How is our approach to trauma changing? Are traditional top-down therapy approaches our only option?

Explore the concept of trauma and its treatment. Host Amy and Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) Natelle Murphy discuss the limitations of traditional top-down therapy approaches, which focus primarily on cognitive processes.

The episode introduces the bottom-up approach, which emphasizes the body's role in trauma and recovery. Key points include:

• Trauma is more than an event: It's a complex interplay of event, reaction, and societal perception.
• Traditional therapy: Often focuses on talk therapy and cognitive-based techniques like prolonged exposure therapy.
• Bottom-up approach: Emphasizes the body's role in trauma, focusing on physical sensations and responses.
• Polyvagal theory: Explains the nervous system's three states (ventral, sympathetic, dorsal) and the importance of regulation.
• Somatic experiencing: A therapy that helps individuals engage with trauma through body awareness and movement.

The episode concludes by highlighting the importance of body awareness and regulation for healing from trauma.
 
Natelle is committed to cultivating a nurturing space where you can freely express your authentic self, knowing you will be met with profound compassion and unwavering respect. She believes that you are the expert in your own experience, which means that the therapeutic process is collaborative and tailored to your unique needs and goals. Whether you want to address painful struggles or find ways to improve your quality of life, Natelle would be deeply honoured to work alongside you to find growth and healing on your own terms.
 
 Natelle’s professional experience has empowered her to address anxiety, mood disorders, and rumination. She is passionate about prenatal, postpartum, and familial health; she’s here to support your journey to peace amidst these challenges.

 Author: The Holistic Health Show
Guest Speaker: Natelle Murphy
Category: Health and Wellness
Publish date: 2024-08-15
Duration: [00:34:24]
Transcript
www.bodymindki.com/podcast

LINKS TO OTHER SPEAKER RELATED INFORMATION
 https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/therapists/natelle-murphy-vaughan-on/1305781

Transcript

[00:00:14] Amy: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Holistic Health Show. Today on the show, we have Natelle Murphy, who is a qualifying registered psychotherapist at Rooted and Rising Psychotherapy. Today, we're going to discuss society's current thinking on trauma and some of the treatment approaches. Natelle, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

[00:00:35] Amy: What I'd love for you to do is jump right in. Tell us just a little bit about yourself and what it is you do.

[00:00:41] Natelle Murphy: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I am starting my clinical practicum, which is the last thing before I get my Masters of Arts and Counseling and Psychology. And I guess I chose this field because I truly. Love connection and helping people feels incredibly purposeful.

[00:01:01] . It must have been quite a journey and it's pretty exciting that you're nearly at the end.

[00:01:05] Natelle Murphy: Yeah, I am excited. I'm just like getting my first few clients now and, you know, getting that first, like practical experience, which, you know, it's been very interesting.

[00:01:17] Amy: Natelle, I wonder, can you tell us just a little bit about what exactly is psychotherapy?

[00:01:22] Natelle Murphy: , so psychotherapy, well, in Canada, psychotherapy is like, the offering [00:01:30] of therapy without say, mostly without diagnosis, which would fall under psychiatry. So, what this looks like, , what I practice is we have. 50 or 75 minute sessions where I sit down with my client and they tell me what they need.

[00:01:45] Natelle Murphy: And we , collaboratively create an approach that will help them address whatever it is they need to address. And a lot of times this looks like talk therapy, and then there's also some mindfulness. There's some restoring of clients narratives. Sometimes we, you know, we do things that are a little more body work, but it's a really wide range of interventions based in kind of, a lot of them do center around talking about their psychological states. 

[00:02:09] Amy: I'm looking forward to getting into that a little more when we're talking about some of the treatment approaches. But I want to take us back and our listeners back to trauma. What is trauma in the sense of psychotherapy? 

[00:02:24] Natelle Murphy: Well, the American Psychological Association has this definition for trauma and it kind of, it is comprised of like an event and this event is like a wide breadth of things. If you witness a crime, if you say, experience emotional abuse and neglect and natural disaster, like, there is so many things that could be considered a traumatic event and what comes after the traumatic event is like a psychological reaction.

[00:02:51] Natelle Murphy: And there's. The immediate of like shock and denial and then there's longer term effects like flashback avoidance and then there's non [00:03:00] psychological, , symptoms that exist to like relationship strain, physical symptoms, but one interesting thing about trauma is , it has a lot more social attention.

[00:03:09] Natelle Murphy: Nowadays. I don't know if it's something that you kind of notice a lot more in the media that you see. 

[00:03:13] Amy: Everyone is talking about trauma at the moment in the sense of how it's impacting your mental health and your physical, how it bleeds into, like you said, relationships and your work life. And it's, I'm fairly confident it is certainly not a new thing, but it's something that maybe we're more open to discussing as a society and addressing and then in turn getting the appropriate help for.

[00:03:41] Natelle Murphy: that's actually a really good point because the existence of kind of like this social awareness of trauma has lots of good effects. Like what you mentioned, it's not stigmatized anymore. People notice, Hey, I'm having. I'm having issues that look like this. Maybe it's trauma. Maybe I need to seek out treatment.

[00:03:59] Natelle Murphy: , all of that is a byproduct of , gaining more social awareness, which is a great thing. An interesting thing that happens though, is that the public also has kind of a social definition of trauma, if that makes any sense. And if you look at the difference between like what the general public believes about trauma and what clinicians, believe about trauma, there are gaps.

[00:04:22] Natelle Murphy: They did this study, , in 2022 and they talked to over 200 people and they said, what is trauma? And they let them answer like whatever they wanted. Then [00:04:30] they picked out themes about what they saw. So the first one is people seem to think it was an event , No emphasis on the reaction afterwards, just, , trauma is getting in a motorcycle accident.

[00:04:42] Natelle Murphy: Trauma is watching someone die. It was just an event in their description., It kind of doesn't go with the event reaction that the APA has. And then the other gap would be, people seem to say these themes of like, You can't get away from trauma. It's something that stays with you for the rest of your life.

[00:05:00] Natelle Murphy: , and, you know, clinically that's not something that's like taken as a fact or anything like that. There's a lot of new frontiers being explored here. So to have those gaps in public perception of trauma means that , there are some people out there who think trauma can't be fixed.

[00:05:15] Natelle Murphy: Why seek out treatment? And there's also people who think that, trauma is just the effect. So if they have issues afterwards or psychological effects afterwards, they're not necessarily tying it to trauma because trauma to them is just an event. So it does kind of still affect how people are seeking treatment, right? 

[00:05:32] Amy: Yeah, and as you're, you're talking there, my brain is just ticking away and I'm thinking, you know, there are maybe perhaps in the older generation more of this, but You know, oh, well, it's time to get over it, you know, just stop thinking about it, and it's, it is in you, and it does kind of stick, but that doesn't mean that you can't address it and work through it, and do I have that correct?

[00:05:56] Amy: Is that what, what you're then doing?

[00:05:58] Natelle Murphy: , 100%. I [00:06:00] think like there is a lot of hope when it comes to the treatment of trauma. I mean, obviously, When we work with the mind, it's so complex. You can't ever guarantee results, but there are so many different ways that people are thinking about trauma and ways to address trauma and like, kind of coming from new science and , away from traditional approaches.

[00:06:19] Natelle Murphy: And in that way, it's hopeful and it is, it's exciting. , I don't know if you know much about , more traditional talk therapy trauma treatments. 

[00:06:27] 

[00:06:27] Natelle Murphy: what trauma therapy might look like that you've seen in media or heard about or anything like that. But talking about trauma is probably what most people would think about if they were to say, I'm going to go to therapy for trauma.

[00:06:39] Natelle Murphy: What's going to happen there? Right. 

[00:06:41] Amy: , you know, through the podcast, I've been learning a lot more about that, but I know in talking to friends and my thoughts prior, therapy has, you know, traditionally, anyway, in my view, been talk therapy. But now I'm learning, you know, we've had an episode on art therapy, , and she mentions , working through trauma.

[00:07:02] Amy: There's been EMDR therapy hypnosis. So, there's been a lot of that and I've learned about it through the show, actually, through having guests on the podcast, 

[00:07:12] Natelle Murphy: I like the exploration, you know, like, there's all these new ideas about what could be working here, but, , the traditional idea, and I guess something that, you know, Would be, like, considered the gold standard for a long time would be prolonged exposure therapy. , the rates that is something [00:07:30] that is very effective at treating trauma and what prolonged exposure therapy is, is you get your client to start.

[00:07:39] Natelle Murphy: Engaging with memory of the traumatic event. And you don't want them to become, , numbed out and too overstimulated by, like, what's going on and you don't want them to engage so much that all of a sudden they're in emotional despair.

[00:07:52] Natelle Murphy: You want to like, engage them on a healthy level and then return them back to a place of safety. So they think about the traumatic thought they think about safety and in that way, they learn. That traumatic thought is no longer dangerous to me. I am safe and that kind of can get rid of like a lot of the avoidance.

[00:08:08] Natelle Murphy: It has good results and it's based in traditional talk therapy. And there's also some other approaches that are a little more like psychoeducational. There's a really interesting one called stair therapy, skills training and effective interpersonal regulation, and that really leverages.

[00:08:24] Natelle Murphy: the social treatment of a psychosocial kind of component that they're addressing. There's this study that talks about when people experience trauma, if they have like a good support system and are able to talk about it afterwards, the likelihood of it developing into PTSD goes down.

[00:08:43] Natelle Murphy: So we know that when, you know, when you experience trauma, support is important. But we also know that when people have trauma, their relationships are something that are effective, and they could be affected through a number of different ways, but like [00:09:00] trauma has effects. Like evolutionary are in reciprocal to like relation, like rest, digest reproduce.

[00:09:10] Natelle Murphy: That's all things that don't happen under trauma, right? So we know that trauma and relationships have this like, you know, they're really, they're really interconnected. So there's this therapy called stair therapy that teaches you about like the interpersonal deficits that might be coming from your trauma and to be like cognizant of them and how to address them.

[00:09:29] Natelle Murphy: But that's also kind of a more talk therapy too, but just approaching it from a different way. And all of these therapies. They're kind of all top down, they like go from your brain, and then they expect to, you know, the traumatic response that your body has and stuff will resolve once your thoughts resolve.

[00:09:48] Natelle Murphy: That's the thoughts behind them. But there's actually new therapies that don't think that way. 

[00:09:52] Amy: Just before we get into the bottom up approach, when we're talking, you know, we've, we've seen or we've experienced this trauma. And so our brain is processing it, and then it's coming down, our body is processing it, it's, you know, probably sticking in places. That must be different for everyone, right?

[00:10:13] Amy: The same situation would impact one individual differently to the next, or are there common themes?

[00:10:20] Natelle Murphy: I think everyone's experience would be different. Like, we're too complicated. But there are overarching themes when it comes to, [00:10:30] like, how trauma affects the body. And , one of them, for example, would be , nervous system regulation. And , a little bit later, I hope to get more into, like, some polyvagal theory, which is kind of a theory that goes along with how the nervous system is affected by the psychological state and really , delves into that.

[00:10:48] Natelle Murphy: The thing is every experience is different. Like I said, sometimes people won't develop these symptoms of trauma when they're exposed to things. And there could be a, you know, a million factors why 1 person might develop trauma and another person won't and stuff like that. But, yeah, there are some common themes about what it does to your body. 

[00:11:06] Amy: Yeah, I was curious about that. So thank you for clarifying for me. You were about to talk about this bottom up approach rather than the top down. So can, can you explain that? 

[00:11:15] Natelle Murphy: well, the bottom of approach, it just puts much less thought or much less focus on thought and the focus is like on your actual physiology and I guess I'm sure there are people out there who might be thinking like, trauma has a lot of like, psychological effects. Why aren't we thinking about it through , psychological, cognitive ways to solve it?

[00:11:38] Natelle Murphy: And I think there's a couple good answers for that. There's this very smart woman, Deb Dana, that talks about how the interconnection between the brain and the nervous system. You know, those neural pathways, 80 percent of that electricity flows from body to brain, like your body is giving your brain signals about what's going on, what it feels before your brain even tells a story about it.

[00:11:58] Natelle Murphy: Only 20 percent of that flow is [00:12:00] from brain to body. So when we think of treating the brain, if we don't observe the body, we're missing out on so much more we could leverage. And , this isn't really a new idea either charles Darwin talked about like emotional experiences on the body.

[00:12:14] Natelle Murphy: He talked about when the mind is strongly activated, it affects the state of viscera. So, you know, this isn't a new idea. It's kind of like a bit of an older idea, but I feel like it's only just kind of making its frontier in psychology. Like it is a relatively new approach. 

[00:12:31] Amy: Seems like You know, these ideas have been around for a long time, and I mean, certainly work has been done in various capacities, and in many cases even documented, and I'm sure in many others not. But it seems like we're only now, as a society, ready to accept this and explore it, whereas before it was, it wasn't widely accepted.

[00:12:54] Amy: So there was a smaller group of people kind of exploring this idea and maybe it was, you know, weird or, you know, woo woo in some cases, you know, there's that, but that's kind of leaving the, the general thinking now, isn't it? And society as a whole is more coming together and saying, okay, you know, let's actually, there's something here that we, we now need to be ready as a collective to, to approach and

[00:13:17] Amy: work together on.

[00:13:19] Natelle Murphy: what you feel is there's like a sociocultural component that used to kind of mean that this wasn't really considered real and that [00:13:30] bias is starting to fade, 

[00:13:31] Natelle Murphy: I mean, when it comes to therapy and psychology, like, a lot of things are tested through. Is it effective for this group of people? Right? There are some, , fMRI. studies and stuff like that to assess the effect of certain things. But when it comes to like therapy types, almost all of the research that's done is, is it effective for making the symptoms of whatever we're testing for PTSD or whatever?

[00:13:57] Natelle Murphy: Is it able to reduce the symptoms? That's kind of like the metric on which it's measured, which means we don't have scientific certainty here, ? So like the openness is exciting, right?

[00:14:08] Amy: Yeah, I'm excited about it, and I think a lot of others are. And it's you know, it's only a matter of time. Like everything else, you have to see where it takes us, and where we go with

[00:14:17] Amy: it. 

[00:14:17] Natelle Murphy: I think another, , interesting theme on the mind body connection is, like, sometimes we see these physical effects, like, manifesting in, , worsened trauma. So, , Ivan Pavlov, the guy who, you know, he rings the bell and gives the dog food, and then he rings the bell and the dog starts drooling You know, the classical behaviorist, there was this accidental flood that happened in his laboratory one time and all of the dogs that he was like doing his, you know, his behavioral, you know testing on, they were all in cages and the water started to rise and rise and rise and the dogs were trying to get out.

[00:14:53] Natelle Murphy: Everything in their system was like fight or flight. I have to get out of here. I cannot be stuck in this cage, but they [00:15:00] are contained cage wouldn't open. Luckily, though, the river stopped rising, started receding. Everything started going down and all of these dogs were completely safe physically.

[00:15:09] Natelle Murphy: Bye. They started all having exactly the same psychological pattern, which was they started lying down all the time. They completely lost any interest in their surroundings and anytime like a handler that they were previously friendly to will come over and open the cage door, they would leave the dog out.

[00:15:26] Natelle Murphy: The dog would be very aggressive with them and all of them showed like these similar symptoms. And it's kind of like the physical effect of being contained when you want to escape, like lots of trauma has themes like that people have experienced, right? But like Pavlov called this inescapable shock.

[00:15:45] Natelle Murphy: And it's like a really interesting thing to consider. Like if we get into fight and flight and we don't do anything, we're psychologically affecting ourselves. Like, are we like these dogs? Like, what do you think? 

[00:15:55] Amy: I can imagine if it were me stuck in a cage, and I thought that death was what Imminent. And I was about to drown, and you know, and not an instant death either, quite terrifying. I would have quite a bit of trauma from that. I would be desperately trying to get out of that cage, and I would probably not want to be in any closed spaces after that.

[00:16:19] Natelle Murphy: Yeah, , the effect of containment is, like, really interesting. There's this case study that talks about this young boy, and he was in first grade, and he lived in New York, [00:16:30] and on September 11th, his school was right next to the Twin Towers, and his parents, , were dropping him off for the beginning of the day.

[00:16:37] Natelle Murphy: And when the first plane hit, all of the parents who were, You know, walking distance away, turn around. So we got to go back. We got to like, get our kids. They ran back in, they would each pick up, you know, their kid and they all escaped safely. So in that case, they were in this incredibly dangerous situation, like, you know, something that would easily be traumatic.

[00:17:00] Natelle Murphy: And when they were speaking to this little boy afterwards, he like, you know, Generally could remember a lot of it. He was showing some like interesting problem solving skills where they asked him to draw a picture of the 9 11 tragedy and he drew a really big trampoline coming like outside of the window.

[00:17:16] Natelle Murphy: So, it's like, he's coming up with these solutions of how, if this were to ever happen again, how could we fix it? And they think that his parent coming and picking him up and him being like, reconnected to that source of safety is what caused the trauma to not develop into something like post traumatic stress disorder.

[00:17:34] Amy: Yeah, so I mean, I guess it's, it's about being in that traumatic situation, and even if , It wasn't the result of your own actions that got you back to safety, but then being able to get to safety as opposed to the inverse occurring. That must have done something for him. Was it?

[00:17:53] Natelle Murphy: Yeah, exactly that. Well, that's what these 2 guys Peter Levine and Pat Ogden think they've created this [00:18:00] new kind of therapy called somatic therapy. You don't talk about your trauma, you engage with it, like, within your head and then you have to use awareness to go into your body and kind of. You know, if your body is calling for escape, if your body is doing fight or flight and you are being contained, this therapy approaches that issue.

[00:18:23] Natelle Murphy: First thing that does is it builds awareness and what you have to do is kind of like, They suggest movement, like something like yoga or Tai Chi, like rhythmic movement, where you can tell where your body is in space, but also gain awareness of your internal viscera, like your heartbeat, to 1st, get into an awareness of that.

[00:18:44] Natelle Murphy: And then he describes this thing called pendulation Levine does and pendulation is, you start to engage a little with, like, the traumatic thought and , you try and identify because using that gained awareness from the 1st step where you feel the trauma and what the physical effects of the trauma are.

[00:19:04] Natelle Murphy: And you kind of go into an intensity out of an intensity to, like, kind of assure your body it's safe and you build up a tolerance to having that physical reaction to trauma. And then the 3rd step is to follow through on any, like, incompleted fight or flight, or anytime that you were contained during trauma and people will get up and, like, physically act out, pushing someone away or running or.

[00:19:26] Natelle Murphy: You know, like, swinging their fist in the air and. [00:19:30] There's this component of physically giving your nervous system what was contained before either because you were physically contained like Pavlov's dogs or because you were containing yourself because of, I don't know, like, societal expectations or just a fear of doing it or anything like that.

[00:19:46] Natelle Murphy: So, it's completely bottom up. It goes right to the body. There's like, hardly any cognition involved 

[00:19:52] Natelle Murphy: with it, 

[00:19:52] Amy: sense to me as you're explaining it and just this idea of moving through those actions of what you would have done. And it gives your body that. I don't know, release or, you know, it allows your body to tell your brain, okay, yes, I can do this if I should find myself in the situation again, or, yeah, it's all, it's incredibly interesting.

[00:20:15] Amy: I'm, as we continue, and it's, it's the same with, you know, every episode, it, the brain to me is just phenomenal. And I'd love it if we could understand it just a little bit more and the mind body connection. We're not quite there yet, but this is helping. And it's, it's very exciting.

[00:20:32] Natelle Murphy: All of these new approaches to me, like, I love that the door is open for them, like you said, and I also like that kind of like that sociocultural stigmas that you mentioned earlier is going down a bit more because, you know, it's interesting food for thought, but I guess, , to continue from, , the the escaping and that being something that your body needs, like, There's some theory that kind of approaches [00:21:00] thinking about that, 

[00:21:01] Natelle Murphy: this guy, Steven Porges, he created it, and it's this theory about how, like, the autonomic nervous system operates. And it's named after, like, a large nerve that runs down your body, the vagus nerve. And there's kind of three principles to it. There's hierarchy, neuroception, and co regulation.

[00:21:20] Natelle Murphy: And hierarchy describes just the 3 states that your nervous system can be in. So the first one is ventral. It's like safety, regulation, rest and digest. Like when we spoke earlier about Darwin's requirements for like reproduction and stuff like that. That's a ventral state. Then the next state is sympathetic.

[00:21:38] Natelle Murphy: It's what you might call like your fight or flight response. Like your cortisol increases, your adrenaline increases, your body is like ready to mobilize. And then there's another state that is called dorsal, which is like a nervous system collapse. And that's kind of like a lower energy state where like you cannot sustain that fight or flight energy anymore.

[00:21:58] Natelle Murphy: And you just, you know, there's like some dissociation. There's like a shutdown of the nervous system when it kind of gets to that point. So that's the hierarchy of how your nervous system can exist in any state. And there's also neuroception and it's how like the nervous system collects information, which is like, it's largely subconscious and it could be from inside the body or outside the body.

[00:22:24] Natelle Murphy: So, like if you're breathing changes and your body's like, oh, okay, that's like. [00:22:30] Neuroception is like the interpretation of that and but then there's also kind of like micro expressions and things coming from your environment that your body is perceiving to that might not also be conscious thought.

[00:22:41] Natelle Murphy: So that's the idea of neuroception. And then the other idea that's in it is co regulation, which is like, if me and you are here. In the same state looking at each other, and you can notice certain things about me, like micro expressions and little indicators that I am completely relaxed right now. Your nervous system also has a tendency to relax.

[00:23:03] Natelle Murphy: We relax in relation to other people. One interesting thing about co regulation is like this polyvagal theory extends to all animals. So , co regulation could be possible with like, your cat, right?

[00:23:15] Amy: It's like feeding off each other's energy, isn't it? And you get that a lot, you know, if you walk into a room and, and I hope this is where you're going, but , if you walk into a room and everyone's kind of just like hyper and you've just been in this relaxed state, you're going to notice that and then kind of, you know, feed off, off of their energy.

[00:23:33] Amy: And I know that that's, you know, probably an extreme example, but just to kind of highlight the point. And it brings me to think a lot of people. And I, and I don't know where or in what context I've heard this, but sometimes I've even noticed myself doing it. When you, you're sitting with someone or a group of people and then you, you end up mirroring them.

[00:23:54] Amy: You know, the way they're sitting or their posture or is, is [00:24:00] that sort of on the same page as what you're talking about here or?

[00:24:03] Natelle Murphy: I, may maybe certain polyvagal states would be related to certain kinds of body language. Like, you know, if you are co regulating with someone, you're both very calm, maybe you are more likely to relax. I don't know if there's an exact connection between typical types of, maybe, maybe that's something in like the sociological realm, where people tend to imitate each other.

[00:24:26] Natelle Murphy: And I think there is like, maybe a little basis in polyvagal theory, but I feel like it's a lot more about noticing, like, If you were in a situation that's dangerous, noticing, like, very small changes to your environment is, like, very adept, if you know what I mean, like, noticing, like, a change in somebody, you might say, Oh, they think something is dangerous.

[00:24:50] Natelle Murphy: I should be on guard to, or let's just say you start to feel. I don't know, like the air before a storm or something like all of this could be information that's like coming in to tell you how worried should I be right now? How activated should my body be right now? So, like, you know, maybe there is a connection here, but I think it's a lot more about the state of your nervous system than the state of your body, but they're interconnected.

[00:25:17] Amy: Yeah, and another thing that comes to my mind is you see, You know, if you're watching Reels on whatever social platform, sometimes you'll see like there's one that comes to mind, it's this dad holding a baby and [00:25:30] he knocks the door behind the baby's head and then goes to the baby, Oh, I'm sorry, I hurt you.

[00:25:35] Amy: Are you okay? But he actually hit the door with his hand and then the, so the baby starts crying

[00:25:39] Natelle Murphy: Yeah, no, we're picking up so many cues.

[00:25:42] Amy: yeah. And or another case you know, it's this, it's about, you know, how you react impacts how your children will react. So there's another one, there's this. This toddler fell down and the mother or, you know, the woman in the, in the video just said, Oh, that's okay.

[00:25:59] Amy: And started laughing. And so the baby got up and was like, Oh, look at me. I made a mistake kind of thing instead of crying. And so this is what I'm thinking about when it's just picking up on those cues and the reaction of others.

[00:26:12] Natelle Murphy: Yeah. And I think like co regulation for children is like a really interesting idea because babies are so soothed by like their mother's touch and hugging, , and it helps their nervous system to regulate. So like people always say that co regulation is like so important for babies. But I think an interesting thing when we consider just regulation in general, this is, Regulation sounds so positive, right?

[00:26:38] Natelle Murphy: Like, when you hear all this, , the hierarchy of the polyvagal theory, you might say, okay, well, I want to be a mentor all the time. Rest, digest, be calm. And I think to think that that is your goal is not. Like, to consider your nervous system fairly, we're, we're meant to take action. Sometimes we're meant to get more activated sometimes.

[00:26:59] Natelle Murphy: So our [00:27:00] goal shouldn't be to always become always be in, like, a ventral bagel complex. What we want to do is be able to recognize our body as we move through each of these states, and then be able to regulate ourselves and, like, have some control over it. So it's not that we want to always be. You know, ventral vagal rest and digest.

[00:27:23] Natelle Murphy: It's that we want flexibility and that's like the sign of a healthy nervous system. And like, I think one of the most hopeful things is there are people out there who live like very trauma saturated lives and they've had their nervous system activated a lot. But I think the fact that like regulation is such a focus of like the polyvagal theory, it gives a lot of hope that, you know, it's something that you can work to achieve.

[00:27:56] Natelle Murphy: And they talk a lot about how like reconnection with the body is one of the best ways to, you know, kind of be more in control. And there's like exercises and I think a lot of these exercises approach regulation from like a bottom up way and they're based on like, biological embodied experiments.

[00:28:18] Natelle Murphy: And like, 1 exercise that I could ask you to do is, like, can you think of a moment today where you felt like, in a ventral vagal state, like, calm rest and digest.

[00:28:29] Amy: [00:28:30] Yep.

[00:28:30] Natelle Murphy: Yeah, so just bringing awareness to that moment, even if it's fleeting. And it's, it's actually like harder than you might think. We're not wired for this. We're wired to be looking around our environment and seeing if there are threats and stuff. We're wired to look at the, you know, the negative. But if we can just like look at that second of calm or like, you know, I looked out the window and I felt The sun on my face and I connected with, like, those around me and I felt in rest and digest to just bring awareness to that state is like, so important.

[00:29:01] Natelle Murphy: And we can almost like, regulate ourselves by doing that. And then there's, the physical of breath practices and trauma history can actually, , affect your breathing in certain ways. And it can, , make, you can make certain ways of breathing also feel unsafe if it's something that the person has, like.

[00:29:19] Natelle Murphy: Avoidance associations with. So, approach breath work with a little bit of caution, slowly. If it doesn't feel good to your nervous system, that's okay. But a really easy exercise is sighing for every single nervous system state. A ventral vagal sigh of relief, just, and then like a sympathetic sigh of frustration. Or like a sigh of despair when you're in dorsal. Like it helps you calm down your nervous system and like return to home and ventral vagal. It's just as easy as that. 

[00:29:53] Amy: anybody listening regularly on the show will know that I'm currently pregnant and, you know, that takes a toll on your [00:30:00] body and your brain and everything. And my husband said to me the other day, you know, you're certainly making a lot of noises. And so I think I might be self regulating because I'm 

[00:30:10] Amy: sighing 

[00:30:10] Natelle Murphy: good. You've you've come up with these natural ways to regulate yourself even without knowing, resistance, breathing is another one, like breathing in and out of the straw so that you suddenly become like very aware of your in breath and out breath. That could be another regulating product that's, that might be one that like, you know, approach with caution.

[00:30:28] Natelle Murphy: There's also like movement practices. And they actually associate like different kinds of movement with being what you need in each state. So in ventral vagal repetitive circular movements might feel good and like bringing an embodied awareness. And then if you're in a sympathetic state, maybe, like, something to just release energy, like, to punch into the air to make, like, a jagged or disorganized movement.

[00:30:53] Natelle Murphy: And then when you're in dorsal, so, like, that's a pretty low energy state. So, even picturing moving might be enough, even, like. Paying attention to the movement that you don't have to control, like your heartbeat or your breathing, like anything to start movement and try and make your way out of that low state of shutdown could be even like a hand massage or something like that, just to bring a little movement here can help you regulate.

[00:31:19] Amy: And so are these things that you would do in a therapy session with a client? , 

[00:31:23] Natelle Murphy: Like I said, a lot of these do have to be approached with caution, but. You know, this doesn't, , resonate with [00:31:30] everyone, so, you know, sometimes I do find, like, I ask people to try and, you know, pay attention to their embodied experience, or, but it might not resonate with them, right?

[00:31:39] Natelle Murphy: And just because therapy is so all about the collaboration, that's okay, too. You know, I like to give lots of things to try. But, you know, no two nervous systems are alike either, so, like, certain things that could be regulating might not feel as good to other people, or, , people just are in naturally different states, like, you know, they might be in ventral vagal more, or dorsal more, or anything like that, so it's really hard to apply like a catch all, but I think experimentation is really, really important.

[00:32:09] Amy: Yeah, you certainly have to work to the individual. And sometimes it's about trying something that, you know, maybe you, you wouldn't have before. And if it works and you, it's something that you want to continue, then great. And it's also okay to say, no, I don't like that and move on.

[00:32:24] Natelle Murphy: Yeah. But I think all of this, like all of this talk on drama, there, there really is a common theme that befriending your nervous system, befriending your body. There's lots of studies that show that this could be a new way to approach it, that like, you know, psychological through physiological. I think the openness to it, like the way that it's starting to be employed in like a lot more therapies. I think it's very exciting. 

[00:32:47] Amy: Certainly, and anyone who is,, experiencing trauma or has experienced trauma and is living with, you know, the aftereffects of that, my only suggestion is absolutely give it a try [00:33:00] because, in my view, it really can't hurt. If you're with the right psychotherapist, then they're really looking out for you, and like you said, working to you as an individual, and so why, you know, why wouldn't you at least give it a shot?

[00:33:13] Amy: Natelle, thanks so much for joining me today. It's been really insightful and I'm excited to share it with all of our listeners. And I would actually love to know if anyone had any more questions or wanted to learn a little bit more about psychotherapy, where could they do that?

[00:33:28] Natelle Murphy: As of right now, I'm with my clinical practicum. I am accepting new clients at Rooted in Rising Clinic and you can see my complete availability and learn more about me and about what we offer at Rooted in Rising at RootedRisingPsych. ca.

[00:33:45] Amy: Thank you. And what I'll do for all of you who are listening and you want to click on that link, I'll just pop it in the show notes in either the video if you're watching on YouTube or on the podcast episode if you're listening via Spotify or Apple. Thanks Natelle again for joining today. It's been an absolute pleasure.

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