Stress, Trauma & Disease

When trauma is stored in the body, it can quietly shape your life in ways you may not recognize. Protective patterns like bracing, tension, or emotional withdrawal aren't just reactions to past events -- they're survival responses that get stuck and continue to show up in present life. These patterns are deeply rooted in your body's defense system, which develops in response to early attachment wounds, traumatic experiences, and relationship disruptions. These defensive responses become embedded in your nervous system and your body's physiology -- showing up as chronic muscle tension, nervous system dysregulation, or even persistent physical symptoms. 

When traditional therapeutic approaches focus primarily on the mind, they often miss how the body continues to hold onto and perpetuate these trauma patterns long after the original threat has passed! Without addressing stored physical trauma, people often find themselves wrestling with the same challenges over and over, unable to move forward despite gaining new insights and trying new strategies. 

But there is hope! I incorporate gentle somatic approaches in my work so deeply help patterns can actually begin to release. Balance to your nervous system gets restored so you can rebuild a sense of safety in your body as well as your mind. You can begin to transform those protective patterns, supporting greater resilience, regulation and relational capacity. 

You can release stored trauma and restore your body's natural capacity to heal and grow. 

Alex Howard - Founder and Chair of the Optimal Health Clinic / Host of the annual Trauma Super Conference / AlexHoward.com

Alex is a thought-leader and recognized as a world expert on trauma /Author of numerous books including "How Trauma Shapes Us" 

The following are notes I took during one of his recent presentations.  His perspective aligns with mine and I wanted to share highlights of it with you. 

Trauma is not just an event ; significant events of trauma have been shown to have a major impact on health outcomes (see ACEs study below)

• EVENTS

  • some of the things that shape us MOST are the subtle experiences - and these things continue to ECHO through our lives

  • overt traumas - obvious to any observer (divorce, death, violence, etc.)

  • covert traumas - subtle experiences like being shamed, having to hide what we feel; these can shape us even more because they repeat and we become normalized to them

    • it doesn't mean our parents didn't love us -- many were simply not skilled

• CONTEXT

  • We all have 3 core emotional needs

    • boundaries - for ourselves and others

    • safety - nervous system (NS) coregulation with our caregivers

    • love - for who we are, not just what we do and what we achieve

    • Nervous System Homeostasis 

      • healthy stress response is meant to be an acute release of stress hormones (adrenalin, cortisol, etc.) in order to survive; followed by a return to a calm state when the event has concluded

      • chronic stress - the body does not fully return to the resting state and remains in a constant state of hypervigilance (scanning for threats) 

      • Medically unexplained illness results from an ongoing trigger and stimulus --> constantly dysregulated NS

• OUTCOMES

  • • symptoms of living with a constantly dysregulated NS 

    • anxiety (constant state of overstimulation)

    • depression (system shuts down - numbs) 

    • addiction (self-medicating)

    • self-esteem issues (we don't feel like we are enough, or safe, or okay as we are)

• HEALTH OUTCOMES

  • • One of the major outcomes of a dysregulated NS is the impact on the immune system (wound healing, natural killer cells, T-cells)

      • often shows up as "medically unexplained illness"

    • Hypersensitive - react to benign threats and dangers because our nervous system is trying to protect us and keep us safe

    • Impaired - immune system is not responding effectively --> colds, flu, always getting sick on vacation, etc. (sign that an overactive immune system has become fatigued) 

• NOTE: If we work on the emotional side, before we calm the NS, it's often TOO OVERWHELMING

  • Need to establish a felt sense of emotional safety in the body first - aka SOMATICS (this is work that I specialize in also!). 

  • Need to be able to calm down the NS in order to feel safe to feel the feelings as they arise -- or else the emotion will go back to the head and get stuck there again

The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study is one of the largest investigations of childhood abuse and neglect, and household challenges, and later-life health and well-being.

The original ACEs study, conducted from 1995-1997, studied over 17,000 people working in health services. This study included physical exams, confidential surveys regarding their childhood experiences and their current health status and behaviors. 

The study showed that ACEs can have lasting negative effects on health, well-being, as well as life opportunities such as education and job potential. These experiences can increase the risk of injury and a wide range of chronic diseases and leading causes of death such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and suicide. 

ACEs and associated determinants of health, can cause toxic stress and can negatively affect children's brain development, immune systems, and stress-response systems. Children growing up in toxic stress have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships. They may also have unstable work histories as adults and struggle with finances and depression throughout life. These effects can also be passed on to their own children (aka epigenetics).

This is only a high-level summary of the findings. I encourage you to check this out further. 

Many of us live in a chronic state of stress and overwhelm, leaving the body in a chronic state of high alert (fight, flight, or freeze). This suppresses our immune system and create biochemical reactions which lead to inflammation. Inflammation, although an essential component of an acute response, causes disease and suffering when it is chronic in nature.

Disease starts when we experience an energetic imbalance, blocking energy flow in the body.  Those energetic imbalances can have physical, emotional, mental or spiritual energetic roots. However, once the energy starts to move, our innate healing and body wisdom can be restored because the body has an innate ability to heal itself when the survival response does not stand in its way.

Dr. Bruce Lipton (PhD), whose research ran counter to the established scientific view (at the time) that health is controlled by genes, which eventually gave rise to a revolutionary new field, the science of Epigenetics.

According to Dr. Lipton, 90% of illness has nothing to do with biology – but everything to do with our thoughts.

We have antennas on the surface of our cells which receive vibrational signals from our environment. The brain picks up on the electro-magnetic vibrations (perceptions of our environment) and sends corresponding signals to our nervous system. Biochemistries are released in response, which directly affect our biology.

According to Dr. Lipton, the environment controls which genes are being read, and our genes are controlled by what we are thinking.  95% of the day, our behavior is being sabotaged by subconscious programs.  Those programs are based on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that we “downloaded” from our caregivers during childhood, and 70% of those beliefs are negative, disempowering, or self-sabotaging. This not only leads to illness but also shows up in our life as struggle, in our minds as stress, and in our bodies as disease. But you can rewrite those programs, just like a computer. “The moment you change your perception, is the moment you rewrite the chemistry of your body.”

The Metaphysical Perspective - the COST of holding onto emotional trauma.

Emotional trauma, also known as Core Wounds or Inner Child Work - commonly refers to "big-T" or "little-t" trauma.

T – abuse, serious disease, death of a loved one, families torn apart, neglect, abandoned, rejected, betrayed, survival needs not met, addiction,

t – belittled, disempowered, controlled, ignored, not validated, poverty

Research shows genetic imprinting, from emotionally traumatic experiences, can carried be carried through multiple generations. 

These traumas get stuck in the physical mental & emotional bodies, block our energy and show up in our life as: 

Fear – hypervigilance / need to protect heart, money / settle for the unfulfilled and boring known rather than take a chance / react based on perceived danger / disregarding the needs of the heart - only listening to the head / fear of the unknown / making decisions through the lens of our wounds.

Stuck – confused / procrastinate / repeat patterns / know better, but don’t follow through / burn out.

Avoid – courage / settle for crumbs / afraid to dream / unfulfilled / resist opportunities.

Shame – hidden secret– feeling broken & inadequate (self-hatred) – imposter syndrome.

Victim – blame others / blame self / powerless / control or be controlled / entitlement.

Self-imposed Oppression - guilt, shame, excuses, not good enough, doubt, hopelessness

The COST: we are disconnected from our Life Force (Chi) and live a life that is not in flow. We REACT to life, stuck in patterns, rather than being supported by our intuition. 

You will find Vision Boards and Affirmations DO NOT WORK when unresolved emotional wounds lurk beneath the surface. 

Dr. Garbor Mate is a Canadian Physician regarded as a specialist on Trauma, Addiction, Stress and Childhood Development, indicates that all trauma is pre-verbal – before our minds can make sense of the world. Trauma is what happens inside of us, as a result of what happens to us. Trauma is what we make it mean (E.g., abandoned, unlovable, not wanted, not important enough), and that trauma plays out in our lives for decades after. It is a wound, a psychic wound inside of us, that gets imprinted in our nervous system as “emotional” memory (not as an actual memory), and it gets triggered when we have an emotional response to an experience.

The emotional centers of the brain are connected to the nervous system, immune system and hormonal system. It’s like an electrical grid that connects all systems and organs in the body with the brain. Emotions get embedded in the body (in our muscles, connective tissue. nerves and fascia), when they are suppressed (when children are taught to suppress their emotions). This leads to various forms of pain and suffering in our life experience. Trauma keeps us responding from the past (defenses to keep ourselves safe), instead of from the present moment. Intergenerational and ancestral trauma can also leave an epigenetic imprint because it gets passed on, not because we intend to, but because we can’t help it (or don’t know how to release it).

Dr. Mate believes when we live in our heads (primarily from intellect), it disconnects us from our gut feelings. And research has shown our gut and heart have even more neurons and release more neurochemicals than our brain. When we are disconnected from the wisdom of the heart (and its predictive capabilities) and the gut (which reads the environment), we may be smart and know all kinds of information -- but we will not have wisdom.

Dr. Mate contends the practice of the western medical model separates the mind, from the body, and emotions from our physiology. Our physiology reflects our life-long emotional experiences -- aka "issues in the tissues". Thinking and talking about it won’t heal it – we have to deal with it at the emotional level which requires feeling the emotions in the body (aka Somatics). Healing, is returning to wholeness.

Dr Garbor Mate is regarded by many as a leader in the field of emotional trauma and disease. 

If you are not already familiar with Dr Mate and his work, I encourage you check out any of the highly informative presentations on U-tube. 

These are some of my favorites -- most are 20 minutes or less. 

The Connection Between Stress and Disease https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajo3xkhTbfo

How To Academy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFLS1MTreGU

When the Body Says No https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz-VObNRmu0

Authenticity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G57xfseSUTU

Other Leaders whose work I follow whom you may also be interested in exploring further: 

Dr. Joe Dispenza – researcher of Epigenetics, Quantum Physics and Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity

Dr. David Feinstein – Pioneer in the area of Energy Psychology and Energy Medicine

Dr. Eva Detko PhD – The Sovereign Health Solution: Health the Psycho-Energetic Root Causes of Chronic Illness (author)

Dr. Peter A. Levine PhD (Biophysics and Psychology) - developer of Somatic Experiencing (neurobiological approach to healing trauma)

Dr. Kim D'Eramo OD - American Institute of MindBody Medicine (founder)

Dr. Keesha Ewers PhD - The Academy of Integrative Medicine (founder)

Dr. David Jocker DNM, DC, MS -