A simple trauma analogy

*shared from the work of Steve Haines

When people think of trauma, they often think of psychological problems. The radical shift we’ve made through studying trauma is understanding that trauma is primarily about physiology.

When we experience trauma, we get stuck in protective reflexes – gestures of survival – such as speeding up to survive (fight or flight) or collapsing / shutting down to survive.

If we can reboot the body, and come out of these stuck reflexes we become much happier and healthier, and our emotions and thoughts are quite different.

By changing our physiology we can think more clearly, emote more clearly and remember more clearly.

In other words, when we experience trauma, it’s a bit like our inner guard dog – our threat detection system – either barks all the time, or collapses, withdraws and doesn’t do anything.

Here are 3 simple ways to soothe you inner guard dog:

One: Connect with your body

It’s important to practice being with intense feelings in safe times. You can negotiate, practice and learn how to get better at feeling your body, and how to turn down the volume on intense feelings. It can be useful to have someone to guide you to connection (through body based practices like yoga) but here are some simple suggestions of thats not possible.

Lie on your back, let your shoulders sink into the floor. Feel the weight of your body on the floor.
Wiggle your fingers and wiggle your toes. Connect all the way down to your feet, and all the way out to your fingers.
Feel the size and shape of your body.

Two: Talk with friends

Interacting with other people can feel like a ‘life or death’ act. The literature on trauma is very clear that our social status and how we interact with other people is deeply important. Most trauma is actually born from human beings or power structures abusing the power they have over people.

Our interactions with other people are fundamental to our survival. It’s not casual, it’s actually life or death, particularly when you’re interacting with someone who has power over you, or you’re at work. Our status or acceptance from our family, our social group and the people we have to work with to survive is really important.

Many of us grew up in unsafe environments, and it’s that which triggers our defense cascades. It’s important to remember that everybody gets triggered in this way sometimes. Everybody has responses to people who have power or are potentially threatening.

That’s why it’s good to talk with your friends – people you feel safe with – to share what is triggering you, and try to work it out together and practise how to respond.

Three: Grounding

Gestures of grounding are really important. It can be as simple as this: pick something you can see in the room and look at it, register that you’re safe and that you know where you are

This can help you to respond from the present moment when you feel triggered, rather than from past experiences

Being able to make those differentiations and respond to the situation that is actually facing you in the present moment is an important way to nourish and train your inner guard dog.

I’d love to know if you explroe any of the above or, if you have any questions you can contact me via the form here

If you’d like to explore how to work with your nervous system to support lasting change - check out how to work with me below.