M1 : Lesson-5 : Who Gets Stuck In Stress & Illness? Trauma Types and Influences
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While we make every effort to make sure the information in this course and any Primal Trust™ content is accurate and informative, the information does not take the place of professional or medical advice.
Do not use our information to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any physical/mental/emotional disease, or as trauma treatment, or as a substitute for the advice of a health professional.
We do not accept any liability for any injury, loss or damage caused by use of the information provided in any Primal Trust™ content. Although Cathleen King, DPT is a licensed physical therapist. She is not a medical doctor, and this is not physical therapy advice. This is lifestyle education only.
Transcript
Lesson 5 common predictors of who gets stuck in chronic stress and illness responses and an overview of types of trauma. You might wonder why some people get stuck in an underlying chronic stress physiology and others don’t. We all know that our mindset or how we see the world is a key aspect of our stress level. Gabor Mate says, as children, it is our interpretation of the world in which we are raised that creates or shapes our minds. Our brain and our nervous system are literally wired a certain way based on our early environment.
And it is through that same brain rewiring or programmed mind that we will then see the world as we grow older. This leads to the 1st major indicator of a chronic mental or physical illness, early developmental trauma. One of the top studies in chronic stress leading to chronic illness was the adverse childhood experiences study. Also known as the ACEACE study in 1997 by Kaiser Permanente. The study provides a list of 10 questions that ask about the events of your childhood.
The study showed that the risk for chronic illness later in life was especially high when a person has experienced 4 out of 10 or more of the events in this questionnaire. When we grow up in a stressful environment around adults who are not regulated or who don’t feel that okayness we just talked about, Our nervous system becomes primed to be dysregulated. We began to have a set point of chronic sympathetic fight or flight activation. You can Google this ACE study assessment and take it for yourself to see your correlation with chronic illness. For me, personally, my score was a 9 out of 10, which is basically a guarantee I would end up having an issue with my health.
2nd, capital t trauma versus small t trauma. Over obvious traumas in our life are a huge factor when it comes to dysregulation of the nervous system, but it doesn’t have to be a capital t trauma Small tea trauma can occur as well, especially for sensitive people. Through more subtle relationship of issues such as growing up with parents who were emotionally unavailable or verbally abusive, bullying, called life events, and even physical injuries can all result in a small t trauma. It is common for those to grow up in dysregulated environments to develop coping behaviors such as perfectionism, people pleasing, codependency, controlling, withdrawal, oppositional behaviors, and being a workaholic to name a few. Another type of small t trauma that is less over is a type of developmental trauma where instead of something big like a shock trauma happening, we can have trauma built up by never getting something we are seeking or needing that is a positive thing but becomes a hurt that is a deep unmet need.
In primal trust, we’re gonna focus more on this issue in the level 2, mentorship. 3, attachment issues and relationship trauma. We sometimes don’t classify this as trauma, but it most certainly affects our nervous system is trauma. Trauma patterns in the body can occur when we experience unstable, unpredictable relationships or bonding that affect our capacity for open hearted, safe connection as children, and even as adults. This affects our ability to be in our body and find self soothing, and also our ability to feel safety while in connection with others.
In fact, healing inner attachment issues has one of the most dramatic effects in regulating our nervous system and should be included in the focus for nervous system hairwork. Number 4, physical trauma. It is important to point out that not all trauma is emotional. We know that toxic exposures to things like chemicals, mold, electromagnetic frequencies, and more can stress the brain and lead to limbic system impairment. And that’s a form of physical trauma to the body.
Physical injuries such as concussions are known to cause chronic stress responses. 5th, pathogen or chemical trauma. Another type of physical trauma can occur through infection and pathogen exposure. The brain can become inflamed and become stuck in a chronic fight or flight stress response. The bottom line is that trauma, whether it’s capital t or lower t, childhood or a doll, emotional, chemical, pathogenic, or physical, often plays a critical role in chronic stress and chronic illness.
The emotional state of, I’m not okay. I’m not safe. Is often developed at an early age through exposure to a stressful environment. This emotional state must be addressed in order to help restore the optimal functioning of your autonomic nervous system. This level 1 program will begin to address trauma patterns with various tools, But if you have deep trauma patterns, I highly recommend completing my level 2 primal trust mentorship for a more thorough repatterning of your past to help decrease the chronic stress response.
We’re also going to explore trauma in a bit more detail in module 6 of regulate. In the next lesson lesson 6, it’s on the cell danger response. This learning was also one of the most in happenful learnings for me personally to understand what was happening in my body and help me become very serious at developing a sense of innate okayness. So please take the time to listen to this module, and I will see you in the next lesson.