TrueLife - Dr. Christine Gibson - Modern Trauma

Starting point is 00:00:01 Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear, Fearist through ruins maze lights my war cry born from the blaze.

Starting point is 00:00:40 The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your back.

Starting point is 00:01:16 I have with me today, ladies and gentlemen, the modern trauma toolkit. I got some tools for you. I have an incredible individual. So today's guest is a visionary at the intersection of healing, equity, and systems change. Dr. Christine Gibson is a family physician and trauma therapist based in Calgary, Canada,

Starting point is 00:01:35 whose work transcends borders, both literal and figurative. With a career steeped in global health, medical education and equity advocacy. Christine has spent her life weaving narratives that bridge trauma, resilience, and the profound power of story. Her debut book, The Modern Trauma Toolkit, released in 2023, offers a revolutionary approach to understanding and overcoming trauma. But that's just the beginning.

Starting point is 00:02:01 No one to her massive following as TikTok TraumaDot. She's a social media powerhouse with over 130,000 followers using her platform to educate, empower and inspire global audiences. Christine's academic credentials are just as remarkable. Holding a doctorate in professional studies, a master's in medical education, and two TEDx talks under her belt. She's also a WHO-approved social media educator,

Starting point is 00:02:24 a global nonprofit leader, and the force behind safer spaces training. A corporation dedicated to building psychological safety. And let's not forget the Belong Foundation, another testament to her tireless work, creating spaces for healing and growth, get ready to explore how trauma becomes growth, how systems can evolve, and how the power of storytelling might just save us all. Christine, thank you so much for being here today. How are you?

Starting point is 00:02:52 I'm great. I'm sorry, the bio is way too long. Trim that to like 20%. But yeah, on paper, I'm fancy. And yes, I'm very dedicated to systems change and post-traumatic growth. Well, I've got a few questions that are kind of stacking up here. And we're going to bounce around a little bit. We'll get to the book. We'll get to the narratives. We'll get to the personal story.

Starting point is 00:03:16 But let me just start off with this first question right here that's coming into us from Desiree. She says, what happens when the story, okay, she says, you describe trauma as a story that our body holds on to. What happens when the story evolves faster than the body can adapt? Can healing ever outpace the pain? Nice question. Desiree, thank you for starting us off. It's a beautifully phrased question too. I don't think of any of this is linear.

Starting point is 00:03:43 I think of this is really, really circular. And that way you can, like in circles, you can also accommodate for ancestral trauma that we hold and the pre-vroval trauma that we hold and what we will pass on. And the circles also accommodate for, like, it's not just our body. It's our family system. It's the community.

Starting point is 00:04:03 It's the ecosystem. So there's many circles that, hold the trauma. So if it's getting beyond our body, perhaps the family circle or the community circle or even the ecosystem needs to hold it. So I try not to think of these things in really finite systems, but that there's all of these circles of healing and trauma that are happening. And I mean, I can think of a very specific example where that what you're describing can happen. and that's in our First Nations. So in indigenous communities,

Starting point is 00:04:37 I think the trauma did get beyond what could be held by an individual. And so it had to be held by a system. And sometimes it has to be held by the earth. And sometimes it has to be held in ritual and ceremony. That's one community where I think it did get and still continues to be quite overwhelming with the ongoing structural violence they face. Yeah, it's interesting to think of. I love the idea of, well, I get the image of the stone being thrown in the still pond and the way it ripples out when I hear you begin to talk about the circular, the echoes of trauma on some level.

Starting point is 00:05:19 It is like that, though, right? Like, a lot of the traumas people hold aren't, might not even be their own traumas. They might be their mom's traumas or their dad's traumas or their grandfather's traumas. Like, that's kind of an interesting concept. Is that something, when people come to you or you begin talking or maybe your own personal experience, that doesn't, you don't learn that right off the bat though, right? Isn't it sort of struggling with yourself before you start realizing, hey, this thing's not mine? It's one of the reasons when I work with trauma.

Starting point is 00:05:50 I very rarely start with the story because sometimes the story isn't the story. So for two reasons, it can be very triggering and it can actually strengthen the pathways toward traumatic memory and traumatic content to tell your story when you're not in a calm body. So the first goal is to learn how to be in a calm nervous system. And if I say, hey, tell me your trauma story the first time that I meet somebody, we haven't established trust and, you know, we haven't established a path forward. And oftentimes they will be telling that story and strengthening the pathway. So, It's one of the reasons why I don't start with that story unless, I mean, some people will come to me and they

Starting point is 00:06:38 have to tell the story there's like they're compelled to and I will always listen to it. But if I'm making a suggestion of where to start, I start with the body and the nervous system and I start with noticing. Can we notice if you're overactivated or underactivated and that's where the trauma is stuck in the nervous system? And once they learn how to get into the window of tolerance and into a calm body more of the time, that's when we start to approach what the story might look like. And sometimes the story isn't necessarily, this is a thing that happened to me, it's more, this is a feeling that's stuck. So if shame is stuck, if anger is stuck, one of the things that we just know is that might not

Starting point is 00:07:23 belong to you. And it's one of the ways that I really enjoy working with both cognitive or brain-based therapies and somatic or body-based therapies because those kinds of patterns that are inherited through our genes, they're often more amenable to somatic or nonverbal ways of moving them through. And yeah, I'll stop there. But I don't think enough people recognize this. Yeah, we should back up a little because there's a lot of information in there. Maybe we could jump back a little bit to the beginning, and we could talk about what was it that? Obviously, you have been helping a lot of people and you've done some really deep thinking to develop some tools like the window of tolerance and all of these ideas that are probably very helpful to people. But how did you get there? Did you start off maybe figuring out some stuff about yourself or was there a, did you notice a pattern of people coming to you? Or maybe we could, this is probably the foundation of the book as well. But maybe we could talk about that.

Starting point is 00:08:31 a little bit before we jump back forward. Yeah, absolutely. So I have been a family physician for over 20 years and I started in a hospital system, so very, very ill patients, a lot of pain and suffering. And it was a really intense job for me. So when I look back on it in retrospect, it was a fairly traumatic job. I would work 100 hours a week. I would be sleep deprived for a couple of days in a row. And seeing and being a part of the story of a lot of suffering without really an invitation to process it. Because as physicians, you're just told like if something bad happens and this human that you are connected to, you just go to the next room. And so one of the things that I learned, I mean extra, is to stuff my own feelings and to not really acknowledge them and process them. And a lot of us are like that, especially of a certain age.

Starting point is 00:09:28 So I mean, I find that the younger folks are less liable to do that than folks of my generation. And we just push down our feelings and trundle on. So that was my kind of first career path. And then I went into family practice in about 2017. And it was right after I had survived the earthquakes in Nepal. So I'd gone through significant personal trauma in the lead up to me leaving the hospital. And part of that was just this acknowledgement that I'm, feeling overwhelmed and part of that overwhelm was personal there was a marriage that

Starting point is 00:10:04 ended quite badly and then there was the earthquakes and so in Nepal for those who don't know that are listening there was a series of earthquakes starting with a 7.8 that rippled through the Kathmandu valley where I'd been working at the time and it was it was terrifying you know I I really thought I would die. A lot of the buildings around me came down because I was in the old city in Putten. And I didn't really understand what was happening in my mind-body system afterwards. Like I could kind of with curiosity think, well, is this PTSD? What's happening?

Starting point is 00:10:46 But in terms of like really understanding it, I just had to do some research. So I obviously met with a psychiatrist. I got evacuated to Singapore. and he said, what you're having is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. And I hadn't really heard that phrase before. So I started studying. And when you just said the window of tolerance is a new tool, it's not. That's psychiatrist Dan Siegel.

Starting point is 00:11:14 He came up with that. So a lot of what I did in the modern trauma toolkit is I brought together a lot of the thinking that's been happening by a number of different thought leaders. in trauma. And I'm trying to explain to people in a really easily accessible way. So the book is written at a grade eight language and the examples are very inclusive. And they might be softly triggering, but I'm not going to describe events in great detail, which a lot of other trauma authors have done. So what I tried to do is I wrote the book that I knew my patients needed to read. And as I started studying trauma for like eight years, I started focusing on it in my practice. So in my family

Starting point is 00:12:00 practice, I put a lot of my patients through trauma therapies as I was learning them. And they didn't just recover in their mental health conditions. Their physical health improved. And that was what really drove at home to me is if your nervous system is always in fight or flight or sympathetic state, your immune system never has a chance to turn on or your rest and digest, you're sleeping, your digestion, all of these systems are never really in balance. And the way that my patients recovered in my family practice was just so clear to me. They were back in an embodied state. Their parasympathetic state was starting to work.

Starting point is 00:12:42 Things like diabetes and asthma and all these other things were improving. And I thought, wow, trauma is the root of so much of what I'm seeing. And my family practice was in an equity deserving community. They'd been through lots of childhood trauma and lots of systemic issues that happened to them. So now I work primarily at a refugee clinic and in adult addictions. And I still see a very small number of my old family practice patients. So it's really narrowed my focus in terms of seeing, well, who is the most harmed by trauma and not really accessing the help that they need?

Starting point is 00:13:20 And then I keep thinking, well, how can we help trauma at these larger systems? We've all, we're facing climate emergency and natural disasters. We're facing political polarization. We're facing an ongoing pandemic. And people are struggling. And that's why I joined TikTok and it's why I wrote the modern trauma toolkit. It's such a great answer. It's interesting to me that here you are in the stage of your life.

Starting point is 00:13:50 if we take it to the beginning part of the story, and there's all these earthquakes around you. It sounds like a metaphor for your life on some level. Like all the walls just come crashing down and you're like, here we go. It's crazy to think about it. It shook up more than my physical body. Like it shook me up.

Starting point is 00:14:05 Yeah. You think there's a connection to something bigger. Like we spoke just briefly about like the concentric circles and how like the world around us is holding all this energy. Is that like is that a, is it all necessary? Like you know what I mean by that? I know you didn't cause that earthquake, but on some level, was that earthquake a way for you to begin anew, to start a new life?

Starting point is 00:14:27 Like, do you think that there's something bigger happening? And before I answer, I want to acknowledge that at minimum 10,000 people died in that earthquake. Many of them in the Kathmandzi Valley. So it was a devastating earthquake for Nepal, and the repercussions are still rippling out, as you described. The ripples in the pond are still definitely happening. Nepal so I was fortunate to survive and many others didn't. I mean I had the privilege at the time of bringing a lot of awareness to what was happening in the earthquake because for whatever reason I maintained my Wi-Fi connection. So I think part of my purpose in that moment was to bring

Starting point is 00:15:10 attention to Canadians and even the world because I was one of few people who were able to tell the story through my lens obviously and and just say what I was seeing on the ground. So like at that micro level, I think at that moment, there was something that I had a purpose in that event. And it led to my first TED talk is just seeing community come together and solve their own problems. For me, professionally, those ripples definitely continued. And I felt like something that really opened up for me was this connection to flow. And I know when I'm supposed to be going in a direction. And every once in a while, I've got a confused, like right now I was trying to decide about,

Starting point is 00:15:49 a program that I was studying in, do I stay or go? Because the flow wasn't really telling me what direction to go. But I have found that since being in the earthquake in 2015, a friend of mine sent me the TED Talk from Dr. Lisa Rankin. She's become a good friend since then, but she was one of my first teachers in terms of understanding whole health systems. And so that all happened in 2015 within like a week of itself. And then I, the kinds of therapies that I've been studying since and I mean I've certified in the alphabet soup of therapy and that's why I called the modern trauma toolkit because there's just so many tools in there but I just find that these the things that I meant to learn are just showing up in my path

Starting point is 00:16:36 and things like TikTok in the book it's just come in a real flow state and so I'm both learning and sharing and bridging and bending and all of these really interesting things that were definitely not in my path before the earthquake. What led you to go to Nepal? Like, that seems like there's a lot. It seems to me, I've never been there, but it seems to me the Eastern influence holds a lot of potential for Western medicine. Was there something that drew you over there?

Starting point is 00:17:11 I've been doing medical education work overseas since about 2007. So I started working in Laos. through a project between Calgary and Lao. And I was learning a lot through that program, but what it really stimulated me to understand is family medicine is the backbone of health care. And if they don't have strong primary care, health systems really struggle. So that was a lesson I learned in Lao. So I started a nonprofit called the Global Family Med Foundation.

Starting point is 00:17:43 And so I've been doing academic consulting in places like Myanmar, So like Yangon, Ethiopia, throughout East Africa. So Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda. And I had spent about a month to six weeks every year in Lao as a part of that project for eight years. And then I did the same in Nepal. So I would actually live on the ground for four to six weeks. The hospital job did allow me to do that. That was one of the amazing perks of the crazy hours I worked is I could just get a huge chunk of time off and live.

Starting point is 00:18:17 somewhere else. And I mean, when I say that I do academic consulting, so much of it was learning from the locals. And Patent Academy in Nepal has one of the most incredible community-based medical training that I've ever seen. They have all of their students from the year one doing 25% of their training in community, and that includes the rural communities. And I've never seen since a program just so community-oriented as what they're doing in Patten. And what they're allowing for is all of their medical students are comfortable and kind of craving these smaller community village environments where they're really immersed and connected to the people. And in so many other countries, the doctors are like, well, where can I work with, you know, the fanciest machines and the

Starting point is 00:19:05 highest tech and all the subspecialists? But in Nepal, they're like, where can I be in community? And it was amazing. So yeah, I learned a lot in Nepal. And I was definitely drawn to learning In resource poor environments and then taking that knowledge back to Canada where I was doing a lot of medical education and I was running a residency in health equity at the time. Nepal in particular I was drawn to Patton, but I'd been to Nepal before. And, you know, I live in a mountain community in Canada. The Nepali, I mean, there's definitely prairies in Nepal as well. but the mountains are really draw me. And the way that you have to put so much effort into being in community in Nepal

Starting point is 00:19:51 because these villages are so hard to reach. And just seeing how this medical education program was sending students out to these very far villages, and thereby helping them during the earthquake. I mean, there was one village where the medical students were stationed, and after their own housing collapsed during the earthquake, they spent the entire rest of Saturday afternoon and night dragging the patients out of the hospital that was crumbling, and they saved all of them before the hospital fell.

Starting point is 00:20:26 So, you know, the stories that I hear are so, I don't like to use the word resilient because it's, resilience is so often imposed on people, but it really is the story of resilience. And I've been totally honored to hear it in many different venues. Thank you for sharing that. It's it hits me on a lot of levels. My wife and her family are 100% Laotian.

Starting point is 00:20:53 And so I got, I get up to all these cool stories of Lao and the families come over and talk about all these amazing time. One of my uncles on my, on my wife's side, we were talking a couple weekends ago. And he was telling me like how grateful and how thankful he used to be here. He goes, you know, George, there's one question that I asked myself in Lao and one question that I ask myself here that are exactly the same, but have a different meaning. I go, what is it? And he goes, what are we going to eat today? In Lao, you ask yourself, what are we going to eat today?

Starting point is 00:21:22 There's no food where we were at. And here, I'm like, what are we going to eat today? We want to get some steak. We want to get some chicken. You know what I mean? He just said it with this gregarious smile and you could feel the warmth, radiating off of and I was like, whoa, that is a real foundation. of community right there when you're dealing with different daily expectations of how life is and

Starting point is 00:21:46 what life means and there is something real about community there when you are when you're in a tight-knit community where everyone on some level has shared goals and shared sacrifices you know you're not worried about buying a tesla or going to Costco you know there's there's bigger problems and there's more important problems and more human problems on some level it's we're foundation problems. And I do think like the trauma in Lao, I didn't recognize it at the time because my radar wasn't really on it, but the most unexploded ordinances or landmines in the world exist in Lao. And I heard that story often because to this day, children will be walking through a minefield and have an explosion. And so one of the things that I saw in Lao that I've never seen anywhere else, was just a lot of amputations and harm. And it's ongoing because even though the Americans dropped everything, they did not come and clean it up.

Starting point is 00:22:45 So they called it the secret ore because they dropped more mines into Lowe than they did Vietnam during that time. So that is a trauma that lives on in the mulberry trees. Like the silk industry was like the backbone of a lot of Lough agriculture. And they had mulberry farms. but because so much chemical agents were dropped in the country, they lost two or three generations of mulberry trees because they couldn't grow, and then they lost the ability to weave silk

Starting point is 00:23:17 because they lost the generations that knew how to do it. So one of the things that I saw that was connected actually to a maternity waiting home where women that were pregnant were waiting in a larger center so that they could deliver their child safely, and they were teaching these women how to weave. So like when you talk about those circles, Like there were these circles of traumatic events that happened that wove through the generations. And you can also see the healing and what I would call post-traumatic growth weaving back in.

Starting point is 00:23:47 And I didn't have the words for it then. But when I looked back on my experiences and loud, that was very much what I was saying too. Are there some particular areas of the book that are connected to that particular part of your life? I didn't get really personal about it in the modern trauma toolkit, but I've traveled to, I mean, at this point, I think it's closer to 80 countries. It was about 60. Now it's closer to 80. So I'm very much interested in both what did our ancestors know? Like what did my Ukrainian and Scottish ancestors know about healing that we have forgotten and we could accommodate into the healing paradigm? And what do other cultures do? for healing because in Western culture, we're so quick to turn to medications. And I'm of the personal belief that medications don't do a lot for trauma. What they do is they mask symptoms.

Starting point is 00:24:42 So I could give you a medication called Prazacin. And it's a blood pressure medication. And it's going to lower your blood pressure and it's going to change your dreams to be more calm because you no longer think that your body is activated. But all I'm doing is lowering your blood pressure at nighttime. I'm not changing the neural pathways in your mind. Whereas other cultures, they have community ritual like dancing in a circle or chanting together. And now I understand the physiology about why chanting works and why doing it in a group works even better

Starting point is 00:25:15 because you're lengthening your exhale, which is your parasympathetic system. The chanting is vibrating your vagus nerve, which runs between your lungs and your spine. And you co-regulate in a group and you actually, your mirror neurons will activate and group processes. This is something that one of the journalists that I quoted calls the extended mind. The extended mind is deeply healing. And we have so many cultural patterns that have been with humans for millennia and in modern times we've lost them. So one of the things that I do explore in the modern trauma toolkit is what did we know through ancient ways and what do we know through other cultures. I've studied Ayurvedic counseling, so that's the Vedic texts in

Starting point is 00:26:04 India and 10,000-year-old knowledge. I've studied Qigong with a guy out of Minnesota, actually, Spring Forest Qigong is how to take the healing practices and make them really easy and simple. He calls it, Master Lin calls it a healer in every home. So I'm really interested in how these ancient techniques can be relearned. And I think we need to do that because we don't have a pill for what's happening to us right now. We don't have a pill, but we have some mushrooms. Like I've been working a lot and they're readily available. I'm not a doctor. I'm not saying people should do them. But I spent a lot of time in the community like PTSD, trauma, addiction, speaking to people that are sort of on the front lines. And I can't help but hear the similar ideas.

Starting point is 00:27:01 about the body keeps the score, the four agreements, neuroplasticity, the default mode network, all of these ways in which modern medicine through SSRI seem to be a way to, you know, just dampen everything down so you can white knuckle it through another day and be happy about it on some strange level. But when I start hearing again about rights of passage, ceremony, all of these wonderful ways that we have sort of turned away from, like, man, it makes my, It gives me goosebumps to hear because I can't help but see this thing percolating to the top. Like, hey, here we are. We all need some help.

Starting point is 00:27:38 What if we did it in a community? You know what I mean? Like I think your book is just like, is just another concentric circle radiating outward and helping people see that. Like, is this bubbling to the front right now? Are you, are you seeing that as well? Yeah. And I mean, you've brought up so many things in that one paragraph, actually, I'll grab a couple of threads that you've just woven. So one is psychedelics.

Starting point is 00:28:02 I mean, when I have this chapter on chemicals in the modern trauma toolkit, and I'm talking about drugs, I don't really differentiate between heroin and cocaine and the folks that I see at the addiction clinic are using because in the 1940s, doctors were freely prescribing and taking these substances because that was considered medicine at the time. So, you know, concentric circles, like opium was one of the reasons that colonization happened and colonization has caused most of our trauma if we look at systems. So, like, I think all of these drugs and chemicals are just so connected. And if you look at the lineage of cultures that have had a relationship with plants,

Starting point is 00:28:44 so you mentioned psilocybin or mushrooms, but, I mean, there's San Pedro, there's ayahuasca, and a lot of what we use now as plant medicine has derivations in the natural world. And there's communities that have a long lineage. to it. So I do worry that we're kind of commodifying and we're turning like psychedelics into our capitalistic structures. We're kind of adding them to colonized ways. And I think it's really interesting to explore, well, what does that lineage look like and what does a relationship look like? I think psychedelics have a lot of potential in our relationship to trauma and traumatic events, but in such a cautious way, in a very humble way, and to acknowledge people

Starting point is 00:29:32 with that relationship and try to be in relationship in that way, very curious, very humble, and in a very careful way, because set and setting matters so much. And so even at the addiction clinic, I've got some folks who are addicted to the psychedelic category of medications. And it's not supposed to be. Like, if you look at the drugs harm, alcohol and tobacco do far more harm than psychedelics. It just is so wild to me that they keep restricting the use of something that the research is showing is so deeply healing. But it's healing in a very specific environment. So when I talk about it in the modern trauma toolkit, I'm really specific about set and setting. So set is your frame of mind. And setting is who is around you,

Starting point is 00:30:23 who is guiding this journey, I don't think people should just go into a cabin with, you know, some, a dose of psilocybin trauma. That would be horribly wrong. Yeah, without a doubt,

Starting point is 00:30:38 it's, it's interesting to, to see, and I, and I, I can't underscore enough the idea that whatever you take is, is sort of a bridge. Like,

Starting point is 00:30:51 you still have to confront the shame. You have to confront those threshold guardians of shame and guilt that are standing there. Like you can't go in over here. You know, like that's part of the, and maybe that's the part for the ceremony. Maybe that's the part for the chanting. Maybe that's the part to see the elders passing down wisdom so that you as a younger person can say, hey, here's this tool. And now you're old enough to use it.

Starting point is 00:31:13 You've seen these things. Now I'm going to show you how to, you've experienced them. Now I'm going to show you how to integrate them. Like it kind of seems like we're talking about integration in a lot of ways. Absolutely. That's that's well, well said, George. And I think like in the book I outline these three stages. And they're again, not linear. Like I think of them as circular and like kind of spiraling up and spiraling down. But Judith Herman describes establishing safety, remembrance and mourning and reconnecting. And so to me, that's noticing what's happening in the system. What's happening in the nervous system. What's happening in the family and the community system. And so that's establishing safety is getting into a place where you can actually be in a calm body and move to phase two, which is trauma processing. So I call that shifting.

Starting point is 00:32:04 And a lot of that is through neuroplasticity, which you mentioned. In the modern trauma toolkit, I focus more on phase one. Like what are the different ways that you can learn to shift your own nervous system and to shift the community system towards a place where process work can happen? process work is a new relationship with the past and that can be your personal past but it can also be the ancestral past and the simplest way to describe it is just leaving the pain of the past in the past and post traumatic growth is moving forward in a way where you've let go that strong connection to the pain and a lot of people identify with it they believe that the story of trauma is their story and that's one place where I feel like the trauma gets really stuck But for a lot of other people, they're very curious about what else is possible outside of those trauma reflexes.

Starting point is 00:32:56 And that's where we get into phase three, which is reconnecting to self, your adult consciousness, reconnecting to community. And that can be pets and nature and music and art and spirituality and all these other ways that humans can connect. And we've lost that priority. And these are these are ancient things that we've been doing for millennia and we forget because we become cogs in the wheel. Yeah, I think it reminds us that the rituals are there for a reason. When you talk about getting stuck in the story, for me, that looks like a negative feedback loop in an internal dialogue. You are a dummy, George.

Starting point is 00:33:36 Why did you do that? It's unforgivable. And it's like, it's real easy to put that record on and just let it play. You know what I mean? Like it's almost like, okay, stop. I'm done. I don't want to hear this anymore. This is a stupid record.

Starting point is 00:33:48 I don't want to hear it anymore, but it's hard to, like, it plays in the background. If you're not aware of it, if you don't physically take the needle off and set it down and be like, I'm scratching this record up. I don't want to play that anymore. You know what I mean? It'll play in the background, right? That's what I call noticing. It's like noticing what that record is. And noticing it with shame, like, without, like, looking at it with the lens of curiosity and compassion.

Starting point is 00:34:09 I always say, I always wear glasses and one of the lenses is curiosity and one of the lenses is compassion. And instead of saying, well, why do I have this? story what's wrong with me and I hate this story say why does the story make sense like what what is the story telling me and when you ask why does the story make sense then you're exploring it with a great deal of curiosity and many times it will trace back to childhood sometimes it will trace to the ancestors and when you understand why the story makes sense and why the story is protective so why would it make sense that I think I'm not good enough and I'm not deserving well when I was a child and I wasn't getting my needs met. It was safer for me to believe that there was something fundamentally wrong with me

Starting point is 00:34:50 than believing that my caregivers weren't capable of getting my needs met. That is life-threatening, whereas the belief that I'm no good is ego-threatening, and that was actually easier to handle. If you can look at that story with adult consciousness, that's when the healing takes place because you recognize that the story was always there to protect you. It was not trying to hurt you, and you can develop a better relationship with that story. And when you, you recognize that that story is there for a reason and that story makes sense, then instead of recognizing, oh, there's that story again, and adding to the burden of shame, you say, oh, I wonder how I can help the part of me that's stuck in that story. And it becomes so much more a story of

Starting point is 00:35:37 grace and healing and growth rather than continuing to get stuck in the shame. I feel like I'm doing some therapy right now. Thank you for that. Well, I mean, that's that's my goal, George. And this is what I do on TikTok is I try to give one minute snippets of like, what if you thought about it this way? And how would that feel different? And I learned so much from my patients and in community and I'm constantly learning. So, you know, there are beautifully accessible ways for us to see things differently. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:12 And they're right there waiting for us. It's almost sometimes I, you know, I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday and we were talking about insights and discovery. And he said something new to me. It's like, you know, discovering isn't having this flash of insight like a light bulb. It's more of discovering. Like you're taking things off so that you can notice them. And I was like, for me, that hit home. And I'm like, oh, that's how I was able to discover this thing or that's how I discovered this thing about myself.

Starting point is 00:36:41 And it helped me to think about it in a way that was much more. meaningful and helpful and allow for further discoveries. It's like, oh, I'm just taking these things off. That's all I'm doing. I'm just discovering this. And here I am. I'm kind of awesome in this way. And maybe that's a cool thing. It's interesting to think about the linguistics of it. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the therapies that I use actually are really embedded in wordplay. And what I've come to understand is the language of our subconscious mind is not English. The language of our subconscious is story. So it's imagery and it's metaphor.

Starting point is 00:37:17 So using interactive guided imagery where you don't just tell the story of where to be like. I won't say like let's go to the beach and I'm going to tell you what it's like. I'm going to say, would it be a safe place to imagine that we're going to a beach? Would you want to have shoes on? How close would you want to get to the water? And the person guides their own imagery. And then they guide themselves to a place of common connection. So I love using imagery and I love using wordplay.

Starting point is 00:37:45 So one of my favorite phase two trauma processing therapies is called accelerated resolution therapy. And it's a cousin of EMDR. It's like a more gentle and faster version. And the creator, Lanyi Rosenzvike, she put so much wordplay into it. So she'll say things like you have some change in your pocket and you're going to give this change to try to get the brain ready for change. Or she uses like a movie metaphor where you're watching this movie and the movie is changing.

Starting point is 00:38:21 And then you're the director of the movie and you're changing what's happening in the movie. And so much of what you're doing is shifting through metaphor and wordplay. Like I'll just give you an example of somebody I saw this week. Yeah. And we did an ART session and they were feeling very constrained and constricted. And so we imagined what it would take to break that sense of constriction. And sometimes people will break a rope or lift a weight or they use power tools or somebody, like a spiritual guide will help them with that.

Starting point is 00:38:57 But there are these metaphorical ways of breaking this heaviness or this tightness that we have in the tissues that aren't available through saying, well, I'm going to think my way out of it. So I just love the creativity that can happen in Phase 2 trauma therapy. And like, I can't teach you how to do your own DIY accelerated resolution therapy in my book, but I can certainly teach you how to get there. And the use of metaphor and wordplay is one of the things that I love working with. So in the Modern Trauma Toolkit, I have 40 different activities. many of them are audio guided practices.

Starting point is 00:39:37 Some of them are community level exercises because within those concentric circles, healing doesn't happen in the individual. So I really wanted to share all of these things that I was learning. Yeah, I'm glad that you did. This sounds amazing to me. And I can't help but think how in a book like the modern trauma toolkit, combined with the spoken word that you're able to, do on the different channels that you have,

Starting point is 00:40:09 it's almost like healing can be contagious the same way that illness can be contagious, right? Like if you're radiating that outward, like, why can it be? Like, why can't wellness be as contagious as illness? Isn't there like that great quote that says the difference between wellness and illness is I? Something like that? Is I? Yeah, all of us. Really beautiful.

Starting point is 00:40:34 Yeah. I do believe that healing happens in different levels. So sometimes one person can work through traumatic patterns of attachment wounds or things that they were exposed to in their family unit. And they can heal the unit for the generation. So if one person is doing the work for the family, then the next generation, will have healed those pains. And that can happen at the molecular level through something we know is called epigenetics. So just as trauma can be passed down through multiple generations, so can healing. So there is that kind of linear progression through a family,

Starting point is 00:41:23 but there is also community healing. So one of the things that I witnessed in Nepal after the earthquake was community looking after each other. There would be a giant tarp with many families that were newly unhoused, and then they'd have this giant bowl of dull butt, like the lentils and the rice, and they were cooking for 50. And so community did look after each other, and they knew that they weren't going to be alone on the street, the way that we often are in Western culture, that the community would take them in and look after them. And that's what I saw. So we live in the Western society, many of us live in very individually focused, lifestyles. And what I think we really need to discover or uncover is that we're like humans are

Starting point is 00:42:12 meant to live in community. We're meant to live in a much more collective way. And I think one of the many lessons I learned by working overseas is just what it looks like to live in more of a collective unit. And I think it's one of the ways that colonialism and capitalism paradigms have harmed us. And I'm not saying it hasn't given us great tools. I mean, modern medicine is awesome. I love to use modern medicine tools as well, but I don't want to forget the things that we've always known. See, that sounds spiritual to me. And I don't mean like religious. I think there's a difference between religion and spirituality.

Starting point is 00:42:47 But there is something so powerful about realizing that you're bigger than yourself and you're part of this huge thing that's trying to communicate to you on some level. And you could see it. Like when you go outside and you see this flower bloom and you start thinking, man, it's August 24th at 222 p.m. How did it know? How did it know to climb that high on that tree and produce that flower? Right. How did it know? And you can't help but think that the same divine intelligence that knew that also knows where I'm at in life.

Starting point is 00:43:18 Maybe that's the reason I'm here right now. And you start realizing, wait a minute, I'm part of this thing. You know, maybe I didn't come into this. Well, maybe I came out of it. You know, and then like that then you start really having some some, some. discovering moments. Right. Isn't it?

Starting point is 00:43:32 Is it spiritual? Is there some spirituality going on here? Yeah. And I don't want to impose that perspective on everybody. But like, yeah, I totally see what you mean. And I think Eastern philosophy, like, you asked, like, was I connected to Nepal? I mean, I've studied Ayurvedic counseling. I have been a practitioner of yoga for like decades.

Starting point is 00:43:55 I do believe that there is some Eastern philosophy that has a lot more. more understanding of interconnectivity than we do. And it's why we keep trying to appropriate things like mindfulness and reinvent it. I mean, this has been around forever. So one of the things that I've explored working in the East is meditation and mindfulness and the tenets of Buddhism. And I think it is very interesting how healing can come through the sense of interconnectivity. One of the things that I do, so I teach my patients something called Tate.

Starting point is 00:44:29 tapping and tapping is self acupressure. So acupuncture is when you take the meridian lines of energy in the body and you insert these needles. You can tap those same lines. So you use your fingertips. And what EFT tapping did is they map the emotional meridians of the body. Could I explain that in a Western context? A little bit. We're actually starting to get some research to understand how self acupressure works. And we've got great research proving that it works. for things like trauma and anxiety and cravings. When I do tapping with my patients, and I'll teach them self-acupressure, and there's a whole book, a chapter in the Modern Trauma Toolkit, as well as a 20-minute video teaching anybody who is interested, how to do tapping.

Starting point is 00:45:16 I will say to them, when you set up the phrase that you're going to use for your secession, don't say, I have anxiety or I am anxious, because then you become that thing. Say there is anxiety, because you have someone I. have some and your neighbor has some and your child has some, there is anxiety. This is a part of the human experience. This is something that our brain does. And so there is anxiety allows you to connect to this very human experience that we all have. And you said the definition between like wellness and illness. And I was just reading for something that I'm writing on Substack about the WHO's definition of well-being. And I'm studying lifestyle medicine right now. So they had they had

Starting point is 00:45:58 it in the curriculum. And it was kind of this like positive thoughts and an absence of negative emotions. And I was like, an absence of negative emotions, that's not the human journey. Like isn't being happy all the time. It's flexibility. And that's what I'm constantly teaching my patience is like, of course you're going to be sad or anxious or feel experience guilt. Like we all do. This is the human experience. We just don't want your day to day life to be till it in that direction. Flexibility allows you to experience the whole gamut of emotions. And when we have this sense of interconnectivity, we realize that's, that is the human journey and all of us are on it. And that's what it looks like when we're connected to everybody who's who's on that same journey.

Starting point is 00:46:48 And that means the non-living world as well and all of the living beings and these greater ecosystems because like we are a carbon-based life form with a whole lot of water in us. So for us to not have the humility to understand that the carbon and the water around us is also inside us. The interconnectivity is just deep at every level. Yeah. It's ineffable in so many ways when you really begin thinking about it, but so profound in its ability to inspire, maybe even hurt on some level. Like in that it makes me think about like empathy and trauma and vulnerability and vulnerability in that we're drawn to the to the dark side sometimes whether it's watching someone go through a traumatic event or ourselves being stuck on a traumatic event.

Starting point is 00:47:44 But isn't that so helpful to other people that may have gone through it or maybe getting ready to go through it is to see an example of that trauma and to see. see how someone goes through it, not like in a, in a, like a masochistic way, but like, I think we're so drawn to it because it is the answer in so many levels. Like seeing that trauma in a way is prepping you for an experience you're going to have. And once you've gone through something, like maybe you've lost a child, maybe you've, you've seen people that on their, take their last breath, or maybe you've been in a car accident or you've seen a suicide. If you've been through that, then don't you also.

Starting point is 00:48:24 become a way to help other people go through it. Like, isn't that trauma something that once held long enough can become a tool to help other people? It's a really good question, George, and I'm torn on the answer because I think that the last word in the last sentence that spoke to me is can. Like going through trauma or witnessing trauma can lead to post-traumatic growth and insights, but it can also get stuck. And I think a lot of our problems in modernity, why we won't let go of consumption, even though it's like we've overconsumed the planet and we're worsening in equity and we've caused this like climate catastrophe, but we're so addicted to these ways. And I think it is traumatic. Like I think we're digesting our trauma through consumption and through distraction.

Starting point is 00:49:20 and one of the reasons why we have such like split and dangerous politics right now is I believe trauma responses is coming from fear and anxiety and a sense of not being safe. And so I think trauma can compound and worsen if it's not acknowledged and processed and if we're not looking at it with that higher consciousness and seeing the greater whole. So we can have traumatic experiences through witnessing. And I think one of the reasons, why trauma is so much more held in the collective body is because we're witnessing things that we never would have been able to see 40 or 50 years ago because of social media, because of the

Starting point is 00:50:00 immediacy of it. Like the things that I see about war, I took in three Ukrainians that were evacuating three years ago. And the things that they would continue to see, even while they were here, was so deeply traumatic and still is to this day. Sorry, I get a bit emotional about that. But one of them lived with me for two years and I'm just very connected to her and what she still continues to witness even though she's not physically there, although she's going back next week. So there's these connections of what we witness that really hurt us.

Starting point is 00:50:38 And witnessing can cause trauma. And I don't think enough people recognize that. So if you've witnessed something traumatic, you need to go through those. three stages of noticing, like, how is it affecting me? And what is my nervous system feeling? Am I overactive or am I underactive and numb? And how can I process this thing that I've witnessed and integrate it into this journey that I'm on and then potentially get to the point where I can help others and reconnect.

Starting point is 00:51:05 But not everyone goes on that journey. And I think trauma is stuck in our current modern system. And that's why I use the word modern in the modern trauma toolkit is because I do believe a lot of the patterns that we're seeing are as a result of stuck trauma. So I think there is the potential for post-traumatic growth and helping others through it. And I believe that that's the large part of my personal journey. But there is the potential that that's not what happens and that we can get stuck in trauma responses and trauma loops. And I do think a lot of that is happening in modern times.

Starting point is 00:51:39 Yeah. It's well said. It's interesting to, you know, so many people get absorbed. in the doom scrolling, you know, whether it's seeing images come from Ukraine or Gaza or South Sahara, Africa, wherever, in your own community, you know, and like, you see these things and it's like, let me just move past that, you know, it's, and it's so big. The trauma collectively is so big that no one person can hold it, but we're all taking a little piece of it in. And sometimes I wonder, like, is the, is the, there's that great quote that says

Starting point is 00:52:12 the only way out is through. Is the way out potentially each individual doing their very best to solve that, that little slice that they have, to make their life a little bit better, to make their relationships a little better? Is that how we move into a world that's better by factors? Yeah, absolutely. And that is what gives me meaning right now is there is this possibility that if we as individuals and families and communities work through the trauma that would not just that we've been

Starting point is 00:52:46 exposed to or witnessed but that we've been complicit in yeah you know like when I think about like I'm studying climate psychology right now and I think a lot of the solution to climate psychology is decolonization and I know that that's a word that's really triggering for folks but what it means to me is getting back to our indigenous ways of knowing and I don't mean we just like live in huts and live off the land the way, you know, all of our, you know, background, indigenous ancestors would have lived. But I mean, like, in relationship to that interconnectivity, and that's indigenous to all of us, is to be in relationship to water, to be in relationship to animals, to be in relationship in community instead of this, like, hyper individualistic focused way. And I do think that that

Starting point is 00:53:38 possibility is emergent. Like if I look at what's happening right now, could we come out on the other side with this like collective awareness and this like just knowledge that we really are in this together and a rising tide lifts all boats. Rather than thinking like there was this beautiful phrase that just happened in the New Zealand parliament because the Mari people are fighting for their treaty rights right now and somebody and I don't even know where the quote comes from, but like when you've been so accustomed to privilege, the equity feels like oppression. And I think that that's driving a lot of folks in Western society is they're like, they're afraid that we could all be okay.

Starting point is 00:54:22 And what I want to share through my social media and the modern trauma toolkit is like, no, no, no, no, we all can be okay. And to not be afraid of that possibility. Yeah, it's this idea. of like win or take all, you know, whether it's colonialism or maybe it's, maybe we're drowning in abstraction. You know what I mean by that? Like you ever think like what, what might it be like to tell somebody who lives in a third world country or ask them if they have health insurance or life insurance? What, what is this life insurance you speak of? So what, what is this thing? You know,

Starting point is 00:55:03 like we have such abstract ideas, especially financially. We start talking about derivatives or, but that gets I think that's a direct line to colonialism is just finding wordplay to make people not afraid of death. You know, maybe that's what it is. Maybe we're all afraid of death. You're taking this in a really cool direction. Yeah, I mean, I've got all kinds of random thoughts about the financial system, too. Like, once we remove the gold standard, it's like, it just became numbers on a page. Like, it's playful.

Starting point is 00:55:35 Magic. And yet, there are so many people for whom those numbers on the page don't add. up to rent. And that's worse. Yes. The unhoused communities are just, I have so many folks that I work with, both at the refugee and the addictions clinic that are just one paycheck or, you know, very small amount of money from being unhoused right now. And I, these numbers on a page that are, we've assigned meaning to, are harming so many people right now. And I, there's got. to be a way out. And the way out is not, let's kick all the immigrants out.

Starting point is 00:56:14 Yeah. Because it's, we're complicit. Like, the reason why a lot of people are escaping war or drought is because of the systems we've created. And we actually need to stop the systems in order to stop this migration. And I, I don't have all the answers, but I love that we're talking about these bigger systems because it is the systems that are harming. It's not just the families,

Starting point is 00:56:42 the family that's facing poverty and scarcity and suffering. And so much of it is connected to these policies that, I'm just really curious how we can shift policies towards post-traumatic growth and equity and interconnected awareness. And New Zealand has that opportunity now, and we'll just see what happens. Yeah, I almost feel like it's part of that the cosmic joke of like there's some bigger force.

Starting point is 00:57:15 It's like, I am just going to rub your nose and absurdity until you figure this out. Like I used to live, I got a, I spent a lot of time in Hawaii as a UPS driver. And I would drive down to like Waikiki and like there's all these high rises. And they're building high rises like faster than you can shake a stick at them. And I remember going in and talking to the people, I'm like, dude, who's buying these? And he's like, I don't know. I'm like, other local people buy them? He's like, definitely not local people, man.

Starting point is 00:57:42 There's no local people buying these places. These places are a million dollars. And it's like a 32 foot skyscraper with, you know what? And it's like, I don't understand it. And I started talking to another guy. And he's like, oh, he's like, let me tell you. Let me help you out, George. These are just like really cool tools for really wealthy people.

Starting point is 00:57:59 They're going to buy like a like a financial place. We'll buy 50 of them. And they'll just sit on them. And maybe they'll Airbnb, but they'll probably just sit on them. And then they'll sell them later because they're going to go up in value. And it's like, then I go downstairs if I deliver a package. And there's like 35 homeless people outside.

Starting point is 00:58:15 And I'm like, like, there's no one even living in these places. There's no one living at them. And there's all these people out here that are just, you know, knocking on the door of like, of disillusionment that are suffering on a level that I can feel walking past them, you know? And I'm like, it's absurd. It's truly absurd to think about where we're at on that level. But I think the, I think the. idea of community is what brings us back to that. The modern trauma toolkit, these ideas about

Starting point is 00:58:43 stuff. I'm sorry, I kind of go off on tangent sometimes, Christine, but I can't help it. It's so crazy. No, I feel the same way. I mean, I've, I ran a residency program like a fellowship in health equity because I really want to understand how these equity deserving communities have been placed at so much risk. And it seems to be getting worse. Yeah. I mean, not everywhere. Like if I look at Northern Europe, they actually have quite a lot of like a large social and a large social structure where they make sure that nobody gets left behind. But in this like individual paradigm like with so deeply embedded in like, well, if you're not a functional human in capitalism, then what's your value? Like how did we lose sight that beings had value? Like just as

Starting point is 00:59:30 my dog has value and a bird has value, a human has value. And, we shouldn't be having throw away humans like this idea that uh i mean is there's just so many racist things around it too but like the idea that there's anybody who's lesser is is just really sad and the fact that we've allowed society to express that belief um and i think it comes from fear it comes from this fear that like there's not enough to go around and there is and there always has been yeah yeah it's it's mind-blowing to me we got another question coming in here it says you You've worked in systems change in global health. Is the healthcare system more traumatized than the patients it serves?

Starting point is 01:00:16 How can the system itself be healed? That's awesome. That's such a good question. I wish I knew some more answers to you. But I know that there's some really smart people working on it. Right. Not where I live. Right.

Starting point is 01:00:28 Where I live, they're decimating the health care system. But I'm really intrigued by a few movements. So I'm studying lifestyle medicine right now, which, actually has some really good research showing that the pillars of sleep nutrition, which is a more plant-based lifestyle, movement. So exercise and moving your body. And it doesn't have to look like being a runner, but just moving your body for 150 minutes a week.

Starting point is 01:01:01 Social connection. So maintaining your connections, avoiding risky substances. So like tobacco, but I mean, alcohol is. growing exponentially. Marijuana is growing exponentially. There is a huge opioid crisis right now. And like stress level, like managing your stress level. So these pillars of lifestyle medicine are things that we always knew were connected to health, but like a lot of physicians didn't focus on them. So I've been really intrigued in studying like, how can we get back to basics? And what's amazing is because this has become like an accredited board certification

Starting point is 01:01:39 there's tons of research coming out. And a lot of the pillars of lifestyle medicine are equally effective, if not more so, than the medications that I've been prescribing for 20 years. So I really think that, like, getting back to these foundational things that we all could look after. And if we were to focus on things like sleep and stress,

Starting point is 01:02:02 we would change all the systems because our work system and our schooling system and the political system, it's not helping us with sleep and stress. And the fact that agricultural lobbyists and pharmaceuticals have so much say in government policy, we have to totally decouple that if we're going to get healthy from a system's perspective. So, I mean, I talk about community level interventions you can do. I teach people in the book how to do a social innovation lab.

Starting point is 01:02:31 So one of the things that I love to study was design thinking and how can we as a group get really creative in solving our own problems. And I'll actually give you a roadmap on how to do that. Like from an iceberg model of system thinking to how can you actually work as a group to solve complex problems. That is a chapter in the modern trauma toolkit because I do think we have to work in community to solve these complex things. But the people who have the power to change these bigger systems at this political level and policy level and the way that industry has somehow become more important than human needs. I mean, we just need a massive culture shift for that to happen. And to me, the climate emergency is the signal that's going to make people finally realize. Like,

Starting point is 01:03:17 if we don't make a change, none of us will survive this or survive it in a way that's going to maintain comfort. And that should be very distressing to people. people. And I think that might be the signal that will finally start to shift things. That's what I'm hopeful about. But I mean, we've got power. Like we do have representation and we can vote and we can try to influence policies in lots of different ways. So I think of the different leverage points that I have access to. And, you know, I joined the city climate advisory council. Like, how could I influence different regional decisions? We all have that capacity.

Starting point is 01:04:01 And once we've healed our trauma, we will then have the bandwidth to contribute at these system levels. And that's why I want people to really work on. How can I get into a calm body and start to use my thinking brain again? Because when you're really, their trauma reflexes get stuck, your thinking brain is not as accessible to you. So only once you've got a better balance between your overactive and underactive nervous systems, can you even access those cognitive structures again? So it's stepwise. It makes so much sense.

Starting point is 01:04:39 When you start looking at, you know, for me, like I had a lot of trauma in my life. And I spent a lot of time. And so do my family live in paycheck to paycheck. Like you can't get to the next level when you are constantly in a state of fight or flight like that. you are just surviving. You're just surviving. And it's, like you said, if you come from a family, if you come from the habit of just surviving, it's really difficult to become an activist in a way that is meaningful for your life or for your own life or for your family's life. Like I, it breaks my heart to see it on so many levels. But the only way, like, no one's going to do it for you. Like, no one will.

Starting point is 01:05:20 Like, you have to find a way to take that first baby step, whether it's getting up and moving, whether it's saying, you know what, looking in the mirror and being like, you know, you know, You know what? I'm a pretty good today. Pretty good looking guy over there. I'm a pretty good looking girl. You know, whatever it is, getting in the mirror and playing or having that just one few positive words that start that snowball down the hill. But you build momentum, right? Like once you begin taking those steps, you build momentum.

Starting point is 01:05:43 And that change becomes from an idea translated into reality. You have to have some amazing success stories of people that you've seen make profound changes. Can you share one of those with us? I won't share the details just because I have to deal. Yep. But I, yeah, I mean, it's countless, countless, countless, countless success stories. But success is kind of knowing what your values are and being able to live according to your priorities. And that looks different for every person, right?

Starting point is 01:06:16 So I can't say like success is like, oh, they became this like business person because like it all has to do with your own values. success to me is when you're able to work towards the things that you value. And I've seen so much of that. But I've also seen a lot of people who were so locked into trauma loops that they weren't really looking after their mind-body system. So I mentioned that I moved further from family practice and more towards focusing on trauma because it seemed to be the root of a lot of things. So I've seen some people whose diabetic control was just horrifyingly bad and they were at risk of like blindness and kidney failure because their diabetes was so terrible.

Starting point is 01:07:02 And then we did trauma work. And all of a sudden they were able to be in their body again. And they had diabetic control again. So they were able to say, I care about me. And before they weren't even really able to believe that they deserved care. So I can see like physical transformations, social transformations, social transformation. you know, people who are reconnecting in a new way within families. They've learned enough self-care that they can be bounderied. So lots of healing just looks really different. So the way

Starting point is 01:07:40 that I describe it to people, and I have an illustration in the modern trauma toolkit, but it's the difference between resilience and post-traumatic growth is like resilience is when you're back to your baseline. So you're floating along trauma. pulls you underwater and resilience is like you've got flotation voices and you're keeping your head above water and like you mentioned you're surviving but you're not thriving and post-traumatic growth is when you learn how to swim and that's what I'm trying to impart to everybody through like socials and the book is like what does it look like to learn the skills to swim and it's not to say that trauma isn't going to happen again there's going to be another wave coming but once you're not floating

Starting point is 01:08:16 you're actually going to learn how to swim through it in a different way and I mean I'm on that journey too, I'm trying to figure what this looks like because, you know, we've talked about a few traumatic events that I've gone through, but I mean, medicine is inherently traumatic. I'm constantly experiencing vicarious stories of suffering and hearing and witnessing this. How do I integrate that? What is my meaning? What are my values? I'm still trying to figure that out.

Starting point is 01:08:42 And it's not being happy all the time. Like I said, it's flexibility. Some days you're sad and that's the way things are. and some days you're overjoyed. And I think when you can be more present, and this is what we learn through Eastern cultures, is like a lot of trauma lives in the past, and being much more present is when you let it go

Starting point is 01:09:02 and you're aware, like that happened to me, but that's not happening to me right now. Or if it is, I can envision a future. So you mentioned kind of looking in your mirror and giving yourself affirmations. one of the techniques that I teach in the book and kind of went viral on socials is informations and you just say a phrase that's hopeful and you stick the words what if in front of it what if things will work out for me what if I actually could imagine a future where I feel like

Starting point is 01:09:34 I deserve good things what if I'm going to find a friend like these just positive hopeful constructs because our brains, once we've been through traumas, we're just so drawn to the pain. Like we're used to that pathway. It's familiar, even though it's not comfortable. And we just need to make new pathways familiar, ones that are more comfortable. And affirmations kind of plant these little seeds of possibility. And all it is is just planting new seeds because a traumatic traumatized brain is constantly planting seeds of what's familiar.

Starting point is 01:10:09 And planting new seeds will grow your neural garden in new ways. and we're all capable of doing that. Do you think on some level, it almost seems like our system is set up to enforce trauma. Like we take our, I remember when I dropped my kid off at like preschool for the first time. Maybe this is just like too far out there, but I'm like, oh, what am I doing?

Starting point is 01:10:32 Then I'm a horrible farm, doing this, and I'm going to go work at his place. I don't even like to be at. And then my wife's work, I don't get to see her. Like, it's so, it just reinforces that on some level. And then, you know, you start looking at some of the north, like you had mentioned, like the northern scam. And I mean,

Starting point is 01:10:47 in the Navy countries are northern Europe. And like, they keep their kids at home until they're like eight before they even send them to school. You know, you're like, they seem pretty happy over there. Are there some things in our system? And you started thinking about maybe the Prussian school model

Starting point is 01:10:57 and why we had to have to be able to go to work and all these things like. And then maybe on a hopeful note, you're beginning to see change with like the book that comes out. And doctors like yourself going on and able to give people free of charge, these tools that can help them change their life. Do you think maybe our entire system is evolving in a way that is evolving out of trauma? I want to believe that. Me too.

Starting point is 01:11:25 That's what keeps me going. And there's two things. Like I think a lot of it is frame of mind. So when you drop your kid off at preschool and they're crying, part of the information would be like, what if they have the most amazing day? What if they meet their best friend today? What if this is the beginning to like a whole new way of their brain working? How exciting for them. Can we always reframe work in that way?

Starting point is 01:11:53 Maybe. But sometimes it just feels like you're gaslighting yourself. Have a great day at work. It's cognitive. But what if I could be more present in the moment? And like what if instead of feeling frazzled as a doctor is I really look into someone's eyes and I give them like really sustained attention and a sense of connection. And I don't necessarily know if I can do that with every person in a day.

Starting point is 01:12:20 Like they actually did studies out of Harvard showing that for physicians, we can only really deeply connect to about 30% of our patients in a day. And not everyone needs that every day. But on the day that you need it, I want to be able to give that to you. As a trauma therapist, I have to aim closer to 100. And it is a little bit more tiring. But one of the things that is a possibility, is that I can find more moments that are aligned with my values and notice them and amplify them.

Starting point is 01:12:49 So what we, our brain actually amplifies the negative. It's designed to do that because we have so many parts of our brain that's designed to protect us from threatened danger. So it amplifies dangerous signals, whether it's inside the body like pain or outside the body, like bad things that are happening. We actually have to deliberately practice to amplify the good. And it's a lot of what I teach in the modern trauma toolkit is how can you amplify these different signals that are also available. So that's the Eastern philosophy fee of being present in the moment and like being really attuned to nature.

Starting point is 01:13:25 So like when I walk my dog, one of the things that I really deliberately do is I will notice something, whether it's a flower or a tree or a cloud in the sky. And I will notice something in the natural world and allow myself to connect to it. So I'm not like, you know, just listening to a podcast and not even paying attention to my dog and his experience of the world. Because, oh, my gosh, that's fun when you really get into it. So, yeah, a lot of it is what we amplify. Yeah, it's, it does bring me lots of hope and joy to think about on some way we are the narrator of our own story. If you look at yourself like living in a novel in some way, you know, you're able to be like, I'm the main character. How would I, how do I want this character arc to go? Or what do I want to

Starting point is 01:14:14 accomplish? Or is this a threshold guardian over here? Okay, you know, well, let's have some fun. Let's try to get the author's attention over here. It's kind of fun to think about that aspect of it. I love that language, George, because I've been writing fiction for like 15 years. And I had actually finished this book once, but it wasn't quite good enough to publish. So when I was offered a nonfiction book deal and my agent kind of helped me refocus and we ended up granting a great relationship with my publisher. I thought, you know, I need to just focus on the nonfiction for a bit. But I'm back to writing fiction and I'm working with all these different workshops, learning this. Like how do I tell a story that's universal? How do I tell a story that's surprising?

Starting point is 01:14:55 How do I tell a story that I actually want to tell about the world and its potential? So I'm writing Clify. So that's eco-fiction. And it's basically putting it into the future that's not apocalyptic, but climate change has resulted in some changes. And I'm trying to speculate, like, what would it look like? And I got really stuck because my novel has to do with my Ukrainian ancestors. And because of what's happening in Ukraine right now, I got so stuck. And then I thought, well, I get to write the ending that I want. So, I mean, I won't spoil the whole thing with my book.

Starting point is 01:15:29 Ukraine does really well in the end. And they, because so many of their systems have been devastated, they've had to start reimagining systems that are suitable for modern times. And what they reimagined saves us all is my book. So like that's the system level of my book. And there's like a beautiful protagonist and everything. And like how do I want the main character to overcome this like really significant trauma? And what kinds of realizations do I want her to have?

Starting point is 01:16:00 Well, it has to do with interconnectivity and community. and it has to do with hope and it has to do with relationship with the human and non-human world. And how do I tell that story in a way that's not like preachy? I'm figuring that out, but it's really fun. Are you sure you're not writing a biography? It sounds beautiful. Maybe just look out of that aspect.

Starting point is 01:16:26 You know what I mean? Yeah, not really, but I mean, I mean, anyone who writes fiction, there's very. parts of you that get infused into it. You know, my grandmother definitely shows up in the book. She, it was so amazing because I had her tell the stories of like our ancestors. And so I have these microcrosets and then I have some on my iPhone. And like I just, I always have her story. And I think one of the things that we lose sight of is it's all about story.

Starting point is 01:16:58 Like indigenous ways of teaching each other have always been storytelling. And so we can tell ourselves a different story about who we are and our relationship to the world. And we can heal through story. Like we can teach a new story to the next generation instead of the story of separateness and the story of pain. And I think that's what it's all about. And you're working on that and I'm working on that. And there's a lot of us working on that. I think everyone really is.

Starting point is 01:17:25 And that's their intention. And that's my hope that we'll move towards it. In Hawaii, I was talking. I got to some really cool. people and one thing that the state poet told me was that we're all ancestors in training. And when you, when you told me that brief part about how you are able to listen to the words of your grandmother on like a micro cassette, I can't help but see the same way that people in indigenous tribes listen to the sound of the elders that may have passed away.

Starting point is 01:17:58 You know what I mean? It's still, like it's so similar in so many ways, like you're pulling from the past. in order to create the future. And like in some ways, that's the essence of a metaphor, right? Like you're, you're taking something from the old and giving a new meaning. And that's the only way, whether it's in linguistics, whether it's in ceremony, is that we have to pull from the past in order to create the future. And it seems odd that way.

Starting point is 01:18:23 How are you going to make anything different? Well, you just change the, like the dog bit Johnny versus Johnny bit the dog. Two radically different things that happen there. but you just change the position of them. And you can come up with incredible things that happen on some level. It's it's mesmerism. I can't wait to check out your Clifai book. This sounds awesome.

Starting point is 01:18:44 Well, I mean, hopefully it sees the light of day. I'm really reworking it this year. But I also, I think writing is really healing to me. So when I think like I look at the news of Ukraine and like my ongoing connection to the country and it's really easy to feel hopeless. and full of fear. And so I wanted to learn, like, what would a new narrative look like that has hope and humility and curiosity and compassion and all these things that I'm trying to embody in a new way?

Starting point is 01:19:15 And, I mean, it's concentric, right? I'm on this journey and it's the spiral. And some days it works out better than others. I really do believe that there's so many of us that are consciously on this journey right now. You know, you're bringing so much awareness in your podcast. There's a lot of us that are trying to amplify the work of healing and a new story. So I have to believe the new story is possible and that we're writing it together. Yeah, I agree.

Starting point is 01:19:49 It's emerging as we speak. And there's the hero next door. That's what I think. And when I look at my neighbors, look what they're doing. That's so cool. You know, when we can begin to see that hero next door, I think we give our myself permission to see the hero within on some level. Might as well just reference Joseph Campbell and say we're all on the hero's journey on

Starting point is 01:20:10 some level. Super interesting because I started studying the heroine's journey. And the hero's journey, he goes to the village and he conquers the obstacles and many obstacles and then comes back to the village with the elixir. And it is actually a little bit of an individual story. But the heroine's journey is the story of the collective. And what the heroin encounters is this understanding is that community is the answer. And she does not have the elixir alone.

Starting point is 01:20:42 So that's what I'm examining in my book. And I don't think it's gendered. I think it's more just that what we've ascribed to masculine values have been the individualistic values. But I mean, every human is capable of being more collectivist and community-minded. So yeah, I'm curious about what that journey looks like. Well, I think it's playing out. Like if you look at the sort of, I don't want to call them heroes, but I will say the role models that are thrust upon society,

Starting point is 01:21:20 they have been this sort of frontman for a community that no one talks about. Like every star, every person that is up there, whether it's a maybe not every. The majority of people that appear to be a superstar have a giant community behind them that make them who they are. And they're the face of this community. But the community doesn't get noticed. It's just this person out front like, look at me. I'm insane. You know how great I am.

Starting point is 01:21:46 Well, you have been the product of all of these people building a life around you. So you are awesome, but you're awesome because of these people. They should get more recognition. But that's dying. If you look at maybe in the Western world, like you see it crumbling. And maybe what's crumbling in the Western world are these ideas of individualism. You know, some people mourn that. Like, oh, no, the individual's time.

Starting point is 01:22:10 But look what happens when that front person steps down. You get to see the people that built it. And like that, I see that happening, you know, whether it's the modern media crashing or different presidents that make different promises and never deliver. You know, like you're beginning to see the community rise up in ascension with. them fixing their trauma, you know, and like we're all worthy of of living a better life and becoming the very best version of ourselves and living our ideas of a community. And I don't know. I think that the book you put out and what you're saying and what you're doing on your social

Starting point is 01:22:48 media is a giant boon to community. And I think that that's where we're going to find the answers for those of us that don't have them is in the people that are working and figuring it out on some of them. Thank you for doing it. Well, and again, the ideas aren't mine. Like, just as you said, it takes this community. So when you said, you created these ideas, I'm like, well, no, I mentioned the work of Judith Herman and her three stages of feeling and the people of tolerance from Dan Siegel and all of the people

Starting point is 01:23:13 who created the semantic techniques. So I put the book together as like a primer on what, where we're at right now in our understanding of trauma and toxic stress. And with lots of tools that I've learned, did I am creatively embellish? some of them and add to the collective knowledge, sure. But what I really wanted to acknowledge is like these are the concepts that so many others have come up with and I've gathered them for you in a way that's easy to read, inclusive examples, hopefully not very triggering, but that's my contribution. And did I maybe have some new ideas about social innovation and design thinking that nobody else

Starting point is 01:23:53 has put in with trauma before? Maybe. So that's part of my contribution. But it was a community level contribution. And I really wanted to acknowledge just how many things I read. Like I'm actually, I don't know how if your viewers can like, like, see. But I read hundreds of books to try to get this book written and wanted to synthesize a lot of what was known already. So yeah, I think when I talk about like what our ancestors knew and what we've forgotten through that lineage.

Starting point is 01:24:27 and when I think of how many people are already working on this, and even just in the TikTok community, like I met a woman named Simone Saunders who happens to live in the same city as me in Canada, who is doing tremendous work on socials as the cognitive corner. And now we are working together in the company, Safer Spaces Training. And I think about like all the work that she's doing and the ripples that she's created.

Starting point is 01:24:51 It's wild. I mean, she's amazing. So I want to do this work in community too. Well, I think you are. And I am grateful for this conversation. I hope we can have more of them. Like, this has been really, really fun. And I still have other questions that I wrote down. And I got one or two from the, from the guests that are coming in here.

Starting point is 01:25:12 But you've been very gracious with time, Christine. And before we- You probably hear my dog losing it upstairs. So, yeah, she's really fun, Christine. I'm very thankful for all of your time. However, before you leave, would you? be so kind as to help people understand where they can find you, what you have coming up and what you're excited about. Yeah, for sure. I'd love to. Thanks for the window, George. I appreciate it.

Starting point is 01:25:39 So my book is called the Modern Trauma Toolkit. And the easiest way to find buying options is the website for the book, which is moderntrauma.com. I would love for you to explore the website because it gives you the tone of the book. It's really soft and nourishing. And so if the website vibes for you, it's probably going to feel pretty safe. Like on one, one of the pages of the website, I'll just drop this Easter egg. The cursor turns into a butterfly. This is the team I worked with. They were just amazing humans.

Starting point is 01:26:08 My personal page is christinegipson.net. And that will link you to the other companies that I run, including Safer Spaces Training, which is psychological safety work, as well as me doing keynotes. I love speaking. So if you have a group of people that want, me to speak.

Starting point is 01:26:29 And there's a budget because I got to be boundaryed as well. You know, I love speaking to groups about this. And what I think companies are starting to recognize is just how much stress and emotional dysregulation are showing up in the workplace. So there's more and more conversations about this happening. And I love to be in conversations.

Starting point is 01:26:49 So those are probably the easiest places to find me. My writing, substack, everything is on the professional page. I love it. Fantastic. Hang on briefly afterwards, but to everybody within the sound of my voice, please go down to the show notes. Do yourself a favor. Check out the new book by Christine Gibbs.

Starting point is 01:27:07 And you don't have a copy right there that you can show anybody that might be watching, do you? Yeah, of course. Like, there was one, where is it, right there on the shelf. Okay. But this is the bookmarked one where then I give readings. So I've got all the pieces of this. Nice. Nice.

Starting point is 01:27:24 Yeah. Everybody's seen a picture. of it there go down check it out reach out to christine i hope everybody within the sound of us is a beautiful day there's a beautiful holiday coming up and i hope you choose to have the courage to become the very best version of yourself because you deserve it and the world to be better because but that's all we got ladies and gentlemen aloha

TrueLife - Dr. Christine Gibson - Modern Trauma

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