Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
134. Healing From Within and Navigating Our Traumas with Danny Greeves
113 Plays1 year ago
How can we accelerate our healing journey?
This week's guest is Danny Greeves, also known as The Trauma Expert. He is an author and trauma therapist, recognized as one of the top coaches by USA Today.
In this episode, we explore the profound impact of trauma on our lives and how it shapes our physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Danny shares powerful insights, practical strategies, and tools for healing and finding resilience in the face of adversity.
If you enjoy this episode, please feel free to rate and review the podcast on whatever app you’re listening on, and share with a friend!
OUR SPONSOR
Are you ready to feel more energized, focused, and supported? Go to https://zen.ai/wellnessandwanderlust1 and add nourishing, plant-based foods to fuel you from sunrise to sunset.
CONNECT WITH DANNY
- https://www.facebook.com/danny.greeves
- https://thetraumaexpert.co.uk/
- https://trauma-resolution.scoreapp.com/
CONNECT WITH THE SHOW
Website: WellnessAndWanderlust.net
Instagram: www.instagram.com/wellnessandwanderlustblog
Facebook: www.facebook.com/wellnessandwanderlustblog
Twitter: www.twitter.com/moses_says
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Wellness and Wanderlust Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the wellness and wanderlust podcast. We're here to demystify wellness and help you add a little adventure to your life. Tune in for a new episode every week, where we'll hear from incredible guests and talk about ways to be happier and healthier in our new normal. I'm your host, Valerie Moses. Let's get started.
Exploring Trauma and Healing with Guest Danny Greaves
00:00:23
Speaker
Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining us here at the Wellness and Wonderless podcast. This is a place where we dive into topics of personal growth, well-being, resilience, and so much more. I'm so thrilled to have you here and I can't wait for you to hear what we have in store for you today. We have an incredible guest who will guide us through the intricate world of trauma and healing. Our guest for this week is Danny Greaves, also known as the trauma expert.
00:00:46
Speaker
He is an author and trauma therapist recognized as one of the top coaches by USA Today. In this episode, we explore the profound impact of trauma on our lives and how it shapes our physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Danny shares powerful insights, practical strategies, and tools for healing and finding resilience in the face of adversity. Join us as we dive into this amazing and enlightening conversation with Danny Greaves.
Valerie's Favorite Products and Offers
00:01:10
Speaker
I'd like to thank Laird Superfood for sponsoring this episode. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that I'm always on the go and looking for quick lifestyle shifts that can make a major impact on my health. That is why I love Laird Superfood products. I'm a big fan of their functional mushroom coffee with Chaga and Lion's Mean. It's a great way to boost my energy for the day while getting a lot more out of my cup.
00:01:30
Speaker
All layered products are sustainably sourced and thoroughly tested to ensure that you are incorporating the cleanest, finest fuel into your routine. They offer a variety of snacks and supplements full of wholesome plant-based ingredients to keep you charged for wherever life takes you. Are you ready to feel more energized, focused, and supported? Go to layeredsuperfood.com slash wanderlust and add nourishing plant-based foods
00:01:52
Speaker
to fuel you from sunrise to sunset. Use our promo code wanderlust at checkout to save 15% off your purchase today. All right, my friends, now let's dive into this week's conversation.
Danny Greaves' Professional Journey in Trauma Healing
00:02:02
Speaker
Danny, thank you so much for joining us at Wellness and Wanderlust today. It is an absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Of course, it is a pleasure to have you on. I'm really excited to dive into the work that you do. I'd love for you to first just introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us about your journey to where you are today.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Danny Greaves and I'm a trauma expert and I focus on helping people who have been through either an adverse or painful or traumatic experience to help them accelerate their journey towards healing without having to share all of the story and all of the details.
00:02:41
Speaker
That's amazing. I think a lot of times when we think about healing from our trauma, we do think that it's, and I think it can be this long process for many. And there is a lot of uncovering that we have to do. And so to really accelerate that process, I think that takes away a lot of the fear around it and we want to get better as soon as we can. Right. And so love that you do that. How'd you get into this type of work?
00:03:04
Speaker
Well, I like to think of it as I almost have two origin stories. So there were kind of two stories in my life that were running parallel. So we have like the professional side of one, which is where even from sort of like 10, 11 years old, I was really interested in physiology. And I love learning about the nervous system.
00:03:24
Speaker
And very quickly, I decided that I wanted to be a physiotherapist. So that kind of ticked all the boxes for me. And then as I was working as a physiotherapist, I was introduced to the topic of functional neurology. So working and learning more specifically about how the brain controls the muscles, the movement and the different systems within the body. And it was on that journey that I came across the idea of how emotions impact the nervous system.
00:03:53
Speaker
And that's what captivated me. And then that led me into sort of the coaching and therapeutic realm. And then when I started to work on trauma, that is where I really found the area that was most fulfilling for me. So that's kind of like the professional story. And that sounds fairly smooth, doesn't it? It sounds like it's a fairly easy journey. But the truth is the personal journey that came along with that was more challenging.
00:04:22
Speaker
So growing up, I'm a redhead
Impact of Childhood Adversity on Adult Life
00:04:25
Speaker
so I had bright ginger hair when I was younger. I struggled with kind of the way my body looked and I had really low body confidence. I was teased quite a bit for my hair.
00:04:37
Speaker
And there were several moments of outside of school where I was bullied or came into contact with people that was a little bit challenging. And that really made my confidence just drop and drop and drop. And I would start to feel more anxious. I was struggling to express myself. And the way that that really showed up was in relationships. So I got to the age of 27 and I was still struggling. I was still single.
00:05:04
Speaker
And then I went to a seminar and this is where the two stories kind of intertwine and that's where everything changed.
00:05:13
Speaker
Wow. Well, I think first of all, it's a relatable story because I think so many of us, we're finding now as we're getting older that the experiences we had in school that may even be somewhat common. I think that we think often trauma is that big T trauma, that life altering thing that you see on TV, the Lifetime movie, and you never think of it as something that many of us, all of us, I think have experienced at some point or another. And the impact
00:05:42
Speaker
that bullying had that they're just starting to really understand and that maybe the schools are finally starting to take a stand against that it really can impact us as adults. And I still find myself sometimes telling the stories that, you know, we're set in middle school. So I think it really plays such a role. And I think it has to be so fulfilling to be able to help people through these patterns and everything that they've been dealing with for such a long time.
00:06:08
Speaker
Well, I think you're absolutely correct there in terms of it's far more common for people to have these smaller events. So if we were to look into the literature, they would be described as an adverse event. So this is a highly stressful event, not necessarily traumatic that it could be.
00:06:30
Speaker
and that ranges from lots of different things from bullying to your parents divorcing to having a caregiver with alcohol issues or drug issues. There's like nine or ten different categories and these adverse events are what almost one in two of the population have experienced
00:06:51
Speaker
and yet they wouldn't consider themselves as, oh, I've had a trauma. So the vast majority of the work that I do with clients is actually working on these adverse events rather than the big standout ones. And when we think about it through that lens, we can start to see how these smaller events like the stories from high school or the family fall out when we were young,
00:07:16
Speaker
those are the ones that really tend to continue to impact us years or maybe even decades later until we're able to sort of process them or think about them differently. And I think too the way that we conceptualize like I think oftentimes when we go through something that the big T trauma those really traumatic experiences that we've always thought to be you know what we define as trauma it's something where maybe we do get help for it or we do
00:07:43
Speaker
Like there is a path where there comes a point a lot of times where we may want to go to counseling or something like that to really pursue that healing. And I think when it comes to these adverse events, oftentimes we don't realize the impact that they've had on us. And so it might not be something that we're working on and from a day to day basis, but to have that awareness there.
00:08:03
Speaker
Absolutely. And the latest science and the research that's coming out actually sheds a little bit of light onto why that happens. So when we have these adverse or challenging events, often the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain involved with learning and memory, that is sensitive
00:08:22
Speaker
to the different hormones and chemistries that's going around in our body. So when we have a highly stressful event, that can actually impact our ability to clearly and easily store that memory. And so what happens is it kind of drifts away a little bit more into the subconscious. And so we forget about it essentially. But the key thing is that our nervous system doesn't. So when our nervous system has a highly stressful event,
00:08:50
Speaker
very quickly, in a fraction of a second, learns that stimulus A, whether that be a bully or a parent, equates to stimulus B, the stress feeling. And so then when we go forwards in time, our nervous system, even if we don't have the clear memory in mind, we still have the nervous system response, which can actually make it quite difficult to try and find your way through that.
00:09:14
Speaker
Because if you don't have a clear memory to work with, where do you start? And often we go with the feeling, but actually working with the feeling is quite a challenging place to be. Oh yeah. I can imagine too, because I've been seeing some of the research come out lately that even with these adverse child events and the things that happen to us that again, that we often disregard or we may have even forgotten about that it can even have an impact on your autoimmunity and things like that. And it can have a physical toll.
00:09:43
Speaker
I'd love to know when you're doing this kind of work and helping people through these adverse events where you know you have a feeling or you even feel it in your body when something happens and you can't really place why, how do we start to work through that when we're storing these traumatic or adverse events?
Strategies for Emotional Healing and Memory Addressing
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, and that is certainly a challenge that many people face in an ideal world. One of the challenges of having a feeling and struggling to notice where that comes from is that that's when we get the benefit from external input. So a lot of the memories or the past experiences that we lose access to.
00:10:25
Speaker
they're described as being non-conscious. So this means they're not in our daily waking awareness, but with some specific questions and specific prompts, then we can gain access to them. So one of the most effective ways in whatever area you are in, if you're able to get some external feedback who can ask specific questions and help you to trace that feeling back,
00:10:52
Speaker
that's the most effective way of doing it. Now if you're in a position where maybe you're unable to at this point in time have that external feedback then we need to move more and start to rely on sort of self-intreflection and being able to start to question ourselves to be able to follow the trace and follow the breadcrumbs of where this came from.
00:11:14
Speaker
Now, we can do this in a couple of different ways. There is a methodical way that we can do it. So you can, for example, get a sheet of A4 paper and just draw a line along the middle. So we can think about that as your timeline. And then you can divide the line into sort of five year segments. And then you can just start to make a note of any specific events that came to mind during those periods. And that can give you a little bit of a map in terms of
00:11:40
Speaker
what events brought you to this situation so there's various different ways to do it but the key is how do we ask quality questions that prompt us to access the correct information if that makes sense yeah i think that that's such a helpful way too because
00:11:56
Speaker
sometimes certain periods of time may just feel like a blur until you really sit down and kind of focus on okay well where was I at this time in my life and what was I doing and was I in school or where like was I whatever I was doing to kind of put yourself in that place and remember well I was feeling this feeling and I was going through this and I think it really takes the blur out of it because yeah sometimes I
00:12:21
Speaker
I do question, well, where does this feeling come from? Or when did this start happening? And then, yeah, when you do take yourself back to those moments and you can kind of, you almost feel it again in a sense, but it's, I think that that's such a helpful way to approach it for sure.
00:12:37
Speaker
And with any process of healing or accelerating our journey towards healing, one of our most powerful tools is specificity. So when we can be really specific in terms of either where it was or when it was or who was involved, the more specific we can be, the more we can really get a grasp on it and then we can start to work on it.
00:13:02
Speaker
The challenge with that is that it can be uncomfortable. It can also be quite difficult. And so we tend to avoid or move away from those specific questions and specific answers. And that totally makes sense because who wants to be really specific when it comes to things that were challenging or difficult. But unfortunately, if we really want to heal,
00:13:24
Speaker
that can be one of the processes that we need to go through. And if we think about the diagnoses that are often given to people at the moment, it'll be things like general anxiety disorder. Now, although that is a diagnosis, it's actually really unhelpful because it doesn't give us any tangible data or any tangible information in terms of what we can do to change the problem. Whereas even if it's slightly more specific and it's social anxiety, for example,
00:13:53
Speaker
at least we've got a really narrow context there and then we can start to put things in place to start to improve it. So the more specific we can be the better. The caveat of course with all of these processes that if you have had significant trauma in the past then you need to be very mindful about going through this process by yourself because it may be that it brings up
00:14:15
Speaker
certain emotions or thoughts that are a bit overwhelming to deal with. So specificity is really helpful, but we also just want to be mindful that we're doing it in a safe and controlled way.
00:14:27
Speaker
Absolutely. I think having that support through it all is so powerful. I remember in, I want to say my mid twenties, I went through EMDR therapy to work through some of the trauma that I had gone through and a particular traumatic situation. And I also obviously needed the guidance to go through the EMDR, but having somebody there who was trained to work with me and
00:14:53
Speaker
to make the situation safe for me was so, so powerful. I don't know how I would have handled that on my own for sure.
00:15:00
Speaker
Absolutely and when I was 27 and that's when I started to work through some of these adverse and painful experiences the only thing that I was really sure of is that oh I have a problem and I really want to solve it but I had no idea how to do it so for me the the crucial step again was just as you said getting some help with someone who knows the space
00:15:25
Speaker
because that then allows me to feel safe that I'm going in a direction that's going to help me. So having that external assistance really, really is fundamental if we want to make effective change.
00:15:38
Speaker
Absolutely. So on a day-to-day basis, I think we don't realize how much our trauma and these adverse events are affecting us. I think we may tie it to, well, it's been X amount of time since this happened. And so maybe since it was recent or there's an anniversary, I'm feeling it, but we don't always recognize that it may be affecting us in other ways, just in our day-to-day lives. Can you talk a little bit about how our minds do store the trauma and these events and how it may be impacting us in ways we might not realize?
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. This is my favorite topic out of all the things in the world. This is my favorite topic. And this is really what changed my life in a really, really short space of time. And it's a topic known as emotional memory images. And what this means is when we go through an experience that we perceive as being painful or difficult, when we go through that experience, our mind takes a snapshot, if you like, almost like a photograph, if you like,
00:16:37
Speaker
of where we are, what we're doing, who are involved, and it also stores all of the feelings that we're having, the chemistry in the body, and it stores all of that in this concept known as an emotional memory image. So the nervous system takes this snapshot and it stores it on like a subconscious danger list so that when we go forwards in time, at any opportunity, if our mind can link
00:17:04
Speaker
what we're going through now in any way to that original event, it will trigger an echo of the same stress response. So if we think about an example, let's say when you were eight years old, you're with your three best friends and the teacher in the classroom who is very stern and critical
Understanding Emotional Memory and Stress Responses
00:17:26
Speaker
shouts at you in front of your best friends and tells you you're stupid. So we would call that
00:17:31
Speaker
quite potentially an adverse event. So we've got a teacher who's in a position of authority and they criticise you. Now your mind in that moment takes a snapshot of someone up above you talking down to you, criticising you with people watching and your mind stores that emotional memory image and it stores it on a subconscious danger list. So then let's say 20 years later you're in a meeting at work
00:17:58
Speaker
and your boss stands up at the front and talks to you and criticizes a piece of work that you've just done in front of your colleagues. Now, in that moment, because your mind can link what you're going through now in the work meeting to that original event when you were eight, you get the same stress responses you had as a child, which then means in the meeting you might panic, you might feel really stressed, you might feel overwhelmed and feel like you need to escape.
00:18:25
Speaker
Now in that situation you're very unlikely to be able to trace it back to the original event but your nervous system has got that in a fraction of a second. So these emotional memory images they're stored subconsciously and they continue to get triggered as we go through anything that's either similar to or symbolic of and what happens is over time we have this accumulative effect of
00:18:50
Speaker
a stress response, a stress response, a stress response. And when this is recurrent over time, that's when we can start to see changes in sort of like systemic inflammation in terms of sleeping problems, memory problems and those immune problems that you mentioned earlier. So the emotional memory image really is the key to understanding how our mind stores a trauma and how we can then process it to let it go.
00:19:17
Speaker
It's so fascinating and our brains are truly amazing when it comes down to it even though obviously these are difficult emotions oftentimes to be getting into but I think it's so powerful for us to really understand where those stress responses are coming from because so often they're not really tied to just the thing that happened right now and
00:19:36
Speaker
I'd love to know as we start to uncover maybe why this is happening to us and what exactly it is that we're feeling, what are some things we can do to start healing from that and to start moving forward? Yeah, absolutely. When we think about how we can move forwards, the most effective way that we can transform
00:19:59
Speaker
something that was an adverse or a painful event is to be able to turn it into a learning or a lesson of some kind now over the last twenty years there's been a growing body of work called post-traumatic growth and that shows us that for a high percentage of people.
00:20:16
Speaker
when they go through a difficult experience over the course of maybe years, they actually grow from it in ways that they didn't realize or that they didn't acknowledge and their lives actually end up in many cases being better than possibly if they didn't have the event. And what they found is the way that post-traumatic growth occurs is that those people are able to really reflect on what happened to take the learning from it
00:20:45
Speaker
and then to use those lessons to move forwards. Now from my perspective that approach is really really helpful but I wouldn't want to wait years to do it. So what we can do is we can take those events that were challenging and we can start to ask ourselves what did we learn from that? What did that experience teach us? What were the benefits of going through that experience? How did that push us to grow? And when we start to answer these questions
00:21:12
Speaker
we start to see how those painful experiences were actually things that are on our way rather than being in our way. So that's one of the most powerful things that we can do is turn those painful experiences into lessons. Another thing that we can do to change the way our nervous system responds
00:21:31
Speaker
is to bring balance to any type of situation or to any type of perspective. Now often if we have a difficult or a painful event we'll judge it as being entirely negative and then that negative energy creates electrical charge, it creates noise within the brain and then that leads to anxiety. Whereas when we can bring balance to our perception, so
00:21:56
Speaker
see it from different points of view, see it from different perspectives. When we bring that balance that helps us to again see things through a different lens. And one of the things that I remember from all the the training that I've gone through is that often when we're younger
00:22:13
Speaker
we perceive that we're treated in a way that's maybe harsh or critical or we're punished in some way. Now, if as an adult we can treat ourselves with the care and love that we wish we had back then, that's something that we can do to actually heal in the moment. So there's lots of different ways that we can go through the process, but turning it into a learning and bringing balance, those are the most effective ways.
00:22:40
Speaker
I think those are both incredibly powerful. I love the post-traumatic growth piece and I actually had something, I wouldn't say traumatic, but definitely adverse take place not too long ago at the time of recording and being able to look at it and really try to focus on while it was difficult, actually taking a moment to be proud of how I handled it and
00:23:02
Speaker
kind of seeing, hey, while this was difficult, it pushed me to make a decision and to do something that I was dragging my feet on that I never would have done. And looking at it from that perspective and taking the lessons from it, that has been so, so helpful in getting through it and figuring out the next steps.
00:23:20
Speaker
in what I want to do. And I think, yeah, coming to it from a place of love as well, because that is so hard. And I think we judge ourselves when we're going through it and we go through the either the why me or maybe even the victim mentality that I deserve this. And how do we get out of that? And how do we as adults, I guess, separate ourselves enough to treat ourselves with that compassion in the moment?
Internal Dialogue and Positive Self-Coaching
00:23:45
Speaker
there are a couple of different things that we can consider to help us to break those particular patterns. Now, for all of the things that you mentioned there, the internal dialogue, the way that we speak to ourselves is often the driver of the feelings we have or the unpleasant symptoms that we're having. So becoming more of an observer of our thoughts is one key step so we can start to pay attention to
00:24:14
Speaker
how do we speak to ourselves, what do we say and what way do we say it and we can start to see patterns of where and when we revert back to that critical language or that really harsh inner talk. Now we can then begin to coach ourselves almost like we're our own personal coach
00:24:34
Speaker
to start to talk to ourselves differently in those situations. And initially, it feels a little bit difficult. It feels a little bit uncomfortable because it's something that's a little bit different. But with some practice and with some patience, we can start to learn to talk to ourselves differently. And this again comes back to what are the questions that we ask ourselves. So you kind of talked through two wonderful examples there. So in the first example where you had a challenge,
00:25:03
Speaker
you were able to ask yourself what were the lessons and so you started to move from what the problem was to how can this be my solution so you started to move towards a solution whereas when we ask ourselves the why me all that really does is get us to search through our memory banks for all the possible reasons we deserved something negative to happen
00:25:27
Speaker
And the challenge with that is our mind will serve us up all of these different answers which all get us to feel awful and none of them actually help us to move forward. So we need to be able to pay attention to the language that we use and to develop the skill and it is a skill of being able to coach ourselves through those difficult moments.
00:25:48
Speaker
Absolutely. I laugh because when I was going through, I did need to make a decision in that difficult situation. And that certainly was challenging. And one thing that came to mind, and it's a little bit of a harsh example, but my grandfather always used to say, when these things would happen, he would say, life isn't fair. And he took a very stoic approach. And I don't always think that that is the right approach. But in that particular respect, I really tried to say, okay,
00:26:15
Speaker
it's not fair. Now what am I going to do? And what can I do for the best possible outcome for myself and to move forward? And again, it's unfortunate and we want everything to go. Like if you work hard, if you're a kind person, you want all of the things to turn out the way that they should, but that's just not the way that life goes. And I think to have that level of acceptance. And so I channeled my, his name is Marvin. I channeled my Marvin through it.
00:26:45
Speaker
But I think sometimes it did allow me to separate myself a little bit and kind of say, well, you're right, it's not fair. And now what? Yeah. And we're again, in this situation, the questions that you're asking are helping you to be in a resourceful position. Now, don't get me wrong, when we have a challenge, and something maybe is really upsetting or distressing,
00:27:07
Speaker
I'm not in any way pretending that you don't have negative thoughts or that there isn't maybe a period where you feel low or maybe where you do have some harsh words with yourself. The key is really minimising that period, moving through it and then coming out the other side. What one big challenge is that if you've had
00:27:27
Speaker
previous adverse or traumatic experiences and you've got more evidence in the past of things being painful or difficult it's easier to get stuck in that period of self depreciation and self criticism so that's really where we need some tools in various different forms to be able to break free of that pattern and to help us move in a different direction.
00:27:51
Speaker
And I think there is such a fine line between how do we feel the feelings because I've also gone through times where I want to completely bypass it and then it comes out later in some kind of self-destructive way. And I think that many of us do that because you're thinking, well, I just don't want to feel it.
00:28:09
Speaker
And then on the flip side, there is the idea that, yeah, we can get stuck in it. So what are some of those tools to allow us to feel the emotion, not bypass the emotion, but still come out the other side stronger for it and able to heal and again, to move forward?
Tools and Routines for Building Resilience
00:28:26
Speaker
We can divide these tools, if you like, into things that are psychological, so things that we can do to actually change the way that we think. And then we've got things that are more physiological in terms of like exercises or activities that we can do. Now, through all of the time that I've been working and learning about how the mind works, there have been certain different elements that I've found the most helpful.
00:28:52
Speaker
And one of the books that I have written around self-confidence, that talks around kind of the six key things that I think anyone can use in order to help them to maintain a positive mental attitude despite sort of challenges that come along. So would it be helpful if we talked through those?
00:29:13
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So the first one, and it's popular with some and very unpopular with others, but it's really finding some form of exercise that you can use to actually help your physiology to feel healthier, number one. But there's more and more research that shows when we are able to take ourselves to a place of challenge or discomfort physically,
00:29:39
Speaker
That then translates to us being able to manage difficult or unpleasant emotions in a more effective way. So when we are engaging in some type of exercise, then our autonomic nervous system has to manage lots of different elements of it.
00:29:54
Speaker
When we're dealing with painful or traumatic experiences, again, it's our autonomic nervous system that is a key player in what's going on. So exercise is a way that we can kind of train ourselves to deal with difficult situations more effectively.
00:30:10
Speaker
And with exercise for me it's really about finding something that you enjoy doing rather than finding something that you think you should do and it doesn't have to be extensive you don't have to become an ultra marathon runner but finding some things that you do to help your body move.
00:30:27
Speaker
to actually help you to feel better is key so exercises is a really really simple one another option that we've got is using different cognitive tools so there's lots of different tools out there in terms of being able to change the way that you think
00:30:43
Speaker
So a simple one that we can share here is from Martin Seligman, who's like the father of positive psychology. And he talked us through an ABCDE model, which is really, really quick for us to use. So the A is, okay, we identify specifically what the adversity is. So what the challenge is. The B is what beliefs do we have as a result of that adversity? So we just write them down, we get them out of our head.
00:31:08
Speaker
C is what are the emotional consequences. So what feelings do we have in the body? The D is the disputation. So we start to challenge those thoughts. We start to coach ourselves to see things differently. And that leads us to E, which takes us to a new burst of energy. So just talking there, we've got an exercise one using your physiology, and then we've got more of a cognitive approach to change the way we think, if that makes sense.
00:31:37
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think both of those really have a powerful impact. I remember not too long ago reading, I want to say it was burnout by the Nagoski sisters about how when you're really going through it, if you need that, almost that rescue from whatever the emotional situation is, that the quickest way to do that is to just get yourself out of breath or do some form of physical activity and that that
00:32:01
Speaker
While it may not solve the problem or whatever, it's going to get you to a better and safer place. I love the ABCDE model. I hadn't explored that before, but I think those are really good questions to be asking ourselves again to really move through.
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's just moving us to a more resourceful state. So there's another concept called nudge theory, which you can apply to different areas like economics and things like that. But I like to apply a nudge theory to our emotions. So what we can do is use different tools to nudge us towards feeling better.
00:32:41
Speaker
So in our exercise example that you described, it might not solve the problem, but it will create a different chemistry in the body. So it'll refresh and change the chemistry. It's a proactive step. So you're doing something that you can consciously control and that nudges you
00:32:59
Speaker
towards a better place. Similarly with the ABCDE model that gets you to ask yourself questions to again nudge you to a slightly different way of seeing things. So those are kind of our starting two, so we've got exercise and personal development.
00:33:15
Speaker
Another two that we've got is the the most widely known one which is meditation and there are lots of different types of meditation and I think it is worth exploring which one works for you and which one you resonate the most with but I think in some way shape or form being able to bring your attention to your breath and focus on that element of breathing
00:33:39
Speaker
to allow just a period of stillness that's often where we can get those flashes of insight or we can get those little whispers from our intuition. So I think meditation is really really key and then we've got the journaling element. So how can we capture some of our thoughts rather than just letting them run away in our head which sometimes
00:34:02
Speaker
they're just overwhelming and we don't really know where to start. When we can get them down on paper, that almost allows us to freeze them in time and then we can start to question them. So now we've got exercise, we've got different cognitive tools, we've got meditation and we've got journaling. So those are the kind of four tools that I think can nudge us towards a better mental state. And then our final two are really about how we can
00:34:32
Speaker
actually do things to inspire ourselves. So I think our brain rewards us when we're doing things that are meaningful to us. So when we can plan and prioritize activities that we really enjoy doing, so that's step number five, planning and prioritization. And then step number six is learning. So when we can learn things that inspire us, again, that gives us a lovely boost of dopamine, we get rewarded for doing it, and those are things that help us move towards
00:35:02
Speaker
something that's fulfilling and rewarding which gets our mental health to only go in a positive direction. I think those are all such great tools to have. I think that just making life more meaningful and I think actually planning and prioritizing the things that we enjoy, that in itself, I mean that's
00:35:22
Speaker
That and really the learning, I mean those go hand in hand and sometimes you want to learn about those things that you enjoy and kind of build on that too. But I think that sometimes when you're really going through it, life can feel kind of meaningless and you get stuck in the trap of either doing the things that need to get done because they need to get done. So your work schedule, yeah. But actually
00:35:45
Speaker
prioritizing what we love and what makes life beautiful. I think that does really help us get out on the other side. And it's almost a little bit counterintuitive to think, oh, I need to plan the things that I love. You know, it sometimes makes a bit of the spontaneity out of it. But actually, if we don't plan and prioritize the things that we like and love,
00:36:08
Speaker
then often our time will get filled up with other distractions. So although it is a little bit counterintuitive, it only takes a small amount of planning and prioritisation for you to really put the things that you enjoy in the forefront of your mind and then to get them in the diary. So I think it's definitely worth at least experimenting with to see if it works for you.
00:36:30
Speaker
I have spoken with so many people where something that they want to prioritize in their life that they just weren't making the time for, they just had to, whether it was block an electronic calendar or put it in a physical diary and a physical planner, but having it written down and blocked out somewhere. And then of course, if the emergency pops up or if
00:36:51
Speaker
something happens in the workday, sure, but you're at least setting that space aside for yourself. And I think having the calendar block is, it really makes it a lot easier to not set it aside because you're so right. There are times where like even just last weekend, I thought at some point it would be really nice to go to my favorite tea place, get a tea and walk around by the river. But I never planned it. It never happened.
00:37:21
Speaker
I all of a sudden it's dark out. I'm like, there's probably not open anymore and I do not need the caffeine, but like it is such a simple thing. And of course I'll make the time at some point, but even just like there's always, I always see the jokes online about how once you hit a certain age, your friendships are all kind of going back and forth with when are you free? And it could take months or there might just be this one half hour on this one day, but
00:37:49
Speaker
I think actually putting that on the calendar and prioritizing, hey, we are going to get together and we're going to talk, we're going to catch up, we're going to do this fun activity, whatever it is, but actually prioritizing instead of just kind of hoping that it comes up and falls into your lap.
00:38:05
Speaker
I think it takes some of your power back. It does, yeah. And I like to think of it as I'm just booking an appointment with myself. So if I had an appointment with someone else, I would turn up. So if I book an appointment with myself to give me a little bit of time to
00:38:21
Speaker
to plan and prioritise then that's just me valuing my own time and then that helps me to build self-worth and it helps me to build confidence because not only am I prioritising myself but I'm also doing it with things that I enjoy doing and then our confidence starts to build so I think getting it in the diary it really is crucial.
00:38:42
Speaker
It's so funny just thinking about that, that concept of booking the appointment with yourself versus like, again, when we have an appointment, if you have a doctor's appointment, if you have a meeting, if you have anything that you've set with somebody else, we're a lot more likely to stick to it. And when I really think about it, some of the things that I have told myself, hey, I am going to do this for myself, but maybe haven't set the appointment or I haven't treated it in that way. If I were to look at it externally, I think, man, this person is so flighty. She never shows up today.
00:39:11
Speaker
And I think we all have moments and experiences of that. I think that that is part of our human nature. But if we can make a conscious effort, then I think that happens less. So I don't want to pretend I'm an angel and I stick to every appointment. And I think there's a
00:39:26
Speaker
I can't remember who said it but it's a phrase along the lines of often find the plans that I do are useless but the act of planning is indispensable. So actually when we give ourselves that time to plan that's when we can think things through, we can make better decisions and then we can get better outcomes.
00:39:45
Speaker
Absolutely. I think that is such a great point. Oftentimes, I think our schedules can just get in the way we let everything pile up and you feel like I was talking to somebody about this in the previous interview actually about being a bystander almost in your life. I think that when you're not planning and really being proactive with these types of things, you become that bystander and it's more that I let things happen rather than making them happen for me and really prioritizing them.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'd love to know too, you talk a little bit about having a morning routine and this is something I'm trying to cultivate for myself, still figuring out what are some of those non-negotiables for me, but you have a morning routine you recommend for growing into that
Daily Reflection and Growth
00:40:30
Speaker
higher self. And I'd love to know what that looks like for you and just some practices that you recommend that we implement.
00:40:37
Speaker
What I aim to do on a daily basis is as much as possible get at least three of my kind of six different steps into my morning routine. Now there was a time maybe two, three years ago where I would dedicate my
00:40:55
Speaker
sort of first 90 minutes to actually doing a bit of exercise, getting some personal development done, doing some meditation, some journaling, some planning and then some learning. And then my son came along and then my morning routine kind of got tipped upside down on its head. So what I realised is that when Luke came along, I had to prioritise what are the ones that are most important for me and how can I make them fit my morning routine.
00:41:22
Speaker
So mine is really, really simple. I get up around 6 a.m. and then I'll do 15 minutes of high intensity training. So I do a little bit of HIIT training. Then I'll do 10 minutes of meditation. Then I'll do either a piece of personal development or I'll make some notes in my journal and then I'll plan my day. So what I aim to do is build the tools into my morning routine so that actually I'm making those positive actions just part of my everyday life.
00:41:51
Speaker
And what I've found is when I do that and they become a habit, then I habitually am keeping on top of how I'm feeling. Now, of course, there are still challenges and setbacks, but by incorporating as much as I can into the time that I have in the morning, I've found over the course of doing this for several years, it builds up a really high degree of resilience to those types of setbacks.
00:42:17
Speaker
Oh yeah. I really could see how this ties into that nudge theory just because you know, you're making these small changes and you're, you're taking these small steps, but they really add up over time. And starting your day that way, I think is so key. I think about even just making my bed in the morning and how the days that I don't make my bed are usually the days I woke up late, didn't have the time, whatever. And yeah.
00:42:40
Speaker
the whole day kind of falls apart from there. And when you're conscious about how you're starting your day, I think it is so much easier to handle the stress later in the day because I think our willpower is not where it was when we woke up and all of those things but
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think having having tools like this and really starting your day in that way and having some of those non-negotiables there that's really really important and stressful things are going to happen no matter what and we can't control for that but we can I think approach them from a calmer mindset if we're actually you know taking that time for ourselves. Yes, I totally agree.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a great morning routine. I'm definitely, I need to start incorporating a little bit more of the exercise into the beginning of the day. Cause that's something I find too. When I, when I am really consistent with it, I handle the stressful email at work or whatever it is, I'm a nicer person. Yeah. And again, you do make better decisions later on and you don't find yourself kind of
00:43:43
Speaker
becoming that bystander and kind of following whatever's going to happen and letting it happen. But you're really, I think, a lot clearer headed. And I've talked about this too on the show before where when I know I'm going to have a really busy day and I'm a little overwhelmed thinking about it, I like to sometimes even journal out that this is going to go
00:44:02
Speaker
well, and I'm going to take it one step at a time, but really writing that out and taking that time to be clear about it so that I set that intention. And most of the time when I actually do that, even if things don't go to plan, because again, you can't always control for that, you're in a better head space to handle it or to handle the setbacks.
00:44:21
Speaker
Absolutely and the more we can get ourselves into that balanced optimal state of mind, we're much more likely to deal with stresses and challenges in a more composed way. So if we can train ourselves to regularly go into that frame of mind, then when the challenges do come up,
00:44:43
Speaker
We've got much more to lean on and we know that, okay, we'll be able to do it. We can just go back to the notes that we made in the morning. We're going to take it one step at a time and then we're going to coach ourselves through it. So I think that's a, you've demonstrated one of the steps automatically. So it's there and I think we all use them from time to time. It's just maybe how can we implement them consciously and build them into our day so they happen more automatically.
00:45:12
Speaker
Absolutely. It's something where when I do it, it's great. But it definitely making it, yeah, more of an actual routine, something that happens consistently, that's what's going to really make the difference long term. And so I mean, this conversation has definitely given me the impetus to release it down and kind of build out what this plan needs to look like. Because again, you can do
00:45:36
Speaker
It's great to do it every once in a while. But if you really make it a habit, then that's what's going to stick and that's what's going to make the long term change. So absolutely love this advice. And I know we've been getting into quite a few tools in our conversation today. Do you have any other suggestions or anything we can do to kickstart and accelerate that healing journey for ourselves? The simplest practice that
00:46:02
Speaker
I would recommend people start to explore. And this is something that I think has made a profound difference in terms of how I deal with disappointments and setbacks, is that you'll find in lots of different spaces and lots of different places, they'll encourage you to focus on the practice of gratitude. And that really gets you to think about appreciating what you have or the resources that you have or whatever that may be.
00:46:31
Speaker
That's definitely a helpful component but what i found more empowering is to at the end of each day or the beginning of the next day identify what the biggest challenge was in the last twenty four hours and then ask
00:46:47
Speaker
How did I learn from that? How did I grow from that? Similar to the questions that we went through earlier. So what were the benefits? How is this going to help me to grow? And in that sense, what you start to do is you start to build a appreciation and a confidence in your ability to manage challenges. So when we bring the two together, we've got a degree of appreciation for what it is that you do have, but we've also got a degree of appreciation for the challenge that you're facing.
00:47:14
Speaker
And it's infinitely easier to make progress in something that you appreciate compared to something that you resent. So if we can get into the habit again of turning disappointments or challenges into something that will power us forwards, that makes us so much more resilient and it puts us in a much better place for when some of life's challenges come along. So that's without a doubt the practice that I would recommend people do.
00:47:41
Speaker
Just for a couple of minutes today, because when we do it on the little things, it's much easier to apply on the bigger things when we need it. I completely agree. And I think that that's a really great way in real time to be processing the adverse events too, because, you know, we talked about, of course, how there may be some of those events that took place however long ago.
00:48:02
Speaker
and that we need to uncover and figure out how they made us feel and how we're going to move forward from those. But we can actually stop some of the ongoing ones or some of the ones that are taking place now from becoming something much larger in our lives by doing this. Yeah, that's a great point. We can work on them while they're molehills rather than letting them turn into mountains.
00:48:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's so important and I think all of these tools again that you've provided are so beneficial. These are all things that we can really take away and that post-traumatic growth piece is so huge in a time that we always say is unprecedented, right?
00:48:46
Speaker
So many challenges we've just never faced before, at least in our lifetimes have never faced before. And to be able to approach it from a place with a little bit more, I guess just kind of try to find meaning in them and trying to figure out what can I learn from this and how do I move forward from this rather than getting stuck in it. This is such an important conversation to be having. So I want to thank you for doing this work and for sharing these tools with us.
00:49:14
Speaker
I do want to ask you a few rapid fire questions as well that I ask all of our guests to get to know you a little bit better and some of the practices that you take on. Of course. Fire away. Awesome. My first one, and we've gotten into quite a few of these, but what is your favorite self-care practice right now?
00:49:30
Speaker
At this moment in time, it's really the early morning exercise. That is the thing that I find wakes me up, it energizes my mind, gets me thinking clearly and gets me to start the day right. So that's definitely my most impactful self-care practice at the moment.
00:49:48
Speaker
That's fantastic. My gym just opened back up, so I'm feeling a little bit inspired to start doing the same. Now, if you had a one word theme for the year ahead or for the year 2023, what would that word be? I think my word for this year would be stretch. So I think from a personal side with my son, who's eight months,
00:50:10
Speaker
He has stretched me in many different areas and then going forward professionally, I really want to stretch myself this year to reach more people, to make a bigger message. So in all different areas of life, I think the word stretch is something that I want to move towards. So I'm a little bit uncomfortable, but I'm growing at the same time. So I would go for stretch.
00:50:33
Speaker
That's a fantastic one. I don't think we've gotten that one before, but it's so great because you are getting out of that comfort zone. And I think that that little bit of nervousness about it is, I think we make the best changes for ourselves and we have the best outcomes when we just push ourselves a little bit out of that. Yes. I love that. My final rapid fire for you. What are you most looking forward to right now? This can be personal, professional, really any area of life.
00:50:59
Speaker
I would say in terms of what I'm most looking forward to is around my son. So he is eight months old at the moment and he is on the verge of giving us regular giggles.
00:51:15
Speaker
He's on the verge of crawling on a regular basis and he's on the verge of just showing how his personality is really sort of growing and blossoming. So what I'm really looking forward to in the coming months is just seeing how all of those little things develop. And maybe when he gets to a year old or something like that, he's going to be just such a little character. So I'm really looking forward to experiencing that.
00:51:41
Speaker
That's amazing. That's such an exciting time. And I do want to congratulate you on the birth of your son and then getting to see him through these milestones and really getting to see him develop that. Yeah, that's so exciting. Well, I would love to ask you a little bit more as well about, you know, you have some really great resources out there and I'd love to know how our listeners can find you, connect with your work and learn more about what you do.
00:52:08
Speaker
Absolutely. The topics that we've covered today I really think just everyone should be able to access them to some degree. So earlier last year or early on last year I wrote a book called Accelerated Trauma Resolution and the book is a free download or the audio version is a free download
00:52:29
Speaker
So that can be downloaded from my website which is www.thetraumaexpert.co.uk and that will help to explore some of the topics that we've covered today in a little bit more detail with some more examples and just kind of help you to
00:52:48
Speaker
understand more about how your mind works. And then as you move through the book, you've then got an opportunity to complete the scorecard, which will then give you some more tools.
Free Access to Healing Resources
00:53:00
Speaker
So as you may have noticed from today, I like tools and I like sharing tools. So the book is another way for you to get hold of some more tools. And that's downloadable free from our website.
00:53:13
Speaker
That's wonderful. I'll make sure to link that in the show notes. I'm very excited to read it. I am a big fan as well. I just think that having a lot of different tangible resources there, because you never know what's going to work best for you. And I think to really get to try them out and see what you can sustainably implement into your life and how it's
00:53:31
Speaker
impacting you, I think is so beneficial. So love that there are a lot of those actionable steps that we can take in there. And I want to thank you so much for the work that you're doing for the impact that you're having and for sharing your story and your wisdom with us today. This has been so, so helpful. And thank you for creating a platform where not only I can share the message that I want to share, but also so many of your inspiring guests can share those as well. So thank you very much for running the show.
00:54:01
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for this week's conversation with Danny Greaves. I really love his work to accelerate the healing process. I think it can be such an arduous process for us sometimes and it can be really hard to know where even to begin. So I love that he is bringing us so many actionable tips and really approaching it from such a holistic perspective. I'm so excited to check out his book and apply these tools to my own life challenges.
00:54:25
Speaker
Make sure you connect with Danny. His information is all in the show notes. I highly, highly recommend his work. If you found this episode helpful, we invite you to share it with your loved ones, friends, or anyone you know that might benefit from this discussion. Share it on social media, tag us.
00:54:40
Speaker
Your support really helps us to reach more listeners and create a positive impact in their lives. Don't forget to leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. It helps us to continue bringing you valuable content like this. Appreciate your feedback and I am so grateful to have you as part of this amazing community. Until next time, my friends, take care and I will talk to you soon.