ptsd, trauma, body, brain

Thus the repression of emotion, while adaptive in one circumstance, can become a state of chronic disconnect, a withdrawal from life. It becomes programmed into the brain, embedded in the personality.

As long as people are either hyperaroused or shut down, they cannot learn from experience. Even if they manage to stay in control, they become so uptight (Alcoholics Anonymous calls this “white-knuckle sobriety”) that they are inflexible, stubborn, and depressed. Recovery from trauma involves the restoration of executive functioning and, with it, s

“An unexamined life is not worth living. As long as one doesn’t examine oneself, one is completely subject to whatever one is wired to do, but once you become aware that you have choices, you can exercise those choices.” Notice that he didn’t say “once you spend decades in therapy.” As I will present later, we can access liberation via even

One excellent experiment is to let go of the fear of fear itself. When we stop being afraid of fear, we notice that it is just a feeling. In fact, fear is far more tolerable than depression.

It’s important to note that the hippocampus is very vulnerable to stress: the chronic elevation of the stress hormone cortisol damages the hippocampus.35

Trauma has shut down their inner compass and robbed them of the imagination they need to create something better.

Our choices become limited as we avoid certain feelings, people, situations, and places.

Recent studies of Australian combat veterans show that their brains are rewired to be alert for emergencies, at the expense of being focused on the small details of everyday life.