We all have trauma, y’all. It just might not be Trauma with a capital T. Instead, many/most of us are just wandering around on this journey of life getting hijacked by our little-t trauma responses without even knowing it!
That’s why I brought in a globally-renowned trauma expert to talk to us about how trauma gets in the way of our joy. And, in full transparency, Dr. Stephanie Goldsmith, PhD is also one of my best friends from college. So, you know this will be fun. That’s right, I said it. A *fun* conversation about trauma.
Key concepts? Everyone has trauma, and you can’t talk yourself out of a trauma response! They are stored deep in our sweet lil’ brains, and they happen before the thinking part of our brain can take back the wheel. They also really fuck with our capacity to feel joy. But there is hope! And all sorts of options when it comes to getting help.
Connect with Steph (probably Dr. Goldsmith to you)
Goldsmith Psychological Services in Clairemont, CA.
Gestalt Associates Training Los Angeles (with training events all over the world!)
Dr. Goldsmith’s podcast about Gestalt Therapy: All Gestalt
Resources, References, and Links:
Attachment. There are a LOT of resources about adult attachment theory, but the Attachment Project website is pretty accessible and digestible if you want to learn more.
EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. One of many excellent, somatic approaches to healing trauma, and the one I have several years of experience with as a client. Highly recommend.
Crying. I want to live in a world where it’s okay to cry when you need to (and I wrote a post about it a while back). “Crying in Public Is a Service to Humanity.”
Limbic system. If you want to get sciency about this stuff, I googled it for you: “What Is The Limbic System?”
The Body Keeps the Score. One of the most widely-read books on trauma (though not one that I like as much).
Parts work. Basically the idea that we all have internal “parts” that have different roles, desires, and needs. Working with them means identifying them and inquiring about their motivations. Also something I’ve found very effective in my own healing journey!
Various other approaches to therapy and trauma work that Steph mentions: Brainspotting; EFT tapping (Emotion Freedom Technique); Gestalt Therapy; Neurofeedback.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This is a really popular and effective (in some ways) form of talk therapy. But not so much effective when it comes to processing/healing trauma.
Emotionally Focused Therapy. A therapeutic approach focused on healing attachment issues in relationship and supporting interpersonal connection.
Polyvagal Theory & Stephen Porges. The Polyvagal Institute’s website is a great resource for more information. Or! Stay tuned. I’ll be talking more about the nervous system with my next guest in a couple weeks.
Peter Levine – Waking the Tiger.
Oprah and Bruce Perry’s book – What Happened to You?
Love Languages. There are (in theory) five of them! And quality time is a big one, especially for Steph.
Transcript
[note: this transcript was generated by the AI function of Riverside.fm – and it’s pretty close! The editing tool in Riverside isn’t great, though, so I edit my episodes in Adobe Audition. I shaved off about 5ish minutes of “ums” and other unnecessary language, so the time stamps aren’t entirely accurate, but they’re close! Also, I haven’t gone through this line by line because perfect is the enemy of done, so please forgive the AI’s poor punctuation and malapropisms.]
Cate Blouke (00:00)
Oh, my goodness, y ‘all. I’m so excited to have this conversation today for a variety of reasons, one of which is the human that I am getting to have this conversation with. She’s amazing. I’m here with Dr. Stephanie Goldsmith, licensed clinical psychologist, associate clinical professor, director of a big fancy psychology thing that I can never say right. Steph, what is it called?
Stephanie Goldsmith (00:22)
It’s called Gestalt Associates Training Los Angeles. We’re a psychotherapy training program. We’re actually the longest running international psychotherapy training program in the world.
Cate Blouke (00:32)
See, it’s amazing. So she’s a really big deal, y ‘all. I don’t know if you picked up on that. She’s also a big deal to me because she’s one of my best friends from college. So there’s just like so much yumminess in this conversation for me.
Dr. Goldsmith is here to talk to me about talk to us about the relationship between trauma and joy, which is so important because trauma interrupts joy. And I want us all to live really joyful lives. And I think Steph does too.
Stephanie Goldsmith (01:04)
Indeed, I think the relationship is interesting. It can be bi -directional, right? So there are two concepts that are on the end of the same spectrum. So trauma can interrupt your ability to get to joy, but I think it actually does so in a well -intentioned way. Or I should say the trauma response does. So once somebody has integrated a trauma response and they get triggered in the future, that’s what can interrupt your joy. But it’s doing so in a well -meaning way.
Cate Blouke (01:08)
Ooh.
Okay.
Mmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (01:34)
trying to make your life difficult, it’s actually trying to help you out.
Cate Blouke (01:38)
Okay, okay. There’s so many things here. Okay, so trauma is not trying to interrupt my life.
Stephanie Goldsmith (01:46)
It is, but it’s doing so in a well -intentioned manner.
What Is Trauma?
Cate Blouke (01:49)
Okay, so trauma has good… okay. Whoa, whoa, this is amazing. So let’s start with what is trauma.
Stephanie Goldsmith (01:59)
Sure, it’s actually a very amorphous term that a lot of people have difficulty defining and explaining. Trauma is very much on a spectrum. All of us have trauma. There’s itty bitty little traumas that we experience every day and then we have these really big, what we would call a single incident trauma or a big T trauma. One of these big incidents is like a car crash or a sexual assault or something like that.
Cate Blouke (02:05)
Yeah.
Okay.
Right. Yeah, I think for me, for a long time, like that’s what I thought trauma was. And so when I was going through my personal journey of figuring my shit out, you know, I didn’t have a like big event to point to. So I was like, I don’t, I don’t have anything. But what has been incredibly helpful for me is recognizing that I had a lot, quite a bit of like less big T trauma.
And I think that’s a common experience, right?
Stephanie Goldsmith (02:52)
You
It’s definitely a common experience and that’s why I like to say everybody has traumas. They just impact our lives differently. So, you know, what some people call complex trauma or little T trauma, this is what I like to describe as that death by a thousand tiny cuts where, you know, maybe one little incident is something that upsets us, but we move on. But it’s a cumulative effect of having a lot of these incidences over time. So that can be…
Cate Blouke (03:00)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (03:21)
many, many different things. It could be abuse or neglect in childhood over a period of time by a trusted caregiver. We can look at racialized trauma where we see a lot of microaggressions or even kind of overt racism and overt oppressive actions. And those are traumatic, especially over time, cumulatively, we can see that it really triggers a stress response and it can have a huge health impacts on people. They can really affect their health outcomes. So
Cate Blouke (03:35)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (03:50)
Trauma is one, again, one of these big terms. It can be these kind of cumulative smaller incidences, or it can be one of these really major life events that there’s a, you know, cleaves your life, right? Before and after this big event that happened. So I think that’s why a lot of people have difficulty defining it because it can be many different things, but all of us have incidences of trauma. It just depends a lot on how big the incidences are, how long it happened for, at what…
Cate Blouke (03:53)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (04:18)
point in our development, it occurred. So all of these things can have different impacts on people. And then of course, the person’s individual experience, their resilience, their resources, their family system, et cetera, can also impact how they recover or don’t recover from trauma.
How to Recognize Trauma in Our Lives
Cate Blouke (04:35)
Yeah, so okay, so how do people know, how do we, so I think it’s a pretty common experience that a lot of adults don’t necessarily identify with trauma, right? This was my experience and I think is something that I know I came to.
Yeah, so we all experience traumas. Some have kind of a bigger impact on how we are able to show up in the world than others. How do we determine kind of when trauma is showing up in our lives later down the road? What does that look like?
Stephanie Goldsmith (05:18)
Many different things. And sometimes the symptoms aren’t as obvious. And I think, you know, I want to answer something you actually said a minute ago before, before I forget to, as you were talking about how sometimes people don’t know to label some of their experiences as trauma, because they think of it as the car crash or the sexual assault or the natural disaster, or being in a war zone or some of these more stereotypical definitions.
It’s very, very common in my work as a certified clinical trauma professional. So I see a lot of trauma cases in my practice. And a lot of people say, well, I shouldn’t be feeling this way, or I didn’t have trauma, or my childhood was fine, or, you know, no, the trauma is these other people with these big events and they don’t label it as such. And for me, I don’t care what you call it, but your brain and your body are going to do the same thing anyway. So,
Cate Blouke (05:56)
Mmm.
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (06:13)
you know, that’s why I like to say all of us have trauma. We can call it whatever you want to, you know, but a lot of people will dismiss their experience or they’ll minimize their experience because it doesn’t fit that mold of what they thought a real trauma was. And some people have traumas that are so early and ongoing that they don’t, they don’t really have words around it. We call that preverbal trauma. So they still think I don’t have something to hang my hat on. I don’t have something to point to and say, this is the reason why I do that.
Cate Blouke (06:26)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (06:39)
So I wanted to make sure I said that because a lot of people will dismiss or invalidate their experiences because they don’t have a concept of, hey, all of these death by a thousand tiny cuts will still make you bleed out. Like it will still…
Cate Blouke (06:51)
Yeah, my god, 100%. Like, and that was my experience, right? Of just not having a big event to point to, and then getting into therapy in adulthood and being like, why the fuck is this happening to me? Why am I showing up this way? What is going on? And then eventually realizing it was like, because like, I was overweight as a kid and was like really heavily bullied at school. And my big brother was really mean to me. And like, that
Stephanie Goldsmith (07:09)
Mm -hmm.
Cate Blouke (07:19)
fucking impact on my capacity to be in the world and be okay in my own skin and be in my body. And it turns out that’s trauma. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (07:28)
Yes, that is absolutely valid trauma. And if you think about it, developmentally, when you’re a child and these repeated instances are going on, that’s how your brain and your nervous system learn how to interact in the environment. So that’s where your brain and your body is starting to adapt, right? Your brain is starting to adapt towards this is these are the rules. This is how I can shortcut to act faster because our brains are actually really lazy.
Cate Blouke (07:51)
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (07:57)
you know, they want to do shortcuts as fast as possible. The sooner you can kind of make something procedural, the more effective you can be to move on to the next adaptive learning. So if you’re learning something about yourself, you’re unlikable, you’re too fat, you’re unappreciated in your family system, you’re the wrong size, you’re the wrong gender, you’re the wrong color, you know, whatever these things are, that becomes automated into your brain and your nervous system so that
Cate Blouke (08:05)
huh.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
yeah.
The Impact of Trauma on Attachment
Stephanie Goldsmith (08:27)
you know, that becomes truth that stops being checked out. It becomes automatic and your brain will adapt to that. So when you have these kinds of traumas, you are looking out for safety and danger. So now your brain is orienting around vigilance. So if you have consistent chaotic environment, when you’re a kiddo, you’re now going to be, orienting to the external world more than being curious about your internal world.
Cate Blouke (08:41)
Mm -hmm.
Right?
Stephanie Goldsmith (08:56)
Folks who grow up in secure attachment, where they are valued and maybe bad things happen, but their families and their social systems are still really wrapping around them and caring for them. They might say bad things happen, but I’m still okay. I’m still a good person. For people who have chaotic environments and unsupported caregivers and this kind of stuff, they really learn to orient outside about whether or not they’re okay.
Cate Blouke (08:56)
yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (09:25)
They come home and they hear loud noises and they say, dad’s drinking again. I had better go to my room. I better hide. I better leave and go to my friend’s house. So they become more vigilant to the outside world. And the why that matters is because as they grow up, they’ve now learned in order to stay safe and in order to regulate myself, I need to be more attentive to the outside world rather than curious about myself and my needs.
Cate Blouke (09:26)
Right.
Hmm. Okay. Ooh.
Stephanie Goldsmith (09:53)
So they don’t really learn to regulate what’s going on inside themselves and to learn what their desires are, what their path, there’s no room for that when you’re consistently monitoring for safety. So.
Cate Blouke (10:04)
okay. So would you say that’s kind of one of the key components of trauma response being in trauma responses that is being just really outwardly oriented and not as able to sort of turn inward and access kind of what’s going on in my own system.
Stephanie Goldsmith (10:20)
Yes, more externally oriented, more attending to that stimuli. And that’s why a lot of folks who have especially complex PTSD, which is that kind of developmental trauma, it’s why they don’t have great memories either from when they’re kids, which I hear a lot from people. I don’t remember that much from before I was like 11 or 12. I’m like, well, if you were learning to kind of externally orient and look for safety,
Cate Blouke (10:27)
Okay.
Stephanie Goldsmith (10:46)
Your brain doesn’t have all those resources then to code what we call mundane memories. Like when I was seven years old, I did a lemonade stand with my friends as a mundane memory. And it’s not going to code as much because your brain is using so many more resources to adapt around a chaotic environment.
Cate Blouke (10:54)
Great.
wow, I’m so glad we’re having this conversation. My body just like relaxed hearing that explanation of just like, my God, this makes so much sense. So, okay, that’s kind of what trauma is, how it happens. And then we get to adulthood. And then how does that kind of tend to impact how we show up in the world? What’s going on? What’s the through line there?
How Trauma Shows Up in Adulthood
Stephanie Goldsmith (11:09)
You
Well, if this person who’s now grown up to learn, who’s now learned to orient towards safety and danger, there’s less room for feeling safe in relationships. Think about adapting yourself around, how do I make sure that I don’t get hurt? Right, and it’s…
Cate Blouke (11:54)
Yeah, oof, I’m familiar with that one.
Stephanie Goldsmith (11:58)
So you see this a lot with damaged attachment relationships in adulthood because especially if the abuse or the neglect or the chaos came from a primary caregiver when you’re younger, you still have a desire, like we are hardwired to attach. We want to find primary attachment figure or figures and we’re looking for that. So we’re hardwired to do that. But the person whose ability to do that has now been interrupted by
Cate Blouke (12:15)
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (12:27)
maltreatment in some way. There’s I want to attach to you and that feeling of attachment is also now paired with and I get hurt. So you see people who I want a relationship, I want a partner, I want these kinds of things and I’m terrified that I’m going to be abandoned, I’m going to be hurt, I’m going to be left and they sometimes internalize the message of I am leaveable, I am not lovable.
Cate Blouke (12:38)
Mmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (12:57)
I am, you know, I’m a person who, you know, gets abused. Something about me, you know, led to this. So there’s a lot of like guilt and shame that comes along with that kind of upbringing. So it’s harder to feel entitled to love and entitled to attachment with, with whether a partner or friends or, you know, you know, any close attachment relationship, because now there’s that automatic learned belief of this is how I exist in the world. This is the treatment that I’m
expecting, you know, and I think this is why a lot of people also kind of repeat abusive relationships because it’s not abstract for them. It’s something that they’ve experienced and therefore some people internalize and this is what they look like.
Cate Blouke (13:27)
Yeah.
Right. And there’s this degree of kind of, as you were saying, our brain built that shortcut that this is what love is. This is how love feels. Yeah, how I can expect to be treated. And I just wanted to underline something you said about like not feeling entitled to love.
Stephanie Goldsmith (13:56)
how I can expect to be treated. Yeah.
Cate Blouke (14:09)
my heart just hurts and also is so familiar with that story. I think that certainly describes my experience and a lot of people’s experiences of, you know, getting to adulthood, really yearning for connection and love and having this just underlying sense of there’s something wrong with me. It doesn’t work for me.
I’m broken, et cetera. And this is where I put in a giant plug for therapy. Because guess what? I’ve, yeah, I mean, I’m not a therapist, but also I have reaped tremendous benefits from doing work in therapy around that trauma, around that ache, around that wounding. And the glorious thing is I can say I’m on the other side of it, like thanks to therapy.
Stephanie Goldsmith (14:45)
Me too, but I’m biased.
Cate Blouke (15:07)
and so.
I guess my next question is, yeah, what does working with that look like from your professional perspective? You know, I’ve been on the other end of it, but how would you describe or explain like, what needs to happen to really process trauma in the sense that, like, I went to talk therapy for a long time and it didn’t, it –
really helped me redirect my thinking and get clear on a lot of my patterns. But it didn’t kind of do the hard wiring, rewiring stuff. And so it wasn’t until I have experience with EMDR that has worked really well for me. But I’d love to hear you, Steph, talk about like,
what trauma therapy specifically is and what it’s doing that is different and important and valuable and wonderful and magical and everybody should do it.
Stephanie Goldsmith (16:19)
Well, I feel like I want to plug therapy too, not just as a therapist, but as a person who’s been a client on and off for many years. It’s been so healing for me to have done my own work and it also boosts my ability to be a really present therapist. I don’t think you can take anybody further than you’ve gone yourself. So for me, it’s almost like a mandate that I need to be on top of my own.
Cate Blouke (16:42)
Mmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (16:45)
mental health and my own recovery so that I can be an available presence, processed through person that I’m sitting across from other people while they are working through their stuff.
Cate Blouke (16:57)
Yeah, I love that. You can’t take anybody further than you’ve been yourself. That’s so true. It shows up in my coaching, certainly, and my recovery and 12 -step program. That’s how that’s kind of built, is that you go through the steps and then you can take people through the steps. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (17:16)
Same idea. Yeah. So I mean, I’m biased, but my thought is like, I don’t, I don’t know if I’d want to see a therapist who hadn’t done their own work. I mean, that’s, that’s my bias. So when I’ve gone to therapy, I’ve actually asked that question, you know, and before I booked an appointment, you know, like, Hey, this is really important to me. Have you done your own work too? And, you know, the, anybody who gets defensive about that, they’re not a good match for me.
Cate Blouke (17:24)
Yeah!
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Okay.
Stephanie Goldsmith (17:42)
That’s, you know, I explain my personal bias for that reason. But so trauma work is, the way it’s different, I think good trauma work, the way that it’s different is you’re using the whole person’s experience to help them heal. There’s some therapies out there that are very, what we call top down, meaning go from your cognitions and your intellectual processes and try to change what’s happening in your body.
I don’t love that approach. I think it has its uses, but I think it’s very limited.
The Role of the Body and Emotions in Trauma Work
I think you have to use what are called bottom -up approaches, meaning that you are using the somatic bodily experiences and the emotional experiences to inform your cognition. Even though it’s kind of a bi -directional thing where they inform each other, we know that we get a lot of information from our bodies.
And it feels like at least in this culture in the United States, we really prize cognition, intellect, things like that. And we ignore our body sense and we ignore our emotions. And for me, that’s a huge problem because why would you cut off any mode of information? So our emotions are actually like evolutionarily built to inform us about what is important to us, what we don’t like, what we want to avoid, what we want more of.
Cate Blouke (18:41)
Yeah.
Totally.
Stephanie Goldsmith (19:05)
I mean, think about it. If you like something, you usually move towards it and want more of it. If you don’t like something, you ignore it or you pack away. So, right. And that’s just the basic. I like or I don’t like something.
Cate Blouke (19:12)
Right. Yeah. Cucumbers? I move the fuck away from cucumbers. I hate them. They’re vile.
Stephanie Goldsmith (19:19)
You and your cucumbers.
Cate Blouke (19:23)
But like put a like yummy piece of chocolate pie in front of me. I’m gonna move toward that. But you know, yeah, to be fair, like my body does not like cucumbers and I honor and respect that.
Stephanie Goldsmith (19:30)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and think about it.
Okay, so you’re doing something that we would call like it’s a really adaptive app, you know, it has an adaptive function to it. I don’t like cucumbers, so we don’t eat it. But how many times do people talk themselves out of their emotion because they should do something else?
Cate Blouke (19:46)
Ha ha.
Mm, my God, I just got goosebumps, right? Of like, I’m crying, I shouldn’t be crying, I’m gonna stop crying.
Stephanie Goldsmith (20:02)
Right, and that’s a message you picked up somewhere, right? The message is probably, I shouldn’t cry because I look weak. I shouldn’t cry because I’m in a female presenting body and the world won’t take me seriously because I’m crying. All these messages that we have around what we should and shouldn’t do, they can interrupt our ability to actually get our needs met in a way that’s healthy and informative. So with trauma work, the trauma response
Cate Blouke (20:15)
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (20:31)
is actually adaptive and I’m going to go back to that whole it interrupts with good intention. And so I’m going to go back to that. So when you are triggered in trauma, so if somebody’s in my office, there’s no immediate trauma. You know, there’s nothing going on, but they might get triggered and their body and their emotions and their cognitions might all react based on a trauma trigger to orient their body towards something fight, flight, freeze, appease, you know, any of these big responses that trauma will
Cate Blouke (20:36)
Yeah, okay.
Right.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (21:00)
you do and those are the big trauma responses fight, flight, freeze and appease.
Cate Blouke (21:03)
Right. Yeah. And so just, cause I feel like the word trigger is now all over the place. And I love what I’m picking up that I just wanted to kind of pull out and highlight is that a trauma trigger is when our nervous system gets activated into one of those responses you just described, correct? Okay.
Stephanie Goldsmith (21:29)
Yes, yes. So remember, we’ve now got people who have a trauma history, they now have more vigilance to their external environment. So what we would call, some people would call that hypervigilance depending on how attentive it is. So if you now have a certain amount of your attention, of your brain power, is orienting to the external environment and it picks up on some blips,
that is indicative of the trauma that you’ve suffered, it’s gonna try to protect you by orienting you to some kind of arousal, fight, flight, freeze, peace. So it’s gonna orient you. So now like, there’s something happening here that’s similar to what happened back there. Now you need to attend to it. So if I’m talking with somebody and we’re having a conversation in therapy or we’re doing therapy and I notice that they stiffen or I notice that they do something, I’m gonna ask what just happened.
Cate Blouke (21:59)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (22:23)
and I’m going to have them attend to what’s going on in their body, what’s going on in their emotions, and what’s going on in their thoughts so that they can start to learn, this is what my body does in response to this set of conditions. The thing is, our brain, it doesn’t pinpoint specific conditions, right? So the area of our brain is our limbic system. That’s where a lot of the trauma response happens. I mean, it happens in a lot of the brain, but I’m going to try not to do too much of the neuroscience for this podcast.
Cate Blouke (22:50)
Yeah, my eyes just went like, okay, I know that word.
Stephanie Goldsmith (22:54)
It’s kind of, it’s the midbrain region where our memory centers are and our kind of emotion detector, it’s called the amygdala. Like it’s this part of our brain that really attends to some of these kind of environmental and emotional cues. And when it’s a trauma response, it doesn’t go back to mundane memory where you’re like, what’s that? And you get curious about it. It goes to a much faster response.
Cate Blouke (23:02)
Haha.
Stephanie Goldsmith (23:21)
so that you can orient faster. And if you think about that, that’s a really good response if you’re actually in danger. So, you know, the classic example is the veteran who comes back from war and, you know, they’re living their normal life and now all of a sudden it’s 4th of July and the fireworks start going off and they hit the deck, right? They have that immediate response. And even though they might know it’s not gunfire, the smell
Cate Blouke (23:29)
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (23:50)
the sound, the boom, like vibration in the body has enough similarity that your limbic system says act as if your life is on the line. So the limbic system is coming in, your brain is coming in and it’s giving you those cues to act as if you were in danger right now. And if you think about it, that’s actually really adaptive because if there was a gunshot, they’re more readily available to act than somebody who says, what’s that sound?
Cate Blouke (23:50)
Mm -hmm.
Right?
Right.
The Survival Aspect of Trauma Responses
Stephanie Goldsmith (24:18)
So there’s actually a survival aspect to it that’s really beneficial. So your nervous system is actually trying to help you out here. It’s like the last time that smell, that sound, that vibration happened, you almost died. So I’m gonna take away that extra second that you have to start to be curious and I’m gonna put you immediately into action mode.
Cate Blouke (24:18)
Yeah.
Right.
Mmm.
Yeah, so what’s an example of then how that translates to those of us who haven’t been in a war zone, who haven’t been in the car accident? What’s our, like, I guess I’m asking.
Stephanie Goldsmith (24:56)
Like what does that look like? What’s that look like with like complex trauma versus like the, yeah.
Cate Blouke (25:00)
Yeah, yeah, right? Because I would read the body keeps the score and I’m just like, I don’t relate to this because I’m not a veteran. What are you talking about? So yeah, what’s the kind of everyday tender hearted human walking around in the world who hasn’t had that? How does this show up for us? I will include myself in that.
Trauma Responses in Everyday Life
Stephanie Goldsmith (25:09)
Mm -hmm.
Okay, I can give you some examples. This has actually come up a lot with people who have attachment trauma. They go out on a date and somebody starts, you know, you look really nice. You’re really pretty. I want to hold your hand. And then the person has a response or a disgust response or a, why would you want to hold my hand? You don’t know me. And the immediate response is one of some kind of aversion.
Cate Blouke (25:27)
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (25:51)
It can be disgust, it can be fear, it can be disturbance, it can be anger. That response isn’t what we normally think of as an adaptive response to somebody sincerely saying, you look nice or I wanna hold your hand. But because there’s some sense of pairing of maltreatment with somebody giving you affectionate attention, that’s what that can look like.
Cate Blouke (26:03)
Right.
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (26:19)
So that’s an example. I mean, I can give you many examples.
Cate Blouke (26:21)
Right, no, I mean, I think that one’s pretty relatable. Right?
Stephanie Goldsmith (26:25)
Well, another big one that a lot of people go, my gosh, I never thought of it that way, is people who have damage attachment. Again, when they actually meet somebody who treats them really well and that is really sweet and really attentive, they feel bored.
Cate Blouke (26:42)
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (26:43)
They feel bored, they feel suspicious, and it’s because their nervous system is so ready for the fight or so ready that they can’t read this as like, this person genuinely actually just likes me and there’s no catch. So they can actually feel very boring or very confusing for somebody who’s grown up in a very chaotic primary attachment relationship.
The Relationship Between Trauma and Joy
Cate Blouke (26:59)
Yeah. So in that example, I think this is a lovely segue to what we’re, you know, excited to talk about about the relationship between trauma and joy and the idea that that interruption, that response is, you know, is well intentioned. So build that bridge for me of like, okay, like my little trauma response, like there’s this person who’s treating me well and is nice to me and I’m bored.
What is the trauma response’s intention and like, what do we do with that?
Stephanie Goldsmith (27:47)
I like to do something called parts work in my therapy. And basically it’s like, we all have kind of different parts of ourselves that hold different feelings and needs. And it’s actually a really great way to conceptualize trauma and not even just trauma, like experiences in general. But I’m gonna just say like the part of you that holds trauma, like the trauma part is basically trying to, it’s almost like tapping you on the shoulder and saying like, we don’t know what this response is. Like, can you trust that this person’s actually being nice to you?
Cate Blouke (28:01)
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (28:17)
And so the interruption that interrupts you from joy with good intention is either we’ve been here before and you need to attend to this information or I don’t know what this is and I don’t know how to react and I’m scared. So it interrupts you to pay more attention to it or to be suspicious of it because it doesn’t want you to get hurt again. So its intention is, you know, there’s enough in this environment
Cate Blouke (28:17)
Mm.
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (28:44)
there’s some kind of set of conditions here that’s familiar enough to when you’ve been hurt or is unknown enough that it’s confusing, that it’s drawing your attention to that to make you be more cautious or withdrawn or to act. So, you know, just like even that really classic example with the veteran with the fireworks, the idea here is there’s enough similarity in the set of conditions.
Cate Blouke (29:00)
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (29:10)
that I’m going to completely interrupt your life so that you attend to it so that we keep you safe and you stay alive. Even though that reaction is overblown, it’s not what’s needed. It’s no longer adaptive, but it’s trying to protect you from harm, whether it’s actual harm like gunfire or it’s emotional harm like attachment trauma. So its intention is to keep you safe. Its intention is to warn you about a set of conditions that’s reminiscent of where you’ve been hurt before.
Cate Blouke (29:22)
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (29:39)
But the problem is trauma memories become static. They get really stuck. They become immutable and you can’t talk yourself out of it. That’s why a lot of people say, I know I’m safe. I know that this person is in dangerous, but my body’s still hijacked. It’s because you can’t talk yourself out of it. You have to work with the somatic sense and you have to work with the emotional sense, which is why EMTR super effective. And there’s other, yeah, I also do EMTR. Yeah.
Cate Blouke (29:47)
Yeah.
Yeah!
Yeah, so for folks who don’t know what EMDR is, what is it?
Stephanie Goldsmith (30:10)
It’s eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. You never need to know that again, but it uses the body’s natural rhythms to process trauma. So the idea behind it is, have you ever gone to bed upset? Like you’ve had a bit of an argument with a friend or something and then you wake up the next morning and you’re like, I don’t know what that was about. Let me call them and make up. I feel better. Like the day’s better. Your brain does a lot of processing.
Cate Blouke (30:15)
You’re right. Yeah.
Yes.
Yes, yes, specific example. My brain was a shitty neighborhood last night, like because I didn’t sleep well, I like, you know, hermited up too much, didn’t have enough human contact, was like in a gunky place. And then I woke up this morning and I was like, actually life’s pretty great. I’m in a good mood. I’m gonna talk to one of my favorite people this morning. Like things are fine.
Stephanie Goldsmith (30:53)
That is a perfect example. And by the way, I love that I’m one of your favorite people. You are one of mine. We’ve got each other.
Cate Blouke (30:58)
my God, you so are. I don’t know if I already said this, but like Steph is one of my oldest friends and one of the people I consider a like chosen family sister. So there’s that. Yeah. my heart just. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (31:09)
Same. My kids call her Auntie. We’ve known each other for, I think, over 20 years at this point. Yeah, over 20 years. So about something like that. Yeah, so it’s been a long time.
Cate Blouke (31:16)
Yeah, yeah. my God. Around in the vicinity of two decades. Jesus Christ. I feel old, but it’s great. This is the beauty of aging is you get to be friends with people for 20 years. okay. So anyway, I woke up in a better place this morning and you were about to explain why.
Stephanie Goldsmith (31:22)
in the vicinity.
So.
Because when you sleep, your brain does a bunch of stuff. I mean, that’s why we actually need sleep. It processes a bunch of things. It clears a bunch of gunk out. Like it does a lot of really important things while you’re sleeping. And we have the idea behind EMDR is we have rapid eye movement sleep when we, or rapid eye movement when we’re sleeping. And EMDR mimics that. So traditional EMDR does eye movements back and forth.
Cate Blouke (31:57)
Okay.
Stephanie Goldsmith (31:59)
But now we know that you don’t have to just do eye movements. You can do any kind of what’s called bilateral stimulation. So that’s tapping on both sides of the body or listening to music, you know, through both ears, alternating back and forth. But the idea is you’re alternating back and forth to do what’s called bilateral stimulation. And that calms down the nervous system. And we’re realizing we’ve been doing this intuitively, like throughout the span of human existence. When you watch a parent with their baby, they sway back and forth.
Cate Blouke (32:00)
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (32:29)
That’s bilateral simulation. People go for a run. They feel a lot better. Guess what that is? That’s bilateral simulation. You know, foot, right? Right? When you, when you, people do drum circles and they love drum circles and guess what drumming is? Bilateral simulation. So we do all of these, we already do. Naturally, we do a lot of stuff that’s bilateral simulation. And even without thinking about it, it’s, it’s something that we do to soothe our nervous system rhythm. So.
Cate Blouke (32:29)
Hell yeah!
my God, I didn’t think about that. I do that all the time.
Stephanie Goldsmith (32:57)
That’s what EMDR does is it uses bilateral stimulation. So you create a trauma, there’s a lot to it. I mean, you do a lot of resourcing beforehand, which is, don’t try this at home. No, please go see a trained therapist if you’re gonna do EMDR. But there’s a lot of resourcing and preparing people to do EMDR, but the actual reprocessing is you create a trauma script.
Cate Blouke (33:04)
Yes, right, we’re just, yeah, this is not, don’t try this at home, kids. Like, there are lots of licensed professionals. Yeah.
Uhhh
Stephanie Goldsmith (33:23)
And what I like about it is it really does take the whole body into consideration. You know, what’s the emotion? How disturbing is it? What’s the sensation in your body? What’s the belief? You know, the cognition. So it’s really looking at the whole experience, which I think is really important. And then you create a trauma script and then you do bilateral stimulation. And what it does is it helps reprocess trauma that has otherwise become stuck. So it works with that part of the brain that’s really hard to access just with cognitions.
using a full body experience. So I think that’s why it’s a really useful trauma therapy. And then there’s other great trauma therapies that aren’t just talk therapy. There’s something called brain spotting. There’s something called EFT tapping, which is emotion freedom techniques. All of these use the brain and the body’s natural system. We’re actually working with our biology to help treat trauma.
Cate Blouke (34:10)
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (34:21)
I think all these things should be in conjunction with talk therapy because it can, you know, it can be really interesting. You’re like rewiring your nervous system so it can feel really vulnerable and it can feel really weird. And, you know.
Cate Blouke (34:24)
Yeah.
Yeah. And like, you need to talk about it afterwards, totally. Yeah. I’m curious, so, Harkening Bad. So The Body Keeps the Score is the name of a very famous book about trauma. You’re talking about like the way in which processing trauma involves really bringing bodily experience into it. What does it mean that?
Stephanie Goldsmith (34:37)
right, you know.
Cate Blouke (35:00)
is stored in the body or the body keeps the score.
Stephanie Goldsmith (35:05)
It’s because it’s not just, it’s on an intellectual pursuit. It’s a felt sense pursuit. It’s, you know, it’s coded in your brain. It’s coded in your nervous system. You know, we’re adaptive beings. So the way that our bodies adapt to our environment has to do with the stimuli in our environment. So, you know, a lot of times when people get triggered, it’s visceral. You know, people will feel…
Cate Blouke (35:10)
Mmm
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (35:30)
When I do trauma work with people, whether it’s EMDR or some of the Gestalt Talk Therapy that I do or some of these other protocols that I do, I often check on the body and people get sensations in their chest, in their stomach, in their hands, in their feet. And when I ask them to check that out, even if they don’t have a concrete memory, they have a sense of, I have a feeling of wanting to hide, or I notice that I want to run, or…
You know, there’s something happening in my shoulders and they make me want to hunch and get smaller and it’s like your body will tell you a lot about trauma. So I’ve even had people act out those bodily imperatives, I guess, you know, people who want to hide, which is very common for folks who have trauma when they’re really, really young. Because when you think about what little kids can do, they don’t have that many resources to protect themselves. They can pretend to be asleep. They can hide. You know, there’s not much they can do.
Cate Blouke (36:17)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (36:25)
which by the way, sometimes people fall asleep during trauma therapy too because it’s triggered and that was what they did, right? Like that was their coping, but that was their coping skill when the trauma was built. So that’s what their nervous system remembers. But I’ve had people hide in my office, you know, I have pillows and things like that and you know.
Cate Blouke (36:30)
Interesting. I did not have that experience.
-huh.
Yeah. And that’s a part of Gestalt specifically. I’d love to just bring forward a little bit what makes that type, that therapeutic approach unique or what it is. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (36:46)
Gestalt. Yeah.
so effective. Yeah, I think because it’s so experiential, it’s not, it’s not always an intellectual therapy. It’s very experiential. It’s, you know, how do you attend to your body process, what we call your phenomenology, how you experience the world, how do you attend to that in a way to get more information, to become aware of what your needs are so that you can act in a more adaptive way, adaptive to your age, your needs now.
Cate Blouke (37:29)
Mm -hmm. Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (37:30)
because a lot of times we are acting in the here and now based on rules that were built in the there and then. So we’re doing stuff that we learned back then because we know we haven’t updated our beliefs. We haven’t re -evaluated things. Remember, we’ve taken some of those things to be procedural. So we just move through the world like it’s true. So that person who moves through the world like I am unlovable is a truth. Think about how much that affects every interaction they have.
Cate Blouke (37:37)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (37:59)
everything they say yes or no to.
Cate Blouke (38:00)
dude, fuck yeah. Like, y ‘all, that was me, right? 100%. It shows up everywhere.
Stephanie Goldsmith (38:07)
It shows up every, well, cause now your entire worldview is underlaid by I am unlovable. And that becomes, cognitive behavioral therapy would call that a core belief. There’s different languages for different therapies, but it’s all the same idea. Emotion -focused therapy, which I’m also a big fan of, would call it the unmet need. And Gestalt would call it a figure. It doesn’t actually matter what we call it, but the idea is there’s something that has become truth that has not been checked.
Cate Blouke (38:17)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (38:36)
out and not been reevaluated, not been updated. So with Gestalt therapy, we are bringing stuff that has become automated into awareness so that people can, wow, this is where it was built, this is how it was maintained, and this is where it is now, and let me hold that next to my experiences here, and look, does this actually fit? Is this still my value? Is this still my experience? Like, what is it like here and now holding this there and then message?
Cate Blouke (38:40)
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (39:05)
So the idea is to start making things on automatic so that you can reevaluate it so that you can make more adaptive healthy choices, whatever those choices are. And I like that about our model because about the Gestalt model because it really allows the person to be the expert on what they do next. So for me, it’s actually a very inclusive therapy because it’s not up to me as the therapist to say, well, you should just go do that because, you know,
Cate Blouke (39:06)
Yeah.
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (39:31)
that would be maybe my values or my belief versus they have a whole slew of experiences from their culture, from their family, from their ethnic background, et cetera, that’s gonna inform what they do. So my job is just to help them bring this stuff into awareness to really learn how to attend to what their body’s telling them, what their emotions are telling them. And then also what are those external factors or those rules that you’ve learned?
Cate Blouke (39:40)
Right
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (39:57)
And when you have all of that and you can see all of it, then you can make more adaptive choices, whatever they are.
The Challenge of Allowing Joy with a Dysregulated Nervous System (i.e. Trauma)
Cate Blouke (40:04)
Right, right. So I’m curious, like.
I wanna bring in this sort of joy piece, right? We’ve definitely talked about attachment and that’s related to joy, right? Like love is related to joy. But I know in my experience and people that I’ve talked to who are not trained psychologists, clinical psychologists, I know there’s this relationship between like joy can sometimes feel painful when we have unprocessed trauma, right? That it’s just.
Stephanie Goldsmith (40:28)
You
Cate Blouke (40:39)
too much or too hard. And I’d love to hear a bit more about that from your perspective.
Stephanie Goldsmith (40:49)
Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is that, you know, there might be a risk to allowing oneself to feel joy because joy requires somebody to be unguarded. Joy requires the nervous system to be relaxed. there’s a couple of different nervous system responses. There’s a theory called polyvagal theory. It’s by this guy, Steven Porges, and he talks about like different levels of arousal in the nervous system.
Cate Blouke (41:04)
Hmm
Stephanie Goldsmith (41:19)
And in order to feel happiness, contentment, joy, you have to be in what’s called ventral vagal. Meaning that you’re not hypervigilant. You’re not scanning the environment for safety. You’re not doing all these other processes. You know, it’s just that I’m available to feel the sunlight on my skin. I’m available to take in the love of my partner. I’m available to, you know, to really eat this bite of
Cate Blouke (41:28)
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (41:45)
incredibly delicious chocolate cake without the thoughts of, what am I going to have to do to compensate for this cake later? You know, all this ways that we interrupt our joy with beliefs about who we should be and what we must do. So I think the reason why some folks who have significant trauma histories have a difficult time getting to joy is because it requires that suspension of vigilance. And, and, you know, I think something important to say here too, is that
Cate Blouke (41:52)
Right?
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (42:14)
The people who are traumatized, like you’re not picking these reactions. They’re so automatic. They’re in, they’re in your deep limbic system. They’re not in your frontal lobe or you have some agency. You can’t talk yourself out of a trauma response. You can’t talk yourself out of vigilance. You know, you have to work with the body systems and, you know, be patient and even work with those parts of you that are trying to protect you with the vigilance. Like that’s why I’m saying like the intentions are good. Like it, like usually those responses are protective or defensive of you.
Cate Blouke (42:18)
Yeah!
Yeah.
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (42:45)
And it’s hard to tell those parts to stand down because they’re like, how can I stand down? If I stand down, you’re going to get hurt. So I think that’s why some people have a difficult time really settling into contentment and joy and happiness and those, that range of emotions, because it requires something that’s kept you alive and safe at some point to stand down.
Cate Blouke (42:52)
Yeah
Yeah, and I just thinking about my own experience with all of this and feeling like, you know, not consciously feeling that sense of hypervigilance. It’s not like I have been going through the world being like, my God, I’m going to die all the time. But but on some level, at a at a bodily level, feeling really alert and, you know,
looking out for threat, especially sort of social emotional threat for me, right? It wasn’t violence, but it was like, is this person gonna be mean to me? Like, is somebody gonna tease me at any time? Like, I think reflecting on it in this moment, given my developmental experience, I spent a lot of my adulthood walking through the world, really hypervigilant that like somebody was gonna be, was gonna tease me, was gonna be mean to me.
And yeah, that really interrupts my capacity to enjoy a moment. If part of me is always waiting for somebody to say something mean or to be sarcastic or to correct my behavior. Yeah, I can’t access the relaxation necessary to be like, I’m having a good time and everything’s fine.
Stephanie Goldsmith (44:33)
Yes, and yeah, exactly. And again, think about how it reinforces because my guess is some of the interactions you have in the world are people being snarky or mean or, you know, especially if you go on the internet and you see some kind of like political conversation explosion and you’re right. So I mean, there, you do have people being mean or being unkind and that part to see, and it has a confirmation bias and it continues to reinforce.
Cate Blouke (44:44)
Yeah. Right. Anything. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (44:59)
And what it does is it doesn’t give you the ability to discriminate and to be curious about is this a person who I can trust or is this a person who I can’t? It just tells you don’t trust anybody. And that’s what makes it really hard. And again, if you think about it, its intentions are good. Like if you think about offense, offense does two things, right? Offense can keep bad things out, which is a good function, but it also keeps whatever’s inside isolated.
Cate Blouke (44:59)
Yeah.
Right?
Mm -hmm.
Yep.
Stephanie Goldsmith (45:28)
So when we have those barriers, I know, so when we have those barriers up, they’re super useful because they keep us safe, but they also keep us isolated. They also keep us distant and they continue to perpetuate those feelings of abandonment, isolation, loneliness, all those things that people want to reach out and attach so that they don’t feel those feelings, but they also want to feel safe. And one of the hardest concepts I have to work through with people is you can’t be safe.
Cate Blouke (45:56)
Yeah…
Stephanie Goldsmith (45:59)
and be connected at the same time. Like you can’t, I mean you can have that with somebody you’ve established that with in moments, but what I’m saying is like you cannot be connected without the risk. Like you can’t do that. So you have to risk letting somebody in and my guess is even if you find the best partner in the world who you’re really connected with, like sometimes they’re gonna be a jerk and sometimes they’re gonna hurt you. But you know the idea is that, you know the con,
Cate Blouke (46:06)
yeah. Okay.
Right.
Yeah. I’m mostly giggling at that because I adore Steph’s husband. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (46:33)
Who I haven’t I really have an amazing relationship with and like, you know, sometimes we piss each other off, which is like totally like totally healthy in a relationship. So. As the two of all of us, I feel I feel like I want to say like part of his love language is like practical joking and shit giving. So like, that’s what I want to say. So it’s a very consensual thing. But I mean, that’s
Cate Blouke (46:39)
Yeah, right.
Yeah, like he’s great and he can be a butt, you know, like as is true of all of us, right? Like, cause we’re not all perfect all the time.
Yeah!
Yeah.
Healing Trauma and Cultivating Healthy Relationships
Stephanie Goldsmith (47:00)
But it’s right, like it’s, you know, I letting down, I also am somebody who grew up in a chaotic environment and I’m also somebody who’s had to do a lot of my own healing work. I’ve done my own EMDR, my own therapy. I’ve done something really great called neurofeedback. I’ve done tapping. You know, I’ve really done a lot of these very healing things that have healed so much of my attachment wounding. And it’s allowed me to really let down those fences for close others, you know, my husband and Kate, you know, including you.
Cate Blouke (47:29)
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (47:29)
you know, and some of these other really close people. And even though we might occasionally, you know, push a button or hurt each other, offend each other, there’s, there’s enough understanding that I can work with the part of me that says, like you should go to this person, never talk to them again. I can say, I can say, yeah, I can say like, thank you so much for that information and letting me know that this is something that hurts me, but like, it’s okay. Like, let’s look, I’m this age with this person now. And, you know, I can lean into the relationship and have a repair.
Cate Blouke (47:36)
Yeah!
Yeah, right.
Yeah
Stephanie Goldsmith (47:58)
So it’s okay to have that message, like that’s how I work with it. It’s not like that message goes away. It’s just, I work with it more adaptively now. Like, hey buddy, thank you for that advice to keep myself safe. And like, you know, let’s look at our current setting and see if I actually need that drastic of a response, which usually you don’t.
Cate Blouke (47:59)
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, right. And likewise, you are one of the people that I feel safest with in the world, right? My heart just got real, my heart just grew real big in that moment. And that took time. We met when I was, yeah, interruption repair.
Stephanie Goldsmith (48:27)
I know. Just a little emo. Me too.
and rupture and repair. You and I have had rupture and repair over the two decades we’ve been friends.
Cate Blouke (48:43)
Yeah, especially because we met when I was like, Drunky McDrunky pants. And you, you know, hung out with me through that. But then I got sober and our relationship really deepened after that. Because I had a lot more self awareness and I think in the vein of this conversation.
Stephanie Goldsmith (48:49)
You
Cate Blouke (49:08)
It wasn’t until I got sober that I started cultivating that capacity to sort of turn within. And cultivating that capacity to turn within and check in with myself also provided me the capacity to like become more aware of how my behavior impacted other people. Right?
Stephanie Goldsmith (49:26)
Yeah, but so if I can, if I can speak a little bit, because I think some people who are sober have a really similar experience to you and I’m going to speak generally not about you specifically, but if you think about a nervous system that’s been dysregulated and can’t feel safe with people and can’t let its guard down, you know, think of what a solution, you know, I’m doing air quotes right now because people can’t see me, but what a solution something like alcohol would be.
Cate Blouke (49:37)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (49:54)
to try to regulate a nervous system, to try to connect, to try to get other needs met that can’t otherwise get met when your trauma part is running rampant and being hypervigilant. So.
Cate Blouke (50:03)
Yeah, my God, right? Like that’s why I got stoned all the time was because I didn’t know how to like being around. my God. Yeah, I’m just having this moment of. I would get drunk or stoned in order to be around people because my system was always worried that people are going to be mean to me. And so getting drunk or getting stoned, like let that inhibition sort of get quieter.
right, so that I could try to connect with people and try to like have fun without having that sort of like constant fear at the surface.
Stephanie Goldsmith (50:41)
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, that’s one of the reasons I have a lot of compassion for folks who have addiction histories, eating disorders, self harm, lots of suicidal ideation, because all of these things have something in common. They are an answer, again, quotes to a problem. And that problem is a dysregulated nervous system. So these behaviors are ways that the nervous system can get needs met, that were not met in their environment that should have been met.
Cate Blouke (51:01)
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (51:11)
and they weren’t. So this is a way to self -regulate. And that’s one of the reasons why I think when you treat an eating disorder, when you treat addiction, when you treat somebody who has maybe what we call a borderline process or a suicidal ideation process, is that you’re treating trauma. I really genuinely believe that. And because if you just put somebody into
Cate Blouke (51:33)
Yeah.
Working with Trauma Responses for Greater Joy
Stephanie Goldsmith (51:40)
like remission from like recovery. So if you just get rid of the alcohol, if somebody just stops drinking or they just stop their eating disorder behaviors, you know, it’s that idea of the dry drunk where they’re still doing a lot of the dysregulated processes. They’re just abstaining. And I’ve seen many people recover, like they stopped drinking alcohol, but then they develop an eating disorder or then they, some other thing that is another way to, to regulate this nervous system dysregulation. And it’s
Cate Blouke (51:47)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (52:08)
It’s interesting for me because my perspective isn’t just like, let’s get you sober, although that’s necessary. It’s let’s get you sober, but let’s also work with the part of you that never learned how to trust an attachment, that never learned how to be safe in an environment that’s really looking out for you, that’s really trying to keep you safe, but doesn’t know how. So that’s why I’m saying it’s got a good intention. It’s really trying to defend you, protect you, all these kinds of things, but it’s doing so in a really maladaptive way.
Cate Blouke (52:20)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (52:38)
good intentions, bad methodology.
Cate Blouke (52:41)
Yeah, right. man. Staff, this is so good. This has been so good. And picking up on what you just touched on. Yeah, like in the 12 -step rooms, like we talk about, like, alcohol, drugs, et cetera, are just a symptom, right? Like, we take those away, and then there’s all the stuff that was driving us to that. And that’s what the 12 steps.
Stephanie Goldsmith (52:44)
You
Cate Blouke (53:09)
work around, and also I’m a big fan of 12 Steps, plus therapy, because of all the stuff that we’ve talked about, is that there’s a body level processing that needs to happen to really unlock the trauma and really be able to show up differently in the world outside of our cognitive thinking. That I can do my step work, I can talk to things, I can do all of the self -help books and write things down, but until, for me, I got into the like,
body unhooking of those autonomic responses. It wasn’t until I really did that work that I started to be able to access more joy and more capacity to trust that the people in my life who say they love me do love me and to embrace that really fully. And so…
Yeah, I just like, three cheers for therapy, three cheers for like, dealing with our trauma. And that if to, you know, get on my little settling is bullshit soap box that like, if we want to really experience joy in our lives, like, we gotta do the work.
Stephanie Goldsmith (54:08)
Yeah.
Yes. So we have a saying in Kistalt therapy, what gets in the way of the work is the work. And what I mean by that is if you’re wanting joy and you’re wanting to cultivate joy, you have to work with what’s getting in the way and interrupting the joy. So my thought is if somebody is like, I really want to be more content, happy, joyful, then I say, well, what’s getting in the way of that happening? And oftentimes it’s a trauma response. So
Cate Blouke (54:33)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (54:54)
My thought is if you work through the trauma response, if you learn what your body’s telling you, if you learn how to work with those processes rather than against those processes, then that interruption can start to ease up and it can give you more permission to access joy. But you can’t just get to, you can’t just say, I’m going to go to more parties or I’m going to go like you because you’ll have spikes of happiness. Happiness is actually, I want to say like
Cate Blouke (55:17)
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (55:21)
kind of easy to get to, like spikes of moments where you feel good, not for everybody. But contentment and joy, which I think of as a more sustained experience, that I think you can achieve only if you’re working with the interrupters, working with them, not against them. A lot of people will say, tell that voice to go away or make that thing stop. And I’m like, no, it’s doing something for you. It was built.
Cate Blouke (55:30)
Hmm?
Yeah.
Right!
Stephanie Goldsmith (55:46)
and an important time in your life, it was actually probably something you needed to survive at some point. So, you know, killing it, divorcing it, murdering it off, all those kinds of things, that’s actually not helpful. It’s what are you trying to tell me, body? Like, what are you telling me about my environment and my needs? Like, what are you? And then sometimes you can say, okay, thank you. You can sit back down now. And sometimes you say, you’re right. I actually do need to pay attention to this and I need to protect myself. But the idea is you work with those parts in those messages rather than against them.
Cate Blouke (55:58)
Yeah.
Yeah!
Stephanie Goldsmith (56:16)
So that’s my answer is trauma interrupts joy and it does so well intentioned. And in order to achieve more joy, you work with those responses and you take care of the part of you that learned how to adjust to a chaotic environment.
Cate Blouke (56:33)
Yeah.
Yeah, so how do you determine what’s actually right for me versus what’s the trauma response? How do I cultivate that awareness?
Stephanie Goldsmith (56:47)
It’s a good question. There’s definitely no one size fits all. But what I would say is to start getting very curious about your experience. Remember, we do so many things that are procedural or automatic because that’s just what happens. When we first learned to drive, our hands are at 10 and two, we’re checking our mirrors and.
We’re really attentive, right? But then in a couple of years into driving, sometimes you get to your destination, you’re like, I don’t even remember. I wasn’t even paying attention. I was listening to my audio book or whatever. And that’s what our brains do. Our brains automate things. So the idea is if you have a response that feels like that doesn’t fit here, or why did I say that? Or hang on a second, I like this person. Why am I avoiding them? Is to start to get really curious. Curiosity is your best friend.
Cate Blouke (57:09)
You
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (57:39)
Okay, what am I noticing? Like, there’s a pit in my stomach. What do I know about this pit in my stomach? Like, what is this familiar from? What is it telling me? You know, what’s the emotion or the emotion is fear? what am I afraid of? Like, am I actually afraid of this person? Or am I afraid of something else? And does it belong with that person at this time? Or is it something else? You know, if there’s a message of get away, hang on, get away from who this person that I know that I love, like, I’ll use use an example. Like if I have a reaction, get away from Kate.
Cate Blouke (58:07)
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (58:08)
I know Kate, Kate’s like a sister to me. I love her so much. What’s going on that that came up for me? And then it could be both Kate. But, but, okay. So even though I know we’re joking here, but like if you farted and we were in the same place, that would be an adaptive action because it has to do with something that is happening in the here and now like, God, Kate, like, you know.
Cate Blouke (58:15)
Yeah, I mean, either I farted or it’s a trauma response.
Right, it could be.
Yeah. -huh.
huh. Right. Yeah. Gross. That was… yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (58:38)
Lay off the cheese, hang on a second. But if you didn’t fart and you’re just sitting there smiling at me and telling me how much you love being my friend and I have a get away from this response, that’s probably something old. That’s probably something that was built there and then it has nothing to do with Kate, has nothing to do with me at this age in this friendship. So my offer to people is get very curious. And if you need guidelines for how to do that, what’s going on in my body.
Cate Blouke (58:50)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (59:05)
what’s going on in my emotions, meaning labeling an emotion, and what’s going on in my thoughts. And if you can get those three pieces of information, you’ve got a lot of data to start letting you know, does this belong here and now, or is that old stuff from there and then?
Cate Blouke (59:19)
Yeah. OK, and so what if I farted, you have that response, you get it, like you’re aware of like, I’m in a trauma response. Like this isn’t related to the here and now. Then what? Like how do we take care of ourselves around that?
Stephanie Goldsmith (59:35)
I think it’s one of those things where it’s like when this thing happened in the past with another person, the outcome was really bad. But when this, but I need to know if this is happening with this person, is this something that can have a different outcome? Can I trust that it might be different with this other person? So, you know, I know we use the fart example and it’s hilarious, but I’m trying to think of something that’s a little bit more like, you know,
Cate Blouke (59:42)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (59:52)
Hehehehe
Cate Blouke (1:00:00)
Well, so we’re on a date and like, or, you know, we’ve been going out for a while and I say I love you for the first time and you have a reaction and you know it’s like disproportionate to that. Yeah. Then what?
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:00:11)
Yeah, perfect example. Then, well, I think we need to be kind to ourselves. And then I think it’s also really important that we let the other person know enough of what’s going on. You can say something like, I hear you and I believe that you are sincere, because you want to check, do I believe that they mean what they’re saying, even if you don’t have a good reaction to it? Can I believe that they are sincere is actually a good question to ask yourself. So I hear what you’re saying.
Cate Blouke (1:00:19)
Yeah.
Mmm.
I’m gonna go.
Yeah.
Right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:00:40)
I believe you, but I’m having a really big response and I don’t think it’s about you. I think it’s about me. I need a minute. You know, and there’s that sense of, so I see you and I’m not abandoning you, but I have to take care of what’s going on with me over here. You know, and that’s actually not an uncommon thing to happen is people will have those big responses and then they don’t know what to do and they feel like they have to stop themselves.
Cate Blouke (1:00:53)
Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:01:02)
Pretend like you’re not upset, you know smile and say it back which is an appease response by the way that just say what the person wants to hear and like just to protect yourself But you can ask for a minute, you know asking for a minute to take a breath and say what’s going on here? And you can say you know what? like the last person told me that they loved me was really abusive and my body is just reacting and I know that that doesn’t belong with you, but it might take me a minute to be able to to adjust to that with you, so
Cate Blouke (1:01:05)
Right. Ugh. Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:01:32)
but we don’t wanna arrest our body responses. We don’t wanna cut them off. I mean, there’ll be times where that’s important, right? Like if you’re about to go into an exam, if you’re a student, you’re going to an exam, sometimes you need to be like, hey, I see you buddy, take a breath, I’m gonna put you over here and I’ll deal with you when I’m done with the exam. Like sometimes it’s okay to do that, but I always say like acknowledge and set aside, not suppress. And when I say acknowledge and set aside, actually bring it back out when you can, don’t like…
Cate Blouke (1:01:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right. Right!
Yeah, it’s not.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:02:01)
Because when people suppress or when they, you know, then we see all kinds of anxiety disorders and all kinds of other stuff. Like the more you, yeah.
Cate Blouke (1:02:08)
Yeah, yeah, like it comes out sideways, right? It shows up at some point. Like if we throw it in the closet and don’t ever try to let it out again, like it’s gonna be like banging, it’s gonna be getting under the doors. It’s gonna show up in ways that really don’t serve us, at least in my experience.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:02:23)
no, it shows up in all kinds. Well, it shows up in ways like that we think about with maladaptive action, right? Like, I’m screaming at you because you told me you love me. But it also shows up in health outcomes. I mean, folks that we see with a lot of these kind of chronic illnesses or autoimmune diseases like fibromyalgia or things like that, a lot of them have trauma histories. And my guess is that they had just regulated nervous systems that never got a chance to resettle.
Cate Blouke (1:02:31)
huh.
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:02:49)
Yeah, I mean it really does come out sideways. So people who try to just lock that stuff down and never look at it, like they pay price for it. So, but there’s lots of good work out there now. You mentioned Bessel van der Kolk’s book, The Body Keeps the Score. It’s a pretty great book for that. There’s, I really like a lot of stuff by Peter Levine who does somatic experiencing. So he’s another author who talks a lot about like letting the body inform and how to work with the body.
Cate Blouke (1:02:59)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:03:16)
Some of those books are meant more for professionals, but there are books that are more for the general population. I think one of them is called Waking the Tiger, which is for like, you know, anybody.
Cate Blouke (1:03:24)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, and I’ve been plugging this, but I’ll plug it again. Just as an inroad to this, the kind of Oprah woman free book, What Happened to You is a really accessible conversation about trauma and what we’ve been talking about.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:03:41)
Yes, so that book is Oprah Winfrey and I think he’s a neuroscientist named Bruce Perry. And I love Bruce Perry. He does the neuro sequential model. He’s amazing. So that’s remember, I’m like my whole world is this trauma world. So Bruce Perry is amazing. He does something called the neuro sequential model and he works a lot with CPTSD, complex PTSD. And his books are really he’s got other books, too. They’re really amazing. But he has a phrase that I like that’s name it to tame it.
Cate Blouke (1:03:48)
Thank you for remembering his name.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:04:11)
which is if you can name your emotions or name what’s going on somatically and you can kind of like take some ownership of it, it can actually like settle something. there’s that pit in my stomach and that pit in my stomach is about fear. And then normally when you can do that, you go, and there’s like a something interacts when you can kind of marry your understanding with your body sense. And I don’t think any, I don’t know, I can’t cite it for anybody, but I also like feel it to heal it. So I have to actually feel what’s going on in my body.
Cate Blouke (1:04:19)
you
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Steph, this has been gorgeous. Thank you so much. I cannot wait to edit this episode and give it to the world as a gift that it is. As we wind down, I would love to know what brings you joy?
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:04:41)
to let it heal. Yeah.
You
I am a very relational person. I really care, deeply care about the people in my life. So quality time is my love language. That brings me a lot of joy. And again, really grateful for the trauma work that I’ve done because I can get into that ventral vagal state you were talking about. And my favorite thing in the whole world to do, and you know this about me, is to have really good food with my favorite people.
Cate Blouke (1:05:02)
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:05:27)
That’s probably one of my most joyous things. It’s like, hmm, let’s go get something really yummy and let’s have quality time and have one of those long, leisurely meals where we linger over the table and we have really good things and we just connect. So really connected contact with other people over good food is probably my favorite thing in the world.
Cate Blouke (1:05:27)
Yeah.
Hmm. Well, we weren’t eating, but I feel like we ticked part of that box. This conversation has been so joyful for me. Where can people find you?
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:05:58)
A couple of different places. So I have a group private practice in Clermont, California. We’re called Goldsmith Psychological Services and that’s our website, just goldsmithpsychologicalservices .com. If you are a mental health professional and you’re interested in Gishtal training, gatla .org, G -A -T -L -A .org. We have an online program, we have an in -person program, and we also have a summer residential every year. I’m actually just about to leave for Bulgaria for our summer residential.
which is really great because that way we work with professionals from like dozens of different countries all over the world. It’s a really rich experience.
Cate Blouke (1:06:30)
So fancy.
Yeah, and Steph’s going to Kazakhstan next year to train people. How fucking delightful and cool is that? I am so impressed with my friend.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:06:43)
It’s really amazing. Yeah, traveling the world doing Gestalt therapy is like a dream. I can’t believe I just got back from Australia a couple months ago working with folks there. So it’s just like really, it’s just a really like pleasurable, joyful thing to do to go, you know, kind of teach other people to do this thing that I think is just so healing and so amazing. So Katla .org, Goldsmithpsychologicalservices .com. Those are probably the best places to get a hold of me.
Cate Blouke (1:07:11)
Awesome. Thank you so much, Steph. This has been beautiful. You’re beautiful. Your family’s beautiful. The work you’re doing in the world is beautiful. Everything is beautiful.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:07:20)
Well, thank you so much. And thanks for having me as a guest. It’s been fun to sit across from you this way. You know, we’ve known each other forever. So this has been fun.
Cate Blouke (1:07:29)
Yeah, all right.
Stephanie Goldsmith (1:07:30)
Muah.
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