Lori Bean welcomes Registered Psychologist Erin Bonner back to the show to discuss trauma, how it can present, and the different modalities of support that can assist trauma sufferers in finding peace and wellness. 

Erin Bonner counts working through trauma as one of her specialities and she is not hesitant to share her own personal experience with PTSD to help illustrate how healing is possible. Erin and Lori examine how working through trauma does involve sitting with unpleasant and traumatizing emotions, but Erin also shares how different therapies can help clients with emotional tools and resilience before they embark on, perhaps, work in Prolonged Exposure, EMDR, or ​​Dialectical Behavior Therapy modalities. Lori and Erin’s message is one of hope in connecting with the wisdom of the right therapist that can guide you through trauma healing.

About Erin Bonner:

Erin Bonner is a Registered Psychologist with a Master’s of Arts in Counselling Psychology. She is passionate about her role in helping others navigate their individual paths towards wellness. In her 20s she tragically lost her younger brother and then her mother shortly after. Through her own therapeutic journey, she discovered her calling to help others work on understanding and processing emotions to achieve personal growth and well-being.

Erin is trained in Cognitive and Dialectical Behavioural Therapies, Prolonged Exposure, Exposure with Response Prevention, Emotion-Focused and Mindfulness-Based Therapy. She specializes in treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, cPTSD, ADHD, emotion dysregulation, grief, OCD, and in helping individuals learn to love themselves and develop strong relationships with the people in their lives. She also offers Sport Psychology to equestrian athletes on an individual or group basis.

In addition to working with adults, she has a special interest, passion and gift for working with adolescents aged 14 and older.

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Maliya: website | instagram | facebook

Erin Bonner | Registered Psychologist: website | linkedin

Transcription

Lori Bean 

As we all know, women in today's day and age need a different level of care. We invite you to join us as we explore the world of holistic care, what it means and how it can really benefit you.

Alyssa Rabin 

We're going to be providing you with really insightful and practical information as to what our practitioners here at Maliya do, who they are, and how their specific modalities can support your well being.

Lori Bean 

We're going to be having candid conversations with women of all ages, sharing their stories, their journeys, their struggles, and all of their relatable experiences.

Alyssa Rabin 

Absolutely. As well, we're going to be informing you on how Western and Eastern medicine can really work together to help you to become and to show up in the world as the woman you are really meant to be.

Lori Bean  00:55

Welcome to today's podcast. My name is Lori Bean. And we are here today. Joining us again, Erin Bonner, registered psychologist here at Maliya. Hi, Erin.

Erin Bonner  01:08

Hello.

Lori Bean  01:10

Welcome back!

Erin Bonner  01:11

I'm so excited to do another one of these.

Lori Bean  01:13

So fun. So fun. And I think we decided today that what we're seeing a lot here at Maliya is a lot of people coming in with trauma. And I think Erin is the perfect person to dive into this a little more deeply. So we're gonna discuss, I guess, the intersection of trauma and wisdom. So welcome, Erin. What does this mean to you?

Erin Bonner  01:39

So I agree, we see so many different types of trauma and I, in my therapy, use the word trauma really liberally. And I usually give a disclaimer to all of my clients that this is a word that I bring up. And I really try and normalize because trauma is an experience that doesn't have to make sense. It's not you were in a car accident therefore you have trauma, you were assaulted therefore you have trauma. It can happen in such small moments in ways that lots of the world invalidates. And so the way that we're seeing trauma show up here, at Maliya, and in my own practice, is pretty vast. And so a lot of the work that I do, because trauma is one of my specialties, PTSD in particular, complex PTSD, which is kind of a new age term, it's not technically a diagnosis, and it fits for a lot of people. There's this desire, this hoping that healing trauma will, you know, make us know everything or really help us understand ourselves and the world. And I think there's kind of this, this concept of, if you have trauma, therefore you will be wise. And I think it's more than that. And I think that pairing can actually just invalidate the experience of trauma a little bit, it devalues.

Erin Bonner  01:40

Oh are you speaking to like - oh, that's interesting that you say that - you know, the narrative that everything happens to you for a reason, and you've had this experience that changed your whole life? And so you bring that into the world, and you're going to be wiser, more profound, more.... is that kind of what you're referring to?

Erin Bonner  03:10

Absolutely, absolutely. I think there's this, this pairing that our world has of, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And in a sense, that can be true. And at the same time, it's perfectly reasonable to wish that whatever terrible thing happened in your life didn't happen. I wish we could cultivate the same knowing, the same awareness, without having, you know, the crap happen.

Lori Bean  03:31

Yeah. So the expectation you think people are having is they come in, they see you to kind of resolve this trauma that's sort of holding on to them and affecting their lives at present. But if we resolve it, I'm gonna emerge as this like incredible functioning human being. And you're saying that's not necessarily true.

Erin Bonner  03:50

It's true and it's not true. I think that, you know, healing trauma, and no matter what type of trauma it is, what's happened has happened in our lives. I wish I had a magic wand where I could go alright, and memory gone. And I don't. And I think where the misunderstanding about treating trauma, whether it's physical trauma or emotional trauma or cognitive trauma, kind of wherever it sits for us as an individual, there's this, I just wanted to be gone. I wanted it to be wiped from my memory, I want to be able to move forward and be completely untethered to the stuff that's happened in my life in previous moments. And I think that's unrealistic, and not in a Debbie Downer kind of way. It's, I think, an important part of our individual histories to go, okay, things have happened in my life. And it's up to me to figure out, well, what do I do with that? And I think that's where this idea of wisdom can kind of fold itself in in a helpful way.

Lori Bean  04:45

You know, I often think about, you know, some people have had really what I would discern as horrible trauma, they end up functioning really well in the world. And then there's some people who I would say, they're traumatized by an experience, but I personally, maybe judgmentally, would say well that wasn't such a big deal. And they're not functioning at all. So the fact that if you've gone through trauma, you should be wiser... why do some people flourish and others don't?

Erin Bonner  05:16

As I said in the previous podcast - I'm a little bit of a nerd and I really like to dig into the science piece, the biology piece - and science and research really doesn't know all of those answers, which, you know, for somebody who likes to know what's going on - me - that's kind of been a big pill to swallow. That there isn't a ton of research that tells us why one person is traumatized by something and the next person isn't. And I think it really comes down to sometimes our brain heals itself. And sometimes it doesn't.

Lori Bean  05:46

Is there a piece around, you know, if you're more nurtured when you were younger, and you have a better sense of safety, and I read something that up until the age of six, there's an imprint? And what about that piece?

Erin Bonner  05:59

I think it plays a role. And at the same time, I know I was diagnosed with PTSD in my early mid 20s. And I had a wonderful upbringing, emotionally supported, validated. My parents were kind and compassionate human beings, and really, you know, did everything from my perspective and the way, they couldn't, they couldn't have done a better job. And so, yes and no, as I speak from my own experience in that, and I think there is something to be said about those formative years, you know, if we're growing up with childhood trauma, the likelihood that our brain is going to be impacted is absolute.

Lori Bean  06:33

And so how do you navigate that expectation? So they come to see you, and you're going to work with them on this trauma, and maybe the outcome isn't going to be what they expect. Because I think people, some people have gone for 20 years to therapy, and they're still in the same place, and they're not getting through it, they're being supported, nothing's changing, or they're reverting back to old habits, or--

Erin Bonner  06:58

I have lots of clients that have had very similar experiences to what you describe. And a big part of the way I practice - and this is where, like, I get into the nitty gritty of ethics - I don't guarantee outcomes, I really make that clear. And I start off any sort of treatment, if we're kind of going into, you know, PTSD treatment, or we're going into an empirically supported treatment with knowledge about the treatment itself, you know. Here's the research, here are the stats, this is how this therapy is going to unfold. And I make that really, really clear before we jump in, because we have to be in an effective place for trauma work to be effective. There's so many variables that make treatment effective or not. And it's not just, you know, I want it to work. And so that's just one kind of aspect that I really, I really hone in on because a) I have to have the person you know, ready and willing to do the work. And I often will say like sorry/not sorry, like, this is gonna be unpleasant in moments. We're gonna sit in some really big unpleasant, traumatizing emotions, traumatizing in your history. So your brain can habituate and process and heal itself, the brain is an amazing, powerful tool that has the capacity to heal itself when we set it up in the way that it needs. And that's where each person might be different, where one style of trauma treatment might work beautifully for one person, and absolutely does not work for the other person.

Lori Bean  08:24

And do you kind of navigate that as you go along?

Erin Bonner  08:26

Absolutely. I think in the world of mental health, there's a little bit of... actually a lot a bit of trial and error, you know, with meds, with therapy styles, with therapists even. That, you know, finding that perfect storm in a nice way match in terms of you know, you find the therapist you jive with, you find the modality that fits for you as a human, and it's that, you know, moment in your life where brain is ready and open to do that type of work. It is a bit of a trial and error game sometimes. And so I know in my history as a therapist, and in the type of treatment that I do for PTSD is called prolonged exposure, which involves revisiting a memory repeatedly and recording it. And so having this exposure and what we're looking for is flooding of emotions. We want the intense ones to show up in the room, we want to put your brain in that emotional state that you might have been in that moment where the trauma was occurring. So some of the theory behind why flooding is an effective treatment for trauma is that the trauma response ends up kind of remaining and lingering and being unhealed by our brain's capability of healing itself. It often comes about after emotional processing is blocked. So what I mean by that is if you were to have an emotion, say something jumps out of the wall here and scares so we both feel some fear, there's like a wave of an emotion. If you were to be hooked up to a brain scan, it would look like a wave on the screen. And so the theory is that if something interrupts that wave, so maybe more trauma, maybe brain shuts itself down, maybe it kicks into fight or flight as a way to, you know, survive that moment... our brain isn't able to finish that. You can't see me but I'm like doing this wave motion in the air in front of myself here... that the theory is that, you know, lingering trauma, PTSD, trauma that does not heal itself, it's a product of something interrupting, or maybe your brain dissociates. You know, dissociation is a built in, you know, safety mechanism that every human brain has when we're in the worst moments of our life. We kind of hope that it trips the switch and blunts, you know, our sensory and emotional awareness temporarily as a way to survive that moment. And so if that happens, our brain can't actually process because it changes where our brain is functioning.

Lori Bean  10:39

So is that why this whole thing like this whole Gabor Mate movement where emotions are stored in the body and illness and all these things, so you block the process of processing the trauma, and then it starts manifesting in the body. Like are people presenting often with physical illness, that kind of thing?

Erin Bonner  10:59

They can. And this is, again, where there are so many different presentations of trauma. And it's cool that, you know, talking to the other practitioners here, like figuring out where all of our different types of treatment fit, because for one person, it might show up in physical ailment. I know for me, I developed an autoimmune disease after my experience of PTSD. It also came with some pretty intense emotional symptoms and some really, really nasty nightmares for a long time. And that's where it kind of manifested in me and so I had to go this whole kind of natural health route to figure out how do I fully heal myself, you know, with the help of professionals that I worked with over the years. And for another person, it might purely be mental, emotional, behavioral. And so it doesn't necessarily have to look one for one for it to be called the same thing, which is PTSD or sub-threshold PTSD, and whether it's diagnoseable or not.

Lori Bean  11:51

Interesting. So a ton of people that I know have developed autoimmune diseases after whatever their trauma was, whatever their interpretation of the trauma was, for them. Yeah, that's kind of fascinating. So let's say you have had trauma that's unresolved. But you kind of look at it like, 'Oh, that wasn't a big deal'. But somehow you're not functioning in the world, you're sick, you're whatever. How do you know, in your own physicalness, that what you're experiencing physically is actually a trauma response?

Erin Bonner  12:30

That's a good question. I think that's where - I mean, we're talking about this idea of wisdom today - I think there's a piece where we can trust our wisdom a little bit in the type of therapy and the theory that I really pull from, it's called dialectical behavior therapy, there's a concept called the wise mind. And it's this idea that every single person has this well within, this inner wisdom, that we might just not know how to tap or may not have access yet. We all have it. And so often, we teach it, and we talk about this, like, sense of knowing. And so I think that's a piece where if you're going through life, and something has happened, and we're doing this, you know, self invalidation thing of like, 'Oh, it's not a big deal, I'm fine. I don't need help. I can, you know, tough it out.' Whether we're doing that to ourselves, or the world around us is doing that to us, having that, like, lingering feeling, that sense of knowing of like, something's not right. I mean, that might be a great time to, you know, talk to somebody. Talk to your doctor, go see a therapist.

Lori Bean  13:24

I believe, personally, that when one ailment shows up, and then another ailment shows up, and you're seeing your doctor 7000 times, and nothing's getting better, there's pieces that are missing, there's some trauma work that really needs to happen. I think, I think that's a huge sign. And it's so interesting to me, like I think about people that keep going to doctor and doctor and they're getting drugs, and really they're putting band aids on the issue. But what is a little deeper than that? And I think we invalidate our traumas, like, oh it was just a breakup. Oh, my kids just left home, or - because we're all going through the same experiences, so it didn't affect Sally when her kids left, but I'm a mess. So it can't be that that's causing me to be unwell mentally, physically, emotionally, whatever, like, all of them are fine. My group of friends are fine, and I'm falling apart. I think we need to really respect our feelings, which we don't do.

Erin Bonner  13:25

I agree.

Lori Bean  13:25

And have compassion for ourselves that means it's time to reach out. If you can't resolve emotional issues, and they can be as simple as your hamster died.

Erin Bonner  14:39

Absolutely.

Lori Bean  14:40

I mean, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that, because I've sort of been around this experience where it became a suicidal experience because this gentleman's hamster died. I didn't understand it, but now that I understand trauma, everything affects everybody differently and we really need to respect what feelings and emotions we're having, and what we're holding on to, and get support other than putting a bandaid on it. I just think we don't do that for ourselves.

Lori Bean  15:09

A lot of that should be done simultaneously. Like I think about our guts, right? Often our gut, what is it our second brain, whatever, so a lot of our emotion gets held in the gut. So you're not feeling well, whatever, you go and you get gut support. But what about if, at the same time, you're healing your gut, and you're getting emotional support, because you probably couldn't sit through a talk therapy session if your gut is a disaster. We forget to look at the body as a whole, there's so many pieces to us. And you're right. Like, especially, I mean, if your anxiety is through the roof, you can't even sit and talk to somebody, if you need meds for that, wow. Imagine if you get meds for support. And then you can actually sit through some therapy and get support.

Erin Bonner  15:09

I agree. And I mean, this is the piece where people will ask me, you know, as a psychologist, 'Well Erin, what do you think? Is it all about talk therapy or is all about meds?' And I firmly believe both. That sometimes those band aids are absolutely necessary to, like, stop the blood flow. You know, for a lack of a different metaphor in this moment. Sometimes we need that medication to help us get to the place where we can do some of the work. And that work, I totally agree, you know, sitting in a therapy room with a therapist who's trained in in modalities that fit for you that can treat trauma, I think is essential. That we don't, you know, learn how to be different unless we do the therapy work. We might feel different because of those meds, and then we get dependent on those meds. And so figuring out how we can kind of integrate this both thing, I think, is really, really important.

Erin Bonner  16:36

And I've worked with people that that has been the case, that there was no way they could have sat in a therapy room without doing, you know, some sort of medical intervention, medication and/or other therapy leading up to trauma work that, you know, one of my specialties is I treat trauma. It's one of my specialties. I also work with a lot of very emotionally sensitive humans. And that's a term that a client once said to me, 'Erin, I'm taking the term emotionally sensitive back' and I loved how she said that, because it's this idea that, you know, if we're emotionally sensitive, it's a bad thing. And I think it's not, I think it's a fantastic, amazing superpower. Yet, we're never told how to harness it. And so if you were an emotionally sensitive human, you might have to do a whole bunch of work before you can actually heal trauma. You might--

Lori Bean  17:14

Wait, what is that?

Erin Bonner  17:15

So this is where DBT - dialectical behavior therapy - plays a really, really big role for lots of people. I will kind of preface this as I'm going in with a new client, if they're kind of presenting or they're talking in that first session about emotional sensitivity, I'm a firm believer that we have to have tools in our back pocket, coping strategies, emotion regulation strategies, tools that can help us sit with emotion. If we don't have that, trauma work actually isn't going to be helpful.

Lori Bean  17:39

Because you become super dysregulated.

Erin Bonner  17:40

Exactly. It might actually just be re-traumatizing. I know, you and I've talked about, you know, EMDR and hypnotherapy, which they work for a lot of people. And then there's other people where it ends up just being re-traumatizing.

Lori Bean  17:53

Because they don't have the initial coping skills?

Erin Bonner  17:56

Absolutely. Or their brain is one of these emotionally sensitive type brains where, you know, doing that bilateral stimulation, or going into that trance state, actually just activates, you know, fight-flight-freeze, that trauma response.

Lori Bean  18:05

So that's funny you say that. So I had an EMDR session once. And that's exactly how I felt. I actually wasn't prepared for it. This was my second counseling session. And we did EMDR and I'm like, I am not... I became this weird, bitchy person. Like, I knew that this fear was coming. I was not ready for that. And so you're right. Like, we need tools before we do some of that.

Erin Bonner  18:30

Yeah. And I think that's a, you know, part of my job as a professional to, like, kindly disappoint clients who are like jumping in my room. And they're like, alright, let's do it. I want to jump in tomorrow. Let's do the trauma treatment. And I have to go whoa, whoa, whoa. It's my job to assess that you're in a place where that's going to be helpful, because, you know, it feels counterintuitive to go to therapy to get traumatized. You know, just my opinion. And it's a really big part of us as therapists, and us as clinicians, learning how to do kind of assessment for the treatments that we offer. We got to know that this person has the capability to sit in big emotions, because really, regardless of the modality, sort of, there's gonna be some component that we're sitting in emotion. You know, if it's P E, we're revisiting this memory over and over, and we're flooding the brain with with emotions.

Lori Bean  19:19

What's PE?

Erin Bonner  19:20

Prolonged exposure, that's the form of treatment that I do, or EMDR. For doing this bilateral stimulation, which I don't do EMDR I'm not trained in that. What comes up are big emotions, our brain unlocks, emotions are tough. And I know for me, I treated my PTSD with EMDR with a therapist who was trained, a really great therapist. And the experience that I have, I'm an emotionally sensitive human, and my bread and butter is, you know, coping skills and emotions. And so I live and breathe these coping skills. And so, I know for me, in hindsight, if I didn't have all of those tools to sit with an emotion, I don't think it would have been successful. Because the emotional wave was fast and intense for me. And so figuring out how to sit with an emotion is a really big kind of part of that orientation. And that's where sometimes we jump the gun because, you know, as clinicians and I have this too that, like, I want to help. I want to get in there, I see your suffering, I see your pain, and I want to, you know, help you stitch those pieces back together. And so we can get kind of like, excited, as therapists. And we go, oh, this is going to work with this modality and like, let's do the thing. I think sometimes we can accidentally kind of jump ahead of what's helpful, which, I mean, talking about this wisdom thing, that's where wisdom has to be part of the room on the therapist side as well. It's not just, you know, by the book clinical, sometimes we gotta do a little adaptation depending on who's sitting with us in the room.

Lori Bean  20:40

So I find it interesting, like even the whole topic of trauma and wisdom. But I see a lot of people that live their lives, unwell. Like mentally unwell, physically unwell. So are they just not connected to the wisdom? And how do you wake up out of that? So you go, 'Whoa, I need some help, I need...' Because there's a lot of that, you get kind of caught up in your story, but you're not really getting the help you need. Actually, now that I think about that, I think I might even have a little bit of an answer, because we have a lot of people that come here who are unwell. And I think you do need somebody objective looking in on the situation. And I think, actually, I just answered my own question. We have a wellness specialist here at Maliya. And so if you are experiencing all these different things, she's really good at looking at what is going on and feeling into what type of support you may need. And then, like, she'll reach out to somebody like Erin and say, this, to me, sounds like big trauma. Are you a fit for this? And Erin might say, yeah, or might say, no. Maybe there's another therapist that might be better. Maybe it's as simple as a massage. Someone touching the body, someone meeting them where they're at before we dive into that, but I really think when we're dysregulated in any capacity, sick, no energy, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, we just need that person to give us some space, hold some safety and listen, and then we can invite in the right people. Because I think we don't know, like a lot of the time. You know, I've had some major trauma that happened many, many years ago. And it's just kind of hitting me more now. I think I've been fortunate to be able to navigate it. But I don't think I realized how much it impacted me till 20 years later.

Erin Bonner  22:38

Yeah, absolutely.

Lori Bean  22:39

We don't know what we don't know.

Erin Bonner  22:40

Absolutely. Well I think, I think kind of separating this concept between functional and well, I think is a really big one. That like, we can be super functional and have unhealed trauma. And so there's a difference. There's a difference between like being able to go through emotions and do the thing that we call, you know, having a job and a family or a relationship. And that's where that piece of wisdom really comes in. If I'm not in wellness, I'm not in contentment. And that's something I really like to, I don't know, educate on the goal isn't happiness. Happiness is an emotion that comes and goes, just like fear and anger and sadness and shame, and all these other emotions. The goal is to live content. I want like a pretty decent baseline that I can go up and down from.

Lori Bean  23:18

Yeah, but you're not running in fight or flight.

Erin Bonner  23:20

Absolutely. I even joke about shame. Lots of my clients will, their lives will be dictated by shame when they first show up in therapy. And so we'll make the joke and not a joke along the way somewhere. You know, we don't actually want to get rid of shame. Shame is pretty helpful. Have you ever had like an accountability buddy for going to the gym? You know, I'm telling my friend in Vancouver, oh, I'm going to work out tonight. Yeah, and she goes me too. Okay, great. Yeah. And then tonight comes and I'm like, I don't really want to. Let me tell you how helpful shame is in that moment that I go if I don't work out I have to tell her that I didn't work out. And I'm gonna feel really icky about myself. Shame can be really helpful to help us, you know, be motivated to do the things that we don't necessarily want to do yet we know we probably could, or we would benefit from. And so having this experience of, you know, accessing wisdom, a lot of people don't know how to access it. And so figuring out, you know, this piece of, if I'm not in that contentment maybe there's something more I can do.

Lori Bean  24:16

Okay, it's so fascinating because... so I've always said, but I'm functioning. I always use that phrase. I've been functioning for 20 years, I'm functioning and functioning and functioning. So I'm turning 51, I just had all my bloodwork done for perimenopause/menopause through the naturopath here, and I discovered that my cortisol levels are one of the highest levels they've ever seen. And my progesterone was super low. That was the point where I learned, okay, I haven't dealt with my shit. Because I shouldn't be running in fight or flight. I'm very functional. I function at a level that is like a little very extreme.

Erin Bonner  24:56

Let me ask you, how are you at relaxing?

Lori Bean  24:58

Yeah, shut up Erin. Exactly! So like you talked earlier about that kind of balance. I don't have that. So I kind of have known that I didn't have, I've known that for 20 years. But when I actually took the test, I don't know there was something about seeing it on paper. That, yeah, Lori, you've been functioning in fight or flight, your cortisol is through the roof. I always kind of knew that. But it was like I needed to see it to make a shift.

Erin Bonner  25:02

Absolutely. And I think I normalizing that experience, I think, is really, really powerful. That, you know, we live in this world where, you know, a broken leg gets treated different than a panic attack. And so I think really as people who are trying to cultivate wellness, whatever that looks like for us, having that, you know, test on a piece of paper. It's really normal to go 'oh, now I'll do it'. Oh, now I see, oh, oh, I feel better about the work that I'm doing. Because, you know, there's this medical piece of paper that's actually backing me up, or a diagnosis that a doctor has said, is backing me up. I think that's a really, really, really, really normal experience. Because, you know, the whole world of mental health has evolved and shifted, and it's getting way more press, I guess you could say, and we're still in this place where like, 'Oh, you're not coming to work because you're depressed? What?' There's this inherent judgment that happens. And so I think that's a really normal experience to go, 'Oh, my gosh, this test validates this wisdom piece that I've been ignoring', because the world would judge me if I did ignore it.

Lori Bean  26:25

I've known, I've known that I've been like running from what I probably really deeply need to deal with, until I saw like results. Because it's affecting my body now. It's not just my mind. It's my body and my wellness, like you said, so am I functional? Yes. Am I well, yes, but could I be - what's the word, more well? Weller?

Erin Bonner  26:39

Weller, we'll coin it right now.

Lori Bean  26:52

Yeah. But I wonder how many of us this happens to, like I can just imagine.

Erin Bonner  26:58

Something I have had lots of clients say to me, kind of through the course of, like, the early stages of treatment is this shift. Well, I can survive, like, you can survive with the best them, you know. And if you've experienced trauma, your brain is probably real good at surviving. It kicks into that fight or flight mode and it pulls you through those moments. And so it's probably excellent at surviving. Thriving, on the other hand, that's where, you know, I tongue in cheek asked that question, because I know that Lori has said, I don't relax all that well.

Lori Bean  27:28

I don't know what you're talking about.

Erin Bonner  27:30

We're practicing that together. And, and figuring out, you know, how do I get into this other part of my brain that lets me thrive, I think is part of that. Maybe it's learning how to access that wisdom.

Lori Bean  27:43

And I'll share, like, so I'm doing the mindfulness program with Erin. And I think for some of us, I speak for people, it's terrifying to... I think I thought if I started diving in a little bit, stuff would come up - we've talked about this - that I just don't want to experience. But it's very gentle. I think it's kind of like baby steps. And so nothing is coming up that's like, I can't handle. I don't have to go to places I don't want to go. It's kind of like with mindfulness, I'm learning, it's coming in and out and just gently touching the edge of the surface and then coming back out. But it's not overwhelming. It's not scary. It allows me to be a little more present, not be in fight or flight all the time, because I have to get the cortisol down. But I can do it in a very gentle way.

Erin Bonner  28:35

That's cool. That's, I mean, that's exactly what I mean by we need some of these strategies, these skills, these behaviors, before we actually can jump in and do the work. Because as you said it's terrifying to do trauma work. Who wants to sit in like the worst moment of your life? I didn't and still don't.

Lori Bean  28:51

This is so interesting. If I would have done this before, then I probably wouldn't have reacted to EMDR. Because I would be in my brain in a way that wasn't so scary. Maybe.

Erin Bonner  29:03

And I love the term baby steps. And I think that's where, you know, again, there can be this shame response that we have as humans of like, 'oh, I should be able to handle it'. I just, I'm going to jump up four steps of the staircase and like hope that I don't fall on my face, when in reality, like that's not how we learn as humans, we need to learn in these small ways where we go, 'oh I can do it, oh I can do it, oh I can do it' and build those success steps to develop this ability that, you know, if I'm going to sit down and do trauma work with somebody, whether it's formal, prolonged exposure, or you know, some adaptation where we're doing some sort of flooding and, you know, we're improvising a bit, that that there has to be this ability to go 'Okay, so we're gonna do mindfulness today, we're gonna do mindfulness of the worst moment of your life though, and the emotions that go with that'. That takes a lot of practice. That's where that sorry/not sorry, comes in. This isn't going to be pleasant. And it's maybe going to heal your brain. If we've set it up properly, and set it up effectively.

Lori Bean  29:56

And I think about like the whole neuroplasticity thing. That if you spent so many years rewiring your brain to a certain state, you can't just rush in and rewire it back. Like, I'm assuming it's a process that happens with baby steps, piece by piece.

Erin Bonner  30:13

Absolutely, it's a lot of repetition that, if you've ever done PE, you know, it's a lot of repetition. In fact, often, you know, after we're done visiting a memory of a certain trauma, you know, at the very end, I'll get the report from clients, I'm like, I'm actually really sick of that story. I'm really sick of that moment in my life, not in a fear based way, in a I'm like, I'm just tired of hearing that story over and over and over again. Because the brain learns, I don't have to have that emotional reaction, because I'm not in that mode anymore. It does what we call habituation. It heals itself, it trains our kind of new way of being, in that we can have access to the parts of our brain that we need to do that cognitive processing. Have those conversations that are restorative and healing, and help us move forward. It's not about moving on. It's not about leaving things in the past. It's about saying, hey, this is part of, you know, my life and my experience and maybe part of who I am as a human. Okay, now, what are those next steps? I really pride myself - I was talking to another clinician in Calgary, actually, a week ago - we were talking about how we really enjoy being real with our clients. I don't mind sharing bits and pieces of my story with my clients, because I wouldn't be a therapist, if I hadn't been diagnosed with PTSD. Like I wouldn't be sitting right here right now, if I hadn't gone through the experience that I had. Do I wish I had gone through that experience? No! Absolutely not. I would love to get those years back. And at the same time, this kind of meaning that I've taken from that, that wisdom that I've cultivated, this ability to sit in a room with someone who is going through the whole experience of treating trauma and having that diagnosis of PTSD, I wouldn't be the clinician I am now, I think, without my experience. And so this is where that kind of wisdom piece. It's not a guarantee trauma equals wisdom. It's how do we access the help to, you know, help us cultivate this experience, this awful trauma experience, in whatever shape or form that ends up being for us, into this cultivation of learning about ourselves as humans, about the world.

Lori Bean  32:11

I love that. Yeah, I'll just finished with saying I think when - I'm not a psychologist - but when I've been able to do some coaching or helping people from my perspective, my strength has been able to share my story, which I'm very comfortable with, I have many, because I think it just creates this level of safety and familiarity. And even though our stories are a little bit different from one another, somehow they have this similar note or they're, I don't know, there's always something in somebody's story that you can relate to, right?

Erin Bonner  32:44

And if you've experienced something traumatic, whether you know, it's assaults, accidents, whatever they are, or, you know, you have big emotions, and that's been traumatizing through your whole life. We end up often developing as like compassion for others. Sometimes, you know, we're blocked from that compassion because we're really thick in our own suffering.

Lori Bean  33:01

Oh and that's part of the journey.

Erin Bonner  33:02

Absolutely.  And so I think for lots of people, though, just knowing that somebody's been through something in that realm, there's this humanness that I think bonds us together.

Lori Bean  33:12

I love that. I love that. Well, thank you.

Erin Bonner  33:16

You're welcome.

Lori Bean  33:17

I just want to say that I think there's hope for people. Like I think, don't give up and say that, you know, because you've had a really horrible experience that there isn't support to get you through it. And I love that what we do here is we're not going to make you do anything that you're uncomfortable with, and it is baby steps and finding the right practitioners or modalities that really fit your needs in the moment. Because you're right, you might not be ready, let's find out what you're ready for to take those baby steps.

Erin Bonner  33:48

And I like the concept of hope that, you know, Brene Brown famously says like, hope is not an emotion, it's a concept. You know, hopeless is an emotion, hope is this idea that we can, you know, see some sort of light at the end of a tunnel. And I really hold on to that. I had a colleague share a quote, and I honestly can't remember the book, so I give my former colleague credit for the book that he shared with me. And it was a line in the book that I've absolutely borrowed and used with lots of clients because it rings so true to my to my heart and my soul. When we connect with those people who are experts in the field of healing, we don't actually have to hold the hope because they can hold it for us. And so I say this to clients often. It's okay if you don't have it right now, or don't know how to find it, because I have enough for both of us.

Lori Bean  34:28

I love that. And you have to find the right people, and they exist - trust me - who are there to support you. I love that. Thank you, Erin.

Erin Bonner  34:39

You're welcome

Lori Bean  34:40

Until next time. Bye.