Welcome back to the inspired
living with auto-immunity podcast.
I'm your host, Julie Michelson.
And today I'm excited
to be speaking with Dr.
Amy apigian the leading medical
expert on addressing stored
trauma in the body, through her
signature model and methodology.
The biology of trauma.
That's right today, we're going to be
talking about the biology of trauma
and not the psychology of trauma.
Dr.
Amy's work up levels the old methods
of trauma work to address trauma's
effects on the nervous system
and the body on a cellular level.
I promise if you think you know all
there is to know about trauma or that
it isn't playing a role in your life.
Our conversation today
will be enlightening.
Don't miss it!
Dr.
Amy, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Julie.
I'm so excited for this.
I'm so excited for what you are
doing specifically with your clients.
And so I'm really happy to be
here to talk about trauma today.
Thank you.
This is such a huge subject topic
I already told you before we
started, like, I don't know if
one episode is going to do it.
But I also think it kind
of gets a little exhausted.
Like people get tired of
hearing certain words.
And so I love you are bringing such
a fresh approach and effective.
Cause I know what you're doing
is making such a huge impact.
For people I'm guessing when you
were younger, you didn't decide
you wanted to specialize in healing
people by, by healing trauma.
So it, would you be willing to share
your story with us as to how did you
go from that traditional medicine
world to what you are doing now?
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
Julie T taken me back to those times.
Those are good and
interesting memories for me.
You know, and even as you say that
I'm just blown away by the impact
that the message of the biology
of trauma has had an emails that
I get from around the world.
Right.
And, and through my training program,
practitioners are reaching, you know,
like 250,000 people this year with
the message of biology of trauma.
And it blows me away because there was a
time in my life when for the one person.
One person that mattered most
to me, I could not move the
dial at all for him with trauma.
yeah.
And so just what a contrast between like,
wow, all these people around the world.
And yet there was that time when there
was, I could not make a difference
for one person with regards to their.
And that was my son.
So my son came to me as a
four year old foster care boy.
And over the next six months,
I decided to adopt him.
And part of the reason was that the
social workers told me that he was so far
along in his behavior problems, emotional
behavioral problems, that if I did not
adopt him, then he would go into a group.
At age four.
And and that really
all he needed was love.
Right?
Like he just needs someone to love
him and I'm like, I'll love him.
Right?
Like
I can do that.
So I can do that.
Like I already am crazy about this
kid and I can see his potential
through his anger, through.
Rages through his behaviors.
I can see through all of
that and I can see what an
incredible kid like I can love.
I can love the trauma out of him.
And it was two years later
that I'm sitting there and
I'm actually rocking him.
Right.
Cause I'm doing attachment parenting and
all that stuff now, and I'm rocking him.
And what he said was not a surprise to
me, but it was a moment in which the.
Our journey together
really hit home for me.
And why?
I say like, I was not able to make
a difference for the one person
that mattered the most in my life.
And he had already been trying to kill me.
Right.
He'd already gotten the knives out and
had already tried to kill me with a
knife and all, all of that kind of stuff.
But as I'm rocking them and I'm
having what I'm thinking is a very
ordinary moment of connection.
PAF supposed to be having with our
attachment parenting and working
with our therapist and all the
people that we had working with us.
And he calmly tells me, as I'm looking
down into his eyes, he calls me, tells
me it's like, mommy, tomorrow, I'm going
to kill you not today, tomorrow, mommy.
And I'm going to poke your
eyes out with sticks and that's
how I'm going to kill you.
But not today, mommy tomorrow.
And the S the sinking feeling that
I had in my stomach at that moment.
And as I look at him and try to
maintain my composure, try to keep,
keep the neutral face that I'm
told that I'm supposed to have.
Yeah.
yet inside, like I'm, I could not be more.
Discouraged.
I could not be more broken.
I could not be more feeling like I am.
I am a, I am a failure.
Like, what am I doing wrong?
Maybe my family was, was right when they
told me that I was crazy adopting this
kid as a single mom in medical school.
What, what was I thinking?
And, and I had some important lessons
to learn there in that, in that.
Right.
And one of those lessons that I've, that
I've learned is that time does not heal.
Yeah.
And I can look at my own life for
that because what I started to
see through my son is that I have
patterns of pushing people away.
I have patterns of.
Numbing my emotions when they get too
uncomfortable, I have patterns of ah,
relationships or life or staying small or
not speaking up when I really shouldn't
be speaking up for myself and look at
how those have not changed over time.
Hence the word patterns,
I am still doing the same, the same thing.
It may show up differently in different
situations, but it's still the same thing.
Time has not changed those patterns.
We just get better at making
excuses for those patterns.
Right.
So time does not heal.
The other lesson that I had to
learn was that love does not heal
That's a tough one.
My love could not heal him.
Right.
And, and for him, love was
what was scary for him.
Love was what had betrayed.
Has his own mom had betrayed him by
all of the things that she had done
starting with in utero drug use.
And then, you know, the, the, the
number of instances where exactly
where he got hurt and she never took
him to the hospital and then finally
got into the system and right.
Like there were multiple instances.
So love was actually
what was scary to him.
So how can love heal?
You.
If that's, what's scary to you.
So that was a big eye-opener
because those were literally the
two things that I had held as truths
from my medical school training.
And so what I learned was that there's
this thing called biology of trauma.
And it's not just a
matter of telling my son.
I love you.
And you should love yourself
Well,
that wasn't even landing.
Right.
It was, there are changes to his biology.
His biology is actually continuing
to play out these patterns that I
need to figure out how to change the
biology to then get different results.
So those were the three lessons
that I got to learn, Julie and him.
Well, and I, you see me wiping my eyes.
I didn't bring a tissue because
I'm like, I know her story.
I'm good.
I'm prepared.
And it just, you know, I'm a mother
and I just can't even imagine,
however, Like we all get to do.
When we look over our shoulder,
you know, what a gift for all those
thousands and thousands of people
that you are the one who had the
opportunity to learn that lesson.
And those are two things we
all here, our whole lives, time
heals, all wounds and love heals.
And so I love the, I there's
somebody ways I want to go.
But I want to dig right into this
idea of the biology of trauma.
And you know, we, we hear trauma and we
think psychology again, training, right?
These are the things,
these are the patterns.
This is what we tell ourselves.
You'll talk to a therapist about that.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So let's really like dig down and unpack
that you know, how, how is it different?
Why are we not saying,
oh, it's just second.
Well, you know, poor thing, he had a
data really traumatic early childhood,
you know, he needs counseling for the
next 50 years and then he'll be fine.
How is it different?
The biology of.
Yeah.
And what I like, I think that what
we're all take your audience with
this is going back to the adverse
childhood experience studies.
So these were studies that
were done founded by Dr.
Vincent , Dr.
Robert anda and they were working
through it with a population of
primarily women who were overweight.
And they were coming from the
angle of preventive medicine.
I'm board certified in
preventive medicine.
And so the principles of
preventive medicine are.
We can look at all of these downstream
effects, like cardiovascular disease,
heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and we
can see the impact that it has not only
on one person's life, but then on society.
And we can see, we can ask the
question, okay, how do I prevent,
how do I prevent those diseases?
a concept?
What a concept now.
So what they discovered, what they, what
they, and honestly, what we are still
taught, what I was still taught is that,
you know, a driving force, a driving
factor in those conditions is obesity.
And so if you fix obesity, you'll
fix all of those downstream effects.
Oh my goodness.
Right?
Like time heals, everything love,
heals, everything, just do that
and everything else will be fine.
Right.
So what happened is that they're in
this weight loss clinic, they have
found a way to help these people lose a
hundred pounds to 300 pounds in a year.
It's incredible.
And they're having so much success with
this program because of how much weight
and how fast people are losing the weight
and in a, what they think is a safe
way, least metabolically, physiologic.
Which was my first thought,
like, cause that's safe.
That's really fast.
exactly my thought too.
Dr.
Filetti had gone into detail about
what exactly they gave these people
for food that mimicked fasting, and yet
gave them all so that it was very safe.
Okay.
That's fine.
Whatever let's talk about.
Let's talk about what happened
now, because what happened really
highlights this biology of trauma
idea and that is, they got frustrated.
Because their numbers
started to get messed up.
And you, you work with any doctor who's
doing a study that is the fastest way
to get them upset and frustrated is to
mess with their numbers because they,
they need their numbers to look good.
Look at how well we're
doing with this program.
And it's going to prevent
all of these diesel diseases.
We're going to solve the world's problems.
When they looked at what was going wrong
with their numbers, they found that
the most, most successful people, the
people who were losing them the most
weight were the ones dropping out of the.
And so they called them in and they said,
Hey, I see you've gained the way back.
What happened?
Right?
Like what happened?
And the patients started telling
them, look, what you see as the
problem of me being overweight
is actually the solution to my.
Wait a second.
What do you mean?
It's the solution to your problem?
I stay overweight in
order to avoid attention.
I eat in order to not feel lonely.
I, and then you start to
fill in the blanks, right?
Because we each have those for them.
It was eating for me.
It's been biking.
It's been working.
It's been, it's been
eating at times in my life.
Right.
And I have done these
things in order to not feel.
Fill in the blank.
Sure.
And then what they found was
that, wait a second, as we go
back into their life experiences.
We are seeing patterns of
life experiences for them.
And it started to be sexual
abuse at first, but then it
wasn't just sexual abuse.
Sometimes it was parents divorcing.
Sometimes it was parents having
had problems or maybe even been
to jail or having a mental health
diagnosis or something that
showed that there was instability
insecurity during early childhood.
And so out of that, they created this
adverse childhood experiences study,
where they highlighted some of the
more common events that then seemed
to be associated with these types
of health conditions later in life.
And Julia, they have literally by
now, Associated every single chronic
disease with a certain, a score.
Right.
And even smoking.
They've seen that if you have an ACE
score above four, like every point
above that, I forget the exact numbers.
So don't quote me on this, but
it's like, you are four times
more likely to be a smoker.
The higher, your ACE score above
a certain number patterns that
are just like, wait a second.
Like there's actually a
predictable pattern to that.
Yes.
And the reason is, is because
we go back to the nervous
system and it's dysregulation.
And so for those people who may not
be familiar with that term, we have,
we have a nervous system that actually
keeps us alive and runs our life for us.
We.
Run it subconsciously.
Cause it just, it runs our body.
So thankfully we don't
have to think about it.
Can you imagine if we actually
had to think about keeping our
heart beating while we're sitting
here having a conversation,
Julia would be just way too much.
I'd have to stop talking to you
and tell my heart to keep beating.
So thankfully like it runs by itself.
So we call that subconscious
or unconscious, whichever
word you want to use.
And the nervous system then runs our body.
It runs our life.
It runs our, our, our physiology, our
biology in order to keep us alive.
And so what happens is that when
we start to feel unsafe in life, It
goes into a state of dysregulation
where that's literally, the
problem is that we don't feel safe.
Our body does not feel safe.
We don't feel safe.
And we experienced that as, oh,
I'm stressed or I'm anxious, or
some people don't even realize
it because honestly, Julie, like
this has always been their life.
You ask them like, are you stressed?
No, I'm not stressed at all.
Right.
What are you talking about?
Like.
And then they tell me about their lives
and I'm like, okay, now I'm stressed.
I'm stressed for you.
Yes, exactly.
So we, you know, we've, we've come to just
live with this so long that we don't see
it as anything other than this is just me.
This is my personality.
This is the way that I've always been.
And we don't realize, well, actually
that's not who you really are.
That was a result.
Of your nervous system,
adapting to life experiences.
And now it has stayed in that
adaptation because it thinks
that you're still in danger.
It thinks that it's still needing
to keep you safe and keep you alive.
And so we can see that these all these
adult diseases are not because of events.
have nothing to do with the events
because there's many people who have
those diseases, Julie, you know, this,
especially with the work that you
do, that don't have those specific
events, but they have other things.
They have other things that
happened in early life that created.
Baseline sense of, I
don't know if I'm okay.
I don't know if I'm safe.
I don't like to be in my body.
It's not a safe place to be.
It's not a comfortable place to be.
I like to be in my head.
I like to think a lot.
I like to talk a lot.
I like to read a lot, whatever it is.
And, but that baseline nervous
system dysregulation that we try
to avoid and we use all these
coping mechanisms to not feel.
That's what creates this disease
decades later decades, right?
Like we're talking even the
auto-immune stuff, right?
Oh, especially.
Especially the autoimmune stuff, right?
Like decades later and
it's not, oh my goodness.
What happened in the last year
that you're developing this?
Auto-immune no, it's what
happened 20 decades ago.
And it's stuff that you're
not going to remember.
This was mostly pre-verbal and this
is where, like, it just, ah, like
I, I want to shout this from the
rooftops because there's so much
that happens in early childhood.
That becomes a trauma that is just
normal practices for parenting and
our normal social life that we don't
realize that it is traumatizing
to a baby's nervous system.
And so we think we're doing a great job
as parents and yet what we're seeing.
No, my child does have anxiety.
My child does have
whatever, whatever it is.
And we're not seeing that underneath
all of that is this biology of trauma
that has started and will result in
auto-immunity in their twenties, in
their thirties, in their forties.
It may result in.
You know, pre-diabetes or metabolic
syndrome or these things later on.
And again, it's not events and that's
where, you know, like I, ah, like
I really want to stress that cause
people still seem to want to talk about
events that happened in their life.
And was it a big T trauma?
Was it a little T trauma?
It doesn't matter that it's not the event.
It's your body's experience of that event.
And if that event for you at
that time was overwhelmed.
For any reason, it does not matter.
That was a trauma for you.
And most traumas, we don't even recognize
in the moment our traumas, it's not
until years later, sometimes when we're
seeing these patterns in our nervous
system of Ooh, like, yeah, that's not
a comfortable place for me to go to.
There's a trauma pattern that there was
overwhelmed that has happened in our life.
So I've thrown a lot at you.
I think.
Take a deep breath.
Tell your heart to be breathe.
That's right.
That's right.
Go back to my nervous system, tell
it to have my kidneys work and my
liver work and all this other stuff.
There's a, there's so much in there.
You, you hit, I love you're so amazing.
Pretty much as you were talking every
little thought that that popped up of
like, oh, people talk about it like this
or people, you know, you, you hit it.
All right.
Big T little T real
perceived doesn't matter.
And, and this idea of Simon
to help you shout out.
You know, it's not an, it's not an event.
It's well, so big question.
The big follow-up and I, you know,
I know we wouldn't be talking about
this if this were the end of this
conversation and it was like, oh, so sad.
This all started in early
childhood and we're done.
So how did.
for the rest of your life.
too bad, but I just
wanted you to know why,
exactly.
Yeah.
Now, now we really do need that big bowl
of ice cream and chocolate and brownies.
seriously, seriously.
But, and just to reiterate what you
said, I mean, literally every person
that walks through my door physically
or virtually, I mean, I honestly, I
believe every person to some degree
that's on this planet has this.
Patterning that that needs to be reworked.
But absolutely it's my auto-immune
clients or like you said, my metabolic
clients, my cancer patients might
know people at the clinic that are not
don't have an auto-immune diagnosis.
Any T anybody with chronic illness.
Yes.
We can unwind.
And I know what we were talking about
before we started, whether you think so
or not, whether you're aware of it or not.
And, and so
Well, Julie, even just the fact
that a person has chronic disease or
chronic symptoms that they haven't
been able to control or manage
that in itself is overwhelming at
yes, yes.
when we see, when we use the definition
of overwhelm for trauma, we just,
we literally can interchange the
two because that's what trauma is.
Trauma is the body's experience
of overwhelm in a situation.
Right.
So take somebody with pick
any auto immune disease, you
Any
somebody with, with the
fatigue that goes with.
That's overwhelmed.
I mean,
that's overwhelmed.
how, what do I have to do
to accommodate and manage?
You know, when I was laying in bed
while my kids are at school, because
I had to, you know, portion out my
energy, you know, that's overwhelmed.
That's overwhelmed.
yeah, for sure.
So,
Julia, I want to just, I want to just,
ah, emphasize what you're saying so
that people really understand this,
that there are some conditions and
diagnoses that are very much in the box.
And under that umbrella of clearly
like a trauma response, which
I called the freeze response.
And it's what we've been talking about.
Automated.
Autoimmunity is the freeze response
is a chronic freeze response.
Chronic pain is a freeze response.
Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia.
All of those are diseases, conditions,
symptoms that are classified
as freeze and trauma response.
And the nervous system is more in
that freeze response than actually
it is even in the stress response.
So I talk about like it almost
being a spectrum where you can be
stressed for a long time, right?
Say you're a castle guard and you're
out there and you're, you're on guard.
You're on guard, but how
long can you stay on guard?
If they don't feed you, if you're not
allowed to sleep, you don't get any rest.
No one changes you out.
Like you can only stay in
chronic stress for so long.
And then you just crumble you collapse.
Like you literally can't stand up anymore.
That collapse is the freeze response.
And that is where autoimmunity,
chronic pain, chronic fatigue,
fibromyalgia, all of those
conditions lie under that category.
I love that.
And again, you preempted me.
I wanted to, I, I want
to talk a little bit.
More about freeze response that
I love the, I will always think
of the castle guard now forever.
But when people hear stress and what we
talk about chronic stress, most commonly,
we hear, you know, fight or flight, right.
Or.
Fight flight freeze.
And so, and that's what you're
talking about is, you know,
these are these responses.
And again, I always say we're, we are
made beautifully for acute stress.
Like our body is designed so perfectly
to run from a tiger, like really, but
living on this planet with all the little
chronic stressors or big, or, you know, or
Or just constant, right?
Like the constant low grade.
Yeah.
How long, how long can you hold up that
Boulder of fear before you crumble,
Yeah.
Or you have four different little things.
Maybe they don't, you know,
right?
Yeah.
But that, that's another thing where
we've just been taught wrong, right?
Like we've been taught
wrong the time heals.
Cause it doesn't, it just further
ingrains it into our coping mechanisms.
Love does not heal.
And then the other one is that fight
flight or freeze are all the same.
And they're not.
And I think that when people have not
understood this freeze response and
have lumped it all into stress as by
finding freeze is all stress we've
really done ourselves a disservice
because all of these conditions and
symptoms that are part of the freeze
response, we're using the wrong tools.
Cause we're trying to use the tools for
stress and they're not going to work.
This is the freeze response.
It's completely different
physiologically than the stress response.
Well, so you just so beautifully
led me to, what are those
tools, which should we be doing?
What can we be doing?
Cause we're not going to sit down
and eat a bowl of ice cream men.
Pretend it's not going on
Well, what about, can I sit
in front of a movie and just
binge watch movies then Julie.
a movie.
You can watch a movie.
Can I get on my phone and just do social
Oh, gosh, please.
Don't
because of how everybody
else looks perfect.
And they're, you know,
whatever with their family.
And can I,
give you a shovel.
You can just keep digging.
the things that we do to ourselves, right?
Like I don't even need anybody
else to shame me and criticize
Oh gosh, no.
I've got that on my own.
Thank you though.
Yeah, exactly.
Nobody could do it better than I.
All right.
So the freeze response is the freeze
response needs time, and it needs energy.
You can think of the freeze response is
literally like a shock to the system.
And perhaps a person in your
audience has had a moment like that.
Where what came at them was so
much so fast that they literally
felt like they had a shock.
Some people describe it
as a kick to the gut.
Right.
And boy, boy, Julie, would that be
a talk that we could have the gut
and the Vegas nerve and intuition
and how that's all trauma stuff.
So there's, there's different
ways that we can experience
the freeze response, but it is.
It's that shock.
Like it is like this overwhelming
Boulder that comes down and crushes us.
We want to just curl up into a ball.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Some people go to bed early.
Some people don't want
to get out of bed, right?
Like that's the freeze response.
The overwhelm is the freeze response.
When we have to caffeinate
in order to get going.
That's the freeze response because
in the freeze response, it's this
exhaustion, it's this low energy.
Strategy in order to conserve energy.
I mean, that's how our nervous
system is trying to help us survive.
It's like, Ooh, I've got
to conserve energy for you.
And so that's the strategy,
but it feels very heavy.
So people's body will feel heavy,
heavy, heavy, and the freeze response
needs time and energy in order to
come out of the freeze response, the
body will go from the freeze response.
Back to what?
Put it into the freeze response.
I would love to be able to tell people
that, oh, you just come out of the
freeze response and you go out and
it's just roses and angels and, you
know, rainbows and clouds and sunshine
through those clouds and all of that.
Right?
Like, but no, then the freeze
response, what put it into the freeze
response, it's going to come right
back into that fear, that anxiety.
The terror that put it into the freeze
that was overwhelming in that moment.
So then we talk about, okay,
well then what does that need?
Because most people, Julie will
come out of the freeze response.
They haven't done anything to
actually manage what put them there.
And so they're facing that big fear again.
And their body is like, oh, hell no.
And it goes right back
into the freeze response.
So that people are literally going
back and forth between stressed and
overwhelmed, anxious, and depressed,
running wired, and then exhausted
and tired all in the same day.
I mean, and then think about the
dysregulation of your nervous system
and think about the health consequences
of that type of back and forth all day
where the body is literally being told.
Okay, go, go, go, go, go.
We've got a tiger chasing us.
And no pretend that your debts,
that the tiger won't notice us.
Awesome.
I'm exhausted you.
I, these last, like two minutes of
it just worn me out, just feeling
that, you know you know, I'm familiar.
We all are, and there
can't be anybody listening.
That's not familiar in some way,
shape or form with that past.
And that's why I think like this could
literally change people's lives because
it's something that we all experience
and yet we have not understood.
And if we understood it, we would know
what tools to use to help ourselves.
So I have a whole sheet, a whole guide
for people on how to support your system
when you're in the freeze response,
because knowing that your body has shut
down, There's certain things that you can
bring in to support your biology, to then
help it come out of that freeze response.
Those are going to be
different than the stress.
And this is where, you know, it still gets
me all fired up and angry when people go
into their doctor and their doctor's like,
I think your symptoms are anxiety related
and I want you to do stress management.
I'm sorry.
What does stress managing?
What does that mean?
You know, like, does
that mean go meditate?
Does that mean go do yoga because
I guarantee you that people who are
further along in the spectrum, they
meditation will actually make their
symptoms worse if they can even do it.
Because again, like their body is not
a comfortable place for them to be,
they don't want to drop into their
body and for good reason, right.
safe.
It's not safe and asking them to
do something that is not safe.
I am just further promoting the
freeze response in their body.
So we're literally having great
intentions and yet telling people
to do things that are furthering,
deepening them in their trauma self.
Ooh, ouch.
Right?
Like, and I did that right
before I knew better.
That's how I was trained as a
physician is, you know, like, oh,
definitely recognize when your
patients have an emotional component
to their disease and then refer them
to therapy and stress management.
Right.
And that was considered the best of the
best of trauma informed medical care.
Ooh, ouch.
And now that I know what I know,
I'm realizing not like those
things actually contribute.
More trauma.
And this is where, this is where I
would love for people to understand
this because if they already
have chronic symptoms, Julie.
And they are experiencing a
flare up of those symptoms.
When they go do a certain therapy, that
is the wrong, the wrong, it might be the
right therapy, but at the wrong time, they
might be doing too much too fast, or they
might be trying to do something that would
be good for the stress response, but not
for the freeze response and to listen to
their body, don't think like, oh, I'm,
you know, something else must be going on.
No, your, your nervous system
is dysregulated and what you
just did further dysregulated.
It, it wasn't ready for that.
That was too much for it.
We, we do need to do work and we
need to do it in a very gentle
and safe and effective way.
So that's why I designed a 21 day
journey so that people could follow
an essential sequence of exercises.
In order to not have a flare up of
their symptoms as they are starting
to do this work the whole first week
is just on teaching them exercises.
Very short, very simple exercises
that will help them actually
feel safe in their body.
I'm not talking about their psychology
and then doing a ma a mantra or an
affirmation about, I feel safe in my body.
I feel safe in my body.
I do feel safe in my body.
Right.
Cause they don't, we, and we don't,
we don't even know what it feels
like to feel safe in our body.
So it all is about the body's experience.
Not what the mind is, is
necessarily telling us.
Cause that's not where trauma is.
Trauma is stored in the body.
And the body in order for it to move
out of this freeze response, it has to
feel safe and we need tools to do that.
So that's the whole first
week of the 21 day journey.
The second week is bringing in support,
why support because when we come out of
that freeze response and we're now in
some of the anxiety, the stress response
needs support, and it needs a strategy.
That's what the that's, what
the stress response needs.
It needs to know that someone has my back.
I'm not alone.
I've got someone that I can call.
I've got someone who's
holding my hand through this.
I've got support because without
support, we feel like it's too big
and we go into the freeze response.
Yeah.
We also
more overwhelmed.
right?
There's the overwhelm and
it's this cycle of overwhelm.
Exactly.
The stress response also needs strategy.
And this is where I think many
people have not understood this
aspect of the stress response.
The stress response is a high
energy state intended, like you
said before intended to run from.
And so if we stop running from
the tiger, we actually go into
overwhelm in the freeze response.
because now the Tiger's going to eat
Cause now the tiger is going to eat it.
And yet, how many times do we
just kind of procrastinate?
And we're like, well, since I don't
know how to do this perfectly, I'm
not going to do anything at all.
And then we've just put ourselves
into the freeze response.
And so the stress response needs action.
It needs movement and it needs a strategy.
And so taking.
An action, even if it's the
smallest step, I don't care.
Right.
And that's what I tell
my people all the time.
Just take the next best step.
You don't need to have the whole path
figured out, but I do need you just
to take the next best step with me
so that you don't go into that freeze
response and we can stay managing.
And supporting your, your body through
this stress response so that then
we can find the reverse engineer it,
and it lands in the parasympathetic.
Hah, what a lovely place to land.
Right?
That's notice both of us
just took a really deep,
spontaneous breath with us, like,
I'm so glad you finally got us there.
That's what happens, right?
Like we have these spontaneous, deep
breasts with the parasympathetic response.
We do feel safe.
We do feel that, you know, like right
here right now, everything is okay.
I am okay.
And what a shift that is from the
stress response or the overwhelm
and that trauma response.
It's amazing.
And that's where the healing is.
Period.
That is where the healing is.
I.
I want, I tell, I want to talk about
everything you just said, but I
don't want to highlight two sentences
out of all of that, that I want to
make sure that listeners caught.
And one is what was it?
Wow.
Go, Julie.
Oh, listen to
all the time.
to your body, listen to your body.
And I know this is part of the
process because I know when you're.
When you're stuck, you can't hear you.
I mean, that's, that's all part of
the, you know, you're not in your
body, it's a defense mechanism.
But like you said, when you're, when
you do, it's the same as if you're
picking up a physical exercise
routine, if you go out, you exercise
and it flares, you know, don't do it.
Stop back it up.
You're actually creating more damage.
Yes.
It's not a good thing.
So it's the same thing.
Anything that you do?
That's your body communicating to
exactly.
Listen to it.
And let me just encourage people that
with the work that I guide them through
with addressing the biology of trauma,
they can increase their window of
tolerance so that they are able to do
more and not experience that flare ups.
It's a process.
exactly.
So what you start with, if your
narrow window of tolerance gets
bigger, as long as we're doing it
in the right way, following the
right steps in the sequence of that.
Yeah, and I love that you said,
you know just take the next best
step and it, and it can be tiny.
I always say it should be tiny, you know,
we don't, it doesn't need to be scary.
We don't need to be adding more to this.
And then the other thing that you
said that I just have to highlight
is the trauma is stored in the body.
And we know this and there's
so much science behind it and
you know, it's not woo, woo.
It may sound woo woo.
There.
And it's been studied for so long.
That's the that's the amazing part is
what seems to me later in my life, maybe
not this year, but as aha, like, oh
my gosh, trauma is stored in the body.
It's like, oh gosh, they've
known that for so long.
Best kept secret.
It's not in your head, it's in your body.
So I just, I wanted to circle back because
I think that those two things, you know,
learning to listen to your body, I always
say, even if you take it just as the
physical symptoms, you look at somebody
in my audience with auto-immunity.
If we don't, if we don't
listen, it will get louder.
Does.
And so that goes with healing modalities.
Listen to what your body's telling you.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can either wait
until something happens.
Like what Julie and my story is with
our health, where we experienced
the crash, or you could start
listening to your body earlier and
Yes.
you're headed towards that and
get off the different paths.
But if, if you want to learn the hard
way, like Julia and me, you know,
Hey, we can show you
that route once a week.
We know that path as well.
That's all.
There's a, it's a, I'm
gonna, I'm gonna one up you.
It's a better path.
People.
I promise it's a much better
path and yes, I always get.
You know, people say, well,
you know, who's your favorite
kind of client to work with?
And I'm like, yeah, like, you know,
everyone, because I love when people
who were on that same path, we were
on, you know, for years and years, and
years and years turn it all around.
That's so satisfying.
But then those people who are so
brilliant and they're like, Nope,
I'm not going down that path.
That's so satisfying also.
it is because we can prevent so much
pain and challenges and hardship,
Yes.
but if you need to hit rock bottom, Hey,
you got Julia and me as examples for you.
there you go.
There you go.
Well, and the good news is if you have
already hit rock bottom and you're
listening to this, it's not too late.
No, not at all.
So that's the beauty of
There is
I have so much more.
I want to ask you, so I'm going
to ask you if you will come
back and we can do a part two.
Would love that Julie would love that.
That would be amazing because
we are just about out of time.
And I'm so excited to hear how you're
going to answer my final question,
which is because I find that I'm always
surprised what is one step that listeners
can take today to start to improve their.
The one step that I would invite
your audience to take is actually
to start holding their heart.
Oh,
So you can try a different ways.
You can put both hands over your heart.
I even would want you to experiment
and mint around with, do you like your
right hand vendor or do you like your
left hand and your right hand over?
I want you to find what feels.
Better for you.
There's no right way to do it.
So just what feels better.
And then what I do is that I
will even take one hand sometimes
and put it behind my back.
And so then my heart has the front
and the back support and that's just
delicious, like talk about yumminess.
It's just like my heart feels held.
It feels protected.
And for me, that's such a simple.
Quick easy way for me to just,
again, no matter what's going
on, it's just like, I've got you.
I've got you.
Right?
Like I don't even need to talk to it.
Cause sometimes when I was first
starting, it was too much to talk to my
just was going to go there
So don't need to talk.
Sounds so simple and you can, and I
can do this and tap in and it's yummy.
You said, you said it it's yummy.
And I see it all the time.
This is one of those.
You got a baby step.
It, people you'd be amazed because
it puts you in touch with those
things that you run away from.
But all the really good
things too, that are hiding.
So I love that.
See, I had no idea you
were going to go there.
That was awesome.
Yay.
Hold you.
Hold your heart.
Hold your heart.
I'm going to play around
experiment around with
how to hold your heart.
Don't just hold your
heart, like experiment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'll invite out, I'll invite you to
really drop into your heart when you're
holding it and feel what that feels like.
I love that.
So before we wrap up, we're going to
have all kinds of links in the show
notes so people can find you, but for
those that listen on the go, where's
the best place for them to find.
Oh, yeah.
So they can come find us over at
trauma healing, accelerated.com.
We've got a biology of
trauma summit that we do.
We've got the 21 day journey, of course.
So we've got lots of things for
people to learn more and jump in.
If they're ready to actually
put this into practice.
And that would be the place to find
this trauma healing accelerator.
Love it.
Dr.
Amy, thank you so much.
What you have shared today
is just as invaluable.
And like I said, we're not done.
We need more.
We want you to come back, but thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Julie.
Thank you for what you're doing.
For everyone listening.
Remember you can get the
show notes and transcripts by
visiting inspired living.show.
I hope you enjoyed this
episode as much as I did.
I will see you next week.