Healing from Emotional Trauma: Practical Tips and Professional Help with Lorene Roberts

Are you experiencing hidden trauma? Learn how to identify and cope with it in this insightful episode of  Wow Love, Light, Inspire podcast

In this episode, Lorene Roberts talks about trauma - what it is, how to deal with it, and its effects on your body. It's a must-listen for anyone who has experienced trauma or wants to learn more about it. 

Lorene is a root cause therapist, counsellor and healer from Australia and she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. 

Lorene has a passion for helping people who are struggling to thrive in life from stress, fears or trauma, she bridges the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

You will learn in this episode!

•  Facing your fears.
• Overcoming Trauma
• Understanding Trauma

Show Time Stamp

0:30 Understanding Trauma.
4:37 Trauma responses.
9:12 Mental health and creativity.
9:43 Symptoms of hidden trauma.
12:27 Emotional numbness
15:35 Managing symptoms of trauma.
19:27 Music and movement for wellbeing.
23:58 Different types of therapy.

Find out more about Lorene - https://bio.site/loreneroberts

Learn More about Lorene:
https://bio.site/loreneroberts


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Transcript

0:00

Welcome. Welcome to Love, Light, Inspire the podcast. This is a podcast where I speak to all these inspiring women. Sometimes I actually just talk to you myself. Today, that's what we're going to do. We're going to talk to you about trauma because a lot of people don't really understand what trauma is. Now, my name's Lorene Roberts. I am a root cause therapist, also to counseling and lots of other modalities as well. And I help people deal and work through trauma. So you may be having issues and you don't even realise that it's come back from something that's happened to you at some stage in your life. Or it may even be a past life or it could be inherited from your ancestors because this can happen to us too. So today I'm going to talk to you and speak to you and explain to you exactly what trauma is, how you can deal with it and the effects that it can have on you and your body and what you can be going through, which you didn't even put down to being trauma because I feel it can be hidden. So my name's Lorene Roberts. You can find me my own personal page, Lorene Roberts. So that's L O R E N E. If you're listening, because a lot of people can't spell Lorene, very different name. So my name's Lorene Roberts, root cause therapist, obviously from Australia, wherever you're listening from around the world. Welcome to Love, Light, Inspire. Hope you get something from this broadcast today. Also, if you liked it, please subscribe. So you come back every week, we put something different out and it could be somebody speaking on a myriad of different topics. So make sure that you subscribe. Please give us a rating. We'd love that. We'd love to hear from you. Join our community. Women of Love, Light, Inspire would love to know what you think. So, yes, please do that. So let me tell you about trauma. So what is trauma? And, you know, you can ask, do I have trauma? Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. So trauma is a complex and very often very misunderstood phenomenon that affects individuals in various different ways. So many people have a general idea of what trauma entails, but they often fail to gas its intricacies. And the fact that most of us have experienced some degree of trauma at some stage during our lives. So what exactly is trauma? Well, trauma actually refers to the response that we have to distressing or disturbing events. It is not solely the overwhelming event itself, which is what people think it is, but rather how our brain and our body react after the event has occurred. So trauma may occur at any stage of life, from the womb before we're born to our early years as babies, childhood, adulthood. And additionally, trauma can even be passed down through generations as ancestral trauma encoded in our DNA. The reaction to trauma can manifest as physical or emotional symptoms. They may involve subtle changes in our breathing, heart rate or sweating, or they may affect our emotional well-being, causing feelings of fear, hopelessness or horror even. So trauma can emerge days, weeks or even years after the event for some individuals. And it may present itself in ways that are not immediately recognised as relating to the traumatic experience itself. So moreover, trauma manifests differently in every single person. So some individuals may experience flashbacks, while others may exhibit intolerance towards certain people, places or events that serve as a reminder of their trauma. And sometimes they don't even realise that that's what they're being reminded of. It is important to recognise that each person's experience of trauma is unique. Even if two individuals have gone through the same traumatic event, their reactions and responses when confronted with reminders of that event may differ. So sometimes these reactions are entirely subconscious and individuals may be unaware of why they react, think or believe certain things. So in response to fear, there are four main trauma responses. And we've all heard of fight, flight and freeze, but there's also fawn. So these responses serve as survival mechanisms to navigate through traumatic events and situations. Now, in my own experience, I've had lots of trauma. It's quite, quite amazing. When my mother was pregnant with me, just about to give birth to me, a bushfire went through the property. As a small child, I used to have nightmares about fire. I could see a fire coming to our place. It was as clear as anything. Then when I became an adult, every time I'd see burning off, I would go into absolute panic mode. And my brain would ultimately go, you know, where are the children? Where do I get the passports from? Where do I find all the things? We've got to get out of here, got to get out of here. And I was ready to run. And I wasn't even born when that traumatic event happened in my mother's life, but I was nearly born. So that's a form of trauma. Now, after engaging in extensive inner child work and delving deep into the shadows that I've got, I discovered even more beliefs that were just totally incomprehendible to me. And one of the biggest things that I learned was that I felt I was worthless and undeserving. So where did this come from? Well, I did believe and I knew that I believed that I had to be compliant and fulfill the demands of others in order to be loved. I knew that if I wanted you to love me, I had to behave. So upon further examination, I traced these beliefs back to my early childhood, during which time I experienced severe emotional neglect and isolation from others, especially other children. So I was never socialized as a small child, creating massive difficulties when I went to school. I didn't know how to make friends. I didn't know how to play with other children. And I didn't know how to be a child. And then once I went to school, my parents went out to work and became workaholics. So they were never home. And I was left to fend for myself and cater for my own needs. So it wasn't until I recognized and addressed these beliefs that I realized the profound impact my childhood trauma had on shaping my adult life. Looking back, I now understand how it influenced my choice of choosing boyfriends and especially my husband, as I expected, accepted any behavior he displayed towards me to avoid losing him. I was not going to lose him. So I had no boundaries. I could never say no to him because I was driven by the fear that I was unlovable. No one was ever going to love me. If I lost him, who was going to love me then? I didn't believe anyone was going to love me. And I believed that I was never going to be able to find anybody else. So I let him behave however he wanted towards me, as that was acceptable. So I kept him. When my husband sexually abused me, my trauma response was to fawn. I disassociated and shut my mind to avoid confronting the reality of what was really happening to me. I remember thinking to myself, it really doesn't matter what he's doing to me because he's not treating anyone else badly. It's only me. So it doesn't matter. Guess what? I was wrong. This was my coping mechanism for dealing with the trauma at the time. It wasn't until after our separation when I realized the magnitude of what he had done to me and that I had been raped. Within my marriage. And it wasn't until I saw a television program that I was confronted with the truth and the realization that such treatment of me was totally unacceptable. He had no right to treat me in that manner. But by then it was too late and I couldn't erase history. I couldn't erase the memories and the thoughts that were already in my mind. What had been the norm in our marriage suddenly became an unacceptable reality of our relationship. So even now, 14 years after the end of our relationship, when I come across a television show with a rape scene, I have to turn the television off. I have to look away. I have to la la la la la la la because I cannot. I can't deal with it. I cannot watch men taking advantage of women as it triggers intense feelings of powerlessness. It's a sickening emotion. And from the time, you know, it goes back to the time when it was happening to me. So, although there were many times over the years when I experienced flashbacks, these are slowly diminishing. Thank goodness. So I would, you know, something would happen and I would come back to that and it would flash in my brain what he did to me. That's happening less and less now. But we are 14 years down the track and I've done a lot of work, a lot, a lot, a lot of work. Now, let's explore 10 symptoms that can indicate hidden or apparent trauma. So flashbacks. That's something that happens to some people. This involves the vivid re-experiencing of the traumatic event as if it were happening in the present. So we need to deal with it to get rid of that from our brains. Blackouts. Some individuals may completely black out of the entire traumatic event from their memory. So engaging in total avoidance. Their subconscious mind shields them from the memories. They honestly cannot remember a thing that ever happened to them in their childhood, in their, wherever, the traumatic things. They can't remember a thing. So others have a sense that something might have happened. So if you're talking about something, they go, that might have happened to me, but I can't remember it. While others have no recollection of it at all. You might have disturbed sleep and you might have nightmares. So trauma victims may struggle with sleep disturbances, finding it difficult to relax and experience a lack of restful sleep. So nightmares may occur, often featuring events and scenarios symbolic to the trauma that they've been through. The connection between the nightmares and the trauma may not be immediately apparent. You know, it might not be that person coming towards you, but it may be a dog or an animal coming to attack you, or it may be a zombie coming to attack you. You know, it's with closer analysis that it will reveal that the subconscious mind is attempting to communicate the need to address the trauma that you've been through. Now, hypervigilance is another symptom. So some people experience hypervigilance as a result of trauma. So they're constantly feeling on edge. They're easily startled. They're the people that go, when something happens, they suddenly, someone will walk in the door and they get scared. So they jump and scream. They react strongly to even minor noises or perceived threats or hidden dangers that may not be real. Hypervigilance can significantly impact relationships and overall life, preventing individuals from fully engaging in activities they once enjoyed. There's always anxiety and depression. There's no better symptom for stress and trauma than anxiety and depression. So interestingly, individuals may not even connect their anxiety or depression to the traumatic event they experienced. They may fail to recognize that their feelings of sadness or anxiousness stem from the trauma. This connection can even be more challenging to establish when the trauma occurred in the womb or as an ancestral root. Now, the other symptom is emotional numbness. Now, trauma can lead to a numbing of emotions, causing individuals to feel detached from their own feelings, their own thoughts and even their own bodies. They may not be able to recognize any of these emotions. The numbness serves as a defense mechanism, preventing them from experiencing emotions related to the traumatic event. Disconnection can extend to all areas of life, making it difficult to feel emotions towards anything or anyone. Now, avoidance is a great way of not having to deal with your trauma. Avoidance is such a common response and it's easily observed from an outsider's perspective. But sometimes the person themselves doesn't realize that they are avoiding whatever it was that's anything that triggers them. So individuals may go to great lengths to avoid situations, people, places or events that could potentially trigger thoughts or discussions about the trauma. They might isolate themselves from certain stimuli, such as specific smells or sounds without fully understanding why they're harboring such a versions. So they may stop going out because someone might say to them, oh, how are you after? They don't want to be reminded of it. So they won't go out anymore. They'll stay away from places. So if they were attacked by a dog, they'll be too scared to walk up the street because a dog might be in someone's front yard. They'll stop doing certain things. They won't go to the bakery because something about the smell of bread triggers them back to the trauma that they're having at the time. Guilt and shame is also another symptom. And we often see this as the survivors, a survivor's guilt. So if there was a lot of people killed in something or other and a few people survived, the survivors find it really hard to live because why did I survive and why did everyone else die? So it's a feeling of guilt and shame off accompanying trauma stemmed from the insecurities and negative beliefs related to the experience. So if only I was or I didn't or I'm not good enough or that sort of belief comes in. Irritability. If you've been through trauma, some people become really irritable. They become, you know, they've just got an attitude about them. So irritability may manifest as complaining, blaming others, impulsive behavior or aggression. So, you know, these are the people that can attack you for no reason. Trauma can impair logical thinking and hinder interpersonal relationships, particularly in situations involving tension or conflict. You know, if you've been through trauma, you cannot deal with tension or conflict. So you will blow up before to stop everyone else from doing anything. Overwhelming fears. If you've been through trauma, you often have overwhelming fears. Fears resulting from trauma can lead to destructive behaviors and strain relationships. The subconscious mind may become overwhelmed, triggering a cascade of symptoms commonly referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder. So PTSD. So it's when you're absolutely scared of everything around you. So if you suspect that you are suffering from trauma, there are several steps you can take to alleviate the mental, emotional and physical pain that you may be experiencing. The most crucial first step is to recognize that there is something in your life that requires attention and healing. And it really is advisable to consult with a health care professional to rule out any underlying health conditions that may be contributing to your symptoms. So in other words, if you're not sleeping well, let's go and rule out that you don't have sleep apnea and that it is trauma that is stopping you from from sleeping. Let's rule out the basic health things first before we go down these other other paths, looking at why things are the way they are. So in addition to seeking professional help, there are 12 various things that you can do at home to manage the symptoms of trauma. So here are 12 tips that may help you take time to pause and breathe deeply. When you're feeling overwhelmed, honestly, when overwhelm hits you, just stop. Don't push yourself. Take time. Breathe, pause, compose yourself before you go on. It's OK. Accept that that's how you feel. Thank the overwhelming, overwhelmed for coming up and showing you that you have overwhelmed. Thank you and move on. So always, you know, thank the overwhelmed because it really is telling you that you need to deal with this. So prioritize self care to by tending to your physical and emotional needs. We must look after ourselves. So we have to consume really nutritious food. So make sure you're having lots of green leafy vegetables and micronutrients in green leafy vegetables is just great for you. So make sure you're getting a really good night's sleep and you're resting well. So if you feel stressed, stop, take a bath, take a moment to relax, unwind some good food and have a good sleep. Now, also incorporate exercise into your routine. Now, I'm not talking about go out and run a marathon or, you know, do something ridiculous. I'm talking about just go for a walk, join a yoga class, do some Pilates, Tai Chi. Very simple, very slow, just beautiful movements. This can all be a beneficial form of exercise for you. Practice breathing exercise to regulate your nervous system and consider attending classes or workshops to learn different techniques in breathing. Breathing can be fantastic for the the nervous system in your body. One of the best breathing things is just techniques is just the easiest one ever. It's in for four, out for six, in through the nose and out through the mouth for six, in through the nose for four, out through the mouth for six. Just slowing your breathing down, in through the nose. I can't do it when I'm talking at the same time and out through the mouth. By slowing your external breath down, it actually just sort of drops your, I don't know, your nervous system down. Your heart just becomes a little bit quieter. It's a really simple breathing exercise that is so effective. So in through the nose for four, out through the mouth for six. Very simple. Just remember to breathe that way and you'll be really surprised at what it does and how it calms your body down. Now, also, when you're feeling down, when you're feeling a little glum and gloomy, put on some music and dance. You know, just the music and the dancing and moving your body just totally shifts your whole vibe, your whole being and resets your brain pattern. Now, I remember quite a few years ago there was Happy by Pharrell Williams and he had a 24 hour Happy. And I could put that on and I could dance around my house for nearly an hour singing the Happy song. And it really does change your brain. So make sure you put on some happy music and dance. Fantastic for you. So maintain your daily activities and routines. Get up every morning and continue with your regular tasks. Don't say, I'm feeling terrible today. I think I'll just stay in bed and close the blinds and make it dark. And I just don't want to get my head off the pillar. Get up, get out, go and get some sunshine. Go for a walk, see the sun. Just go and sit in the park. Maintain your daily activities and your routines. And that will keep you going and keep you motivated and just change your brain. But if you go to bed and sit in a dark room, everything's going to become dull and glary and yuck. Really simple thing. Get up and keep moving. Now, also join a local community group or club. Stay connected, engaged with the world around you. Don't isolate yourself. Don't lock yourself into the bedroom in that dark, dull, yucky bedroom. You know, get out and talk to people. Find yourself a hobby that brings you fun and enjoyment. Engaging activities you enjoy can have a huge positive impact on your well-being. So start knitting a jumper for yourself. Start doing something. Go and join a painting group. Go and do something and engage with other people. The other thing is you need to accept yourself for who you are. Recognise the perfection is unattainable. Embrace your flaws and imperfections as everyone has them. So I am the most imperfect, perfect person there is on this earth because I am totally imperfect. As are we all. You know, embrace the fact that you've got imperfections. You've got flaws because you're perfectly perfect for you. Also seek out a therapist. Find someone who specialises in trauma. Find someone who specialises in being able to help you work through your issues and make sure that you can connect with them. That connection that they understand who you are and your experiences is really important. But working with someone will get you ahead leaps and bounds faster than you try to do it on your own. And you really can't do it on your own. Face your fears when possible. So overcoming challenges that scare you can boost your self-esteem and sense of accomplishment. So I did that. I did that. I actually did that. You know, that's the feeling you get the pride in. I did it. I overcome it. I achieved it. The other thing is avoid substances that alter your brain's chemistry, such as alcohol and drugs. So the wine o'clock bit is really bad for your mental health. These substances can exasperate trauma symptoms, so it's best to stay clear of them. So no wine o'clock. If you're feeling down, don't have a drink. It's not going to help you. There are various therapeutic approaches that can help in treating trauma. And it may be necessary to explore different types of therapy as well to find what works best for your specific situation. So some of the options that you have out there is root cause therapy, which is RCT, which is what I do. I also do a little bit of body and processing, which is EP. You may have heard of that one too. There's always cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. There's also EMDR, which is eye movement, decentralization and reprogressive therapy. I believe it's very good, but I know very little about it. There's supportive therapy, which is basically just chatting to someone. If that is what rocks your boat, try that one. The other one is EFT, so emotional freedom technique, which is tapping. Tapping is getting a fantastic rep. And I did a podcast a while ago on tapping and the results they're getting from tapping are really fantastic too. So that's something else to look at. So root cause therapy or RCT is the main type of therapy that I offer, although I do use other modalities, a lot of other modalities at certain times during the treatment. It's appropriate for the client at that particular time. So there's just not one thing that just solves a problem. Often you move on and you need other things as well. Well, that's what I find as well. So RCT is a powerful healing modality, which helps the clients identify the underlying root causes of the trauma so they can work through the issues or trapped emotions that the body and the mind may still be holding onto, which is holding you back from living your ideal life. So you actually go deep into the issue and the core beliefs that are running your life rather than deal with the symptoms on a superficial level. So, you know, I do a lot of counselling. So counselling and talk therapy is great, but you need to find out what is actually running you and why. What is the belief behind the trauma that is that is holding onto you? So in conclusion today, trauma is a complex and multifaceted experience that can affect individuals in various ways. It is not limited to extraordinary events, but can emerge from experiences at any stage of life, including prenatal and ancestral trauma. So recognising and acknowledging trauma is an essential first step in the healing process. So seeking professional help and implementing self-care strategies can aid in managing trauma symptoms and moving towards a healthier and more fulfilling life. So remember, healing is possible and you deserve support and compassion on your journey to recovery and living an amazing life. Now, I'm Lorene Roberts, and thank you so much for listening in today. I have a podcast every week, which we release on so many different topics. Normally, it's not me talking, but every now and again I do. I do a podcast so I can actually impart the knowledge that I have in so many different topics. And this is something that I'm very knowledgeable in. So I hope you enjoyed it. If you have, please tick the subscribe button. You know, the more people that subscribe to our podcast, the better quality people we can actually also have on our podcast. So that's really good. I'd love to get some feedback from you. So if you've enjoyed today, please drop me a line. You know, tell me what you thought, what your experience is. Let's start a discussion on it. Now you can find us on the Facebook group, Women of Loveline Inspire as well. There's the website, which is Loveline Inspire. It has articles on so many different topics that has been written over the years. So there's lots and lots of information on that. If you want to find me, probably the best one is to personal message me through my own Facebook page. So Lorene Roberts, L-O-R-E-N-E Roberts. And yeah, that's how you find me. Thank you, Nissa. She is our producer who puts this together for every week for everyone to listen to. Without her, this show wouldn't happen. So thank you, everybody, for listening. Please come back again. Please subscribe. And I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you got a lot out of it. So have a wonderful week, day, wherever it is in your world. Thank you.