how to resolve trauma and stop rumination once and for all i'm dr. trish leigh
let's dig in for just a minute i just got off a call with a really nice gentleman who
has been struggling with something that he experienced over a decade ago and it inspired
me to make a video how do we get rid of a traumatic experience especially if we think
we should have handled it better that happened a long time ago but keeps revisiting us in some way
and we can't get it out of our mind and today my beautiful son graduated and just yesterday
we were talking about an experience and this is a low-grade one but hopefully it will help you apply
it to your own life even if it's a higher grade trauma or uncomfortable situation so my handsome
man when he was a freshman he was taking an ap bio class and if you're listening the teacher that he
had you should have cut that kid some slack when he was a freshman but he's a super good student
he literally gets 99s in everything he tries so hard he's dedicated he's really sharp he's done
lots of neurofeedback using the mu's headband that explains why his brain's in such a good
spot but when he was a freshman when he entered into high school he applied himself but he wasn't
getting the grades that this certain teacher was not giving him for the effort that he was
putting in but he really learned to communicate for himself to advocate um he learned negotiation
skills he showed up for the labs she was doing better and she was making it difficult for him
to do better and better but he kept showing up and he improved the way that he interacted with her
and the way that he did the lab reports new things in high school that he had never done before
he still ended up only getting a b plus so he graduated yesterday and it made it so that he
graduated magna [ __ ] laude and not summa [ __ ] laude by .01 which is obviously disappointing
but he's already gotten into the university of his choice and he's psyched to go and he's
got accepted into the engineering program but here's the message so that difficult
situation when he was a freshman i helped him through as his mom but it inspired him to join
speech and debate where he learned communication debate skills presentation skills advocacy
which then he moved on and when he was a senior he it was during the middle of covid and he had to
take ap calc online and it was very difficult and the teacher yeah high school teachers out there
i'm talking to you to be more adaptable the teacher that he had gave him a really hard time
him and all the students and i actually called the principal i called the teacher i met with the
assistant principal a bunch of times the teacher actually accused me of being a karen he accused me
of being a helicopter parent and i'm like listen i got six kids the last person in the world i want
to be talking to right now is you so i need you to help me solve this and he said i've been teaching
this class for 20 years i'm like i know but you've never taught it in a global pandemic so it's now
time to change the way that you've taught it for 20 years and he was having none of that but my son
adapted he figured out how to adapt it and he rose to the occasion because of what he learned when he
was a freshman so now in ap calc he became the team leader of his class and he got the job done
he got an a and he helped the other students to thrive also so the point is he didn't allow
this freshman experience to drag him down and to pull him into the quagmire of feeling bad
about being stiffed on this grade and having a difficult experience he allowed it to inform his
thought processes and his action steps from there on out so it was cool yesterday when we reflected
on it because we're reflecting and saying you know if you didn't have that experience as a freshman
you might not be here in the way that you are here today so here's your brain hack for the day think
about that difficult experience that you had and especially if it keeps rising to the top for you
and you're like i should have done something differently right now i have this blip on my
record i have this bad grade i have this you know i freaked out on somebody and i wished i didn't
and this is the way to resolve it think about that old version of you if it was four years
ago like declan if it was over a decade ago like the gentleman i just talked to that's not the same
version of you if you're growing and transforming and if you're becoming more emotionally mature
you can look back at that younger version of yourself and see what was going on for
him and if you reacted poorly instead of responding well look at him with empathy
and recognize he was doing his best then see how that experience may have served you
all difficult experiences can have the lemons squeezed into lemonade if you can find the
learning and change the way that you think and behave like declan did so are you acting
differently in your life today if not look back at that experience and see how you can change the way
that you act you don't freak out you try harder you get communicating better earlier
change the way that you act based upon that thing you wish you would have done
for the better for the more emotionally mature squeeze the learning out of the experience
and look back at yourself with empathy it's going to reframe that situation and you'll see how
maybe just maybe that it served you here today and you can move into the future using the new
skills that you got from that old experience and when you realize you've grown from it
you can resolve it process it integrate it and let it out of your brain and nervous system
okay i hope that helps you out if you're looking for help on your journey reach out
to me drtrishleigh.com i'm here to help and as always control your brain or it'll control you