This Past Weekend with Theo Von - E495 Trauma Expert Tim Fletcher

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00:01:23.280 sometime um love you guys and thank you for the support today's guest is a speaker a counselor

00:01:31.520 and a researcher in the world of complex trauma uh he has some amazing videos on youtube i really

00:01:38.480 love how he discusses this world and and his presentation of it i'm grateful to spend time

00:01:43.440 with him today via windsor canada he is here with us today's guest is mr tim fletcher

00:01:51.040 tim fletcher thanks for joining us today's guest we're going to be here with us today

00:01:57.280 i'll sit and tell you my stories

00:02:00.800 tim fletcher thanks for joining me man my pleasure i've seen a lot of your uh videos on youtube and

00:02:26.960 um a lot of it really resonates with me about uh trauma uh childhood trauma um

00:02:35.360 just a lot of things in that vein i mean just you have so many wonderful videos out there and i i'm

00:02:40.400 just thankful you're here today to talk with us about it um i know we want to talk about trauma today

00:02:46.640 and that sort of thing but it's also like a buzzword i feel like people use a lot and i don't want this to

00:02:51.840 be um like a thing where we're just creating victims or you know what i'm saying kind of

00:02:57.200 yep yep i think lots in the last 10 years is trauma has kind of come on the radar now everybody's

00:03:04.080 talking about everybody's trauma informed and yet people really don't understand it a whole lot but

00:03:09.920 a lot of the response has been no i got somebody to blame right and it's like no we can explain now

00:03:18.320 a lot of your behavior but you got to now take responsibility to change that yeah that's what

00:03:23.840 yeah and i don't want to create a lot of victims today like that's another part and i'm this isn't a

00:03:28.480 judgment against anybody i'm just this is even for myself i've had a lot of problems i'll get trapped

00:03:32.800 in self-pity sometimes so i just but like you're saying this is a great place for information and um

00:03:39.680 how do we go about like not creating victims right so to me what trauma is is pain happens to every

00:03:49.120 child but a child in a healthy home is able to get tools and support and they can resolve and grow

00:03:55.200 through that that so it's not trauma it's pain that gets turned into growth but what happens to a child

00:04:01.040 that can't resolve it nobody's supporting them nobody's giving them tools to handle it

00:04:05.040 it turns into trauma they're a victim they they're legitimate victim a helpless victim who can't fix the

00:04:14.000 problem um and so they are legitimate victims the problem is is that they still feel like a victim

00:04:20.880 as an adult even though they're not a victim now they now have tools and support and that's

00:04:26.560 one of the hardest transitions is to move from i was a legitimate victim but now i got to take

00:04:32.720 responsibility because i can't yeah and some don't want to do that because they like staying a victim

00:04:38.800 because then i don't have to be responsible if people feel so sorry for me i can blame somebody

00:04:44.400 i don't have to grow up yeah it's fascinating yeah let's talk about trauma let's talk about complex

00:04:49.760 trauma so what is it how would we say what it is so trauma is is so the event happens on the outside

00:04:59.440 but i can't handle it it's too painful it's too scary for me so it creates this fear and stress that

00:05:06.880 i don't have the tools to handle okay and so as a result of that since i can't fix it and resolve it

00:05:14.000 it then wounds me on the inside and that's the trauma is what takes place on the inside what makes

00:05:20.400 why we call it complex trauma so it's really mathematical terms so there's simple math and there's

00:05:27.440 complex math so simple is one number complex is more than one so simple trauma is a one event

00:05:34.240 trauma a car accident a rape whatever complex is ongoing danger so a child's in a situation where

00:05:42.000 they're in ongoing danger so there's their stress system is constantly activated like

00:05:48.000 do i fight flight what do i do here i got to get out of here i can't handle this i can't handle this

00:05:51.920 so that when a child lives in that environment all all the time where they're constantly activated to

00:05:59.040 fight flight but if they're too little to fight or flight then they eventually go oh i'm shutting her

00:06:05.120 down freeze i can't handle this so they they go into this dissociative um let's go into an internal world

00:06:12.480 to protect herself and create a fantasy world because it's safe there um and so complex trauma is comes

00:06:21.040 out of basically abuse or neglect so the two extreme ends of the spectrum so the abuse we can

00:06:28.560 easily imagine that's physical abuse emotional abuse that's harsh environment violence etc but a lot of

00:06:37.600 complex trauma comes out of neglect and that's the other end of the spectrum where all the physical

00:06:44.240 needs of the child were met but their emotional needs were met so the abuse trauma something happens

00:06:50.400 to you neglect trauma something didn't happen to you that should have happened yeah and it's hard to

00:06:56.160 find out those the neglect trauma sometimes it's hard to locate some of it because it's like almost

00:07:01.040 feeling around for ghosts is what it feels like exactly yeah and so that's where we spend a lot of

00:07:05.760 time so what we've done with it is that we've broken down kind of the emotional needs that a child has

00:07:11.280 so we have a need to be a child needs to be authentic and to connect with safe people and really be able

00:07:17.040 to be vulnerable and open up and to be totally accepted for who they are have somebody who totally

00:07:22.880 gets them and hears them and sees them and values them and nurtures them those are all emotional

00:07:31.120 needs but if a child grows up in a home where i'm too busy for you or smarten up get over it toughen up

00:07:38.240 nobody's getting them nobody's hearing them or why can't you be like your brother etc all of that is

00:07:44.080 emotional trauma that's hurting the child emotionally so the child's not feeling safe to be them so the

00:07:51.920 child then has to adapt in order to try to protect itself so i got to be tougher i can't be so sensitive

00:07:58.800 i got to wear this mask of being outgoing etc um but that's also how i'm going to try to get my

00:08:06.560 needs met so maybe if i'm different then dad will give me more attention then mom won't be

00:08:11.200 so angry at me all the time so they're adapting adapting trying to get their needs met trying to

00:08:17.360 keep safe and they don't even know who they are a lot of times and that's what happens they don't even

00:08:21.280 really develop they don't have a clue who they are after a while because they're so

00:08:25.040 busy trying to be something they're not to get acceptance and love because they know if they're

00:08:31.600 authentic so in a healthy situation of you're authentic you connect in your love in complex

00:08:39.440 trauma if you're authentic you get rejected and so then you'll yeah then you pull that authenticity

00:08:45.520 back in especially if you're really young you don't even know you're still not learning so much

00:08:51.440 about yourself or evolving who even knows what happens to when you uh redirect that river

00:08:57.120 that's supposed to be normal it just becomes a it's just damn floods everything and exactly

00:09:01.760 it can get some real sewage going on so what happens when the child is neglected is the child basically

00:09:08.400 thinks everything it must be their fault so the reason dad's too busy must be because i'm not good

00:09:13.520 enough reason mom's angry is i'm not good enough so they they begin to develop this core self-identity

00:09:19.840 that something's wrong with me i'm not good enough so i have to change and be somebody else in order to

00:09:25.520 get acceptance and love why does a child develop why does a child because that the world revolves

00:09:32.080 around them when they're a child they only know themselves and so they have no one else to blame

00:09:35.920 if something is wrong in the world so so we refer to it so the child brain is basically what's developed

00:09:42.080 as the limbic brain which is the emotional center so the cortex hasn't developed yet and so it's called

00:09:47.520 egocentric thinking so everything they see through their eyes that affects them they caused it everything

00:09:54.240 is related to them somehow so if dad's too busy or mom and dad get a divorce i must have done something

00:10:01.120 wrong it must be my fault um if i get sexually abused i must have brought it on so everything is

00:10:07.280 an egocentric way of thinking i see because they're really the only player on the court kind of exactly

00:10:12.960 exactly and so then what happens though with that is they make adjustments hoping to get love and

00:10:19.360 acceptance and get their needs met and stay safe but something way back here now goes you're phony

00:10:26.880 so they get the imposter syndrome which says you're getting love and acceptance but if they knew the real

00:10:32.720 you they wouldn't be giving you that love and acceptance because you're an imposter so the solution

00:10:39.360 hasn't fixed the problem it's still unresolved so that's where complex trauma then it's still not

00:10:46.720 fixed so i'm still in fight or flight um so i got to come up with a new persona i got to come up with a

00:10:52.560 new mechanism exactly to try and get my needs met but i never can find a solution that totally satisfies

00:11:01.760 so it's more than one trauma that happens to a child right and they don't have somebody there to

00:11:07.040 help them process it can can children have different levels of trauma or no trauma if they have somebody

00:11:13.440 there to help them process it right so there's degrees of trauma some very severe to very mild um and

00:11:21.360 and so the latest studies and gabber mate in his book um the myth of normal is um published them to say

00:11:31.200 about 75 percent of americans have this subtle complex trauma and basically it's a child that

00:11:40.880 so if a child is always being made teased by parents or ignored by parents dad's always busy dad's in this

00:11:47.680 chair next to him but he's always watching tv so he's physically there but he's not there emotionally

00:11:54.240 the child just doesn't feel loved and accepted so they they don't feel safe they don't feel they can

00:12:00.480 totally relax they have to somehow earn that connection earn that love and so a child has this

00:12:09.520 inner trauma taking place that's happening that's so subtle but it's powerful and it's really

00:12:18.400 major upheaval internally that's taking place inside the child it's forming how they're going to behave

00:12:24.320 well exactly so now they're going to start these behaviors to try to get attention to try to get

00:12:30.000 connection but is some of that natural too yeah because a child and that's it's built off very

00:12:36.240 natural things so the child has a natural personality so they can be like naturally funny but then they

00:12:41.280 can take that to just i got to be funny all the time they can be naturally very child every child wants

00:12:46.560 to please and love but now i'm going to be a hero i'm going to get straight a's i'm going to do all the

00:12:53.200 chores i'm going to be a workaholic because that's how i'll get validation and acceptance got it so you

00:13:00.880 were just talking about um isn't some of that natural for a child so that so that being wanting

00:13:07.920 to help with the chores that's a wonderful instinct that a child has but now they're going to turn that

00:13:14.480 into a maladaptation so now i'm going to be a people pleaser so i gotta or i'm going to be a

00:13:19.600 perfectionist everything's got to be perfect or i'm going to please never say no to anybody just

00:13:23.920 but then i'm going to burn myself out i'm never and i'm going to kill myself so that adaptation

00:13:29.840 you don't mean kill you just mean burn yourself out yeah okay um that adaptation pleasing people

00:13:37.040 and all of that has become a maladaptation it's now hurting me i see so a lot of children with

00:13:42.000 complex trauma have maladaptations they all do they all do yeah okay yeah and what are some symptoms

00:13:47.520 of complex trauma that you can see in people so very common ones is that they don't know who they

00:13:55.360 are because they've had to wear masks all their life and they become people pleasers most have anger

00:14:02.080 issues most have authority issues because all the authorities of their life have not been healthy

00:14:09.280 most have some control manipulation issues that are part of that a lot have lying issues

00:14:17.440 they lie when it would just as be is just as easy to tell the truth but lying is what they had

00:14:23.920 to do to kind of stay safe um because truth got them in trouble um there's a fear of failure a fear of

00:14:32.800 change a fear even of success because it's like oh everything's going too good the other shoe's gonna

00:14:39.920 drop something bad's gonna happen so now i better sabotage it wow so there's lots it's a fear

00:14:47.360 driven thing the fear of rejection there's a desire for intimacy but a fear of intimacy because then

00:14:55.120 you're going to get to know me then you're going to reject me deep fear of abandonment that anybody that

00:15:01.600 gets to know me leaves me um and so that you can see all of that becomes problematic and relationship

00:15:10.000 stuff and then trust issues oh god tim you're uh man a lot i can i can yeah i can relate to a lot of

00:15:20.480 those things you know i can relate and i have to be careful when i when i think about because at

00:15:25.360 certain points in my life i've had a lot i've had those things and um uh but i have to be careful that

00:15:31.600 i don't immediately attach it to being a victim even when i'm thinking about it right now i don't want

00:15:35.840 to be like okay some of those things i've had in my life man what a piece of shit i am right because

00:15:42.160 that's what will happen sometimes for me um and if i can interrupt yeah no please so what i would say

00:15:49.120 is the core the worst result that comes out of complex trauma is how it changes your self-identity

00:15:57.600 so a child that's loved and accepted is a positive self-identity i have value i i have something to offer to

00:16:03.520 the world a child with complex trauma that's felt neglected it's my fault i must not be good enough

00:16:09.440 they have a negative self-identity um and and so because of that i am a piece of

00:16:15.280 shit no whoever would want to get to know me um and so i need to hide who i really am so that core

00:16:22.560 identity just affects every decision they make every relationship response that they have and that's

00:16:32.000 probably the most hidden part of complex trauma the hardest thing for people to see because who

00:16:38.960 understands shame what's shame what's that but once you understand it it's like whoa that changes

00:16:46.160 everything yeah and that's where the healing really has to take place man it's so funny you say some of

00:16:53.520 this i like there'll be times where um yeah like if uh a lot of times i'll take it to relationships if

00:17:03.120 a girl rejected me or wouldn't look at me um man i it would attach itself to a place in me almost like a

00:17:13.680 like a thought get got into a ferris wheel and i don't even know the ferris wheel was going but this

00:17:19.280 thought got into the ferris wheel like a person getting into a little ferris wheel compartment um

00:17:25.920 and the ferris wheel was just like you are just a you are horrible yes you are and it just and it

00:17:33.840 was just like feeding this old thing but it would it was crazy how quick it would go from

00:17:39.760 maybe if i'd asked a girl to a dance or even if i just had some interest in my head but she never

00:17:44.320 looked at me or something and i would immediately be like god yes man what a fucking you must just

00:17:50.960 have you must just be gross so is that crazy to say that to you not at all because shame

00:17:58.720 one of the most powerful aspects of shame is that it creates this inner critic in our brain

00:18:04.560 that's caught no matter what we do it criticizes it it finds fault with it and if we fail especially

00:18:11.200 it just beats us up and like we're in the doghouse for weeks it's just flogging us

00:18:17.680 um and it's just loud and it is brutal there yeah it would be everything you're poor your body's

00:18:25.040 gross you're yes you're ugly you're stupid you're ugly you're stupid nobody everybody want you you're

00:18:30.720 never amount to anything you're a failure i mean it was like a machine gun yes um yeah and the craziest

00:18:37.520 part was now i have a little bit more rev i'm able to see it more but man for 30 years of my life i

00:18:43.440 couldn't even see it yes and that's so what happens complex trauma for most people begins from birth

00:18:53.760 okay and so it's pre-memory time pre-verbal time and so a lot of the stuff that's happening in their

00:19:00.800 brain is all happening subconsciously they're they're not thinking about it they're not they're they're an

00:19:05.920 infant yeah it's it's it's all subconscious so your whole subconscious brain is forming is forming

00:19:14.160 with all this negative stuff um and that's a real tragedy of complex traumas it's shaping the brain in

00:19:22.320 the infant years with negative messages lies negative perceptions that you're not even aware there you

00:19:31.680 just think are normal and those can be like a parent not looking at its child exactly and not

00:19:36.800 interacting um there's probably countless things that could uh create trauma at that age right exactly

00:19:44.320 so what we know is a child needs to feel safe they need lots of hugs and touches they need eye contact

00:19:53.600 that's how they learn to regulate that's how they learn to feel and experience emotions by

00:19:58.560 picking up on the parents emotions that's how their emotions get calmed by looking into somebody

00:20:04.400 who's calm um but if they don't have that then it's like it's me against the big bad world and i'm only

00:20:12.560 one week old like it's it's too overwhelming it's too scary yeah you got to be a gangster suddenly yeah

00:20:19.680 and you're only seven days old exactly then you can't even carry a gun exactly exactly and so that's

00:20:25.600 a lot of pressure ah imagine the pressure that a kid starts to feel like a child starts to feel and

00:20:31.520 that's why i say that's your stress system is activated and that's what we mean that's complex trauma

00:20:38.480 so that makes sense as to why like if certain things will happen in adulthood it'll immediately

00:20:42.800 cause stresses in me even if it's just normal exactly like i'd have a lot of instances where

00:20:47.360 like even in intimacy situations with women like somebody would touch me and it would make me i i

00:20:52.960 like would feel uh i'd feel overwhelmed yes you know i would feel um yeah it was just like crazy it

00:21:04.160 was just i don't know it was and then i felt bad about myself yes because again the second something was

00:21:12.160 a little bit off yes it would get into that back onto that ferris wheel of man yes you don't must

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00:24:06.320 um can i just share uh some science stuff here yeah i think it's really helpful to understand trauma

00:24:16.880 um you really need to understand our central nervous system and so it's really made up of two parts so

00:24:23.040 there's the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic so the sympathetic is your work

00:24:28.560 energy um it gives you the energy to fight or flight to work hard get up in the morning go go go

00:24:36.960 but then you need a parasympathetic a balancing part that's your rest healing restoration piece

00:24:43.840 so a child has to have that in balance to be healthy to grow but what happens in complex trauma

00:24:50.720 when you're in danger all the time is you're in your sympathetic all the time

00:24:54.160 um because you got to be on guard you got to be going you got to get validation you got to prove

00:25:01.360 yourself you got to work you got to earn so you got to go go go you're driven and and so the bot the

00:25:09.200 brain helps you with that it releases cortisol when fear is in your stress system activated and that

00:25:16.000 releases adrenaline so you can go on adrenaline that gives you lots of energy and you feel hey i can pull

00:25:21.040 this off and if you're young you've got the resources to do that but the problem is you're not engaging

00:25:26.880 your parasympathetic and usually around 30 or so it catches up with you wow and all of a sudden your

00:25:34.480 body says i'm not doing this anymore right you're burning me out here and i'm going to start shutting

00:25:40.560 down and one of the first things it does to help engage the parasympathetic is to bring on depression

00:25:47.040 because depression brings in the parasympathetic and it forces you to slow down it forces you to

00:25:53.520 shut down wow and then for some they they keep pushing they keep pushing and some go to drugs because

00:26:00.800 drugs will give you the energy to keep going and they keep then your body actually just burns itself

00:26:06.560 out and shuts itself down um then you have a total not just an emotional burnout you have a physical

00:26:12.160 burnout wow so your body can create depression right in order to give the parasympathetic because

00:26:19.280 then you're at least going to slow down you're gonna exactly even if there's these other side

00:26:23.040 effects of how you feel about it exactly so what happens to a little child is how do they learn the

00:26:29.760 parasympathetic they we call a co-regulator so mom or dad is regulated emotionally is calm they're in

00:26:38.000 they're in their parasympathetic so they look them in the eyes and they regulate their own nervous

00:26:43.200 system to mom and dad but if mom and dad are absent or mom and dad are angry all the time

00:26:51.360 your your regulator's not there or they're regulated so they're triggering you and keeping you

00:26:57.840 full of fear and anxiety so it's it's messing you up yeah or if you have parents that just are

00:27:06.080 work work work work if you relax you're lazy if you relax you're selfish they're they're forcing you

00:27:13.840 by this work ethic to be out of balance and actually it's creating very subtle complex trauma because

00:27:22.640 you're just a workaholic and you feed off it and you're driven um but what happens is that's normal

00:27:30.800 right so then you're creating a normal that is extremely abnormal exactly man i um

00:27:39.440 yeah just to have some part like uh yeah my mother didn't look at me right when i was a child i don't

00:27:46.880 remember i don't like uh and i don't say that i don't need sympathy or anything i'm just saying that

00:27:52.800 as an adult right recognizing that this child wasn't looked at in the eyes um my mother like

00:27:59.920 i love my mother i'm thankful for her i'm glad i exist um and but yeah she if there were an emotional

00:28:09.120 thing she couldn't connect like she almost had like an emotional autism yes like if i if they were

00:28:13.920 physical if i got hurt she could help right the second i got hurt but if i'm sitting across from her

00:28:19.920 feeling a certain way yes it doesn't even it's like um there's there's she couldn't she won't

00:28:26.320 come to me yeah she can't come to me she would hug she couldn't hug me for more than like half a

00:28:31.120 second okay uh and i'm not saying that as like a whiny baby i'm just i'm trying to relate to uh

00:28:37.440 some of the stuff you're talking about so one of the things that happened was i noticed as i got older

00:28:42.000 i didn't know how long and my father was a senior citizen and he was really absent

00:28:46.160 i didn't know how long to look into somebody's eyes i remember yes so i'd have this weird stuff

00:28:53.280 sometimes where i would like check in with somebody's eyes but then look away while i was

00:28:57.520 explaining myself man yes makes me feel bad for myself not it doesn't make me feel bad as an adult

00:29:02.320 but it makes me feel bad yes uh that that kid had to do that so can i speak scientifically to that

00:29:09.920 again you're okay okay um so the first response to danger is the brain releases cortisol which is

00:29:19.120 adrenaline and that gives you the energy to fight or flight okay um so you get you can fight harder

00:29:26.000 you can run faster because you got adrenaline happening but if you're too little to fight or flight

00:29:33.040 then that's cortisol is not doing you any good and and and if your parents are punishing you for being

00:29:40.320 angry etc the brain then switches and produces opioids natural opioids and it says we're going to shut

00:29:49.120 down and so what happens with that is that you dissociate you move inward and all the blood comes from

00:29:56.960 the muscles around the heart because it's basically saying we're going to get ready to get hurt

00:30:02.640 we're going to get ready to get cut so we don't bleed as much so we're going to put all the blood

00:30:07.760 around here so that if we get hurt out here cut out here nothing is we're not going to bleed as much

00:30:12.880 really your body does that yeah no way yeah so your body's now gone to that fight or flight don't work

00:30:18.800 so now we're going to freeze um and so then what some kids learn in freeze is but i still need my needs

00:30:26.480 needs met so now i learned to fawn so i will learn to say whatever you want me to say be whatever you

00:30:33.760 want me to be just don't hurt me just put up with me wow so that's your four f's that develop but what

00:30:42.560 we have what happens what are they again so we know them fight flight freeze and fawn wow but what has

00:30:49.200 happened is so fight or flight you're basically your emotions are out there freeze your emotions go in

00:30:59.920 you shut them down and so most people with complex trauma don't do well with emotions they shut down

00:31:07.760 emotions they don't even know they have emotions and so what we say is that most complex trauma

00:31:12.880 families they have three emotions mad sad and glad so dad can be mad mom can be sad but the kids got to

00:31:21.760 be glad um man yeah i remember like uh i would i ask people how do i feel about this which is crazy man

00:31:32.720 i know it's not some of this i know sounds maybe crazy to some people but yeah i remember i just didn't

00:31:37.840 even have any i didn't know how like i felt about anything you know i just knew uh how you felt yes

00:31:45.120 and how i needed a scene yes and so what happens to a child who's fawning is i'm more attuned to how

00:31:51.920 you're feeling than to how i'm feeling oh yeah i was falling i was a damn bambi baby you know what i'm saying

00:31:57.040 i was like a bambi in memphis so i know your emotions better than my own i know what you think and

00:32:04.560 believe more than what i think right um because that's how i need to survive is i need to be more

00:32:11.120 attuned to you than i am to me yeah uh for me i noticed like um well for a long time i didn't know

00:32:19.520 what was going on and for me i got into recovery programs in the 12th step and that helped me

00:32:25.520 for the first time have a little bit of a clue i heard people share stuff that

00:32:29.440 things i could never put into words okay you know i mean that was one of the blessings about

00:32:34.400 being in sometimes recovery in 12-step rooms was you had like 20 people thinking at once yes and so

00:32:40.320 sometimes someone would say what you have to wanted to and couldn't um and so that gave me a first start

00:32:47.920 to look at my at myself i was so like

00:32:55.840 i was so stuck to me i couldn't see me at all or uh well and so some ways that um

00:33:05.280 that like things that were having a tough time in my life huge problems trusting people didn't trust

00:33:10.400 huge problems with that um one thing i noticed really recently still unrealistic expectations

00:33:18.400 uh of myself and other people and i've always had them you know it's like um

00:33:27.120 and i realized that it's i think some of it is like

00:33:32.080 i want to make it so like if i have unrealistic expectations of myself then i'm never going to be

00:33:37.600 able to achieve them the bars too high right and then i'll always be what i thought i always was

00:33:43.200 anyway exactly which was not enough so that's where shame creates a self-fulfilling prophecy yeah

00:33:51.120 so that's this that's like and i i now i'm able to see that a little but before i was just stuck on

00:33:57.040 that ferris wheel you know um and i still it still happens that that's a tough one recently for me

00:34:03.920 um oh self-pity that was a huge one that was my biggest drug in life that i never realized

00:34:12.320 was self-pity and i i reframed it for myself i was like oh if i just keep trying i'll get everything

00:34:19.200 i have to work harder i have to be better i can't go do something fun with my friends i need to stay and

00:34:25.440 write a book or it was just like an unreal these unrealistic expectations but i was always keeping

00:34:32.000 myself in a place of self-pity without realizing it because that was a side effect of having

00:34:36.640 unrealistic expectations and man that self-pity was but it looked like on the outside i was trying

00:34:43.280 to better myself so it was i was always does it make any sense so can i ask you with that because

00:34:49.520 what you're describing is very common in the world i work in so a lot would say unrealistic

00:34:55.680 expectations so you're always setting the bar too high hard high for yourself which is always

00:35:00.400 leading to failure which is self-pity as the aftermath um but what you're thinking is but i'm

00:35:07.840 trying i'm trying i'm trying but what's happening often with the self-pity and so here's my question

00:35:13.920 is there's this growing sense of helplessness and hopelessness did you go through that or was there

00:35:21.520 always i can somehow rise above if i just dig a little deeper that was me okay and that's what i was

00:35:28.800 talking about with the sympathetic nervous system i'm getting tired i'm starting to

00:35:36.000 burn out but if i dig a little deeper i can push i can push i can keep going until you eventually do

00:35:42.080 burnout yeah that's where societal the society affected me because there was always that you have

00:35:48.720 to grind harder yes the 70 minute work week or something or like you know exactly the four minute

00:35:54.080 relationship there's all these books this is unrealistic man you know the 50 second life

00:36:01.680 and you're like that why would i want to do that exactly um and so that's where society even it pushed

00:36:07.280 me even further and about four years ago i had like a breakdown it was like um i was burned out i couldn't

00:36:13.280 even listen to somebody talk because there was no yes you can't concentrate and it made me uh it

00:36:19.200 physically exhausted me to listen to somebody in a conversation um and i kept working yes there's an

00:36:27.440 episode of this podcast where i i felt it was it just man and just the fact that i then i start to

00:36:34.080 feel bad that i treated myself that way you know um anyway can i share a little bit for me yeah please

00:36:40.560 man i i got into this work over 20 years ago but that was after seven years of burnout wow so i had

00:36:50.480 worked for um till i was 32 and all of a sudden i was just tired all the time i couldn't sleep i was

00:37:00.080 just and my eyes were getting like my wife would go something's wrong with you your eyes are really

00:37:05.520 looking weird yeah you're looking big now you're about to eat a uh they get dark

00:37:10.000 and uh and uh and then went to doctor after doctor and eventually put me on disability but i went

00:37:16.640 through seven years of depression and hell and anxiety and uh and when i came to the end of

00:37:25.040 what the government would give me for disability i had to go back to work so i just worked on farms i

00:37:31.120 milk cows i took care of horses oh yeah and that was very healing for me that was very therapeutic

00:37:37.600 but then a lady i knew she came to me and said tim we really need help with this treatment center and

00:37:46.560 i think you'd be the perfect counselor and that cow's out of milk and i said let's rain it in i said i

00:37:53.520 think you got the wrong guy i can't go back to that world and she's she came back about three months

00:38:02.000 later and she said tim i think you're the guy please give it some thought and i said okay i'll

00:38:06.240 go for the interview um but when i went for the interview and i said okay i'll give it a try for

00:38:12.080 three months but i told myself if you don't make some major changes and how you go about working you're

00:38:19.600 not gonna make it so you gotta radically change your boundaries in life and people pleasing and and all

00:38:28.560 of that but the first week as i was working with these people with trauma and addiction

00:38:36.240 i was like this is what i was made for wow these are my people and i fell in love with it but it came

00:38:43.840 after all of all of my work came after seven years of hell burnout that i brought on myself

00:38:52.160 because of my trauma but you didn't know it though right no i thought i was doing the right

00:38:57.600 thing by pushing myself i was being a responsible father and husband and so i had a four-year-old a

00:39:06.000 three-year-old and a one-year-old oh wow so you guys were really and making love on the soul

00:39:11.280 and all of a sudden their dad just was sick and in bed all the time and they basically

00:39:16.560 all went through abandonment trauma because their dad disappeared from their life for seven years

00:39:22.240 um and were you using drugs did you use pills and stuff you didn't you were just depressed

00:39:27.760 yeah wow well one of the toughest things i found when i had when i was struggling was

00:39:32.320 uh when i was physically struggling right like i'd gotten so depleted yeah um

00:39:38.160 um that all the doctors i would go to they couldn't really diagnose it

00:39:43.520 you know they would take my chronic fatigue syndrome yeah and you're looking up all these

00:39:47.440 crazy things and then you're where you know like at one point i was just like i had on like one of

00:39:51.760 those i'd bought like a posture organizer from the uh thing and i just had like a couple like

00:39:57.920 some shake weights and some like some weighted anklets on and people like what are you doing

00:40:02.160 and i'm like they say this works you know like try the bracelet oh everything oh my

00:40:09.520 whoop oh i just kept calling an ambulance people bring me little mason jars of their home concoctions

00:40:20.320 um and yeah um and one of the toughest places for me too was it was relationships and it still is

00:40:27.440 you know um it still is uh a really tough space for me

00:40:35.120 it's that also goes to unrealistic expectations you know i i don't if things get tough i'll leave

00:40:42.240 yeah you know um you know i i you know i heard you talk about fake intimacy once

00:40:50.800 do you know what i'm talking about what were you talking about about it i resonated with that

00:40:54.640 so every child longs for connection yeah just built but if you can't get it you try to connect

00:41:02.400 with dad but he's always too busy mom's always depressed or angry you can't connect so you assume

00:41:09.520 it's my fault i must be something wrong with me but i'm still driven for connection but i don't want

00:41:17.360 deep genuine connection now because that's always led to rejection so let's try bar room intimacy

00:41:24.320 let's try fake intimacy let's just have fun all the time and sports pervert yes yeah pornography that

00:41:32.000 sort of thing yeah because it gives the feelings of connection without the true intimacy yeah but it

00:41:39.280 doesn't satisfy no but and it sets up addiction um and that's where most people end up

00:41:46.160 sadly straying into that fake intimacy world yeah like would you do you think it's safe to say that

00:41:54.560 complex trauma makes um having a healthy relationship impossible like like it's got to have a huge effect

00:42:05.280 yes very much and impossible even no makes it almost impossible for a healthy relationship yeah so

00:42:15.600 everybody that i deal with um as long as they're single they don't think they need to work on their

00:42:22.800 trauma because yeah just me i'm i'm surviving as soon as they get in a relationship then they start

00:42:28.880 damaging the other person then they have kids they're damaging their kids and all of a sudden they go i got

00:42:33.280 it start working on my crap um but then they go okay i'll just change this i'll change this but it's not

00:42:40.720 working why is it not fixing the relationship and it's because you're trying to fix the symptoms you're

00:42:46.960 not dealing with the root issues that deep shame that deep lack of trust that deep fear of intimacy

00:42:55.120 and fear of abandonment and as long as those are still there they're going to keep

00:43:00.080 getting in the way of true healthy relationships um and so a lot of people as long as the relationship's

00:43:08.480 going along smoothly it looks pretty good but as soon as there's the slightest thing that triggers

00:43:14.160 their fear of abandonment or triggers their shame big explosion they go back to old behaviors all of a

00:43:21.920 sudden they're in fight flight or freeze mode they're lashing out they're running away and that's when all the

00:43:28.000 damage happens um and after a while there's so much baggage from all the damage that you just can't repair

00:43:34.880 it yeah yeah yeah i mean personally i like i would yeah i've had problems i mean certainly problems with

00:43:42.480 uh not cheating in relationships i've never i've always i think i've cheated in every relationship i've

00:43:48.800 ever been in sadly you know um uh let me think oh um like like would have problems with sex and stuff but

00:44:02.080 if the person was gonna leave me then i could have it was like my body would then entertain it you know

00:44:08.880 but otherwise uh like um yeah if it was with a stranger it was easier you know uh not a complete

00:44:18.240 stranger like somebody at a mall or something but like um you know with somebody you you know a bar

00:44:23.360 sex or somebody's like that or just somebody you met at a service area or whatever but um

00:44:28.640 um yeah that kind of stuff uh oh staying with somebody

00:44:37.840 man this is this is this staying with somebody uh

00:44:46.240 big because i didn't want them to have somebody else who would really care about them yes or that

00:44:51.920 could care about them better than me yeah um even though i knew i was doing a bad job yeah

00:44:57.120 man it makes me feel uh yeah i'm not proud of that and i didn't know but some a lot of it man i

00:45:04.960 didn't know until later you know i just couldn't see it uh but yeah stuff like that um oh thinking that

00:45:13.120 my partner a woman if my girlfriend or whatever if they did something wrong then it was me doing it

00:45:19.920 wrong yes like um yeah oh gosh if they if they're a little off or something or they uh

00:45:27.760 do things a way that people don't like that's a reflection of me totally yes you know those are

00:45:33.840 some symptoms that i had you know so can i talk scientifically again 100 you can talk in any

00:45:39.520 one about it so to me it's so interesting especially living in the west is so much of our dating and

00:45:48.320 attraction in relationships is really what we've come to understand is the limbic or the emotion

00:45:55.280 part of the brain and the chemical oxytocin which is what makes me feel in love and so that's released

00:46:02.320 through when i see somebody pretty when i touch them when i kiss them when i have sex all of that releases

00:46:08.320 those feel-good chemicals and i feel in love i feel it's going to last forever i feel intimacy

00:46:14.640 though it's not true intimacy it's the feeling of intimacy um so that's a great starting place for

00:46:22.160 a relationship the problem is you can't sustain that just through sex just because you still got

00:46:28.640 life you got to communicate you got to learn to accept and love and respect each other but if you've

00:46:37.360 never been taught how to do that you don't so you just keep trying to have sex keep trying to have fun

00:46:43.280 but the feelings are dying it's not releasing the same oxytocin and so the relationship is designed

00:46:49.440 to start there but it's designed then to move to the cortex which is the thinking part of the brain

00:46:56.000 which then releases all of the serotonin that comes through safety through connection through acceptance

00:47:03.360 wow and that's through building a life working through issues resolving problems really respecting

00:47:11.120 trusting each other that takes a lot of work that takes time and most people from complex trauma are

00:47:17.840 scared to death to go there so the sex is just or the that that intimate connection up top is just like

00:47:22.960 a fuse kind of exactly and then the other part is like a fire exactly yeah man i just yeah and but most

00:47:30.560 try it with complex trauma i just think i can live up here on the fuse yeah i'm a huge monkey i'm up

00:47:35.680 here yeah and that's gonna be great just never satisfied yeah never and then it's yeah i just

00:47:42.960 and then the second piece to me is what comes out of complex trauma are you familiar with the term

00:47:48.880 gaslighting yeah but what does it mean i always hear people say it but i'm just too bored or just too

00:47:54.320 lazy to look it up i think so if dad is angry instead of him being honest and saying i'm sorry i'm

00:48:03.120 having a bad day you didn't do anything wrong it's all on me he goes you're a bad kid it's all your

00:48:09.440 fault that's gaslighting he's twisting it and making you believe a lie and so what happens in complex trauma

00:48:17.520 is constant gaslighting of a child so that whenever any parent or authority is having a bad emotion

00:48:25.440 the child is made to feel it's their responsibility to fix that emotion

00:48:30.960 no it's not they can't fix their dad's anger only dad can fix his own anger but they're made to feel

00:48:37.440 if they just did more chores if they weren't making noise if they were more agreeable more obedient then

00:48:44.560 dad would never get angry but that always gets angry but you keep believing the gaslighting lie

00:48:50.480 yeah so now when you go into relationships soon as your spouse is a little bit sad what did i do wrong

00:48:55.680 oh maybe i should do something here maybe i should do this you still take responsibility for everybody

00:49:01.680 else's emotions and that sets up relationships to be codependent yeah i think i

00:49:09.040 there was a point i was like well i have to be perfect and yes you know i was like if i'm perfect

00:49:16.320 right if i'm absolutely perfect somehow then there's no way i won't get what i need as a child because

00:49:25.920 even in the laws of the universe that wouldn't make any you know it would feel like that wouldn't make

00:49:31.040 any sense so can i ask you a question so what happens often with a child is they go to that perfectionism

00:49:38.400 where i set the bar too high for myself that i can be perfect i i will have no limitations i'll do

00:49:44.400 everything perfectly the first time but it also can create a fantasy world where i'm going to be a

00:49:51.040 superman i'm going to do everything wonderfully i'm going to save everybody so this so did you have that

00:49:58.800 fantasy thinking begin to develop in you um not that much i think when our when this podcast started

00:50:06.320 getting busier and have a lot of young guys who were the same who had a lot of the same thoughts

00:50:10.240 and feelings that i did about stuff would reach out as if i knew more than them really when i really

00:50:15.840 didn't i was just kind of um just have been kind of a late bloomer you know and just learning uh

00:50:24.640 in front of people i guess because i've talked about more stuff like that over the years

00:50:28.640 years um and then that for a little bit gave me a fear of like well do i have some greater

00:50:34.960 responsibility like is god thinking like i need you to help like there was moments of not grandeur but

00:50:42.880 questions of like i could easily see that thing like start to get in you know um of like oh then i must

00:50:52.080 know everything you know uh it didn't sprout in me but i could certainly there were times where i

00:50:58.240 shit even when that started to happen i was like i i would be a failure at that

00:51:05.760 so there was thankfully at that point there was some of that ferris wheel that brought me right

00:51:10.400 back down to the shit carnival you know um but there was some that some of that kind of

00:51:16.400 nothing none of it as a child like if i'm perfect i just set out on my own i remember thinking i'm never

00:51:21.760 gonna let anything define me in this whole world except for me right you never and i mean even when

00:51:28.400 i say it now i can feel like i mean i can feel it in my like yeah you no one is ever gonna define

00:51:38.560 me again right you are not gonna have a say in how i feel yeah and it comes dude it comes from a place

00:51:45.200 that's so deep in me yeah i can't even yeah i can barely sometimes i can it's like the weather

00:51:53.840 changes just enough where i can see into the window of it a little bit yeah but the cloud whatever it

00:52:00.480 is the so can i can just quick again can i speak to that just for a minute because part of my concern

00:52:07.520 has been a very popular term these days is odd or oppositional defiance disorder so kids are getting

00:52:14.400 diagnosed with odd all the time and it's really been pathologized like it's bad thing you've been

00:52:20.240 you're a bad kid because you've got odd and what you're describing in yourself to me is odd i'm never

00:52:26.320 going to let anybody define me again that's oppositional defiance but really it starts out

00:52:33.680 in complex trauma and it's a healthy thing and it's a child who's nobody's accepting me everybody's

00:52:41.120 trying to make me something i'm not everybody's trying to control me everybody's i got this rigid

00:52:48.720 rules all of this harsh discipline etc that's not right that's wrong that's hurting me i need to be

00:52:58.720 able to have some freedom i need to be able to be myself and so we rebel against what's unhealthy

00:53:06.160 but people don't see that we're doing something healthy they just say you're rebelling

00:53:12.400 and they pathologize it oh i see right if you're a rebel when you're young they're like oh look at

00:53:18.320 this rebel exactly but for you you're trying to figure it out for yourself you're trying to fix what's

00:53:22.960 wrong right and make it right you're not trying to be a rebel you're trying to develop something

00:53:29.680 loving and healthy but what happens for most kids is then they gain it that just gets into their soul

00:53:37.840 and now even if somebody wants what's best for me i'm not going to let anybody define me so now i'm

00:53:43.840 going to rebel against good and bad and that then becomes yeah a maladaptation right yeah a lot of those

00:53:53.680 old safety mechanism a lot of those old survival techniques become it tips over the other side of

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00:57:54.000 300 000 people um yeah and and and a lot of this i don't want to get into that self-pity place again

00:58:01.280 you know a lot of it is just looking i'm trying to look at some of this stuff with you you know because

00:58:06.880 it's it's interesting and it's amazing how it still comes to the surface um because a lot of it i

00:58:13.200 haven't resolved yes i think um i've taken care of some of the stuff and i have a much better

00:58:20.080 understanding of a lot of it now um and i'm able to see i'm able to see what's going on a lot of times

00:58:26.880 but some of it is still unresolved for me so let's go into the uh just kind of the very basics of healing

00:58:37.120 yeah yeah no i think that's good yeah i don't want to be like we've had some of the experience

00:58:40.960 we've had some of that so yeah i want to get into a part of yeah how does one locate their

00:58:46.800 complex trauma so they can begin to heal it yeah if it's possible yeah and that's the huge challenge

00:58:55.200 is that so much of it exists in the subconscious mind so we're not even aware of all of these mechanisms

00:59:02.640 and kind of subconscious brain templates and programs that have been operating our life it's

00:59:08.000 almost like we're an autopilot um and because it's been normal for us all our life we don't see it as

00:59:13.920 being abnormal or unhealthy and so that's where taking a program or watching videos where you begin to grow

00:59:23.360 in self-awareness to understand trauma to understand the the different characteristics of trauma so we talk

00:59:30.160 about 60 different characteristics the patterns and your emotions the patterns in your thinking the

00:59:36.000 patterns in your behavior and your relationships and once you begin to grow in self-awareness then

00:59:42.400 you go oh wow okay now i'm starting to see it but then that goes okay now i know what unhealthy is now i

00:59:50.160 can define it what's up what's healthy i don't know what healthy and that's where we talk about healing

00:59:56.160 from complex trauma requires reparenting you need surrogate family that can begin to model healthy

01:00:02.880 for you teach you healthy and begin to help you learn healthy but that requires the third piece and

01:00:11.360 that is connection and that's the thing i fear the most if people get to really know me they're going to

01:00:17.200 reject me but what i've been craving on my life is true connection with safe people

01:00:22.400 and so trauma requires safe people to heal it's got an academic element of self-awareness but it's got a

01:00:30.960 a connection reparenting element as well yeah i i it's so hard to notice um

01:00:42.320 yeah i would just think i was bad at relationships for a long time i would just think that um

01:00:46.240 um you know and i was i mean i was just think that i was a philandering man you know kind of deal gypsy

01:00:55.120 whatever it is i don't even know what they call it gypsy boy or whatever and then um

01:01:03.760 but yeah i was like i and i still don't know how i'm gonna do it like if i think about like being in a

01:01:09.520 marriage a long term i don't know how i could do it right you know i mean i know for a while i

01:01:16.640 resorted to pornography for a while and uh but that lost it so you know i just learned through

01:01:24.000 other 12 step just how negative it is for you and so that's not a solution i mean i still date and

01:01:29.840 everything but i don't know if i when i think about that it's like oh that feels harrowing yeah but it

01:01:37.760 used to be like if i saw a family that was functioning i was like what the is this this

01:01:43.680 is the dumbest thing i've ever seen that's where i started at yes and that's exactly that's a real

01:01:49.600 thing yeah and and to even get to the point now where i can even think about being in a marriage

01:01:55.600 or something for me that's it's been a while you know it's been a it's been a it's been a ride you

01:02:00.240 know and that to me is a common defense mechanism of people with lots of trauma and shame

01:02:07.840 is i need to disparage anything that's healthy yeah what the fuck are you doing who are you who

01:02:13.360 do you think you are and it's like i gotta look down on everybody to feel better about myself even

01:02:19.600 if i know i should be aspiring to what they're they've got man and it hurts people so much when

01:02:27.600 they're behaving that way too that's the toughest part is man oh you hurt yourself yeah so to me what i

01:02:34.000 say with complex trauma is others wounded me when as a child i develop maladaptions the longer i hang

01:02:42.960 on to them the more i just wound myself i don't need anybody to wound me anymore because i just do

01:02:47.840 a great job myself yeah and i keep the ferris wheel going you have a program um react it's right is that

01:02:56.240 it react so it stands for recovery education for addiction and complex trauma okay so what what we

01:03:02.880 found was that 97 of addicts have complex trauma i see so this a lot of this is addiction focus

01:03:12.640 originally and so i started in the addiction world and we were the only treatment center in canada that

01:03:20.000 saw addiction as a symptom of deeper problems and the lady that trained me said tim your job is to

01:03:26.720 find those problems and complex trauma wasn't even on the radar then it was called adult children of

01:03:34.080 alcoholics or whatever adult children of dysfunction then it became known as developmental trauma disorder

01:03:42.160 then excuse me then complex trauma came in on the radar but basically what it's saying is that

01:03:49.440 we always see addiction as a problem but to an addict it was the solution to their problems

01:03:55.440 and so until we begin to realize what problem are they trying to solve by turning to drugs and alcohol

01:04:01.040 that deep loneliness the deep pain the deep emptiness that deep longing to feel connected

01:04:08.560 all of those drugs seem to solve that for them and so we can't really help people with addiction

01:04:15.680 by just working on the symptoms we got to get to that root issue so we start so i was in part of

01:04:23.200 canada where all the treatment centers were talking about trauma and we got to be trauma informed and so i

01:04:30.800 asked them like is anybody willing to change their program and none of them were and i had started

01:04:37.520 some addicts asked me to start a friday night thing where i'd started teaching this stuff so that's

01:04:42.880 where these videos started so i started 17 years ago teaching around what i was learning and started with

01:04:52.240 50 addicts coming out and it grew and grew and grew um yeah your channel is fascinating man yeah and so

01:04:58.560 what came out of that was when there were like 10 treatment centers nobody would change their program

01:05:06.880 though they all said they needed to start dealing with the trauma so i said well i guess i i got to

01:05:13.280 start and i didn't want to start a treatment center but i did so react started as a treatment center for

01:05:20.320 addiction and complex trauma um and it spread to three different locations in canada um but then

01:05:27.680 covid hit and um so we put it online and then once people heard and we call it lift just give it a

01:05:35.680 different name because it was online and once people heard about it now we have people from 30 different

01:05:41.200 over 30 different countries that are so that was a blessing huh yeah and so now like thousands are taking

01:05:48.160 lift and it's it's much more intense it's a 15 week um program but you get you get a deep dive into

01:05:59.040 understanding trauma and then learning what a healthy life looks like and connecting with a group of people

01:06:05.040 in the journey wow it's incredible man so in the days when treatment centers just basically worked on

01:06:14.080 symptoms so relapse warning signs triggers people places and things um halt all of the hungry angry

01:06:22.480 lonely tired yeah all of those different things what they began to what they saw was their success rate

01:06:29.200 was less than 10 percent once we started react and we've kept statistics our success rate is over 50

01:06:36.880 percent oh tim that's great yeah because you're dealing with helping people deal with that core

01:06:42.960 stuff that's been the issue yeah well one of the reasons that i loved being in aaa i didn't even

01:06:48.160 know sometimes if i was an alcoholic right i still question the alcohol part i don't know yeah but i know

01:06:53.040 that i would sit in meetings and people would get to share how they felt and i never got to do that

01:06:58.960 exactly you know like i never no one ever asked me how i fucking felt you know it was just like if i had

01:07:05.840 a feeling whatever it was i didn't probably know what it was for years i probably thought i had indigestion in

01:07:11.200 my brain you know like who knows but if i had a fee i just i had to figure it out myself yeah and um

01:07:20.800 yeah i mean it just so uh when i got into the rooms and people could share how they felt

01:07:27.680 and nobody could say anything there's no crosstalk allowed so somebody got to share how they felt and it

01:07:32.080 just got to sit there and man i didn't know how much in my life my whole life i needed not even

01:07:40.800 maybe say something but to even be in the environment of that yes to have an idea or a feeling or thought

01:07:47.920 be spoken into the world and have it not completely rejected you know because sometimes i felt like i've uh

01:07:55.040 yeah i don't know i got to be careful sometimes not to always take things back to how i feel

01:08:00.800 because my feet like my feelings sometimes it's like a secret it's like you know when somebody puts

01:08:08.320 a dollar on a string i'll go get that dollar right to see how i feel about something but i'll be they'll

01:08:14.480 pull me back into all that old shame yes so i have to be careful of that um

01:08:20.480 um so what are some of the mechanisms you guys use in react like what are some of the things that

01:08:26.880 help people get to those core issues so it's it's divided into two phases so part of what you realize

01:08:34.000 with trauma is it's healing trauma means reprocessing it that doesn't mean just going into the pain and

01:08:42.720 sitting in the pain as if there's benefit and just right feeling pain it means i'm going now with tools

01:08:49.600 so that i can learn from it so that i can heal it so that i can grow through it that's reprocessing

01:08:55.120 it um but there's a risk in taking people to reprocess it because you are opening a can of

01:09:02.800 worms it is going to take them to some pain and trigger them and so they need what we call agency

01:09:09.280 they need a certain amount of tools before they ever get to the trauma or else the trauma is going to

01:09:14.960 overwhelm them i see so you guys work on this so phase one is self-awareness basic tools emotional

01:09:22.000 regulation what to do if you're triggered building um a safe community for people so that they can

01:09:30.160 share emotions and not have anybody judge them where people hold space for them

01:09:34.800 so that's phase one then phase two we start digging into shame we dig into anger we dig into

01:09:40.800 emotions we dig into boundaries we dig into grief and loss um and so we start getting into the kind

01:09:48.320 of the main areas of trauma and really help people begin to heal so the first half of the week is

01:09:54.880 really digging deep into it and then the second half is practical tools and what does healthy look like

01:10:02.000 shame is such a huge magnet huh huge how does that how does shame start

01:10:06.960 is that a fair question about shame what's it i think it's

01:10:13.440 it starts with the parent-child relationship not being right right is shame originally a positive

01:10:20.240 thing there must be a is there a certain value to a little bit of shame like what is a little bit

01:10:24.880 of shame called it's like so some people have tried to make a distinction around healthy shame versus

01:10:30.320 toxic shame right okay but to me healthy shame is actually guilt

01:10:35.440 okay okay so guilt is if i do something that violates love i tell a lie hit somebody i cheat

01:10:41.920 on them i should feel guilty right that's natural because that motivates me to get back to a a loving

01:10:48.640 healthy situation because as long as i stay in stuff that violates love i'm destroying relationships

01:10:54.720 i'm making a worse life for myself so guilt is a good thing and i can resolve guilt so it's about what

01:11:02.000 i do that violates love shame is about who i am it's nothing about what i do wow so that's huge to

01:11:08.720 notate those two things like it can be okay to feel some guilt about things it's important that's me

01:11:14.240 getting a sign like hey man this is a it's almost like a u-turn sign it's like a good road sign really

01:11:21.520 exactly even though it hurts some you need that because it helps you recognize motivation you're going

01:11:27.280 against love exactly you're doing something against love but then shame is unhealthy and i can do

01:11:35.360 nothing about it so shame is about who i am that i'm not good enough right shame i then attach whatever

01:11:40.560 i did immediately and that feeling and that's where the two then feed each other so soon as i do

01:11:47.280 something wrong right that proves my shame right that i'm useless and that goes back to that child

01:11:53.440 that child doing something wrong something's wrong in his world in her world and they

01:12:01.280 they they don't know how to solve it because they're a child so the and all the only person in

01:12:05.760 the world is them so if something's wrong in their world or they're not getting what they need or their

01:12:10.160 needs met then of course there must be their fault so that's where shame builds exactly so that's where

01:12:15.360 we say that a key part of complex trauma is false guilt so you're made to feel guilty

01:12:22.960 though you've done nothing wrong which then feeds shame so dad says i'm mad because you're a terrible

01:12:28.960 kid well no that's not why dad's mad or i drink because you're a terrible kid yeah dad's mad because

01:12:34.560 he's a lions fan you know exactly and so it's it's you you're now feeling i did something wrong

01:12:41.040 wrong therefore i am wrong right right yeah man and so to help people heal they got to deal with

01:12:52.240 legitimate guilt and they can fix that they got to correct all the lies that led to false guilt

01:12:58.640 so every time that somebody's impatient with them they go what am i doing wrong you're not doing

01:13:03.120 anything wrong that that's the other person's problem um or somebody's upset with them because

01:13:08.480 they said no no you set a good boundary you shouldn't apologize for that but they feel guilty

01:13:15.440 or they relax for a few minutes i'm lazy no you're not you're relaxing so you got false guilt from lie

01:13:22.560 after lie after lie so you got to reprogram that then you got shame that i'm therefore not good enough

01:13:28.320 which is all based on lies and that's all got to be reprogrammed and that takes a ton of work does it

01:13:34.400 yeah what does some of that work look like if you even yeah i would say shame to me is the biggest

01:13:40.800 healing journey that comes out of complex trauma and it takes the longest and takes years wow because

01:13:46.640 there's so many thousands of subtle lies that people develop that they don't even realize yeah um and the

01:13:54.960 problem is they get triggered easily and then all of a sudden they're spiraling downhill that i'm a piece

01:14:00.000 of shit and they don't know why but it's something's triggered an old lie that's led to that proves that

01:14:06.880 i'm useless um and so there's a big journey in self-awareness and beginning to understand the lies

01:14:13.120 that i believe that are below the surface that are subconscious beginning to understand the things

01:14:18.720 that trigger that begin to understand the patterns that take place once i'm triggered and where i spiral to

01:14:24.160 and stopping those patterns that's the work and so if i can give one other piece of teaching

01:14:31.840 yeah okay so it's so key with complex trauma to understand the two parts of the brain that are

01:14:38.640 kind of the main things that motivate our behavior so the limbic system which is the emotion center

01:14:44.240 that's the child's brain that's that develops first yes then the cortex that keeps growing to our 35 ish

01:14:52.640 the thinking the executive function that gets called that processes information the key thing about the

01:15:00.400 limbic brain the child brain is its instant gratification focus so child do you want to do your chores or do

01:15:08.560 you want to sit here and watch tv well whatever makes me feel good right so that determines what i want to

01:15:15.680 do and then whether i want to do something i don't feel like it i don't feel like doing that or i want

01:15:23.520 a new puppy i feel like feeding the puppy until i don't feel like feeding the puppy so emotions guide

01:15:30.480 my behavior and everything is instant gratification focus wow and a lot of that if you're if you had

01:15:37.360 trauma as a child then you're still even that even that can be a pattern so still continue because yeah

01:15:42.480 that's a lot of addicts so the key with that is that when fear is triggered that's limbic brain so

01:15:48.880 if you're in complex trauma you're in constant fear so you're constantly in your limbic brain

01:15:53.680 so your cortex doesn't develop properly so an adult or a teenager they're going through gradually

01:16:00.400 switching to their cortex and learning to think stuff through complex trauma you're still in your limbic

01:16:06.400 brain still thinking only of instant gratification what do i feel like what everything is about

01:16:11.840 emotions even though you're not aware of your emotions and so a huge part of what happens with

01:16:18.400 shame when it's triggered is i could be living as an adult today out of my cortex making good decisions

01:16:24.720 healthy decisions when my shame gets triggered it triggers my limbic brain again and i go back to a

01:16:30.880 child and i think like a child and i believe the lies of the child and so what you realize is the

01:16:38.000 the the battles in your brain between your cortex and your limbic brain they believe two different

01:16:43.360 things depends on what gets triggered wow it's almost like you have a heaven and hell right there

01:16:48.720 kind of exactly oh my gosh so that's where people with shame they can be doing wonderful great in

01:16:55.040 relationships and their shame gets triggered and all of a sudden they're destroying everybody

01:16:58.560 calling their kids terrible names calling their partner terrible names yeah and it's like what just

01:17:04.640 happened there while you went to your limbic brain and you acted out of that shame lie that's when

01:17:10.800 the damage gets done those triggers huh those things it's wild you had to go back to that yeah so you can

01:17:18.400 you can imagine though how long that would take to heal because when that trigger hits like it hits

01:17:24.320 with an intensity of a locomotive um because it brings with a cortisol it brings with all the chemicals

01:17:31.520 drugs yeah and how do you stop that like the trains out of the station here buddy oh yeah if somebody

01:17:37.520 pulls up with a train full of drugs dude it's gone i'm getting on exactly i'm gonna tell you that right

01:17:43.120 now and i'll probably sit in business class but um yeah my my brother sometimes would say uh trying to

01:17:52.880 locate that shame and stuff it was like taking pennies out of a bathtub that's what he talks about it like

01:17:58.880 sometimes yeah some days you get a couple and some days you just you don't even know you're in it yeah

01:18:06.800 so as a person grows in healing so let's say you would get triggered and you start spiraling but

01:18:13.760 you've got enough self-awareness you'd catch yourself right and you i know what's going on here

01:18:18.160 then you ground yourself you regulate your emotions and you get back to your cortex and you go hey i'm

01:18:23.840 believing lies there i'm not that useless person right and i don't have to do that and you get and

01:18:30.880 so what you find is all of a sudden that spiral just stopped so instead of being in it for four days

01:18:37.840 you're now only in it for 15 minutes and you caught yourself now there's going to be a bit of a hangover

01:18:43.760 effect as you kind of keep working through emotions with it but within a day you're back to being in a

01:18:49.360 pretty good place and you've grown a little bit and then because of that you probably won't get

01:18:56.320 triggered as intensely in that area again because you've grown so that next time something happens

01:19:01.360 the trigger won't be intense and it won't be as frequent and so over time you're growing with

01:19:08.560 greater in frequency and less intensity until you don't get triggered there anymore um but that can

01:19:15.760 take a few years but it can happen it can happen wow it's really it's really possible it is yeah

01:19:22.800 man um yeah do you get a lot of people who are feel like that they're at their wits end what are like

01:19:28.880 things you that are you're seeing people doing outside of drugs uh patterns that um i would love

01:19:35.680 to if it's okay to hear about some of those um because i would love for people to know that these

01:19:40.880 types of things are repairable yeah i would say some of the main ones that i would see right now

01:19:47.600 are um mental health issues like major depression anxiety issues that just make life unlivable really

01:19:56.960 and are really getting in the way of relationships family stuff like that secondly is anger issues that

01:20:05.360 just the flare-ups and the outbursts that's what i have and the damage that it does that just brings

01:20:11.680 them to a desperation point that i gotta get help or i'm gonna lose everything um then with younger

01:20:18.800 people there's this greater and greater kind of self-harm um suicidal ideation deep in their thinking

01:20:28.160 that's going on eating disorder stuff that is slowly getting them to a point where they go i think i got

01:20:36.720 a problem so that's big but i think maybe the biggest one right now is the number of people burning out

01:20:45.520 they just are like working 60 80 hour weeks and they're getting to a point where they're

01:20:51.040 they're just can't do this anymore what's going on with my life um but i think to me the biggest one

01:21:00.160 that probably gets people is relationships just especially when they have kids is yeah i can't

01:21:10.240 i gotta be a better dad than my dad was and right now i'm though i said i'd never be like my dad i'm

01:21:15.920 becoming like my dad i know like i'm rocking man that's got to be tough huh yeah and it's just a

01:21:24.000 wake-up call for them that rocks their world but that's what they need and what they so that's one

01:21:31.280 of the biggest pressures you see with people in just that having to be better than their parents

01:21:35.360 or is it like what do you mean no no relationships with kids things just start to get tougher or they

01:21:40.400 fall apart yeah so they you get um their kids start rebelling or their kids are getting into drugs

01:21:47.760 or their kids are cutting and they're going like i'm failing as a parent why what's what then they

01:21:55.680 start to think about it and they go yeah okay i get it um i came from crappy upbringing and i'm passing

01:22:03.600 it on and they i think what they realize is complex trauma tends to be generational really if i don't

01:22:11.520 deal with it i pass on what i've learned oh of course and i do it to my kids um because to me

01:22:18.400 that's all i know those only tools in my toolbox i'm gonna use them um and so it becomes a generational

01:22:24.480 thing and when you see what you're doing to your kids you go oh the proof's too real i can't do that to

01:22:30.560 my kids because i know what it did to me um wow that's interesting yeah when you have a child

01:22:35.280 you really get to see the proof of the recipe you yeah made and then you realize you're the

01:22:39.360 damn ingredient well exactly and the other piece to that is what happens for a lot of kids is when

01:22:46.400 you're living in constant pain that you can't resolve you go how do i make the pain go away well i can

01:22:51.280 escape or i cannot care so don't love anybody shut down love and not care just get hard inside and

01:23:02.080 they can do that and pull it off and and look like they're successful until they have kids and all of

01:23:09.920 a sudden love takes wins huh yeah and all of a sudden they love again and they go everything matters now

01:23:17.360 again and i got to do something wow that's got to be scary yeah i got i got two things actually uh tim so

01:23:28.720 is it possible for parents to do a good job i don't want to get just stuck in this place where it's

01:23:32.880 like we're just contributing to this thing in the world that everybody's damaged and that we all

01:23:37.760 need help that's one question and just so i don't forget when we say like things are generational do you

01:23:44.960 think that where we are now and like people there's a lot more mental health issues and stuff like

01:23:51.200 that is it because just how we've gone through time and this is where we're ending up at as humans um

01:24:01.120 is it because uh you know i've had theories that maybe it's because we don't have to uh have fear of

01:24:08.320 the like a bear in the woods as much anymore so now that fear turns inward and so we're hunting this

01:24:14.240 bear inside of us or this lion in the shadows all the time you know like um but yeah those are those

01:24:21.280 are my two questions like um why do you think it's kind of coming to a head in a lot of ways

01:24:27.280 and is that just in america too is it just in like western culture um i would say probably western

01:24:33.840 culture about 10 to 20 years ahead of a lot of cultures and understanding this um

01:24:40.080 um i think to me what's happened is the research scientifically that's been done on the brain

01:24:50.160 and trauma in the last 10 to 15 years has really started to open people up to understanding

01:24:58.240 stuff and what we've begun to realize is you can't heal trauma just with knowledge you need

01:25:05.680 safe connection oh yeah you got to have an environment where people can talk about it and

01:25:10.560 people have started to create those environments and people are starting to talk um and so in some

01:25:16.880 ways it's like it's it's a new phenomena but it's the way it should always have been that we could talk

01:25:24.400 about what's really going on um but we're getting there gradually um but i think it's really been fueled

01:25:32.400 by a lot of the research that's been happening and the growing understanding of how magnificent our

01:25:39.600 brains are and how they develop and all of that and how childhood used to be all about like nurture

01:25:46.480 versus nature and it was all about you know your genes etc etc really all the evidence is no it's nurture

01:25:53.120 it's it's what's happening in that child's life that's shaping them and forming how they look at the

01:25:59.360 world and think about themselves that's the key thing and epigenetics is all about nurture and it even

01:26:06.720 determines how our genes fire um and so so it's it's really beginning to understand more scientifically

01:26:15.280 what's been happening that's been so key i think when it comes to parenting the so a couple

01:26:23.840 thoughts the the danger is the danger is every parent wants to be a perfect parent and it's really

01:26:30.720 important to go it's all about good enough parenting nobody's a perfect parent but we can be good enough

01:26:38.800 parents and that means we're going to fail we're not going we can't be super man to our kids we have

01:26:46.320 limitations we can't be awake 24 7 but we can be good enough so a child needs parents who are attuned to

01:26:55.760 them and who connect now you don't connect 24 7 with a child but they need a few minutes a day of just

01:27:04.480 really safe connection with the parent to feel okay this is my rock this is i'm secure everything's okay

01:27:11.600 with the world um and parents can provide that good enough connection and so what's been so important

01:27:18.960 i think for parents to understand is our whole focus in the west as parenting is you got to meet

01:27:23.920 their physical needs physical needs you know you got to make sure they're get their milk at this time

01:27:28.640 and they get to bed and they have safety and all what we're realizing is the child's biggest needs are

01:27:34.880 emotional needs and there's acceptance and that attunement and and that connection all of those

01:27:43.600 needs are so important for a child if they're going to develop normally and healthily yeah and if parents

01:27:51.920 can learn how to meet their emotional needs of their kids that's what they can do so the other piece to

01:27:59.440 that is we often talk about dysfunctional family and we think the opposite of dysfunctional is a

01:28:06.560 perfect family but there's no such thing as a perfect family right so the word this is actually

01:28:12.400 a greek word that means pain and so it's a family in pain is a dysfunctional family so it's a family

01:28:19.760 that's inflicting pain in each other but is never resolving it so it's a complex trauma so the opposite

01:28:26.160 of a dysfunctional family is a functional family which is a family that inflicts pain once in a

01:28:32.480 while but they resolve it and by resolving that pain then the child isn't traumatized because it's

01:28:39.600 getting resolved right yeah that processing is so huge exactly i think when i think back on my own

01:28:46.640 life um and not to just talk about my own life i guess i just want i'm trying to have shared like

01:28:51.520 like just so i can try and relate you know um i'm not sitting here trying to be like oh my life

01:28:59.040 but uh yeah i would if somebody had been there to be like hey this is what's happening and this is why

01:29:05.440 it's happening oh man because otherwise yeah i was just trying to figure everything out for myself

01:29:12.400 and uh there was never just any information there was no i felt that's what i felt like when i was a

01:29:18.720 kid i felt like i worked at a restaurant right that i had to work at every day and i never got paid

01:29:26.320 and i never knew what was on the menu and i never even knew if we were open or closed you know where

01:29:31.680 the pots and pans were but i had to be there every single day yeah and i had to show up to work that's how

01:29:38.160 i felt and it um yeah i don't know what that means or anything well i think for a lot of kids in

01:29:47.920 complex trauma they feel like they're chasing their tail running in circles in a fog um they

01:29:53.840 just know they're supposed to be doing something that nobody's showing them what to do so they're

01:29:58.240 running around hoping that they're going to figure it out but they're not sure if they're figuring out

01:30:02.080 so there's just this constant haze of confusion yeah that's there and so unsafe man i remember i mean

01:30:10.320 i went to bed i was probably 27 probably yeah i mean i remember when i would go to bed at night

01:30:16.800 it felt like i was literally clocking in for a job as like an orderly at a hospital because

01:30:21.920 i knew in a couple hours i was gonna have to get up and change my sheets and sometimes i wet the bed

01:30:26.320 three four times a night to be honest and uh that's very common with complex trauma i would pee around

01:30:32.720 my bed i thought that something was gonna come get me and i'd heard that like animals will pee and

01:30:37.520 prevent other animals from coming mark the territory i mean it's correct when i think back on that

01:30:42.480 some kid doing that a nine-year-old kid doing that i mean i was like the pattern i had to go

01:30:48.160 through to look around my room to make sure there was nothing in there was gonna get me it must have

01:30:52.400 taken 12 minutes each night to do it all the exact same way yeah so that i could then get into my bed

01:30:58.240 man i was and then we get children that um kind of sleep with their back against the wall

01:31:04.640 facing the door um so that they're not gonna have anybody behind them and and they can see anything

01:31:12.640 that comes in some even sleep with a weapon nearby in case something happens that's crazy

01:31:20.720 yeah and yeah and i think of my stuff my my child was pretty light when i think about what some kids

01:31:25.600 could go through yeah you know mine was really more neglect it wasn't any abuse you know

01:31:30.320 um but it was just wandering around in a fucking yeah at an empty costco with a

01:31:38.880 fucking name tag on wondering where the manager was you know um anyway sorry sometimes i'm still

01:31:46.080 i still have a lot of anger about it it's been hard to process over the years yeah no but to me you should

01:31:52.000 and if i can just speak to that yeah because to me what happens in a lot of complex trauma families

01:32:00.800 is anger is seen as bad you're always punished for anger though when you think about anger anger is

01:32:06.640 actually designed to be something good if something violates love so somebody lies to me or somebody

01:32:13.360 cheats on me i should get angry because what they're doing is going to destroy the relationship

01:32:20.720 if they don't fix it so anger is actually a healthy thing that motivates me to act to say hey this

01:32:27.920 isn't right this is this is wrong but in complex trauma that gets knocked down never validated judged

01:32:36.480 and so part of the healing journey for a lot of people is being able to validate their anger yeah

01:32:42.320 i should be angry because that was crap i shouldn't have been neglected like that

01:32:46.240 now i'm not going to stay there i'm not going to feed it and turn it into deep bitterness but i need

01:32:52.960 to let that anger be honest if i'm going to heal yes sometimes as an adult i feel like i've i'm healed

01:33:02.400 from it sometimes but i still feel like that kid is not happy exactly that's literally what it feels

01:33:07.680 like sometimes yeah like he comes up to the surface of my fucking throat yes literally he'll be just

01:33:12.880 playing in the distance and he'll run up and yell out exactly just right out of the i cannot it's

01:33:17.920 like exactly and and i say okay that's where he's at you know i'm saying we're gonna keep trying to

01:33:23.760 work with him but um yeah i think a lot of my a lot of my anger now is from i have unrealistic

01:33:29.520 realistic expectations of people of myself yeah i didn't even realize it literally to like three or

01:33:35.040 four days ago somebody brought it to my attention man uh my brother and i was like oh my gosh

01:33:41.200 i've had them since i was my whole life i've had this to-do list that i don't even know i feel like

01:33:47.040 every day i'm already behind schedule and i don't have a schedule yeah that's what every single i'm

01:33:56.560 running behind got to do this what is it i don't know but we better get we i got to do it and that's

01:34:03.680 how i am like no and nothing no one can ever do anything perfect enough you know so to tie that

01:34:10.320 in with what you just shared what we found with most people with complex trauma is what they begin

01:34:18.400 to realize is it's like there's a part of them that got left behind that's still a child so some

01:34:24.240 refer to it as like their inner child but yeah little boy that's still down there and some have a

01:34:29.520 whole bunch of little boys that are different ages and different well that person is a politician

01:34:35.440 exactly uh but anyways what they've realized is they there's a part of them that kind of hates that

01:34:43.840 little boy and wishes you shut up and then quit bugging them and grow up and all that kind of treats

01:34:49.360 them like they were treated and they have to learn to love and nurture that little boy okay because

01:34:54.720 that's part of them and and just welcome them make space for them be curious what's going on

01:35:01.120 why are you upset like i'm not going to judge you just help me understand and then help them process

01:35:07.600 through it because nobody helped them process through it and eventually that little boy can heal

01:35:14.800 and so that's a useful tool for a lot of people is beginning to go let's welcome that little boy and

01:35:22.560 parent that little boy even though it's me but it's part of me and and it's a part of me that got

01:35:29.360 wounded so if somebody's sitting there right now is listening right and they're like how would you

01:35:34.560 start to have some of that conversation with yourself and is there a certain setting you would kind of do

01:35:39.840 it in just to even try and get us some awareness of that inner child as people say a lot of it's different

01:35:48.720 for everybody and and so you got to kind of find what works for you what what some people do is they

01:35:55.840 can go in their imagination to kind of a safe place in their house that they liked as a kid or a safe place

01:36:01.920 in the backyard or a tree or something in the woods whatever and they can go there and kind of picture

01:36:09.520 that little child and connect with that little child others can do it through going through like picture

01:36:15.200 albums see when they're four years old when they're seven years old i remember what i was feeling then

01:36:21.280 and what i was thinking or the other one is when they get triggered and that voice in their head and

01:36:29.440 they go well okay that how old do i feel right now and they go i feel three i feel eight and it's like okay

01:36:37.040 let's connect with that part of me and that's that part of your limbic brain that's been triggered

01:36:45.200 which doesn't keep track of time that's still stuck at that age wow yeah that's a great point when

01:36:50.640 that's happening that part of you is showing up exactly so that's as so what i see as it is it's a

01:36:55.440 great time to connect what i say to people is a trigger don't get down on yourself if you get

01:37:00.320 triggered go a trigger is my little boy saying ouch and be curious and go it's trying to get my

01:37:09.280 attention saying there's a wound here that never what's going on buddy exactly yeah yeah i went to

01:37:14.720 this center for a week it was in um this was in scottsdale it was about like um

01:37:22.640 um sexual health not necessarily about actual physical act of sex but it like emotional health

01:37:30.960 emotional wellness all that and uh we had to go get a doll from a dang um yeah baby uh oh build a

01:37:40.080 bears so we roll up and build a bears dude a couple i mean we gotta have a white van and went in there

01:37:45.280 so obviously we look like politicians you know uh so we are perps yeah definitely perpetrators

01:37:53.920 like one of us definitely a peeping top you know um giving out candy at the back we look like flashers

01:38:01.040 that had gone on a field trip that's what we look like we look like definitely and then we're in

01:38:04.880 there buying doll and there's like these other uh there's other people like there's kids in there

01:38:10.720 getting it's just like the whole thing was just so bizarre but then you'd have to sit with this

01:38:17.680 dang doll and just talk to you know like and every now and then there was some moments of like

01:38:23.520 you could almost feel a doll just be like hey man just sit here with me for a little bit yeah

01:38:27.760 you could almost feel it was like a feeling you would get like hey just

01:38:32.720 just stay with me for a minute yeah like man if i if i was when i was a kid if if somebody just

01:38:37.840 stayed with me for a minute made a big difference but man i can't even

01:38:44.960 i mean a minute you know yeah it just would have had a uh

01:38:50.240 it would have made me feel like

01:38:54.560 you know like somebody wants to be there with me you know i just never

01:39:00.240 i can't believe i even you know i'm not trying to have self-pity but i just can't believe that

01:39:04.320 shit man and i'm fortunate that we had food and stuff on the table i can't imagine in places where

01:39:12.160 kids don't have that or don't have a sibling to at least like

01:39:15.120 come in the room and make them smile or something man yeah it's heartbreaking it is

01:39:21.520 they should have a program when you leave the hospital with your child that there's

01:39:24.560 you know what i'm saying like even a basic yep like hey look in your child's eyes this is how you

01:39:29.040 do this these are the these are four things you know like it do they have anything like that they're

01:39:33.680 starting to um

01:39:37.600 what's her name she's out of san francisco she just wrote a book called the deepest well

01:39:44.160 now it's a good book yeah and she's been very much involved with with ace which is at um

01:39:50.320 adverse childhood experiences the test you take yeah oh i think and she's ten questions or something

01:39:57.040 yeah yeah and she's uh she was a pediatrician in san francisco nadine burke harris is her name okay

01:40:05.600 um so she's moved up the ranks in san francisco and she started um parenting courses for people

01:40:15.840 so desmond too said we got to stop pulling people out of the river we got to go down river and stop them

01:40:21.600 from getting pushed in the river and that's what this is all about we got to start working with

01:40:27.440 parents so we've actually we're actually developing a parenting course that we're piloting piloting right

01:40:32.560 now just because it's it's great work helping people get healthy in their 40s and 50s but we got

01:40:42.000 help parents not pass this on yeah we got to fix it and try to help at the beginning some

01:40:47.200 um let me think and what were we just talking about before yeah the aces the aces quiz right here

01:40:56.160 this is a fascinating i i took this test in uh in a treatment facility and it blew my mind um let's

01:41:05.680 go back just a little bit right i just want to read the top

01:41:07.600 okay what to know before you take the quiz researchers determined that 10 specific traumatic

01:41:15.840 childhood experiences or aces could be linked to a higher likelihood of health challenges later in

01:41:21.520 life and that the likelihood of these negative effects increased with the number of aces a child

01:41:27.040 experienced um tim you want to take us in a little further so the whole so these were really developed

01:41:36.320 with a focus mainly on abuse and and so we still use it because it's very effective

01:41:46.080 but it's that hidden neglect stuff it touches on but it doesn't develop and so most professionals now

01:41:54.400 use this test but then we add other stuff to help people capture some of the neglect stuff

01:42:00.960 but what what basically has come out of the ace stuff test um is through years of tracking people

01:42:10.080 with it is if you have two aces or three aces more aces you get the more your chances of depression

01:42:18.000 mental health issues the more your chances of drug alcohol addiction the more your chances of violence in

01:42:23.920 the family like um abuse partner abuse the more your chances of suicide attempts yeah it's just it

01:42:31.520 and then your greater your chances for heart issues diabetes health issues it just messes everything up

01:42:38.800 in your body it's fascinating um it says here the 10 aces and we'll get to the questions in a second

01:42:44.160 we're defined as the following child experience child childhood experiences physical sexual or verbal

01:42:48.800 abuse physical or emotional neglect separation or divorce a family member with mental illness

01:42:54.240 a family member addicted to drugs or alcohol a family member who is in prison witnessing a parent

01:42:59.120 being abused um it says still there are variables that the quiz doesn't account for including stressors

01:43:06.000 outside of the home as well as the important role positive influences play on buffering the effects of trauma

01:43:12.000 so let's see those questions real quick um did a parent or other adult in the household often or very

01:43:20.480 often a swear at you insult you put you down or humiliate you or b act in a way that made you afraid

01:43:28.000 that you might be physically hurt um did a parent or other adult in the so that's number one so there's

01:43:36.000 10 questions here and the more you get right the odds of countless and tougher pastures in your life

01:43:46.080 yes the consequences the ramifications just grow did a parent or other adult in the household often

01:43:52.400 or very often push grab slap or throw something at you or b ever hit you so hard that you had marks or

01:43:58.880 were injured did an adult or person at least five years older than you ever touch you or fondle you

01:44:05.760 or have you touched their body in a sexual way or b attempt or actually have oral anal or vaginal

01:44:12.160 intercourse with you four did you often or very often feel that a no one in your family loved you or

01:44:19.600 thought you were important or special or b your family didn't look out for each other feel close to

01:44:25.440 each other or support each other you want to do these tim yep is that okay yep did you often

01:44:35.120 or very often feel that a you didn't have enough to eat had to wear dirty clothes and had no one to

01:44:41.120 protect you or b your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if

01:44:47.440 you needed it and number six were your parents ever separated or divorced and i would just say that

01:44:55.280 lots of research is starting to happen around the effects of divorce on children because

01:45:00.560 often we think it doesn't affect them that much because they still see both parents but it does

01:45:07.040 and it's just very subtle but it's powerful so was your parent caregiver a often or very often

01:45:14.240 pushed grabbed slapped or had something thrown at him or her or b sometimes often or very often kick

01:45:21.600 bitten hit with a fist or hit with something hard or c ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or

01:45:29.200 threatened with a gun or knife did you live with anyone who has a was a problem drinker or alcoholic

01:45:37.600 or use street drugs number nine was a household member depressed or mentally ill or did a household

01:45:43.040 member attempt suicide and 10 did a household member go to prison so those 10 questions right there

01:45:50.480 the more you answer if you even get three of those oh yeah yes your odds of yeah addiction i think are

01:45:59.360 above 50 percent yeah and that's unbelievable because i don't know i don't think i know 10 people that

01:46:10.160 don't have at least two of them exactly and you notice it's talked about neglect just a little bit but

01:46:16.880 it doesn't go into a workaholic dad narcissistic dad all the subtle little types of neglect and that's

01:46:26.080 so we've actually created a an ace test of 65 questions that really capture all the nuances of

01:46:34.160 neglect interesting yeah this i just remember read i remember we in this in this uh facility we all went

01:46:41.280 over this and then people read theirs and half of the class and some of the people in the class were

01:46:45.920 like mayors in their towns and stuff and they had really some of them had really beaten some

01:46:51.040 unforeseeable odds yeah you know and then it made sense to you when you looked around back around my

01:46:55.600 high school when certain kids are like oh yeah it makes sure total sense why that kid's not alive

01:46:59.920 anymore or why that guy's in prison or um or why that guy's in you know in a rehab facility pretty wild

01:47:10.400 pretty wild um but i don't want to get into that downer mentality but it is just fascinating there's a

01:47:15.200 lot out there you know yeah um and that just supports like so much of the research that's happening right

01:47:23.280 now just in understanding the effects of childhood on a so we're not just blowing hot air here this is

01:47:30.960 all well researched and continues to be researched in great detail and it's just growing and growing

01:47:38.800 in our understanding of this very important topic yeah yeah and that's what i think i was just curious

01:47:44.320 about i just want if people are like because here's where i found myself i found myself in a place for

01:47:49.760 me where i couldn't understand why i wasn't able to do certain things like especially like with

01:47:57.120 relationships and stuff like that i kept thinking that it would change and um and it and it just

01:48:04.000 hasn't it's gotten better things have gotten better i'm a lot more aware i don't make a lot of the same

01:48:08.160 mistakes as i used to i don't get people into situations that i'm leading them to believe that there's

01:48:13.760 something that you know if there isn't something you know like but i still have a just a severe fear

01:48:21.120 of a lot of it um and as you get older it's like well how the heck i'm ever gonna have a family then

01:48:26.640 you know will i ever be able to have that or should i just you know keep to myself more you know not in

01:48:34.160 a negative way but in a positive you know it's like so i would and i say this all the time to people that

01:48:40.800 that come to our program there is hope but be prepared it takes a lot of work and it's not a

01:48:47.920 quick fix this is going to take a lot of time um because this started in childhood and you don't undo

01:48:55.120 that yeah overnight but there is hope yeah i heard you talk on one of your thanks thanks for saying that

01:49:01.840 to me and just didn't know anybody that's listening you know and i believe that um i believe

01:49:06.720 that when i go into meetings and you see guys that like two years ago were like addicted to

01:49:13.360 prostitutes and now they're getting married and they're having children it's like you see people

01:49:18.400 change their lives or guys who had never even been on a date in two years and were just addicted to

01:49:23.920 pornography and didn't even realize they were addicted it was just a pattern of comfort yeah i

01:49:29.840 remember when i found my wiener dude when i was probably i don't even know once i found something

01:49:35.200 that could make me feel good yep self-soothing i yeah you could play all the uh you could play all

01:49:44.160 the madden you wanted i was like i had my own game exactly you know what i'm saying dude and i was two

01:49:50.080 point conversing and all the time but i was doing it it was like that was unbelievable to me i would bike

01:49:56.400 across town to go look at pornography at my buddy's house going and digging up pornos over there

01:50:00.960 man it was just because it was the first time i also had a relationship with a woman even it was

01:50:07.120 just on a damn page or drawing we had to do to withdraw you some ovaries or something for the

01:50:11.840 weekend so can i speak scientifically to that again i i don't want to go too long here but okay cool

01:50:18.960 yeah and sorry i know i'm just talking about a lot of stuff tim i just

01:50:22.320 sorry we're doing our best so what what we know is when you look at the brain chemicals the brain only

01:50:29.440 produce is designed to produce positive chemicals so you got dopamine pleasure chemical then you got

01:50:36.240 serotonin that feel good connected what you get um ecstasy is part of and then you've got oxytocin

01:50:44.640 i'm in love chemical so those three chemicals are designed to be produced all the time in the brain of a

01:50:51.120 child because they connect with a parent oh so they they feel good they feel a deep joy they feel a

01:50:59.200 deep contentment and their needs are being met and that's so connection and the meeting and needs

01:51:04.720 causes those chemicals to be released complex trauma you're not connecting and your needs aren't being

01:51:10.400 met zero chemicals wow so what's your brain feel cortisol anger hyper pain rebellion all of that is

01:51:23.440 happening so what's happening so what do you then find the first thing that gives you comfort

01:51:29.280 and part of what we know is your parents are supposed to

01:51:34.800 soothe you when you get dysregulated when you have negative emotions but if you can't connect to them

01:51:40.720 then you're not being soothed properly so you find the first thing that self-soothes

01:51:46.080 and so some people rock so we would rock my brother and i's beds were on wheels

01:51:52.400 and in the morning they would be in the corner of their other corner of the room exactly we would

01:51:57.200 rock all night like that and so what we know is when you cut it actually releases opioids in the brain

01:52:05.120 and so you you don't feel the pain you feel the relief of the good feeling wow and so

01:52:13.200 guys find their wiener and all of a sudden they get a good chemical in their brain

01:52:19.840 well that's better than no chemicals so let's go back and let's get more serving up that wiener

01:52:25.680 sauce baby it was horrible yeah but that's crazy so it yeah it's like oh this is a good feeling

01:52:30.560 exactly of course i'm going to do it again again exactly why else wouldn't i the second something

01:52:34.960 triggers me i feel bad i'm going to make myself feel good now i have the ability to make myself feel

01:52:39.680 good that was the first time in my life i had the ability any like method you know that's why i think

01:52:46.880 it's so important to your child just doesn't know how to make themselves feel better so if something

01:52:53.120 is wrong with your child you have to sit and teach them i'm not trying to preach at people but i i wish

01:52:58.560 somebody for me it's sad and said hey right now you feel this way this is going to have you you're

01:53:03.520 going to be okay it's everything you're going to get to hear everything here's the process and i'm

01:53:07.200 gonna sit here with you exactly while you do it exactly you know and um yeah man stuff like that

01:53:13.120 just so crucial yeah um when it when it before you go tim and thank you so much man really really

01:53:20.240 appreciate it i really kind of think of this as a service call in a way um and just grateful man um

01:53:27.040 so many of your videos you have the one it's like uh you're leaving can i will you take what is that

01:53:34.080 video title it's the codependency one yeah um if you leave can i come with you yeah

01:53:42.880 yeah it's just so like get out can i come with you it's like that was like god

01:53:47.760 um yeah what what's kind of is it's this it's uh um complex trauma isn't a one there's not one fix

01:53:57.840 really right it's um what is there how do you view like the repairing process overall

01:54:06.640 and i think it's great to emphasize that there's not just one fix because so much of

01:54:11.760 the focus in the west has been around let's just um do this one program and then oh like you're

01:54:19.040 magically going to be fixed so we're always looking for almost like a magical solution oh even with

01:54:24.720 treatment centers it's like here's a 30-day treatment exactly what are you going to do

01:54:28.400 have on 34th day exactly you know what i'm saying that's unbelievable that it's a third 30 days doesn't

01:54:34.160 really it'll help you detox exactly anyway sorry so what we teach our clients is we are intellectual

01:54:41.280 beings we're physical beings we're emotional beings we're relational beings and we're spiritual

01:54:45.840 beings we have to learn to meet all five the needs of all five of those areas if we're going to be

01:54:52.560 healthy and that's what parents were supposed to do is meet the needs of all five of those areas

01:54:58.400 but now we got programs that just try to do a spiritual only solution that doesn't work

01:55:04.080 others try to do just let's do this one little emotional gimmick yeah that no you got to learn

01:55:09.920 physical curl your way to freaking complete exactly and so it's learning we're biopsychosocial

01:55:17.600 spiritual let's we got to learn to meet all those needs and get healthy in all those areas

01:55:24.160 that's the bottom line it seems like a lot of work sometimes it's not a magic solution it's hard when

01:55:31.120 people's lives get busy too i can't imagine once people have a family and stuff and a father or

01:55:35.360 mother has to leave away from their family to go get wellness so if i can ask you and this kind of

01:55:40.240 almost i don't know if it's off the record but you can decide what to do with it so we've we've got a

01:55:46.880 ufc fighter that's approached us about taking our program um boston red sox detroit lion detroit tigers

01:55:55.680 some movie stars but they've all said we kind of got celebrity status and we're not can't fit a program

01:56:05.360 into our schedules plus we're not sure we want to be in a group we're going to get adored kind of

01:56:10.960 um not sure we're going to be able to share freely so we've been giving thought to kind of what do we

01:56:17.440 do to kind of people in your status of life that have some popularity that would make things

01:56:24.080 uncomfortable for them or other people maybe yeah or make the the pattern might feel different yeah and

01:56:29.520 then has maybe some restraints around their schedules that doesn't allow them to commit for

01:56:37.200 like a 15 week program um so we've been giving some thought to just some things we can do that might

01:56:45.920 enable celebrity type people to take advantage of the program and still have some connection with

01:56:53.440 people um but maybe not the full connection daily any thoughts on i would love to help you think

01:57:02.320 navigate it some okay or get because that's where we're at it's so funny you say this man i'm just

01:57:08.320 talking with a buddy of mine uh we just had a group last week um trying to maybe build something you know

01:57:15.680 or just not build something but yeah i would love to you know think about it or i wish there were more

01:57:20.000 meetings that some people could go to you know and what that looks like um yeah i'd love to talk

01:57:26.400 with you about uh how i can be a part of stuff or if there's um some meetings that i can join or you

01:57:33.440 know i have friends that would like to be in meetings i think sometimes they're maybe afraid to be in

01:57:37.840 some meetings or whatever but i'd love to talk about that a little bit more because i would value that

01:57:43.120 yeah tim 100 because we just see like we're getting more and more requests from

01:57:47.600 celebrities but it's a special niche with special needs and it's like we almost got a custom make

01:57:55.120 something here yeah that's gonna need a lot of wisdom to do it but it's doable well you know it's so

01:58:00.640 funny i thought that if i could get everybody in the world to see me right that would fix everything

01:58:09.440 that it would that it would like make up for whatever you know i didn't know that's what i needed

01:58:15.840 but it was like that's what i wanted so much and i was like oh if my mother sees that everybody

01:58:21.200 thinks i'm okay right she'll have to right then see oh he's okay you know for years i could i think

01:58:28.720 one of the reasons i was having trouble i didn't even realize is getting in a relationship i was still

01:58:32.720 in this relationship with my mother exactly i was still literally i felt like somebody standing on a dock

01:58:38.400 waiting for uh their mom to come yeah and validate them yeah yeah you know just literally just to

01:58:49.760 yeah hold just to i hear that all the time really it's unbelievable yeah you know and i don't mean it

01:58:56.480 as a shade to my mother my mother did it i have a lot of really cool memories you know she there was just

01:59:02.720 that part she didn't even she didn't even know it existed if you'd have showed it to her as a color

01:59:07.200 she wouldn't be able to see it yeah you know um yeah what what types of things can people notice

01:59:15.360 in their life where they maybe have had complex trauma that they didn't realize it's affecting this

01:59:19.680 place is there any way we can put some light on that or is that too broad of a question well i think

01:59:25.200 again for many people workaholic people pleasing never able to say no perfectionism nothing's ever

01:59:33.200 good enough control freak issues where they have to control everybody and everything or image always

01:59:42.080 got to look good and try to impress people all the time or just lots of relationship problems rifts

01:59:51.040 um damage being done now mental health issues that damn that's everybody tim yeah well exactly

01:59:59.600 and so what we've we started with the react and then the lift course but not everybody can do that

02:00:06.720 so what we've started now is some self-study courses that people can take on their own time and then they

02:00:14.080 have an optional group they can go to once a month just to kind of share and talk about stuff oh cool have a

02:00:20.240 one-on-one coach if they want to process through stuff so that's now available um and then we are doing

02:00:28.000 some workshops on narcissism inner child stuff internal family system stuff shame issues so we're trying to do

02:00:40.240 more available stuff to busy people so can i tell you one of my favorite stories to tell people

02:00:54.080 there's actually a video now on youtube where a guy's actually built a bike that operates backwards

02:01:01.040 mm-hmm so when you think of a bike you learn to ride a bike at four or five six years old and

02:01:08.800 at first you got to concentrate a lot to get your balance to turn the steering wheel oh yeah remember

02:01:15.040 how loose the remember how crazy the beginning is falling and but you keep working and concentrating oh

02:01:21.600 yeah you fall somebody's dad calls you a g-a-y every time you're like and then pretty soon you could be

02:01:28.160 talking to your buddies and yeah and you're not even thinking about riding but you're it's so it moves

02:01:34.960 from your conscious brain to a subconscious program that just operates okay and now you could go without

02:01:41.680 riding a bike for 30 years and jump back on and you'd ride it without even thinking you just pick it

02:01:48.160 right back up so this guy built a bike where if you turn the handlebars to the left you actually the

02:01:54.400 wheel goes to the right oh my gosh why did he do it was he angry at somebody he wanted to test how

02:02:00.320 quickly could you relearn to ride a bike wow you know how long it took

02:02:08.880 six months to a year no

02:02:12.800 yeah so you're just saying to relearn things it takes a while

02:02:17.920 it takes some time exactly especially when you learn it so young

02:02:21.280 and if somebody's just going to therapy right what can they go talk so how can they start a

02:02:26.320 conversation with their therapist that could help them create more ambiance around maybe some of the

02:02:32.080 stuff that may have happened and how it affects them now yeah so a lot of people go to therapy now

02:02:37.360 because of a crisis in the present they need to be able to understand that crisis is probably a

02:02:42.960 symptom of something from the past and so a lot of therapists just try to give you practical tools

02:02:49.120 well try this try this try this and they're just putting band-aids on cuts on on the symptoms

02:02:57.040 if you can get your therapist to go like why am i doing this what what's underneath that's driving

02:03:04.240 that response and begin to look at shame begin to look at fears that are there fears of abandonment

02:03:11.520 fears of intimacy fears of rejection fears of failure all of those can start getting down to the

02:03:19.600 core root issues that come out of trauma

02:03:24.720 yeah sometimes i can ask myself like what's going on you know and try to answer myself you know

02:03:30.640 like try to legitimately answer myself because my first thought would be like oh nothing nothing

02:03:36.560 but then it's like well sometimes a fee i get a feeling first and that's a clue yes a feeling is just

02:03:43.920 like uh yeah it's just like a little bit of a like you saw something but you don't really know

02:03:51.120 sometimes if i feel something i try to feel it more like how can i feel this more so there's a new

02:03:59.040 term called compassionate inquiry and so it's when you get a feeling in the past we get that critic you

02:04:07.200 stupid why are you feeling that way we judge yourself and get really hard on ourselves yeah

02:04:14.000 and so it says instead of condemning yourself be curious compassionate so you be kind to yourself and

02:04:22.240 then go what's going on here and inquire um and you change the whole way you respond to feelings and

02:04:29.920 triggers which which is huge for a lot of people and you give yourself some grace too exactly that's

02:04:38.000 the compassion that's it but it's like to give yourself some grace man quit beating yourself up give

02:04:45.440 yours just yeah give yourself some grace that you just it's the least you can do right now you can do it's

02:05:00.560 you know exactly just give yourself a little bit of grace that's one thing i've had a tough time with

02:05:04.640 and i would say probably for most of the people we work with self-compassion is the hardest thing for

02:05:11.680 them to learn why is it hard for us to have self-compassion because shame says i deserve to

02:05:19.040 beat myself up because i'm a loser and often complex trauma parenting is the way to motivate a child to

02:05:26.560 want to change and be better is to beat them up and put them down and punish them and then they're

02:05:31.520 going to want to prove you wrong or but that doesn't work in the long run eventually you start

02:05:38.400 to believe you are a loser and you just give up um but you still got all those things in your head that

02:05:44.720 you keep putting yourself down and then for many people there's that justice piece that if i commit

02:05:52.000 the crime i got to do the time um and so i did something bad i'm a bad person i got to punish myself

02:05:58.560 before i can let myself out of prison and so that there's that sense of justice that has to be

02:06:06.560 served in their mind and even and so if they're too hard on themselves and they're going to be

02:06:11.280 punishing themselves for crimes that aren't real and you're in prison forever because you never let

02:06:15.360 yourself out yeah gosh the crazy thing is i can't even remember some of the ridiculous patterns i used

02:06:21.040 to have inside of me i used to have this belief that i had to and it sounds silly but sometimes

02:06:27.840 it feels like you can swallow on different sides of your mouth i had this thing i had to swallow

02:06:32.880 constantly back and forth or the world would be even and it was this constant thing all the time it was

02:06:39.280 like this constant thing um man sometimes when i think back on some of the crazy stuff or little

02:06:46.240 patterns i think a lot of people haven't some of it's just being so to me what what you're you've

02:06:52.640 really shown me this the saft is this it shows the child's amazing ability to think there's got to be

02:07:00.080 another way to fix this another option available if i try this if i try this if i try to i'll swallow

02:07:07.760 different and you start to believe that if i only do something a little bit different that'll resolve and

02:07:13.680 fix the problem but pretty soon you're rocking in your bed you're peeing around your bed you're

02:07:19.360 sleeping with your back to the wall you're swollen like you feel you got to control every little

02:07:24.800 element of life but it's not fixing anything but you're still doing it yeah but it's the brain just keeps

02:07:36.400 giving one more let's try this let's try this and let's try this then and you can keep going until

02:07:42.080 you're in your 30s but eventually you're wearing yourself out and you go souples it's not fixing it

02:07:48.560 man it took me so long to see that i just it's like i could yeah it's the heart of the sea when you're

02:07:55.040 it's hard to see the water when you're the fish you know whatever they say it's hard to drink the

02:07:58.800 water or something if you're at the aquarium or whatever but um yeah that was god man i wish i had

02:08:06.640 gotten a little bit of perspective earlier but yeah that's one of the toughest parts man is just seeing

02:08:10.480 that thing recognizing that that pattern i used to think if i was a girl oh maybe if i was a girl

02:08:16.000 my mother would love me you know um or that i would be loved i don't want to always just pin the tail on

02:08:22.080 my mother uh yeah just some of that stuff man and it's not what was me stuff just fascinating what a

02:08:28.320 child can they'll they'll create so many realities but and with you you're always thinking if i just set

02:08:34.320 the bar a bit higher yeah a bit higher a bit higher then that'll that'll surely fix everything

02:08:40.000 oh if i could get the whole world to see me i didn't even know that if i could get

02:08:44.320 then i'd my mother would of course would have to see me then exactly there's how could she miss me

02:08:48.880 exactly you know if i could just yeah and those are just operating systems i didn't and they were

02:08:54.400 running my life i didn't even know it we still have clients in their 50s and 60s

02:08:58.960 so they graduate let's say from our program and they go running and telling their mom i graduated

02:09:06.880 you want to see my diploma wow still looking for mom's validation to mom to actually see them for

02:09:14.080 the first time in their life and they get their hopes up and mom doesn't she just finds something

02:09:19.120 to criticize or it's just still the same minimizes or she cares but it's not the way you need it

02:09:24.320 exactly and so they just get hurt but they're in their 50s and 60s still chasing mom's validation

02:09:31.200 yeah and i was hypersensitive as a child too so i think it was and that was another thing like i have

02:09:35.760 to i have to always say that i was hypersensitive and i still am but it was like yeah so it was and

02:09:42.880 those are the ones that the neglect affects the most yeah the sensitive child that's what i think it

02:09:47.920 was for me probably you know and my and my uh siblings um yeah even with relationships i mean

02:09:55.840 i went through this therapy recently and i i was like if i can't be in a relationship because i'm

02:10:01.280 still in there's a huge part of me still waiting for this fucking relationship the first one i was

02:10:06.560 ever supposed to be in my first girlfriend broke up with me i said you can't break up this came out of

02:10:11.360 my mouth tim i said you can't break up with me you're my mother wow because i just did it was the

02:10:17.040 first place i'd attached like any care you know um damn i sound like a crazy person do i no that's

02:10:25.440 but see that's so normal you still are chasing that primary connection yeah and uh you change the

02:10:34.640 face to a young woman that's not your mother but you're still chasing your mother's well she was the

02:10:39.920 first girl that i really loved so i think it just yeah just awoke all that stuff yeah and you're when you

02:10:45.200 love and you can then you're like oh this is it was yeah this was supposed to happen a long time

02:10:49.680 ago but now it's happening and this there's probably a part of you that's like this was supposed to be

02:10:54.160 our mother i don't know i don't know i can get in all that stuff and and also some of it is like

02:11:01.040 the more i look at all that old stuff it's like trying to find a snake that bitch or whatever it's

02:11:04.960 like you know it's like it's like a snake bit you and goes off into the and then you chase it for

02:11:09.840 years right you want to ask it why it bit you you know it's like if it's going to fix it i just got

02:11:14.880 to heal it exactly what about forgiveness how do what do you what's your what do you what do you

02:11:18.960 think about how do you help people with that tim how does react help people with um i think it's been

02:11:27.280 a it's such an important concept but it's been a badly mistaught concept so a lot of people have

02:11:36.160 seen the value of forgiveness and so all of a sudden when a person comes in a recovery you need

02:11:40.480 to forgive your mom you need to i go whoa whoa whoa you can't forgive until you've actually validated

02:11:48.480 how badly they've hurt you until you've got honest about it until you've grieved it until you've been

02:11:53.280 able to really make space for all the emotions around that then you're going to get to the point

02:11:59.760 where your limbic brain is sorting out all of those painful emotions and it can come to a point where

02:12:05.280 it can let them go so forgiveness isn't something you're forcing it's something that's going to

02:12:11.680 naturally happen as you allow yourself to process through all the pain and anger connected to the

02:12:18.000 wound man it's wild i had this thought that

02:12:26.720 there's like this weird thing where it's like oh this part of me is afraid to not be angry at my

02:12:32.880 mother because it's the only feeling i've ever had towards her yes and if i let go of that very

02:12:38.080 normal then i won't have any connection to her exactly as a child exactly as an adult i can see

02:12:45.440 my mother differently yeah you know and um you know i love my mother and i want her to be happy i don't

02:12:51.840 want her to have to work anymore she doesn't want to you know i wish can i ask you a question so a lot of

02:12:58.640 kids like you that had a mother that just couldn't connect emotionally often the only time the mother

02:13:04.960 would connect emotionally is when they were bad or when they got angry then mom would jump in hey

02:13:10.640 stop that stop that and they go a little bit of connection is better than no connection oh

02:13:15.760 interesting so i'll be bad more or angry i would find other people's i found other people's moms

02:13:24.000 the second like surrogates dude i keep going i went to my friend williams house like 20 times

02:13:29.040 weekend his mom's like he's not here i told you every time i don't care like you're here

02:13:34.960 keep knocking just to see her look at me for a second you know just wild man the things that you'll

02:13:41.600 ways little ways you'll survive little things you'll do yeah it's fascinating the longing for

02:13:47.600 love and nurture yes it's a lot of it's fascinating you know getting to be human yep it's quite a ride um

02:13:56.160 tim people can check you out online you have so many great so many great digestible videos um

02:14:02.480 on youtube so many just well just really awesome stuff man thank you yeah thank you so much um my

02:14:13.280 brother saw you and he's like god this guy is great and he introduced me to you oh good and um it's been

02:14:19.120 cool because you're just saying things in a way that i can just i could hear him and i that's the hardest

02:14:23.360 part sometimes it's so hard for us to hear things why

02:14:26.400 partly for a lot of people because of shame is i don't want to stop and look honestly at myself

02:14:35.120 because it might be too painful and overwhelming and i don't want to go there so there's so many

02:14:41.760 defense layers that you have to get by before you're even open to yeah and so a lot of my years of kind of

02:14:50.560 learning how to teach this stuff is how do i get by that defense layer how do i get right

02:14:55.200 how do i make people feel safe to challenge that area of their life and not feel that they're bad

02:15:03.680 because they're doing that man it is quite a rubik's cube we're complex huh oh i know what i'd be

02:15:12.560 fascinated by is just kind of what response you get yeah because i think that's going to tell us a lot

02:15:19.440 about what we could do differently whether we need to add some other podcasts with more focused

02:15:26.960 information specific stuff yeah yeah i'm curious about that too i think because i know you have so

02:15:32.000 many like you know there was a like shame we touched on which i think was important i know that there's a

02:15:36.000 ton of stuff about guilt um you just there's so many little universes dependency oh god

02:15:42.320 i can't even boundaries um codependency for sure for sure as soon as you get into the relationship

02:15:52.560 stuff then it's just like yeah everybody's ears per cup but i think that we try i think we gave i

02:16:00.640 think we touched on some a good understanding though right yeah of complex trauma people can understand

02:16:06.160 maybe that they could have some things that they didn't realize but also that you don't have to be a

02:16:10.480 victim not everybody has to have complex trauma yeah um you could have had just simple trauma that

02:16:15.200 was just one thing or some instances but you could have also had good parenting that was there to help

02:16:20.400 you process it or somebody even if it wasn't a parent that could also be there as a fixture to help you

02:16:25.920 process exactly um yeah and i think your bits of your personal story just filled in a lot of that for

02:16:32.640 people um and i think to me the big picture is everybody needs to learn not necessarily all the

02:16:42.480 trauma stuff but what does it mean to be healthy that's what a child is supposed to be learning as

02:16:48.240 they're growing up yeah and even if you had pretty good parents we all still could learn more about

02:16:54.560 fine-tuning being healthy and that's really what i try to do a lot of is

02:17:02.640 yes define the trauma in great detail and the ramifications but really to define what does

02:17:08.320 healthy look like yeah yeah and if you never thought about this to maybe say oh some of that

02:17:15.120 that could be something i should look at more i heard something that made me think or feel something

02:17:19.920 that that is good clues yeah a lot of time i couldn't get a clue until i felt it would have

02:17:24.080 to be a very strong feeling and then that would be a clue um but yeah i think uh yeah it's important

02:17:31.360 man it's important for people and yeah it's important you know it's not important to sit there and dwell

02:17:38.000 and swim in the shit like i'm a uh otter you know i have to remember that but it's important to

02:17:44.880 sit on the side of the bank and look at the water i think yep you know and see what's caused some of

02:17:50.720 the ripples you know you know and uh see where there's some waves and see where things are clear

02:17:55.280 and nice yeah um so cool man it's been a wonderful experience thank you yeah tim thanks bro i appreciate

02:18:04.880 it dude we gotta i gotta get back up there to windsor you've been there yeah my tour manager at caesars or

02:18:12.240 it's from there yeah over there at caesars it was pretty good man we had a nice time over there

02:18:18.000 and uh and then did you go across to detroit as well nope oh just did the windsor yeah we did windsor

02:18:24.000 and then we went over there to lake uh lake of the uh no uh niagara niagara yeah niagara falls and

02:18:30.320 then um we went somewhere else too i can't remember where it was toronto's right up in there

02:18:35.840 we had a great time huh it's beautiful over there yeah canada's great yeah we're grateful

02:18:41.920 that you are part of north america i want to let you know that i'm grateful too there you go

02:18:48.960 all right tim fletcher thank you so much brother thank you all right cheers brother

02:18:53.680 now i'm just floating on the breeze and i feel i'm falling like these leaves i must be cornerstone

02:19:02.560 oh but when i reach that ground i'll share this peace of mind i found i can feel it in my bones

02:19:14.720 but it's gonna take

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - April 16, 2024

E495 Trauma Expert Tim Fletcher

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