Spreading joy and harmony in our joint discovery. Finding connection. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Ritual sisters.

Hello, Ritual Fam! Welcome to Ritual Sisters podcast. We are so excited that you are joining us today. Today's podcast is so special. We have the incredibly smart and talented Chelsea Klein on today. She is a good friend of ours and she is an expert on trauma. She has worked at the Colorado State University Trauma and Resilience Assessment Center for the last eight years. Can you believe that? Eight years. She has been researching trauma and the impacts that it has on us throughout our lives, and she works directly with people affected by trauma and toxic stress, as she'll explain the difference better. She also does a lot of community outreach and working with partners in the community.

She just has so much to say about trauma, and she is a wealth of information. So much so that we talked to her until the sun set, it was dark in the room, we were laughing, we were having fun. And because of that, we actually had to split this episode into two parts. Yay! So this first part, you will get to know Chelsea a little bit more about where she's at in life.

She has a lot of really cool and unique perspectives on finding your own path as a woman.And then she explains a little bit about trauma and toxic stress. And then next week we'll get into a little bit more about just dealing with stress and how to move stress through your body so that it's not affecting you anymore.

So we hope that you Love this episode and get a lot out of it today. Alright, let's take a deep breath and start this journey.

 Alright, welcome Chelsea. Hello. Yay. Thank you for having me. Oh my gosh, we're so excited to have you today. And we're talking about our absolute favorite subject in the whole world. Trauma. Trauma. Woohoo. But before we get into that, we just want to just talk to you and get to know you a little bit better. So Who are you, Chelsea?

I am Chelsea Klein. I am a Marriage and Family Therapist and Community and Training Specialist at Colorado State University. I do, have been doing trauma, complex trauma and resilience work, uh, for almost 10 years now. And supervising graduate students and undergraduate students and doing a lot of community training and community collaboration.

Um, on different kinds of things, um, with a mission to really become a community that is trauma informed and resilient and serving the people who need it most. And for us, that's typically kids and children and teenagers, but also their parents and families. So I do a lot within the trauma world, um, but I also get to see a lot of the resilience.

So. You definitely have to have both. You can't just see the downsides. Yeah, you have to have the resilience piece or you won't sustain in this job. So we're definitely excited to hear more about your ideas for how people can feel more resilient in the face of stress and trauma. Yeah, I've been lucky to learn from a lot of, Especially great women who have put out a lot of important work on this topic, so I'll reference them and, um, can send you all links and things like that.

Yeah, that's good to know, because I know a lot of, male trauma experts, as I'm sure you do too. Yes, I do know them as well. And they do, they have put out really great, um, things, especially Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk and, uh, Dan Siegel. And so there are many great men who have contributed, but I have found that many of the women researchers and therapists and psychologists that I've been reading Get it at a different level.

And also tend to speak to the gender difference when it comes to uh, stress, trauma, and resilience. Um, and I also do one of my side jobs is teaching psychology of women, co instructing psychology of women with Dr. Canetto at CSU. And doing that for the past eight years has really also opened my eyes to a lot of the sexism within our systems and Um, even when it comes to trauma, trauma healing, studying trauma resilience, um, it's interesting to see the diversity within, um, across people and within different groups.

Yeah. Um, yeah. And the LGBTQ community too obviously has such a different experience with trauma. Yes. Yes. A lot of populations that have been minoritized and have had to deal with toxic stress for generations. Um, and we've, we hear a lot about the toxic stress and the negative impacts and the scary things about your ACE score and what that means for your quality of life and quantity of life.

But I think a lot of the women of color, um, specifically have been teaching us about intergenerational wisdom and what, um, it means to carry that intergenerational wisdom. Um, and actually we can get into this too. Um, the, complexities of the word resilience. Um, and even using that word, um, resilience and how we use that word.

Um, that's been an interesting conversation I've been having with colleagues here recently too. So. Ooh, lots to deep dive into. Yeah. You're so wise, Chelsea. It's true. It's all because of the other people. I did study it. But isn't that all wisdom? Like being open to listening to other people. Yes. And then the experience of applying that or trying to apply that into my life and my work.

That's beautiful, Chels. I'm really, I'm so excited for this conversation. Me too. Yeah. Um, we want to also ask you about your relationship with ritual, with ceremony, and how that shows up. It could be professionally, but also personally in your life. And you can say, I don't have any relationship with ritual, that's a fair answer too.

I think everyone has some sort of relationship with it, whether you recognize it or not. I think for me. I've been thinking about the difference between a habit and a ritual. Um, and that I think a lot of times the ritual piece can have some, a little bit more intention to it. Um, but they can be very similar.

Um, but I think in the probably last five years of my life, I've been incorporating ritual more often and thinking about it more. I know our group of friends is values that and it's been great to spark ideas and experiences of ritual, right? So gathering with community has been a big ritual or there's different rituals around gathering with community that I feel like are important in my life.

And so whether it's the book club once a month or whether it's a book club, uh, and so whether it's a book club or it's like community organizing that we're going to do tomorrow or if it's Um, celebrating the seasons changing. I think that's been a big one. I know with the two of you as well, like being able to celebrate the solstices, being able to celebrate.

A new moon. Should we talk about our new moon? No, because I whipped up. Like, barely got in the water. Okay, for listeners, Kelly and I had this beautiful idea of jumping into our reservoir. The blue moon, and it was like all cold. Well, Anna was super stormy leading up to it. Do you guys remember, like, crazy lightning storm?

Yes. It was like So incredibly like moody. Yes. Yeah. So Kelly and I had a beautiful float. I ran in and ran out. And that's okay. Cause you listened to your body. Yes. Ooh. Chelsea really did listen to her body. Yes. But yes, trying to have ritual around, I think, especially for me, like seasons. So I've had experiences of like seasonal depression or mood swings and things with the different seasons and.

The last couple of years having ritual, particularly around winter has really helped me reframe how I think about, especially winter, which has always been a more difficult season for me. And with ritual has come more intentionality, um, through the seasons of life and understanding how they serve me. in different ways and how I move through those seasons in different ways and learning from our ancestors about that and learning from nature about that.

And so the rituals around seasons ending and beginning have really felt helpful for me. Um, and then I also have, I feel like little rituals just in the morning and the evenings. Um, I'm someone with a lot of anxiety doing trauma work, I am, I am medicated, shout out Lexapro,

our first sponsor, but that seriously changed my life, getting on meds and then, um, and really helped me with sustainability and the work that I do and the things that I care about, but, um, Sorry, now I blanked out on what I was saying. Um, morning, season. Oh, morning and evening rituals. Yes. So I, I love when I can have a slower morning.

That's not always possible, but when I can, girl, I love that. Slow morning. Yes. Morning. Yes. I've been really trying to be off social media, especially in the mornings. Um, and so just being able to listen to music that's been something that has felt. really transitional and really ritualistic and helps me stay present and not be looking at screens so much.

But I feel like listening to good music in the morning, having kind of a slow morning, making my coffee or whatever at breakfast and Just having some space and time to not feel rushed. Um, and to just, so it's not always every day that I can do that, but on the days I can, and then I do because I feel like my days are so go go and so many, I'm dealing with a lot of people's, my own stress, but other people's stress and a lot of hard things, great things, but hard things.

I definitely have rituals like when I get home as far as like getting cozy. Um, my home is very cozy intentionally so that it's like a sacred place for me. I've got my crystals and my, you know, and all my blankets and all my things. I have my books and just the things that make me happy and pictures of my family and friends.

And, um, so even just coming home. And having ritual around just putting myself again, kind of like either quietness or music where I'm not like, I'm very much a headspace person. And so I, it's hard for me when I've been busy all day to get out of my head. So these rituals of just like putting my headphones on, listening to music, Um, maybe taking a walk around the block if the weather is nice, um, or jumping into a book or just something, even just watching a comfort show, just something that I have, again, kind of that slow, intentional movement.

In the evening, um, is really helpful for me. I also do not have children. So this important note here is not an expectation. Yes, I am child free by choice and that for many reasons. But I do think that's a big part of it for me is that I And I do love kids. I love being an auntie. I work with kids. Like I love that.

You're such an amazing auntie. Thank you. It's one of my favorite things. But I also just feel like that allows me to take the space, especially in a helping profession and, and community is super important to me. And so whether that's my family community, my friend community here, and we've all been like family for each other these last like 10 years.

And so, um, Making sure I also have time for me and time to slow down and time to be like restful and not Rushing around is a really important ritual so that I don't end up resentful or I don't end up burnt out Which I'm sure we'll get into the burnout pieces A question I had is I love How intentional you are and how, we'll probably dive into Annie and Graham more in a later podcast.

But, um, you've, you've lived, you've created a little cocoon of six dom for yourself. But, um, we'll explain that later. But what was, what did it look like for you coming home from work before you were doing this? Oh, great. I love that question. It's a little more complicated at the, because I think at, well at the time I was in a partnership, a long term partnership.

Um, and at times it was healthy and at times it was not, so it kind of depended on what season of life we were in. But I think before, um, it was just like rush home and then it was just rushing around, like being on our phones or just trying to figure out. The chores and the things, and it just felt never ending.

And it was just never just stressful, stressing about money, stressing about, we had opposite schedules at one point. And so just stressing out about time spent together and it just felt like a lot of stress for a long time and not having a lot of, um, Time for moving slowly. Like I think about our friend Steph Dallagher has a tattoo that says move slowly on her wrist.

I just, I Think about that because I'm such a fast paced person in most environments and so it takes a lot of intentionality for me to move slowly and Um, I think that's the first piece though, of if you're gonna be intentional about ritual and intentional about taking that time.

So, Chels, we're curious, just what would you say, what season of life are you in right now? I know you spoke to, yeah. It sounds like maybe some transition time, but also, yeah. What season are you in? I would say it depends on. Um, the part of my life I have felt very, uh, actually very stable and competent in my work life, my career.

I've been working similar to you too, very for a long time now on really becoming an expert in therapy and complex trauma and community organizing and. Um, being able to feel very competent, um, in the work that I do, feel like I'm making a difference and, um, a lot of the things that I've been working towards are finally coming to a head.

in the career part of my life. So that is feeling really good. I'm making the most money I've ever made now, which I'm feeling really good about like now I know what, you know, and when we were little babies first getting jobs, I didn't know what a 401k was or what investing was. And so I am feeling a lot more confident as far as my Um, career and just like adulting life for the most part, right?

It's always a struggle. We're always learning. But, um, and I feel really good with my communities. I feel so secure in our friend group here and my family relationships. My family of origin has also had a lot of changes in the last 10 years. And so I finally feel like we're all at a place that feels more stable and um, Um, relationships are going well and, um, I think though for me, like in my love life and my sense of myself, like it's really a cool time of rejuvenation and growth.

And I, with the end of that relationship being very traumatic, um, in a lot of ways, uh, gosh, that was a year and a half ago. years ago. Uh, and so I feel like that first year was just getting back on my feet and just letting myself feel all the things. And then this last year I've really felt like, I don't know, I'm still really protecting my heart in different ways.

Uh, and I know a lot of that is because of different things I've been through, but I think that's where I want to be more open. I am not. Trying to date right now because that feels like a lot. Chelsea, I want to pause you just for a second because I feel like this will be so interesting for listeners.

Like, how do you know when you're protecting your heart? I'm very defensive. I'm very just quick to say no to certain things. And I do think some of that I've needed because I've needed to protect my peace and my energy after so many years of not doing that. So I do think there's a place in time, um, where it's okay to like guard your heart and to know the impacts of that.

But I think I've been wanting to open up more and not even just with like love or dating or romance, but even just listening to my heart in general. Um, that was one thing. Powerful. Yeah. My Enneagram coaching really helped me understand more of my heart space and my body space and really thinking about like, what does my heart desire and how do I tune into that?

And so I feel like I'm starting to, even though I don't have any desire to have like a full blown relationship or anything like that at this point, I think I'm trying to just say yes to more things that. Um, don't always need to make sense in my head, um, but are things that my heart desires. And so it's taken a lot of time to learn how to listen to my heart and to my body and not just my head, um, and get stuck there.

And so I think I'm just trying to take it one season at a time and think about the possibilities. Um, and what am I desiring? in all parts of my life and how do I make those things happen and just be open to new opportunities in life and not be so. full of every single thing and be open a little bit more to spontaneity.

Um, I mean, this trip to Mexico with my friend next week too, is a little, we've been wanting to do it for a while, but we got it all planned pretty quick. And so even just things like that, where I was like, you know what, we're not going to even look at. The budget, which is probably not smart in some ways, but, um, in other, because, because the career part and the budget part feels really stable, it actually, I feel like I'm able to say yes to more and to be open to more things and just living my life and not waiting till this happens, or waiting until I have this much in my savings, again, probably would be smart to do that, and, um, Without going into new debt just trying to live life to its fullest and do things that scare me One of my colleagues my colleague that I teach with said well one of these years We're gonna have to teach this class in Italy and go to or full body goosebumps Okay, if you guys need any assistance or just some pampering Michelle and I are free Um, student.

Yeah, that's true. We'll take the class. And then it's like focus on India. She's like, we could do it in India. And I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, She's like, we could do like two weeks in India. And I'm like, two weeks in India? And then I'm like, but you know what? Those are the kinds of things that it's like, I'm not going to say no just because it scares me.

Like, I want to say yes to things that my past self maybe wouldn't have or would have hesitated. Um, it's a short life. And so I, I feel like that's where with my heart space, just trying to listen to when I should go for it. Yeah. You definitely have to find that balance of rational and also just like enjoying your life.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Really deep intuitive messages coming through. And I was talking with a friend recently about like how courageous it is to ask for like what does our heart desire? Like what do I want? It feels so basic, but like how much courage it takes to ask that question. Well, especially as women, right?

Like that's something I think that ever since I decided to not have children, that has been a thing that Just trying to find models of women who are doing things differently. Um, not no shade at all to the women who are doing things more traditionally because that takes so much work and is so undervalued in our society and needs to be valued more.

Um, but I just don't feel like we have as many, or I didn't know of any models of women who were like living life to the fullest, child free by choice, but who still love kids and want to put into those communities. Um, and Rachel Cargill's work has been, I mean, that's been life changing for me. Her rich anti supreme, uh, group, uh, has been just a godsend.

And then, you know, you have people like Tracee Ellis Ross, you have, I mean, there's so many, especially women nowadays and people, non binary people who are setting new models of what it's like to be a woman and be a woman in your thirties. And, um, What do I really want? And what, you don't want to be driven by your fear.

You want to be driven by your longing. Ooh. And I remember you sharing that with me. Yeah. And I always felt like when it came to kids, when I thought about having them, it was always because I was afraid of what people would think if I didn't or afraid of Missing the opportunity that people say is such an important thing or afraid of how people will think of me or Afraid that like my sister has kids that won't have cousins on my side when I have my brother I'm who will probably have kids but We grew up really close with our cousins and so afraid of like not having that same experience with my sister Uh, versus what is my heart actually longing for?

And my heart's longing for freedom. My heart's longing for peace. My heart is longing to put Rachel Cargill says you're rich in, when you're, uh, rich anti supreme. Because we choose to not have children, we're rich in time, energy, money, love. Um, but we want to put that somewhere. And so I feel like I'm full of these things that I want to just put into my nieces.

My sister has my, you know, my biological nieces, but also all my little nibblings that I've got in Colorado and all of the work I do at my job and with the families that I work with. And I think one of the most important things in our job is to be cultivate that capacity for presence. And I just know for myself, like, This is something I'm longing for, but I don't have a lot of models of it.

And so I think that has helped me like when I'm longing for something, finding the women whose shoulders I stand on to like, you know, model that after, or to the, who have worked hard to pave the way, um, and to continue to, I mean, Trisha, uh, Trisha Hersey talks a lot about rest as resistance. And there's a lot of ways to have resistance.

Um, and one of those ways is that I'm doing things differently and not what's expected and not just to resist stop. It's like, that's not the only reason, but, um, that this can be a, a spot of resistance for me and that women following their heart. an active resistance. Because we're told so often to not do that, to hide away our longings, to hide away pleasure, to hide, hide away our body and don't feel any gut feelings or anything like that.

So when I think about really listening to my longing of my heart and listening to what my body needs, that is an active resistance. And, and I think also just. Like there's that flip of from fear to longing, which is really different than our society, but also like. Kind of what you're saying is like instead of focusing on what you're lacking It's like what are you full of that you want to invest more time in and that's like a huge shift, too Yes Mmm, that's something I find I tell clients students trust your gut Like I feel like that is, but no one teaches you how, why There's some people like Michelle who are Enneagram eight, so we all need to do an episode.

But who have get ready natural proudly. Eight . Yes. As all eights are, as you should all are, and as you should, as a six, I want nothing more than to be more like an eight. And I, we have shared a lot of similarities, but I think it's not, it doesn't always come as easy. And again, especially for girls and women we're told constantly.

To not listen to our bodies and to just smile or to just push it down and keep going. The masking. Yeah, and there's so many women who are in survival mode because we're taking care of, well, not me, but we're taking, but I guess me too because like we're all like putting in the effort to take care of children and take care of your homes.

And, um, so I think whether you're a parent or not, to be able to find those places where you can. Let your longing free and like follow that. Even if it seems like such a small thing, like just taking baby steps in that way and then the fear starts to subside. It'll still come up. But I think when I have this way now of like, Um, going into my body, going into my heart space.

And I'm telling you, it took years of coaching to figure out how to do that. Um, and then when women do it, we get punished for it. So I think it's something that's like, we'd say more about that. Well, like when women are listening to their longing or what they want or what their pleasure is, it's so often denied or it doesn't go with the status quo.

Or the biggest thing is that. How can you, as a woman, not put everyone else before yourself? Because that's what we're socialized to believe, is that women are just constantly going to be there for everybody else, going to put everyone else's needs in front of their own. And while I definitely believe in community, and I do a lot of helping in my career and in my world, and I value that, I also have a side of me that is very, like, almost, like, is more than just a desire, but a need.

To be even more vocal about what I think and what I believe and what I feel and what my body is saying. And again, I just think back to our women ancestors and what they went through, the fights that they went through forever. Without even seeing the fruits of their labor. And so anytime I'm told no or told like that this is too liberal or this is too much, um, I just remind myself that's what all the strong women hear when they, um, are trying to be science Someone's trying to silence them, and so trying to just be a model of that in any way I can is, because I've had models of that, way I've gotten to this point.

Should we talk a little bit more about trauma? Yes, trauma and stress. Uh, trauma and stress. Trauma and stress. So, Chelsea, for the listeners, what is trauma and what is stress? Like, what's the difference? Help us understand. I think, well, it's one and the same in some ways. Um, because trauma is essentially toxic stress, right?

So, we, stress is not inherently bad. Stress happens. If you're a human being with a nervous system. And you live in this world, you will have stress. And the nervous system was meant to manage that and deal with it actually really well. Our brains are pretty incredible. Um, after many, many years and centuries of evolution that we are able to have a mechanism that pretty much automatically works to, um, understand when we're in danger and what do we need to get to do to do to get out of it.

Um, so some mild stress little is good for us. That actually helps build resilience to have little things, not go our way to have fresh frustration, um, build that frustration tolerance, right? So Bruce Perry talks about in his book, uh, born for love, one of the chapters. It's about what happens when you don't let a kid, uh, feel stress and that is not good for us.

Which is interesting because I feel like that's almost like a parenting strategy these days. Like, it's almost like an expectation for parents to like shield their children. You know what I mean? Which is, we've gone a little overboard on that end of things. And I understand, especially for a lot of our generation, the millennial generation trying to break cycles.

of toxic stress and trauma in our own families. So I do understand where it's coming from, but shielding your children, any child, um, from all stress is also detrimental because it doesn't give your, and of course, age appropriate levels of stress. Right. Mild stress, right? We don't want to give a child toxic stress for long periods of time.

We want to support them, but. Giving them those experiences allow their brains and bodies to have practice with it. Um, to have experience with it. The only way we can build competency and build regulation is through that experience. So if you've never experienced stress and then at five years old you go to kindergarten.

And you're separated from your parent for the first time. That's going to cause a huge amount of stress. Like, that's where then they're going in this toxic stress. They don't know how to handle. They don't know what's going on. So, like, what's, yeah, what's an example of, like, a stress that. a young child might go through that would, like, theoretically help them.

Not being able to buy the candy at the store that they want, right? But they want us! I know! I do too! I do too! That's why I love being an auntie. I usually can get away with giving it to them. We, we don't actually have to deal with this, but we're all you parents out there, just so you know. So like, like typical stress that you're, like, uh, we might have a plan for the today, but now the pool's closed and we can't go to the pool like we had planned.

And so life, basic life things that is frustrating, but not detrimental. Um, so little kind of doses of stress, uh, anytime my sister is, she's the one of the best moms ever, but anytime she's worried about it, um, because of, oh, I messed up. Bye. I raised my voice and I shouldn't have I just remind her I'm like you're giving them good little doses of stress And that's also helping such a beautiful reminder and we need doses of stress Doses of mild positive stress and our lives to be able to learn how to deal with it otherwise, we don't know how to deal with that or have anyone helping us process that so I just remind my sister, I'm like, it's okay.

They're getting their daily dose of stress. And one of the best things you can teach your child is that repair in a relationship as possible, that humans in any relationship are not going to be perfect. You will have conflict. The other thing people try to keep from their kids is having, and of course you don't want to have any sort of violence or really terrible fights in front of kids.

But It's good for them to learn that humans make mistakes, and that conflict happens in a relationship, and that if we make a mistake, we can come back and repair. Um, good enough parenting is a real thing. So if you can get it right about 60 percent of the time, and repair the other, most of the other times, repair with your child.

Apologize when you need to, um, redirect into something else. Afterwards, it's going to teach your child how to thrive in life and in relationships so much better than if you would have shielded them from all of that stress and all of that conflict. Because again, life is stressful and humans have conflict.

If you don't learn how, how to deal with that, you are going to have a very difficult time in adulthood. Um, so I think that's something that people, Don't recognize with stress and, uh, through childhood, but then we get to the toxic stress, right? Or we, we even can have, um, more moderate stress, let's say like a close family member dies, right?

That's, that's bigger than just, Oh, I didn't get the candy from the store. Um, but moderate stress, the difference between it turning into toxic stress is having usually a relationship that buffers that stress. So let's say a close family member dies in the family. Of course, that's going to be stressful.

But if that child has other people who love them and they have a trusting, supportive relationship with them, they're all going through the grief together. We're talking about it. We're talking about our emotions. We're having rituals around grief and remembering this person, then it's going to be more moderate stress.

Of course, yes, we have an impact to that, but we also have been able to tap into our resilience with ourselves and our families to continue to move forward and function. Toxic stress, the biggest difference there is that some sort of significant stress Is happening, some sort of life event that is, it could be a near death experience or it could be just perceived, right?

And as a kid, we can perceive a lot of things as near death experiences because your brain is just still developing. Um, the biggest piece though is not having that buffer to the stress. So what's going to make a difference between it being a moderate stressor and a toxic stressor is do I have the buffer?

To the stress. And so I talked to families a lot and also just assist the case workers, teachers, we, again, life is stressful. We might be able to predict that we're going to have this child is going to have a move to a different foster home. And we know that's going to be stressful. Um, but what can we do to buffer that stress for them?

What kind of resilience can, that they already are showing that we can build on? What are some other connections, um, other kinds of things we can do to buffer that stress so that the impact is a little less? Of course, it's going to still impact them. But when we see chronic toxic stress, which is the, more of the trauma I work with, um, and typically in childhood and within the family system, making it more complex trauma, That's where you have more chronic, ongoing, um, nervous system reactions over and over and over again with not a lot of time or people to buffer that stress or to help make sense of that stress.

And that's when you're going to have, especially if that's happening in childhood, And you are not able to learn those skills in adulthood. You are going to have a much harder time regulating your emotions, regular feeling and controlling behavior and not even just control of your behavior, but feeling it at calm and peace inside of yourself.

Um, and so a lot of times we focus so much on the behavior and it's like, does this person even feel calm and worthy inside their own brain and body? Um, as I'm thinking, sorry to interrupt, but I feel like. As an audience, it might be like, Ooh, like putting themselves in this scenario of, okay, have I experienced toxic stress?

Have I experienced trauma? Like, can you share in that trauma place? Like, how is it showing up, right? Whether it's in the mind, in the body, in the heart. Just in case people are putting themselves in these scenarios. Yeah, and not everyone identifies with the word trauma, which is why I like to use the word toxic stress, because I feel like more people understand and will identify with that, versus the word trauma.

But we're gonna see anything from difficulties regulating our emotions, so that could be like really big mood swings, or um, feeling like we're really in the high zone, that hypervigilance, that anxiety. Fighting that fight flight response or kind of really in that low zone where it's more of that numb depression freeze response And maybe not a lot of time feeling.

Okay, or just fine Or like maybe we feel a little bit bad, but we can function we can keep going a lot of people who've had toxic stress Especially throughout their childhood might have again without the buffers to that stress might have a lot more difficulty Staying in that kind of calm, functioning, present state and might swing between those high and low zones a lot quicker.

Um, not always have the tools to be able to self soothe or have healthy. Um, Rituals or coping strategies, um, we see a lot of substance use, right? Cause that can be a very quick way to kind of numb out or deal with the pain that trauma causes. Um, but that leads to other issues as well. We often, often I see a lot of, uh, difficulty with relationships, trusting people, trusting themselves, um, a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, a lot of, particularly if this happened in early childhood, a lot of.

Am I lovable? Am I worthy? Am I, you know, is, is the world a good place in general or is it not? And so it's going to shape our beliefs about ourselves, about the world, about other people, um, about a higher power, um, you know, for a lot of people that can impact that, that spirituality piece as well. Um, and in it, the impacts, although there can be some common impacts, Um, and especially to executive functioning, right?

So when you've been in survival mode or toxic stress for a long time, it can make it harder for your brain to access that prefrontal cortex more often so that that's where your executive functions live. So things like planning and organizing and, uh, thinking about the consequences before you do something or, um, even being able to, you know, stay present with someone or hold attention, right?

Is in that prefrontal cortex, the more time, the more toxic stress we have had in our lives. And especially again, in childhood, the more it's going to be. Um, because that further back part of the brain has been like that use it or lose it. Like if your survival part of the brain has been having to be on overdrive, that part of the brain is going to be really reactive.

It's going to, because it's learned that like we are not safe and we need to focus on safety. versus kids who grew up in homes that are safe, um, of course not perfect, but that are safe in general are going to have different skills to be able to use later on and have more of that energy and space to put into developing the higher parts of the brain.

So it's not that people with trauma don't have those, of course, they have prefrontal cortex, they have these talents and these skills, but when it's, Easier for your brain to hop on survival mode and be triggered into that survival mode, it can just make things like feeling present with other people, feeling safe in your brain and body harder to do.

I feel like you can speak a lot more to this too, Chelsea, you do such a good job of explaining this. I love it. But, um, from like Bruce Perry, he did the neuro sequential model, right? So a lot of what happens, like I'm sure we've all seen it with clients and even with ourselves too, when trauma happens in childhood, it's usually happening in more of a lower part of our brain, like our limbic system.

So when we try to tell ourselves, like, I'm not a bad person or it wasn't my fault. It doesn't feel true. And that's where like that piece of ritual can be so helpful because the limbic system responds better to rhythm and like repetition. Whereas our cognition is more like. Just tell us to do something and that's not going to work for childhood trauma.

Right, and it's interesting too, so of course you two know, but with trying to get a type of therapy evidence based is very difficult. There's a lot of research and science that has to get done in order to have a therapy modality be deemed as evidence based, um, and so we do thankfully have some evidence based therapies that are known to, uh, really improve some of those trauma symptoms and, um, trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy is one of them.

I'm trained in that. And it's great. There's a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy strategies that again, it's evidence based for a reason. They work. And I find with especially people with complex trauma in gosh, just, I think especially women and girls too. We need to be using a lot, pairing that with somatic modalities.

So body base. So we call CBT is going to, you're going to use a lot more of your thinking patterns to change how you feel in, in what you do and that works, right? Like, so there are things that we can do to change those thought patterns, um, to shift some of that. However, what I found, especially with complex trauma, and not even just women and girls, but also I think just minoritized populations as well, Respond really well to some more of that body based somatic, what we call bottom up versus top down type of therapy modality, where, because you're exactly right, Michelle, that's the, a lot of that is, we got to reach the limbic system.

CBT is going to reach your prefrontal cortex. And again, in a lot of ways, that's great. But if we compare that with some somatic, Um, and that could be things like sensory motor psychotherapy, things like, uh, trauma resiliency model, uh, EMDR, uh, there's many different kinds, somatic experiencing. And we'll put links to so many of these things somewhere because, my goodness, these are amazing resources.

Yes, yes. So that those somatic type of, and it doesn't even have to be necessarily a specific therapy, but what you're saying with like ritual, with body movement, with, there's so many different things we can do, just even spending time in nature, right? That would be somatic, right? So regulating. And so I find in my treatment of trauma.

Um, especially for childhood trauma or family trauma is to pair both the cognitive behavioral piece with the somatic piece of it. Yeah. And then as a marriage and family therapist, taking that extra kind of step to look at the systems we're in, right? So the family systems were in the community systems were in intergenerational trauma and wisdom and resilience.

And so really understanding the developmental pieces. And the systems pieces that impact someone's mental health, right? Because we don't grow up in a vacuum. Nope, sure don't. Trauma happens because of the environment we're in. Um, and the people that we interact with. Again, I'm going to have to send you the name.

It's on a sticky note in my office. But she says, I'll get you the name. But she says, in lieu of solutions, we need to be fostering the environments for emergence. And I think so much of treatment is so pathologizing. And so what's wrong with you when it's so much, again, especially with childhood trauma and toxic stress, it's, it's from the environments we live in.

It's from the, you know, whether it's a broken home that we're from that the system has Um, or these, uh, or racism or homophobia or transphobia or sexism that's in our systems that have for generations traumatized, um, certain groups of people as well. And so I think we got to really understand not just how can we treat this person individually or even this family system, but how do we create environments where emergence can happen, where natural wisdom and resilience is fostered.

And so I think that's something I really think about and what the work I try to do in my community work through my job is really about. How do we do that? How do we change the systems we're in to cultivate that ability to have resilience?

Wow, what an incredible conversation so far. I'm sure that you are excited to hear part two and keep learning about trauma and how we can Build communities that are trauma responsive and trauma informed. And also how all of us, regardless of whether we have dealt with toxic stress, or just the day to day stress of life, how we can work through that in our bodies and move through that.

When I was re listening to this episode, I was really struck by what Chelsea was saying about learning to tap into her intuition. And I think that's something that a lot of people really have a hard time with. And really want to learn more about. So I have a special assignment for you, Ritual Family. I'm going to give you a little bit of homework if you would like to join in.

No pressure. I want you to set aside a little bit of time. It doesn't have to be a ton. You could do this once a day for a week if that works better for you. You could do it once or twice a week for a month if that's better for your life, but just set aside a little bit of time to drop in. Start by connecting to your body.

Maybe you do. Three deep breaths. Maybe you do a little stretching. Maybe you do a little dance or movement. Whatever works for you. And then we're gonna get curious. So this is all about just opening yourself up to some internal conversation. The outcome isn't important. It's about giving yourself this time.

So you can ask yourself both of these questions, you can choose one if you prefer, but just sitting with yourself and asking, what do I want right now? What do I need right now?

Just allowing those questions to drop, just like you can imagine a little pebble dropping into a lake. Just noticing that maybe there's a little bit of a ripple effect for you. What do I want right now? What do I need right now? It's not about the answers. It's about asking the question. You might have an answer come up.

You might not. You might like the answer that comes up. You might not. And that's totally okay. You might choose to follow through with what's coming up for you, and you might choose not to. It's all about just connecting to yourself. So just give it a try if you want. See how it feels, see if it changes over time.

We're all in this together. We're all figuring this out together. As always, We would love to hear from you. You can find us on Instagram at ritual sisters pod. We have a beautiful website created by brazen creative. That's B R Z N creative. It's ritual sisters pod. com. We made it easy for you. We want to hear your compliments, your feedback.

We want your questions. We want your ideas. Ritual is all about being in community and We're here for you and we want to hear from you. So wherever you're at, morning, noon, night, have a wonderful, magical time.

binding connection. Oh, oh, oh, oh, ritual sisters.