[Music] [Music] [Music] but when you start speaking the thing you're thinking that's when it becomes something that you're owning [Music] welcome to the sound mindon show I'm your host Dr Kevin Chapman thank you again for joining us for a new episode of The Sound Mind show where we talk about navigating all things emotions from a kingdom perspective amen thank you all for joining us again we are in season two of The Sound Mind show and many of you all know at this point that season 2's theme for the entire season is overcoming Fillin the blank it's been a blessing to hear from you all it's been a blessing to see you all tune in regularly it's been a blessing for you all to send me emails ask me questions even ask for forms that might help you practically navigate all things Soul amen and help you navigate those things in your emotional experiences that we need to be reprogrammed from through the word of God and the truth therein praise God so I thank you guys for joining us again remember just as a reminder every Monday at noon for you East Coast folks like myself right I'm Midwest SL East because Kentucky is kind of both am man but I say and South but I say it's like all of th those things but I say that to say that it is the sound mind shows every Monday at noon Eastern Time 9 o'clock Pacific time okay so remember that every Monday you can catch us at the lunch hour for us East Coast folks hey man so remember that all right every Monday so again thank you'all for joining us we're going to jump in head first again let me recap briefly we've been we had some really Dynamic episodes recently some really nice comments a topic that's near and de to my heart we talked recently Parts one through three actually right about overcoming family anxiety and some brief Recaps there I told you that you know as a licensed psychologist a clinical psychologist um my expertise area so to speak in terms of research and treatment would be all things anxiety right so it's something I've studied quite a bit in my whole career and then on top of that reading the word of God and knowing what the word tells us it's ironic because what science tells us about anxiety is supported and based upon what we know is truth in the word and I love that and you're going to see some really exciting episodes coming forth that there're scripture for and you're going to be shocked like some people just like I cannot believe that's in my Bible we'll get to that another time but here's what we talked about with parts one through three of family anxiety all right so we talked about there's two main sources of family anxiety number one observational learning we know that children and adults but children primarily learn through imitation modeling we have mandates in the word of God to tell parents how to uh raise their children in the admonition of the Lord amen man and children are to respond to their parents in a certain way but if our parents are modeling and communicating wrong things that are not based on the word that's still something the kids are going to imitate did somebody catch that that's really important to know and then the second source of anxiety and families is what we call informational transmission just how Faith Comes so does anxiety it comes through hearing right anxiety don't come through hearing the word of God but it comes through hearing the right person AKA wrong person really saying the wrong things if you have a predisposition to be anxious hearing right that things are dangerous can set you up to plant a seed right in your heart in your mentality Etc that is that that is then watered and grows into a harvest of fear responses anxiety about things anticipation and that's literally how family anxiety brothers and sisters is modeled it's it's modeled and there's informational transmission or hearing about threat and danger that's not in fact dangerous okay so we talked about overcoming family anxiety Main points there was identifying and eliminating anxious behaviors you got to call that thing out right and then you got to eliminate it and counter it so that's one thing that we talked about the second key to eliminating family anxiety is to speak life and not death over your family despite how you feel right we can't base our reality on feelings feelings will lie to you right feelings and emotions feelings are a part of an emotion as you've heard me say by now are helpful to help us navigate our world we know that but to base things on feeling when God is Spirit those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth I believe that's John 4:24 but the bottom line is we can't base everything on feelings right our emotions so we got to speak life and not death over our family despite feelings amen all right and then finally as I've always said on every theme spoiler alert you got to confront triggers to family anxiety there's no way around it you got to go through it we got to confront things counter it with truth and be on the offensive not the defensive amen praise God okay so that's that so now we're getting into a brand new episodes one part could easily be more than one part but just for the sake of some more exciting content I've made it one part today so we're going to talk about a topic that people have written me about quite a bit and have asked me about something we certainly see at the Kentucky Center for anxiety and Related Disorders unfortunately all the time but the good news is that you can be reprogrammed from this what I'm about to talk about amen just like everything else we talk about you can be reprogrammed with the truth of the word of God Amen so here's the title of today's episode so today's title of the sound mind show is what we call overcoming trauma man man man trauma is one of those things that is a hot button and you'll see why in a minute my unpopular fact almost jumped out of my skin and it's a simple one but it's a it's a it's a TR it's a truth that so many people are unaware of because media and social media perpetuate this term called trauma uh and we'll talk about that in a minute I don't want to jump ahead but overcoming trauma all right so we're going to jump in head first for the sake of time and for the the content it's a meaty content but again we want to set the table first and establish some firm foundation so let's talk about trauma we're going to talk about overcoming trauma today but let's define it first okay so what is trauma all right you see the question what is trauma very important question so let me kind of give you the The Bare Bones definition of trauma trauma means shock injury or a wound I'll say it again shock injury or a wound now here's the more explicit definition of trauma it's an emotional distress or disregulation in other words I can't manage the emotions so when I say emotional disregulation I'm having a hard time regulating or managing the intensity of the emotion all right an emotional distress distress or disregulation to a traumatic or lifethreatening event okay an emotional distress or disregulation so it's my response right to a traumatic or life-threatening event notice that the event is real it's not fabricated to be clear okay now shock and denial are typical responses to trauma right this can't be happening or I'm in so much shock that it's happening because again it is a traumatic or life-threatening event a person is in some sort of danger when these things happen okay to be clear the event undermines the person's sense of safety okay so when we talk about trauma understand this there's a reason I'm saying these things number one is again Proverbs 45 get wisdom and get understanding but understand though we need to really Define trauma so that we can can know number one what it is number two to put our finger on it and whether or not I've experienced actual trauma and number three how we overcome it all right brothers and sisters okay shock and denial are typical responses keep that in mind the event itself undermines that person's sense of safety okay and the point of trauma is that many people have a difficult time moving past the trauma let me say that again because that's important for what we're going to get into the point of trauma is that many people have a difficult time moving beyond the event that occurred does that make sense okay so that's really important content and a concept to keep in mind so I'm just going to go ahead and say this right out the gate okay here's Dr Kevin's unpopular fact about trauma again the key here is that it's an unpopular fact these aren't opinions I'm not dogmatic meaning I'm not stubbornly opinionated brothers and sisters my my the things I say on here are very intentional you know I have some opinions but the key is when I say an unpopular fact it is a fact right is just unpopular amen so I just want to be clear about that so here's my unpopular fact about trauma okay here we go all right bad things happening to you okay is usually not trauma let me let me say that again bad things happening to you is usually not a trauma I I just want to point that out and the reason that might sounds simple but let me explain why that's so important for me to to delineate right now the world right now in this day and age in the 21st century here's the issue like with social media and media and people who don't take responsibility and things like that when things happen to us I mean y'all know there's a theme here in our world with these things right the world calls everything negative that happens to you traumatic I just want to put that out there for somebody everything bad that happens is not trauma right I just gave you very precise definitions of trauma that are scientific in nature and of course we're going to get into the word and stuff but but it's important to note that not all bad events are traumatic why because if that were true every one of us would be experiencing trauma on a regular basis see again unpopular fact and there's people that call everything bad in the world that happens to people trauma and that reinforces a victim mentality and it also allows us to not take responsibility not for the event because a traumatic event by definition is something something that causes us a sense of not being safe I want to be clear about that I think you hear my heart there but what I'm saying is that if we've all experience trauma we all are you know traumatized constantly and that's simply not true brothers and sisters amen so I just want to point that point out it's important before we move forward that bad things happening to you usually usually most of the time most of the time not some of the time isn't trauma okay that facilitates us not taking responsibility for being able to overcome negative events I hope somebody heard that amen okay so let's talk about now types of trauma so that we can actually put some skin on these Concepts as I often say on the soundmind show I want to educate our brothers and sisters in the Lord so we understand what we're talking about so that we can understand how to navigate it amen all right so let's talk about different types of trauma I think this will help some people understand all right Dr Kevin I understand what trauma is and what it isn't right let's talk about different types of trauma because there are different types of trauma Okay so um we have what's called acute trauma so here's the first type of trauma acute trauma like immediate trauma is another way to put that it's an immediate reaction after a single event or incident so that's what we call acute trauma a good example is that like if you experience the sudden death of someone right if you were just in a car wreck right these are examples of acute traumas like even if I had an assault or a physical assault against me then that's what we call an acute trauma it's a single isolated incident or something happens pretty immediately okay so that's an acute it's not an ongoing thing but it's one single incident okay so that's an acute trauma okay secondly we also have what's called chronic trauma now put a star by chronic trauma and the next type of trauma because chronic trauma is really what we think about when we think about events that we see clinically okay we'll get to that chronic trauma would be examples like ongoing domestic violence bullying that's ongoing notice bullying is present participle meaning it's ongoing right now it's not one time neglect and abuse would also be examples of chronic trauma these are things that are prolonged and pers persistent in the individual's life right these are all all obviously negative and bad but chronic trauma is different than acute trauma in the sense that acute is a one single time incident that occurred that is definitely life-threatening in a sense right but chronic trauma is something that is is a pattern so to speak okay now typically typically worse emotional consequences occur with chronic trauma they tend there tend to be way more negative emotional consequences with chronic trauma and this is when we get into mental health conditions like PTSD which we'll talk about in a second okay then we have what's called complex trauma put a star by that complex trauma well what's the difference between that Dr Kevin and chronic trauma okay so complex trauma is multiple traumatic events right so it's emotional and sexual abuse would be an example both hands right witnessing abuse and being abused both and many people who are going through chronic trauma aaum right it becomes complex because there's different types of trauma in that scenario and that situation right emotional and physical abuse right complex trauma right witnessing abuse and then being the recipient of abuse would be an example repeated multiple traumatic events of different types would be right complex trauma different types of traumatic events seeing someone assaulted being assaulted seeing someone robbed a gunpoint like things that we often times see right these are things that we talk about with complex trauma okay now post-traumatic stress disorder is absolutely one of the things that is implicated with that in terms of a diagnosis diagnosis and a diagnostic label as well as some personality disorders that we're not going to talk about on the sound mind show I I've had questions about narcissism and just the sound bite I'll give you about narcissism is that just like trauma not everybody's a narcissist either like that's a free one and that's one that could probably pop up on the screen honestly narcissism just because someone is acting in Pride doesn't mean they have what's called narcissistic person ality disorder that's a rare diagnosis it happens I've seen it rarely but nonetheless there's a difference between a spouse or someone a loved one someone you know that's being walking in Pride right versus having a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder I want to be clear so just like trauma not all bad things that happen to your trauma not all Pride means you have a personality disorder all right I amen all right I just want to point that out again not again you get the point I'm trying to make all right I'm I'm going stop okay so that's the that's the third category so complex trauma and then finally we have another category of trauma then we're going to get into the meat and potatoes here what we call Aces adverse childhood experiences adverse childhood experiences you can see there's overlap with many of these and you'll see my examples so these basically are referred to a wide range of negative events happening to a child that's younger than 17 years old okay so for example these are events that disrupt the norm normal bond between the parent and the child okay so like the the imminent like the the death of a parent for instance like if it's sudden the death of a parent or the parent not being in the child's life early on right incarceration would be an example of that a parent being incarcerated uh even a divorce can fall into this category for children and as we talked about on overcoming family anxiety you can see that all of these things can have a negative adverse effect on children children are the ones that are losing out when parents are modeling anxiety when parents are and even grandparents communicate through hearing these things to Children right that is how anxiety is transmitted like we talked about on the last three episodes but also just like with trauma though it's the same concept here like if a parent somehow the child's development is disrupted by virtue of something happening to the parent then that too right plants a seed unfortunately that is watered by the environment and then we have a whole host of problems so I just want to point that out now with that being said the main I'm not going to get into the weeds with other um trauma related diagnoses but the main one that we know stereotypically that most people are aware of and familiar with is what we call post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD okay so post-traumatic stress disorder also known as PTSD and just to give you a definition of what PTSD is the first criteria is that it's when someone experiences or Witnesses a traumatic or life-threatening event involving things such as right there's a list but basically assault rape seeing someone badly injured or killed a natural or man-made disaster where someone could have died combat like we often talk about in fact the Advent of Clinical Psychology historically was based on a condition known as shell shock when soldiers would come back from the war which is really what we call PTSD today it's a fun fact but I say that to say is that that's precisely where we got the term post-traumatic stress disorder from is from returning soldiers from war so I say that to say used to be called shell shock right so I say that to say the key there is that they've experienced or witnessed that traumatic or life-threatening event okay so that's important because there's a whole host of things that could be life-threatening and traumatic and I just gave you several categories brothers and sisters just so you can help people right we I I want you to know this for you for a family member discipling other people just to have this content this information so that we know what the word of God says about things that people are struggling with in the natural we have the explanation and the answer for it spiritually amen all right now here's where it gets good okay so there's four categories within PTSD in terms of symptom clusters that are important for us to highlight and this is when we're going to shift gears and getting get in getting into overcoming trauma okay now this is really important because there's four categories that I want to highlight the first category with trauma so you had the event but these four symptom clusters are what perpetuate right the traumatic experience and the trauma memory itself which we'll talk a lot about in a minute okay but these these four clusters of symptoms are are what make it PTSD or trauma or like not overcoming the trauma you can have traumatic reactions obviously and not be diagnosed with PTSD but here's the four symptom categories the first main one that is the probably the bread and butter of trauma is what we call reexperiencing symptoms reexperiencing symptoms well what do you mean Dr Kevin reexperiencing the traumatic event memory as if it's happening right now in the present this can be nightmares this can be intrusive Recollections in my mind like I'm church and all of a sudden boom I get flooded with thoughts or Sensations in my body associated with what happened with that trauma memory right cuz you know your body keeps the score right so often times that we'll get into that but nightmares intense Recollections flashbacks reexperiencing the trauma reaction as if it's happening right now so that's one category the second category which cuts across pretty much everything we've talked about on the sound mindon show is what we call avoidance avoidance of what avoidance of everything related to the trauma memory itself people places things well Dr Kevin shouldn't you avoid places that are dangerous absolutely yes but Dr Kevin should you avoid places that you think are dangerous that are not absolutely not we'll get to that when we talk about overcoming but the problem is our brain if we've experienced trauma it says things are dangerous that are not in fact dangerous but they feel dangerous we'll get into that okay so avoidance of people places things the memory itself Sensations even certain foods certain restaurants certain exercises that stimulate arousal in my body that reminds me of the trauma that can be avoided okay here's the third category negative thoughts and mood also known as negative cognition and mood meaning my thinking pattern now after a traumatic event has shifted into a thinking pattern associated with me having a sense of a foreshorten future that things aren't going to pan out for me things are more dangerous than they are I'm not going to live longer than others so my thinking pattern changes as a result of trauma because it seems like I'm having Doom constantly and hearing Jaws music around me every time I'm in encountering various situations so a very negative alteration not only in my thinking patterns but in my emotional experiences and then finally hyperarousal is the last category I have an intense startle response now like if something happens like I'm like did you hear that or oh you scared me to death right another episode with word seeds but I say that to say is that my startle response is way higher than it used to be and then I'm constantly on edge my cortisol levels the stress hormone in my body are really on level 99 for many people in that case right so again reexperiencing symptomss avoidance right negative cognition or thoughts and mood and then hyperarousal are the four main categories when we talk about trauma so let's shift gears now and talk about how to overcome trauma ready all right brothers and sisters buckle up how do we overcome trauma now before I tell you some scripture related to that that many of you already know these scriptures but I want to put like some practical steps with those scriptures it's important that we understand those four categories as we shift brothers and sisters into the word because you know the word of God right and again the irony right the irony is that what it says in the word right tells you exactly how to overcome and the science actually ironically enough is supported by what we know in the word all right so I want to say that but these four categories are important to know because the strategies that are in the word are consistent with what we know practically with science reexperiencing symptoms remember that okay avoidance symptoms remember that negative I'll just say thoughts and mood as a result of the trauma remember that and then finally the fourth one is hyperarousal in my body intense physiological arousal that is not dangerous we've already attached attacked that amen but those four categories are are important so let's talk about why overcoming trauma here we go okay number one the first key to overcoming trauma there's not a lot here but you'll see there's a lot of meat packed into a couple Concepts taking the memory of the traumatic event captive okay taking the the memory of the traumatic event captive number one 2 Corinthians chapter 10 veres 4 and 5 okay I'll read it we know it right what's it say for the weapons of our Warfare are what are not carnal but what Mighty in God for pulling down strongholds now notice what it says next casting down arguments and every High thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to to The Obedience of Christ amen now I want to just point out something about that and while that's related to trauma in this case right because the weapons of our Warfare are not carnal right but there's two things that are being cast down in this scripture number one is Imagination okay every High thing is the second thing that exalts itself over the knowledge of God imagination and every High thing that exalts itself over the knowledge of God now understand this both of those things that are being cast down deal with with issues of the Soul your brain your emotional experiences your memories your thinking patterns very important the Greek word there for imagination is really interesting because it means reasoning that is hostile in this context of 2 Corinthians 10 we're talking about reasoning that is hostile in the context of what is understood to be Christlike right in the context of Jesus is saying anything that's hostile against Christ so these imaginations and these thoughts especially with a traumatic event it's saying that what happened to me occurred and it's bad and I should not put my fingers in my ears and push it away in fact what I have to do which we'll get to is we got to cast those down well how do you do that we'll get to that in a second but again reasoning that is hostile now here's some interesting semantics or words listen to this in the NIV that word is arguments in my mind right the JB Phillips New Testament translation that word is every deceptive fantasy wo that's a good one because you could really argue that that's what trauma is the trauma memory is because that event's no longer happening to me brothers and sisters but it feels like it is so it's a deceptive fantasy because it's not happening now amen are y'all seeing that we'll get to how to fix that in a second but it's important that we put some skin on that concept The New American Standard translation callus that speculations every deceptive fantasy speculations y'all seeing that reasoning that is hostile and arguments right you could easily argue that trauma is a deceptive fantasy the trauma memory is a deceptive fantasy not the trauma the trauma memory that's why we call it PTSD and whatnot it's because it's the memory of it that's the problem not the trauma itself the trauma created it right it was life-threatening but the trauma memory is being sustained by avoidance hyperarousal and me trying to push it away that's what's maintained in the trauma brothers and sisters is trying to push it away which backfires and puts the traumatic memory on repeat are y'all seeing that because emotional processing is not occurring within uh people who have traumatic experiences and diagnosable conditions in this case because I'm pushing the trauma memory away because it's too painful right now I hope you understand my heart with that not saying it's okay because trauma's horrible right that's part of being in a fallen World however the trauma memory continues to occur as a result of trying to push it away okay so because that event already happened and the individual experiencing trauma Sy symptoms is convinced that the trauma trauma is still happening again that's the issue so how do you take that trauma memory captive Bas on based on what we said well let me let me give you some Concepts exposure is something I've talked about on previous episodes exposure is confronting the trauma memory itself repeatedly and then resting in the truth of God's word let me say it again exposure also meaning confronting intense emotionality right confronting the trauma memory itself repeatedly not once and then res resting in the truth of God's word after the fact now confering refers to several things okay it's recalling the trauma memory in full detail well Dr Kevin that sounds terrible that sounds super uncomfortable well it is but understand what I'm saying brothers and sisters in order for us to take authority over something that is uncomfortable you have to confront being uncomfortable there's no other way around that amen if I'm afraid of public speaking I don't avoid public speaking for the rest of my life because I'll be bound by it I confront public speaking right so the key is I have to confront the trauma memory itself but that's not all all five senses associated with what I recall from the trauma memory the images the thoughts the details the emotion and you also confront the physiological arousal in your body brothers and sisters associated with the trauma why because your body keeps the score and your brain is going to Bow the knee to this process and then you're going to be able to stand in the authority that you have but you have to confront it first amen okay so that's important so that intense arousal in your body let me say this the intense arousal in your body when you're having a trauma memory is not a sign that you're in danger but rather your body has learned to respond as if it is in danger when you're not do y'all see that amen it's so important to know the difference you're not you're not not in danger anymore though that happened right but we have to confront it that's the point I'm trying to make now you also have to confront situations that remind you of the trauma right so what do you mean not situations that are in fact dangerous I don't have to say that again situations that you perceive as dangerous well that person reminds me of the perpetrator they're not the perpetrator right that movie with that scene reminds me but you're not being traumatized again do y'all see what I'm saying I'm not saying like not thinking on things that are pure lovely true and Noble and whatnot I'm saying confronting things that are not in fact dangerous that feel dangerous there's a difference between it being dangerous and it feeling dangerous we got to know the difference and we have to confront those so the memories itself all the arals all the images as well as the situations that um are related to that now to be clear you know this does require often times okay I want to be clear as a mental health professional you may need assistance with a mental health professional to do that especially one who knows the word that's all I'm going to say about that but again if you're going to embark on that journey and it's really difficult there's where people like me are that's why we exist amen all right the second final point so we got confronting taking the memory captive and the second thing and all the things associated with the memory but the second piece is meditating on who you are in Christ following exposure to the trauma memory man that's powerful meditating on who I am afterwards what am I what do I mean by that what I mean by that is you got to confront the trauma memory there's no way around that avoidance for the rest of your life brothers and sisters is going to be a Perpetual cycle and it's also going to model that for people that are young people in your life see other episodes see how it all goes back full circle so what am I mean meditating on who you are in Christ here's some examples 1 Corinthians uh 21:16 one of my favorite scriptures I have the mind of Christ well I don't feel like I do but you do in the spirit amen no weapon formed against me shall prosper Isaiah 54:17 well I don't feel like that's true well it is true in Jesus name I have power love and a sound mind 2 Timothy 1:7 well I don't feel like I do but you do in the spirit in Jesus name you see what I mean so after I'm confronting these here's another I trust God what can man do to me we talked about that on the fear of man Psalms 5611 powerful scripture I trust God what can man do to me right I'm safe I'm secure amen he will never leave me nor forsake me Hebrews 13:5 quotes that so the key is once I've confronted the trauma memory I have to stand in truth of the word of God and know who I am know who I am in Christ that will kind of crystallize those neurop Pathways in my brain when I confront it enough times and then stand in truth then I'm able to believe and declare those things that are true in the word of God of who I really am and now I'm taking victory in overcoming traum traumatic experiences praise God well I hope you got something out of that brothers and sisters I love you again you can shoot me an email if you like Kevin drevin chapman.com you can go to my website Dr Kevin chapman.com you can even check out our Center at the Kentucky Center for anxiety and Related Disorders KY cards.com see you next Monday