Today I want to talk about a topic that is near and dear to my brain called, “Proof, not Promises.”

Imagine you have a shed that you put tools in every day, year after year, without a problem. There is proof that this shed is safe and that you can walk over to it over and over again, without thinking about it. Then one day, you get stung by a wasp on your walk over and you run away as fast as you can. You are not even thinking about what stung you – you just feel pain and your body takes over, making you run away. All of a sudden, something in your physiology is afraid of approaching that shed again, because there is new proof that it is not safe to do so anymore. It does not matter how many times before it was safe to walk to the shed, it only took one bee sting to make you a little afraid. You can tell yourself while you are in the house, tending to your wounds, that it is safe.

You can promise yourself over and over and over again that it is safe to go back to the shed. You can call the exterminator, watch them take the nest away, pay the bill and it does not matter how many times you tell yourself that it is safe. The proof (the trauma) was strong enough that suddenly, your physiology does not want to let you go back to the shed.

What happens in the brain when this happens? The green part of the brain above is called the neocortex. This is the part of the brain that has everything to do with language, abstract thoughts, imagination, intellect, and our intention to do things. It is where everything you want in life is actually processed to begin with. The trick with the neocortex is that it needs to be rested and relaxed with time and space to think clearly so that it can tell the rest of the brain what to do. The yellow space in the middle of the brain is called the limbic system, which deals with emotions, memories, habits, and attachments. This kicks in when you have an intention to do something and you automatically have feelings about it. Lastly, the red colored area is the brainstem, the reptilian area that deals with safety, sustenance, sex, and procreation. The cerebellum is also in this area, where movement and fight or flight first get processed. 

Let’s take a more drastic example than a bee sting. Let’s say a lion jumps out of the bush and starts to chase and try to eat you. You are not going to have the concept of “lion” in your brain or have any feelings about it. The stimulus is going to go straight to the brainstem and you are going to run away as fast as possible. A lot of people break their toes trying to run away from danger without feeling it until later because they are so focused on survival in the moment. 

On a more day-to-day level, what happens if you have the intention of being a nice, happy, healthy human who is kind and respectful to others, but you did not eat enough that day? You get hangry! You do not have enough blood sugar to actually feed the front part of the brain and as a result, the back of the brain tells us, “ Do whatever you can to eat more food. This person that is trying to talk to me is getting in the way of me being alive.” 

So when it comes to understanding this topic about bees, lions, hunger and things that cause trauma, it is pretty easy. Your brain needs proof, not just promises, that you are no longer in danger.

When you add trauma to the mix, you get a huge problem. I define trauma as a sufficiently strong enough or consistent enough stimulus, leading to unwanted thoughts, behaviors, and stress. With repeat trauma, the neurons that fire together start to wire together and your brain stem starts to get better at overriding whatever intention you might have. You will start to operate from a fight or flight response no matter how many times you promise yourself that you are safe, the proof will get wired into your brain. 

Wellness CoachWhen this happens and we try to use traditional methods to resolve it, such as talk therapy, positive thinking, affirmations, journaling, etc, all we do is give promises to the brain that already has plenty of proof that says otherwise. Even with stimulus not identical to the trauma but similar enough, the back of your brain will be triggered and override your intentions. 

So how do you actually intervene and resolve it? With new proof. Coming back to the example of the shed. If you force yourself to go back over to it, perhaps wearing a bee suit the first couple of times, you start to build up new proof. You start to notice, “Oh, I approached the shed and I didn’t die.” It is not as big as the first stimulus, but you start to get enough proof back into your brain that you are not getting stung to tone down your fight or flight response. You need to get some proofing into the brain in little tiny bite sized ways to override the old trauma. You do that over and over again until eventually that trauma response has been extinguished.

However, with large enough trauma, this overriding process is much easier said than done and it can be hugely beneficial to seek out support. This is why I put the Healing (e)Motions trauma healing course together, to teach people specific exercises to actually rewire the back part of your brain with new proof. It’s not that long. It’s very affordable, and it is the best, fastest way to change your psychologist to deal with the physiology first (for myself and hundreds of people that I’ve helped so far.) If you are interested in seeing what it is all about, more info is coming soon — so stay tuned!

I hope this information was helpful to you and, as always, have a happy and healthy rest of your day.