What is Trauma Resilience and How to Improve it? | Break the Cycle of Trauma | Trauma Informed Care

This episode is pre-recorded as part of a live, on-demand continuing education webinar. CEUs are still available for this presentation by registering at allceus.com/counselortoolbox. I would like to welcome everyone to today's presentation on improving

trauma

and

resilience

. I'm Dr. Donnelly Snipes, in this presentation you will learn more about the effects of acute and intergenerational

trauma

; Of course, we'll only cover the highlights here because we only have one hour to review the risks and protective factors of PTSD for the development of PTSD. as a result of acute or intergenerational trauma, and we will identify strategies to

improve

resilience

in people who have experienced trauma in the past and also to

break

the

cycle

of intergenerational trauma,

what

consequences do we see from the lack of resilience from primary and intergenerational trauma ?

Well, let me start with the definition of primary and intergenerational trauma, primary trauma as we will use it in this presentation,

what

is happening to the person right now, that is the survivor of the first victim, whatever word you want to use is a trauma that This happened generations ago, but still affects all family members for different reasons. Because we talk a lot, we hear the word intergenerational trauma a lot, but we don't really talk about how it's transmitted, so let's look at the source of anxiety and depression when you work with people who have experienced trauma. anxiety and experience depression if they experience intergenerational trauma, they can, having been raised by someone who experiences anxiety and depression and not learning coping skills, how to deal with things when people experience trauma sometimes, especially if they don't It is something in which they are in a state of acceptance does not come, they leave the word you want to use, it changes or can change their perspective, their vision of the world in terms of the reliability of people about whether they have hope or feel empowered. , then if you switch from For someone else's viewers, the lens through which they see the world may be very different from yours.

If you are raised by someone who sees the world as dangerous and malevolent and full of unhappiness, then you are likely to feel that the world is dangerous and malevolent and full of unhappiness that can cause or potentially cause anxiety. depressive symptoms can clearly cause post-traumatic stress disorder to develop post-traumatic stress disorder; We're looking at people who experience trauma and there's no known big jump from acute trauma to developing PTSD. in people who experience multiple or PTSD and people who experience multiple traumas, for example, law enforcement officers, military personnel who see bad things Unfortunately, on a regular basis and in a single event, and this is especially true for law enforcement and emergency medical services, an event is Not possible, it is not a defining event in your trauma history, but everyone who sees the trauma repeatedly is cumulative if you see the day after.

It starts to seem like it's everywhere every day, so people can develop PTSD from chronic stress, chronic trauma, people can develop PTSD as a result of chronic trauma in their own home if they live in a home where crime is committed. violence, for example, they can develop PTSD, so we know that PTSD can develop post-traumatic stress disorder, what we are talking about, We are talking about someone who is very alert, if you grow up in an environment where you are taught, either in a accidental or overt, that the world is a dangerous and malicious place, then you are likely to be more alert if you are taught that people are not trustworthy.

Well, with the symptoms of PTSD, it makes sense from a survival perspective, if you see the world as dangerous and malicious personality disorders, we talked a little bit about this in our trauma symptoms and personality disorders class as we do. people experience at a young age. trauma. They have the coping skills and can develop coping tools that help them survive the moment that never unfolded further, and when they reach adulthood, they still use the primitive coping skills that they used in childhood to deal with the trauma, and It doesn't work for them when they are adults.

What works for a two-year-old to survive does not work for a 20-year-old, which is why we can see personality disordered behaviors. We can see the lack of confidence in impulsive behavior because in addition to the lack of coping skills or the development of unhealthy coping skills when people experience trauma, we know that there are brain changes, but we know that there are changes in the HPA axis . and the cortisol system we know, there are changes in neurotransmitter levels in people who experience trauma, we know from research that people who disrupt primary attachment and experience negative experiences in childhood are more likely to have impulse control. and mood regulation and things like that because they didn't have the foundation, they didn't have the necessary support, and/or they were exposed to traumatic events that changed their neurobiological makeup, which they actually showed with PET scans in veterans, for example. which is trauma, psychological trauma can cause real changes in the brain, similar to what you can see with a traumatic brain injury, a physical traumatic brain injury, and some of the studies are very interesting in looking at the brain changes. the result of PTSD, so my point here as we move through this is whether it's acute trauma or whether it's something that the child grew up with because the parents were traumatized or the grandparents or the grandparents fell and we will talk about that in a minute more problems can arise as a result of trauma in relationships, people who want to withdraw, people emotionally numb, less confidence in poverty and reduced success, do you know what happens if you are traumatized if you have symptoms of experiencing disorder post-traumatic stress disorder or acute post-traumatic stress disorder? stress disorder, it is very difficult to stay focused. concentration problems, insomnia, high alertness that prevents you from concentrating, which means you can temporarily reduce success, but if it continues for a long time, you can have a long history of reduced success because the trauma prevents you from being able to do so. focus on learning to get new information sleep well so your brain can process everything so we can see peaks a gap between people when we look at trauma between genders if we know about you know your vulnerabilities what each person brought to class the people they come from of families with intergenerational trauma have more vulnerabilities, making it difficult for them to concentrate and learn.

Stress-related physical health problems are common in both gastrointestinal disorders, again you have insomnia, you have autoimmune disorders, you have Crohn's disease, autoimmune problems, sometimes you have chronic illnesses. pain, there are a lot of different things, migraines, a lot of different things that can happen physically to a person when they are under a lot of stress and what causes trauma is putting the stress response system on high alert and intergenerational trauma, and there it is where we're going to talk a lot about

break

ing the

cycle

in this particular presentation because even if the trauma doesn't happen to this person or the mother and father of the person who acted, there are things that are passed on, so if this person grows In a home where we can say that Grandma experienced significant trauma and developed certain views on places and things of people in her lens, how she saw the world, how she interpreted things, it will be in a particular way and will be very influenced by trauma. , just as she raises her children, the children are influenced by her views, and when children raise their children, the children are influenced by her views, therefore, it is important to look at the social learning component of traumatic generations who have trauma problems.

They often have problems with attachment, so as parents they may have more trouble forming the primary attachment relationship with their children, knowing their children, which you know is the number one negative experience of childhood, so that can inflict trauma on their children. You know, pessimism arises if you see the world as maliciously insecure and unreliable, then it is easy to be pessimistic, it is easy to see, since no one is willing to help everyone think rigidly, we see this a lot in people who have experienced traumas, who have tried to control a world that seems chaotic to them, simply changed or never made sense, so they have very rigid ways of thinking; this is the way it should be done to stay safe, and it leads to a lack of psychological flexibility when you see an event and this is the way it should be done, or this is the way I've always done it, so that's the way I have to keep doing it, so it stops people from being able to develop new skills or see things from a different perspective, so signs of resilience, that's what we want to encourage in people;

Whether you are someone who has experienced intergenerational trauma or who has experienced direct trauma, we want to help you develop optimism; Confidence with insight Perspective perseverance and self-control, so let's go through some good, optimism versus pessimism if you experience something bad, you know we are stubborn if you want to see the threat to see the danger because it helps us to see what we must do to survive, which sometimes makes it difficult to be optimistic if you grow up in a pessimistic environment and then encourage or reinforce the idea that these bad things that happen well are that way because bad things always happen.

Pessimism is one of the things that we may need to address through cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical dialectics to help people learn, as Martin Seligman would say, learn to be optimistic to help balance them because yes, bad things happen, the pain is inevitable. Anyway, there are good things in life. too, and we're going to talk about a lot of interventions once we get past the theory. We want to help people develop a sense of empowerment. People who have experienced trauma may feel disempowered. You know, they can be a loss of control. experience intergenerational trauma they get the message that they are still powerless for some reason, so we want to see how we can empower people if we want to look at the indigenous people, the American Indians that you know, it's clear that they had their land taken away, and it was very disempowering that they sent their children to shelters, and it was very disempowering, there were a lot of things that the government did completely wrong and that was disempowering, so you can see how you know that even if it happened to great-grandmother, you can watch how grandmother would learn the lessons and be suspicious of the government and the people and you can see how you know mom and dad could have learned from that because you know what are the messages that they received growing up and if they receive the garbage for centuries when we receive messages what we tend to see and seeing things that confirm that we do not see things that contradict what we have always learned, but we tend to see and explain things in terms of what we quote.

So for people who felt helpless and disempowered, we want to help them discover how they can empower themselves, how we can empower them to regain their sense of personal agency; We want to help people be flexible when they are stressed. The more stressed they are, the more strict they become in how they handle things and how they deal with other people, how they see things, or you know it all. or you see a lot of all or nothing thinking and people in crisis, we want to help them develop psychological flexibility, which starts with awareness, we want to help them develop self-confidence, you know, that goes along with confidence and empowerment. so that they don't always feel anxious so that they don't feel like they can't do something so that they don't feel like the world is against them we want to help develop self-confidence and we want to help develop a feeling that I'm okay I'm okay even you know something Just because this happened to me or my family members doesn't mean I'm a bad person doesn't mean I'm broken doesn't mean I know you somehow I didn't, it means I just have a different experience and am a good person , we want people to develop a sense of competence, so that they have the idea that if they try to do something, for the most part, none of us can achieve everything that you always know we all are.

We all have things that we're not talented at, and that's okay, but to help people identify well, there are things you can't control, there are things here that you're not good at, and that's okay, you know? I am totally incompetent when it comes to woodworking, plumbing or electrical tools. I am totally incompetent; Don't put me near electricity, it's a bad thing, but I'm okay with it, I have confidence in myselfand I know what my limitations are and I know what my strengths are. so my husband is very good at plumbing and electrical, which is great because I'm not, I'm very good because you know other things, like growing food, and you know anything, so we have a sense of confidence, knowing what they are. our strengths we want to help people develop insight to be curious and ask why I feel this way, or why I interpret this as a threat, we want to help people develop perseverance after trauma is exhausting if you experience intergenerational trauma if you have PTSD and He's always on guard or exhausting so it's very hard to persevere, it's very hard to keep going because you know you can't seem to win.

People who have experienced trauma tend to throw in the towel more easily, they just don't have the energy that their body uses so much to survive and protect them, it helps them gain perspective, sometimes it helps them see the bigger picture, sometimes it helps them. things. That seem like the end of the world are not really, but it is a matter of being able to help someone get out of the situation to come back and come back. an aerial view of the forest to know where they are going and self-control versus deregulation. Many people who have experienced trauma have experienced emotional dysregulation, in part due to hypercortisolism, and we see more hypercortisolism in children who have experienced trauma, especially children who have experienced repeated trauma or who, you know, come from an environment where 'lack of attachment and multiple negative childhood experiences, and we want to help people have a sense of personal control, so that they do not feel controlled by the outside, being hypervigilant is exhausting and also frustrating because you feel that you can't control your startle response when someone closes a door. the dogs start barking like crazy or something and you jump out of your skin, you know you feel like a cat in the tom and jerry cartoon climbing up and grabbing the ceiling, it's very frustrating, we want to help people. develop a sense of personal control over your behavioral and emotional responses, so what risk factors are good for someone you know?

We talked about intergenerational trauma, if a child is zero, he knows that he is completely dependent on his

care

giver and if the

care

giver is not emotionally available, if the caregiver is unresponsive and the primary attachment does not develop, then the child that we know from research is probably he will have anxiety and attachment issues and problems later when he gets older, and you can look at Bowlby's case. do your research to learn more about developmental level, and it's not the same as age, because you can have someone who is 8 12 18 28 who has the developmental level of someone who is much younger.

In some cases they can also be children who have a greater development than their peers, but generally it is not more than one or two years, if we look at the stages of PJ, there are very clear periods in which people from the preoperational sensory motor to concrete operational to formal operational thinking, so if someone is on the precipice of one of those, perhaps on the precipice between concrete operational thinking and formal operational thinking, you know that some children at that age are informally operational and understand a little more, no, we want to look at the level of development, based not only on chronological age, but also on what happens to young people or people.

With fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, for example, they often speak at a level higher than their chronological levels, they can be 14 years old and speak at the level of a young person of 18 or 20 years old, they can have a very fluid conversation, but what ? What they receive, what they interpret and what they understand to understand their receptive language is in many cases that of a child over eight years old, so someone with FA and ASD FA needs to know about their level of development in various aspects. . Fronts, this is par for the course of FASD, if someone has a history of trauma then another trauma is likely to be more traumatic, this is likely to increase the risk of PTSD, because it feels like the world is not safe, one thing an isolated incident happens be able to understand it to explain it come to some understanding when you have it something else happens again you may feel like you just have a target on your back before a history of mental health or abuse issues if someone has a history of depression, anxiety , bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, then these things can arise due to trauma, and if they arise again, it also increases the risk of developing PTSD, we also want to look at people with autism and people with autism because they have difficulty with sensory processing Due to their unique neurological structure, things that are not traumatic for those who are neurotypical can be traumatic and overstimulating for someone who is neuro atypical, but we want to point out that the number of stressors someone has experienced in the previous six months , even if they don't rise to the level of trauma, if someone's had a really bad six months and you know their car had a roof, a leak, and their kid flunked out of college, you know, yeah, yeah, if trauma happens, they're already exhausted, they're already burned out, so they're more at risk for PTSD, the availability of social support and we're not going to talk much about what. about intervention because I'm going to say now that it's essential for people to get social support for trauma within 24 or 72 hours.

Four hours is the first window that starts to move towards people storing long-term what they do there. Their grief is acute and can be handled now of course it does not apply to intergeneration within 24 hours the person who has compartmentalized it a little, because you know hopefully that he slept and his emotions have been able to regulate a little, they returned to a little the baseline, it's still pretty raw, but not that bad, and then 72 hours is the end of the window before someone suffers the trauma, put it in a box and put it on a shelf in your mental closet to, hopefully deal with it later, but a lot of times it gets stuck if they don't have effective problem-solving and coping skills, then in the future they're at higher risk for PTSD, and if they don't have effective distress tolerance, they're at higher risk. an increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. risk of PTSD because the trauma is completely overwhelming and almost palpable, so what can we do?

You know, that's the most interesting part of the psychological flexibility class. Let's start by helping them figure out what they're doing, and a psychological flexibility, it's similar to a therapy for commitment and the commitment is removed and here it's adjusted a little bit, and now accept it: this is what it is, what's happening here. Now I feel our behavior that we see in people who have experienced trauma, regardless of the type we see, irritability and aggression, that it empowers or alienates people, but it is a protective addictive behavior that can help numb emotions and feelings. The smell can be numbing. withdrawal or isolation and giving up easily, if someone we work with in the here and now experiences this distress.

Yes, these are your autopilot behavioral responses, your automatic feelings can be anger, anxiety, pessimism, distrust, guilt, loneliness or simply lack of perspective. Seeing everything a certain way through a negative lens, that's what they've always done and you know they may not know they may not even realize they're doing it and they may not know how to shift gears and turn it off automatically. pilot what we want to help them learn is when they experience distress in the here and now yes they can get irritated they can engage in addictive behaviors everyone can do what they can it is a choice or we can help them learn awareness tolerance vulnerability prevention how social support and resolution skills of problems we can help develop these tools so that when they feel distressed by looking at they experience trauma if they experience an extreme stressor or just an old stressor, they have options and can know which one brings them I am closer to the happy and healthy person that I want to be, go drink, go drink and drink a friend or call with dialectical behavior, yes, having options here and now is unpleasant;

It's uncomfortable, how can we

improve

the next moment? Right now you can be left with the initial feeling of anger, anxiety or pessimism, or everyone can say, this is how I feel now, how can I improve next moment, so we can learn to grow? optimism curiosity perspective perception flexibility empowerment confidence security and self-control, these are all things that we can help them add to their repertoire, so that they have options, don't say they will always choose them, but then they can stop doing so. and it goes well thoughts if I have these thoughts then the whole world is against me which helps me be the happiest and healthiest person I want to be, probably not if I have the thought that maybe I could use perspective here if the thinking that this person I'm interacting with is really unhappy and unhealthy, but it's more about them than me, how it affects my mood, which helps me deal with this situation differently, so that I move forward with the help of my energy to become a happier and healthier person that I want to pay attention to, and from now on the only thing we are going to talk about is his behavior and his thoughts and feelings, these are the things that we want to cultivate and I have tried to give suggestions on how we can do this with adults and also how we can do it with children.

Awareness is present moment awareness that you know what is now and what you need in the present moment without judging, if you know that right now it's terrible and I'm feeling really uncomfortable and sad and angry and I need a hug, that it's what you need, but it takes a while to get there, because in our society we're generally not that aware. I actually go on autopilot all the time to see how I feel what I need, so some activities that you can use to get people to develop a sense of conscious awareness, it's not even full awareness, just conscious awareness five four three two one and we talked about this before five things you see four things you hear three things you can smell two things you can feel and one thing you can taste or what you also use all your senses and you don't have to do that you can do five things you can taste if you want I don't care just five four three two one that helps people stay in the present moment and notice what's going on around them, how often do you think what's doing what I'm feeling right now, unless you ?

You feel very uncomfortable because it is hot or you are wearing an itchy sweater, or many times you do not think about what you feel, or if you know what your physical sensations are, it is another activity that the children and I can do all five of us. three two one pretty easily: they like to be in the room, this is another activity that you can do, and you can do one like words in a word, so if you have someone, they're all sitting in a group room or it's a family and you are all sitting in the living room, have everyone take out a piece of paper and write down for five minutes everything they see, everything they see visually or everything they hear, know that they can choose a sentence. and then everyone shares what they noticed, because a lot of times people overlook things and someone else points it out and you're like, oh yeah, I didn't notice that and once you see it you can't see that it's something completely different. a different thing, a different activity that you can do in the room, you can do a scavenger hunt, and it's even more fun, families can do it, or you can do it in treatment with a group of people, maybe everyone.

You can spend ten minutes around the grounds or If you walk around the house in the garden, identifying everything that is green, and you never realize or never realize how many things there are until you pay attention to them, it is just a fun way to make people start to realize that there is a lot more around them than they really notice. Wood's comment is a bridge between awareness and awareness when you are working with someone, for example you are working with a teenager who is trying to do their homework and they are having a hard time because their mind keeps wandering and thinking about what they did in gym class and how embarrassed they are about it or what they said at lunch or the tests they got in a week and they're not focusing on what they're currently doing. , but they have all the anxiety on a high note, but it's just that someone keeps the person awake every time he notices that his mind has wandered all the time. notice that they have a monkey mind and four children, you can make a monkey on a piece of paper, a drawing of a monkey and then rings or something or clouds that he is holding that represents the monkey mind, and you can let them color.

You can do all kinds of things, but encourage people to pay attention and pay attention to their monkey mind, and give them thetools to just say, you know, I don't need to worry about that, now I need to focus. Whatever it is, to help you begin to tame the monkey mind, you won't be perfect at it, but as people begin to notice your monkey mind and gradually begin to direct your attention to the present, you will bring it back, the monkey will naturally begin to tame Notice another activity that can be a lot of fun for families if we do it at the residential treatment center I worked at are awareness activities, and I did them three times a day;

You don't have to do it three times in one day. You can choose just once a day if you want, but there are different things to ask at different times in the morning; you can sit around the breakfast table or have a coffee to fill you up. just one individual how did I sleep? Do I feel rested? Do I feel healthy? Do I feel all over the place? What do I think about most now, how do I feel emotionally, what am I looking forward to, and what am I afraid of? I am grateful and what can I do to free up energy for the day?

I encourage people to fill in what first before you start troubleshooting, just pay attention to the moment when you know what it is and then you can look and say ya. Now what should I do so that if they don't sleep well on my worksheets I have to put a line under each of them and if there is a negative if they don't sleep well for example what to do what you have to do to mitigate the vulnerability that you know you probably won't be able to get back to sleep, so if they know their sleep isn't as good, they tend to be more irritable and have trouble focusing on what they need to do to make their day go more smoothly because they know that They already have that vulnerability mm-hmm if they feel sick, what do they need to do?

What I know when my children were little. I could almost always tell when they were ready to get sick a day or two ahead of time before I really broke their fever or whatever because they would start to get very disorganized and very chaotic, and that wasn't like my kids normally were, like that. which was an idea to me that they were ready to get sick. , most of us have the signs that you know, the warning signs that we are preparing to get sick, knowing how to mitigate those vulnerabilities so that we can keep our stress down, keep ourselves from getting sick, and keep us from becoming dysregulated when things happen during the day for me, if I'm sleep deprived or if I'm getting ready to get sick a lot of times I'll close the door because I tend to be less patient and have a hard time dealing with interruptions so I'll close the door when I'm trying to focus on things so it's not as likely that someone will come up to me and bite their head off without me realizing it, but sometimes it happens hmm, encouraging them, do you know how I feel emotionally if the person feels flat? or bored or depressed or anything other than happy, so what should I do about it?

How can I add some happiness? How can I improve the next moment if you are already starting the day and woke up bad? side of the bed and you're feeling grumpy, so how do you mitigate that vulnerability so you're less likely to become dysregulated during the day? well, after school, after work, mindfulness, I find it or I found it when my kids were younger and they got out of school they had kept it together all day because, you know, so much time for a child, it's really a long time and as soon as they get home they would lose their ever loving minds, they just had that energy locked up and, you know, they had been good. for so long that they needed to let go, they needed to get rid of some of that nervous energy, so pay attention to mindfulness because I think a lot of us are the same way, we're so focused all day at work and then when we go out.

At work sometimes you say, "Oh my God, I just want to watch TV and turn my brain to jelly" or I want to do something else, but it's important to encourage people to check in with themselves when people check in with themselves and then they do it. able to mitigate those vulnerabilities, so if you're talking about someone who has a history of trauma, this can be very empowering and can foster a sense of self-control and self-confidence because they begin to realize how they feel and this dysregulation. Emotional does not. It doesn't come from nowhere, they see where it came from and they start doing well.

I see the connection. I know how I can start to address this. Anyway, after school or work, how do I feel physically if you're exhausted? Okay, how? I feel emotionally what was the worst thing that happened today, we often think about that, what was the best thing that happened today, encouraging people to embrace dialectic, yes, horrible things happened, you know it's possible, but they probably happen too some decent stuff. not rising to the same level I want people to recognize that there are good and bad things. What should I do right now to help me finish the day?

You know you're driving home from work and you're doing this mindfulness activity or you're driving the kids home from school and you're processing how their day went. What do I need right now to help you finish the day? Stress tolerance activities you know. You are thinking about getting involved in some type of activity to distract yourself from stress. day or to let off steam or whatever, I need social support, that's here and when I put food here I don't mean it as a coping tool, but sometimes if you know a lot of us are going to go all day, we'll skip it. lunch we will be drinking coffee all day and our blood sugar is very low and if we get some nutritious food in our system it can help our mood and energy go back up so we are less irritable when Our blood sugar goes down, our HPA axis goes up, so you're talking about someone with trauma whose HPA axis is already revved up and then they reduce what they eat, so their blood sugar goes down and your HPA axis increases even more, so yeah.

They are going to be more vulnerable to deregulation encouraging people what do I need? some people you know, you know the old stereotype of the person who wants to come home and spend some time in their cave to de-stress, you know, that's what some people need to do, introverts usually de-stress by thinking and it's neither good nor bad, It just is, then there are those of us like me. I'm an extrovert and I get anxious about talking so I need to talk about it, luckily now that we people have bluetooth and everything people don't think I'm so crazy when I'm driving down the road talking to myself we won't tell them I don't have bluetooth , I'm just talking to myself, but I talk about things and that's how I get anxious and I get through the day, but knowledge helps improve so that the night goes a little smoother and then at night, before I go to bed, how I feel physically if you feel pain anywhere?

So guess. You're probably not going to sleep either, so that's one of those things that you need to go back and mitigate over time, but again ask all the questions first and then come back and figure out how to mitigate any vulnerabilities. How do I feel physically? Do I have pain anywhere? What am I thinking about most? How do I feel emotionally? What is something I am grateful for today and what do I need to do so I can relax enough to go to sleep? People with PTSD often have a lot of pain. of difficult times or people who have experienced trauma, even if they do not develop full-blown PTSD, often have difficulty relaxing enough to fall asleep because their HPA axis is revved up, so what should do?

It's really important. to help work with clients who have difficulty sleeping to help them develop a sleep routine, distress tolerance, and self-control if you remember the acronym DBT, save and improve, that's what we're talking about here, encourage people to make a list than you can just give them this pamphlet that has the acronym on it doesn't help much when someone is stressed when they're in crisis when they're you know whatever, so what kind of activities can you do when you're feeling angry? What kind of activities can you do when you feel bored? Ask them to make a list of them so that they are useful.

What can they do to contribute? If you want to contribute something. If you want to volunteer. How can they compare to when? are in a worse state or how things could be worse to help them recognize that okay, this is really unpleasant right now, yet you know it could be worse and sometimes that helps us get perspective, emotions that they push them away or do things that are like that. it brings out the opposite emotion so listening to comedy doing things that make you happy playing with your dog my dog ​​is a big goof so that always helps take the thoughts away sometimes you just have to tell your brain you know what no we're not thinking right now and you know, sing a happy song and you're in your head and the sensations engage in powerful sensations like holding an ice cube or even worse, in my opinion, putting your hands in ice baths beyond your wrists because it really hurts a lot. and you're not going to focus on anything other than that until you get your hand out of there so that gives your brain a chance to focus on something besides the trauma or whatever you're thinking about the images, imagine yourself successfully completing something.

Upon successful completion, have people create images that they find comforting, perhaps a guardian angel and you know they can draw it. It can be a great artistic activity. Help them find meaning in case prayer helps them develop relaxation skills. Remind them to only take one thing. At the same time, sometimes, after a while, our world turns upside down and becomes chaotic and we want everything to go back to the way it was now and not everything will go back to the way it was now, maybe never, one thing to the time. What should I do right now?

Take a mental vacation and get social support. Get encouragement and sometimes you have to be the best you can be. The best entertainer. Help them develop framing or perspective skills. What is the evidence for and against that fear or belief? Do you know if? Do you feel that the world is unsafe or that people are malicious? What is the evidence for and against? Am I considering the big picture? All the factors that go into this. What was my active part in this situation? What part of my current situation and my current vulnerabilities are contributing to my reaction.

What is the active part of other people in it? Do I have transfer problems? Know? Maybe I'm reacting too strongly to this because the person I'm interacting with reminds me of something I'm interacting with. someone from my past and I am and I am catastrophizing and confusing high and low probability events, it is the worst thing in the world, so, for example, if when my husband was traveling if he had not eaten in a while, he became hypoglycemic and I often made a complaint, okay, so if you got that and luckily you didn't have a catastrophe, but some people get a complaint and they're like, "Oh my God, I'm going to lose my job and I'm going to lose my house and I'm going to be homeless." and then oh my gosh, where how do we get from a complaint to homelessness?

Yeah, so what's the evidence for and against that belief? What part are we considering in that? You know. What was his active part? Well, his active part was a big cranky old man. What part did the situation contribute to? Well, his blood sugar was low. Is that an excuse? No, but it is something that can mitigate in the future. other people are an active party in the situation, whoever made the complaint, you know what they were doing and why maybe they perceived it as more aggressive or offensive or whatever than you intended it to be and if potentially If they had transfer problems or if he would have them, that's how it is.

The person you know is very upset about the complaint and is having transfer issues because they received a complaint in the past that could have led to them being fired or something so it encourages people to take perspective and then really consider this situation that they are facing. me. the reality of this situation and how likely it is that you know that you filed a complaint how likely it is that you will be fired and then even if you are fired how likely it is that you will be unemployed long enough to lose your house and become homeless it has a pretty low probability, but we can use these perspective skills for everything from you know, when someone gets divorced, when they have relationship problems, if a teenager is getting ready to go to some kind of team tryout and they're thinking right. . if I don't make it, then either my world will end or they will make a deal that will leave them out of the race for valedictorian and they think their entire academic career is about encouraging them to gain some perspective by asking some questions and solving problems. brainstorming skills is one of my favorites because we tend to restrict ourselves or justJump to the first idea, so you can ask children to draw pictures of what they could do.

They can draw different ways to solve the problem. For adults, they have done studies. and they found that our brain stays more active if our hands are active, so if you write down a solution and then go around it and draw a line and look for another solution, you want to make sure you keep your hand moving the whole time and that can help you take advantage of some of that creativity a little interesting ask someone who has been through a similar situation that's another problem-solving skill encouraging people to remember that they can ask for information even if it's not asking for help and in problem-solving skills always evaluating the solution and saying how this prevents me from getting closer to my goals and what can I do about it when there is a problem, you know, maybe someone has to come, we will continue with the complaint, for now someone filed a complaint, well, that prevents the person gets closer to their goals if they get fired and they probably will get fired if they continue doing it, so what can they do to make that not the case and they can improve from there?

Our flexibility helps people learn that things won. It doesn't always go their way, but that doesn't mean it will always be terrible. Flexibility doesn't come easy for those of us with a J personality. I'm structured and I like my structure. It is important that people learn to do it. However, be flexible and my children taught me that very quickly we need to identify the things that we need to be flexible about, so get people thinking about what things you need to be flexible about, especially if you are in a family or a group like holidays, relationships, time management and then for me, for example, I need to be flexible in training because sometimes I want to go for a run and it's raining outside and I need to do something else.

It took me a while to be flexible with that belief. whether or not activities to help people develop flexibility the options you're obviously not going to do this for important decisions, but you can put if you want to decide what to have for dinner tonight, everyone can write down their favorite food and put it in a hat and then you take one out and that's it and that's the food we're going to have so you have to be flexible. Same for holidays, people can write their opinions or draw TV shows. take it out of the hat whatever is selected is what you have to be good with scheduling a spontaneous day now it's not so ironic but that's what we do in my house because I'm just not spontaneous but I know there are certain days when our family days and are not planned in advance.

I just have to clear everything from my calendar and go with the flow and I can do it. How many uses does the game have? I love this game and you can play it with children of many different ages. How many different things can you make with duct tape with coconut oil, plastic shopping bags, cardboard boxes, wire hangers? Go to Pinterest and you'll be stuck there for hours, but that doesn't contribute to the overall family activity. It can give you some ideas for things to do with these various things, just learn to be flexible and not see something, that's how I've always seen it, so this is the only thing you can do and it was played like a game.

Are you like a giraffe or what wild animal are you most like and why did encouraging people to be mentally flexible and explain things encourage learned optimism? Martin Seligman was the one who proposed this, but Cabassa in 1979 built on it with his ideas. about resistance and Russ Harris and Steven Hayes with their acceptance and commitment therapy and also Marsha Linehan with dialectical behavioral therapy you will see a lot of optimism, that type of thing in their traumatized brains they stay alert and notice potential dangers or threats, that's that hypervigilance. It is important that we teach people to also identify the good things in addition to those other things.

According to resistance, we can be happier if we have commitment, control and challenge. Commitment means accepting that the current situation is what it is, it is unfortunate and what other aspects of your life are you committed to and which are going well, so maybe work sucks right now, but your family is doing well and your dogs do well and whatever, so you can identify the things that are important to you and that are going well, so you don't feel like your whole life is a disaster and in a CT they call it living at the end and DBT she refers to it more as dialectic, recognizing that good and bad things can be happening at the same time control encouraging people to observe what parts of the situation they feel they can control and what aspects or other parts of their life they do have control over, as well which again there are certain things that if the job is not good right now there are certain things at work that you can control and some of them may even include applying for other jobs but there are some things that you may not be able to control okay Let's look at the rest of your life, you know what parts you have control over and that helps people develop that sense of empowerment and agency. and realize that they have control over multiple aspects of their happiness and health and, in the challenge, encourage people to see what distresses them as a challenge or obstacle that needs to be overcome rather than a barrier that is simply there and you can't. getting the hang of it activities to learn optimism can include keeping a positive journal having them write for 20 minutes a day only about the positive things that happen that day to help them gain some perspective because they are thinking about the negative things encouraging them to bring those things up positives and a tree or branch on the gratitude wall, you can make a wall and simply put sticky notes all over the wall every day, someone from each person in the family adds a sticky note on the gratitude wall or you can do it as a tree or you can get a branch from outside and use paper clips and attach the sticky notes to the branch to make a little three dimensional tree of gratitude things.

Empowerment activities encourage people to learn about others like them who have overcome similar situations. challenges maybe they were adopted maybe they grew up with addicted parents or grew up in poverty or whatever break down big text tasks into small steps sometimes even things like spring cleaning can seem overwhelming and just not doable, but if you break them down and say, okay, today I'm going to do the living room and tomorrow I'm going to do the dining room or whatever, every time you finish that part, that small step, you will have that feeling of empowerment like I did with that achievement, give it credit to who deserves it.

I encourage people to have and I made that notebook or wall so they can remind themselves that yes, I did it, I graduated from college. You know, whatever encouraged them to make a support list, who their supports are that they can turn to, it's because they ask. Help is not necessarily a bad thing and make sure you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Encourage people to have multiple coping strategies. When people feel incompetent and lack confidence, the world seems much more threatening and they can feel more helpless, so encourage them to identify the strengths of their signals and signature, ask them to create an advertising campaign to sell themselves, you know, and you can be written, it can be graphic, it can be a TV commercial, whatever you want to do for the kids, you can have a body poster trace, have the child trace it on a piece of cardboard or whatever and then have them draw or cut out pictures Describe your strengths and positive qualities.

You can ask him to write a biography, not an autobiography, but a biography to find out what someone would say about you. If they are writing your biography, you can ask them to identify who they admire and why. If you admire Michael Jordan, why do you admire him and what characteristics do you share with him? a personal album of achievements and I encourage you to have several emotional sections what are your emotional achievements when did you show courage perseverance dedication what are your physical achievements what are your mental achievements such as occupation creativity hobbies interpersonal achievements when have you shown patience when have you, when have been advocates of something and potentially spiritual achievements, when have you felt like you have been connected to the universe or your higher power?

You can also have them make a goal book encouraging them to learn how to set goals. goal: get them to write down what their goal is why I want it what could get in my way how can I deal with it do you know if something will get in my way how can I overcome it and what are the steps I need to take to achieve my goal, I encourage people to start writing it down because it will help them feel empowered, competent and confident from a young age. It can be hard to keep going in the face of adversity, especially if you're already stressed and feeling powerless, so scaffolding activities for toddlers work really well, like when they tie their shoes, you know, first you teach them how to tie their shoelaces, then you teach them how to make the bow and then you teach them how to.

To wind the rope, there are several steps to tie shoes, each time the child learns one step, then encourage him to do the next step and if he doesn't remember, maybe show them and then next time let him do the next step . adults find mentoring, you know you won't find as much scaffolding, but a mentor will be there, okay, you know what you need to do to let me go, sister, because I've been through it before and when. If you get stuck I'll help you notice that you just break things down into smaller tasks like we talked about before and do a balancing exercise of decisions what are the benefits of stopping whatever I'm doing now or just moving on what are the drawbacks to quit smoking, what are the disadvantages of continuing and then improving the benefits of continuing and the disadvantages of quitting to increase motivation?

Social support is a great resource when trauma throws people off balance, so encourage people to develop their connection by participating in hobby groups. like knitting circles, one of mine, but join clubs like a hiking club or religious organizations and work on developing relationships, it's not a relationship, relationships just don't magically happen, you have to work at it, have a plan for when something happens. trauma, when things happen, it's easier to be less traumatized and feel less stressed if you have a plan for how to deal with it, so plan financially now, if you don't have a lot of savings, some people just can't save, you know where.

You can find resources, tips, information and referrals from Unitedway, know where your housing will be, know how you will pay your medical bills or cover your medical needs, sometimes those things make people feel more at ease if they have shelter. Essentially planning for trauma can improve feelings of disconnection, helplessness, and anxiety. It impacts people emotionally, mentally, physically, interpersonally, and occupationally, by helping people develop resilience to trauma. We can help them prevent PTSD after trauma and break the cycle of intergenerational trauma. This episode of the Councilor's Toolbox has been sponsored in part by foundations events as the behavioral health industry evolves, the need for collaboration is greater than ever join foundation events at the haitians and health care conference Behavioral Health June 20-21 in Nashville Focused on listening to both the patient and the provider, this conference offers two days of sessions that follow the journey from meeting the patient where they are to helping them find recovery.

Special pricing is available for licensed physicians with the opportunity to earn 20+ CEUs. Visit the Foundation Events Advisor/Communications Toolbox to learn more and register today If this podcast helps you help your clients or yourself, please support us by purchasing your CEUs on all CEU communications or by having your agency sponsor one episode a direct link to on-demand CEUs for this podcast it's all CEU dot-com / CEU podcast that's all CEU dot-com / podcasts CEU will sponsor an episode of Counselor Toolbox and reach over 50,000 physicians per week wow to all dot-com/sponsor CEUs, thank you