Full Show Notes

This is episode 101 of the Trauma Healing for Latter day Saints Podcast: What do I mean by “Trauma Healing?”

I’m your host, Denita Bremer. I’m a Latter-day Saint mom with a history of trauma. I use my own life experience and spiritual gifts, as well as mindset and somatic tools to help you trade ashes for beauty and end generational trauma. If you struggle with depression or toxic shame, you are in the right place, my friend! Let’s talk about what it takes to truly heal and find lasting joy.

1. You may have noticed new podcast art, so let’s talk about what I mean by trauma healing.
2. The more I learn about trauma and the nervous system, the more I want to spend my time focusing on these things. There are a million mindset coaches and talk therapists, but not as many practitioners who focus on the body and the nervous system.
3. I’m always looking for the elegant solution. (See definition below.) And I believe when it comes to depression, anxiety, chronic stress, toxic shame, how your nervous system is responding or coping is the elegant solution. In other words, I believe depression and anxiety are symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system, instead of problem in and of themselves.
   1. Define: An elegant solution, often referred to in relation to problems in disciplines such as mathematics, engineering, and programming, is one in which the maximum desired effect is achieved with the smallest, or simplest effort.
4. So where does trauma come in? In the original greek, trauma means literally wound. The psychological community/industry has sort of commandeered this term to suggest an emotional or psychological wound. (Refer to my earlier podcast episode #68: What Even Is Trauma?)
   1. So what I mean by trauma healing, is healing the “wounds” inflicted upon us by our attachments to our parents, events that happened in our lives (and they don’t have to be big seemingly traumatic events like a car accident or abuse, although they could be), that are now showing up as depression, anxiety, toxic shame, and a variety of other symptoms like procrastination, buffering, people pleasing, lack of motivation, feeling disconnected or numb, going through the motions, etc.
   2. But I want to be really clear here: trauma is physical. It lives in the cells of our bodies and affects how we produce energy, our digestion, etc. It is a physical wound, which I don’t think many of us realize! This is one problem I see in the mental illness industry: we separate physical wounds from mental from emotional from psychological— and it really is all related.
   3. Trauma is simply what happens inside your body when you get too much too fast or too little for too long without the necessary support or resources to navigate it. How does your body cope? This is why every body has a different response to the same events. Why does one person easily bounce back from, say a terrible hurricane, while another person might struggle for years afterward. All of our bodies are different, need different types of support, and navigate the world differently. So for one person, a hurricane might be highly traumatic, and for another, just a story to tell for years to come. (The Body Keep the Score by Bessel van der Kolk was mentioned.)
5. What are my hopes for this podcast now?
   1. Trade ashes for beauty. I believe we can each take the difficult and hard parts of our lives and consecrate them for a higher good.
   2. Practical tips. Each episode will now have one or more journaling questions for you to consider and help you apply the principles I discuss in the episode.
   3. If you struggle with depression, anxiety, chronic stress, toxic shame, my hope is that you will slowly be able to build your support and resources in order to create lasting healing. someone close to you struggles, my hope is that by listening to this podcast, you can understand them better and help provide the support and resources they need to heal.
6. The journaling questions for this episode is:
   1. When in your life did you experience too much, too fast or too little for too long?
   2. How did this affect you?
   3. What “symptoms” do you struggle with that could possibly be a result of this?
   4. What to do with these journaling questions?
      1. Simply journal them to yourself for your own reflection and knowledge.
      2. Share them with a trusted partner or friend and discuss.
      3. Voxer your answer to me and let’s start a conversation. My handle on voxer is @denitabremer
      4. Bring your answers to Drop-in Coaching on Wednesday at 12 pm MT, and get coached. This is a “by donation” coaching call that I will be holding weekly-ish for the forseeable future. In order to stay in the loop with the days and times it will be held and to get the Zoom information, you’ll need to join the list. I’ll drop the link in the description or you can get it in the show notes on my website.
      5. Sign up for a totally free private coaching call where you can ask me any questions and get coaching on anything that came up for you.

That’s enough for now, and so are you.

To learn more about trauma, get my free PDF where I talk about daily actions that could be coming from an underlying trauma response. To help others learn what you’re learning from this podcast, please leave a rating or a review on your favorite podcast app or share with a friend.

Until next time, go be yourself and follow the Spirit.
Denita