00:00:00.000 Hi, everyone. My name is Gerard, and I am with Allison, but technically we're not together. We are separate. I mean, in one location, Allison is in another. And so I just wanted to say thank you for joining our podcast. And we're excited for you to be here. You want to say anything else? Yeah, just thank you for being here. And we're excited to share with you today. It's a little different drawer now I've never done this. Separate from one another.

00:00:28.000 So hopefully it'll turn out well for you and you'll be able to hear as well. So Gerard, we're going to address trauma cognitive trauma to the brain. Is that what we talk about today? Yeah, exactly. We're going to just discuss giving overview of how trauma impacts the brain.

00:00:51.000 And then you know I think as we had discussed by going to go to the generation of mirroring after that, which is a really good topic, and I think that it's very important for us to just kind of reinforce and to bring clarity to how things work out. So I'm just going to ask this question, how does trauma impact the brain? The symptoms of trauma can present in many different ways.

00:01:19.000 They can be short and long-term and grouped into four main categories, cognitive, or just thinking behavioral things we do physical and emotional. So I'm just going to give an overview of what it happens in a physical aspect of things. It would cause excessive alertness on the lookout for signs of danger. Easily startled fatigue and exhaustion, disturb sleep, and general aches and pains.

00:01:47.000 When we get to the cognitive section of it, it's intrusive thought, excuse me, one more time intrusive thoughts, and memories of the event, visual images of the event, nightmares, or concentration and memory, disorientation, and contusion. Again, that's listed on the cognitive. As we get into the behavioral section, it's avoidance of places or activities that are reminders of the event. And that social dwell in isolation, loss of interest, and normal activity.

00:02:19.000 And another thing, just briefly, is that with shoes that just trigger things, it could be smells, it could be things like that nature, too, that will come into the behavioral section. And we finally, for the emotional part of it, we have fear, numbness and detachment, depression, guilt, anger, and irritability, anxiety, and pain. So as we discussed this many times before any other podcast, we want to reiterate too.

00:02:51.000 That all of these symptoms that we're seeing we see that the trauma has impacted the brain. So as we're interpersonal relationships, when you are dealing with people who are going through these things and you can see the underlying things that are causing this, their behavior issues or whatever they whenever you have those interpersonal relationships and the things that just aren't right or you see behaviors like this exhibited, that's a telltale sign of there's an underlying issues to that.

00:03:20.000 And that's where we come alongside people and just love on them in a way that just you know show us a little bit of price to us and that we will be able to just listen to them and just help them through these things. Any thoughts, Allison? Yeah, I was just going to give an example of you know easily being startled. If a balloon pops and it's loud or if you hear a loud crash behind your house and it's just a random thing.

00:03:51.000 Or if somebody just walks in the room and touches you and you had no idea they're there, I mean, just easily startled. And an example of someone, let's just say, and I know because this has happened to me, a couple of people in my life have been in severe automobile accidents.

00:04:12.000 And so if I'm driving, they are very, very fearful of if you're not stopping at the rate that they would want you to stop or if you're moving over when they wouldn't want to move over or if someone comes closer to your car, then they're comfortable with. It creates anxiety and fear and a response from them that you know people grab the dash, their horizon, they're holding on, they're doing all this stuff.

00:04:47.000 But for the driver, when that happens, it may also be creating a trigger. And they're alive because of what they've been through because we said we've all been through suffering. So like for me, when I was learning to drive, when I was 15 years old, it was not a great experience.

00:05:12.000 And my dad was really doing the best that he could, but he was always very you know uptight and holding on and telling you to do it a different way. So every time that happens with me, it creates something in me. And it's interesting because we've all got these things going on. But when we can recognize them in one another, I think it's a little we can work through them a little better with one another.

00:05:43.000 I just wanted to share those examples because I think they're good. And there are things we don't think about. Yeah, it's everyday life. I just finished up with kind of follow up with saying, so the question we would ask is, what the statement we would say is trauma, is any stressful event that is prolonged overwhelming or unpredictable? And some of the examples of the list in front of me also you just mentioned too is going to be a car accident or sudden expected or violent death of somebody who suicide or something else.

00:06:16.000 And we've talked before sexual mental physical abuse. You know, natural disasters, anything with earthquake slides, you know, brush fires. Anything like that would cause involvement, as you mentioned, in the car accident. And the other thing, too, is more political violence, terrorism, you know, becoming a refugees, Civil War.

00:06:39.000 All of these are, you know, really traumatic events, but even just as you were saying, Alison, when you're dealing with driving or with just interpersonal relationships, sometimes we can go through things that just make it more difficult to come through the other side and without being unscathed, I guess, is the best way to yeah. We all have something to work through. Yep. Because we all have it. We don't get it.

00:07:09.000 We don't get through this life without it. Right. And you know the one thing that we're doing here and as we go into studies and research is everybody goes through it and we're just like you were saying we have to remember that. So we just have to I'm going to say this again. And you'll hear me say it many times. We just have to be the best me that we can do. And we just have to understand and work within ourselves to get through this. And work with other people as well.

00:07:37.000 So it's really it's really how I designed it. Yeah, and we just go back to how the law was designed. Interpersonal relationship, each of us helping each other and our strengths. I hope other people can weaknesses and other people's strength to help our leaders. So I brought that in as well. Yeah. That's great. So where would you like to go from here?

00:08:00.000 Well, I don't know if you want to talk about I was thinking about how you can heal from this in terms of how doctor Perry has addressed some issues with children, not just some. He is amazing. He's an amazing doctor. And has worked with traumatized children and I believe we mentioned him in our last week's podcast, but there was one specific story, I think, that you know the boy who was raised like a doll.

00:08:35.000 You want to talk about that story and just kind of share how he approached that? What approach he used? Well, one of the things before I start out is that doctor Perry is a great psychiatrist. But he also has a wonderful gift in the ability to understand their mirroring aspect of what people caregivers, what they see from their previous upbringing.

00:09:03.000 So if they see what's near it, that's what they mirror it to other generations. So as we move forward with that, doctor Perry in that particular story, we had to stick with the fire on this. It was really amazing. A child that was neglected from such an early age, do you want me to go into the story?

00:09:32.000 Do you want to just kind of get into the mirroring aspect? Maybe just get into the mirroring aspect, but bring a little bit of the story into it just so that people can see that the mirror that mirroring happened. Sure. So it starts at Perry. Really teaching all of us. And so many of the people through research have come to follow up with what he has suggested as well.

00:10:03.000 That is to he goes into a situation of his counseling, he will make sure that he takes the time to look beyond what the what they're going through. He looks at underlying behaviors or could be underlying things such as different stories such as cutting or self mutilation. But anyway, he gets the investigation started right away.

00:10:35.000 And the reason for this is because he wants to get to the bottom of why people are experiencing some of these just mentioned the impact of the brain from trauma. And it's just what I love about it. He does it in such a loving way. For example, with Connor, the soft things that were difficult to see, he was actually elected a little bit into what we collected from the very early age.

00:11:04.000 It was left alone quite a period of time during the days. When he was from 8 months old, 8 weeks old excuse me to 18 months, and so as what happened there was the mother and father and they moved to this place. They had the child, and a lot of people, they had day care, and they did needs because the mother had to go back to work. We had a business and they both had to work to build a business.

00:11:35.000 So a child partner with her cousin. And a job, and it seemed like a good fit. But anyway, I've been honest to the parents. Cousin took a job in another place, but she still go there in the morning feet and then move forward to her job and do that for the day. Let's say around noon time and then you know change in feed and then go, you know, just before they would come home from work, she would do it again.

00:12:10.000 So I was here a long period of time without any attachment attunement in your interaction with people all by himself. So this led to a lot of issues that came about from there. And again, doctor Perry's excellent way and his team as well is to, again, get to the underlying issues. They were diagnosed with diagnosed with so many different things from other therapists.

00:12:35.000 But the importance of looking at the history of it, seeing the mirroring of what happens and how it happens is very important. I don't know if you want to add anything at this point.

00:12:50.000 Well, yeah, as I think about him and you just said, what happened to him and how do we help it and how doctor Perry addressed that with him and how initially you said he was diagnosed with all these different things and we are so quick, I think, to look at certain behaviors in our children, whether they can't focus, whether that you know so many times children get diagnosed with ADD or ADD, ADHD, and it's really that is that is only a symptom of what is going on.

00:13:25.000 It is where we see doctor Perry taking this deeper and really finding out what the underlying issues are for the child and listening to the child's heart. And the process of healing and therapy, so yeah, I wanted to add that because I think it's so we're all so quick and we put our children on these medicines that, yes, sometimes they're very good for them, but many times it's just covering up what's there.

00:14:02.000 That's great. That's an excellent point. Thank you for bringing that up. Because that's the other thing with doctor Perry. He's not into labels. He's known as a diagnosed with DSM. He sees so many different things that a lot of therapists don't see. And I know they're trained. It's not that they're not evil or trying to do it in a way that unfortunately can do.

00:14:28.000 It has a great way of showing what happens when you get to the heart and you listen to the child and you see the behaviors and then the other thing too is mirroring. So if he goes to the parents to sit down again, he does this involved. He does this to find out what the underlying issue is. It's not a blame game. It's about finding out how the parents were able to you know how they were mirrored from their parents. And it's a generational thing.

00:14:57.000 We can't state that enough. How important it is to understand the generational aspect of things. When you are, and I know that with me and with Allison, even before we came to really notice, we understood that whatever happened, stopped with us, and these are things that we have learned and we've been able to follow up with the research and when we get the affirmation from people like doctor Perry, discovering mercy, our research, and our education, coursework, it's just amazing to understand that we're all human and as you go to the heart of any issue and you go to the heart level to listen to the heart of the people we're dealing with, particularly children in this aspect, but we also bring them into the adultness.

00:15:49.000 Something Alison just prior to the podcast, too, is that not only does it happen in children, but with the adults because with the children, thankfully, doctor Perry was able to help these children of our very difficult needs. And it was just exciting to see you know you know unfold and how with the proper dedication problems.

00:16:19.000 I'm going to interrupt you for just one second. I'm sorry. I just want our listeners to be able to hear everything you're saying. So if you just repeat your last couple of sentences, that would be awesome. Thank you for telling me. Yeah. Anyway, what I was saying was that with doctor Perry, as he has pointed out, it's the hard issue. We just want to make sure that we understand the mirroring aspect of things and we get into the generational aspects.

00:16:45.000 So it's really just investigative work as I've mentioned earlier. But also, we're talking about Connor here in the story of children, but this also happens with adults. So as people who have suffered trauma and complex trauma having been, you know, haven't actually had that process with the M process emotions they have. As they become adults you know, this still happens within a delta.

00:17:13.000 So again, what we have to do as counselors or caregivers, pastoral counselors, is to listen to the heart of the person and just get in there and just work with them again. We're all equal. It's not like we're sitting in a chair that we're above. No, we're all weak. That's what they look for. These people who have suffered from trauma, trauma, based mind control, and other things.

00:17:39.000 Is that when you are working with them, they see things and they really can look and see if they can trust you. And so we come alongside them, listen to them, delve deeper, and in a way that it's not intrusive, but let them really come out and try to try to draw it out of him, but be able to understand the right questions to ask. And again, it's just to work with them along come alongside them and just show them the love of Christ as they're trying to process these unprocessed emotions.

00:18:12.000 And so I think Doctor Perry does a great job as we're outlined for children, but again, we can bring that into the adulthood and still do the same thing. Any thoughts? Yeah. I totally agree with that. I mean, it's just you know I call it a generational patterns and it's so easy for us to be operating as adults that haven't gone through processing our trauma.

00:18:39.000 And doing things that we think are the right way to do things or the best way for our children when ultimately they're not the best thing. And then we start seeing behaviors in our children. And we're like, what's wrong? What's going on and so hopefully that's at the point that we start digging in and trying. But if not, then they grow you know up to. And then it might take grandchildren going through things to see. But yeah, I was thinking, Gerard, you know, like about how doctor Perry talked about certain things that children need when they're young.

00:19:15.000 And I just loved how he talked about you know we need patterns. We need rhythm. We need all of these things in our lives. And I was at a birthday party yesterday, a Spider-Man birthday party. And there were all these young moms there. This was a party for my four year old nephew, great nephew, and there were these young moms there, and they had four year olds, and then they had babies. And because of what I've learned, okay?

00:19:44.000 I was able to recognize what some of the moms were doing that were so awesome. I just loved seeing what they were doing. They had their four year old, but then they had their babies. And they had their babies on them with you know those carriers that you can carry your baby in the front.

00:20:06.000 And so they may be standing there having a conversation with their friend, but with their baby, their rocking and a rhythm and their patting their baby and we don't even realize the value and the power of that right there that is happening in a child's life. And how it can help them be healthy children in the long run.

00:20:35.000 I just wanted to add that because to me, you know, you're talking about mirroring and I'm thinking, there's these four year old children and they're watching their moms do this with babies. And they're seeing a certain kind of care that's given to them, that they can go and carry forward. But then they're scared. That is not in the best form. And that gets carried forward also.

00:21:05.000 So all right. That's a great point. Just to kind of go back for review, we talked earlier about how 90% of the brain is developed between one and two in the first year is crucial. So if the baby has the mirroring they see of the parent or like you were saying, just holding them. And then as they cry, they can they see that the parent you know, if they need something, they see that the parent is attentive and takes care of their needs.

00:21:37.000 So their mind is growing and that creates just a very, very healthy way for them to be able to just grow and just understand that there is a caregiver who cares for them and loves them. And that just like you were saying, Allison, just really helps with, as they get older, to understand that they're loved, wanted. And that creates such a healthy connection with the parent caregiver that it just really helps to bring about a very healthy part of relationships.

00:22:11.000 So they see how relationships are as they grow up in this type of environment. And they create healthy relationships with other people, with a reverse is true. So if you have a child or a baby who's zero to one is in a very difficult place, it's being neglected that's really feeling really that they're cries of trying to get what they need are not you know the parents do not come through for them. Or changing diaper to pop a time or other things.

00:22:43.000 They even connection just being there to talk to them and all them are going to match you. It creates a very different scenario. And it's very hard for them to overcome that. If from zero to one if they are very stressful situation and go into another stress, another situation say a plastic program on it, they're taking away from their parents for a particular reason. They still have difficulty, even if it's a loving chair given environment, but because they just didn't understand they didn't have any tumors.

00:23:17.000 Attachment. It's just leads to a very difficult time as they're growing up. And it stays with them pretty much for their life if they are not if they're not diagnosed with let me step back. Not diagnosed, but if they don't understand the unprocessed emotions, if they have developed because of this, because it gives us them such a different way of looking at themselves as they get older, not worthy. I'm not worthy of love. And things of that nature.

00:23:46.000 So that just I just wanted to follow up with you. Yeah. And just everything you just said, I love what you just said and all of those you know, those two different scenarios that you give has such an impact on the brain and how the brain develops and how we think about ourselves, how we see ourselves, how we think other people see us. And those were all of our struggles come in live.

00:24:16.000 So thank you for making that. It's wonderful that we're able to talk about it. And as we're talking, we're going for it from relationship, which is really how God made us to be.

00:24:34.000 And it's just so wonderful to see healthy relationships, but it's just it's sad to see the unhealthy relationships because, again, as we just don't like at the beginning of this podcast, how trauma impacts the grant and four different categories of physical and cognitive behavioral emotional, it's very sad for a little baby to have to overcome that. And you know it's just it just sad. That's fine. But that's the great part of it.

00:25:04.000 And at any age, we talked about an example of any age that the neurons can always be changed in the pathways there to come from you're taking what is buried, really deeply buried. And sometimes you don't even know you have it there, but when you understand it and this is what we're trying to do is to help you understand that your behaviors or anything of that nature that can come about from reverse childhood experiences, which is trauma, is really this hope there for everybody, any age.

00:25:44.000 That's what I love about it. That's what I love about research and brain, understanding of the impact of the brain and really just to see how God made our bodies. To me, I'm blown away by how complex they are. And when you get into the brain area, it's just amazing to study how it works. And how even through the most dire situations it can come around and you can have a quality life.

00:26:17.000 Yeah, I love that. I love how you know no matter what. No matter how old we get, no matter what our age is, when we start therapy, if we really want to change and we're intentional in that, we can do that. And it's not just us doing it. It's what you know we're moving in what we know to do and God is meeting us there. And our brain changes.

00:26:46.000 And it doesn't matter what age you are, as you said. It might take longer just because you've learned certain patterns and you have certain neural pathways that are going a certain way. And so you have to redirect those. But it's really amazing. And there is so much for us to talk about on this topic. We wish we could talk about everything in each podcast, but you know we're just very thankful that we are where we are and that we can share what we learn with you all and what we have learned through our own experiences.

00:27:23.000 And again, we just want to be a voice of help. And helping people overcome and move forward so they can live wholeheartedly. Oh, that's great. You know, one thing I know we're going to be short on time here, but as we talk about it, and you said something is very true, both Allison and I you know within our lives, we came to the point where say, we wanted to change what was happening within our lives.

00:27:58.000 We wanted to find out what the issues were. And that's what it takes. I mean, we can only just hit it and talk about it to show you. But the people themselves who are involved in this, they have to obviously to understand or want to move forward with this understanding with this you know with counseling and or you know just doing a better job of being the best meeting we can be by the correct information.

00:28:29.000 That's what I love about it. Following up with the correct information and moving forward. Yes. So true. Any other thoughts? No. All good. Please, unless you have something. No, I think I'm all set for this particular podcast. We went over quite a bit and Alison was saying there's so much that we want to talk about.

00:28:54.000 And we would love to have some input from you to you know maybe a questions or you know we can elaborate and dig deeper into some of these traumatic events in the causes and understanding you know how it impacts the brain or you know anything that might be when it comes to mind. So please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Just thank you very much for being here. Yes.

00:29:24.000 Thank you all so much. And I hope you have a blessed day and please share our podcast with anyone that you think would benefit. Whether it's a parent, a grandparent, a young mom, whoever it is, we just we just want to spread the news. Absolutely. Great way to end it. Thank you for sharing that too. It's so important. Please share it too as well. Appreciate it very much. So again, thank you very much. Thank you.