Well with Arielle Lorre - 185: How Trauma Affects the Brain, Body & Nervous System with So My Mom's a Therapist, Lisa Smith

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

In this episode, I'm talking with trauma therapist @somymomsatherapist on how trauma and experiences affect your brain and body. We talk about it from a relationship standpoint; why singleness is frustrating, tips for attachment vs. avoidant tendencies, and breakups. We also talk about connecting the brain and body in general; how to understand what you're feeling and what certain experiences are doing to your nervous system.   Right now, Sakara is offering our listeners 20% off their first order when they go to Sakara.com/BLONDEFILES20 or enter code BLONDEFILES20 at checkout.   Become the best version of yourself and get 15% off Ned products with code BLONDE. Go to helloned.com/BLONDE or enter code BLONDE at checkout.   Save 15% sitewide at justthrivehealth.com using promo code BLONDE.   Go to Zocdoc.com/BLONDE and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. Then start your search for a top-rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours.   Right now, you can get $10 off your first month of Nuuly when you use the code BLONDE10. Just go to Nuuly.com and enter the code BLONDE10 at sign up.   Produced by Dear Media.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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would auto-hue Sondorger's under-Sorger's Punexor. The following podcast is a dear media production. Hey, welcome to the Blonde Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lorry, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits, and I'm bringing it to you real and unfiltered. I know there is so

much information out there, so I'm here to help you navigate it all. Thanks for listening. Let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. I have a great one for you today. I'm talking to Lisa Smith. She is the creator of so my mom's a therapist over on TikTok and on Instagram. She's a huge following on TikTok, which is how I found her. And she is, you guessed it, a therapist. And she has really amazing videos where she just talks a lot about things like trauma. She is a trauma therapist. and relationships and just the things that we all struggle with. She also has a podcast, so you can go check that out too. And we are talking a lot today about how trauma and traumatic experiences affect your brain

and your body and your nervous system. We focus on it a lot from like a relationship standpoint. So we talk about why people find singleness frustrating. We talk a lot about attachment versus avoidant tendencies. we talk about breakups. We also talk about just connecting the brain and the body in general. She has really great tips that you can do to ground yourself and how to understand what you're feeling and what these different experiences are doing to your nervous system. So it's a really, really interesting episode with a lot of takeaways. And I think you guys are going to enjoy it.

So with that, please enjoy Lisa Smith. All right. Welcome, Lisa. Bye. It's good to be here. I'm so excited to talk to you. I was going down a rabbit hole of your TikTok before you came on. There are so many things that I want to talk to you about. But to start off, why don't you just tell the audience a little bit about who you are and what you do? Yes. Yeah. I'm in Pasadena, California. And I'm a licensed therapist, marriage and family therapist. I say I'm a trauma therapist because that's my specialty. So I'm basically with me, I'm certified in trauma resiliency model. trained in EMDR. So I'm really looking at how our body holds trauma. So I'm looking at our brain, however, brain's interacting, and then how our nervous system reacts to it. Believe it or not, before COVID, I was actually working on a PhD specifically on how our nervous system and our brain interacts in romantic, particularly in vulnerable relationships or romantic relationships. So very, always fascinated in that, how our body sits, how our brain sits in, in dating, in romantic relationships. So I found you on TikTok.

Before we get into all the things that I want to talk to you about today, I'm just curious how it is being a quote-unquote TikTok famous therapist because TikTok is an interesting place. It's kind of the wild west. Yeah, the word I use is, I'm like, TikTok is savage. Yeah. Like, they are savage. And, you know, I don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of, I don't ever,

I don't ever really address content. There's a lot of people questions, people ask themselves, or people will fight back, and I just don't. Because I feel like I just, I value my piece and I value my time so much that I feel like I tried it as much as I can, you know, fly under the radar. So a lot of things that people are outraged or upset about or comments that people react to. I don't. I just because I feel like I've worked really hard to have a life that I enjoy and I love, not that it doesn't have its challenges. And so I really

like, and to answer your question, it's been a little challenging because I'm a, I'm a pretty private person. I'm actually a really private person. I'm not somebody that was looking to brand myself. It actually just started as if you've watched some of my videos as a joke, year ago, actually, this June. And it was kind of funny. And then of course, you know, my kiddos were like, of course. Of course this would happen to you. Of course this would. So, and to be honest with you, I don't, I don't, unless somebody comes up to me, which they do, and I love it. And that just makes my day. But I kind of forget because most of my videos, I'm here in my office or I'm in my own life. And they don't treat me any different. If anything, they're like, now, like, don't buy into your own

hype. Your feet are on the ground, everything. So, you know, the things that matter most of me in my life, my family, my friends, my work, you know, those, those haven't changed. Those haven't changed. So I think that's good for everybody to hear. I think that it's hard, whether you, whether you have a brand or not, I feel like everybody is on social media now. Everybody has to deal with some kind of feedback and, you know, opinions about yourself, no matter what.

And it's hard to not engage. It's something that I had to learn years ago. And I'm a very private person as well. So I kind of like fell into this too. And obviously, I love. it and I've turned it into a brand and all of that. But it's like a very kind of delicate balance between protecting yourself, protecting your privacy and sharing what you want to share. Yes, exactly. And I feel like for the most part to me also, I mean, my best friend is often

commenting like, I don't like you get no hate. Like you get, I don't, he's like, I've never seen anything like that you get like zero hate. And I feel like I'm very fortunate that way. But I also feel like as long as it adds value, that's why I keep doing it. And you've heard me say, I really truly mean it. I love doing the podcast that I do. I love doing the videos. If it makes somebody feel hopeful, it gives them something to try that,

I actually think it's going to help them. I mean, a lot of the input out there, I mean, not to be critical of it. I was just like, that's not going to help you feel better. If anything,

you think you're following this dating coach that's giving you this recipe, you're going to end up more discouraged because relationships don't work like that. So I really, I love, if I feel like I'm, if I can give you something

that makes you hopeful, giving me something, I really know works because I've seen it year after year, as far as dating and relationships go. So as long as it adds value, and as long as it's still enjoyable for me, I'll keep doing it. And if ever it becomes not enjoyable, peace out. Like, I like, you know, so, you know, I hold it loosely.

Yeah. I hold it. And I think people with social media, you got to hold it loosely. Yeah. Yes. I love that. Well, something that you do that I really love is you'll kind of duet or comment on like viral trending videos.

And I think that there is so much advice out there. And anybody can make a video about like, I saw one that you posted about, but it was just someone wrote text over something. And it was about like, why do I get attached to somebody who I went on one date with and never wanted to see again? And then you give your professional input. And these are things that we all experience and we all feel. So it just makes it very applicable, I guess.

And even that style actually started like, again, like not intentionally because my, my middle one was like, mom, you need to like stitch a video. And of course, I was like, I don't even know what that was. Like she's like, but if you stitch it to another video, but I didn't realize, that's what I thought that's what everybody was doing at the time and they don't. But what I found to be helpful to people is if somebody, a lot of people, those viral videos, the reason they're viral is because there's so many people that are like, oh my gosh, me too. Me too, me too, me too. And I think that is a benefit to TikTok is a lot of people realizing I'm not alone in feeling this way.

I took one recently. I mean, it was really out there. It was more like, no, I want my boyfriend to cheat. And I have them tell me about it. And I think that a lot of people would not touch. And I was able to come in and be like, well, hold on, before you judge this, let me explain to you what's going on in our brain and our body. Well, we can have some understanding of what's going on in our brain and our body. We have a lot more grace for ourselves. We're being, oh, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Well, no wonder I'm trying to do that. So we're not judging things based on actions. We're judging things based on what's going on inside that we often can't see or we don't understand. Yeah. So what are kind of the common themes

if you see any? Like, what are the things that resonate the most with people that you talk about? I've got a gal who come, I just brought on to do all of my outrage. And We were talking about that because she was saying, you've got to really focus on where people are really, what are the themes you're seeing? So this has been a conversation of late. And I would say to use her words, these aren't mine,

so I'll give her credit, Christina, but they're pain points. So pain points being, where is the pain? I'm single and I can't get into a relationship. I'm single and I can't get a boyfriend or girlfriend. Or I'm 40 and I've never been married. So a pain point of singleness,

a pain point of breakup, how do I get over somebody? A pain point of not just, breakup, but I can't get somebody in my life that I want. So that's that stalking. It's the, it's the crush I can't get. The situation ship that is like not what I want. The X that, you know, how do I get over somebody? How do I, how do I handle not having somebody in my life? And how do I grieve that? And then how do I date again? I would say those are probably the top right now, the top pain points that I'm looking at or that. And if I had a third one, it would be

that sense of like, how do I translate that initial one or two dates like into something more? I can't seem to get that transition into a relationship. It seems to like, and then they feel like I'm doing something wrong that my dates are not getting me anywhere. For me, feeling my best starts with what I'm putting in my body and I truly thrive when I'm eating really nourishing, nutritious food. This obviously can be hard with a busy schedule and being on the go all the time. And when I start skipping meals or like ordering out all the time or snacking all the time instead of eating meals, I really start to feel it. So that is where Sakara comes in. Sikara is a wellness company anchored in Food is Medicine, and they're on a mission to nourish our bodies through the power of plants.

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your plan. So whether it's just a couple dates a week, whatever you want to do, you can make a plan that works for you. So right now, Sakara is offering my listeners 20% off your first order. If you go to sacara.com slash blondefiles 20 or enter the code blondefiles 20 at checkout. That's sacara.com, S-A-R-A-R-A dot com slash blondefiles 20 to get 20% off your first order. Sikara.com slash blondefiles 20. What's up, everyone? I'm Kristen Cavalieri. And I'm Stephen Coletti. We're so excited to announce to your media's new podcast, Back to the Beach with Kristen and Stephen, where we'll revisit all of your favorite episodes of Laguna Beach, the Real Orange County, and unveil behind-the-scenes secrets, tea, and all sorts of new insight into this groundbreaking show. So join us every Tuesday.

Available wherever you get your podcasts. I'm already feeling nostalgic. And do you think that all of those pain points derive from some sort of trauma or some sort of like pattern that we developed when we were children or like, why do we have those similar pain points, do you think? Yeah. No, you know, I think a lot of it's human nature. I think not necessarily, those I wouldn't say will come out of trauma. I think those have been there all along. I mean, our grandparents, if they broke up with someone, I think they have the same grief we did. I think they're bigger pains, bigger pain points because, for instance, like if you had a great grandparent or grandparent who broke up with someone, you just never see them again. Well, now you can see

them all over social media and you can find their second cousin's girlfriend and you can still see in their life. And this is one of the things that I was talking about this, begun alive, is simply they're not your life anymore. And if they're not in your life anymore, like, that's not your life. Then why are we still peeking through the windows and crawling through the bushes trying to see into their life? And that's actually not helping us feel better in the long run. So I think a lot of the pain is we still have access to people that really it would help us better if we didn't have access to, that being one of them. The other pain point being about singleness, I think that's because it's something we can't get our hands on. And that's where that pain comes from. It's something I want, especially I think

as particularly women, I've noticed, when they feel like we've come to this place of like, we can get what we want, we can be self-empowered, we can educate ourselves, we can get that job that we want, and then something comes along that it doesn't operate that way. You can't approach it the way you went after your PhD or your career. It doesn't work that way. So if we have this mindset of like, I should be able to get what I want, well, insert in human being, you don't have control over. And so I have to go about it differently. So there's that frustration of something's lacking in my life and whatever I'm doing isn't working for me. So I want to talk about trauma and kind of define it. I know that there's big T trauma, little T trauma. I know all this because I've been through all

the therapy. I've had all the traumas. I, you know, I've been sober for a long. time and I had to unpack all of that. And I've had the experience of, I think, some big T traumas, and I've talked about this on the podcast before, thinking consciously that I was over them and then having them manifest themselves in other ways and having to unearth them. So I'm familiar with trauma, but let's kind of define it and break it down for the audience. Yeah. No, no, that's a good one. You know, I absolutely love that because oftentimes we just, we just skip right over that and go right into just talking about trauma, then what exactly is trauma? The thing that's so fascinating to me is that trauma is different for everybody. You can have two people standing right next to each other,

experience the exact same event, and one, it will register in their body as traumatic and the other that it won't, right? Big T trauma being like a significant event, like for instance, a natural disaster or a shooting. That would be a big T trauma. Little T trauma is something that may go completely unnoticed by an external eye, right? So let's say, you know, you're on the playground in sixth grade and there's a little girl that says, you know, you're not allowed to hang out with us anymore, right? This is, I'm using my own invite. This is my own little teacher on this sixth grade, on the recess, on the play yard, right? Nobody else saw it, but I did. And right there, it registered as something super traumatic. And right there, I remember thinking to myself,

something's wrong with me. If nobody else got outed and I got outed from these girls I grew up with, there must be something wrong. And it was something that was very traumatic in my life all of a sudden to be isolated away from the girls that I grew up. But that would be, that would be an example of a little T trauma. I think that's so important for people to hear, because if we think of trauma in terms of something that would be traumatic for everybody, and I think if you consider something like that trauma, then there's like shame attached to it. Like, oh, well, you know, that was in sixth grade. Like, what's wrong with me? And then you're, like, creating this whole narrative about yourself. Absolutely. You'll end up being so critical

on yourself. If you are somebody who is really hard on yourself, and oftentimes we just call it like a perfectionistic personality, but if you track that back into your childhood, there was somewhere along the way that you built this party that says, I have to be hard on myself or actually I'm going to turn on myself because if I don't do that, then I'm going to end up in this really awful state, right? That something's wrong with me. So I have to be so hard on myself.

So it is. It is that shame. It is that highly critical voice. And if you track it back, it usually comes to a place where you turned on yourself and you said, oh, my, like we have to keep a tab on this one, right? rather than being a best friend of yourself. Right.

So going back to trauma, so what does it actually look like? How do you know if something's traumatic in our body? Well, when I'm doing EMDR, that's eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing. And it's a great tool for a lot of therapists that we use to do a more intensive therapy over a shorter amount of time. But the way we describe it in that, which I really like, is you know it because it's like having a puzzle piece that doesn't fit in with your body. For instance, somebody says something and all of a sudden, your body bumps out of its

zone, it can like absolutely turn on. So it can be a smell. It can be something someone said. And all of a sudden, it triggers a big response from you. That doesn't really match what happened. That would be a traumatic response. So or you start telling the event, oh yeah, well, this happened to me or this happened to me. And all of a sudden, your body feels as if it's right back there. So your body doesn't know time. So when I'm looking at a traumatic event or something that registers as trauma in my body, it's a, it's a feeling that kind of gets stuck and lodged. As opposed to I'm recalling something as if it's just a past event. And I don't have any body sensation.

Oh, yeah. Like, I was on the playground. There was these kids there. I'm not having any reaction in my body. That's either trauma that's been healed or that's just a logged past event. Even if I were to ask you, like, oh, what did you have for dinner last night? I don't know if you were really like, what did you have for dinner last night? Salmon, shocker.

The audience is like, yeah, we know. Right. Okay. Did you have any body sensation in saying that? No. No. No. Okay.

So that's something that doesn't register as traumatic. Right. if you start talking about something or you smell something or there's a sound or a drink and you're like, whoosh, like your body can feel it, that lets me know like a puzzle piece is kind of stuck in this lodge. And that as a therapist lets me know where I need to go in and do some work and see if we can shift and work on that puzzle piece so that it almost goes back, gets into the puzzle and it gets logged this past memory. It doesn't get forgotten. It's not that all of a sudden it becomes a great event.

It's still sad or it's still hard, but it's not, I'm not having this full-floated body reaction. So we are talking about our nervous systems and so. some grounding tips and something that really helped me over the last couple years, especially when I was dealing with really crazy like nervous system activation, which I think was probably a result of a lot of trauma that I was working through and just life stressors has been incorporating things like CBD and magnesium into my routine. And I mentioned these things specifically because there are a few products from Ned that have truly helped me so, so much. So one is the de-stress blend. which is one of their CBDs and then the mellow magnesium, although all of their products are

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So if you're looking for the best in gut health and mood support, choose the clinically proven award-winning power of Just Thrive. Right now you can save 15% off sitewide when you go to justthrivehealth.com and use the code blonde at checkout. Again, that's 15% off sitewide when you go to just thrivehealth.com and use the code, blonde at checkout. So what about people who feel like they are kind of activated all the time, but they can't think of one particular thing? How do you navigate that and get to the root of what is causing that? So a lot of therapists will go right there.

I don't. I actually think a more effective method is like, let me see if I can help you feel better first. Where it came from, we can explore that, we can get there, right? I do love the, I'm always using visuals and analogies. If you watch my videos, everything's like a picture and a story, because we remember that more. And I'm always like talking about a cupcake and like, you know, where's your North Star? Like, why? Because we will hold visuals so much more. But when I'm looking at that, I want to help people feel better first. And then we can go back and look at the roots. So if I'm looking at a tree, right, what is the health of the branches and

the fruit? Well, that's all based in the roots. So yeah, I want to be able to get as far down to the roots as I can and see if I can bring some healing to those roots because it work its way up. However, the initial time that I'm meeting with them, I want to give them tools in the moment so when my body's bumping out of its own, right? When I'm having a panic attack or when I feel my body shut down or go numb, I want to give them tools in their hands of things they can try to help them feel better in the moment. I got to tell you, sometimes we do, it's called resourcing. How do I help my body get back into its zone? Right. And sometimes we'll do that so much that I'll be like, do we want to go back into the earlier stuff? And sometimes they're like,

no, actually, I'm feeling a lot better now. Like, and so we won't, you know, healing trauma, healing past trauma doesn't always mean going back to the event. Some people don't realize that. Yeah, I'm just thinking of my own stuff. I mean, I feel like, yeah, there are some that I just kind of got over just from doing other work. And then there were other things like the big ones where I did like brain spotting. I did EMDR. The brain spotting was brutal. I don't know if you are familiar with that. But that was like, you're reliving it and you're, you know, my therapist had the analogy of squeezing the lemon. So every time you're going over it, you're squeezing the lemon a little bit more and you're squeezing it out a little more. And that was wild to me because, again, it was this thing

that I thought that I was over and it was very traumatic. But when I went back to it, I mean, my whole body would go numb. I would get a lot of activation in my gut and I've had like persistent gut issues, go figure. Yeah. Yeah. That's real. Yeah, like tingling numbness. I mean, it was crazy that, you know, and I'd been holding on to that for so long. So what are maybe some less obvious ways that trauma can manifest in our bodies? And also, like, how exactly my audience loves like science so we can nerd out here. What does it exactly do to your nervous system? Yeah, I know. I love this. Like, I feel like this is like so fun for me. I could like,

this is what I talk about with my friends. This is what I talk about my life. Like I, like, this is not just work for me. I have to tell you. This is probably why I work too much. like I really, I enjoy this. Like this is like so fun for me. You can tell? I love it. Can you tell? Like I think that I really do.

Like it just makes me like so excited. Like, but I am kind of like, you know, when I was younger, my partner would always like, oh, you're just such a dork in disguise. Like people can't tell on the outside. But if they hang out with you after a while, they're like, oh, oh, that's there. So I love it. You're passionate. I am.

I am very. That's a good word for it. So in what you're talking about, I would start there. So you're going to have manifestation. physically, right, in your body. You're going to have manifestations in your nervous system and how it reacts. We're going to have manifestations even in your thoughts. So let's have a little understanding of what's going on. Things that I'll often have clients that come into my room, not because they think they have an issue, but because they've gone to the doctor and the doctor's like, we can't find anything. We can't find anything.

We think it's stress. And they come to me being like, it can't be stress. It can't be. Like, that's ridiculous, right? Or this isn't a mental health issue. I have like physical symptoms of usually nausea. It's usually almost always digestive related. Right. I have some people, this is going to sound, we're going to kind of go there. But like, when they have bowel movements, they will be like hard little pebbles or it'll be like really like they can't keep anything in their system. And, you know, again, we always do medical ruleouts, but all of that is so tied to like that literally it is like eating our stress. It is like as if you were eating a cookie, eating our stress. And if you think, well, I don't feel stressed or like, and then they start, then they start telling me about things in their life. And I'm thinking, oh, like, we're cut off from it. So what often happens. it's like we shove it down in our body. And even in shoving it down in our body that like that diet, we're like eating our stress, right? And that's, by the way, that's a survival mechanism.

What we're talking about here is survival mechanism. So if I learned very young, I was in an environment that had a lot of trauma or there was multiple or chronic traumatic experiences. Our brain and our body will actually sever. Our brain and our body will sever so that like my body will hold my trauma and my brain is severed as if we've cut a cord between the two. That's not a bad thing. The thing that I'm just so amazed is like these are our,

our little bodies, especially in children, they're finding ways of surviving. So oftentimes when they come to me, they'll be older and I'll be like, well, that worked for you. Go easy. We're so, that allowed you to survive as a little, little taught, right? Yeah, I've heard you say like, your brain isn't trying to hurt you. It's trying to protect you. That's been your protection, your whole life. Your whole life. Like our whole goal of our brain and our body is to keep us safe and protect us. And sometimes we get so mad at it and we get so mad at it. And we get so mad at the way our body reacts. So part of it, I almost feel like my like platform is to have this like reunification between our brain and our body to understand, okay, we don't like the way it acts sometimes. But hold on,

it's not trying to hurt you. It is trying to keep you safe. It is trying to keep you from being hurt or having a broken heart again, right? And so really understanding that. So oftentimes we won't know what's going on in our body. It's fascinating. I've had some clients who I've worked with for over a year and they will even say to me, I've worked my entire life to not feel in my body, and now you're trying to get me to feel again because they've like cut it off and there's so much in there. It's like an iceberg. There's so much in there, which is why as therapists, we have to go very slow in making sure we're not retramatizing somebody. And so that's really, really important. So yes, digestive issues are being, are one of them. Let's talk about you brought up your nervous system.

If you have sat in a, let's use like a war environment. And for some of us, and this is where I always say Do not discount your experience because you're like, well, other people have had it hard. No, no, like, no, it doesn't. Every heart is unique. If you struggled, it is unique to you. And when you say, well, I didn't have this or I should be more grateful or like they've had it worse, then all you're doing is minimizing your own experience, right? It's like not listening to a child that's having a hard time.

I know let your experience stand on its own. But if you have experienced an environment that did not feel safe chronically over time, you end up with a heightened nervous system, right? It's a heightened nervous system that basically your nervous system is telling you, I can't let down. If I let down, I will not feel safe. It feels like you need to have guards up at all time. And if your nervous system is that guard,

I need to see what's coming. I need to be on alert. Why? Because somewhere along the way it learned if you let down and you take the guards down, you're going to get blindsided. And I don't know if I can have, I don't know if I can live through that again. So you end up with a really heightened nervous system.

Now, the amazing part is that doesn't mean that we'll always be that way. That's where someone like me comes in or like the work you've done, is that there is neuroplasticity. There's regulating we can do on our nervous system to help get us back down. Some of the techniques I do with clients, I'm helping regulate their nervous system and I'll kind of get them into a place and they're like, oh my gosh. I mean, it's been decades since I've been able to sit in that place of just like quiet in my body. You can be sitting on the couch and quiet and there's nothing in your body that's quiet.

Internal regulation is something different. And that's what we're looking at. Right. So you end up with a very highly attuned nervous system. Again, we don't want to beat ourselves up for that highly alert nervous system. And that middle part of our brain, the amygdala, that's the part that sniffs out potential threat. Now, the potential part is really key. Because if you have a lot of trauma in your background, this is something I actually had to, I went through my lot of years of doing this personally for myself. I had this amygdala and I was so frustrated because I felt like everything set me off. But in actuality, it was just, it was all those years of those

traumatic experiences. So I had to learn like just because my body picks up on something, it's a potential. And then I need to gather more evidence, more information to find out if that's a real threat or if it's like, okay, false alarm, we're good, we're good. But it picked up on something. It just was something that was not as big of a threat as my body felt. Before you book any brunch, lunch, or dinner, you pour over lists and lists of reviews. So why not do the same when you're booking a doctor's appointment? With Doc Doc, you can see real verified patient reviews to help find the right doctor in your network and in your neighborhood. After all, finding the right doctor is just as important, if not more, than finding

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Again, that's dock.com slash blonde, Z-O-C-D-O-C-com slash blonde. Summer is here, and usually with that comes so many things from vacations to weddings, to parties, brunches, just a lot of activity. And trying to build a wardrobe and look cute for all of these things can get very expensive. So that is where Newley comes in. Newley is a subscription clothing rental service, and for just $88 a month, you get your choice of any six styles. So you can choose whatever you want to rent for whatever you have going on. It's totally up to you.

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But are there any kind of lifestyle things that people could do, whether it's journaling, meditating, anything that can kind of help when they get into this heightened state or just to be more aware. I think that everybody is so distracted right now. And you can go through the day without knowing what you're feeling. So do you have any tips for people if they're experiencing that? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. You know, and I love to talk about this because all those things I think normal people do

for self-care like meditating or journaling. Like you, I won't. That's just not me. Like, I don't do them. I'm like, I can't ask you to do something. I'm like, oh, that sounds awful. I'm not going to do that, right? But I, I would, you need to experiment.

And what you want to experiment is building a tool belt full of small things. And they want to be sensory things. So we're looking at taste. We're looking at smell. We're looking at sound. We're looking at touch. Go through things through your body that are regulating. And how do you do that?

You experiment. So the exercise that I take people through, I'll use my coffee because for me, coffee is a really regulating thing. See, everyone thinks it has to be these big things, right? Or I have to build in, I got to build in 30 minutes of yoga. That's fine. However, we want snacks and meals. So we want to put like a drip system throughout our day of little things that are little things that help regulate our body. So for instance, take something that you enjoy.

I'll take coffee because it's like the love of my life. And I'll take my coffee in the morning. And I'll go and sometimes I'll sit out in the backyard or I'll put my feet in the pool. And I will just, I'll smell my coffee. I'll slow down. I will sit my coffee and I'll just feel the taste of it and I'll feel the warmth in my throat. anything that in your head, you say, oh, that's good, right? Stop for a minute. 12 to 15 seconds is what it takes for it to drop into your body. So I'll build in these little things that just drop into my

body, see if I can get a little hit of like, oh, there it is. Right. And so this is great for people, too, who are busy. You don't have to have all this time in order to put in these little drip systems, right? So another one, and these are examples, but again, you've got to figure out work for you. I call it, I call it, what was I calling it the other day? It was like, it was yell singing, yell singing. Like in the car, music's up so loud that you cannot hear how tone-deaf you are. And like, we're bordering, yelling, but you're singing this song, right? That gets energy out of our body. So I would look for things, too, that help get energy out of your body. So things that are really grounding, dropping into your body, sensory things, whether it's an essential

oil, your coffee, this food that you love, right? Something that's really, you can just feel your body drop down. Things too, they get energy out. I'm a huge advocate of moving your body. It doesn't I mean, you have to be athletic. It can be, but anytime that you're getting outdoors and moving your body, those all help get that energy out of your body, out of your body. And so that's one of the thing I'm always looking at, where are we moving our body? Where are we sweating? I mean, I'm always like, all right, put sex in there.

Like, that is the same thing. And every time I'm working with 20-year-olds, they're like, oh, are you advocating for that? Like, get it out of your body somehow. Get it out of your body. Well, I know walks are very trendy right now. and I had another therapist on my show a while back who was talking about how walks are proven to disrupt rumination. Like a good way to disrupt rumination.

So that kind of stuck with me like to just, I'm obsessing over something, get outside, go for a walk. Absolutely. And that seems to have helped. So I'm curious how this plays into like attachment issues. I know that this is a really popular topic. And I think everybody is like, I'm avoidant.

I'm insecure. And anxious attached. Anxiously attached, yes. And I would imagine that there's a connection there. Can you talk a little bit about like the different attachments and how it may be related to trauma if it is at all? Right. Absolutely. Well, you know, attachment is it is developed in our bodies at a very young age.

Usually they put it about a year and a half to three is this sense of attachment. They use the idea of object constancy. That's a big word for basically what it means is if you see like a little toddler, they're dropped off at like Sunday school and they're like screaming and crying because the parent left. And then for that little toddler, they don't realize the parent's coming back. It's out of sight, out of mind. And then the parent comes back and it's like, oh, they're reunited and they're clinging to them as if they're saying like, don't ever leave again. As they get older, with the exception of kids that struggle with separation anxiety, as they get older, there is this understanding

that says, my mom is leaving. My dad is leaving. Yet I know they will be back to get me. And they're like, they're like, I'm like, bye, have fun. Like, I'm going to go play. right? And so that's that sense of object constancy. Even though it's removed from my sight, I still know it's there and I still know it exists. And that's the same field that often happens with relationships. If I've had relationships in my life or those big figures, the big objects in our life when we're young being like a mom, a dad, a caregiver, a grandparent, or like even a teacher, when we're young and we're developing, we have these objects outside of us that teach us life is stable or life is safe or our experiences teach us this world is not safe and this world

is not stable. If you feel like you're living in a world that's not safe or stable, what do you want to do? Right. It's the body goes into a survival response. So it'll either want to say like, I'm going to hold on as long as I can. And if you're with me, I feel safe, that's an anxious attachment style. Or it will say, no, if I feel at all things start to get rumbling, I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. Right. I just had somebody really close to me. We were talking about this because we were talking about our dynamic, me and this other person, and it's my real life. And we were talking and he was saying, he's like, yeah, I like literally, if I feel like you are disappointed, like, I honestly, I feel like there's a squirrel inside of me and the squirrel is like

scratching and like trying to get out. Like it literally makes me like feel like I have to like run away. And I was like, wow, what a powerful visual, right? That's more of an avoidant. If I feel like you're going to be upset. So basically you need to imagine like if the floor feels like it's getting shaky or rocky, right, or it doesn't feel stable, I will either lean in, anxious, or I'll lean out avoided. The fascinating thing, and you, this is something, and it's, what I love about this is it's not stuck. It doesn't mean it will always be this way. But what you'll often see with the anxious attachment is that when you're with them, your body's like, oh, we're good. But the minute they're out, that's when your body blows up, when you don't have that person in front of you, even if

everything's fine. Like, everything's fine. Like, like, they have a life. So they haven't texted you for two hours, right? And your body is just like flooded. Okay, that's an ancient attachment that's like, I lost my mom. Like, I lost my, I lost my stable object. How do I know that? Because the minute they text you or the minute they're back with you, your body's like, hmm. Right. So that, that's how it plays into that. It's a sense of safety. It's a sense of safety. And the good news is that those things can be worked on. And they can grow just like muscles to a place it feels better. I'm wondering, because now we're in my therapy session, everybody. I've been aware that I'm like an anxiously attached person, the majority of my adult life,

but there was nothing that my parents did, at least that I can remember, that would have made me that way. I didn't have that consistent fear of, you know, being left or object impermanence or whatever. I did have a traumatic relationship in my teenage years that went on for a long time. And that was a very toxic, very emotionally, very, very, unstable relationship, we'll put it that way. And I never knew what was going to happen. So maybe that's it. That's exactly. That's a revelation. That is. That is it. Because our bodies don't know time. Our bodies don't know time. So this is when we think like, if I get into a safe environment, then I should be fine. Not necessarily. This is when people are like, no, if I just moved to this country or

if I just move here, then I'm going to be happy. Well, well, you're there. You're moving there and your body's moving with you and our bodies don't know time. Yeah. So one of the techniques, so I'd love to give you. Are you good if I'm good? I can't even help myself. I can't even. I'm like, I'm going to give you something to try. So for instance, in relationships, when you are with somebody and it's good and you know they love you and they know they care about you.

But when they're not with you, it just triggers our body and bumps this out. Things all have plans to as I'll say, okay, think of like, can you think of one thing they've done recently, maybe in the last month that really when they were with you that made you feel just like so full and so cared for? I don't know. Is there anything even that comes to mind that you can think of that just makes you? And you don't have, I'm not asking to show your proof. Like, is there something that comes to mind that you can actually just like think back and be like, oh yeah, I could feel it in that moment. Yeah.

Okay. And when you think about that memory, when you go there, when you think about, can you just bring it back for a moment and just as you hold it and think about it, what do you notice in your body? I feel warm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like warm and relaxed. Yeah. Maybe it's my COVID. Maybe it's my fever. It could. It could be. But we're going to take it as like, so what we want to do is we want to start to create memory capsules. Little memory bubbles of like, wait, wait, let me think back to the last time I was with them. And they kissed my shoulder. Or they just said, like, I'm so like, I love you so much.

Or they did something or said, I'm here for you. And I'm going to bring out that bubble. I'm going to hold it 12 to 15 seconds again. Get a hit of like letting that drop into my body. And I may have to pick up a few of them. And I'm going to put those in when I'm away from them as a way of regulating my body. it's a way of trying to keep that object constant, right? In order to kind of hold this when they're not there to teach our body, I can have that experience even when I'm not physically with them in the same room. And that get problematic where you're then like dependent on that person or that situation being okay in order for you to be okay?

Yeah, if you were, what I hear you saying is like if you did that so much, then wouldn't that make you like lean on it, right? So but the other, so the alternative. though is if I don't do that, then my body stays in this bumped out state. What usually happens is in bringing that in, it bumps our body back to a place that feels regulated. And from a regulated state, then I, what happens is then I can access like, no, I'm good. And then I can move on with my life. Yes.

Can we work on other pieces outside of our life? So that's not our only life. Yes. The goal isn't to make it that they're the only, I use the picture of like a portfolio. Right. So when we have a life, we have a portfolio with lots of different pictures in a portfolio. If they're the only thing in our portfolio, then if they get ripped out, there's nothing left. So we want to build in a portfolio that has lots of different pieces of life.

So that if they leave, yeah, I'd be sad, but I still have a life with a lot of other good things. And then conversely, what if somebody is avoidant? Are there any tips for somebody who's like that who's just like first sign of anything? Peace out. I'm done. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. I have so many. Oh, I can talk about this for hours. So, yeah, one of the things is being able to say, come up with that visual of what it feels like in their body if they can. Like that will use the example of that squirrel and be like, okay, my, like that school is like scratching or like I'm, I'm going to take some space, but I will come back when that person is able to take that space, but be able to come back around. If they disappear and don't come back, then it bumps the other person out, like totally triggers

the other partner. So you want to be able to say like, I am bumped out of my zone or that squirrel is like scratching right now. Like I will talk to you, but I need to be able to cool down and then I will come back around or I will call you in an hour or I'll come back in an hour, right? So being able to take that space if you need it, but also be able to circle back around. Most people that are avoiding, they're lacking the circle back around part. So then their partner feels abandonment because they're like, peace out. They're gone, right? And I have no way of getting them back.

And usually the cycle is the avoidant disappears. Then the anxious is like, no, no, come back, come back. And they're like trying to bring them back. And the more they come back, the squirrel's like, let me out. Right. And so then you just have like that pattern like going over and over again. And so letting them go knowing that they're going to come back around. Right.

And when they are avoidant, what I would encourage them to do is like go, that walk, shake it out of their body. It literally needs, their body needs to be able to regulate. When you are avoidant in that state of shutting down, you got to be able to shake it out of your body, regulate your body back in. And then you can go back up and address the issue. When you're avoiding it, you can't address the issue. Like it is all about like get me out of this cage, right? So I've got to be able to go through my nervous system. Go for a run.

Go for a walk. Right. Shake it out. But also be able to communicate to. my partner. Like, it's girls going crazy. I will be back. Just give me an hour. Mm-hmm. Do you feel like people can fully get over those patterns? I mean, if it's something that's ingrained in our brains from a young age, I know that, you know, you mentioned neuroplasticity before, but do we ever fully recover or do we just become more aware of it and have more coping

mechanisms? I use this analogy, like, because I like, you know, I don't know, I love my pictures and movies, but there's an old Willy Wonka movie with Gene Walder, not the one with Johnny Depp. Gene Wilder, it's a little creepy now that I look at it. I'm like, he's a strange lad when I look back at it. But there's a scene from the original Willy Wonka movie right before they go into the chocolate factory. And they all kind of go into this closet. I don't know. Have you seen the original Willy Wonka? Okay. Yes. I thought it was all all, all of us older folks, but no, there's a lot of young people who've seen the original Willy Wonka. But they're going into this closet area and they all kind of get stuck in there and they're all kind of like, get us out of here, get us out.

He's like trying to find the door into the next area they're supposed to go into, which is the chocolate factory. And then somebody in the group's like, I'm getting out of here. I'm going back. And they all start to turn around and go back. And he goes, no, you can't go, you can't go backwards to go forward. And that's what I would say is you can't go back. You can't go back to who you were before those experiences.

We can be sad. We can mourn the loss of what we were like before those experiences. But if we're trying to reach a state, same state as if it had, and happen. We can't go back to go forward. What I can say is this is what's happened to me. This is where I'm at now. This is what my body looks now. And from this point, how would I keep growing those muscles from this point forward? That just allows me to be where I am on the path and recognize I'm not the same person as I was before that. You're not the same person as you were before that relationship. Right. And recognizing. And from here, though, I can grow and learn. And it's like growing muscles.

they grow like muscles. Muscles can get bigger and muscles can get smaller. I love that. I love that analogy and that visual. Well, I like to ask my guests, what is one thing we should stop doing today and one thing we should start doing today?

And it doesn't have to be should. It could be could. I know some people are like, don't should on yourself. Yeah. Oh, no, I love that. I love when I get asked questions that I don't usually get asked.

Usually I get asked a lot of similar questions. So what is one thing that we should start doing and what is one thing that we should stop doing? That's good. You know, here's I would, it's probably how I, when I go on with my lives, I end them all the same way. Most of my podcasts, I end the same way, which as I say, be quick to love and be slow to judge. And I would say, what is one thing you can do for someone around you? Start by holding a door open or smiling at someone. You have no idea if you're the only person in their life that even acknowledge their existence today. So I'd say, start slowing down in life, open a door, smile at somebody. If anything, you'll find that it makes you're like, feel better. You think you're doing it for them, believe it or not, you'll end up feeling more satisfied watching yourself do that. When it's stop, it would be stop judging. I think sometimes in our own anger and hurt, we are so rageful and we're so full of hate and we just spew it around us. And so I would say that working on, if you're judging a lot or hard on other people or just full of bitterness and anger, it's to recognize like, oh, maybe that's an indicator. Instead,

I have to work on what's going on inside of me. Because all you're doing when you're staying in that place is you're drinking your own poison. I love that. Well, I could have gone on for forever talking about this stuff. Maybe we'll have to do a part too. But in the meantime, tell everybody where they can find you. Yeah. I'm on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and podcast all by the same name. We're just keeping it simple. It's called so my mom's a therapist and kind of pays an odd to everyone was like, do you love having my, to my teenagers? Do you love having a mom that's a therapist? No. No, not until their friends are in trouble. And then they're like, mom, help. Right. I was going to say one day they'll appreciate it.

Oh, no, they do. They actually all of them at one point do. They'll even say like, I'm not going to say this was super helpful, but it was so. So my mom's a therapist on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Apple and Spotify. Thank you, Lisa. Very fun. My pleasure. I hope you enjoyed that episode.

If you liked it and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way. and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. I'm always posting about each episode there or over on my personal page at Ariel Laurie.