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Understanding What Makes Trauma 0:02 What if we got curious and asked0:04 It's really good.0:05 What makes that so difficult? What makes that situation difficult for you? And as a counselor, of course, I'm always gonna ask the question of when else have you felt this way?0:20 Eliza, welcome to Focus on the Family First Time.0:23 Yes. Thank you so much for having me and for having this conversation, which I think is so essential.0:28 Essential. Let me ask you, this is a heavy topic. I mean, I'm looking right at the YouTube viewer and speaking to the listeners. Sometimes this can be really difficult. We go through trauma, all of us. I mean, I0:40 think life deals trauma to us. I think the Lord has a purpose in it. It's always that big question. Why do people suffer if God is a loving God? I don't know if you've wrestled with that.0:52 Mhmm.0:52 But as a trauma expert, you're certainly seeing the fallout of a fallen world. What conclusions do you have with that question?1:02 You're asking the question that a lot of people ask, and I would even say a lot of believers ask and sometimes feel a level of shame and, like, why am I even1:14 wrestling with this? Because I believe God, who who God is, but in light of my circumstance, it feels like this just doesn't make sense. If God is good, then why am I going through this? And what I would say to that is1:25 we need to get comfortable with people asking those kind of questions when suffering, crisis, struggle, trauma intercepts their life, because that's really the cry of1:37 the Psalms, right? We see that throughout the Psalms is this willingness to say, how long God? Or have you forgotten me? That's the cry that people are asking. They're asking that why question. And I would say what we1:48 need to do is just be able to say, you know what, that's a really good question. And what I would encourage us as believers to avoid is don't feel the pressure to answer for1:59 God. Yeah. Like, we can sometimes feel like, Well, we gotta say all the right theological answers about who God is, but it's okay to actually let them say, this is hard and I don't understand it and I wanna ask why. And2:11 in a sense, they're speaking the Psalms.2:13 I agree. I think that was 1 of the best answers I've ever heard. I think it may have been the late Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City who said, those are questions that we can't even answer. We don't2:24 know why children suffer. Yeah. I mean, if you try to answer that, you're probably not even gonna get near the answer God might give. Yeah. So we have to say we don't know. You know?2:34 And it's also okay to to to not have the answer, but to actually express it's okay to ask that question, though Yeah. Even while we don't have the answer.2:42 That person that's in the deep part of that suffering, you mentioned the word shame.2:47 Mhmm.2:48 Where would that shame be coming from? Is it because I'm in a situation that if God loved me, then I shouldn't be in this?2:55 Mhmm.2:55 Therefore, does God not love me? Or have I not performed in a way that pleases God and therefore I'm being punished? I mean, I think again, for the person that may not have that deep rootedness3:07 yet3:08 Mhmm.3:08 You're certainly on your way if you're in that kind of trauma.3:12 Yeah.3:12 But but just that that idea of shame for me is exactly opposite of what the Lord wants in that person.3:20 Yeah. It is. And if you think all the way back to the beginning in the garden, shame came in when God was questioned in a way that wasn't towards faith. It's a different thing to question God like I'm asking3:32 questions toward God. It's another thing to ask questions that are against God, and that's what the enemy was doing. And in that, they begin to have as they fell into sin, they begin to have this shame because you're not3:43 believing who God is. But as Christians, I think we can sometimes take that on when we hit a time of crisis, a time of trauma, a time of deep, deep suffering, is we can think that that's that3:54 must be that God doesn't love me or that maybe I'm not a good enough Christian, and I would just love to just dispel that and say, I wish that only bad things happened to the people who were really bad. I4:06 mean, I'm just being honest. I wish that only the worst things happened to the people who really deserved it in my in my earthly idea of what people deserve. But that's not the way it works. In fact, I I heard this4:18 mentioned once that in the Old Testament, the mark of somebody being known as a person of God was wealth. So we look at King David, and we look at Solomon, and we look at, you know, we4:30 can see that, like, wealth was given to them, and land, Abraham. In the New Testament, the mark of somebody being known as a person of God is suffering. And so I wanna4:42 actually dispel that and say, instead of thinking maybe I'm not a good enough Christian, it could actually be that sense of, you know, you're actually walking faithfully with God and it's going to mean suffering. It's4:53 gonna be a part of your story, but I just want you to suffer towards the Lord4:57 in it. And again, these are just hard things to comprehend and we don't have the answers, but we have, I would say, like, compass direction, what the scripture's telling us, what mature, deep rooted Christians5:09 can help us think through. Let's start with the story of, is it Tiana? Mhmm. I'm sure that's not her real name.5:16 Right. No, it is not. But it's5:17 somebody that you had contact with. She suffered terrible trauma. Describe what happened to her.Spotting Trauma Signs and Asking Questions 5:23 Yeah. So in in that story, you have somebody who had an incident. She had a a pretty catastrophic house fire, but she had other little things along the way. And even though the the house and this happens with with real5:35 life situations all the time, I see them. The trauma can be significant and then it gets like, the situations get rectified. The house is rebuilt. You're able to recover the the loss5:47 and so forth. But she had other things that happened along the way. And I think it begs to answer a question as to and and this is why I bring this story up is because sometimes,5:59 1, you can have 2 people go through similar situations. 1 person goes through this really catastrophic situation and it's, they're traumatized. Another, and they're not. And so, that question is, why is that?6:11 What makes something traumatizing? And I think that's a question we're all wanting to know as we walk with people or as we encounter things in our own lives. And I think that's so important to understand because there6:22 there are some characteristics that are important to to know about your own story or the story of somebody you love who you realize have been through something. What causes what I'm gonna call traumatization? That's what6:34 we're seeing is that those those signs that there's the trauma's had an impact on them. Mhmm. What causes that is 4 things really. The first thing is it is overwhelm. The person's been6:45 overwhelmed with something and this can happen with little children, what we call complex trauma over and over and over again, but they're overwhelmed. It's too much, too soon, too fast for them. So that's6:57 the first characteristic of what could cause traumatization. The next 1 is powerlessness. No voice, no choice and no ability to change the situation. So think of7:09 like a car accident that causes somebody to be traumatized. You know in that situation where you are going to hit that other car or a car is coming at you, you have no ability to change that.7:21 So overwhelmed, powerlessness, alone. This 1 is huge. It's huge because it's the way we used to look at trauma. Early on in psychological history, they used to think7:33 of it as, what's wrong with you? Something's wrong with this person? And they would kind of scratch their head and go, That person's broken. What's wrong with them? And then through research and through time and really7:44 through the Vietnam War, because that's when we started to, here in the States, start understanding trauma better and doing some trauma work.7:50 PTSD, for example.7:52 Yeah. It entered into our diagnostic manual. And so then instead of asking, what's wrong with you? They started asking, what happened to you? Which is much more compassionate.8:03 Right. And accurate.8:04 And much more accurate.8:05 Right.8:06 Well, now, years this is now it's been another 50 years or so. Now we're asking an even better question. We're asking the question of who was with you? Because being alone, meaning8:18 having nobody to process it with, nobody noticed, nobody heard, nobody even asked Yeah. Causes that traumatization. And that's really why I wrote this book because I wanted people to understand that specifically with8:29 trauma, we have to have a whole person approach. We can't just say, what happened to you emotionally? Or what's going on spiritually? Or what happened to you physically? But we have to have that whole person approach.8:39 I think, again, I wanna make sure we're clear about the idea that you've captured in the book here, that it's good for you to be not formally trained. You don't need to be formally trained, read a book and8:51 be better, informed8:53 Yes.8:53 As to how to identify someone who might be going through trauma. You know, 1 way I've described it, maybe I use this metaphor too much, but it's like a car accident. I've seen car accidents, And that's why I refer to it9:04 because it's like you're saying to yourself as you're watching this, am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing? Because it's odd. It's unusual. It's not what Seeing somebody drive down the wrong side of the road, you're9:15 going, is that person really on the wrong side of the road?9:18 It's9:18 like your brain has to9:19 catch up9:20 with what's happening. And I think identifying somebody who's dealing with trauma at different degrees, I think we could all recognize somebody who is highly traumatized.9:32 But it's like that. You've gotta say to yourself, did I really just hear what they said?9:37 And9:37 did they really mean what they just said? Because that's a flag. How do we get to that point where we can be effective as Christians Yeah. To say, it feels like something might be wrong. How9:49 can I help you?9:50 Oh, that's so good. And I'm I'm I think that's you're capturing the heart of why I wrote the book was I took theories and models and and understanding, like, psychological terms and boiled them down to very accessible,10:02 practical ways. I mean, the subtitle is A Christian's Guide10:05 Mhmm.10:05 To helping care. And so 1 of the things I think is so important is for us to realize the multifaceted aspect of trauma.10:13 Mhmm.10:13 Is that, okay, I can't just look for what I think somebody like, sometimes we think, oh, they're all of a sudden they disassociate or we think of, like, the the backfiring of a car and then all of a sudden somebody drops10:22 to the floor or whatever and, you know, they're that's that's what I'm looking for with traumatization. No. Actually, it will show up in in hyper awareness of just, like, being very aware of my surroundings or being very10:33 uncomfortable. Let's say if you go into, maybe a small group because, you know, churches, lots of people have small groups and that just the discomfort of being in another person's home, needing to see10:45 the doorway wherever they sit or being uncomfortable with being asked very personal questions that are just, I want to get to know you a little bit more. Those are some of the things that we want to think about.10:54 Sometimes, I think we can misdiagnose trauma as like, antisocial. They're diagnose trauma as like, antisocial. They just don't they're not very social or high anxiety or anger can sometimes11:06 also be a protective way of dealing with the trauma responses that they're dealing with or detachment is huge. Yeah. And people wanna be attached. I I mentioned being alone is part of what causes it to be11:18 traumatizing, but they get stuck in that. Mhmm. And it becomes like, now I wanna detach from everybody. And so they end up unfortunately, it can end up being really a cause of conflict in close relationships.11:30 Kind of comfortable in your uncomfortable. Yeah. Allow me to interrupt for a moment to say how much I appreciate you watching. If you find value in this content, please subscribe11:42 by clicking below. It'll be a big help. Now let's get back to the show. You mentioned in the book signs of trauma. I just wanna listen quickly, and we can come back and point out a couple. Triggers is 1. Recurrent11:53 memories or dreams, avoidance, unwanted, somatic responses, and then mood disturbances and arousal responses. The triggers 1, this is Yeah. Kind of12:05 interesting that you mentioned that a moment ago, the distinction between somebody just being upset. I remember being at a coffee place, and this woman ordered right in front of me, so I had the whole thing. She ordered,12:17 you know, this latte, and she wanted it at 104 degrees. And I'm going, oh, this will be interesting. You know, and had a lot of fufu stuff in it as well, chocolate mocha or12:29 whatever. Anyway, she gets it at the other end, and she sips it, and she goes into a tizzy.12:35 Mhmm.12:35 Like, this is not 104 degrees. This is more like 101. And first of all, I'm going, wow. You have an amazing temperature gauge. But she flew off the handle. Seeing this now, that's more of a12:47 trigger of something deeper going on in her. Mhmm. It's not the superficial thing. This woman is really weird about her her coffee.12:55 Mhmm.12:55 It's saying something else. Yeah. What in that context, you're not gonna do anything because that's just odd to engage in that. Yeah. And they corrected it, and they made it hotter for her. But speak to that kind of13:07 thing about how people engage like that that are upset about just everyday things that go wrong. Yeah. Driving.13:15 Right.13:15 Oh my goodness. Right. Like driving is unhinged now.13:18 Right. Yeah. And this was something that I I wrestled with in the book because as a counselor, I see a lot of those things. What you described is very common in just, like, day to day relational conflict13:29 or, people's just struggles that they have in in everyday life, and I have to wrestle, like, is this trauma or is this not? And so I struggled with, do I put this in the book? And I actually did put a section on there,13:40 when it's not trauma. Because I do think it's also important for us to recognize that there are some things in us that might even look like, oh, maybe there is something deeper, and that deeper could be trauma, or that13:52 deeper could be, I I have a very, high opinion of my comfort zone or something like that, you know. And and so I think the key is to understand where when when we look at those, that acronym14:04 that you just listed,14:06 is That is an acronym for trauma. Yeah.14:07 It's the acronym for trauma.14:07 I should have pointed that out. Yeah.14:09 Is it just 1 of those things? Because if it's just 1 then I would say, you know, maybe not trauma. But if it's multiple ones and if the triggers are not just now I'm upset but the triggers take me back because let me14:21 just explain quickly what a trigger is. A trigger is what I call a memory link. So it's linking to something else that happened, but it is packed full of the emotions, the14:33 feelings, the the not just the emotional feelings but the the physical feelings of that terrible event that I went through. And those things all come back and they're smashed together with no space in between14:45 and they feel it all over. So think of a trigger of like being right back in that moment with no warning. Yeah. People who have triggers do not want triggers. They're not trying to, like, over you know, because we that's14:55 a word we throw out there a lot. Oh, you're triggering me. People who are truly traumatized will do everything they can, that's part of the the, the first a there, to avoid anything that's gonna remind them of trauma.Practical Care: Body, Safety, Community 15:07 And so we wanna get curious. Is this just, not just, is this other things that are happening? Maybe some relational struggles or maybe, you know, some some anger issues that I have that aren't related to trauma?15:19 Or are there some of these other things connected to it as well?15:22 You know, 1 of the things, with society, if we could put it in this context, I remember an example that I had, where I was in DC. There were people protesting15:34 in the street, more of like an Antifa kind of situation. And I was coming out of a meeting in a suit and tie, so I think they kind of figured who I was. You know, I'm some kind of maybe DC person, which15:46 I'm not. But I'm walking and 2 women come to confront me, 1 holding a phone, and there are many people coming out of this event. And she came up and she was very crass15:58 and using foul language and saying things to me. And I remember I felt a weirdly weird peace. I mean, I was not offended by her. And I remember just looking at her right eye to eye, and I16:10 said, what kind of relationship did you have with your dad that has driven you to act like this?16:17 Wow.16:18 She went stone quiet. She didn't react to it. She just looked like I had just hit her with the 2 by 416:25 Wow.16:26 Emotionally. And the other girl noticed that, and then she began to engage me. And that girl just stood there, and it I could tell it connected.16:36 Yeah.16:37 And to the point in the book, you mentioned that that people that are expressing deep disrespect or, you know, anger behavior, there could be that thing that16:48 happened to them16:50 Yeah.16:50 That or many things that have happened to them that cause them to lean into that kind of activity. Describe that. And and the attitude we should have as Christians in17:03 2 responses. I'm no super Christian. Believe me. I could act out of my flesh and respond to her, or I can try to find the peace of God Yeah. And respond with what he would17:15 want me to respond with.17:16 Exactly. Well, and you demonstrated it so well. What I would say is, when you have a situation where you're wondering, what is going on? Why are you so upset about this? What makes this so significant? Where maybe the17:28 next person would be able to handle this question or this, you know, situation in the coffee shop or whatever. The thing that you did was so right is that when we don't know the best thing that we can do and17:40 I talk about this quite a bit is to ask, Ask a question because what we tend to do is we tend to assume, oh, she's she's just fill in the blank or this is17:52 what she's this is the the platform she's,17:55 you know Her ideology.17:56 Yeah. Exactly. And so we assume a lot about the person. We assume a lot about their circumstance and yet we don't know. So you did you modeled it right there. And so I would say even as a church, when we are18:07 having people come into our small groups or into our Bible studies or into our congregation and you notice, there's something different about this person. You know what? They always sit on the on this the fifth row from18:17 the right, the last seat and somebody was sitting there and they got so upset. Instead of thinking, well, they just have anger issues, what if we got curious18:26 and asked That's really good.18:27 What makes that so difficult? What makes that situation difficult for you? And as a counselor, of course, I'm always gonna ask the question of when else have you felt this way? Because that's what we're looking for18:39 and I give I just give a ton of questions that you can ask because you did it right there. We don't wanna assume because when we assume, we don't ask.18:46 Question asking really is a diffuser. You know, another thing, and you've gotta think maybe, especially if you're in the realm of being in the culture, engaging people that disagree with you. You know, another 1 is just18:58 to say, what has brought you to this place?19:00 Exactly. Why19:01 do you believe what you believe?19:02 Yeah.19:03 And and I kind of, in my mind, envision this big balloon that's full of air. And when you ask a question like that, it kinda goes19:12 Yeah.19:12 And some of that Yeah. Air pressure is let out.19:15 I was just I was just having a conversation with a colleague of mine, Curt Thompson, and he he asked the question. He said, we should ask, what makes this make sense? And I think that's what you did with that lady. What19:26 makes this make sense?19:27 Mhmm. And19:27 if you can just simply ask that question, that can go a long way in diffusing the situation. And really, what are we doing? We're being like Jesus who was masterful at asking questions. Who who touched19:39 me? Do you want to be well? Yeah. Where is your husband? Like, these are questions that he did not need to ask, but he asked to draw them out and to understand their story.19:48 Yeah. Yeah. And I was I actually talked to 1 of my children the other day and I said, it's this it's not the first question. Most of us can figure out a first question. It's what you just said. It's the second question19:58 that kind of gives people a sense of, oh, you really do care. But that's that's so hard in our in our in our everyday conversations.20:06 Well, let me give you a little cheat because you are 100 percent right. That first question just gets the conversation rolling and says, I wanna know. And the second question is where we as the question ask askers get a20:17 little bit nervous, like, okay. Now I don't know what to ask.20:18 I heard it right now.20:20 Exactly. I can't tell you how many times people said what just give me and that's why I did list a bunch of questions in the book. Mhmm. But take this as just your little cheat. What do I need to know about what I20:30 already know? So that first question gives you something. So then just ask more about what they just20:36 gave you. Go deeper.20:37 Yep. About the same stuff.20:37 You also in the book talk about 3 simple ways to help people combat trauma. These are real common sense things, but again, it's almost like you need to think of that before it happens, or it20:49 won't be on the tip of your tongue. But those 3 were encourage care for the body, create a safe and supportive environment, and explore expanding their community of support. Good. So just describe that can sound a little21:01 complicated, but just describe those really quick.21:04 Well, the first 1, just encouraging the care for the body. You're not doing good trauma care if you leave the body out. That's just the bottom line. That's just the way it works because guess where the body was when they21:14 experienced trauma. It was right there with them. It was in that car accident. It was in that horrible living situation. It was21:21 What does what does that advice sound like though? How do I say to somebody, boy, it'd be good for you to care for your body?21:27 Yeah. Well, some of it is even just recognizing, like, maybe they're not caring for their body, but you as a person what I mean by that is Oh. I wanna actually attend to what's happening in their body. So when I say21:39 good trauma if you're doing trauma care without the body, you're not doing trauma care. When you're sitting with me, talking with me, and you have that moment of, okay, I'm now talking to the to the real situation now,21:50 we have to pay attention to what the body is doing because the body is what kept you alive in that circumstance. And you guys probably have heard the fight, flight, or freeze responses that are very common. That's what22:02 happens in trauma. You're triggering 1 of those fight, flight, or freeze. And the body will do that to keep you alive. But it will keep doing that in that moment. And so, for example, you might22:14 notice that somebody either, like, checks out mentally or they kind of get up and leave even Mhmm. A conversation. They may not be being rude. That might be the flight response that they knew in that22:26 trauma. So helping them understand that when you're feeling that, there's there are physical sensations. How can you actually address that? So 1 of the things I tried to do was just give a whole lot of actual exercises22:37 that I do. Just kind of invited you into my counseling room and said, let's talk about how we can address the body through breathing. Breathing is the number 1 way your body goes into fight, flight, or freeze. That's how22:47 it starts as you your breathing starts to change. You just don't notice it. Well, if that's how your body moves into fight, flight, or freeze, guess what? That's how it moves out of it as well. And we can activate the22:58 other the parasympathetic nerve, nervous system, which is the rest, digest, and process. We talk a lot about fight, flight, or freeze. So I talk about how you can address the body and bring them back into the rest,23:10 digest, and process through breathing, through meditating on scripture and how scripture can also do that. Yeah. But really addressing that because we are embodied souls, which means we live out embodied23:22 faith, faith. And we need to go to where the the the hurt start started and a lot of times, it started in in the body.23:32 Yeah. Some physical encounter.23:34 Mhmm.23:34 Let's hit quickly then. Create a safe and supportive environment. I think it's self explanatory but give us the Yeah. Definition.23:41 Well, we've we've already started talking about that with the let's not assume. Let's not assume but let's ask and be willing to be patient. To be patient with the person, to be patient with yourself when you don't know23:52 what to say, because you're not gonna know what to say and that's okay. You might actually say, I feel like I should say something right now and I don't know what to say, and that might be the most helpful thing that youShow more In this video 0:00 Understanding What Makes Trauma5:21 Spotting Trauma Signs and Asking Questions15:00 Practical Care: Body, Safety, Community24:00 PEACE Tools and Hope Beyond Trauma35:00 Final Hope: God Wipes Every Tear
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