Hi, this is Rachel in recovery. We're here with Coach Rachel Grant and she's going to tell us a little bit about herself and then she's going to answer some questions for us.
Well, hey everybody, thanks for tuning in and listening. My name is Rachel Grant, and I work with people who have experienced childhood sexual trauma and are really at a place in their journey where they're feeling pretty sick and tired of that sense of being broken and unfixable. And Oh my gosh, when is this going to be done already? And I really support them in their healing journey to move from the play that place. To really breaking free from the past and being able to move on with your life so you know, beyond surviving is all about freedom and healing and feeling empowered and coming to a place of living more in the present and the future rather than in the past. So I've been a sexual abuse recovery coach since 2007 and I work out of San Francisco, but I work virtually with clients all over the country and all of them, so we're going to just go into them. Questions.
You wanted to go into more detail about flight. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, cement and appeasement. I don't know if we've gone into all of that.
Awesome. Yeah, this is, I mean, one of my most favoritest things to talk about. I can really geek out on this topic. You know, for me, my journey really began when I was ten years old and my grandfather began sexually abusing me. And, you know, when this first happened, I went into a freeze dissociative response, though of course, at that time Rachel had no idea that that's what was happening, right? I just. Felt a little floaty and disconnected and um, and then, you know, as the abuse continued and went on, you know, my system is experiencing this injury of trauma and I'm starting to develop all sorts of coping strategies for navigating, you know, what is happening to me. And eventually the abuse ended. My mom, you know, discovered him one day abusing me. And so she and my father very quickly removed him from our home. Um, which I'm ever thankful for because they really stepped up in this way. Um, but, you know, even though he was out of the house, that didn't really, you know, support me around the actual injury of the trauma. And at that age, I did not want to talk about it. I was in full flight mode now, like run away from it, deny it. I don't want to deal with this. And then, you know, Long story short, things, you know, unfolded. And eventually I reached a point in my life where I was ready. To talk about the abuse and get some support. And as I begin educating
myself about trauma, and I did my masters in counseling psychology, you know, I began to be introduced to these concepts and I really dove very deeply into the neuroscience of trauma. I was just super, you know, it really resonated with me and it really helps me to start to understand, first of all, what's happening in the context of the trauma experience when we are. You know, living the trauma, experiencing the trauma and then later on in our lives when we're having trauma responses. And so, you know, we, we hear often this language of, you know, fight, flight, freeze. So where do we want to start with that? I think, you know, I can kind of break it down on a neurological level, like what's actually happening there and talk about the differences and the nuances of that. Is that kind of the direction we want to go in? I guess so, yes, let's do that. OK, well, so the first thing I want to do is kind of reorder the things. So I want us to say freeze, fight, flight, because what is always, always happening in our system when we are experiencing a moment of trauma or activation is freeze. That's the first thing the system is always going to do. It's kind of like everything in your brain just says stop, hold on, wait a second here, what's going on? And begins to. Kind of evaluate the danger and the situation. And so that process really has everything to do with the thalamus and the amygdala. So the thalamus is the part of your brain that is always assessing the incoming data. So right now as you're sitting and you're listening to me speak, you're hearing me, you, I'm smelling the candle that I just lit, right? And we, you know, we have sensory data coming in all of the time. And the thalamus
is deciding OK? Is there a danger here or not? And so when the thalamus perceives danger, it then sends that data to the amygdala, which is a really important part of the brain. That is where the center of this kind of freeze, fight, flight response sits. It is also, though, the pleasure center. It also has a lot to do with pleasure and joy. So there's a lot going on in the amygdala. But Long story short, when? You know that data reaches the amygdala. It begins to further assess. Is there a danger here? Is there a problem? And while it is doing that, it freezes the system. That could be for a second. That could be for a minute. That could be for an hour. And in some cases with like DID dissociative identity disorder, we can be in dissociated states for longer periods of time. So once the amygdala has assessed the data and figured out, is there a what kind of response do we need in this moment and is available to us? If we can fight, if there's a sense that we can overwhelm the threat, we can overpower the threat, and then we go into a fight response if there's a sense that we can run away. They can get away, we can escape, then we go into flight and if neither of those options are available, we remain in the freeze state, the dissociated state. Yeah. And so meantime, while all this is going on, the data from the thalamus is also going to the prefrontal cortex. So the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that does kind of higher order processing and thinking, and it can take that data and assess it in a further more nuanced way. And then the medial
prefrontal cortex also communicates with the amygdala, so it can send its information back, and it can actually override the amygdala to say, hey, chill out, there's no problem here. And we've all experienced this, like Rachel, say you're walking along and something falls in your peripheral vision. What's the very first thing that you do? You run. Yeah, right. You just like kind of jump, Joel, get out of the way. You don't like pause and consider like, should I move? What are we, you know, do I need to jump? No. Your body just takes over that very quick automatic response. Is that thalamus, amygdala communication? But then you kind of look, you catch your breath and you look and you go, oh, it's just a stick, right. But that delayed response has everything to do with how the brain is comprised because the information goes very quickly from the thalamus. Of the amygdala. But it takes a longer time for that data to go from the thalamus to the prefrontal cortex and then back to the amygdala to override that activation. And so, you know, all of that is fine and well when it's a stick that falls, right. But when we're talking about trauma right in our body and our nervous system is being injured in this moment. And then if we have repeat trauma and repeat trauma, what ultimately happens on a brain? Neurological level and on a nervous system level is that our system just gets a little bit out of whack. So, you know, the thalamus just starts to perceive everything as danger. Like, that's dangerous, that's dangerous, that's dangerous. And so it's constantly pinging the amygdala and igniting the amygdala. And so then the amygdala is constantly flooding our system. And as that happens, it kind of impairs other parts of the brain. So when the amygdala is activated, it kind of shuts down the prefrontal cortex. To a certain extent, which is why it's really hard to, like, make good decisions. Ever been there,
Rachel? You're like in the middle of something like this is probably not the best decision. Going for it anyway, right? Right. Because the prefrontal cortex is not there. It also shuts down the Broca's area, which is our speech center, which is why when we're activated, when we're triggered, it can be really hard to find language or words. This is really important in the context of looking back at past trauma because sometimes people will say things like, well, why didn't I yell? Why didn't I say no? And sometimes, quite frankly, you just could not the the brokers area. Was shut down. Because your amygdala was in charge trying to help you survive. And then it also impacts the hippocampus, which is kind of like the note taker of the brain. So the hippocampus is responsible for, you know, gathering the data of an experience. And so when we're in a state of activation, the amygdala kind of says, hey, I don't need you note taker. Like we don't need to write all this down, right? We just need to survive and get out of here. And so that's exactly why we have gaps in trauma memories. And then sometimes why we just. Don't have memory at all. We have sensory or physical body sensations, but we don't have conscious memory. And so, you know, for me understanding all of that was super important. First of all, you know, and putting into context my experience of what I felt when I was being abused, but then also for later in my life, you know, a big part of healing is getting the nervous system back online, reducing the levels of activation. So that we stop feeling kind of hyper alert or hyper vigilant or on the other side feeling kind of numbed out or depressed. So that for me was really important, Rachel, because for most of my life, I just felt like this odd bird, right? Like there's just something wrong with
me again, that feeling of being broken, right? Why can't I handle things the way that other people handle things? Why am I so quick to anger? Why am I feeling, like, anxious just all the damn time? And as I began to really understand that I had experienced this injury and then therefore this is what my brain, you know, was doing, but then also. The good news that I can't repair that injury and that there are very practical, you know, steps and strategies and tools and processes that we can use such that we can better address, you know, activation and get the nervous system more into a state of regulation more often than not. OK, agreeing. And I know we've talked about fun.
Find submit and appeasement. Yeah. So, you know, I think the thing to understand about this, this new language that's kind of coming out is that fawn is like a behavioral response. It's like it's a survival response, but it's not something that's necessarily happening in the brain in the same way that freeze, fight, flight is happening on a neurological level more, it's a matter of I am in a situation in which I feel may be threatened or insecure or unsure or uncomfortable. And my coping strategy or my behavioral strategy in this moment is to appease is to fawn and that's actually more directly tied to shame. A place of feeling, not deserving, not empowered, not good enough people pleasing. All of those behaviors actually sit under the umbrella of feeling shame, shame based thinking. Feeling like you're always to blame or at fault. And so yeah, that distinction is a little important because, you know, Fawn is not a neurological response to activation. It's more of a behavioral response, OK. Um.
How how does the abuse impact your attachment style? Um, and you know. Or how does it? Yeah. So attachment theory is really fascinating, right? Like, there's a lot of great work out there on attachment theory. And for anyone who's not familiar with that, I definitely encourage you to go out and, you know, read, read up on this. My favorite book on attachment theory is attached. Are you anxious, avoidant, or secure? By Amir Levine. Also, a really great book on attachment is Poly Secure. And while that book is talking about. The dynamics in relationships where there's more than two people. Where they really do a great job of talking through attachment because just in, you know, a partnership where there are two people, attachment issues are definitely going to come up. But certainly if you add in and have an open relationship or a polyamorous relationship, you might, you're definitely going to run into attachment. So attachment has everything to do with the way the early stages of development. And so what's true is that. Um, like, you take somebody like myself, like from the ages of zero to 10. I had pretty secure attachment, right? I had parents who were very attuned to my needs. They were responsive and they, you know, were nurturing. It was a safe space. It was a safe environment. And I was given the appropriate amount of kind of like boundary to support along with like freedom to kind of move and explore. But I could always kind of come back to a safe space. And then with the introduction
of trauma at age 10, right, for in many ways having had that secure environment, it helps reduce the impact of the abuse to some extent. But nevertheless that trauma and then later traumas in my years growing up right and then into my teens and then into my adult years when I was in a domestic violence situation for 10 years. All of those experiences impacted my attachment style, right? So then I started to be a bit more anxious attachment. So kind of always anticipating loss, always being on watch and so we know that early stage. He is the most critical, those early years of development. So of course if you're experiencing trauma in those early days of development, this is going to impact your attachment style, your expectations in relationships, your ability to connect, your ability to be boundaried and these sorts of things. But just like anything else, you know I don't think there is anything as anyone who is securely attached because. Been like somebody can be really securely attached in one relationship, but in another relationship or context or setting they might end up feeling anxious or avoidance. So it is a spectrum, but we can certainly move the dial more towards secure attachment regardless of the trauma that we've experienced. OK.
Um, what point? Do you need to help others understand the effects of trauma better?
Say that again, what point? Do you need? To help others understand the effects of trauma better. Like, at what point? Or what is the main thing? Like, what is the main idea that helps people to understand trauma? Yeah. Like, understand. Like, what helps other people understand the effects of trauma better? Yeah. Well, I mean, not to be redundant, but yeah, first of all, contextualizing it as an injury, you know, I think what's really difficult about, you know, abuse is that aside from physical abuse that often leaves very visible, you know, scars and bruises, sexual trauma is often an internal injury. And so, you know, to try to help people, to understand it through the lens of an injury, I think is is really helpful. So, you know, there are some, there are important reasons why for that. First of all, you know, we can make it an analogy between look, you know, even though you can't see, like if you saw me with a broken leg, you'd have compassion, you'd help me out, you'd accommodate, right. And I know that you can't see this, that my nervous system is injured. That is exactly what it is. And so I'm going to need maybe some accommodations at work or in relationships. And so being able to talk about it through that lens and then I think for the person who has experienced the abuse, seeing it as an injury is important. Because, you know, like, if we break our leg, we don't just sit down and say, well, shoot, OK, I have a broken leg. I guess I'm just gonna have to deal with, like, live with it for the rest of my life. No. Like, we repair it, right? We imagine it, you know, healing and so. It's the same thing with abuse and trauma. It is not a life sentence, right? We can heal this injury and we can retrain the brain. We can shore up the nervous system. And so I think it's, it puts it into a context in which it feels a little more kind of manageable and
something that can be addressed. And it also depersonalizes it a little bit. Like we don't get mad at ourselves for like, catching a cold. Like, we don't say, oh, what a terrible person I am and then. That's my fault and ohh my gosh, I'm just the worst person ever because you know, I got a cold. You know, we don't do that. It's like, you know and we can say, hey, you know, we can start to challenge some of that shame based thinking as well when we start to see it as an injury that was caused by another human being, OK? Yeah. I read a book. I think it's called chronic shame and the effects on shame and recovery, it's huge. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, this is the crux of why trauma is so. Painful because you know, if we were harmed and we there was early intervention and we were told earlier on and it was really reinforced and we were really supported in the belief that look what this person did was not OK. This wasn't your fault. There isn't anything that you did or anything about who you are that caused this abuse to happen. Then you know that internalized messaging that just starts to impact so many different. Areas of our lives, you know, we would nip that in the bud sooner rather than later. So yeah, a huge part of the work I do in beyond surviving is about. Unpacking that because, you know, I'm working with adults, so they've had lots of years of convincing themselves and gathering the data for why it's their fault. And so it's, you know, a step by step process to release that. But boy, once we really get it, then you know, there's so much to gain on the other side of releasing that toxic shame. Well, and I think for those who grew up in any kind of religion really, that just adds. Fuel to the fire when
it comes to sexual abuse. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that often happens within, you know, faith-based communities is the pressure to forgive, right. There's often a lot of narrative around that. And and so that kind of bypassing the person's experience and feelings and giving them the time and the space that they need in order to actually process through the trauma in order to really reach a place of being able, you know, to let it go. Um is important and then yeah. You know like if we have if we're in any community can be shaming, right. So it can be a faith-based community. It can be your family where you can get messages of you know, this was your fault. You did something to cause this or just the silencing that can happen of like we are not going to talk about this you know ends up making the person feel dirty, bad, wrong. Well and I think that and the purity culture. No matter, you know.
Not that there's anything wrong with purity, but I feel like it just. It messes with people who have been survivors so badly in those communities. Yeah, for sure so. I've heard you say trauma is not a life sentence. What do you mean by that? Yeah, you know, I think we've been touching on it a little bit here in our conversation, but just to expand a little bit that, you know, we've been injured and we want to start to take the steps in order to heal that injury. And you know, my frustration really and my own process of healing was that, you know, I I became very book smart about trauma very early on. Like I had all the lingo, I knew all the words and I had all the information. And I had a lot of context for why I was feeling and experiencing the things that I I did. But when it came around to. So what do I do about that? How do I really change that? How do I shift that? I kept getting a lot of messages. Now Grant you, this was, you know, back in the 80s and the early 90s. And so things have started to evolve and change, but a lot of messaging I received was like, well, this is just the way it is and you're going to have to find ways to cope and deal with that. And you know, for me, Rachel, that that just. Was a very like. I just rejected that idea and so as I started to do my my healing work and developed the beyond surviving program. I just really wanted to answer the question, what do we actually need to do in order to recover from sexual abuse such that there are these distinct stages that we're going to go through? Of one, I think every person who experiences trauma goes through the stage of denial. The moment where you're like, no big deal, I'm fine, I'm good,
right? Like, I'm just going to live my life. I'm sure everything's great, right? And then there's the moment of, like, ****. Things are not great. And you acknowledge, right? Like my life is not the way I want it to be. I'm having all these challenges and problems, and that really moves us into the survivor stage. Or we begin to acknowledge the things that have happened. We begin to understand trauma. We become book smart. We start to learn. But what I started to feel, and when I started to notice around me is that people were getting stuck. Like, I didn't want to get stuck at the survivor stage. Like, who wants to just survive their life? I was like, they're Nah, that doesn't sound like a good deal to me. There must be something past that. And that's really what beyond surviving is. It's about coming out of a stage of recovery, right? So trauma is not a life sentence. We're not meant to be in recovery for the rest of our lives. There is a period in a time where we do focused work to heal and integrate past trauma. And then after that is living. And that doesn't mean you aren't continuing to learn or grow or have experiences or gain insights, but your focus does not have to be on unpacking or unraveling the trauma and being in recovery in the way that you are. So it's really more about being in an empowered state of mind. OK, so yes, these are the things that I've experienced, and as I live my life, there may be moments where. You know, old narratives or something gets triggered, but that you are, you know, resilient and you have a lot of capacity and you have a really robust toolkit that supports you in responding in those moments so that you aren't taking a lot of your time to kind of navigate through that.
Yeah, and I mean, how long do you think it took you to get out of survival mode and into thriving?
I mean, I would say from the moment when I finally said, OK, I'm going to look at this, that was, you know, when I was around 1819. And then that began the very wiggly journey of like trying this, trying that, reading this, trying that out, you know, kind of gathering lots of different things. And then I but I would say from the moment when I divorced and I was about, I think I was 28 then and I really set my mind to basically using myself as a Guinea pig. And really like, I'm gonna just tackle each of these things head on. For me, that process took about a year. And I think that's really important because, you know, I've had clients come to me who are like, well, Rachel, like I really am interested and I definitely want to do this program. But I'm also very skeptical, right? Like, I've been in therapy for 20 years. I've tried it all. How is this going to be any different? And then on the other side of my 8 month program, there are, you know, often quite surprised. Like, holy ****. Like I didn't realize I could, you know, move the dial that much in a concentrated period of time. Just eight months. But I think the reason for that is because I've really spent the last 15 years giving a lot of attention to what we need to do when in order to maximize healing and rein and minimize retraumatization. And so doing things in that step-by-step guided way, one takes the pressure off of someone, right? Trauma is like this big mountain of spaghetti, like where, where do I start? And, you know, I think therapy is powerful. Important. But often if you, you know, the therapist is not necessarily creating a road map. They're really, you know, letting the person just kind of bring in whatever is on their mind. And that is important for a period of time. But we can also get very
lost in the trenches with that. And so everybody's different. Of course everybody's journey is different. So, but I but it doesn't necessarily, it certainly doesn't have to take as long as most people imagine. Would, yeah, well, and I guess it depends on the complexity too. Sort of, sort of. I mean what's really interesting is that I think it's, it's dynamic and it's layered because you know, I often say and beyond surviving that trauma is not a competition, right. We can't really quantify abuse. So if you have somebody who had, you know, one experience of trauma and then you have somebody who's had 50 experiences of trauma on the surface, you might say, oh, this person with 50 experiences is going to have a much harder time, a much longer journey. But I've actually seen the reverse happen many, many, many times. And so the extent of the abuse and the extent of the trauma isn't necessarily the the main factor in determining resilience and capacity to heal. There are other things that contribute in many ways, much more I believe, things like support, resources, the amount of kind of community. That you have around yourself, which is one of the things I love that's developed, you know, out of this work, is that it's really not just me. There is this whole community of people now who really support and cheer each other on. And so, you know, if you're feeling really isolated or disconnected, you kind of drop in immediately into a space where you can heal. So regardless of your circumstances, as long as you're taking one step, you're right. Moving forward. Yeah, that's the key. OK, um. I know there's a lot of treatments out there like EMDR or neurofeedback, emotional therapy
through chiropractic. Just to name a few. Equine therapy, art therapy. Drama therapy. I know you've probably read the book. The body keeps the score. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is the beauty that I'm going to say it, it might sound a little harsh, but there's actually no excuse not to heal. And these days, you know, given the level of resources that are out there, free and paid resources, given the the what we know and the accessibility to help and to support, there are, as I said, there can be factors that are going to slow someone down or can stall someone out or get them stuck, but we can, you know, overcome those. But what I love about, you know, my work is really, I would say, mostly grounded in the neuroscience of trauma and CBT. But if you look at it like as a whole pie, those are the biggest slices of the pie. But also within, beyond surviving, we are working with Somatics, we're working with Neurolinguistic programming, family systems, inner child work, mindfulness. And so what's really true, you know, for all of you out there who are on this, you know, healing journey and trying to figure things out. Is don't get discouraged, you know, try something out. Try a modality out. You know, it may be your perfect cup of tea or there might just be like a few pieces that you take from that and then you do something else. And certainly having both brain based and body based tools in your toolkit is really important. That's why the work of Peter Levine and Bessel van the Culton, these people. Irene Lyon or is so important alongside, you know, the more traditional kind of cognitive behavioral folks?
OK.
Can you tell us about the free gift you'd like to share today? Yes. Oh my goodness. So you know, one of the things that is super important to me in the world of beyond surviving is that there are a lot of different offerings, everything from completely free to paid programs. And one of the resources I'd really love you all to check out is my nine page guide on the three stages of recovery. So we've touched on it today, the victim, the survivor, the Beyond Survivor. And so this free guide is going to say a bit more. About what all of that really means and represents kind of the goals for each stage of recovery. A way for you to do a little checklist to kind of assess where you are on that pathway. And then based on where you are in that journey, what are the best types of resources. Because one of the other ways that we end up retraumatization is that, you know the the resource and the need don't match. And so of course what's true is that we can be in one stage in one area of our life and. Another stage in another area, but you know, it's it's just helpful to kind of think about it in this linear way and then to work with nuances. So you can get that at rachelgrantcoaching.com/checklist
and you can check that out. It's a really great tool. OK, um. Well, is there anything else you would like to add? Well, Rachel, thank you for this space, for your very thoughtful questions, thought provoking questions and for just hosting me and you know, giving me a space to share my story. I appreciate you and I appreciate what you're, you know, putting out into the world. And you know, for those of you listening, I just really want to encourage you that, you know, wherever you are in your journey, don't stop, don't give up. Take it one day at a time. You deserve the absolute best. You deserve to live a life that you love. And if I can be a part of that journey and be a resource or a support to you in any way, you just let me know. Reach out, come check me out at the website or e-mail me
[email protected].
