Well with Arielle Lorre - 39: MEG NEWMAN, LMFT - A Conversation with My Therapist: Trauma, Eating Disorders & Anxiety

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

In this episode I talk to my therapist of the last 6 years, Meg Newman, LMFT, about all things trauma, eating disorders and anxiety. We talk about different types of trauma, their manifestations, and treatment modalities; how our bodies accommodate trauma and various survival mechanisms; and how to develop healthy coping mechanisms. We also discuss eating disorders (vs disordered eating), perfectionism, control and stress - and how to deal with it all.    If you like this episode or the podcast in general, please rate, review and subscribe! It is great way to support the show ❤️   For more about Meg: www.megnewmanlmft.com   For more about Arielle: www.instagram.com/ariellelorre www.theblondefiles.com www.instagram.com/theblondefilespodcast  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You are listening to the Blonde Files podcast, and I am your host, Ariel Lurie. I am currently in the process of redoing my intro for the podcast. I really want to capture the essence of what this show is about and my mission. So bear with me as I just dive right into it like this with no music and, you know, none of the frills. Anyway, that doesn't make this any less of an amazing episode. It's actually one of my favorites. It is with Meg Newman, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Full disclosure, she's also been my therapist for the past six years. In this episode, we talk a lot about trauma, about survival mechanisms, eating disorders, and disordered eating because there is a difference, perfectionism and anxiety. And then we also talk about solutions and becoming friends with ourselves

and with our bodies and how to support ourselves through these issues. So we don't really talk about anything specific, but we do talk about trauma, and she talks a bit about her training with sexual assault victims. And so if any of these things are triggering for you, consider this a trigger warning. I don't really know what that encompasses, but I see that things come with trigger warnings now. So I figured, why not? We talk about these things. So if you're sensitive to any of that, now you know.

Proceed with caution. But it really isn't, you know, like I said, we don't get into nitty-gritty. We just talk more about the different types of trauma and different ways it manifests and how to cope with it and how to seek help and what disordered eating might look like and what it could be a symptom of. and same with perfectionism and different modalities of treating these things. So again, no specifics. A little bit about Meg. She's, like I said, a licensed marriage and family therapist. She's worked in the field of psychotherapy since 2002. She specializes in the treatment of trauma and resilience, as well as resilience in recovery from addictive behaviors, food and body image issues, and stage of life transitions. She sees clients 13 and older, individuals, families, and couples. And she has specialized training in the areas of adolescent and adult substance abuse, addictive behaviors, and sexual assault. So without further ado, Meg Newman.

All right, so I'm here with Meg Newman, my therapist of six years now, right? Wow, it's been six years. Coming up on six years, I think. Yeah, off and on. Yeah. So I had a huge response to this podcast on Instagram, so I'm really excited to talk about these issues that we're facing today and trauma and eating disorders. And it seems like everybody is dealing with something and everybody wants help.

So I can't wait to get into it. But just so that the listeners know a little bit more about you, can you talk about how you got into being a therapist and your training and your areas of specialty? So I got into being a therapist probably from my own healing from all of the things that we're talking about in here. And my experience with therapy and just the way that I am in terms of like being an empath and really wanting to help other people the way that I was helped is what led me into being a therapist.

So I've wanted to be a therapist since I was like maybe a teenager. It's been just sort of like the automatic path for me. So I got a master's in science in marriage and family therapy. It's a counseling degree. And then I moved right into working in the substance abuse community, working with individuals and families and children or adolescents that were affected by substance abuse in some kind of way, whether it was the partner of somebody who was addicted or if it was children of addicted parents

or kids that were acting out in some kind of way. And I did that all through my training until I was licensed. And then after I was licensed, I worked with the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica, UCLA Hospital. And I had training on sexual trauma working in the clinic with people that had been sexually assaulted more recently. and also doing prevention education programs for schools. And then since then I've always had a private practice and focused on substance abuse treatment and realizing that all the clients that I worked with around these things

had had some type of trauma beneath. And so I was working with kind of the aftermath of trauma all the time, whether it was somebody who was working with, had an eating disorder or body image issues or substance abuse, and they were acting out in some kind of way, either sexually or otherwise, usually at the root of all of it, we come to find out there's trauma, whether it was in their childhood or as an adult somehow, it worked through the threat of their lives.

And this was the aftermath we're dealing with them, trying to kind of recalibrate their nervous system by using something to kind of create homeostasis in them, to stabilize them. So can you define trauma for us? Because there are different levels. right and different variations. I feel like everybody's experienced some trauma at some level, right?

And it's some overwhelming occurrence that's been an emotionally overwhelming experience that our bodies can't always integrate on. So let's see, like there are small T traumas and big T traumas and small T traumas are like you were bit by a dog. one time or you go to the dentist and have a difficult procedure there and those are small T traumas. A big T trauma is like childhood abuse, sexual trauma, natural disaster or big accident that you were in, something like that, major injuries. Those are big T traumas and then C traumas are maybe something more like homophobia or racism, things that have gone on for long periods of time

that you're affected by. And it can also be the build up of lots of traumas. It's like a complex trauma. Sometimes people that have experienced trauma and childhood tend to re-expose themselves to trauma and be traumatized again and again. And this would also be complex trauma. And that seems to happen in addiction too, right? Like we kind of re-traumatize ourselves over and over again, and then there's the shame that comes with that, and it's like this endless cycle. I think we talked about this before in one of our sessions,

but I'm just curious. In your experience, have people who go on to abuse other people usually been abused themselves. Yeah. Usually you can find that. There's been some situation of abuse or neglect. Usually something's been done to them. Right.

Like people don't just become that way. So do you think that addiction and substance abuse issues are environmental, or do you think there's more to it than that? There's such a wide range, and I think of any of these things that we're looking at, whether eating disorders, mental health issues, substance abuse, we want to look at a continuum. You know, there is definitely a genetic predisposition that we find, although people can be heavy abusers and have no, you know,

other people in their family that have addiction issues. And that would be more a product of environment. But there's also people that have a predisposition genetically to address. addiction and that comes out, they're more likely to abuse certain substances as a result of their trauma and trying to rebalance their nervous systems that way. So can you talk about any like correlations with certain types of trauma and certain types of substances that you've seen? I don't know that there is such a thing.

Okay. Yeah, I think it's just like people kind of figure out what works for them. It's their medicine. Yeah. Whatever they need. Yeah. I can attest to that. Yeah.

And I wasn't, I was not picky. Right. Sometimes it changes. Yeah. And then they all kind of start to work in concert with one another to try to reach, like you said, that homeostasis. Yeah. And as we like kind of put the lid on things for a while and the shit starts to creep up,

so to speak, we got to add more on to keep it down, you know. It's kind of like, I think about it kind of like a trash can. You can only put so much in the trash can. before it starts to overflow. And at some point, all the substances, all the acting out, all those kinds of things stop working. But they're really adaptive. They work for a while, and they actually help you survive the trauma that you experienced

because it's too hard to deal with it right away sometimes. You know, sometimes we have to kind of run really fast or avoid it or, you know, deny it so we can survive. And we have to just keep moving forward. And so eating disorders and addictions. are really adaptive. They help us do that. Yeah, I hear a lot of people in recovery say, like, thank God I was an alcoholic or thank God I found drugs or alcohol because it kept me from killing myself. That's right. Absolutely. So it does work in that sense until it stops working.

Until you have another problem. Right. Yeah, it's like whackamol. Okay, so I really want to get to unpacking all of that, but let's kind of go back and talk about some of the issues that you're seeing a lot of today? So I do work, because of working in treatment for so long, I do see a lot of people through their sobriety many years after. And we work on just normal life transitions. Dealing with anxiety in certain situations, especially early in sobriety, like everything's new and you just feel like a naked baby, you know?

So dealing with transitions to just like kind of normal life things, whether socially, career-wise, relationships. I work with people that are going through relationship changes, divorces, single parenting, but mostly I work within the framework of trauma. And I notice that most of the people I work with have had some kind of trauma early on. And now that I've specialized more on trauma, it's sort of changed the work that I do. Because I work more with, I will say, like there's two types of a problem. approaches that we can look at. One is like top down, like the way we're thinking about something,

the way we process things. And then the other is bottom up where we work with the body and we work with what's happening in the body when we have anxiety or when we feel triggered by something. And especially with people that have had, you know, substance abuse issues, we notice that so much comes up in the body. And anxiety, again, I will talk about that on the spectrum, but we notice it in the body. It can show up in so many. different ways like we know. So sexual trauma is something I work with a ton and I actually have a group for women that have been sexually traumatized that maybe it happened in their childhood and something in adulthood has triggered a response of a lot of panic attacks and you know something like that and so

they're coming back to deal with something they weren't able to deal with when you know closer to when it occurred. Yeah and isn't it pretty much proven now I don't know the exact numbers you'd probably know better than me, but that if you have a certain amount of adverse childhood events, you're X amount of times more likely to become an addict or have X, Y, and Z happen. I don't know exactly. Actually, I have that here. The A scale is what you're talking about, the adverse childhood experiences. Yeah, and the higher the number, the more likely you are to have mental health issues, addiction, anything like that, even physiological, like chronic medical issues. Yeah, so, okay, so let's get into trauma.

It seems like a lot of us have experienced it on, you know, somewhere on the scale. And we kind of talked about the different types. How do our bodies and minds accommodate trauma when it happens or right after? I know, like, personally, in my experience, I mean, I was, it's like fight, flight, or freeze, and I froze and then and then took flight. but that freezing like I feel like I'm just now starting to kind of thaw out so to speak so it took a long time it's true you know and sometimes we can really disconnect from our bodies also as a way to kind of survive we have to like tune back in to understand what's going on and this this is where we see eating disorders too you know becomes a lot about what is it that I should do or how should I eat what should I

look like what should I and trying to kind of manufacture and control because there's so much self-hatred and shame for our bodies so to tune back in and actually listen to what's happening on the inside is a really powerful and hard experience to go through but yes we have are those when we feel like we're under attack or there's threat if you see a bear walk in the room people will either fight want to fight the bear run away from the bear freeze when they see the bear or even try to befriend the bear. Try to kind of placate the bear. Make nice, you know.

And this is automatic. It's what our bodies automatically do, which I think is really important in terms of trauma because a lot of times, like in terms of sexual trauma, they'll say like, why didn't I fight? Why did I should have done this? I should have done that. And there's a lot of shame there.

But your body just does what it needs to do naturally to help you survive. And that's a survival mechanism. it's automatic because what happens is there's a shutdown of our, you know, normal thinking is not available to us at that time. So what you can think through after when you're calm and there's no bear in the room isn't available to you while you're under attack. Can you talk a little more about what befriending the bear or placating the bear looks like in a traumatic situation?

Trying to make friends with the assailant, trying to just befriending the bear. them, be kind to them so they'll let you go or whatever it is in the situation, pretending to be, you know, friendly. Yeah, I'm in that way, not threatening them. So how does trauma, how have you seen trauma manifest when it goes untreated or unresolved? It shows up in all the ways that we're talking about, you know, some people have, like, some people just need to just survive. So they get up and they just keep moving as if nothing happened. There's a denial to them. There's also, it could be hypervigilance around what's going on in their environment.

You know, they could be kind of scared of the world in a sense. Or if it's a small tea trauma, they could be scared of certain things in their environment. Like, I'm never going to the dentist again. That was an awful experience. All dentists are bad or all dogs are bad. I got bitten. But when it's something that's a bigger T trauma, I was attacked or, you know, I was attacked. I was abused.

The whole world looks like a scary place to be. And they may be hypervigilant and not really trusting their environment or themselves or other people. So that can show up. It can happen right away. It could take months for these things to show, but it could take years. Again, someone could be triggered years down the line and suddenly start having panic attacks. And they realize they have never dealt with this thing. That's kind of what happened to me, minus the panic attacks.

but I talk about this a lot on the podcast. It's just come up for whatever reason. And it's hard to talk about the actual thing that happened. I don't really love going there on interviews, but sometimes it just. But I'm open about my experience of trying to now deal with this thing because I think it's important for other people to hear, you know, that like numbing out can't last.

forever and that you can work through it and that it can improve because it has been improving. So, but yeah, that's, I forgot why I went off on that tangent, but that was kind of my experience of like this thing happened years before I even got sober. And then I got sober and then I really didn't start dealing with it until maybe five years into sobriety because I started having these issues of anxiety and different health issues and whether it's all tied together, who knows, but it's like very coincidental, I would say. So how are some ways that trauma can manifest physically? So certainly like we see a correlation between, like I said before, health issues and trauma,

the higher incidence of that ACE score, those adverse childhood experiences, people that are adults will more likely have chronic health issues if it's not what dealt with. And autoimmune disease, right? Yeah, it can show up in so many different ways, a lot of stomach issues, a lot of gastrointestinal issues. You know, a lot of tightening in the stomach and chest and panic attacks, like I was saying. A panic attack feels really like I'm having a heart attack and I'm going to die. So some of these things can happen. There can be a lot of dissociation also, which I didn't mention before, feeling out of it,

or feeling really depressed and numb. You know, there's kind of two sides of this. It's kind of like the low end scale where we just feel so lethargic and can't get out of bed feeling. And then there's where we get kind of bumped into a higher zone where we feel just kind of anxious and on edge all the time. Or angry or reactive, that kind of thing. And sometimes you can go between both ends of the spectrum with that. I think it's interesting that you say that it can manifest in digestive and stomach issues. And I think it's so many of us experience these issues and attribute it to what we're eating,

what supplements we're taking or not taking, what probiotic were taking or not taking, what probiotic were taking or not taking and for some people for sure that's probably contributing to it but um i remember when we were working on trauma or something and i know you probably can't talk about this because of confidentiality but um you ask me where i feel it and i was like my stomach like i never like when i get activated that's where i feel everything so for anybody listening if they have unresolved traumas or issues and they're also having digestive issues or any kind of health problem. Such an important component to look at. And we know it lives in the body until it's able to be expressed.

But I think people find that woo-woo. Right. So if you look at like an opossum, so this happens in nature with animals too. And a possum, when it's being preyed upon, will freeze, right? That fight, fight freeze. It freezes and it plays dead until the predator's gone. And then when the predator's gone and they feel safe, they get up, they shake it off, and they walk away and they're fine, and they don't remain traumatized by that. We don't get up and shake it off.

Once we feel safe, it depends on who's around us. If we have a trauma and we tell someone and they say, well, what were you wearing? Or what did you do? Or why didn't you do this? You know, then we are holding the blame and the shame and it keeps the trauma alive and even makes it worse, you know? If where was someone says, oh my gosh, that wasn't your fault, that was an awful thing that happened?

Are you okay? There's a different experience that we have afterward. Doesn't mean you get up and shake it off, but we have to have some way to get it out of our nervous systems because otherwise it stays there. If we weren't able to kind of live out our survival response. response like that opossum can. So there are a few things I want to talk about here. That's a really good point that you made about being blamed, I think, sometimes for trauma

or being the response to trauma seems like it's inappropriate a lot of times, this is up in your experience. Excuse me. Well, this is why people don't want to talk about it. Because they already feel inside like they're somehow to blame. Like I was saying before, maybe if I would have done this or maybe if I would have done that, when our bodies just do what they're supposed to do automatically, it feels like we did something wrong.

And you know what the thing is, we have no control over these situations, and that feels really scary. Because if I had some control over it, then I can prevent it the next time. If I had no control over it, then it means this world is a really scary place to live in. And so, you know, there's so many things that happen afterward. But when we're afraid to tell somebody because we think we're going to get in, we're going to be blamed, they're going to hold us accountable in the same ways that we hold ourselves accountable. But it's because we haven't thought out yet. We haven't been able to process it yet.

Okay. So that element of control, that's really common in eating disorders, right? So it's that kind of, maybe this is a good segue to that. do you see people develop eating disorders as a way to try to control what feels uncontrollable? Yes. And it's not always conscious, but I didn't get to control what happened to my body, so now I do. Right? Now I'm going to eat only this, this, and this.

Now I'm going to, or even with binging and purging, is the way. way to kind of get out all the anger that's buried because I'm not supposed to express my anger that I have or all these feelings that I have. So I'm going to starve all day. I'm going to not maybe purposefully, but I binge last night. That feels out of control. And now I have the control I can purge, or I can exercise so much. Or I can, you know, controlling our bodies, the input and output feels like much more in our ability to control than these outside things like someone hurt me. Can we talk about different eating disorders on different parts of the spectrum? Because I wonder, I'm curious, how prevalent they may be, especially now with social media and these new beauty standards that are kind of, we're being inundated with.

Also, like, what I think is usually a pretty well-intentioned emphasis on, like, wellness. but I think it's probably also made a lot of people like somewhere on the orthorexia spectrum and maybe not aware of it or maybe they are. So can you kind of talk about like different types of eating disorders and how you may have seen it evolve? Yeah, I would say that there is this orthorexia as like the newest version of an eating disorder. But, and there is a spectrum of all eating disorders, you know, in terms of how much they affect the way we live our lives. but obsession with food in the body is what I would say is the basis of that which is also anxiety

and trying to control and manage and what ability we have to deal with and manage our own stress in our lives right so it can manifest through trying to control our food and what happens if it's not perfect you know what happens if I eat something that's not organic or if I eat something that's whatever different than this food plan that I think I should. I think that's important to talk about too is like how much we feel like we should do, I should do this and I should do this and I should do this. And if I don't, then what's the, then what happens? Where does that go?

And is that okay and are we flexible with it? If not, you know, there's a significant weight loss or weight gain we want to be concerned or if it's getting in the way of living your life or body weight is abnormally low, you know, certainly that's when somebody needs more professional help. I think it's important to notice, like, how rigid am I with this? And what is this about? When did this start? How long has it been going on? Is it in conjunction with other things that have happened in my life? Yeah, I had a lot of people it seems like, at least among my followers, the trend is kind of binge eating. And I know that that's something that I really struggled with.

I feel like I've kind of cycled through different forms of disordered eating. Certainly, I mean, I was bulimic for years before I got sober and then a little bit when I did, right when I first got sober. And then as I was trying to like get quote unquote healthy, binge eating was huge for me because I would restrict, restrict, restrict. And then it's a pendulum swing. Right, exactly. And for the most part, it all kind of like tapered out as I, I don't know, as I got further along in my journey.

But I had to like go through some serious peaks and valleys. And the orthorexia thing. I mean, especially when there's this emphasis on like gut health and hormones. And it seems like everyone's trying to attain this. perfect health and I don't think it really exists and it's like if you're always looking for something I always say this if you're always looking for something to fix you're always going to feel broken and you're always going to feel like you're not blank enough but I mean it's like trying to avoid all the inflammatory foods and all of that so it's a lot of work yeah yeah and a lot of

obsession about what you're eating and what is the point of it like we're like am I doing this to, um, what am I looking to find? And when do I feel okay with just me? Mm-hmm. Well, and that's the other thing. The goalpost is constantly moving. And you're never, it's never going to be enough, ever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and I don't know, progress, not perfection, right? Yeah. Because like the perfectionism is a lot about anxiety and control. And we never get there and then we never feel good enough and there's a lot of shame beneath that right and so um i don't know i feel like i could talk about this topic forever um but like we want to think about holistically having balance in our lives and if we have movement in our lives is the movement about i need to burn the calories

i ate last night is it about i need to do this perfect workout routine and if i don't then what happens because then we set up like i should do this i should do this i should do that. I should do this. And then when we don't do it, then are we a failure? Or when we do something and we're moving, isn't that so amazing? Because we're doing it because it helps our overall well-being. So we could work out three times a week and it could be like this glorious thing that helps us feel really good in our skin. Or we could work out three times a week or more or whatever. And it could be something that's shaming and punishing for us or never good enough. you know so it kind of depends on the perspective that we carry with it or can you be working out and notice how good it feels to be in your body and notice how much you can appreciate what your body can do

yeah that's such an important perspective shift and it really does make such a big difference but it's so hard i think for how does somebody go from being like punitive and controlling i know this is very generalized but like are there any small steps that somebody could take to try to shift into like a healthier mindset? I think you thank yourself for showing up wherever you go. Thank you so much. When you do something like I don't know if you're exercising and you're noticing you're looking at the calories that you're burning or some at that point are you listening to your body really? No, you're looking at the like metrics. Can you just notice how good it feels to move your legs on the bike or can you know notice how nice it feels that your legs can walk beneath you or can you go outside and do it and

notice the trees that are around you and be really present in your experience of exercising and then at the end you say honey I'm so proud of you today for doing that it feels so good or just notice how good your legs feel afterward whatever the thing is but um it takes a lot of conscious effort or even just noticing how shaming we can be what does our inner language sound like oh god i didn't do that long enough or i didn't do that enough or whatever the thing is you know you know what i'm so glad i was able to exercise today i know that's going to feel better you know afterward whatever it is it's like being really present with ourselves and could you apply the same thing to eating absolutely um there what is there's no like perfect eating and so i think like

when we set up this guide for like it has to look like this and then we don't do that the um beating ourselves up that happens afterward um and the shame shame is a very toxic emotional experience right and um we want to actually just really learn how to love ourselves unconditionally and that means like what is my body really craving right now can we slow down and take a break before we eat and pause and just go, what does my body want right now? What is my body need? Can I just check in? How hungry am I?

And how full am I now? And I can know that I can eat whatever I want when I'm hungry again next. Sometimes when we set up this deprivation, this experience of deprivation, that's why we overeat, you know, because I feel like I'm never going to get anymore. And there's a lot of anxiety around meal time. And if this is all I'm going to have, then I'm going to eat. eat it really fast and you know but if we kind of slow down and just say i can have anything i want right now and i can eat until i'm full um and then i can eat again when i'm hungry again that's

like gives us so much permission i wonder if it's like an evolutionary thing that when we go into that deprivation mode because thousands of years ago they had to eat everything right because you didn't know when you were going to eat again. Anyway. Yeah. Like storing up. Yeah. Yeah.

It's that pendulum swing. I know I know that I'm a rebel. If I tell myself, don't eat this, then that's the only thing that I'm going to want to eat. You know, when I say, like, I can eat whatever I want, you know, I can eat whatever I want when I'm hungry. And I know I can stop when I'm full. It changed everything for me.

I had an eating disorder. This is intuitive eating if anyone is interested in. And I highly recommend intuitive eating. Yeah. So that's kind of such a, it's a hot term right now, at least in my world on the internet. But everyone says, okay, that's great. How do I intuitively eat? Because intuitively, I want to eat everything.

But I don't know if that's really true. Right. Maybe so. No, I mean, I agree with you. Like, I think slowing down and being mindful is like a blanket cure for so. many things. It is. So helpful. And for me, it's like meditation. When I started being able to meditate, so it was like over a year ago and slow down for 20 minutes twice a day, which not everybody has to do. But that really tuned me into my body and I was like, whoa. And I had been like counting macros before and just deciding what my body needed and making my body do it, which, you know, it's like trying to fit my body into this mold that I arbitrarily decided was fit.

once I was able to slow down then I was like oh I trust myself I know when I'm hungry or when I'm bored and I know that this is what I need right now I want a burger right now you know sometimes I just need it or I don't need and it really helped but yeah so and then what happens when you listen to that how do you feel I feel great I don't know like I just I don't food was such an obsession for so long. Yeah. And now it's like I eat. I'm satisfied and then I don't think about it.

Yeah. Until I need to eat again. Like I think we're kind of for some reason like trained into like fearing hunger, seeing hunger as the enemy. And so we're trying to do these things so that we don't feel hunger because we don't want to eat. But it's like hunger is normal. Mm-hmm.

It's good. It means our body is working. Yeah. It's like a, it's a cue for me. our body. Yeah. And then if we could pick up on the cues in our body, that's, you know, really becoming friends with our body again.

And that is self-care. That, you know, calculating is such a part of eating disorders, right? Calculating and managing and counting this and weighing that and it's not intuitive, right? And sometimes it's indicated for something. I don't want to, like, speak out of turn and say this never is a good thing or whatever. Like people come from, you know, all different places where they have to learn how to kind of, or be able to kind of stop doing something for long enough that they could start to tune into their bodies. And so sometimes these things are really indicated and really helpful.

And there's not one thing that's right for everybody. But in terms of trauma and eating disorders and this kind of thing, this kind of what's underlying is really, can we slow down enough to tune into our bodies? And I think a lot of times it helps to work with someone on that. It's very hard to do on your own when you haven't had any experience doing that. And so it can take, like, there was some question here about really being able to go to therapy, being able to ask for help and what, and it takes a lot of courage to do that. There's still so much stigma around asking for help. And because of all the shame that we feel, we feel like somehow we're a failure if we need help

or we're not doing something well enough. And I think it's such a strength. It takes so much courage to really ask for the help. And we all need help at some points in our lives. Everybody does. And if you look at like professional athletes, they still have coaches. Right? And so we do too.

We need that. It makes us better. It makes us stronger. Right. Yeah. And people have business coaches. That's right. Yeah.

It's such an asset. Such an asset. So going back to trauma a little bit, what are, what are some ways to deal with it? So we're talking about slowing down and being mindful and seeking help when it comes to eating. And obviously trauma is probably not something you should try to go through on your own. So aside from seeking the appropriate professional help, what are some of the modalities or some of the things that you like to implement to treat trauma? Well, I would say that there's so many things that you can do. There's one book called Body Keeps the Score and Spessel Vanderculk.

He's got a lot of different various methodologies for treating trauma. And he kind of talks about and compares all these different methods. I use brain spotting, which was born out of EMDR, which really gets into the subcortical brain in terms of reprocessing the trauma. And I found it to be pretty magical. all. And I also use trauma resiliency model, which is a somatic base reprocessing, which works with the nervous system that's been traumatized. And I use these skills to help you to notice when you feel like you are in wellness in your body. So you can tell the difference between wellness and distress in your body. And when you feel distress, how can you recognize it? And what can you do to bring your

nervous system back into like a more resilient zone because when we're always on edge let's say we're feeling really depressed it's really we sometimes we can't figure out how on our own to get back into a place of like kind of a better functioning right so one of the other things that I highly recommend is yoga yoga is a really important treatment for trauma because it helps someone reconnect with their bodies. There's so many yoga poses where you use all your body and is if you really like paying attention, if you move slightly this way or slightly that way, you're going to notice a whole shift in the posture and it just helps kind of reintegrate into our bodies. So yoga is a highly respected treatment for trauma. I would say it needs to be in conjunction

though with some good therapy. Sometimes what's indicated is medication if the symptoms are feeling like they're out of control. You know, if you're like having panic attacks and things like that, if you try some therapy and it doesn't seem to be working, maybe medication is indicated at that point to kind of restabilize. There's so many different things that you can do, but I highly recommend talking to someone about it. do you think that we can fully recover from trauma i think that there is like post-traumatic growth i think that what happens is it doesn't go away like the trauma doesn't go away but we have a new found resilience and a new found part of ourselves and our self-care that is just like an added

bonus like you know it's like a new muscle a new strength that we develop out of afterward. So to that point, how can we develop healthy coping mechanisms? Well, say more about that. I mean, think like when somebody is kind of in the throes of trauma, all of that stuff feels really out of control. And we have to kind of stop doing those things to kind of help first. There's a spiral. And we kind of need other people at that point, you know, to help us get through that. So how about just with, kind of like generalized anxiety, fear issues that a lot of people are dealing with today, if we're maybe turning towards unhealthier things.

Is there anything you would recommend to try to start practicing healthier coping mechanisms? Well, if you can, I mean, there's a lot of things that we can do, right? Like, notice when you get in bed at night, what are the things that the thoughts that keep you up at night? Are you worried? Are you anxious? Can you write about it? Can you meditate for five minutes a day? There's many apps out there to help with guided meditation. Can you, I don't know, there's lots of like counseling centers or therapists out there, low fee counseling centers, but I would say like journaling, meditating, moving our bodies, being in nature. literally hugging a tree, being somewhere outside, being really present to your somatic experiences,

like, what are you smelling, what are you listening to, what are you tasting, all of the things, and see if you can really be present with those experiences. That can help you kind of slow down and get grounded, but, and also being seen by someone, being really connected to somebody, whether it's a friend or a therapist or somebody that, feel like has your back that you can trust. That's really important. Yeah. Yeah, and community, right?

Such an overlooked part of the whole picture, I think. Okay, well, let's get into some listener questions. Okay, so we'll start with how can I get the most out of therapy? I think that's such a great question, actually. One, I would say it's important to interview therapists and feel a connection to someone. You want to know that what your issue is, this person has experience and training in. And that was another question that I didn't have on this list, but somebody asked, how do I find the right fit? So maybe we can add that in.

Yeah, you know that? It's like you have to be with the person, I feel like. I have to be with the person and share a little bit and hear their responses and see if I feel heard or gotten. Because, you know, if you go into a room with someone and they look like shell-shocked by what you say, or they say something that really gets under your skin. You know, it's important to feel some kind of connection. Because that relationship and their attunement to you is what's going to heal. You know?

Also, be honest. There is confidentiality. This person can't tell anybody what's going on. Be honest about what you're struggling with. The more honest you can be, the more you're going to get out of it, you know, like anything else. The more you put into it, the more you're going to get. and if there's something that you don't like in there or you have feedback tell the therapist you know and you can process that together and that's really powerful so and if there's things like i teach

skills often when i'm working with trauma about dealing with the nervous system and if you get disregulated or something like that like start using those skills outside of the room the more that you can take from the room and use it in your everyday life the more effective it's going to be too How can someone support a partner who's going through trauma therapy? I think that's also a great question. I know. I love that one. Yeah.

One is ask them, you know. I would say, stay away from giving advice or trying to fix them, you know, and maybe listen and ask them, how would you like me to be there for you while you go through this? What would be most helpful for you? and let them be the expert, you know, if they're going through trauma therapy, the trauma is something that was out of their control. So them being able to ask for what they need is really powerful. How do I deal with hypervigilance as a lingering impact of trauma?

So I would say it depends on how much it's affecting your life. And there's various things that you can do. it's like what happens is our nervous systems and our survival responses can be out of whack after trauma so our body is ready for something to happen even if it's not a dangerous thing so our body is already like on edge um and so sometimes we have to tell it that actually right now i'm okay i'm actually safe and so that we're like maybe we need to pause for a second and say like okay actually there's no one here and I'm okay or whatever the thing is. But I would say this is something that therapy is really helpful for. Trauma therapy is really helpful for. Sometimes medications can help,

but I would never say take medication without having therapy. Okay, that's kind of a segue to. How can I treat depression naturally? Well, depression tells us oftentimes to stay in bed and isolate and it makes us, it can make us really lethargic, it can make us want to overeat or under-eat. It could make it feel like nothing sounds good to do. We lose interest and pleasure and things. So usually the antidote to depression is to get up and do the thing that tells you not to do. Like if you don't feel like moving, see if you can take a five-minute walk or see if you can stretch in your room. talk to somebody, be connected to somebody, share with somebody that you don't feel well.

Contrary action. Contrary action is a big one. Again, I say like, go like be in the sunshine. Get a little sun. Be in nature. Take, I mean, a hike. I think when you can do anything when you're depressed, it's good. And then compliment yourself. I just wrote in my journal for five minutes. That's amazing. Good job. And maybe that's all I can do today. And tomorrow, maybe I'll be able to, you know go on a walk and maybe take a shower you know it just depends on what the thing is it um but you know you can do a lot of things without medication and sometimes you need medication that's okay too there's nothing wrong with that and sometimes it can be just for a little while until things stabilize um do you have tips on dealing with anxiety attacks yes i have um let's see um when we're

talking about a panic attack, sometimes people go to the hospital because they feel like they're really having a heart attack or they feel like they're going to die. And so when they realize that it's anxiety, it can be an overwhelming experience. And some people fear having another one. Yeah, the fear of anxiety is so, it seems like it's so insidious, right? Yes. It seems like, at least for me, the fear of having anxiety is usually worse than the anxiety itself. Yeah, yeah, it can be. And then that will make you want to be inside and not go where the trigger is or the anxiety, right? So there's avoidance that happens. So I would see if you can notice where you have the anxiety, where is it showing up? Can you get, again, I'm going to say, like if we

talking about our bodies, sit against a wall on the floor and notice how your back feels against the wall, notice, you know, the temperature, the support of the floor and the wall. But maybe that doesn't feel good because maybe walking feels good. Maybe it feels like you're in such a heightened place. Get a drink of water. Walk around the block. Be in the sun. Squeeze something. Smell something that smells good. You know, change the channel of what's going on in your mind to maybe you need to listen to some music that's really soothing, you know, something like that, maybe doing a few push-ups feels good. I don't know, but sometimes it's like the energy in our body that we have to get out. And I call those kind of help now strategies, squeezing ice cubes, squeezing a ball,

walking down the hall, start naming things that you see around you. Name the colors that you see. Count down from 10 backwards. These kinds of things can be grounding. And that can help. So it sounds like more being present, being in your body, slowing down. Being present. Because anxiety is about the future, about things that haven't happened yet. Right?

We're worrying about something that hasn't happened, but our body responds as if it's already happening now. And we're usually dreaming up the worst case scenario, which is never going to happen anyway. But our body thinks it's happening in that moment. and that's why it gets so dysregulated. You know, because I also think about what is the best case scenario? What if that happens? Right. Yeah.

Here's an acronym for fear. Future events already ruined. Oh, right? Yeah. Or false evidence appearing real. Right. Or fuck everything and run. I love those.

But I love future events already ruined. Somebody said that to me once, years ago, when I was new, sober and I was like oh yeah like this feeling my storytelling in my head of the future is ruining the thing you know and it never like I said before it never turns out to be like the story in my head right yeah ever and we think it's so real yeah it feels real I know but it's not even there yet you would think with these imaginations that we could imagine wonderful things in the future right and fantasize and sometimes we probably do but it's like it's like it's seems like the majority of it is negative.

Clume and doom. It feels like we want to protect ourselves from something bad happening. Being embarrassed, being humiliated, you know, somehow it feels like we are doing something productive when it's the most unproductive thing. The most productive thing you can do is try to be in your body. If you feel like you're starting to worry about something that hasn't happened yet, say if you can feel all 10 toes on the floor. Notice like where are the way?

is in your feet can you rock back and forth or if you're sitting down feel your bottom in the seat see if you can feel the clothes on your back notice the temperature the texture the color like really get into the senses that will start to slow you down and another trick that I learned at a conference which I think is beautiful and I teach to everyone is one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach and skin-to-skin contact is the best thing like holding a baby you know because it will start to immediately take our heart rate down. We're both doing it right now. Sometimes you have to switch hands.

For you listeners, if you're wondering why we're quiet. I can't do the skin to skin. I'm in a turtleneck, but. But notice the difference. And it still, even if you do it with clothes on, it still feels. Yeah, it's very comforting. Yeah. Okay.

How can, oh, no. How do I know if I'm actually. recovering from an eating disorder well when you notice that you're not obsessing about your next meal while you're eating the first one I don't know like when you stop thinking about it so much you know I think when you recognize that life is happening in between meals there's some freedom and that there's peace that comes with like my God I wasn't just thinking about food all day that's amazing you know

obviously like getting the behaviors under control, like if there's some significant, you know, purging or over-exercising or that kind of thing. But if you can notice that it's not on your mind 24-7, it's on your mind 27 or 15-7 or whatever, like as that number starts to go down and there's peace, I would say that's huge. So you mentioned kind of in passing that you struggled with an eating disorder yourself. I'm just curious, since you're dealing with this on a day-to-day basis with other people and probably hearing a lot of traumatic experiences, how do you not take that on? And how do you practice self-care in your own life? That's such a good question.

So for me, I have, I realize that I have to have a creative. about that and I get really into like is what I'm doing right now continuing like what you focus on grows right so if I'm focusing on someone else's story or obsessing about this thing or that thing that was hard for me then I notice that I just stay in that and it upsets my stomach and I will want to soothe in some kind of way or I can take that energy and go that was really hard I'm going to sit down to do some art right now and then see how I feel afterward. And I am big on tracking my body a million times a day. And the more I do it, the better my self-care is, honey, what do you need now?

Honey, what do you need now? I have made exercise part of my schedule. It's never, there's never any rigidity around it. It's like, we make space in my schedule. I make space in my schedule. I say, we, like, as if I'm talking to somebody else. Um, for exercise regularly. And that's really important to me, whether it's yoga, riding a bike, a spin class. I try to make it fun, good music. Um, and that is for me, um, as an outlet. And I do a lot of art and, um, hang out with my friends and, um, music is really important. My son and I have dance parties in the kitchen pretty regularly. And just, yeah, things like that. Okay, well, to close, what is one thing everyone should be doing for their overall well-being?

Well, that is a really big question. I know. But I would say if you could tune in and listen to your body, you have an inner guide there that will tell you exactly what you need. If you can do that, and I think that, I think for me learning this about trauma, really recognizing that it was in my body, took away, and that my body does what it needs. to do automatically to protect me, even if it doesn't make sense to me, that took away a lot of shame. It took me a long time to reconnect with my body and understand that and get out of my head. I was an overthinker, analyzer, and, you know, like to intellectualize everything, and I had a hard time feeling tuning in.

So once I was able to drop down into my body and tune in, My whole world changed. So much of the shame went away that I carried for years and years, even though I thought I worked through trauma by talking about it. It wasn't enough for me. I had to go into the body and learn my body again. If you can get into your body and really tune in and listen to it as your guide, you're going to know what to do. You just do. I love that. All right. Well, thank you so much for. coming on. Thanks for having me. So good chatting. Such good questions and I hope it's helpful. And I also wanted to say like you may have people that are listening that are really depressed and are doing things to really hurt themselves or thinking about hurting themselves. And I just want to say like you're not alone. And you know, there is, I don't know if it's appropriate, but there's a national suicide prevention number that I just want to say is out there. And if you, I have, I, I have, have the number I put it in here. It's 800-273-8255. I just want to say whatever you're struggling

with right now, just know you're not alone. And there are people out there that want to listen, that can listen, that can help. And all you have to do is reach out. There is someone here and reach out to Ariel and reach out to me if you need anything. You know, people can help. Yeah, that's so important. So where can people find you? you. You can find me. My email address is M.R. Newman MFT at gmail.com. And I'll have a link to that in the show notes. And my website, which is so funny. Hold on. I don't even want to my own website. Meg Newman MFT. It's Meg Newman MFT at Gmail. Or, I mean, magneumannMFT.com. Okay. I'll have links to your email and your website. and the show notes so people can quickly access that.

And I'll have a link to the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. And yeah, you are not alone. All right, thank you. Thanks for having me. This was great.