Jeff English
Appearances
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And so I guess what I mean by the abandonment for me being this umbrella wound is, is when you abuse me, you abandon me. I keep going to parents because those are the folks that we spend the most of our time with in those formative years. But any of these wounds can happen with anybody in our life. And they can also happen anytime in life. It's not limited to childhood.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When you get something happening when the brain and the body is developing, it gets concrete. That gets cemented. It gets burnt in. That thing that I'm talking about getting burnt in is how I adapted. I mentioned that the question is what happened to me, but I believe the most important discovery is how I adapted. You talk about that tree.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
We're talking about the roots being the wounding experiences. And then that top of that tree is the manifestations, if you will, of the woundedness. This is how I survived. And so you have codependence. You have addictive patterns. You have attachment issues and a whole slew of just survival strategies, maladaptive survival strategies.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And as I say that word maladaptive, I want to wash my mouth out with soap. because they are ingenious damage control strategies. The way I describe them, it's an old friend that served me well, and perhaps now it's making life hard.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The best example I can give is of a four-year-old boy spending a lot of time in his bedroom, playing with the door closed, playing loud, so that he doesn't have to hear what's going on in the rest of the house. And then one particular day, he hears his mother, in a voice he has never heard before, tell his father that she thinks her arm's gonna be broken, and he has to open the door.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When he opens the door, he sees his mother up against the refrigerator. And the boy's father has got her in a hammerlock, arms behind her. And the little boy's got to do something. And he's really outgunned. Because let's say dad's 35 and he's four. So he starts walking towards them. And the first room on the right is the bathroom. And he goes into the bathroom.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And he lifts the lid on the toilet and he feigns, fakes, acts as if he's vomiting. And the next thing he hears is, do you hear that your son's getting sick? And dad lets mom go. Now, does the boy go back into his bedroom and get out a little journal and write down manipulation and deception are very effective in life? Probably not.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But I say he learned a powerful lesson that day about deception and manipulation. It got him out of trouble. It got his mom out of trouble that day. An old friend that served him well, but perhaps is making life hard. Because healthy folks in adult relationships, Peter, they don't dig deception and manipulation.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So that's where my old friend can get in my driver's seat, you could say, and make life hard for me. But a very adaptive skill. I would call it a skill. Some folks would use the language of a character defect. I'm not against that language. I just prefer a skill.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Codependency, the spirit of it, and it's not my definition, it's an old one, but it's the one I prefer. It's an outer reach for inner security. I can't draw that thing from inside of me. I have to get that from something or someone else. You let Jeff know he's okay, I can be okay. But if you're not okay with Jeff, it's hard for me to be okay with Jeff.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
That's a blanket summary and I think an accurate summary of codependence. And your addictive patterns, addictions, addictive patterns, I mean, again, these can be substances, these can be process. When I talk about the ego states, the parts, my guard states,
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Those parts of me that jump in my driver's seat, I look at those through the lens of addictive patterns because it's that concept of powerlessness. You'll hear folks that are in the programs, such as 12-step programs, they talk about being powerless to something. to get into the surrender of being powerless.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Well, you can just take the word alcohol, remove it and replace it with whatever that behavior is. It's the thing that I do. It's not a bad thing that I can do it sometimes. The problem is I can't not do it. So again, this could be work. This could be ambition. This could be anger. This could be many things. And usually these things, they're there for a reason.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And again, we're back to vulnerability is the enemy. So the goal of all of these maladaptive coping skills, patterns, whatever we want to call them is we've got to keep Jeff from being vulnerable. We've got to keep that little boy that had that situation with his mother in that refrigerator. We've had a bad experience with vulnerability.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So all these parts of me that step in to my driver's seat, they've got a goal. They do their job in different ways, but the goal is to keep me from being vulnerable. Attachment styles. You get four books, you're probably going to get four different numbers of attachment styles. I like simplicity. You'll probably hear me say that more than once, but simplicity, the three most popular.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So you've got anxious attachment. It can be clingy. It can be charming. It can look a lot of different ways, but the more of me I give to you, the more of you I expect from you, that's going to be the best chance to keep this thing going. Now avoidant attachment, the distance. I can be in a relationship and still not give you all of me. I can be with a person, but still have distance.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And then there's, I'm not crazy about it, but disorganized attachment, which is a mixed bag of come here, come here, come here. Now get away. Get you close. Now I need you to get back. That's what happens, unfortunately, with these wounding situations. The thing that we were created for, belonging, connection. Oftentimes that gets coupled with fear.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So that's a powerful thing when you get fear, intensity, things of that coupled with belonging. You can have 10 different attachment styles, unhealthy attachment styles, if you will, but the commonality, the common denominator is going to be the insecurity. They may play out differently behaviorally, but it's the insecurity. Well, what does secure attachment look like, Jeff? Well, I don't know.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I don't meet those people. But it exists because those folks have trust. And if we go back to the tree, I often think that the wounds or the roots that you keep referring to, it's really the story of my broken trust. How did my trust get broken? And here are all these things that I do ingeniously to handle that.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I mean, I suppose anything's possible, but with the folks that I've met, crossed paths with, had the honor to work with therapeutically, there's typically always a connection. It gets so tricky because it doesn't really need to be an A plus B equals C. The science of this undoes itself, so to speak.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When you bring this up, this question up for me, it brings up a stumbling block that I've witnessed a lot with clients within the spirit of, or before they even become clients. And what I'm getting at is, is nothing happened to me. I don't think about that. Why do I need to talk about that? And I honor that as someone's truth.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And of course, the answer therapeutically within the setting of somewhere like the bridge is, okay, God believe you. So you won't have any trouble telling your story. It'll be a breeze for you. You got to roll with that resistance. But the example that comes up for me, and that's where we get into implicit and explicit memory. A good example, I think, is flashbacks.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Go back to the example of something where somebody has an image. I think what comes to mind for most folks is an image. Like, I see this thing. So then back to this other person who says, I don't think about this stuff anymore. Like, I don't go into the room and think about my dad cheating on my mother. I don't even remember that stuff. And oftentimes the answer is, sure you do. What do you mean?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Well, you remember it through your anxiety, perhaps. Maybe it's not an image. Maybe it's not a sound. Maybe it's not a smell. But that thing, that discomfort that you're experiencing, maybe that's the way you remember it.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Something that's coming up for me, and again, there's so many case studies, if you will, but within the spirit of making the implicit explicit, the example that I just gave, you know how that process works at the bridge. After the group's over in the evenings, we usually have meetings where the folks can experience some type of maybe a 12-step meeting, some kind of meeting.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And it's part of the curriculum, if you will, and it's mandatory. We've had clients have panic attacks. I would qualify some of those as that in these situations. The next day, when you're in group trying to unravel something that happened on the previous night, and we're talking about a client that I've been describing and they're like,
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Obviously, I need to see a medical doctor because I said, possibly you do. Well, let's try to work it at both ends. Let's unravel this. This process, you give up a certain amount of control. Let's say this client had control issues. And so it's one of the things we ask you to do is give up control at the bridge.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
and client x says yes yes yes that's right so okay so you're sitting here and you know there's exits you know the people are in the room you know all the players are here but for some reason you're anxious that your anxiety is building to the point to where you experience or you describe this thing as a panic attack right exactly and i don't need to talk about any of this stuff that you guys are talking about i said okay great but just play along with me who's the most controlling person that you've ever met in your life oh you should have met my grandmother
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Okay, tell me one of the most controlling things your grandmother may have done. Well, I lived with her for three or four years in my childhood. There was that deal with the basement when I was in trouble. The deal with the basement. Can you say more about that? I'd get locked down there. How long? I don't know. It was dark. I learned how to not think about it. Back to the implicit with explicit.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So I think about this like files. There's this loss of control file in the traumatized brain. Can I prove that A plus B equals C? No, I can't. There's not going to be anything evidence-based that says that was a situation based on that grandmother's control and abuse in childhood. That is why that panic attack happened. But it certainly gives us something to look at.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It's like coordinates on this war board, if you will, in therapy. Wow, there's a part of you that really gets activated when you seemingly don't have control and can't leave a situation. The hope that can come out of that, to see someone who could have been described as resistant to the process all of a sudden, at least like you're doing right now, nodding your head.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I'm going to start thinking about this. Maybe I'm not buying into it, but maybe something did happen to me.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Well, what you just described, I'll call that answer B. That's the status quo. That's usually how folks get there. Every now and then someone may come in. Maybe I could call it a tourist or whatnot, but that doesn't happen much. We would say, and if you remember how that property is, you kind of drive down into it and all the things that are Kentucky you see on the way in.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And we used to play around with this like, this is hard work and this is uncomfortable. And if it wasn't, there'd be a line of people all the way back up that hill trying to get in here. But if you notice, there's no line to get in here. And there's also no gate on this place, meaning you're free to go also. I use, it's just an average seven or eight.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When I think of groups, they could be 10, but I use seven and eight. And I think about those folks in that room. There's so many different stories. Just about every group has got somebody in it that's pretty close, if not right on surrender and surrender within the spirit of my way does not work.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I don't know if your way is going to work, Jeff, but I'm willing to try it on for a couple of weeks because my way does not work. Now, that is a wonderful place to get to that I believe most people don't. Meaning most people don't show up there. Don't get to that type of surrender. I spent many decades, this may sound familiar, in this space right here. Life's pretty bad.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And I hear what you're saying, but I still think I know what's best for me. And I think that's where most of us spend a lot of time. But when you get in that circle, see, to me, that never mattered. Because if you were there, you had a chance. You had a chance to get some different perspective.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And if you're not there, I think just about every group that I've worked with has had at least one person in there that's there out of obligation. just to get somebody off their ass and quite honest with you to do the thing so that they can go back and say, I tried your thing and it didn't work.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I've seen that quite a bit, but there's still a chance for something to happen within that group dynamic. If I tell somebody they're an asshole, I might just be saying that from therapy heel. And maybe that's the same thing that their spouse has been telling them.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But if somebody in this circle that's living with you, eating with you, doing this uncomfortable thing with you, if they in some way let you know that they don't dig that thing that you do, i.e. the thing that makes you maybe an asshole. Hmm. Okay. So maybe my spouse isn't the only one saying this. Now, if you like it, I love it. I tried to retire from forcing change on folks.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But if you examine that, this person is letting me know they don't dig that either. Now I've got a chance to think about doing something different. Right. And to pinpoint the explanation for why it is it's hard for me not to do that. It can be so fruitful, even with folks there that are have less than what I would call healthy intentions because they do show up there.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It's such a real thing, too. It's true. Some folks can't do it. And we can't box ourselves into a world where we're talking about all the fruits of residential programs. But this doesn't have to be an either-or thing.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But within the spirit of that residential process that you described, so many different ways that I love the titles that you gave the place, the control, it's got vulnerability written all over it. I keep going back to that word. Introducing vulnerability. We don't try to induce suffering. But distractions, you mentioned the word distraction. We want to take away as many distractions as possible.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I don't pretend to know what you need to happen, what the magic's going to be. But I know that we got a hell of a lot better chance of it happening if you don't have your phone, if you don't have your cigarettes, if you don't have all of these things that help you disconnect because I need you to be present. And for some of us, that's the vulnerability is being present where my feet are.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Each case is different. There's no one size fits all. This brings up to me how many times the clients come to me when group breaks and everybody's going to the bathroom. They come up to me and they're like, what do I need to do on breaks or in the evenings? Like, what am I going to do with this downtime? And the answer is some folks need to get serious.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So they might want to pick up one of those books on the shelf and read a little bit in our library. Some people need to get serious and some people need to play ping pong. What might look different for you?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
One might say you had to disconnect and come to the hills of Kentucky to find the space to even discover that or rediscover that. That control thing, that is such a player for so many. It's a human thing. It's not just a client thing. It's a human thing. It's like everyone, I believe, wants to have a certain sense of control.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And most folks who have a hysterical reaction, as we say, if it's hysterical, it's historical, to the sense of a lost piece of control, that's where we get back into, there's probably a precipitating event. There could be something that needs to be healed here. And that's tricky too, healing versus integration. How can we integrate this trauma, this thing that happened?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
All these words bring up so much for me, but I do want to mention with control, because again, it's case study. Everything is so connected to these, in my experience, to the trauma. Let's take another client. For instance, we're going to stay on this control topics. So let's say this client comes into the group room and this client is getting ready to check in. You know how that thing starts.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
We kind of just say something to start the day and then everything gets quiet until somebody gets nervous enough that can't stand the silence and starts checking in. Somebody always does it.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
We try to let folks experience or start practicing letting their outside match their inside. And that sounds like a simple goal, and it is, but it's a complex scenario. Because again, some of us have paid a price for letting our outside match our inside. And so that's really the spirit of the check-in, is to get some practice doing that, just rigorously with others. As much honesty as possible.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
How am I starting this day? Where am I at right now? What's on my heart? Bringing the heart and head together. Kind of how I describe that. Some folks, it's very personal and sometimes it's group dynamics. We want to introduce that. But again, it's let's just get honest. Let's get honest because I think that's the beautiful thing about the group.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And again, this scenario where if you can't do it with some yahoo at the bridge, I hope everybody's Facebook friends for the rest of their life. But the fact of the matter is you don't ever have to see these people again. So if you can't get honest with so-and-so or in front of so-and-so, how can you do it on the couch with the people that are closest to your heart?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Because those are the people who end up being, if we want to fall back on the trauma word, our biggest trauma triggers are the people that are closest to our heart. Maybe I can build some muscle memory in being vulnerable in a scenario like we've been describing. So that's the spirit of the check-in.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The example that I'm given where this client is in this rocking back and forth, I believe I can take this client's pulse from where I'm sitting at. So I'm going to suggest that that client checks in first. It's kind of my job to notice something like that. They haven't said a crossword in my experience in the first three or four days of their journey. I haven't heard them say the word hell.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Trauma. I have to have been at Vietnam, wartime, 9-11. These are those big T traumas you hear some folks use, that type of terminology. But within the spirit of the work... the knee-to-knee work, really embracing a definition, moments of perceived helplessness. That's what's gonna activate the limbic system. So who is to say what one limbic system evaluates as helplessness versus another?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Flat out. That was a bunch of bullshit last night. Bunch of bullshit. Nobody told us that we were going to that place. I had to sit out there. I wasn't going. Nobody told us anything about that. And let's say this client, one of their calling cards when they approached the bridge was that they were really thrilled about mentioned about nobody on a winning streak.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But one of the wins, they're not void of wins. One of this client's wins, let's say, is that like their medication management finally was dialed in. They finally got their anxiety medication dialed in. And so this thing happened.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And 18 hours later, I'm looking at this person having this response to literally what it was, was I didn't write on the board every detail that was going to happen that particular day, especially what was going to happen in the evening.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Right, exactly. In this example, this is the type of reaction still 16 hours later. In this scenario, perhaps I roll the therapy dice if I have the rapport and say something to the effect of, well, at least the medications are dialed in. Perhaps there's an uncomfortable silence that's probably five seconds, but it seems like five minutes.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And then maybe in this scenario, we all sigh of relief because this pissed off client smiles and laughs a little. And knowing the journey, let's say this client a day later tells their story, and they tell a story about spending a significant amount of time with a spouse who was controlling and emotionally abusive, and the spirit of their relationship sounded kind of like this. Get in the car.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
You'll know when you get there. Now, did this client have back to flashbacks of this? But there seems to be a file based on this trauma, based on this wounding experience that was able to push through the medication. So don't hear me saying medication's going the wrong way. But in this example, I think the discovery inspires hope.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
In a situation where there seems to be so little hope, and in this scenario that I'm making up, what's the answer? Do I just keep upping the dosage? Well, that thing happened to me, so that must mean, is that the answer? So back to this both and of maybe there's something to look at here.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Maybe there's some work that can be done. Maybe I do need to be on medication to get stabilized. Maybe the medication will help me be stabilized enough to build the window of tolerance that I need to do this type of historical work. But there's also some work that can be done. And we're not just treating symptoms.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
20%. And now that number goes up, oftentimes the way you just described it. And finding out something different, a different way to do your day. It is an artificial environment, one could say, when we're talking about the bridge. And also it's a metaphor for me in real life. It's not just these therapeutic interventions or what some group member says or what some therapist says.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
All those things can be powerful, but what are the things that you added to your day? And how can you take that back with you? Doing your day different. Checking in with which me's in the driver's seat. Journaling is an excellent way to do that. Or just simply some mindfulness and some meditation. Life's busy. We don't always have time to do these things, but take a minute.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Which me's in the driver's seat?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
That's when we get into this, I think, discovery of most of the people that I meet have been meeting over the last several years are the ones, wow, I think I did experience trauma. You mentioned it's a much more popular thing and now are we trending in a different direction?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Some folks will refer to the inner child. Some folks prefer the original child, the original me, authentic me, but yes.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The more time it's done successfully, the more power it takes on.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
What it brings up for me, so many things, but this concept that I prefer, that's not going to sound very clinical at all, it's grit. Grit is something that I think we all have. I think we're all born with. And you talk about this wounded child and these wounding events. Something happens, and a lot of us, out of that, our grit gets covered up.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And so I've met so many people that to survive, they did it by submitting. And so losing their voice, becoming compliant, to spend decades trying to find their grit. While another human being, out of their woundedness, may have survived from grit, and they live from it. They can't not live from it. And they live from it for decades. And so the question tends to be, at what cost? At what cost?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When does this thing, there was a utility to, when is it enough? And I always fall back on, it's not typically the thing that's bad. It's not the fact that I can do it. It's the fact that I can't not do it. It seems like I can't not do it. That's where that takes me with the utility.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So in a lot of my work with clients individually or groups, I say I hate to oversimplify things, but I think sometimes we just make things too damn complex. A lot of what I do is try to depolarize.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And when you mentioned the big T and the little t or those thousand paper cuts, it brings up post-traumatic stress and complex post-traumatic stress. And in no way do I want to minimize what we or a lot of us would describe as big T traumas, when we talk about those tragic events, those one-time events.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But in the spirit of unraveling things and the healing journey and integration, as a clinician, I would prefer, not that this human had to go through that, but as far as there's that thing, there's the thing we need to work on.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I know there's several interventions that have been very successful working on that thing versus this other thing that, again, going back to the example of the child with neglect. And every single day going to school, knowing for three years that he was going to be bullied and knowing that no one was noticing. And so having to develop something to survive that. living in limbic activation.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Just think about that. And so how many times, how many years that muscle memory created of going back to the parts language or of that guard, of that adaptive child, unraveling something like that is a whole nother ballgame. Please don't hear me minimizing big T trauma. But within unraveling and the integration, it's just repetitive. In these limbic systems, we only know what we experience.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So abject abuse. I've heard horrible stories. You've heard horrible stories. But let's take a child. that knows that when mom gets home because of what's happened, her ear is going to be held to the burner on the stove. Abject abuse. Let's take another child that knows there are portions laid out on their plate that will be eaten in a certain way, in a certain manner, at a certain speed.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And after that meal, they will be weighed and their side will be pinched. And should things not be as expected, there will be a lecture. Who's to say which one of those humans are more limbically activated? The one doesn't know the experience of the other. It's helplessness. I can't get out of this thing, this thing I'm getting ready to have to do. So again, how can I survive it?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
for folks and we're getting into these situations to where we live in this world of get over it it doesn't matter versus like you mentioned perhaps stay stuck in it but yeah moments of perceived helplessness activating that limbic system these things can happen sometimes at
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And how many times does that happen? And how many years does that take place? And then we get frustrated and we have the shame bug that goes along with it because we're back to the what's wrong with me. Why can I not do this thing? I know this thing's not serving me well now, but I just can't not do it. Yeah, the utility of the behavior.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Guilt's about making a mistake. Shame's about being a mistake. Guilt. I did something. I made a mistake. I did something that I wish I hadn't have done. I need to make an apology. There's a way back from that. I'm thinking of this classic John Bradshaw. He's talking about healthy shame versus toxic shame. When you talk about a difference between guilt and shame, we're talking about toxic shame.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
There's something flawed, this flawed defective core, if you will, my identity. There's something wrong with me. There's a way back from the guilt. Shame registers differently. So when we talk about folks being wounded, shame, and that's how the shame gets registered. Somebody once told me that my father never had to get sober because he had me and my mother and my sister to carry a shame for him.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It can be a generational thing, and it comes from somewhere else. But shame can play out two different ways. Some of us, when we're living from our shame, we live out of superiority. Grandiose shame. Grandiosity. I control. I perfect. I judge. I criticize. Out of my woundedness, out of my shame, that can be the me that you see on the outside.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And some folks, the other side of that coin, of course, is inferiority. Broken. Worthless. Am I pathology?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
That thing you just said is the thing, though, that I can't not hold focus on. That little conversation that you just had with self. Now, you've done the work. You're still doing the work. I'm looking at the journal sitting in front of me. That's just a portion of the work. But having that voice that you've obviously cultivated, that's where the hope is. Because, again, to live in simplicity.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
the bridge you remember we talked about wounding events and one of those would be a tragic event life seems to be going one way before this thing happens and then this thing happens and life changes and everything is different on the other side of that a big t event versus someone again who maybe you could describe it as a thousand paper cuts
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I say I hate to oversimplify, but I don't. At the end of the day, I got bad news for the folks out there who think that there's going to come a time through my healing that I just never get triggered again, especially those of us who have experienced trauma. Bad news. You will be triggered again.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And this whole integration game is about starting to live a life where I tell stories that go like this. I noticed that I was starting to be really judgmental. I noticed I was getting triggered. I had this little short, subtle thought, conversation, whatever that looked like. Maybe there was something somatic that happened with my body that I did.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But I had this thing that I cultivated, this new muscle that gave me enough space to to choose my next step when so many of us, especially out of our shame, out of our trauma, have lived a life telling so many stories that go like this. I got triggered and then I did this. And that's the reaction versus the response. Simple goal, complex process.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
First thing is trying to create an emotionally safe place. If we can create a space where folks feel like they can let their outside match their inside, then we got a chance for the magic to happen. Learning a new language, one of those things is I statements.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Where so many of us want to make statements for the world, the we, it's a lot easier to address someone's behavior when we're tired of this or we're tired of you doing that. How many times a client may come up to me and say something to the effect of, when is somebody going to say something to Peter about being 10 minutes late to group? You were never, but hear me out here.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And the answer is, I think the appropriate answer is, we're wondering the same thing. Because if I say it, it weighs about 10 pounds. But again, within that group process, if another peer going through this process rigorous journey with me, says it, it tends to weigh a little bit more. That Kleenex rule, you mentioned that.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
There's so much that comes out of, I don't even know what a box of Kleenex costs nowadays. Used to say 99 cents, right? Like so much can come out of that. How hard it is for some clients not to give somebody a Kleenex. You can have the best of intentions in the world, but out of our woundedness, our trauma, our shame, so many of us, the commonality is professional,
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
feeling stuffers, a lot of muscle memory and stuffing emotions, especially sadness. And so the very act of handing someone a Kleenex can cut off something that maybe had been 25 years in the making. And there's so much more that can come out of that because for the person who's having the emotion, I think about my healing journey that I'm still on.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And like out of my codependence, like I expected a lot of people to read my mind. I don't ask for what I need, but maybe I'm sitting there thinking, why the hell isn't somebody giving me a Kleenex? Can't they see I'm crying? And the answer is because you're a grown man. You need to ask for them and go get them yourself, Jeff.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And it is the person rescuing me from my pain or are they rescuing themselves? Language that feels guilty, part of those rules back to the I statements and learning how to have, I'm not crazy about the word confrontation, but like it's group dynamics. So I need to let my outside match my inside. So how can I tell another human being that I've got issue with this thing that they're doing?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Someone growing up, going through childhood daily, being limbically activated. But moments of perceived helplessness, that stuck for me and it stuck for a lot of clients.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
to learn how to say, I get angry when you check in every day as if you love this place. And then on our walks in the afternoon, you're making fun of the process and you're making fun of the therapist and you're talking about the sick behaviors you're going to do as soon as you get back home. I didn't grow up in a house where we talked like that, when you, I feel.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It just feels clumsy to, again, to create some new muscle memory and to listen, to be able to listen to somebody. We ask for folks to be present. That sounds like present and supportive sounds like the easiest rule. Why would you have to explain that? It's hard to be present when you're not in the room. That's why if you remember, we take breaks as a group.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
We try to take them every hour, every 50 minutes. But sometimes, you know, we always encourage the clients. If you need to answer the call of nature before then, just let us know and we'll take a break because it can be also really handy to go and use the restroom. When Jane checks in, because Jane gets underneath my skin every day and brings up something for me that I need to say out loud.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So the rules are there to create hopefully the safety so that the magic, if you will, can happen. And also to give folks a chance at some new muscle memory. And I encourage clients in these scenarios, start it off by acknowledging you're taking a risk. I'm getting ready to take a risk. Peter, I need to say something to you. And that's the spirit of the rules.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Yeah. It's an ingenious damage control strategy. Back to the utility of behaviors. If it wasn't that bad, then I don't need to address it. But my behaviors also affect other folks. So when I minimize, let's say, for example, a client, like, it doesn't matter. I got abused. So what? A lot of people get abused. You get over it. It didn't have any effect on me.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It doesn't have any effect on another client. hopefully using some healthy language, when you speak as if child abuse, especially physical child abuse, doesn't affect the child, I feel sad and I feel angry because you've got a right to your own truth. But I know how much that abuse affected me.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So that minimizing, again, it's very adaptive, but also if it didn't matter, if none of this stuff matters, I just am. And I think you've proven the theory, something's wrong with me or nothing's wrong with me, superiority or inferiority.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When you describe that scenario, it's like it was your fuel. I'm using the language of parts or guards. I call them guards, these protective parts, these protective adaptive behaviors. I've looked at many folks. In your example, it would be, thank God you've got ambition. Thank God you've got grit. Thank God you can get angry and you've got a voice.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Like, I don't believe I would have met you if you didn't. And I'd say the same thing to somebody who was an alcoholic. Thank God you had that then. I don't think I would have met you should you not have had that. But now can we look at this thing and can we just at least look through the lens of, is it making life hard?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
An important thing for folks to remember going into, am I going to do the work? Do I need to do the work? Am I working on a part of me? These guards, these protective parts of self, We are not necessarily trying to retire them. And that's what happens, I think, to a lot of folks. That part of them, there's almost a fear of like, how do I exist?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Does that mean that ambitious, at times perfectionist Peter has to go away? Think of folks who go through life out of their woundedness that we might describe as they're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean, I can think of clients, multiple clients who have said it's not if it's going to drop, it's when and how loud.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So they are really good, detailed at finding negativity, at finding danger. And they'd be a hell of a good person to have along on a walk in a bad side of town. I'm sure if they were a building inspector, they'd be the best damn one out there, okay? But can you not do that thing when you go home and sit on your couch? And back to the process and the vulnerability.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The vulnerability can get brought up so many different ways. We keep talking about this group process that you experience. There's so many different ways, but the common denominator is the vulnerability is what triggers this protective side, this protective behavior to step in.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And when that happens, we can work on it in real time should that person be in at least consideration of doing something different. Every time I see you reading your journal, I think to myself, what must that be like?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Just about 100% of the folks whose survival strategy is not substances, as far as that type of reaction. What am I going to do during the 12-step meeting? Well, you're going to hopefully sit there and get something out of it. You're just going to take alcohol and... Put in caretaking. Put in control. Fill in the blank with your word.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Helping folks wrap their brain around they're having an area of powerlessness. It's not always well-received at first. For example, let's say that a client's there because He's married. Let's say he's married to an addict. Okay. Wife's an addict. He's considering the same thing. She's the addict or whatever. And so within the spirit of sharing, maybe not in the group, maybe it was overheard.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But anyway, the information comes out that this husband talking about his teenage daughter and going through the laundry found birth controls. So discovers that teenage daughter is on birth controls. And so the first words that come out of his mouth, What if the people at church find out?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And so when you can, in some way, try to help someone use a different lens, one would say, and I would say this, one might say that you're no less powerless to your image management than your wife is to alcohol because you can't get into couples therapy. You're not going to not go to church on Wednesday night and tell the people that you're married to an alcoholic.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So the area of powerlessness is image management. So back to that meeting, you're going to fill in image management in that blank where everybody else or some of those people have got alcohol and some of those people have got cocaine.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Again, to tell someone that they've got an area of powerlessness or to suggest it, it's not always received well initially, but it can be an aha, eventually an aha moment.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Depending on where you were in the order, but yet tends to be the last few days of week one.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The guidelines that we would typically give folks, we always suggest that the clients write something out, bullet point it. We'd ask that the story be told within the framework of the trauma tree. These stories don't need to be void of success and great moments. And if it wasn't for my grandfather and that stuff, there's a thing we're here to focus on as well.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So the what happened to me and that we'd be given 45 minutes to tell your story. And we try to stay out of the way as much as possible, unless it's therapeutically necessary. Some folks, rescue would be the wrong word, but some folks can get going down the rabbit hole of dysregulation with their emotions and going into detail. So that client may need a little help moving forward.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Whereas another client may machine gun through a story. That's ingenious too. Don't have to feel it if I don't stop. And we might need to slow that client down. But the essence of the story, again, is just to tell what happened to me. And then I think where the real magic can happen is during the feedback. Because you get 45 minutes to use your mouth, and then we ask you to use your ears.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And we ask folks to play by one more rule, and that is please do not give feedback to the feedback. And we're back to the control word because I've got this thing I'm ready to present. Perhaps I've presented it 10 times and I've got it written out or I've at least got bullet points. So I feel good about no problem.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But you start telling me how you felt and what came up for you, Peter, when I was talking about my dad and what he did. I don't know how that's going to feel for me. And so many times, almost 100% of the time, within the spirit of not giving feedback to feedback is feedback equates to, I'm going to throw some love on you.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Maybe I didn't have anything in the world common with you, but when you talked about that thing at eight years old, I felt myself getting angry. And that's how somebody lets somebody know I was listening to you. I was there with you. 90% of the time, at least. And it's so hard for folks to not give, to just sit there and let somebody share from the heart and to not give feedback to that feedback.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But so many times it's like, well, my brother had it a lot worse. And it's like, I just throw my hands down and I'm like, it happens almost. That's why we do it. It's like somebody throws some love on you and it's almost like out of my shame and my woundedness, I need to remind you that I'm a piece of shit.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
A lot of folks, they think that change is about announcing what they know what they're about to do. I know this is going to sound codependent. Well, if you're firing on old pistons as a therapist, the response should be, then don't say it because there's enough muscle memory there. We need to practice the uncomfortable thing of not saying it. The thing you've been saying for years, not doing.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I'm the last person to be black and white about many things. I think much of my work with clients, individually, in groups, what have you, with human beings is finding the gray. But I tell you what, when it comes to compulsive behaviors, complex post-traumatic stress, these things that we've been doing for years and decades, I'm either strengthening an old connection or I'm building a new one.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When those clients say, what should I do when I leave this group room? Do something different and experience what it's like to do something different. And so many times it's not doing something. I mean, we've took the vacuum cleaner away from clients before. It's an ingenious damage control strategy. It's written all over the walls. We're here to talk about some deep stuff.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And I'm finally going to be expected to talk about my stuff. We've encouraged other clients to break rules. Some folks at the bridge might not like that, but it's like, you need to go take some coffee into the morning meeting. You've been a rule follower your whole life. Yeah. We were only allowed one coffee a day or something, right? Yeah. That's not much.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Some folks call it a residential treatment. Some people call it trauma camp. There's a lot of different.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
From what I understand, it's not the strongest coffee in the world either.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Yeah. So the answer would be yes to the can I do this or can I do that? Yes, because it's not a linear path. Whatever it takes, whatever works. Before I started doing this gig, before I found the bridge, I never thought about doing anything residential when it came to mental health and being a professional, being a therapist. And then all of a sudden, I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Couldn't imagine doing it without the group process because all those things that I'm talking about, there's so much access to vulnerability and let's not box ourself in. Because some folks, it's their truth. Some folks, they can't. They just can't go do something like that. The way that it's changed the way that I approach the individual dynamic, the individual therapy. efficiency, not a rush.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And I couldn't argue with any of those. So what is it? It could be described as residential treatment, and I would describe it as residential treatment for disconnection. I think when most folks think of disconnection, they get a little like, well, that's vague. But when most folks think about residential treatment, we tend to jump to substance abuse.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But I think that through all of the years and all of the clients within the group process and how I see that works and to be able to somehow synthesize that into my individual assessments and the way that I can work with clients, that discovery process doesn't have to be as long as sometimes it plays out to be.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So within the spirit of the individual process, it's like we may reach a point where it's like, here's the next level. But the same could be said on the opposite side of that coin. Somebody might be like, I'm going to a residential program. And then they find out all this stuff. And we can take that and integrate that into the individual therapy.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Practicing individually would have looked so different 10 years ago because of how the trauma, it's no one size fits all. And so to think that this intervention needs to be used because it's my specialty or this has to happen or this is exactly how long it takes for someone to have a window of tolerance, every human being is different. And I haven't seen everything because
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Every Tuesday at the bridge will remind you of that. But I've seen a lot. And so my hope is that most people that I meet or I have met so many people and continue to meet them that you've described them when you talk about folks like I've got a lot. If you want to call it high functioning, I've got a lot, but there's something missing.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Now, they won't all say that initially, but that tends to be the truth. There's still something missing. There's a hole there. Something's just not right. So why are they with you?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Well, it could be because they've just discovered, been exposed to something that happened to let them know maybe not. Oftentimes, that client that I just described may have got to see me to get somebody off their back. Like, you need to go do some work. You need to go get some help. You need to get to go help.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And then it becomes pretty evident whether the person's there for that reason or for something a little more authentic and for self. I think part of my paperwork should also include Jeff English cannot fit a square peg into a round hole, which oftentimes translates into I can't change somebody else's behavior in your life. You see that a lot, too.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
This person that has finally gotten to a point to where they have been willing to go talk to somebody. And so that is so often the people that I'm seeing.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Outside of some staff members, certainly all of the clinicians, most of the staff members. And I can't imagine being a clinician there or working there without having done that. And that honestly has been the reason why some folks won't work at the bridge. So we don't operate from therapy hill, right? I'm in my own journey too. I've got my challenges as well, yes?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
That's where people go so that they can go away and get sober. Oftentimes the question would be like, well, why would somebody go to a place like this that's not an addict? I want to use that type of terminology. Disconnection is just the concept that's used at the bridge. And one way of disconnecting is substance abuse, but also screens. Sex, relationships, ego, anger.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And so to know I'm going to have to do some work and then to wrap your brain around, these are the people I'm going to work with. To be able to look at a client like yourself and say, I'm literally not going to ask you to do anything that I haven't done. And to be able to say that from the heart.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Yeah, absolutely. And if you think to the way the journey starts is we disclose. And some professionals are like, be careful with self-disclosure. It's not about me. It's about them. But like, hey, we're going to ask you all pretty quickly to start showing us a piece of your soul, so to speak. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about mine. Hopefully we can start building that rapport early.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I think we can trust these folks. I think that they can lead us. Maybe not everybody, but like to introduce that. Because like you say, in week two, we ask folks to go places with us. That experiential therapy, and you mentioned one way of doing experiential therapy, the somatic part of what we do. But things have come a long way.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Within the spirit of that process, and when you talked about that learning a language, I love that analogy because you are immersed in that. But it's being able to experience the emotion, hijacking, if you will, of the emotional brain. I liken it to, we're going to walk you down to the edge of the river and we're going to put your foot into the water.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Now, the water being here, your past, your pain, right? Because we want you to feel a little bit of the temperature. But we're going to stand here right beside of you. And our job is to keep you in 2024, 25, whatever year. We're going to go there, but we're going to stay here. Dual awareness. That's the integrative part. Some people need to yell because they haven't had a voice.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Some people need to learn that they yelled and they were able to not get lost in it. Everybody's journey being different and befriending. It's almost like some people say, well, I can't put my finger on what it was, but I just something was different. What is it that you did?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I say, well, sometimes you might say we were activating your limbic system so that you could do something different while activated. learning how to get space from the emotional brain. So many clients, especially clients with trauma, years of frustration, learning coping skills in safe offices with therapists. They're done beautifully and repetitively within that environment.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But it's really hard to recreate that back at home or at work when triggered. My coping skills live in a part of the brain that gets hijacked when the emotional brain takes over. And this doesn't always have to be about trauma. Can you believe I'm saying that? The example I give, I'm a professional, right? My mother's 87 years old with dementia. She's living in a nursing home.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
All the things that go along with that. irrationality that's involved with that. And so Jeff goes to these visits and he starts noticing that all these visits are starting with my mother talking about how somebody is stealing her blue ink pens and what I call her old lady blue jeans. And so I'm sitting there saying, are you kidding me? Who would want your blue ink pens?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Think about this rationally, mom. Who wants these old blue jeans? And how many of my visits, that's how that visit started. It just went downhill from there to literally be sitting in the truck outside before a visit, praying, give me what needs to happen here. So many times as clinicians, we ask clinicians, you take your hat off, take your therapist's hat off.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So you just take away the substance, take away the word alcohol and plug in whatever word you want to. You mentioned the group process. So you might have a group of eight folks and there may be three folks in there that identify as substance abusers. And there could be two workaholics in that room. The commonality within the circle is going to be you may disconnect differently than I do, Peter.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But sometimes you need to put it on because Jeff, the clinician, is not sitting there in front of his mother. There's a son sitting there in front of his mother who is facing the reality that it's not his mother anymore. And that's very sad. The anger is a much more comfortable place to be, or frustration. So I'm going to argue with mom about how irrational this thought is, right?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But it's breaking because I don't want my mom to think that people are stealing her blue ink pens. I want her to change. I want this to be corrected. But I'm forgetting like one of the golden rules of change when it comes to therapy, rolling with resistance. The more that I fight for change, the more this other person is going to fight for the status quo. It happens 99% of the time.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But when you sell crazy back to somebody tenfold, they start to suggest rationality. Here's what I mean by that. One day in that truck, I realized I have got to do something different. Right. So I'm going to go in there. And when I went in there, I went in there with my executive functioning. I went in there from the prefrontal cortex.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Be sensible. I didn't have access to something that I do all the time with clients, selling crazy back to them. You go home, you'll get your cigarettes back. If you're talking about the bridge, you'll get your cigarettes back. You'll get your phone back. You'll go back home. You'll go back to your perfect girlfriend and life will be okay. And no, I didn't say life's okay. All right.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Well, then we've got something to talk about. You got to stay here. You're going to die if you don't change. They just fight. They just fight, fight for the status quo. But that Jeff that I was talking about, I didn't have access to those skills. I wasn't being driven. Now there's all the baggage. There's the being the son. There's the trauma related to mom.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
There's all of that that played into that. But to be able to get access to the what some folks call the bill paying brain.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It was an email that I probably wouldn't have read. And it was an opening. And a mentor of mine sent me an email and said, I know your story. I know your background. I think you ought to check this place out. And to grow up somewhere like that, Bowling Green, Kentucky, and to not know this place that's existed now for 50 years, it says something.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I had a certain mindset about what residential therapy would look like and residential treatment and therapy. Yeah. So I was just blown away and privileged to be able to do the work. I mean, it's a gift. I talk about folks not wanting to do it. And sometimes that being the reason that they won't join the team there. That's a very true thing. I wasn't crazy about doing it either.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I knew there was stuff that I was still working on and will still be working on. And it was going to be very vulnerable. In one way, I was like, this is an audition. You want to know all my crazy? And they're like, yes, we do. What is it that attracted you to this field? I've done a lot of different things, sales, marketing. I used to build, I used to fencing.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
People would say, oh, really, like jousting? I'm like, no, wooden chain link fences. Let's not go too far with that. I did undergraduate in psychology, and then there was that gap in between me determining and realizing that this is what I need to do.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The self-discovery part for me, it was like starting to do my own work and then realizing that to see someone get a taste of hope, to see somebody get a taste of hope and to be part of that. When I tell clients, you know, it's like you've got it in you. Maybe I can create a space where it can come out. It's a privilege.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But the commonality is, is that especially when life throws us a curveball, this disconnected version of me seems to come out, jump in my driver's seat, if you will. And that's probably been happening a lot as far as acuity goes, if that's how you find yourself at the bridge. The old saying is nobody gets there because it's a slow Monday.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I don't think it's necessary, but it sure as hell helps. I'll say that. The depth of the connection with the heart and the work. Because it's one thing to say my profession, I've got purpose. I could say I do something that matters. But does that thing matter to me? And it does. Me personally, I think the weight of that purpose is from the pain in addition to the hope.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
having that type of impact to where I feel like I heal a little bit each time I help somebody integrate their trauma. And I've had some amazing things happen in the group room. I'm human.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Certain things that I've done in the group room, I don't need to be doing my therapy while I'm leading a group, but certain things that I would do on like art therapy or something, I use the same scene on the board that I use time after time, because again, that's something that I've tried to unpack and process and I don't need to be doing anything new. And then to
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
be sitting there and because of something that happened in the group room, or maybe it's where I hadn't realized that I look at that scene that I just drew on the board differently. And it's personal. With trauma, and we talk about how it's shame, like it's something that's touched my family. Unfortunately, there's not much of that family left. My sister passed away in 2014.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
She grew up in the same house that I did. And so a piece of my heart's connected because it doesn't have to go that way.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
oftentimes it becomes pivotal in willingness and in that surrender game that I mentioned. Because I think as a parent, one of my jobs or the most important job is, in my opinion, that my children go to bed and wake up safe. They don't grow up in fear. I have a lot to do with that. But like they tell you on the airplanes about your oxygen mask, you got to have yours on first.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And then the big word that you use, which I think there's a part of me that wants to say like, oh, don't give away the secrets. Let the magic happen. But I also going through the program to work there and know that you can know everything that's going to happen. And then you start going through the process and discomfort's what it's all about. That's when my stuff comes up.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
At the end of the day, being a parent, you mentioned about why I do what I do and what I get out of it and whatnot. And to know my clients on a different level, because doing the work is hard. Sometimes at the end of the day, When you need to have that hard discussion with somebody, when a boundary needs to be set, when conflict resolution in a relationship needs to happen.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Some days when people finally go to bed and the house is quiet, you just want to watch Netflix to understand like what happens and what can happen is that you put off these things and things start to build and they build and they build. And then when the levy breaks, I'm the worst version of Jeff. If I let that happen, what about that generation? What about that next generation?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It's responsibility on a whole different level, but a gift too. A misconception you were describing of, well, at least I don't drink. At least I'm not an alcoholic. So that means that I'm not as bad as my parents and there's no work to be done because there's so many other ways that I can have an unhealthy impact on that next generation. But to be in that place of, okay, this is it. This is it.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And I have the opportunity.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
That's a place I try to operate from. Out of, I think, my humanity, our humanity as clinicians, there's client files. I've seen this. We've seen this one before. And sometimes it needs to be said out loud. Some people need to hear, you know, I've seen you before, right? You're not unique. Not always appreciated, but sometimes it lands.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Yeah. And amazing to wrap your brain. Maybe you're around the fact that that's actually calming. It's nice to know. There's certain interventions that tend to go along with certain personalities or certain maladaptive behaviors, if you will. But to the best of my ability, clean slate. What is this person telling me? How they're telling me?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So that's the whole idea. If you remember, admissions day is on a Monday. So we would usually meet the groups by Tuesday. Countless times I've tried to help talk folks off the ledge of leaving. In summary, their reason, all of them, different details. But I came to the bridge and my anxiety was at a seven. Right now, I think it's a nine. I need to get the heck out of here. This place ain't for me.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I'm certain that those things are happening. I would not be comfortable painting a broad brush and saying, yes, we are too far. Again, I'm back to depolarizing things. Most of my folks that I meet through the therapeutic work grew up in much more of the get over it, buck up. And then the other end of this continuum, if you will, is everything is trauma. Let's not box ourselves in.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I worry about the example that you just give there because I'm just thinking about kids in general, especially younger kids. Kids can be mean. Is that the space for that? Emotions? Yes. It can be so powerful, I believe, for children to learn about their emotions. But to be guided by them, that's a tricky statement.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I would hope the spirit of guiding is learning what the behaviors are, learning when the time and place for emotional attention is and the time and place that it's not for. Again, my experience comes from individuals typically who are from the far other end of that.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I think that's a perfect way to approach it. Let's try that. In your example, like maybe I should just do this less and do this more, all these behaviors. Let's try that. Let's put together a plan, goal setting. I'm coaching you. We're not doing an intervention here, any therapeutic intervention. And if it happens, it happens.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Folks who realize or already know that they have trauma or have been wounded significantly. Sometimes I think the word just trips folks up and they just can't get over the word. Wounded, survivors, whatever we want to call these folks. They have a really hard time putting knowing into action. I spent many years as a very well-informed prisoner.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And sometimes they look at me like I've got two heads. When I say, you know, actually you're providing the evidence that this is exactly the type of place for you.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I know all this stuff about why it is I do the things that I do, but it's the putting it into action. The thing that you'd said about the not doing, that's where we get to realize, hopefully admit to self, if that's the fact, when I come back to see Jeff or whoever, well, the goal is still failing. For some reason, I just can't do that.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Well, perhaps there's something significant connected to this. Maybe something needs to be integrated. The part of you that is unwilling to do this thing that you say is the goal and the plan when you sit in front of me, that's who we need to work with.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
In general, what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to expand your window of tolerance, if you will, to vulnerability. Because typically that protective behavior, again, the enemy is vulnerability. And so to create some muscle memory, doing something different when vulnerable, not doing that same thing.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When you talked about your experience at the bridge and you talked about what it would have been like if we had taken away exercise, simply sitting still for some folks is a very vulnerable experience. And so to create an environment where that person can experience the discomfort.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And that's why I think that within my work and a lot of professionals looking at individuals from a parts perspective. Different systems, different theories, internal family systems, structural dissociation. But this language that I'm using, it's not necessarily new because it's like you're talking about. So this original self, this wounded self, this adapted self.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The adapted self tends to have some really hard line beliefs. Safety equals control. Safety equals distance. Safety equals self-abandonment. Safety equals somebody else. And as long as that part of self has that core belief, I believe it's going to be damn near impossible to do those things that I know I should do. So to know that there are interventions that will fit that process.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The first question is, do you got issue with this? Because I'm back to if you like it, I love it. When a client, they're at the bridge and they're there because their spouse, their spouse is going to leave them. Their spouse is finally fed up with it and they've got all these opinions about it. So here I am because they said I needed to go to a place like this.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
From the beginning, I would say getting my history straight. The telling of my life story seems simple. Several folks, many folks have done it before, but within and through the lens of what we introduce as far as the trauma tree that you referred to. It's the what happened to me story. And so many of us for so many years, sometimes decades, have been telling the story of what's wrong with me.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And you know, you're like, doesn't sound like you've got a problem at all. What do you mean? You can keep being you. You've just got somebody telling you now that they're not going to deal with it. Maybe it's the biggest controlling jerk in the world. So all you need to do is go find another doormat. I'm just hearing you say your spouse is not. So you decide whether there's a problem there or not.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
This behavior, again, that's become the problematic behavior, how difficult it is to unravel and stop doing that behavior, again, tied into the trauma, tied into it being an ingenious damage control strategy at a time in life, perhaps, and perhaps done multiple times successfully. So there's a part of self that says, why not do this? We've been doing pretty well like this for a long time.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I'd be careful with the common word, but it happens a lot. I typically hear about it kind of the way you described it. Months, even sometimes years later, it hit me one day or this thing was happening and I was incredibly compelled to do it the old way. And I heard something so-and-so said in my ear, something against that belief system. That's what's so tricky about that process at the bridge.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Or if you want to talk about experiential journeys using experiential therapies, I mean, just going to a process, a group therapy process, residential is an experiential intervention. And so to be able to put my finger on what was it?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Yeah. And thank God. I mean, when you tell that about putting your finger on that. I've got so much gratitude sitting here. Obviously, I know the moments, several of the moments. And it is common. I think the spirit of you in this example, putting yourself in a position for it to happen.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And there being a process to get this guarded version of self out of the way enough to allow something like that to happen. And there's a lot going on to create that or to cultivate that possibility.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And so from the very beginning, the shift, the hope is to move a little bit closer to what happened to me. Not within the spirit of an excuse, but an explanation. Oh, wait a second. It makes sense that I do this thing now. There was a utility to this behavior. The group process, it just brings up the stuff. I call them the guards. Parts therapists will call them protective parts.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Absolutely. Sometimes I guess the frustration with the individual one-on-one therapeutic dynamic would be, I've heard many of the therapists who would ask the question, why would somebody go to a residential program that wasn't an addict or alcoholic? You talk about the frustrations of like the goals, not being able to put the knowing into acting. I see this person we have four steps forward.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
We had this great 55 minute session. And then six days later, they come back and I'm like, who the hell is this? What happened to them? Well, what happened to them is more than likely they went back and lived underneath the same roof with their biggest trauma trigger. And so in your experience and many others, having the ability to get that separation, season of separation to make that possible.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
not the only way to make that possible. Because again, we paint ourselves in a hole to where, you mean, if I can't go to a residential program, I can't heal. We certainly don't want to paint that because then we've got a lot of folks without hope. But one of the ways, absolutely.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Absolutely. Because you mentioned that it's a journey. Healed, past tense, typically isn't a reality. We're all on a healing journey, I hope. Yeah, we can have these lightning bolt moments, get this momentum, make this progress. You described your experience of it and also know that the work continues because back to the language of these maladaptive behaviors and all the muscle memory.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
To have a eureka moment just completely wiped that out. But when you talk about that scenario, yeah, if I know somebody has been to a residential program and I have an idea of what they did because I have familiarity with where they were at, then I can do a certain thing with that.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But at the same time, I guess the fire that it lights for that person that you've been talking about so much is finally getting to the cusp or to that place of, I think I need to look at something. I got a lot of good. You talked about that person, but something's just not right.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And to be at that point of that journey that we talked about not being linear and having a system, if you will, where the background, I believe, with that group experiential process has a different way of making that one-on-one relationship. I'm back to the word efficient and trauma efficiency, hopefully being able to help recognize
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And this isn't new. We use terminology that's new, but it's ego states. But when I say guard, this protective side of Jeff that comes up when he gets vulnerable. And when do I get vulnerable? Typically when I get dropped into a different situation. So that first week, I'm going to live with some new people. I'm going to eat with some new people.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Here's the what and the when, and let's make sure we're using our time wisely.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Certainly want some input from a professional, a seasoned professional, a personal referral. You mentioned, I just Google trauma informed is kind of like the buzz thing. And what does this mean? Did you go to a 45 minute seminar on trauma does affect folks and now you're trauma informed?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
There are several, but I would be more interested in what I do when I look at bios. Sometimes I get more concerned about the more specialties I see. So when I see these lists that cover every class that someone takes during a graduate program for counseling, that troubles me. How come? It looks great. I cover all of these different things. But no depth. Yeah.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But like how much muscle memory do you have as a clinician working with a certain population the way that you do it? And where did that muscle memory come from? It's a big part of what I do is helping folks make sure that they are with the right person. That's where I go with the efficiency of it.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
knowing the story, learning the story, getting that eye-opening moment, and then that hint that someone wants something different, and then to be a part of that process or to point them in the right direction.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I personally think that sometimes I would say that challenge, how challenged do you feel? How do you feel going into a session? How do you feel after the session?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think it's a good story when it's like, I can't wait to talk to Jeff because I'm going to get to gripe for 55 minutes and he's going to let me pay him for that. Now, it's happened before. And I would just say we need to call this what it is. If this is where you want to put your anger at for an hour, we can do that.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But let's call it what it is because we're not working on change here. So what's happening? What's being illuminated? because they wouldn't call it a blind spot if I could see it. So what's happening within that back and forth? What did I not know? What made me think? What made me pause? But the main thing is what's different? Not all therapeutic relationships are a good match.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I'm going to share a story, share deep information about myself. And that's really the objective is to start within the technical thing that's happening therapeutically is there's a window of tolerance that we all don't have. And so don't want to drop into week two work when we start doing these experiential therapies.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And so to just know that that's a reality and to give yourself permission after an adequate amount of time, this isn't working. Let's not keep doing this. Let's not keep doing something that's not working. Life's short.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Exactly. And the sheer fact or thought of shedding the tears might amplify the vulnerability through the roof. So it's written all over the walls, literally. I mean, if you remember group rooms with emotion words on the walls. And to have clinicians sit in that room as guests of ours and refer to them as negative emotions. I squirm in my seat.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Maybe they're not as comfortable, but like there's a utility to all of these emotions. And I liken stuffing emotions to like tightening the string on a guitar. And you think of how many times, how many times that you've stuffed that emotion. What happens? And that thing right there, I think a lot of folks have been misinformed or it was an old way of doing things.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But I think a lot of folks go into it thinking that they've got to have this explosion with their emotions for the thing to happen. And if being lost in my emotion, if drowning in a pool of tears is what trauma integration is, then let me have no part of it. Because if dysregulated emotions is what comes out of the work, then I keep referring to them as guards. My guards, my protective parts.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
They've got more reason than ever to do their job. You just introduced me to vulnerability and it was overwhelming. So when working with the client, regardless of the setting, it's befriending vulnerability. And to introduce vulnerability as overwhelming, that is counterproductive. These protective selves, you mentioned back to the connection, and human connection is vulnerable.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It's not something that's meant to be controlled. There's unknowns. There's another person. We really don't know what they're going to do, what they're going to say, how we're going to be received. That's vulnerable. And if you look through the lens of these protective parts, my guards, The irony is the means by which they do their job typically brings me the thing that they most fear.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But within the spirit of a window of tolerance and experiential therapy, telling your life story is experiential therapy. The content's important, Peter, but so many times the way the story is told is more important, or as important at least, as the content of the life story.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Another example. Let's say that a client, this is one that works sometimes. Let's say the client, like one of their things is they've got some trauma. They've got some insecurities around betrayals and they're in a relationship. And one day their partner comes home and tells them that their ex is back working at the hospital where they work at. Now, who wants to hear that?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Nobody wants to hear that. But it's going to be especially bad news for somebody with a betrayal file. It's going to be very vulnerable. Introduce vulnerability into the equation. This is where the disconnected self shows up. I have to do something to take care of that vulnerability. So I have this avoidant part. I used to call him the too cool for school part.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And he was born out of hearing a lot of what kind of man's he going to be? What kind of man's he going to be? So in other words, this part of me doesn't believe that a man says something like, I'm scared, I'm vulnerable. So this part of me says, you want to hear about all the skeletons in my closet? I don't care that your ex is back at work five years ago.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
But when that partner's on their seven to seven shifts, it's hard for me to be connected, Jeff, when all that stuff starts going on through insecurities and betrayals and things of that nature. So I need something, something to step in and take me away. And that's where that disconnection comes in. For some folks, it would be drinking or what not.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Then the spirit of the example that I'm given and trying to give the irony is, again, the problem is not having the parts. It's how they do their job and the relationship between those parts. Because eventually what happens is, is that as I do the thing with, let's say the behavior is drinking. So I'm drinking, I'm drinking, I'm drinking.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And eventually I get to a point to where not thinking that much about what might be going on at that hospital. Then I get to a point to where my buddy leaves. We were watching the ballgame. I was able to be connected to Jeff in front of him. But now I'm really starting to get up in my head about what might be going on at the hospital where my partner's at.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When the phone finally rings at 1130 or 12 or whatever, it's not connected to Jeff that answers the phone. I'm using myself in this made up example, right? But it's going to be a disconnected version of Jeff. You having fun while the night's so young? Maybe you guys will have time to go at it again, right? All this woundedness starts coming out.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And so eventually what happens is in this example, if this partner's got any healthy going on, I'm going to come downstairs one day and there's going to be a note that says, I wasn't created to save you. I can't do this. You need some help. And now have I ever been any sadder than I am? Because it's a triangle of vulnerability, sad, shame, and fear.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And that's what all these guarded parts of self, they're there to protect us against that. But you see, the means by which the protected, disconnected self did its work actually played out, brought me the thing that I feared the most. So now here I am sitting at this table. alone, realizing what's happened. That's how that happened. So back to disconnection, connection, what is connected?
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Jeff says, I know this is my stuff and I've got work to do. It's a reminder that I've got work to do, but I got to tell you, I got to be honest with me. It bothers me what you just told me about this person being back working with you. It bothers me, but that's a very vulnerable thing to say.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Absolutely. That might not be welcomed. That emotional, vulnerable self might not be welcomed. And that's information that's necessary. Necessary information about my partner. It bothers me in that example. I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm not asking you to quit your job or anything like that. But I just need you to know my truth. And I've got work to do around this. But it does bother me.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It scares me to death. It scares me to death. Probably the bravest words I've ever said to another human being in my life. It scares me to death. I spent so many years trying to act like it didn't.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
A lot of folks have wasted years trying to pull and push people into help. You just have to be the agent of change in the relationship. You have to break the dance. So in this particular dance, it's I'm wanting to be vulnerable and you're not having anything of it. Something's got to change. So you got to sharpen your skills with the boundaries. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And sometimes it's a worn out word, but it's a hell of a skill to be able to utilize and to be able to set a healthy boundary. Top-tier boundary setting oftentimes doesn't include the word you. Flows folks away when you just talk about me. I realize when this behavior happens, whatever, fill in the blank, that it's affecting me. I'm building resentment. This isn't good for me.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
When this behavior happens again, I'm going to choose to do blank. And whatever blank is, is whatever change looks like. It might be in this example, like, I want to be able to share my heart with you, but evidently I can't. So I'll be taking it to my best friend. And so to be able to set the boundary and set a boundary where there's a consequence, it's something that I can hold.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It's something that I can do because a boundary without a consequence is useless.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
If there's a voice saying it, listen. If there's a voice, even if it's a whisper, it's there for a reason. And I think more important than anything else, you're either going to deal with it or it's going to deal with you. my hope for the you and humanity and what we do as far as helping people. In this case, we're talking about emotional health, but longevity. Yeah, deal with this.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Grab the bull by the horns. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be part of your journey and congratulations on everything. Keep up the good work, brother.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
The five roots of the trauma tree, that's the what happened to me. This can be seen through the lens of trauma. And for folks where trauma is just too big of a word, can you believe I'm saying that on this podcast? But okay, then lose it. Highly stressful events.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
So abuse tends to be the one that we talk really the least about at The Bridge because that's the one that folks tend to know the most about. That's not to mean that we minimize it. There's just so many different forms of abuse. Physical, emotional, abject, emotional.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
social you move over from abuse and you look at something like neglect which can be very tricky so many folks that have experienced neglect it's an eye-opening experience because while something like abuse is something that happened to me neglect is something that failed to happen for me And so to see that through the lens of high stress or pain, so many different ways one can be neglected.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
An example that's used there is the little boy that is going to school and he's being bullied. And he's got these parents who are professionals and they're successful and they're busy and they've got the best of intentions. but they're missing it. They're missing the look on this kid's face when he comes in every day and before he gets on that bus every morning.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
That question's not being asked, what's happening? And so every day, this little person's being required to go to this place where this thing's gonna happen. And evidently these folks at my house don't have time. And it's important to emphasize, I think the word intention, because intention is not required. How many times have I said, have I heard, well, they had the best of intentions.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
It still happened. Or in the case of neglect, it failed to happen. Enmeshment. That's a wounding experience where you've got a boundary violation. So that can happen within the spirit of what we call emotional incest, where a child is put in an age-inappropriate position. Maybe the child becomes... best friend, counselor, and confidant for mom or dad.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And then you've just got this engulfing enmeshment, which happens a lot of times in successful families where outcomes and expectations are celebrated and they're not so much the journey. And so that engulfing enmeshment can Be one of those situations where this is the way to be. More of a me, mini me relationship between a parent and a child instead of that I, thou relationship.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
And in those situations with enmeshment, what typically happens is we either drink the Kool-Aid, get on board with it, or what do we do? We rebel. And I'm not going to do anything that looks anything like this. Neither of those things is probably who I was meant to develop into.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
I think probably, in my opinion, the umbrella wound, we're talking about the tree, the root of the tree, would be abandonment. And physical desertion or abandonment, that's low-hanging fruit as far as I think the general public and knowledge, yes, when somebody leaves. Permanent abandonment, obviously someone passes away, there's death, there's seasonal, folks leave for work, military deployment.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Folks go to prison. Parents get separated. Parents leave and come back. Now, emotional abandonment, that's that situation where someone's there, but they're really not there. And this emotional self gets denied. And a lot of times when you're emotionally abandoned, it can be a situation where it's emotionally cut back, meaning the house I grew up in, we did anger. That's what we did.
The Peter Attia Drive
#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English
Wasn't okay to be sad, wasn't okay to be scared, but we did anger. So it wasn't like we were emotion free. It was just we were cut back to that one. That's the one that I saw the most. And then sometimes it's just the situation where it's cut off and it's blank and no emotion. And I mentioned already the tragic event. root of that trauma tree.