What is C-PTSD?

Today we are revisiting, the foundation of this podcast and what has driven our lives in the realms of our lived experience, our healing, and what we know to be true, through working with our nervous systems to heal our complex trauma. We're starting today, re-releasing this series from a different altitude of where we are now. So, the question today is, what is

CPTSD? Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which includes five distinguishing components: toxic shame, a harsh inner critic, emotional flashbacks, chronic self abandonment, and social anxiety. Perhaps you identify with one of them, maybe multiple of them and as we explore them individually after this podcast, you'll start to find yourself in it a little bit more. Not only that, what you can do about it? We're also going to

offer you resolution. Welcome to, Trauma Rewired, the podcast that teaches you about your nervous system, how trauma lives in the body, and what you can do to heal. I'm your co host, Jennifer Wallace, a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and integration guide, bridging the incredible modalities of your nervous system and your sacred spaces.

I'm Elizabeth Kristof, founder of Brain Based Wellness, an online community where we use applied neurology, somatics and trauma informed embodied meditations, to help resolve old patterns in the nervous system, to heal trauma creating more resilience and capacity. I'm also the founder of the, Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification, an online accredited course for coaches, therapists and healers that brings the nervous system into their

work. You're going to hear us offer you this multiple times throughout our recording, but you can join us at, rewiretrial.com for two free weeks on the, Brain Based Wellness Membership site, where we offer all of the tools that we're going to talk about today. Amazing! I really hope people will hear themselves in these conversations, learn a little bit more about themselves and their nervous system, and then take us up on getting some practical, actionable

tools to start creating change. I want us to just talk a little bit about, l why we're re-recording this series. It was a big deal when we made the decision to dive into complex trauma on the podcast, and it kind of put us on the map when we were starting all of this work. You know, at that time, the podcast was pretty small. We were babies in this work and we put the information out as we knew it then. It led to a huge amount of growth, because people were really hungry to hear this

information and to learn more about themselves. But we've come a long way because we're always researching and learning too. We've had a lot more experience with clients unique nervous systems. We've run multiple cohorts of NSI, and so there's a lot more that we have to say about these topics. I think a lot of people, too, have joined the podcast since these were released, and they may have never heard these old episodes that are really foundational for a lot of the stuff that we

talk about. So I wanted to make sure that people were getting this information, if you're newer to this community. Absolutely. I don't know that we knew what we were really putting out there in terms of Season 2 defining Complex Trauma; what it looks like and how it shows up. Then, we began to witness this huge community growth within the Brain Based

Wellness site, but also within our worldwide community. I think what we're seeing right now is that the mental health industry in general, has failed us. It has failed, the population and the community in a lot of big ways. By not recognizing Complex Trauma in the, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, aka DSM, and witnessing Complex Trauma is a direct challenge to our

society. It truly calls out social dynamics that are rooted in interpersonal violence and objectification on a really broad scale. To see the failures of our social dynamic, our cultural dynamics and our financial dynamics in this country is brings up a lot in the system, and we are a lot of little babies out there with Complex Trauma, that these foundational systemic structures in our company are

built on complex trauma. I think this podcast does and what NSI does is it starts to offer a shift in understanding why we are the way that we are and why everyone is the way that they are. Because as you start to learn about your own nervous system, you just start to have a basic understanding of nervous systems. You can see people's outputs and the way that we're shaped and that is very

empowering. It really is. So, one of the very first things I wanted to talk about, is that we're making a shift with our languaging around, Complex Trauma in general, because, as you were just speaking to, what impacts our nervous system are experiences and systems that are really damaging. There's not anything wrong with us for having these outputs, for having these protective responses when we have experienced what we have, when the world isn' tconducive to nervous system health for a lot of

people. We're questioning, calling it disordered and putting that label on ourselves all of the time. We talked about this in our conversation with, Piper Rose about the impact of labelling - when I'm constantly referring to myself as disordered, even though it's my brain and my nervous system working in a really healthy way to try to protect me and keep me alive,

given the experiences that I've had. So, we're going to be referring to Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as Complex Post Traumatic Stress, CPTS, and kind of lifting the label of, "Disordered" off ourselves. I think that gives people so much power back - it' an offloading of a weight. In that conversation with Piper, it's as if you put a bunch of stuff in, it gets baked, then something comes out and this is what you get. Why is that a disorder? It's not. That's just me shaping my nervous

system to survival. Yes, 100%. Would you tell us a little bit about the label, CPTS? Who defined it, and give people some broad definitions of what this is? Sure. Originally, in the 90's an American psychiatrist, Judith Herman coined the term Complex Trauma and it was in her book, " Trauma Recovey". This is from the book, "The diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder does not fit accurately enough. In survivors of prolonged, repeated trauma, the symptom's picture is often far more complex".

So that's what CPTS is - a prolonged state of trauma, chronic trauma, and it doesn't even have to have a, "Big T" on that trauma. It is the environment that your nervous system has been developing in, and it can include, ongoing emotional neglect or physical neglect. It's the absence of care that we needed. It could also be, "Big T" traumas - ongoing sexual, physical,

or emotional abuse. Later, Pete Walker, author of," Complex Trauma - From Surviving to Thriving", developed the five distinguishing characteristics that we're talking about: emotional flashbacks; inner critic, toxic shame, self abandonment, and social anxiety. Learning about this was huge! It was really life changing, and so affirming. It gave us a mirror to look into which we saw ourselves reflected in that book, giving us the opportunity to feel seen

- understanding ourselves differently. We've spent a lot of time studying these characteristics in this series and are going to explore the somatic and neurological components of each of these characteristics. Yeah, it was huge! Learning about this and developing that different relationship to myself. At its most basic level, we want to think about trauma as an overwhelm of the nervous system. Trauma overwhelms our capacity

to cope, and adapt. From an NSI perspective, this means that the intensity of the stimulus coming in the experience that we have is such, is so big that our nervous system, our brain, our body cannot adapt to the stressor in a healthy and integrated way. When we look at trauma from this perspective, we're not just looking at the emotional response, even though that's part of it, but the whole physiological reaction and nervous system response that changes our brain

function. It changes our posture, it changes our movement abilities and our emotional experience. Complex Trauma, is experiencing trauma over time, especially during development, and the changes which occur in the nervous system causing imbalance which keeps us from being able to adapt to stress or integrate memories or emotions. And it is those changes. It's really HOW our system is patterned, because of the experiences that limit our capacity to be present,

connected or self expressed. It's how our system has adapted to survive in threatening environments, especially where our attachment needs or emotional needs or even physical safety needs weren't met. It's not just one obvious trauma, but we've referred to it in here many times, as the water that we were swimming in. How the environment and our relationships,

shape us. As we talk about those long term neurological impacts of trauma, we reflected on it impacts our ability to integrate information - leading to dissociation, compartmentalization of ourselves, repression, emotional repression, and the integration between all these parts of our brain and our nervous system, our

limbic system, our survival, mind and our body. It's really fascinating. I wish I knew exactly the date that we had recorded this series to begin with, because just a few months ago, in November 2023, I was sitting with one of my immersion clients and we were talking about growing up. I said, that I used to have Complex Trauma. I just said it. I had to sit there for a minute. I was like, oh, wait a minute. I mean, I think I do still have complex trauma. It's

just that it is so different. The way that I experience my day to day mind and body, the way that I live now is so different. It's a complete 360. The way I feel the world and my harsh inner critic. It's so rare I feel such harshness. Now, the shame seems to have moved from, toxic to just kind of regular shame. It's easy to work with and I can move it right along. I do know

that I recently experienced an emotional flashback. In 2023, I went to visit friends in Florida and was propelled back into a state of my 20's. It was really intense. Bu,t that was a year ago and there is, let me tell you, there's not enough money in the world for me to self abandon. I feel we're really different from even when we recorded that series originally. As you were talking about earlier. I still experience shame, sometimes. I'll have an emotional flashback, but

the difference is that I don't get stuck anymore. There's always a part of me that looks at the experience with altitude. I'm able to stay somewhat in my higher order thinking systems and see what's going on, know, understand myself, understand the experience and I'm able to move through it, processing the emotions. Yes, those old emotions will occasionally, resurface. Yes, dysregulation happens, but I have the tools to work with my body and come out on the other side so

that I can keep growing and moving forward. Whereas in the past, for days, weeks, months, years, I could get stuck in some of these state, flailing around without understanding what was going on and without having any tools to know what to do about it. God, it was so painful. It was so painful to be completely shut down out of my body, frozen.-my complex trauma would take me out. The world felt

so very overwhelming. We're going to keep repeating to you - it's about a daily intentional nervous system training practice, because there are real health ramifications through the somatic component of Complet Trauma and the somatic issues associated with complex trauma. That's just meaning, like, there's health issues that come with this, these really high states of chronic stress, because that's really what we're talking about, high states of chronic stress over a

long period of time. This is damaging. It really leaves us in a nervous system state where we're not capable of staying present, we're not capable of taking in the sensory stimulus, staying grounded in our bodies, making decisions and being able to process our emotions. It also shapes how we can plan for the future, it changes the whole lens through which we're seeing the world when we're stuck in these states. It's hard to

know your lens has changed when you're in that place. It can lead to future consequences, health consequences, and lack of feeling connected with the present moment. Disruptions, especially if it's all you've known, as you're just creating the world around you and this continuous cycle of emotional flashbacks is literally, changing your world. You're moving in and through a world - imagine putting a colored pair of glasses on and just being , "Oh, let me see the world

through my complex trauma today". That could be years of your life. It was years for us that we went on through that and had some very dangerous coping mechanisms. Through food, through alcohol, recreational drugs, relationships. Relationships were so dangerous, too. It was not safe. It just wasn't. It didn't feel safe, but it was the patterning of knowing I can survive these relationships. This is what I know is repeating these unhealthy relational patterns for what I thought was love.

But it all came back to me, hiding so much of who I was. I was attracting what made sense at the time. That probably has a lot to do with emotional flashbacks. 100%. I want to flesh out for people a little bit more, the difference between PTSD and Complex PTSD so they have an understanding of the difference between the two. Complex Trauma is different from PTSD, because it's chronic. We've talked a lot about how there's a really big difference between acute and chronic stress. You

know, we all need a little bit of stress. A little bit is good. We need it to adapt and grow - it's how our body adapts and experiences change. An example is, you're working out, stressing your muscles out a little bit so they repair, then you get stronger and you need that change. But, you also have to have the rest and the repair time in order for that change to occur. If the stress is chronic, then there's no time to repair. There's no time to positively adapt and it becomes damaging.

We get stuck in these states of dysregulation, inflammation. That's not bad - it's part of our healing process. But, when it's chronic, you're creating that state of chronic inflammation in the body that then leads to disease as humans. It's really important that we're able to modulate between states of activation and rest to stay healthy and grow. If stress is chronic. and ongoing we see later in life, that the outputs we experience because of that trauma are also chronic and ongoing.

The anxiety is chronic. The dissociation then becomes chronic. Right. That's a protective mechanism that sometimes we needed in that moment, but now it's happening all of the time as we experience relationships. So it's how, these stress responses shape our nervous system and our brain becoming chronic. Prolonged stress, because we are neuroplastic and our system is changing in response to the stress, actually changes the way that our brain

and nervous system functions. Our amygdala actually gets large, perceives more threat all of the time, especially in social anxiety causing situations. In social situations, then you'll have social anxiety, the limbic system gets engaged most of the time. The coping mechanisms that we use to regulate and stay safe become these chronic, maladaptive coping mechanisms in the face of ongoing adversity, ongoing

stress all the time. It's the experience, of being in survival mode, on the edge or activated all the time becoming the new normal for the brain and the body. Those new normals getting created through the developmental trauma can come from some pretty heavy events. It could include sexual abuse or incest, ongoing physical or emotional abuse, chronic neglect or abandonment. It could come from medical abuse or medical trauma, from being held captive, from being in a situation of torture. There's

enmeshment or engulfment trauma. Trauma is a type of childhood emotional trauma that involves a disregard for personal boundaries and loss of autonomy between individuals. The purpose of an enmeshment is to create emotional power and control within the family. Children who experience this may feel their emotional needs weren't met due to a lack of individuality or proper roles within

enmeshed families. This type of over-intimacy can become traumatic if children are exposed to inappropriate situations that adults should be protecting them from. Additionally, a measurement trauma can happen when a child is expected to take on adult emotions or responses. I think many of us can relate to having to grow up too soon, too fast,. Or getting those compliments,"You're so grown up for somebody your age".

Maybe I'm presenting that, but I don't have the emotional capacity for this - it's overwhelming for a young person to fill those shoes. Totally. Yes, because we've adapted to show up that, way doesn't mean our nervous system and our body is really capable of handling it. That happens with parentification, as a child is forced to take on the role of the supportive adult within their family,

even though they're still a child. They might be required to take care of their younger siblings or be the referee in their parents arguments. Their parents may put a lot of the financial stress on them or share inappropriate things with their child. This can happen on a spectrum and sometimes it is just the circumstances which may lead to that. Whenthere's a single parent under a lot of stress, it's likely that parentification is going to happen at some point

and those intentions are not malicious. But, it may be traumatic for the child to have to take that on level of responsibility. It can also appear as emotional parentification. If our parents don't have the emotional skills to be able to handle their own emotions and emotionally regulate a lot of those end up getting placed on the kid. This is a chronic role reversal, based on the parents inability to manage their own emotions and to take care of their

child. It's another huge thing happening all of the time to kids that people don't always know about. Of course, it can also look like some other really big things -human trafficking, genocide, living in a war zone... There's this whole spectrum of things that can happen to lead to chronic stress and changes in your nervous system over time. Nutritional supplements don't have to be complicate and that's why I love AG One. I drink it every day and sometimes

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also supports a variation of neural processes. You'll also receive five free AG One travel packets, which are perfect if you're on the road or on the go. The link will be in the show notes. What we're going to lead into in Season 4, is some of the more systemic and structural traumas that we're all experiencing, adding low level threat to our systems every day.

We're going to explore the five characteristics of CPTS in more depth and other symptoms of complex trauma, which could include; flashbacks -somatic, emotional, or cognitive, lapses in memory, difficulty regulating emotions, hyper arousal, that sensation of being on alert all the time, that hyper vigilant state, dissociation, and lapses in memory- time out of the body. It could be depersonalization

or derealization as well. There could be sleep disturbances, nightmares, night terrors, struggling in interpersonal relationships, low self esteem, negative self perception, avoiding people, places, or scenarios that upset you and playing really small Many of thes,e we've actually either recorded on

independently or we are always talking about. We try to talk about the emotional, the physical, and the somatic components of every conversation we talk about, because, like I said in the beginning, Complex Trauma is a foundation of, Trauma Rewired. Yeah, we talk about all of these, all of the time! We really want to put them out here for people to see these kind of symptoms - it helps you to, see the symptoms, recognize yourself and you're able to kind of connect

the dots. Like, " Oh, maybe there's some stuff going on underneath here. This is why all this stuff is occurring". We've spent the whole last season exploring that. Complex Trauma is relational, and that's such a huge component of understanding, CPTS comes from interpersonal relationships. The abuse is usually from a caregiver or someone with whom you have an attachment to. It could be in a domestic abuse situation, shaping the way our nervous

system responds to social connections. We've been exploring how we are constantly interacting with each other. That interaction, nervous system to nervous system, impacts our brain function. We can see how our attachment patterns play such a huge role in our brain function in the past and currently. Ultimately, did we develop in a way where relationship feels safe, where connection is regulating or are we also perceiving threat with connection and moving into states of dysregulation as we

try to build relationships? Do our patterns, the patterns in our own neuromatrix, drive us into relationships that are harmful and dysregulating? Or do we develop relationships where we have support experience intimacy and connection that are really important for our health and our growth, and feel safe exploring the

world around us? Iin that way, Complex Trauma, at its root, is an attachment wound and the long term effects of developmental trauma on our health, the way that our ACE scores impact our health, of creating disease states, or mental health issues, or addiction, all of these can stem from deficits or hypervigilance, or a lens of threat in

our social brain and our nervous system. When we interact with other people in this big web of human connection, the way that we're primed for, attachment really changes what we're experiencing inside of ourselves, inside of our bodies, that our physiology and we are, as human beings, always going to be connecting and in relation to

other nervous systems and other human beings. If we've deep attachment wounds and that relational stress is in our nervous system, it leads to a very heavy chronic stress load all of the time. When a brain is being shaped by chronic stress, it's going to alter the way it functions. We really dove into this topic, when we explored Complex Trauma impacts brain development. But, what's really important to remember here, is that it begins to change and alter the way our brains predict the

future. It's not only affecting me in the present and it didn't only affect me just back then, it continues to shape the worldaffecting my ability, or our ability - your ability, to predict and plan for the future. It's almost as if you're looking through the world through an alternate lens. We talked about a

little bit about this earlier- the, different colored lens. So it's really important and valuable to be talking about this, because there's an altered reality someone with complex trauma lives in, in a moment by moment basi. There's a difficulty preparing and planning for the future, so it just keeps us stuck in a repetitive loop of Complex Trauma where we can't integrate, regulate and can't plan appropriately. So, in considering this, your brain survives

on prediction. It needs and wants to know what it can expect, so it can easily replay things, because you're experiencing a different lens. Then, in that predictive behavior, it knows how to keep us alive affecting our ability to integrate experiences and to be in our body. It's easy to dissociate. If we're integrated, we can be present, be associated with ourself in the present moment physically, emotionally, intellectually, all singing together

in the body in the present moment. Integration is our holistic, felt experience, with all the richness of sensory input. To be able to take in all of that, all of the time, it all makes sense and the prediction changes. Yeah, integration is so key. Right., We've defined Complex Trauma many times on the podcast, as the inability to integrate and regulate into the present moment and if we can't, it robs us of so much of our life - just being present. Being in that other state, looking through that

other lens. We have to be the inherent safety, we seek in the world. That's what comes from a properly integrated brain and nervous system. Safety. That's why we have a daily nervous system practice- so we feel safe in our bodies, creating safety by lowering the threat. With Complex Trauma, we don't have a high level of integration because Complex Trauma is fragmenting - fragments the self and that makes integration super challenging, if available at all. Yes or not at

all. We can experience big peak somatic experiences, but we can't absorb them and integrate. We can go to therapy, but instead of being able to actually process what's coming up, we dissociate. Or it pushes us into a flashbacks -it can make us worse, if we don't have the tools to work with our nervous system. The integration of all the healing work is impossible if our brain, nervous system and our body cannot integrate

our sensory experiences. A lot of times, it's due to dissociation, which we're going to dive into much deeper in another episode that's coming out soon. Emotional flashbacks, as you touched on before is the next episode that we'll

be putting out. But just broadly speaking, from a neurosomatic perspective, an emotional flashback is, a response to a trigger which recreates the emotional and the physiological reaction inside the brain and the body, which occurred frequently in childhood or during a period of prolonged stress. This brings with it those big, disproportionate feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, despair, abandonment - all the things that really color the childhood, and

the developmental experience. It distorts our reality, applies a false lens - we're going to dive much deeper into the neurology of all that in the next episode. It's crazy to reflect on first learning about those emotional flashbacks. exploring, deeply feeling seen and understanding so many periods of my life where I was just living in an altered state. I couldn't understand why, why I was doing fine for a little bit and then now, all of a sudden, for however long and the world

has totally changed. "How did this happen? How did I get here"? I know, I know. From those states, those protective behaviors, I wonder how did I deal with all that? Well, I drank a ton. I ate of a bunch. Yeah... 100% I did it, to cope. I didn't know what was going on. It was like a cell. I didn't realize I was in a self fulfilling prophecy. Almost from the stress load, from my thoughts, from my beliefs, due to my colored lens filter that this must be my truth. This is my world. Yes.

I think it's so important to revisit the fact here, that ALL our behaviors are our brain and our nervous system's are the most adaptive way it's found to get the regulation and the safety that it needs. If I'm in a high stress state all of the time, I'm going to find some way to calm the system down. If I don't have other tools that may end up manifesting as, drinking a bunch, eating a bunch of food to, regulate my nervous system to the rest, digest,

regulated state. It can't sustain that chronic stress load that it's under all the time with CPTS. We're going to explore each of these components individually, just like we did before. We'll talk all about their interplay with one another because it's not possible to just have one of them. They all come together. They mix, they stack on top of one another. All of that is coming in Season 4. We've said several times on the

podcast that it's about having a daily nervous system practice. So, let's get into what do we do to develop a practice. I think learning all of this information - hearing it is great, but it can be a little bit overwhelming if we don't understand that there are also things to do about it. It's different understanding how the nervous system works and actually being able to work with the nervous system. It's much more empowering to actually be able to

work with the nervous system. We have to remember, we're neuroplastic beings. This means we're changing and adapting all of the time to the stimulus coming in. It's possible to start re-patterning ourselves, if we understand how our nervous system works. All these outputs coming out now with, with CPTS,social anxiety, dissociation, were created through repetition. It was the environment and the relationships over time, creating those changes in

our nervous system. Then, if that's true, if our nervous system can change that way, we can also re-pattern it, through creating safety and regulation repetitively, in these different experiences. I think the first place to start is with altitude. The awareness is like listening to this information, taking it in, starting to understand yourself at a different level and recognizing these outputs are symptoms. They're outputs, NOT who you are

and NOT set in stone. You'll begin to have a different way of looking at your own behavior, allowing more self compassion and a different relationship to self. Maybe an emotional flashback does happen to me sometimes. But, I'm able to stay and look at it from a position of altitude to I understand what's going on and that in and of itself, changes everything. Changes what my experience is. I can understand and recognize that symptoms are outputs can offer so much compassion.

Then, we build on developing self compassion for ourselves and start into a new relationship to ourselves. When we start to make our own bodies safe, we get more present. We get less dissociation, we gain more presence and we build from there. We continue to build on that foundation. It begins with small practices. I love sensory stimulus for this! So much of my own practice is about developing compassion for myself - building that relationship inhabiting and being present with my

body. I had to start touching it. I had to start getting back to it and honoring what had been through, versus denying it, being cruel to it, saying bad things to it. I used to hold on to it in various places and tell it how much I hated it and didn't like it. And what this nervous system practice did for me was help me hold on to my body and think it and understand what it went through and be compassionate and kind in the way I talk

to myself. That was a huge shift in the developing relationship to myself. Absolutely. Practicing. The sensory practice of just touching yourself and making those sensations safe. That's really what applied neurology and neurosomatics is all about. It's about changing the way that our different input systems are taking in information about the world around us. When we're talking about nervous system rehabilitation, we're really looking at it from a very

different perspective. Instead of just looking at the output or the behavior, the reaction, the dissociation, the panic, the anxiety, this, that, the other, all of those are the outputs. Instead, what we're doing is going back and looking at what are the inputs that are

coming into my nervous system. How is my nervous system taking in information about the world around me through my eyes, through the balance system in my inner ear, through my body mapping system, from the system inside of me that tells my brain what's going on? How are those systems functioning? How's that information coming in? How is my brain interpreting that information? What is my brain side about that sensory stimulus coming in? Is it safe

or unsafe? We're engaging the different sensory systems to make them function better so that you're getting clearer, more accurate information about the world around you and from inside your own body. Then we're working to re-pattern how your brain interprets that information. Then, it feels safer with the sensory stimulus. A new output becomes possible, when we train the nervous system regularly. Not only are we making those shifts, but we're decreasing our stress load all of the time

on a second by second basis, by rehabilitating these deficits. Now, I've a lot more capacity in my nervous system to handle these other triggers, to handle other life stressors, to try to change my behavior without getting pushed into protective outputs, because my system is under less stress chronically. It's

what we do at, Brain Based Wellness. So, if you want to start learning how to intentionally rehabilitate the nervous system, then join us at, rewiretrial.com and get that foundational education, because a few other simple tools can really make a big difference. First, you'll learn to assess and reassess each one of the tools we teach you.. This is the reason why we don't blanket give out tools on this podcast or on our social medias, because what works for you might not work

for me and vice versa. What you're going to do, is you're going to start basically three columns. You're going to have a column where you get a positive reassessment and write those tools down. Sometimes you're going to come across a neutral or don't know what happened. We explain and discuss the process thoroughly. Sometimes, you'll come across a tool and get a negative response from it. Your rotation won't improve. You may experience dizziness or nausea. You could experience

pain as an output- that's not your tool. What we're looking for then, is to immediately follow that tool. It's one of your high payoff tools, one of your positive tools. From that list of your positive response high reward payoff tools, you're going to cultivate a practice. You're going to begin regulating in the moment when you need to, in your daily life. Not only developing a daily morning practice, but if something happens, you get an activation, you're gonna be like, oh, I have this

tool. I'm going to use my tool right now and lower my threat. Or maybe you're gonna get on and record a podcast and you want your nervous system to be in a really great state. Oh! I'm going to do my high reward payoff tools before I get in here because I want to show up present using my voice regulated for you, the audience. It's all about re-patterning and creating a new internal response to triggers from that positive list. I was just thinking

the same thing, Jennife. I use the tools all the time, every time before we podcast, so I can show up and be present and afterwards I have tools I use to discharge the stress. Life is stressful, the things we want to do may be stressful. We want to grow and expand. But I have to be able to process stress, move it through my body so it's not building up,up, up, leading to those outputs. As you develop the practice of working with your nervous system, then it

also starts to move into your relational healing. We start to be able to cultivate safer relationships. I'm able to have a difficult conversation or set a boundary or practice being who I really am in a relationship. I have the tools to regulate around that before and after to help restore safety and, and regulation in my nervous system and really re-educate my nervous system through re patterning it's safe, it's okay, you can do

these things. Over time starts to shift how I'm capable of connecting and being around other people. We really stress a lot in our community. We've created this community, because we don't believe in healing alone. We believe healing is relational and communal. I mean, this is your life, so do it with someone. Maybe even get a friend to join the site with you. Or, sometimes it starts with people not even having their cameras on

in the beginning, just kind of getting used to it. Community is also something that sometimes, a lot of us are re patterning because the complex trauma has been so isolating. Even that's a new aspect to your process, to your health. Health is relational, and communal, so we really love being in community with you.

That's why we try to connect more on socials and answer your questions, because it's important to us, we have a healthy relationship with our community, whether it's our online community, through the podcast, or if you're on the Brain Based Wellness membership site with us. The best thing that you can do is to seek support. If you are online looking for this and that practitioner's tools, you might be getting some pretty spotty results. This happens due to the unintentionality

and randomness. What we're talking about and teaching, is intentional training and very intentional learning. You're already learning because you're here. You're with us. As we were saying in the beginning of today's podcast, life looks so different for us that we even question whether or not we have Complex Trauma. Totally. When I first began this journey of learning about Complex Trauma, it was big and it was heavy, it was overwhelming,

it was a huge experience. I already had a background in, neuro education and had been working in applied neurology for a long time. But, I'd never applied it to somatic experiences,therapy and relationships. I was using it for movement and athletics. I didn't know what to expect. I could see that the nervous system was underneath everything. I could see that all of these were

outputs of the nervous system. Was it really going to be enough to have neurotools and neuropractices and work with my nervous system in these other really big areas of pretty extreme experiences that I was having? I will say, for myself and for the many clients we work with, change is real. It's really possible to startand create change in your trauma patterns, in your emotional experience, in your presence and or dissociation, by having ways to work with

the nervous system directly. It also opens the door for all these other beautiful healing practices to have more impact because like we talked about before and you can integrate them. You can also evaluate them and know what really works for your own nervous system because you've learned that. It creates a lot more capacity to then go do all the other things that make resolution of complex trauma safe

and possible. Then, when you're looking for, or if you're looking for a higher level of accountability right now, I suggest you jump online and book a consultation and join the Rewire Community. Get one on one support. There are incredible practitioners that are going to work with you through, Brain Based Wellness. Wherever you're starting in your journey, we have a place for you, a facilitator for you and we have an incredible community for you to join.

I hope that everyone today does., There are so many people just learning that they have Complex Trauma, learning what that means and what that really means, inside of their body and their nervous system. Maybe, reflecting on a lot of their life experiences, how they've shown up in the world. I hope that today, if that's you, you're coming at this from a place of gaining more understanding about yourself, a little bit more self compassion and know there are ways to

work with the nervous system to impact change. You don't have to stay stuck where you're at. Definitely not. You can always reach out to us. We're going to support you and get you into the right level, wherever you're fitting in on this, on this CPTS spectrum. Next up, we're going to be starting this series with emotional flashbacks. So stay tuned, hit subscribe and see you next week. Thank you.