Trauma - it's a word that often conjures images of catastrophic events, but what if our everyday experiences held the same power to shape our mental health? Join me as we unravel the true essence of trauma, where it’s not just the magnitude of the event, but our personal perceptions that carve deep impressions in our psyche. As we dissect the complexities of trauma prevention and recovery, you'll gain an intimate understanding of how your nervous system interprets danger and the pivotal role of your emotional responses. It's not about overreacting; it's about recognising and validating these natural reactions to work toward a society less burdened by the aftermath of distressing experiences.
Stepping into a world of healing, this episode guides you through the transformative journey from surviving to thriving. You'll learn why completing your emotional cycle is crucial and how the act of expressing emotions can be your compass to mental well-being. Together, we'll navigate the crossroads of post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth, sharing actionable steps and personal insights to align you closer with your core values. Through my own reflections on a recent accident, I'll reveal the profound impact of managing your nervous system and how it’s reinforced my dedication to preventing stress-related illnesses. So, as we explore this path of authenticity and growth, let’s empower ourselves to become the architects of our own recovery.
The Stress Training is currently unavailable, if you would like access to this please email us at hotgeniussociety@outlook.com and we'll see what we can arrange for you.
Trauma - it's a word that often conjures images of catastrophic events, but what if our everyday experiences held the same power to shape our mental health? Join me as we unravel the true essence of trauma, where it’s not just the magnitude of the event, but our personal perceptions that carve deep impressions in our psyche. As we dissect the complexities of trauma prevention and recovery, you'll gain an intimate understanding of how your nervous system interprets danger and the pivotal role of your emotional responses. It's not about overreacting; it's about recognising and validating these natural reactions to work toward a society less burdened by the aftermath of distressing experiences.
Stepping into a world of healing, this episode guides you through the transformative journey from surviving to thriving. You'll learn why completing your emotional cycle is crucial and how the act of expressing emotions can be your compass to mental well-being. Together, we'll navigate the crossroads of post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth, sharing actionable steps and personal insights to align you closer with your core values. Through my own reflections on a recent accident, I'll reveal the profound impact of managing your nervous system and how it’s reinforced my dedication to preventing stress-related illnesses. So, as we explore this path of authenticity and growth, let’s empower ourselves to become the architects of our own recovery.
The Stress Training is currently unavailable, if you would like access to this please email us at hotgeniussociety@outlook.com and we'll see what we can arrange for you.
Welcome back to another episode of the Hot Genius podcast. I'm your host, christina Montafari. So today's episode is what to do after trauma to prevent long-term effects. I'm probably going to change the name of that, but just so you had a general overview of what this episode is going to be about then. That's all that matters Now.
Speaker 1:
I want to begin by saying that this is probably probably the most important podcast episode on this show so far. I've probably said that many times, but I'm serious, I really mean it. I feel like it's everything's important, but this has an extra level of importance, and you understand what I mean, and it's because, if you actually have a look at the at our society at the moment, most things are based in recovery. They are not based in prevention. My vision for the future is to have less people who are depressed, less anxious, less anxious people, less people with PTSD and trauma problems. I think that's that's better than all these people recovering right Now. That's not to say that people who are already needing or in the process of recovery is bad, but if you are one of those people, then I'm sure you feel and believe in this too that if there was a way for for you to have prevented what you have gone through. I'm sure you would have taken it, but but? But this episode doesn't just support someone who wants to prevent long-term effects of a difficult situation. This episode will also support you if you're already down in the dumps, if you're already are in the process of recovery, because if you can actually understand the preventative tools, you'll be able to use these tools to recover. Because guess what? They're pretty much the same tools. In fact, I would say they are identical. The reason for this, and the only difference, is that if you're doing it in a place of prevention, it's not as difficult to do and doesn't take as much effort. But when you're in recovery, it just takes that bit more effort, and when I say bit, I mean a lot more effort, which is okay. I had to do it like that and that's totally okay. That is my part. If you have to do it like that, that's totally okay. That is your path.
Speaker 1:
And so let's begin by understanding how trauma works. So I'm going to give you an up-to-date crash course, very simple explanation of how trauma even takes place. You know at all. So trauma isn't created based on reality and what happened in your reality. Trauma is created based on how you perceive your reality, what you believe about your reality. Let me give an example.
Speaker 1:
So when I used to be a therapist, this thing that always, always, I had clients saying this thing I felt like it was just like almost everyone actually said something like this oh, like I feel like such a suck. Everyone calls me a drama queen. What's wrong with me? Why am I so broken? Because I am anxious, for literally no reason, for example and they give me a random example, but let me give you one again very common example that I've heard was okay.
Speaker 1:
So you know, a month ago my partner got drunk with his mates and he was in such deep conversation with them. He said he'd be home at 11, but he forgot to tell me that he was staying later and I called him over and over again but he didn't answer for like five hours straight. I was so scared, I was so convinced that like he was in an accident or something. But then I find out when he came home at 2am that he was fine and that he was having fun and everything like lost in the conversation with the boys, let's say. But now, every single time he leaves the house, like literally even to just put petrol in for five minutes around the corner from our place, I'm sent into an anxiety attack and now I have separation anxiety and I've lost myself. I'm such a drama queen.
Speaker 1:
No, you are not a drama queen because, just like I said to you let me now link this all together I said that trauma is not about reality. Reality is that your husband or your partner is safe and nothing tragic took place, but trauma is not reality that your partner is okay. Trauma is that because those five hours where he didn't answer the phone, you genuinely believed. Your body and your brain believed that he got into an accident To your body. Your partner got into an accident and because he didn't which I'm glad he didn't bless but because he didn't get into an accident, your nervous system is stuck waiting for him to come home, even though he's home, so your own, you are accidentally gaslighting yourself because you'd never got to finish the emotional cycle and it's amazing.
Speaker 1:
Again, I hope this is clear. I'm so glad that everything was fine, but for the sake of your health, I want to make sure that you know you are not a drama queen. Your body is experiencing the same reaction as if he did get into that accident. It's the same. Your body doesn't know the difference. The thing is, because he is fine to your body, it's still stuck from that night. It never got a chance to regulate because society doesn't understand the human body. To society, if everything's fine. How dare you cry? To society if everything's fine? How dare you have pain in your chest because you were freaking out for five hours? To society, how dare you get compassion and support if nothing took place? Do you see what I'm going with this? Do you see why? This is already important and we haven't even gotten into the actual ways to prevent things from happening? But I have a feeling that you already feel a sense of comfort. I'm going to bet on it. If you are watching this live on Instagram, let me know in the comments. Now that we know that trauma, I just gave you a really awesome lesson in five minutes about how trauma works. Now that you know that, you can understand, with therapist's eyes almost how the rest of these steps are actually going to serve you.
Speaker 1:
When something happens freshly. Examples could be, let's say, in that hypothetical that we're already discussing, of your partner coming back but everything's fine. But your body thought that something had happened. That can apply. What we're about to learn it can apply to that. It can happen to something like an actual, legit accident that you were involved in. It can happen because you lost your job. It can happen because you had a really, really messed up fight with your best friend. I don't care if it's like dramatic, tragic, heart wrenching or something that some people judge and call petty. If it feels heavy to you, if you are not feeling good, it's valid, it's fucking valid. And don't let any motherfucker tell you otherwise. Send them this podcast episode if they have the problem, because you are not a sook, you always matter. And just because what you are going through isn't quote unquote worse than somebody else does not mean what you're experiencing in your body is not valid and deserve to be regulated and healed or moved on from or grown out of. So now that we know that, I want you to keep that thing in your mind, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:
Use an example for yourself to apply the teachings in this episode so when you're freshly out of it again. Examples of let's say your husband came home, everything's fine, but you were freaking out for five hours. Let's say you actually just got into a real breakup. Let's say you got into an accident. What do you do? What do you do? What do you do After the situation has been resolved? What I mean by resolved isn't it's physically done. So if it's a breakup, like you're no longer having that conversation, you're alone in your room or you're hanging out with your friend, like whatever. If it's your partner coming home, that's what I would call resolved. If it's an actual accident, it's like you've come back from the hospital or the car has been towed and you know what I mean. Like you're no longer literally in the situation, the challenging situation. This is the aftermath, but it's still probably hours after our minutes, after. This is what you do.
Speaker 1:
Number one feel the emotions instantly so that you can finish the emotional cycle. Please write this down. Number one finish the emotional cycle. What do I mean by this? Let's use the examples again. Let's say that you're freaking out for five hours. Your partner comes home. He's safe. That's amazing, you're grateful, you're blessed, but to your body he's not safe. So that means to your body, you need to fucking cry, you need to let it out. Oh my God, I thought something had happened. Feel the feeling, feel that sadness Because to your body, you experienced a loss. Regulate it, feel it, cry it out, feel it.
Speaker 1:
Number two seek support, but seek quality support. Tell people who you can trust obviously in your friend's family circle, and then a professional, depending on the situation, but I'd say always I believe that therapy yeah, therapy is actually not just for recovery, it's also prevention. Like I'm in therapy, I'm all for it. I think everyone should be in therapy. The same way, how people treat the gym for their health, I believe that therapy is for your health or something like therapy. You get me Seek quality support, but immediately.
Speaker 1:
Obviously you can't book in with someone straight away and it's probably not the best thing to do. But put in motion something. If you can't afford therapy, go and seek a support group, go online, find there's something, there's always something available. But seek support. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why. Hmm, you, that I offer and I'm gonna put it down in the show notes below. You're welcome anytime. Love ya. That is honestly a legitimate manual. But I'm saying when we're born we didn't get a manual. But when you can know how stress works, stress doesn't have to be evil anymore. It's not supposed to harm us. We can handle stress. We just can't handle chronic, dysregulated stress, which is why people become physically ill from stress. But that's another episode.
Speaker 1:
Okay, sick support, quality support. Don't just seek any support because when all support is equal, sometimes certain people you seek support from actually makes it worse. So please make sure the support that you seek is from people who are like, not adults, you know, not children living in adults body. Unfortunately, so many adults are just children in adults body. You need to seek an adult in an adult's body for support. Okay, you know what I mean when I'm saying that. The third thing so let's say you, you know they've come back. You're crying, you cried, you sought support, you told your bestie, you cried to your husband or your partner or your wife or whatever right, you felt the feelings and they didn't try to rescue you. Okay, I feel like I need to make an episode on how to support someone like correctly. But anyway, that's another episode.
Speaker 1:
Once you've done that, your third step is now regulate your nervous system. Now, the chances are, steps one and two would have regulated most of your nervous system, but sometimes is not. Sometimes, probably always, is not enough. All right, let me rephrase that Most of the time it's not enough for you physically, especially when through something really traumatic or very difficult or challenging. So that's why, again, if you actually use the cheat sheet that you download from the in the show notes below excuse me, just really burped on the popcast floor is you need to physically regulate how do you do this? You know what? I'm feeling very generous right now. I'm also going to attach the in the show notes an actual crash course to go with the cheat sheet that actually explains how to use the cheat sheet. That's what I'm going to do because that's 40 minutes, the best investment of your time, best investment of 40 minutes of your life gain, because that's going to tell you more than 10 years of therapy from an average therapist in 2024. Sorry, not sorry, and I'm allowed to say it because I used to be a therapist.
Speaker 1:
Okay, that is going to be very valuable, but, for the sake of this podcast, to regulate your nervous system is a physical act. Okay, meaning you need to understand are you in the fight or flight response or in the phone or freeze response. Because if you're in the fight or flight response, you need to down, regulate. Okay, you need to calm down. If you're in the phone or freeze response, you need to get more energy. You need to up regulate. That's why a lot of people who do breath work and say breath work is worsens their symptoms of anxiety, for example, or stress, it's because they're not in the fight or flight response, they're in the freeze response and if you're already feeling too hyper, low and breathing techniques are making you more calm, you're going to feel worse. Of course you are. Yeah, so regulate, and how you do it is you identify if you're low, come up. If you're high, come down. How do you know? If you're feeling low, you feel like shutting down and never speak with another person again and calling in a hole. You're in the freeze response. If you're really angry and just trigger every second and you can't control your temper, you're in the fight or flight response. That means you need to calm down.
Speaker 1:
You don't do fast workouts, you do light intensity workouts, like going for a walk. Going for a walk for someone who wants to freeze and isolate themselves. Not going to work. What's going to work for you is upbeat music, high intensity exercise, fast breathing like this, okay, like that's what's going to work. So that was number three. Regulate your nervous system physically and remember I got you covered going to show notes. It's all there for you, the training's there, the regulation sheet's there, it's all there. You don't have to pay anything. I'll put the code there as well. Anyway, the last one. The last one is something you don't do once. Well, really nothing is none of these things what you do, and this is what you do all the time. But anyway, ignore what I just said.
Speaker 1:
Number four is confront the trigger, confront the trigger, confront the trigger, but not for no reason, but to allow yourself to feel, because let me tell you something. And please, please. I know you're already listening, but I want you to like double listen. Bring your ears closer to your car speaker, to your phone, speaking quiet, to make sure that you're listening. Okay, really, listen to me.
Speaker 1:
If you are triggered by something, it means you never fully felt the emotion that you feel when you are triggered. I'm going to say that again. If you are triggered by absolutely anything ever, it means that you've actually never fully felt the feeling that you feel when you were triggered in the first place. Really, hear me and this ties into step one, but really I shouldn't have said one, two, three, four. I want you to see them as a cycle, the circle that never ends, because when you confront your trigger, what I'm really saying is to finish the emotional cycle Over and over again. How do you know you completed the emotional cycle? Is you're not triggered by that same event, person, smell, thing or place? And this is why it grinds my gears.
Speaker 1:
When people are stalking, smack all over social media, I know you mean. Well, fam, if this is you, I'm sorry to call you out. You know I love you, but stop saying that healing is forever, because it's not. What's forever is growing, growing, we evolve forever, we maintain health forever, of course, but healing is not forever. The same way, you don't have a cold forever. But if you're not growing, then just like. What I mean by that is that if you have a cold but then continue to treat your immune system like shit, of course it's gonna feel like you're healing for a cold forever, but you're not actually healing from a cold forever. You get the cold and if you actually then heal your not heal but strengthen your immune system, you grow your immune system skills, then you won't have to have that cold again and if you do, you recover better, faster. It affects you differently. It is no different when it comes to emotions, no different, no different. Okay, it's not. Healing is not forever, growing is.
Speaker 1:
I want that to be so clear. I'm gonna do a whole podcast episode just on that. Okay, it is very powerful to know, very important to know. So there the four steps. Let's go over them again. The thing happened as soon as it's safe to actually do this, okay?
Speaker 1:
Number one feel the feelings of the event. Finish the emotional cycle. Feel, feel, feel, cry, cry, cry. You don't need to be fixed. No one needs to give you advice. You literally just need to give yourself permission to feel. That's it Feel, feel, feel. Number two seek support by seek quality support. Family, friends, professional All of them Professional can include a coaching community who actually know what they're talking about. Okay, it can't just be, you know, like, make sure quality. I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1:
I'm getting so many episode ideas from this episode. This has never happened. I don't know. I need to re-listen to this so I can write them down because I probably forgot. But I'm gonna record an episode about how to find quality support. That's what I'm gonna do. Let me know if you want that. Put it in the comments. If you're listening to this on Spotify, there's a box that I put under it every single episode saying what do you think of this episode? Please tell me. Tell me what you want, what you need. Questions concerns elaborations. I got you, I'm here to serve you, but anyway.
Speaker 1:
Number one is feel the emotions as soon as possible. Finish the emotional cycle as soon as possible. This is how you prevent long-term effects such as anxiety, such as depression, such as PDSD, such as panic disorder. This is how you prevent it. You do not have to have it Okay. Number two seek support, quality support. Number three regulate your nervous system physically. So that's when you can identify your fight or flight or are you in the freeze response? If you're in the fight or flight, you need to calm down. If you're in the freeze response, you need to come up. Look at the sheet Down, the show notes. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1:
The last one is confront the trigger within reason. That's why I said seek professional help as well, because you're gonna have to learn how to do this. But the gist of it is this If you still triggered by something, it just means that the feeling that comes up when you're triggered you haven't fully felt yet. You're still fighting it. So how you stop fighting it is by letting it be there, feel it fully, and it's gonna be the most painful at the first two seconds and it gets easier afterwards. That's how you confront the triggers. That's how you regulate emotion. It's actually that simple. It takes three minutes to regulate stress. Three to seven depends right On average, chemically.
Speaker 1:
I want to wrap up this episode by saying this there are only two ways that someone comes out of any challenging situation, any traumatic situation. And again, when I say traumatic or challenging, I don't just mean in reality, I mean in your reality, in your inner world. That's what I care about. Okay, you're valid. I don't care if you had 10 panic attacks from a parking ticket. It is valid. You are not a suck. Just follow these steps.
Speaker 1:
There's only two ways to come out of any situation that is challenging or traumatic. They both change you. You come out of these situations changed and you are in control of what kind of change. The first kind of change is post-traumatic stress and no, I don't mean it in the disorder, I just mean literally post-after stress situation. I mean post-traumatic stress. You become a stressed version of yourself. You change into a stressed version of yourself. That's one way. The other way is that you become more of your true self. It's called post-traumatic growth. It is a real thing. It is as real as PTSD Post-traumatic growth. What does that actually mean? What does it look like?
Speaker 1:
The crash course Cliff Notes version of that question is this If your value, if you are naturally, if one of your core values is generous, kind and loving, and you have a new go through post-traumatic growth because you follow these steps which, by the way, you will go through post-traumatic growth, if you go through these steps, you will become more kind, you'll become more generous, you become more loving. The next thing that happens post-traumatic growth is that your life has more meaning. You feel more connected to a higher power, you feel more you, you feel more true. Do you get what I'm saying? You become bit more of your higher self. Okay, it's a real thing.
Speaker 1:
There's something we can't change but we can't control. We cannot control the fact that after every experience we go through, traumatic or otherwise you will change. We're supposed to change. You can't stop that. I can't stop that. I tried doesn't work anyway. But what you can control is what kind of change? Do you change into a version of you that you don't want to be the stress version of you or do you change into the more true up version of you in your control? If you want to become the true version of you, you follow these steps. Lastly, I wanted to share with you what inspired me to create this podcast episode.
Speaker 1:
Yesterday I had gotten into an accident. So grateful that I'm okay, but I'm not really concerned about me. I'm okay At no one's fault. There was a collision between me and a bike person on a bike. I'm so grateful that they are alive, but obviously they are minorly hurt, and so all that went through my mind.
Speaker 1:
A lot of things went through my mind when that happened. I'm gonna tell you the top four thoughts. Thought number one fuck, this kid is 16. I hope he doesn't get PTSD from this. Fuck. Most people in this situation would have probably no idea what to do to make sure there are no long-term effects. Yes, that was going through my mind. Another thought that was going through my mind was shit.
Speaker 1:
For five seconds before I could see that he could walk, I thought the worst case scenario and remember trauma is not what happened in reality, it's what your body thought happened. My body, for five seconds, believed the worst case scenario, so I said shit. I gotta make sure I take care of my nervous system as well. Because, if you don't know me, eight years ago I got to the reason why I even do what I do the reason why I listen to this episode is because I got to a serious car accident blah, blah, blah. It's my story.
Speaker 1:
And I went through hell for the next seven years. I had every mental conditioning and the thought of almost was triggered. I had PTSD. It was hell for me and I recovered and I'm happy and blessed. That's why I do what I do. That's why this is my calling. I want to prevent stress-related illnesses so no one goes through what I went through, because no one has to go through it. And so that was going through my mind as well.
Speaker 1:
And then another thing that went through my mind was that, wow, I'm really grateful that I know what I know, that I do this work, because, to be honest, if I didn't know what I know, if I didn't do this work, I would have not been proud of the person that would have came out of me in that moment. I wouldn't have had the capacity to think straight. And don't get me wrong, if you saw me in that moment. I was in shock. I was a mess, but I was as in control as you could possibly be as a mess, you know. I'm not saying I was perfect, but I was able to, for the most part, look at, make sure that he was okay and just be the woman that I'm proud to be, just be responsible for that situation.
Speaker 1:
Like I said, it was no one's fault and, to be honest, it's actually the road's fault, because the way that the roads are designed and the place that these took place is, it is just a hazard. It just needs to change. Anyway, that's not for today, but I was inspired to create this episode because I didn't. It just didn't feel right for me to know how to deal with this and not share it with you, because I know what it felt like eight years ago to gotten out of that traumatic situation and have no idea what the fuck was gonna come of it, didn't know how to deal with it, and for me to have gone through, like I said, seven years of absolute hell to find out that that actually didn't have to happen. I'd say that 85 to 90% of everything that I went through after that could have been prevented.
Speaker 1:
Okay, and remember how I told you in post-traumatic growth that it strengthens your values. It gives your life more meaning. You become more of a true yourself, as much as still thinking back to seeing that person's face. You know, obviously, being on a bike that would have been so scary, it breaks my heart, but I also know the truth of what happens and it's like you grow. You grow from these situations and it gave me, it strengthened my mission, it made me well, I wouldn't have created this episode that I know.
Speaker 1:
Would I kind of begin to tell you how important this episode is? And, yeah, and honestly, maybe a part of me hopes that somehow that teenager he was in that situation listened to this episode so that he knows how to support himself and you know, or he could be one of the lucky ones, because there's like a certain amount of people who actually don't get any long-term effects from challenging situations. I hope that is the case, but if it's not the case, then I hope that anyone out there who feels lost and stuck in what to do after a challenging situation, I hope this serves you. Okay, I hope this serves you. I hope this reminds you to go and seek support. Okay, what I've given you is a framework. This is not a replacement for anything, but it's framework. It's giving you direction on what you need to do.
Speaker 1:
Okay, I want you to understand. It's absolutely possible excuse me raising my voice, it's got really passionate there. It's absolutely possible to prevent long-term effects of challenging situations. Okay, it's also equally possible to recover from you already being in the long-term effects. I am that example. Okay, and all those steps that I shared with you today.
Speaker 1:
Like I said, that's what I did for myself and it does not feel right to keep that to myself. I want you to have it. I want you to share this with whoever you know needs it. I don't want you to ever feel helpless. If your best friend, five months from now, goes through a breakup or something and you feel helpless, I don't want you to feel helpless. I want you to remember what you learned in today's episode and know exactly what you need to do to support her or him. Okay, you've got the training now. It's free, it's there for you. You know how to regulate stress.
Speaker 1:
We go back into the show notes, but, yeah, I just want to share a real-life example of what this looks like, that this isn't just in theory, fam, like this is what I do and I'm grateful to have these tools, but I learned them the hardest way possible. It took me almost 10 years and you do not have to wait that long. Okay, it doesn't have to be like a matter of survival for you, like it was for me. It gets to be so simple, okay, yeah, and lastly, if you're going through something you know really difficult right now, I wanted to send my love to you. I hope you know that this community is here to support you.
Speaker 1:
And, yeah, please, please, connect with us through many different ways. You can share this on your social media. Make sure you tag myself at Christina Modifari or Hot Genius Society on Instagram. Please, please, please. We'd love to hear your thoughts. You can DM us. We're here for you. You're not alone. Just want to make sure that I've covered everything. Let's just quickly, like, tie that all together. So just remember step one is finish the emotional cycle. Step two is to see quality support. Step three is regulate your nervous systems. Step four is confront your triggers and do not do it alone. Please, make sure you have professional support, always as well as personal. God bless, love you all. So, so, so much, and until next time.