasn't 100, you know, 100% 24/7. But even though there was reprieve, it wasn't predictable. And so you still had to be on high alert. And that still lives in me, even though I've done a lot, a lot, a lot of work to have a calm, internal world and external presentation. When there's an emergency I can easily and I think it is because that neuro those neural pathways are so formative they were just created at such a young age, I'm able to go right back into go mode without any hesitation. And I at this point, I feel like that is part of post traumatic growth for me.
Yes. That makes a lot of sense. In what way do you see it as post traumatic growth?
Well, I think if I hadn't done any work, recovering from trauma, it wouldn't necessarily be growth for me, I would almost and I did when I was younger, I would gravitate towards crisis in emergencies, and put myself in relationships in situations that were chaotic. So this feels different to me, because the majority of my life, my nervous system is fairly regulated, it's very flexible. I can get into fight flight if I need to be which sometimes I need to be. But in general, I have a very calm life. However, I can still trot out this crisis manager when I need it. Right. And so it feels like I got to hold on to something that was created in trauma. But that is now a benefit when I want to help the people I love.
Yes, and it is I mean, I've seen you go into problem solving or solution focused or crisis management mode, and it can be really reassuring socially with my health journey and you being able to say, Okay, this is what I've noticed, here are some ideas I have, it's very beneficial. And I love that you're identifying it as post traumatic growth, I think that's a, it's not just positive, it's accurate. It's a very accurate perception that you can learn how to heal and leave some of the symptoms behind until they are appropriate to circumstances. And that's what you're talking about. Yeah.
Okay. So how do we get to the point where this is in an asset for us and not simply a trauma response?
I think that it's it's the same things that we've been talking about, in general and that we work on in our program, the whole health lab, which are these interventions are these tools to help calm the nervous system down in general. We're, we're rewiring our brain and our our ability to find calm and peace and connection in a general way. And as we do that, we have a drive for connection that is not so tight up into danger. That brings a lot of emotional freedom. It can be a long, hard path, but it's doable. We know that it's doable, and that people heal. And so when we are able to do the work to create a more regulated nervous system, so that we have less association between connection and danger, then we have a life that has a more robust, engaging, calm, bent to it or tweet is to it. And we don't have to be in hypervigilance all the time. So then when we have an opportunity when a crisis occurs, we can then use that skill or that response, but it doesn't take over the rest of our lives.
journey. Thank you for that, is there anything else you want to bring up in terms of how we can help people regulate? Or, you know, we talk a lot about regulating the nervous system. And really, the goal is to have a flexible, nervous system, one of the best tools that we talk about is actually having an awareness of what's happening in our nervous system. So what you know, having this basic understanding that when I feel a pit in my stomach, that's a clue that my nervous system is dysregulated when I feel a tightening of my chest, or I keep, you know, doing head rolls, because my neck is tight, those are all signs that my nervous system is not in regulation, and it's manifesting as physical sensations in my body.
Well said, yeah, that's excellent.
And once we have that awareness, we can then move into deciding what to do about it.
Yes, so without the awareness, it's really hard to change. And when you have awareness, the second piece that's vitally important to this is that you are aware without judgment. Because as soon as you're aware, and you start judging yourself, you've now encouraged more nervous system dysregulation. Judgment will always create a response in your fight flight freeze brain, when you are able to be aware, and curious, using that benevolent curiosity, then you can gather more information, and you can use the information. When you're aware and beat yourself up, you actually are stymied or halted in your ability to do something about it because you're too activated. So the the awareness is really key. And you talked about some physical responses. There are, everybody has different clues. I love that you used the word clues, it's so great. And if we think about them as clues, or pieces of a puzzle that we're putting together, there's no moral value to those clues or puzzle pieces. We're just using that information to be more informed and to have more options for how to proceed from there. So I think those are great words to use.
Thank you. Okay, so that is how trauma can create both an overwhelmed individual in the day to day activities, as well as an amazing crisis manager when things start getting emergency or when things start getting real as people say, Okay, well, thank you so much for listening, and we look forward to speaking next week.
Yes, take care, everyone.
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The mending trauma podcast. Elaine and I are really grateful that you spend time with us each week we know you have a choice, and that time is currency. We would love if you would share this episode on social media and tag us so we can reshare if you feel so inclined, go and give us a five star review wherever you listen to pod so that we can get the word out and help more people. We know that we are all working hard on our mental health and we wish you great success this week in implementing these new skills we'll check in next week.
