hi everyone mo macadam here I'm a
licensed Marriage and Family Therapist I
just read the book moving beyond trauma
by Eileen Smith and it's left me
thinking quite a bit about one really
massive aspect of mental health that
most people don't even know about which
is how your nervous system and whether
you can regulate it has a huge impact on
mental health and this is an emerging
approach it's called somatic
experiencing it targets treatment for
trauma but it also does a great job with
anxiety and depression and other mental
health issues and the way it does this
is through the body and nervous system
regulation so in this video I'm going to
share some of what the author Aileen
Smith talks about which is why
traditional Western psychology has
failed many people and how healing is
possible when we get out of our head and
into our body
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real quick I want to remind you I've got
a bunch of courses up online I'm moving
from you to me to teachable the links
are down in the description below I've
got a change of brain course on mental
health and neuroplasticity I've got a
coping skills and self care course and
how to help course which is how to help
family members and friends who aren't
experiencing mental illness so check
those out if you want to learn more ok
back to the video so the main idea of
this book it's by Eileen Smith and the
main idea of somatic experiencing in
general is that you can train yourself
to move through pain and anxiety or
emotional suffering with grace and
compassion and not get deregulated so
the author shares an example of this
when her husband died suddenly she was
able to move through a massively painful
death because she had the ability to
experience and move through pain without
locking up and she was even able to
experience joy the week after his death
and the reason she was able to do this
was because she was letting her body
guide her through this process of grief
and because she had learned how to
regulate her body and her nervous system
through this practice of somatic
experiencing and the main idea is that
talk therapy fails many people because
basically by talking about your old
injuries it reach triggers them or it
keeps them in these patterns of
avoidance without addressing the deep
wisdom of their body and their emotions
she says your nervous system does not
function through thoughts it functions
through feelings and when I say feelings
I don't mean just emotions I mean
sensations physical reactions so for
example anger comes with heat and
red-faced and muscle tension and
depression comes with physical pain and
exhaustion and sensitivity so if you
take a look at the three main parts of
the brain the cortex is the thinking
part of the brain but emotions happen in
the limbic part of our brain and our
fight flight freeze response accrues
really in that deep part of our brain
their survival response is deeper and
more anciently evolved and it moved
much faster than our thoughts can keep
up with and that's where our motions
really get stuck so when we look at
somatic experiencing what this does is
it describes how the trauma response is
trapped in our nervous system so when
someone experiences trauma their nervous
system kicks into high gear and this is
really an adaptive response to perceived
danger but when it gets stuck in that
danger response it makes us sick both
physically and emotionally so we might
see threats everywhere or get
overwhelmed we take offense and then we
fight a void or freeze up in life and
when we're constantly on this high alert
then our body doesn't have time to heal
and turn on the immune system and people
develop all sorts of physical or mental
illnesses now another reason to talk
therapy fails people is because you are
more than your brain so your nervous
system has both your brain and your
peripheral nervous system goes
throughout your whole body and it has
this really powerful response this
natural response to threats and this is
called the fight flight freeze response
it's very adaptive in the short term but
we often interfere with our body's
ability to move through the complete
cycle and return to a sense of safety so
the fight flight freeze response is that
activating alerting reaction that oh my
gosh there's something the matter
there's danger we need to take action
and then there's the natural resolution
of that problem using the
parasympathetic nervous system that
helps us feel a sense of calm but we
often interfere with our body's ability
to move through the complete cycle and
return to a sense of safety and that's
because we're so good at emotional
suppression and avoidance we may have
been trained by our parents or society
or even modern psychology to avoid our
emotions through overthinking through
suppression and straight-up telling
people like don't feel that way so
somatic experiencing presents the
alternative which you know Eileen talks
about in this book so by listening to
our body we create space for our
emotions and for our sensations and we
allow our natural ability to heal and
return to safety to take place we go
through that whole process where a body
turns on
that healing system our nervous system
self-regulates and then we can respond
to life and threats with greater
flexibility and joy and calm and we can
often heal trauma depression or anxiety
and my number one takeaway from this
book is that when we don't take the time
to acknowledge and listen to our body
and our nervous systems cues when we
suppress or avoid or rush through those
emotions that can make us sick both
physically and emotionally so when we
respond to worry by running about and
trying to do everything all the time
then occasionally our body's going to
collapse with exhaustion and this is
going to look like an anxiety or a
depressive disorder and the treatment
for it is really to learn to regulate
your nervous system to return your
nervous system to a sense of calm and
that's what most psychologists and most
mental health information out there is
not talking about so in the book the
author tells the story of a lady who had
experienced abuse as a child and then as
an adult she entered into an abusive
relationship
so now after years of this and after her
divorce she was chronically stressed and
she lived in survival mode she saw
danger everywhere and she couldn't even
think of any safe place that existed in
her life she only saw what was wrong
instead of what was right and this is
what stress physiology does and it's a
common result of constantly living in
survival mode when we're living with a
stressed-out brain we're only attuned to
see threats to see the negative to hyper
focus on what might go wrong so going
back to the woman who had been abused
the author says over time
Kathy developed depression as a
cumulative response to exhaustion from
constantly living life on high alert so
the author who's a somatic experiencing
practitioner and a certified coach was
able to help Kathy find safe places in
her life and then they did some
cognitive work around the abuse helping
Kathy see that it wasn't her fault but
the main work was teaching Kathy to calm
down her stress physiology so that she
could accurately tell the difference
between safety
danger and then they also worked to
build joy so like I talked about in my
video about emotional compression Kathy
had experienced this emotional shutdown
from stress she wasn't able to feel very
much joy so they made space for that in
her sessions as she worked with the
author and in her life and then they
took the time to highlight those moments
of joy and to sit with them and that's
one way to expand your capacity to feel
joy the other type of work that they did
and and this is an important practice
for people who want to work on anxiety
and depression and trauma is they worked
with the bodily sensations that Kathy
was having and they found that when they
did that that painful memories would
come up so Kathy had this urge to rock
herself and if you think about a crying
baby rocking them is one way to help
them regulate to calm down so rocking
together as they worked was a way for
Kathy to move through those old
sensations and memories of abuse or
neglect and to come to that completion
or to that resolution and they did other
bodywork as well and this is something
that you know modern psychology really
hasn't focused on but the movement is
really shifting toward a better
understanding of this bodywork that's
essential to regulate emotions so they
did breathing exercises they
strengthened her relationship with her
kids which was an area she could feel a
lot of emotions and Kathy got a puppy
which would be my favorite part of all
of this and as Kathy's nervous system
began to heal her depression started to
lift because she wasn't constantly
stressed out all the time her nervous
system wasn't exhausted and she was able
to enter into a new relationship get a
new boyfriend that was healthy the other
thing that happened is before this she'd
been having all sorts of stomach
problems and after they did the bodywork
and they turned off that fight flight
freeze response that had become chronic
her did her digestive issues resolved
themselves so these are all results that
can come from working with the nervous
system but honestly not many therapists
or mental health sites are teaching
about all this I think most people don't
even know what the fight flight freeze
response is much less how it impacts
their stress levels or how to turn it
off
and the type of exercises that treat
anxiety and stress from the body first
they're called a bottom-up approach
meaning that you start with addressing
and calming the body before focusing on
the mind and in this book the author
gives some exercises on how to practice
that on my channel a lot of my older
videos address these techniques so you
can check out my grounding skills
playlist or my anxiety playlist both of
those have a lot of these exercises but
I do want to share one of these
exercises with you right now so take a
moment right here to notice that you are
watching this video can you see the
outline of the screen that you're
watching it on just notice that you're
watching it on a phone or a computer TV
and then just expand your awareness to
the room that you're in notice the room
around you pay attention to what you can
see now just taking your surroundings
for a moment while you listen to my
voice now notice your body if you're
sitting place your feet on the floor
notice what's holding you up a chair or
a couch or whatever and notice how it's
pressing into your body pay attention to
the feeling of your your body pressing
down and it pressing up now notice
what's inside of your body what physical
sensations can you feel do you feel
muscle tension anywhere can you feel
yourself to breathe close your eyes for
a second pay attention to how your face
feels your face muscles feel relaxed or
tight the goal is not to change these
sensations but to sit with them for a
moment to notice them and to see what
they have to say to you our bodies have
a deep wisdom telling us what we need
and how to heal and by tapping into your
body's wisdom and training yourself to
regulate your nervous system you can
learn to overcome depression PTSD and
anxiety or at least one really big
aspect of them I hope this video was
helpful thanks for watching take care
you