Trauma INformed fitness with Andrea Hanson
LINKS in this episode
Savage Grace Coaching
“Being trauma informed is all about letting the person trust themselves, not being the person that they come to lean on, because empowerment is the opposite of victimization.” Andrea Hanson M. Ed
Transcript
Ericka Thomas 0:00
Welcome back to the work in everyone. I'm your host Ericka and today my guest is Andrea Hanson. She's a licensed clinical therapist founder of lifestyle prescriptions, which is a neuroscience backed individualized, self help roadmap that aims to empower societal progress through accessible wellness. As a complex trauma specialist Andrea has spent over a decade learning neuroscience and gaining experience working with her clients. She's worked one on one with clients that are across the globe. And by blending a mosaic of lower brain and body based techniques at times including psychedelic assistance, Andrea draws out her clients natural inner healer, cultivating rapid and long lasting results. And I am so looking forward to this conversation because as you all know, we talk a lot about trauma informed instruction, trauma informed relationships, and things like that on this podcast, and I think we need to dig a little bit deeper into what exactly that means, what it looks like, and how we can really bring it into the real world. And so I think Andrea is going to be an excellent guest for us. So without any further ado, let's start our work in with Andrea Hanson. Welcome, Andrea, thanks so much for joining us.
Andrea Hanson 1:32
Thank you for inviting me, Ericka. It's so cool what you're doing here with your podcast. It's the fitness industry is so large and you see stuff all the time. It's just like, Oh, if only they knew and that and you're doing it you're you're letting people know how important it is to have trauma informed interactions in any type of wellness scenario, especially in fitness.
Ericka Thomas 1:55
All right, and we hear all the time about how exercise can help relieve stress, right, but we don't really go too much into well, how does it do that? Why does it do that? And so many people kind of get into this thought pattern that well, if a little bit is good, maybe a lot is better, right? And so we definitely are going to touch on that. But before we do that, Andrea, tell us a little bit more about yourself. What was your journey to get into this? This space of complex trauma and mental health and what does it look for it look like for you right now?
Andrea Hanson 2:44
It's kind of interesting because I started out as a clinical mental health counselor in graduate school, just not being interested in trauma and I wasn't interested in addiction either. I was, you know, raised in the same society that we're all raised in and, and in the society. The idea is you grow up and you get over it and you move on and from there, your choices or your choices and your choices are what get you whatever you get. And so I was more interested in working with kids or with different modalities until I did my first internship. And that was with opiate addicts and some people who were in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for for some crimes, so we won't get into and then at that point, I realized that so many of the techniques I was using, were ineffective, because it had nothing to do their choices had nothing to do with that upper part of the brain, where we make choices and we think about consequences and we have these thoughts about who we are and what we want and then we work towards them. It was all so much deeper down. And everybody there is just a major correlation between complex trauma and addiction. But I realized, you know, in that space that it was so much more complex than I even learned in graduate school, and I was in graduate school for three years and a cohort of eight people so So somehow, even there and during that whole time, we didn't really learn how complicated it all was and how much trauma really does impact our lives. So from there, I started taking in a lot of different trainings and working more and more on complex trauma techniques that I learned EMDR internal family systems somatic processing, I went to Dr. Bessel Vander Kolk training here, the certification training, and he's the one who wrote the Body Keeps the Score a lot of people are familiar with that book. Dr. Steven Porges has some trainings as well that I did and he's the polyvagal theory. A lot of people have heard of him. So I just started really taking in all of this other information that was out there that wasn't hot in the mainstream mental health field. And the more that I learned, the more it the better results my clients got and quicker because I was focusing in on what was actually happening in their neurobiology, as opposed to they need to just make better decisions and that's that they just need to think different and all that stuff. That seems so simple.
Ericka Thomas 5:25
Right? So simple, but not easy, right? There's a difference. Yeah, yeah. So let's kind of expand some some things there some to tease out some information for people and let's, let's see if we can define trauma. Maybe define is too hard of a word, but but explain it a little bit. So everybody understands what we're talking about. And along those lines to within that definition, like Who Who are we talking about? Who has experienced trauma and what that shows up like in the real world?
Andrea Hanson 6:09
Yeah, that's a big, that's a big one. Big question. I hear all the time people wondering like, well, do I qualify as having trauma is what I've been through bad enough to be trauma. And it's like this idea that's been placed on us at some point in time that trauma is some big bad thing that happens to us that we avoid that we think about all the time that we have nightmares about all the time. And in reality, trauma is simply anything that overwhelms our system, our personal system to the point that it's no longer doing what it would typically do on a day to day basis. It's now in a fight or flight mode, it's mitigating to try to reduce damage, or to adapting in a different way that's taking us off of our course, in order to move around something that's happening to us. So the most common traumas that we think about are like sexual violence or go into war being a veteran of war, or, or big things like getting in a car crash or surviving an earthquake, right. So those are definitely big traumas that do impact us. However, complex trauma comes in. A little bit different angle, where it's not as big and it's not as obvious, but it tends to happen more over time during the years that our brain is developing. So when we're children, and that looks like you know, even something as simple as being adopted in that moment. When you're taken away from your primary source, your your mom who you've been in for the last nine months. In that moment, your brain goes on the fret, a little bit is freaking out. It thinks it might die, because your baby and you really can't think about anything. So it thinks it's going to die. And that disrupts development. Enough that later on, a lot of those kids end up getting diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, a lot of them struggle with self harm and substance use. So that's from that that brain disruption that nervous system ventral disruption that happens so early on in development. I mean, don't think of that as a traumatic experience, especially if they go to a loving home, but to the brain to the nervous system it is. That's so
Ericka Thomas 8:33
that's so interesting and really profound, right? Because that opens the door. to thinking about all have these experiences that exactly what you said to us may not count as traumatic but the body reads them differently. The nervous system reads those experiences differently. So the story that we create in our rational mind about who we are and how we move around in the world may not match up. And and that can be pretty confusing for people.
Andrea Hanson 9:10
Oh, yeah. It's so confusing. We like to think that our entire brain is this thing that we control with our thoughts, and with our actions that we're totally in control. But that's just the highest regions of our brain and those aren't even developed until we're in our mid or late 20s. So in reality, typically, especially with conflicts that have trauma that happens during development. That's not in our conscious selves at all. That's the part of the brain that is developed prior and while the limbic system is developing in the limbic system is where, you know, the the amygdala is the hippocampus, the emotion centers of the brain, and then below that the survival center of the brain. Those are developing before we reach six. So we're born with our brainstem and a little bit of brain that allows us to kind of reach for things and see a little bit of color and attach to people we can tell when we're making eye contact with people as a baby. So we can attach in that way. But beyond that, everything starts to build from the base up throughout development. And of course, there's matter there, right, but it's neurons hardening and the brain getting bigger. And before the age of six, we develop essentially our map of the world. What's safe what isn't safe, what we enjoy, what we don't enjoy, and then everything built on top of that is built on that map. So everything that we consciously become so we can think like, oh, I don't even think about that. That happened so long ago. That's not who I am, and at the same time, have our bodies on a cellular level still reacting to stuff that happened that we don't think about ever.
Ericka Thomas 10:52
Yeah, totally. And I'm not. I'll just share in my own experience, so I offer trauma release for my yoga clients and in classes and one on one and in my own personal trauma release practice when when going through training and and and really working with that tremor. I was shocked at the kinds of things that came out of my body and were tied to memories that I had not thought about in 45 years you know, things that I had complete, not buried not on purpose buried but they just were not. I never thought I didn't put any importance on them. But my body certainly did and it would in that tremor kind of recreate those same movements and it connected to those memories and brought it back up to the front of my brain. And it was just a fascinating experience. Now that doesn't happen for everyone. Because the story isn't always connected in that way. But it was just a really interesting illustration for myself about, you know, what counts as trauma and what doesn't right and how we need to be a little bit more open to the idea that maybe we should take a little better care of our body in a way that it can understand.
Andrea Hanson 12:27
Yeah, I love that point that taking care of, of our bodies our body does is the ultimate witness. It's always there. We can get lost in thinking about a bunch of other things or thinking about the future we can dissociate. We can fall asleep, but our body is always there bearing witness to whatever it is that we experience. And we even can reach a point of overwhelm where our brain doesn't even process what's happening. So there's the thalamus in the brain. And it's kind of a gourmet chef that takes all of the information from all the different senses, visual physical, what we're hearing all of that and it cooks it together to make some sense of it. And that together creates our experience and then in turn, becomes our memory that gets stored. But in moments of intense overwhelm. That doesn't happen. The thalamus freaks out and the sensors don't get integrated. So what we end up happening is having is later on in life, we experience floods of different sensations or emotions and it's kind of flashbacks right we the flashbacks we see in movies aren't really what flashbacks look like flashbacks are most often just like, wow, I'm having this really uncomfortable sensory experience. Suddenly there's this lump in my throat I feel like I can't breathe I feel so tense. All these things happen and it doesn't make sense to us logically. But somewhere in our in our salience network, it's picking up on something that seems like a similar threat. So we're bringing all of that back, but the thalamus hasn't cooked it into that meal yet. We don't know what's happening yet. So the body is telling us I'm not okay I'm not okay. But we don't exactly know why. And so often we've brushed it aside and and reject it and say okay, well I need to get on with my life. So you need to get an order and then we just kind of disconnect from our bodies and then escort of course I'm sure you've seen as a fitness professional, that once we disconnect from our bodies, it makes it really, really hard to take care of our bodies.
Ericka Thomas 14:31
Yeah, yeah. And we're so quick to dismiss those sensations that don't fit into a neat little box and we just don't have time to deal with it in that moment. And so you're just gonna have to wait right? And the body only waits for so long, and then it's just going to let loose. So let's talk a little bit about how living in that state of trauma can maybe change our brain and the body chemistry I'm really interesting interested in this because so many people come to to health and fitness and wellness and, you know, the, the it's when we're recording this this is the beginning of the year. So it's like let's get healthy. Let's move our body maybe if I go to the gym three or five times a week, I'll have less stress. And when we do that, yes, there's the side effects the great fitness side effects that you can achieve but sometimes it doesn't work exactly like that. And so let's let's talk about that, like when we're in this heightened state this hyper vigilant state for too long, how does that change what we think of as a normal response to exercise and, and wellness?
Andrea Hanson 15:59
It changes so many parts of the brain. There's no region of the brain that goes untouched by trauma. So it's it's going to be a little difficult to narrow it down but I've been in try to narrow it down to the areas that specifically can link to weight. That's typically when when we're exercising a lot of times it's about weight, it's about overall health as well. But so one of the things that happens when we experience this trauma overwhelm is that releases all of the same chemicals that are released when we get a physical injury. So when you cut your finger and it needs to scab up and it needs to heal, your body releases a bunch of chemicals to go to that wound. With trauma, though there's this confusion of there's nowhere to go, everything's floating around everywhere because there must be this injury, but there is no injury. So what ends up happening is your body just ends up marinating in these chemicals. And if it's happening over and over and over again, your body continues to marinate in these chemicals. And that in turn impacts your cell just especially your cells involved with inflammatory responses. So that starts to develop these things of you know, getting swollen really easily having rashes really easily. All of these inflammatory issues that I'm sure a lot of your audience knows they interfere with being able to actually get results when you're exercising. Your body is reacting poorly to the exercise.
Ericka Thomas 17:31
Yeah, that is that is really, really interesting. So there's this there's there's this that you've just explained but then what is that? The answer to that because we still want to move right? We still want to be moving. So it actually brings to mind this overtraining that can sometimes happen with people because Okay, so we are we're we're doing everything right. Supposedly, we're doing everything right and yet we're still not seeing results. So that must mean I need to do more, or I should do more or I should you know, lock down my diet. Harder, you know, and so, it seems like the answer that answer could exacerbate the problem because we're adding another layer of stress on to this already. Overwhelmed system right? If we're already in overwhelm, it may not be the best choice to kind of continue to pile on it.
Andrea Hanson 18:42
Yes, yes, exactly. It's it's that diet culture that we've all found ourselves in, the less calories is going to be better and more exercise is going to be better but what a lot of research has shown with especially high intensity workouts like running or really getting your heart rate up is that can be good. However, it also was certain people with trauma, it can cause them to gain weight, because their body is having the opposite reaction. When we exercise really vigorously it activates our executive functioning regions which are at the very top of our brain. So for those who struggle with, you know, completing tasks or with losing their train of thought or things like that, that that high intensity workout can be really beneficial. However, if there's unresolved trauma, it activates that fight or flight in a way that our body thinks, oh my gosh, I'm in survival mode. I'm not okay. And naturally in survival mode, we pack on weight, because we don't know what's going to happen. We could be in the middle of a war and not have access to any food. So we obviously need fat on our bodies. If we think about it in the evolutionary sense, where humans have come from exercising running a ton, it activates the sense of, I'm not okay right now. And when that trauma is resolved, it can work better. But at anytime we're over exercising our body and under eating, it's going to eventually bring up way too much cortisol way too much of that stress chemical and cause the opposite effects.
Ericka Thomas 20:21
Yeah, I think this is really important for all those fitness professionals out there who who have like 24 hours a week of classes or are overworking themselves, in front of their clients leading all those classes and then on top of that doing their, quote unquote, their own workout. We need to be very, very careful with ourself because even if you consider yourself not to be someone who's experienced complex trauma, you can still push yourself into that space without without intending to it's not it's not on purpose. It's just, we we just need to learn how to work with our body in a little bit more compassionate way I think.
Andrea Hanson 21:12
Compassion is is perfect and listening to the body and going slow, so exercises to answer the question you had earlier. What can we do because we want to keep moving. The low and slow exercises yoga is incredible, especially trauma informed yoga, and the difference between trauma informed or there's a specific yoga that's been really well researched for trauma, and called TCTs. Why and it's very permission based. So as opposed to the instructor telling you what to do your body with your body, they suggest what you might want to do with your body. You couldn't do this. It could feel interesting to try this you could try to pose and that offering permission to your body and noticing the sensations happening in your body while moving in these ways to build up strength and build up flexibility is a really, really powerful workout especially for those with complex trauma or with like what you're talking about kind of like the adrenal fatigue or just overworking yourself over and over and over again, to where your body's chemicals are out of balance. And bringing that back. And that specific kind of yoga builds up your insular cortex, and that insular cortex helps your brain connect to your body and listen to your body. So then you're able to follow your body then you're able to take care of your body once you've actually connected to it.
Ericka Thomas 22:38
Yeah, that's amazing. Okay, so can you say that type of yoga again, you said TC TCTSY
And what does that stand for? Do you?
Andrea Hanson 22:50
It's Trauma Center. have to look it up, but it's the trauma center. Yoga, okay. I'll send it to you can include it in the links in the bio.
Ericka Thomas 23:02
Yeah, I will. I will put it in our show notes. Because that's, that's fascinating. Yeah. So is it possible to be trauma informed? As an instructor if your format is one of those hardcore kinds of exercise classes like hit or a boot camp or even a Zumba class?
Andrea Hanson 23:30
Yeah, I definitely think it is. I think that it's about the environment that you create within your class. So just giving a little blip at the beginning about listening to your body. Don't look around and compare yourself to what everybody else is doing. Don't look at the instructor and also as an instructor honoring people when they do that. When you see somebody taking a break. Of course we want to motivate but we want to motivate within that trauma informed space of listening to your body. So even adding, you know, it's okay for you to rest right now. And if you feel like you can keep going then keep going.
Ericka Thomas 24:11
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So here's the crux of trauma informed and, like the mental health angle in fitness, we need to be very careful about staying within our scope. So what would you say to instructors who are, you know, kind of holding back a little bit about talking about some of these things, because they don't want to, you know, break out of their their scope of practice and of course, we aren't, we aren't therapists or anything, but I gotta tell you as a health coach, people tell you things. The problem is they tell you things like after the fact like after they've gone through this high intensity workout, or, like they'll they'll tell you that they're expecting but after the kickboxing workout that they just did. So, you know, it's it's sometimes it's a little difficult to kind of approach the space in a way that that that feels feels professional and credible. We want to be we want to be credible, but but at the same time, we don't want to overstep so there's definitely a line there. So how can what are the best ways what would you suggest for fitness professionals to be able to stay within their scope and yet still have an impact, an important impact on the mental health of society basically, because we get so many people just walking in off the street. What can you share along those lines?
Andrea Hanson 26:06
Scope is hard. You know, first to validate that as a mental health therapist, it's hard as well. I have clients that, you know, I work with all kinds of clients who have all kinds of things going on in their lives. And so, having, having people ask those things or bring up those things is always a challenge. Yeah, I have people ask me about fitness a lot too, or nutrition. And I always have to hold the line there. I'm I can help you through this. I can help you with the mental health end of this, but you will have to go to end attrition asked or to a fitness instructor in order to actually do that end of things. So on my end, also, it's so important that we all stay within our code scope so that we don't accidentally harm our clients or our customers. As far as how you can go about that is getting to know in your network in your area. Who are the trauma professionals who who can you refer the people to and have brochures have cards, and that's a really great way to hold boundaries without dismissing somebody listening and saying, Wow, like it sounds like you're going through a lot right now. I'm so glad that I can support you in this space through your fitness journey. And I think it would be really valuable for you to talk to my friend, Brittany or whoever it is about this other end and maybe we can both help you at the same time. As a therapist, I've even signed had clients sign releases so that I can talk to their fitness instructor instructors or nutritionist so we can all be on the same page about how we can best help our client through whatever they're going through and get to the other side of it. Yeah, having ReferralCandy is is really good.
Ericka Thomas 27:56
That is a great bit of advice. Absolutely. Yeah, because if you just can't, you just don't know you just don't know what is going on with each individual especially in a class state. And maybe we can we can explain a little bit more about what it exactly means to be trauma informed. When you're when you're speaking with your clients. Or with your neighbor or you know, your your banker, I mean, what exactly it goes into being trauma informed because I think for some people it's it's easy to just not speak, it's almost like it can be very scary, you know, to to, because we don't want to do exactly what you said we don't want to harm anybody but we certainly don't want to be paralyzed and we you know, and so having this understanding of exactly what's going on in the brain and the connection to the body is very helpful. But but can you explain a little bit about like, what does it mean for someone who's not in the mental health field to be trauma informed?
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Andrea Hanson 30:07
That is complicated and there's so many different scenarios that can come up. When we're talking one on one with somebody. It's important to not pretend like we know exactly what they're going through or pretend that we know what they need to do. We've feel a lot of pressure I think sometimes to know the answer and to give advice and that's how we feel helpful, but often that the opposite of helpful being trauma informed is all about letting the person trust themselves, not being the person that they come to lean on, because empowerment is the opposite of victimization. And whether you are persecuting or rescuing you're still putting the person the other person in that victim place. We are not here to rescue you. We're not here to persecute, you're here to crop up to help them help themselves, essentially. So when somebody is talking to you about something that's going on in their lives, instead of saying, oh my gosh, I know exactly what you're talking about. This is what happened to me. We just say and of course that's that's appropriate on some levels with some friends, right? Going back and forth like that. But in this situation where somebody's you don't really know them, you're just trying to be there for them in that moment. And they're saying these things to you. A more appropriate responses. Wow, I can't even imagine what you might be might be going through like, it seems like it's taking you to so much drink to get through this thing might or maybe with that, or I don't know what you're going through. I could imagine how difficult it would be. And then along with that, not giving advice, not giving them suggestions about what they should do, aside from offering referrals. But beyond that, not saying oh well, you should dump him or you should
The internet didn't like that. No, apparently now. They're like, stop. Yeah, so that kind of advice that make you somehow an authority in their life, like you know, better than them what they should be doing. Even if you really think you do, even if it really seems like they should just, you know, do that move to a different state or whatever it is. You don't know the whole story. You don't know the whole context. You don't know their life and your advice is not helpful.
Ericka Thomas 33:06
Yeah, that that's, that's super important. And it goes back to scope too, right. Because, you know, unless somebody specifically asked you for for something outside of that, outside of the fitness scope, it might be difficult to see where that line is. So it may may benefit us to take some time and really think about those professional boundaries.
Andrea Hanson 33:34
Exactly. And even as a mental health therapist, I don't give advice. I know so much more about my clients. I know their history. I know their context. But my goal as a trauma therapist is to get their system to a point where they can make decisions in their life that are healthy, not to tell them what those decisions are.
Ericka Thomas 33:53
Right, right, right. So let's talk a little bit about how to know if you have trauma yourself. And then maybe expand that into like when you are in the presence of someone else, what to look for or to be careful with. And you know, from the point of view of FitPro, and what I'm trying to get out here is this skill around co regulation is when we're in this group setting, or even or one on one, we anytime we're in the presence of another human being we are we are co regulating in some way. And hopefully that's in a positive way that maybe we can kind of explain co regulation and the importance of being able for yourself to kind of self regulate yourself so that you can be a better co regulator.
Andrea Hanson 35:12
Yeah, if we think about it, you know, humans are pack animals. We don't survive on our own and we never have. So back, way, way back and evolution are not even that far back take 300 400 years ago, if you were cast out of the clan or whatever it was and you had to go out into the wilderness on your own chances are you were going to die. So as our our own nervous systems are set up that way, or you know, if we have to belong in a crowd, if we're outside of the crowd, if we're totally alone, if we're abandoned, we're not going to make it especially as babies and children humans are just, we're not like wolves. Wolves can survive on their own a lot quicker than we can. So our entire systems are set up to react to somebody else's system. As soon as we're born, we really attach to that eye contact from our caregivers. And we need that eye contact in order for our brains to develop the way that they need to develop. If you have a depressed caregiver or a neglectful caregiver, and they're not interacting with you in that way that you do with babies where you make facial expressions and they make the same facial expression, then the baby's going to start freaking out because you're not you're not interacting with and it needs that interaction in order to feel safe. And secure. And we continue needing that our entire lives. It doesn't end at some point in childhood. And especially it doesn't seem like it but teenagers really, really need that attachment even though they're pushing against as hard as they can. But our entire lives. We really need that in order for our nervous system in order for our brains to function appropriately. So it's it's hard in that moment when we're when we're with somebody who is struggling to regulate or when we ourselves struggling, struggling to regulate a lot of times there's that shame of Oh, my gosh, I'm being a burden I'm not okay. I need to go off and be by myself. I can't reach out for help, when really what we need in those moments is connection is to feel like it's okay for us to not be okay right now and we can still belong in our pack when we're not okay. I totally missed your earlier question. I'll go back to that. Your earlier question was how do we know if we have trauma? Yeah,
Ericka Thomas 37:39
yes. Yes.
Andrea Hanson 37:42
That one is really it's hard. It's so hard. Especially because what we were talking about earlier, when a lot of times it's not what we are thinking about at all. It's not we don't think of it as trauma. So we're not really going through our mind racking our brains trying to think of where's my trauma. But most of the time what I see it's when things seem to not quite be working. When you are you know, exercising but the weights not coming off when you've gone to doctor after doctor after doctor doctor about your inflammation or hormonal issues, and no one can quite put their finger on what's happening. When you've seen therapists and you've done talk therapy, where you're just talking back and forth, and you're you feel like you've gained some insights, but you're not really making a ton of progress. It seems like something is deeper down. And it's kind of comes in waves and like topples you over and there's just nothing you can do about it even though you've you have all the therapy skills. Those are clues that there is more complex trauma deeper down in the brain that hasn't been addressed yet.
Ericka Thomas 38:53
Yeah, that's that's really interesting because all of the things that you described, right? There are things that come up in the body as reactions, not necessarily how you are thinking or feeling about anything that's going on around you. Those are those are like physical, physiological responses that we might not attribute to trauma. You know, we might we might just think, Oh, well, my stomach hurts all the time. It's always been like that. Nobody can tell me what is wrong with me. So I'm just gonna live with it. It's my new normal, right? Or my joints ache all the time. And, you know, I'll just live on Advil for the rest of my life. You know, it's it. We don't connect it in so many ways. We don't connect like how our body feels. With our mental health at all. And so, like, the next question there is is it important to know what the story is?
Andrea Hanson 40:04
No, no, it's not. In fact, a lot of the clients that I have worked with, we never really put a finger on exactly what it is. There's a lot of different instances potentially. But the most important thing is the body sensations, what's coming up, and how we can shift that. There's the internal parts of ourselves that get stuck along our timeline. A lot of times when the thalamus gets disrupted, and we don't integrate our memories into our timeline, so there's parts of us that are stuck in moments of time. So when we can gather those internal parts and reintegrate them into the present, we start stop having as many of those symptoms and we don't have to know the full story of exactly what happened. We don't have to go over the detailed over and over and over again, that's that's a really old way of working through trauma, but it's been shown that just repeatedly telling your trauma story over and over again actually reaffirms it and makes it worse, as opposed to healing it and making it better.
Ericka Thomas 41:14
Right and, and it's my understanding that you know, that retelling of your story, you get really good at retelling that trauma story, you start to identify with that, and desensitize yourself to that. Yet the body actually can't. The brain and the body can't really desensitize only one spot, it desensitizes you from everything. So sort of works against that mind body connection that says we want to be sensitive to the sensations that are coming up in the body so that so that we can have an accurate communication with that so can we can know that. Yeah, that sensation is I'm just hungry. It's not that I'm gonna die, you know, like that, that the difference is, is pretty subtle, and it can easily get confused with chronic pain and chronic dysfunction in the body for sure.
Andrea Hanson 42:19
Oh, exactly. That's a really great way to put it. We need our emotions. They are part of our map. They're part of what guide us through our life that tell us those cues of I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm in danger. I'm happy things are going well. I feel guilty. Maybe I did. Something wrong. And we need them to be calibrated in a healthy way. When we go through a lot of trauma. They're calibrated in this fight or flight survivalist mode that throws them totally out of whack and we learn to not trust them and as we desensitize to them, you're exactly right. We do sensitize from what's most important, but it's so important for us to be able to feel our emotions and to use them in a healthy way.
Ericka Thomas 43:04
So how can fitness professionals coaches wellness professionals, how can we help our clients along that path to become more aware of those sensations in the body in a way that doesn't kind of trip over outside of our scope?
Andrea Hanson 43:31
The really good question and that's every individual is so specific that it's hard to know what that line is with them. But the basics there's very basics of having open and honest communication being reliable making eye contact and facing your body towards someone having open body language. These are all things that just start to relax the nervous system and connect people to telling people outright you know, listen to your body when you're doing the stretch before or after the class, saying you know what's happening in your body but suggesting that it could be totally different in their body and that's perfect for them to not overthink it or not worry about it to go at their own pace and encouraging seeking medical support mental health support and acknowledging you know outright just to everyone not waiting for people to come talk to you by acknowledging out right that you know if you have certain life experiences or if you've been overwhelmed throughout your life or are in a period of overwhelm right now some vigorous exercises might exacerbate that and might make you feel more anxious or might make you hold on to weight. So to just help them be aware that these things could happen and that creates safety. It's all about creating safety and then letting them do the rest.
Ericka Thomas 44:58
Right right. And you're talking about not just safety in their physical environment, but also encouraging that safety within their own body.
Andrea Hanson 45:10
Yes, yep. Creating emotional safety for them. And with any kind of safety, there also comes boundaries. So in physical safety, there's, there's walls, right, those are physical boundaries, or there's there's limits. So one of those boundaries is what we were talking about earlier with the scope of practice of knowing when is the time so if they feel safe, they might feel like oh, this is a safe place. For me to share all of my trauma, but that's not necessarily the case. Right? So having that boundary of you know, if they start talking about that giving them the referrals,
Ericka Thomas 45:46
right, and and as, as someone who has worked with people in in those states, we need to be very careful with ourself because it's, it's, you know, we've been talking about professional boundaries here, but we need to understand that. Yes, we want to be there for our clients. It's okay to listen if it's okay for you to listen. And you it might not be okay for you to listen to, to what they're sharing. It might not be good for you as the as the coach to hear where they're coming from. So, it you know, again, thinking about what your professional boundary is going to be. If you're not really familiar with the person or that, that that trauma world then, you know, we maybe need to take a step back and I loved your tips about having those referrals ready, ready. Because, you know, some stories I don't know about other people, but for me, I am a very visual person and I can instantly see what people are saying in my head and those images don't always leave my head. So I have to be very, very careful with what we discuss.
Andrea Hanson 47:10
Yeah, absolutely. 100% Protect yourself. And that falls also into that CO regulating and also into the non rescuing if you're putting yourself on the line to be there. For somebody else, you're stepping into that rescuing category and you're automatically putting them in that victim category, then neither of you benefit from that dynamic. It might feel nice at the time, it might feel like you're being helpful, and that feels good. And for them. It might feel like they're having some catharsis and letting stuff out and that somebody cares but in the long run, not beneficial for either of you. So regulating yourself. One easy way to regulate yourself is to breathe out for longer than you breathe in. So if you just breathe in for two counts, one, two and then breathe out for four. That helps activate that rest and digest database. So if you find yourself if you notice that there's something going on with one of your clients, whatever your exercise clients, and you notice that your heart rate is getting higher or your your brain is racing, trying to think of like oh my gosh, what do I do? What do I say? Or start with that breathing to in four out of kind of like a thigh similar to how we breathe when we're asleep like really nice, nice, nervous system. Breath there. And then from there, try to think of that that triangle, you know, am I is my next step going to be furthering a sense of victimization with them or am I going to help them create and how can I help them create? How can I not rescue right here because first off it's not in my scope. Second off, it's not helpful.
Ericka Thomas 48:57
Right, right. Okay, so let's get to some specific things. Maybe. My question is, this is a two part question. So what should fitness professionals be paying attention to when they're designing classes that they want to be trauma informed? Or workouts or whatever, if they want those series of movements to kind of support the nervous system in a better way. And then on the flip side, for from a student perspective, if students are coming into a class, and they want it to be something that supports their mental health and their nervous system, what is it is it important for them to look for what is it important for them to tease out of the class?
Andrea Hanson 49:50
Yeah, so one important thing, I think, when it comes to being trauma informed in general, is to acknowledge that we're not trying to create a space that is 100% sugar free, that is totally cushy. That, you know, gives into this idea that everybody just needs protection all the time. That's not what we need when it comes to trauma informed. I mean, people hopefully have their own bedrooms that they can accomplish that sense of safety and but that doesn't need to be the workout. I love it. People with trauma aren't just automatically like fragile damsel in distress, right? So we don't need to think about all of the tiny things, at least in this kind of like fitness regimen. We don't even thinking about all the tiny things that could be triggering somebody, right? So I've heard people say like, oh, well, it needs to be women only it needs to be you know, maybe like no mirrors or anything like that. Just trying to make it as cushy as possible. But that stuff doesn't necessarily make it a trauma informed space. A more trauma informed space, if you're trying to set it up to be that way. would be maybe having some signs posted around about you know, listen to your body. Your body doesn't lie, right. Having at the beginning, having that little conversation, the beginning of each class about you know, listening, not competing, following yourself, allowing people to take breaks when they need to take a break. Not pushing them to do something that is going to further their discomfort and then creating, creating opportunities to for them to notice. So you know, notice your notice your heart rate what your heart rate doing. Asking just asking those questions throughout and helping them build up. That sense of it is okay for me to be connected to me here. I don't have to disconnect from myself and just go into this crazy workout zone that this instructor sent me to do it safe for me to to be connected to my body while I take care of my body.
Ericka Thomas 52:15
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So from the student perspective, it's the flip side to give themselves the permission right when they walk in because that instructor may not be a trauma informed instructor that class might not be have anything to do with that and but if, if you as an individual are, know your history and you know what you need, then any class you can kind of create your own experience within that hour of time. That fits exactly where you need it to be.
Andrea Hanson 52:51
Exactly. You're there. There's a fitness instructor to help coach you and that's awesome. They give you ideas about what you could be doing that could get you the results maybe. And it's also just that suggestion you can do what your body needs you to do, you can do what feels right for you. Yeah, because of my clients. I even encouraged them to do the opposite of what I'm saying is I'll do some TCTs why yoga with my clients and, and I'll say okay, this time, try to just do whatever you want, even though I'm making the suggestion, because it can be so powerful. Don't allow yourself to just do what you want to do. Within a space.
Ericka Thomas 53:33
Yeah. Yeah. And it's very challenging at first for people to let themselves pick something different. From what the instructor is, is showing. So setting that parameters setting those boundaries that for your class can be eventually very freeing for the for the folks that come to you. Sometimes it takes some take some some practice to be able to kind of break out of that we're so conditioned to do what that person up in the front of the room is telling us to do. And and it's it but once you can break that conditioning I'm always celebrating when I look out in the room and I see like six different people doing six different things. I'm like, yes, we've succeeded in the decades
Andrea Hanson 24:25
we don't want to be the weirdo. We we need to be ourselves to an extent and that it's a hard balance because yeah, we do want to be part of the crowd and it's built into us to be part of the crowd. It's important. And it's also important for us to take care of ourselves. So be in tune with your heart rate. be in tune with your muscles and what they're doing with, you know, if you're if you're overextending yourself and you're going to pay for it later and leave class early. That's okay. You went right or go and you know, lay down for a little bit, do some stretching and then join again later. Follow your body around.
Ericka Thomas 55:05
Yeah, I love that. Andrea, this is an awesome conversation. I may have to come back with you another time to chat again.
Ericka Thomas 55:14
So I always finish my guest interviews with a particular question and I'll explain it to you so I always ask my guests what their own personal work in is and a work in is simply what you do to bring balance for yourself that might look completely outside the box that has nothing to do with what we see on the surface of the body or even of the mind. So we I would love to have you share what your personal work in is.
Andrea Hanson 55:52
I I have really enjoyed play as non professional and non adult as that sounds. I try to make sure that I bring play into my life doing something that doesn't seem again professional oriented or adult going to a park and just laying under a tree and playing with the grass or making you know mud pies or whatever it is climbing the tree or you know painting I'm not good at painting but I enjoy just the plate of painting. That something that really brings balance and creativity into my life and reminds me that I'm existing in this body. I have this incredible opportunity to exist in this body in this world. And what on earth am I doing with it? If not enjoying it?
Ericka Thomas 56:47
Oh, I love that. I love it. I think we could all use a little bit more play.
Andrea Hanson 56:52
Oh, absolutely. I agree. So good for us.
Ericka Thomas 56:57
So Andrea, if people wanted to get in touch with you if they wanted to follow you or work with you. How can we find Andrea Hanson?
Andrea Hanson 57:07
My website is just my name. Andrea Hanson is S O n not Sen. So Andrea Hanson sh O. O n.net. And you can find where to contact me on there. There's a really interesting thing that you can do on my website. It's called the lifestyle prescription. And in there you can fill out an assessment it's only $15 It's a one time fee you fill out an assessment it takes about 20 to 30 minutes. And then from there, it comes out with a report for you specifically identifying the regions of your brain that might have been affected by trauma throughout your life and some things that you can do at home on your own to build up those regions of your brain. So if you notice that you might be falling under some of these categories that we've talked about, or if you're a fitness director that wants to offer something to your clients to help them build up those reasons with your brain. It could be a good referral to learn more about yourself and how you can help yourself
Ericka Thomas 58:12
oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. I might go there right after this
Andrea Hanson 58:16
is really, really interesting. It took me several years to put together hundreds of different you know, research papers going in through it and it's I think I'm a Brain nerd, but I personally think it's really exciting.
Ericka Thomas 58:29
i It sounds amazing. So all of those links will be in our show notes. So for people if they want to just zip over to our show notes at savage bass coaching.com You will find them all there under this episode. In the transcript. I always put those links at the top so make them quick and easy for everyone. And I just want to thank you Andrea, this has been a fantastic conversation. I'm so glad we were able to connect. Thank you.
Andrea Hanson 58:59
Thank you Erica, you have a great day.
Ericka Thomas 59:01
You too. Thanks so much for listening to the work and today if you like what you heard, and you want to learn a little bit more or maybe catch up on some previous episodes from season one or season two, head over to savage Grace coaching.com forward slash the work in and you'll get everything you need. There plus so much more. There's always new things coming out. And if you think of it, I would be so grateful if you would leave us a five star review on Apple or Spotify. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Thanks again everybody, and I'll catch you next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a resilience coach and fit-preneur offering an authentic, actionable realistic approach to personal and professional balance for coaches in any format.
Savage Grace Coaching is all about bringing resilience and burnout recovery. Especially for overwhelmed entrepreneurs, creators and coaches in the fitness industry.
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