Story Matters Podcast
In the Story Matters Podcast, Hosts Ryan and Emily Baker discuss the intersection between theology and psychology helping listeners to better grasp how their particular stories have shaped them.
Story Matters Podcast
36. Seeing Triggers as Invitations to Healing (Part 2)
We explore how triggers reveal unhealed wounds, and how integrating top‑down truth with bottom‑up practices helps the body and mind trust each other again. A biblical story of David’s overreaction, real‑life examples with horses and rivers, and practical disciplines show how redemption replaces denial.
• what a trigger is and why reactions can be disproportionate
• understanding the brain with easy-to-remember metaphors
• David and Nathan as an example of overreaction
• top‑down approaches to renew the mind
• bottom‑up practices to regulate the nervous system
• how story work integrates sensation, memory, and meaning
• grounding in the present while revisiting the past
• replacing “let it go” with redemptive processing
• building trust between body sensations and core beliefs
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Welcome to the Story Matters Podcast. I'm Ryan Baker.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm Emily Baker.
SPEAKER_01:We believe people grow and heal through understanding how our stories are rooted in God's redemptive story.
SPEAKER_00:We hope our conversations encourage you to engage your story and the world around you with a new lens.
SPEAKER_01:We're glad you're here. So, welcome to part two of a conversation we're having around triggers. In the first episode, we did more of an overview of how the brain operates and what triggers really mean in the realm of trauma. A lot of our discussion has come from Dr. Basil van der Koek and the Body Keeps the Score, but also other sources like Dan Siegel and Mindsight. And what we're exploring is the fact that we carry wounds in our being, in our bodies. You know, we mentioned the triune brain. We mentioned aspects within the brain that are likened to metaphors, the cook, which is the thalamus, the fire alarm, which is the amygdala, the watchtower, which is the medial prefrontal cortex. And there are others, but the idea is these are all interacting. And we mentioned how you have a high road, which means the thalamus is taking the information, the ingredients from your sensory organs, and it's the cook, so it puts them into some kind of a format and sends it to both the cortex, the watchtower, but also sends it to the low road, which is the amygdala. Now the cortex will also bring meaning to it and send it back to the amygdala with, hey, this is actually what's real. But the amygdala will have already started its own assessment, what we might call a first draft, and then hopefully we'll then take the new information and make the final assessment. But in the realm of trauma, what we know is it often is overactive, it misunderstands. In other words, from early wins, we have these responses and they come back and we're not sure why. Well, this is why the amygdala is seeing danger and it's telling your body we need to do something. This is the fight or flight, freeze or fall on the limbic responses. And so a trigger, as we've been saying, is when the response doesn't seem to quite fit the stimulus. The stimulus itself may be neutral, like a loud sound, in the case of, say, a PTSD situation, but it can also be an actual aggression. Someone cuts you off in traffic or a spouse, as you said in our last episode. There's a harsh look or statement that's the stimulus can often trigger a much deeper response than fits the stimulus. So obviously in the marriage, we process the stimulus. But then the question is, what does this trigger mean? And that's what we want to do in this episode. Continue, Emily, that conversation where, okay, so I understand in my head what triggering means. What do we do with this?
SPEAKER_00:Not only what do we do with this, but how is it particular to each person? And I think that's what matters. We have people listening to this that either are kicking tires about trauma, they would say that we have gotten way off as a culture and we're blaming everything on trauma and triggers, all the way to listeners that they would say, I get triggered all the time. Help me. And so I think our desire is to unpack the word trigger in such a way that we are saying every human being has triggers because every human being was born into a world east of Eden that has trauma. So all of us have something in our brain that's misfiring or overreacting, even though that seems shaming. We're not trying to shame that, but a disproportionate reaction. And all of us have particular ways. And you brought up a story from scripture the other day that I would love for you to unpack. And it it seemed at first like it didn't fit, but I loved how you referenced it, you know, with David.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, just thinking about okay, do we see triggers in the Bible? What I'm gonna show is that are there places in the Bible where a response to the stimulus is clearly overblown? And I think one of the classic places you can look at would be when Nathan confronts David. So, as you know, King David has committed adultery with Bathsheba. He has Uriah murdered, who's Bathsheba's husband, then marries Bathsheba, and many, many things start cascading in the kingdom from this sin. Many of you have read Psalm 51, which is David's Psalm of Repentance. But there's this place where Nathan is the prophet that God has asked to go confront David. And the technique, what the story is mostly known about is it lures David into his own confession. And its primary interpretation, it's not specifically about triggering. But just to remind you, what happens, David was a shepherd growing up, so Nathan decides to concoct a story seeking the king's justice, where a man steals his neighbor's one and only sheep, even though he had plenty because he wanted to feed a guest. And David just comes out of his skin, right? That man needs to die, to which Nathan famously says, You are the man. So the primary point, of course, is David is being drawn into understanding his sin. But for that interpretation to even work, everyone needs to be able to go, wait a minute. David wants to like kill, like, talk about overreaction, right? If you look at the laws of Israel, I think it would have been supply two lambs. You took the one, you know, something like that. And yet he wants the man that did it to be executed. And so what you have is a trigger, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to think, well, David loved his sheep when he was a shepherd. And who knows, maybe he even had a scenario where someone took a sheep or harmed one. And so early protection, early wounding, early developed sensibilities to where now hearing the scenario just again triggered David to overreact. And that's just an example. Again, it's not perfect, but it's just one example where as human beings, we often overreact to stimuli, and we tend to just act like it's no big deal. We explain it away. And what we're really wanting to press in on is let's use this idea of trigger, not sort of like to protect us or to be colloquial or to be even funny, which often I've even heard it to be kind of like, yeah, you triggered me, uh, funny, but to really be curious what's happening within me.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I love that you immediately went to that story because it doesn't take much creativity after hearing that to think, oh, well, Jesus did that with each of his disciples. He said, You'll become fishers of men. Now that's not a triggering statement, but it's a particular relation to let those men know I know you so particularly that I know what's going to activate you. Your story matters, right? And when we're activated, David was activated so beautifully that Nathan could say, You are that man. And then David was cut to the heart. So I think for that alone, I love that example, but this reminds me of how our healing journey has to be in sync with our particular wounding. I think this is where knowing your story really matters. So I'm gonna name four random therapeutic practices: equine therapy, yoga, exposure therapy, art therapy. Depending on what you have struggled with or what you have had in your stories of harm, all of those therapeutic practices are gonna have something in it that feels hard. How do we know what route to go? You mentioned top down, bottom up in our last episode. Let's move into like what does that look like for us to begin to integrate our brain, our cortex, and our amygdala? They need to work in tandem.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we say this a lot about story work, where sometimes a person wants growth or healing or change because they know a specific thing. You know, this thing is getting to me. Other people or at other times, maybe we're not sure what's going on. We just know something's either off or we're stuck. And so one of the reasons story work as a modality is helpful is you're not predicting the problem. You're sort of just naming this was an event that happened. Let me write about it. Let me look into it, talk to someone or a group. Let's work that. And what will come out of that often is oh, I did not realize that because of this, I began to do that. Or I, you know, I made a vow, I made an agreement, or a type of protector. We have lots of metaphors and language. But what's being said is my amygdala became hyper alert to any stimuli along the lines of that trauma. That's what we're saying. But it's very hard to just scan your life and say, oh, here's where that is. So part of what we're trying to do is on one hand, top down is we're learning the truth. We're learning who God is and his character, we're learning about the world. And the cortex in that learning is going to hopefully inform and regulate ideally the emotional brain, and vice versa. And the emotional brain is hopefully also gonna become along as well. The top down we've mentioned in the last episode, we can talk more about, but when I think of the bottom up, it's harder for me because I am someone who gets more caught up in the cerebral side of things. And so when you said these therapies, and again, let's start with Christian practices, right? Meditation on scripture, fasting, solitude. I mean, there are classic disciplines that they don't make you a better human because you did it. They're means, often the reformers would call these means of grace, they're means by which you then experience the healing of grace. But I loved when you just mentioned equine therapy, and that's something you become interested in. And I know we've talked about, but I had the opportunity to ride a horse just last weekend on a kind of surprise leadership retreat, meaning it just came quickly, and you encouraged me to do it. And you can sign up for things. And I signed up for fly fishing, and then I wanted to do this horseback riding, and it's funny, I've done it before, and then the lady there was leading was like, What's your experience? And it's very humbling. I'm like, Oh, I live in Stillwater, we're the home of the cowboys, and I probably have ridden three times, and I'm 50. So I had to be honest, and then they're like, Okay, you're on Bubba. So she's located my get my ability to an animal named Bubba, and then they, you know, if you ever do this, of course, some of you are probably rolling your eyes because you're like master horse people, but you know, it's like, oh, Bubba's dating the horse in front Florence or whatever. I'm like, what? And what you find quickly is these animals have personalities. I started being aware, like I'm trusting this horse with a lot. And we didn't just do a flat walk, we went up steep inclines and down. And I'm just saying, I'm again, I'm saying my body was put into a place of sensory uh reality that was actually tied to an uh another being. It wasn't just, you know, something like I'm going for a walk, but I'm actually in nature on an animal that has a personality. And it's really stuck with me. It's amazing how many times I've physically, physiologically felt settled from just that one ride or the time in the river, you know, and casting and only catching one fish. But those those have stuck with me more than had I just read a book. In fact, I'll say this I wanted to do that. You know, the the beauty of this was like, you can do whatever you want, whatever you need. And I went with two friends and they were gonna fish all day. And I'm like, you know, I kind of would love to read. And and I just thought I felt the kind of the nudging of the spirit, the same that made me go with your blessing. Like, hey, go do these things. And so part of what we're saying, and what you've even mentioned to me earlier before we started the podcast is part of the bottom up is being uncomfortable. Everybody that fasts will be uncomfortable. Everybody that meditates on scripture will find themselves wrestling, right? Everyone that does solitude may get lonely, but not everyone on a horseback or in the river or doing yoga or going to the spa. It's it's being in positions that, at least for me, and you mentioned particular, like not everything we do will equally be challenging. But I think one of the goals of the bottom-up is to engage our bodies in ways that are not comfortable with a novelty, and they're having to learn to trust. It's there's a bit of like, hey, can I trust you, brain, that we're safe? And that's what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00:And let me clarify, I felt bad as I think about saying equine therapy in the same breath as exposure therapy. Because if you know what I'm talking about, it's not like exposure therapy regulates your nervous system. Like riding a horse can feel very regulating, going for a walk, anything rhythmic, like humming, like there's a lot of ways that we can regulate our nervous system. But here's kind of what I was thinking when I said it. Anything we do that's bottom up, that's a practice, whether it's fasting, yoga, solitude, these things that all of us to some degree have a resistance to. And you know, there's gonna be different degrees. It's gonna be both regulating to our nervous system while we're doing it, or because it was so challenging and our body was nervous that we weren't gonna stay alive. I mean, not that that sounds dramatic, but and then we survived it, then it actually is therapeutic in the result. So let me just take an example of yoga for a moment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, remember the time that I first did a yoga pose and I said, This is easy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then I said, Yeah, you stopped holding it.
SPEAKER_01:By the way, for those of you that think yoga is of the devil, we're just talking about stretching and sela.
SPEAKER_00:Selah is my version of pointing ourselves to the inner strength, which is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01:Do I have time for an aside on that?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it'd have to be really fast.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I I saw a reel, and it was like, if you don't know the origins of things, if you don't know where a practice came from, a demon could be polluting you through it. You need to know the origins, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it it's intriguing, right? It gets your uh awareness. And I'm like, you know, I'll never forget in seminary and covenant theology finding out, oh, God, when he initiates the idea of the covenant, borrows that ceremony from the Hittites were pretty much not Christians. In other words, he's borrowing an ancient tradition that made sense to those people to then explain how he was going to work with them. He didn't just invent something brand new that had never been thought of before. And so, anyway, that's my aside.
SPEAKER_00:That's funny. Well, then I have one too. When I was the fill-in music teacher for a little Christian school during the pandemic, I told him I would do it because I can lip sync and do VBS music. You know, I'm not a true singer, but anyway, I was mostly just dealing with a a bunch of rowdy second graders at one point, and they wouldn't listen. And I just wanted them to to hear me say one thing. And so I said, Okay, everybody, real quick, stand on your left foot and put your right foot on your ankle and see if you can balance. Put your arms out like this. And I said, And stand up real tall and see if you can balance, but you have to be really quiet while you do it, and then I'm gonna tell you something. And they all got really quiet, and I said, I want to see who can last the longest, you know, try to make it competitive. And so they're all standing basically in tree pose. And this little kid that was the most rowdy of all screamed, This is satanic. I'm not doing it. I said, What? And I said, Fine, then just be quiet. Because that's not satanic, but anyway, yoga practice. Let's go back to what I was saying. There will be a moment in any practice where it feels uncomfortable to your body that you want to stop the pose. You want to release your muscles and you want to stop balancing or stop holding. But if you can make yourself hold it, you know, for another two deep breaths and then release the the relief that comes over your body, but also the I can do it. And it didn't take me out. I overcame. There's something beautiful about I have more control over my body than I did yesterday. I can do something hard. You know, fasting's the same way. I can go a whole day and I can check in with my body, check in with my savior, check in with the liturgies that are making this worthwhile. And that's the bottom up. We come out of it thinking, I can do that. It's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's interesting because as you say that, I don't, I'm not doing yoga, but we do stretch where I work out, and I find that in the workouts, the desire to stop is never casual. It's never you can keep going, but this isn't really fun. I I don't want to oversimplify what we're talking about, but it's like the it feels like my body is warning me of something. It it can feel like it's marshalling all of its resources to get me to stop what I'm doing. And yet the truth is another moment, another minute isn't going to do what it's threatening. And that's true with fasting, right? That's true with solitude. That's anytime we enter the space where fear or the thought of abandonment is being threatened. If you keep doing this, bad things will happen. This is not verbal. This is in sensations in our body. And what we're talking about then is oftentimes the bottom-up approach is both pleasure, right? It should have. Like when you've accomplished that, or just the feeling of doing a pose, or the feeling of having time in the word, or the feeling of worship. Yet often we've had to go up against our own bodies in the form of protectors, right? We talk about protectors, which again, a protector by definition, would be a part of our being that's lying, right? That's over-dramatizing a scenario, the stimulus to get its way, right? So, not everything is a full-on fight or flight. The amygdala is not just a fire alarm, but it's also salient, which means its job is to say whether this will be painful or bring pleasure. It's not just run and fight, and it can even be like don't do this or do this. Like you need to pursue this because this is what you need. And if that goes against truth, that's not a good idea, but it wins, and you're still in a similar pattern where you've been triggered, but it's not necessarily anxiety or depression or something major. It can be super subtle. Vanderko talks about that, and I've read the quote in the first episode where he describes even like if you lust after someone who is off limits, like that's clearly not a fight or flight, but it's the idea of lust or epithumia is a this is gonna complete me. This thing will fix me, which is exactly what coveting is, which is what Paul was also writing about in Romans 7. We talked about that in the last episode. And so, again, top-down might be to deal with the particularity of those things, whereas the bottom-up is actually helping in general us become more in our bodies and our emotions and our sensations, and and then the cortex is now also able to help assess and learn from those things as well.
SPEAKER_00:So that's so good. So it it does bring up for me another similar but a slight different path that we're talking about healing. And I think it's you've been touching on it, and so have I, but desire, everyone is going to have somewhere in their story a bit of a war, which I think we could probably do a whole conversation episode around the war with desire. I'm gonna illustrate kind of what you were saying, but this is the slightly nuanced. So let's say I'm gonna offer a day at a beautiful beach doing art therapy where you're guided through some practices and it's a very calming self-care day where you're going to do some therapeutic work.
SPEAKER_01:Pause. Listener, what came up for you? I'm just serious. I'm listening to you say this. We haven't planned this. But I I just noticed I have about 17 different like what people. What? I don't have time for like who does that. Right. That's crazy. Listener, just pay attention to those and then continues.
SPEAKER_00:Because that is actually gonna be hard for some of the people that can absolutely do the list we've already named. The fasting, the solitude, the hard work, the workout where you want to stop but you don't. Like, there are people that push themselves. There are hardworking people, both spiritually and physically, that do hard things. There are people listening to this that have taken on foster care kids. There are people that have done things on mission fields that absolutely for the average person, those are hard things. But I think I'm saying, what if you were asked to do something that felt indulgent? Because, see, I actually work with a lot of people who are working against the agreement that they're selfish or they're lazy, because that was the message they got in their childhood. And so to do something like art therapy or to go get a massage or to go spend a weekend retreat where there's some somatic work is going to feel very self-indulgent. And their body in this particular scenario is going to get so activated because of the agreement that I'm not lazy, I do hard things, I'll go beat my body before I'll go do art therapy on a beach.
SPEAKER_01:And let me so this is really good. First of all, the the presupposition is that it's indulgent. But I think what we both have noticed as we've tapped into that, whether with ourselves or our clients or friends, they don't feel it's indulgent. It's not like I would love that, but I can't. That's out there, don't get me wrong. You know, I would love a massage. It's more like I don't want to be touched.
SPEAKER_00:Like, oh, they've told themselves I don't want it.
SPEAKER_01:Um, a sensation can be a trigger. And so to be touched can trigger you. There are results of trauma that can make what should be pleasurable like being out in nature. Well, I'm not in tune with my body. That's a major aspect of trauma. Vandercolt, he had clients he were he mentioned that didn't even feel he did an experiment where like he would put something in their hand and they couldn't name what it was with their eyes called like a key. So it's just so much separation from their body. We call that cortical gating, right? Um, that needed, again, the bottoms-up approach. He had this particular client start kickboxing and he said she didn't go to the emergency room for three months. She had been going to the emergency room for in this case, it was an asthmatic, but it was a trauma response. And so the point is we're moving into spaces that may not be something that's appealing. And I mentioned this a minute ago when you mentioned art therapy at the beach. Like, I happen to be someone who's very intrigued by art therapy and scared of it at the same time. And when you said that, and I asked the listener, like, what came up for you? I just want to name a few things that happened probably within a moment. For you? For me.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:One was okay, wait a minute. Why would I want to paint or draw on a beach with sand and wind? Like, I'd rather be in a studio somewhere, or I want to be on the beach just enjoying the beach. I don't want to combine those two, which then led to who's are you instructed? Who's doing this? Can I trust you? Are you gonna have supplies for me? Are you gonna ask me to do hard things I don't know how to do? Like, I there were so many in one moment sensations. Again, the amygdala. Do not do this. This will not be fun for you.
SPEAKER_00:You or you're gonna be vulnerable. See, a lot of these practices are putting ourselves in positions where we are reliant on someone else or like Bubba the horse, right? Or we don't know exactly what we're getting into. So we feel vulnerable and young. So we have all worked very hard to not live in our childhoods again. Even if we have wonderful memories of great childhoods and we do love certain parts of that childhood, we would love to go back and have those bicycle riding moments in the neighborhood. But there are so many things that we have now as adults decided I'm never gonna feel that way again. I am never gonna feel like I'm gonna show up to class and not realize what we're getting into and feel dysregulated. I'm gonna create my life to where it's safe, it's predictable, it's air conditioned, it's heated.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's so back to the fishing. You know, I've heard of fly fishing. Everyone seems to love fly fishing. I love the movie A River Runs Through It. Our own Dan Allender is a huge fly fisherman. Um, I have fished in Colorado Rivers growing up with my granddad, but we used casts and we used worms. But I'm a man who I feel masculine and I feel of my age, you know, in a good way. And I remember getting all the gear ready. The guy, the guide was doing that, and we put on the waiter and the things. And I just felt young, kind of like I'm on a field trip. I remember I was sitting in the backseat, uh, you know, chose the backseat of the truck, and it just felt like I'm going on a field trip. And where are we going? I remember getting out, and my body felt six years old. And as he began to describe what you do before you got in the water, I think I zoned out. I didn't feel able to stay present in what he was instructing. He's 29, but he felt like a father, you know, he's half he's my just a little older than my oldest son. And I mean, I'm I'm aware of this in the midst of the doing it. So I'm in the water, I'm feeling the sensation. It's hard to walk on the rocks, tripping. I'd make a cast, it would flub, and then I'd make a good one and it would do well, and he would say kind things. And I I will just tell you like it was therapy, and it was both beautiful and wonderful and exhilarating and hard and uncomfortable and and too much. And yet I did it. And I also I remember having some thoughts. Like, my dad went to Colorado with us. Again, my parents were divorced. I would, I did not live with my dad, but he would take us to Crested Butte, and I'd be with my grandparents, and my granddad would take my brother and I out in the river. I don't ever remember my dad being out there. Why? You know, and I started having like sorrow, and I've never taken my kids into the river. And so it brought up so many things for me in a good way. It wasn't overwhelming. I didn't start weeping, not that that would be wrong, but I was able to sort of process that with my two friends, one of whom is a therapist, the other's a pastor. So not only was it the physicality of what we were doing, but then it did bring up for me emotions that I could process in a safe way. And I believe that would be a bottoms-up approach. I knew, and I still know, and you knew when you said, Yeah, go do this, that I need to get in those places. That, you know, for me, hey, meditate on scripture doesn't feel near as threatening as go out into the water and you're gonna feel six, you know, and you're gonna catch one three-inch fish.
SPEAKER_00:But for some people, going out into the river is not gonna be their hard thing. Meditating on scripture would be the hard thing, right? This is not formulaic. Because even as you're talking about all this stuff about nature, I remember one man told me that wild at heart didn't work for him because actually his body didn't calm down in nature. He still did certain things, but he was raised in an urban setting where, you know, like I'm wondering, is it therapeutic to ever go to New York City and put yourself on a subway?
SPEAKER_01:Well, if I may, if the presupposition of wild at heart is everyone will immediately walk into nature and love it, that's probably not everyone's experience. But I do think if it was the right setting with the right guide and it is in a situation where you felt free to go do it, we could have incremental going back to your exposure idea, the love for these things. And that's important. God made the earth. I'm not saying everyone needs to love fly fishing or love a hike or whatever or horseback riding, but everyone certainly can grow to appreciate the wide open spaces and the oxygen. And then going back to the city, maybe I'm not loving the subway, but what about the galleries or the art museum or the concert halls, right? Or the restaurants. So there are things around the city as well that we would go and engage our senses. And so both are beautiful. I want to make sure we're not going down the road that it has to be hard.
SPEAKER_00:Right. No, no. This is supposed to be, I think regulating.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe we would say integrating for whatever reason, the practices we're referring to, whether they're the classical disciplines or means of grace, or whether they're other therapeutic modalities or just self-care. I think what I'm hearing you say is we're being intentional to put ourselves in places that often our bodies don't go for yes.
SPEAKER_00:I think you just summed it up perfectly. So, in the same way that God gave Nathan the wisdom to give David that particular story that would activate him, there's intentionality. He knew David's story, he knew this would get him. And that's different from a trigger. That's not apples to apples. But I think what I hear you saying is we intentionally need to know our own stories in order to become more integrated, not only in our brain, but with the Holy Spirit, so that we're living out of what Paul talks about in Romans, that we want to have the renewal of the mind and be not just victims of our own triggers and then therefore blaming others. You triggered me.
SPEAKER_01:Very well said. And as you mentioned story, I wanted to say that I I once heard someone describe poetry as a perfect integration of both the right brain and the left brain. And in the same way, we might argue that story is the perfect integration for the body or what we call the emotional brain and the rational brain, which you've been talking about. I hear this quote from Vanderkock. He says, People can recover from trauma only when the brain structures that were knocked out during the original experience, which is why the event registered in the brain as trauma in the first place, are fully online. So, in other words, all those events need to become fully online in order to heal, he says. Visiting the past in therapy should be done while people are, biologically speaking, firmly rooted in the present and feeling as calm, safe, and grounded as possible. And he defines a grounded meaning that you can feel your, he says, your butt in your chair, you can feel the see the light coming through the window, you can feel the tension in your calves, etc. In other words, you're grounded. He says being anchored in the present while revisiting the trauma opens the possibility of deeply knowing that the terrible events belong to the past. He says this can only happen when the brain's watchtower, cook, and timekeeper are online. He says therapy won't work as long as people keep being pulled back into the past. In the sense of their emotions are being triggered without actually having the ability to make sense of them. So again, he's not particularly saying story work exactly, but that's what we're saying is it's one way to understand what happened in the past by writing and telling it in the present in such a way that we not just mentally give the contours, but we're writing it expressively, emotionally, and oftentimes experiencing those things as we engage them. And so I would almost say it seems like you're doing both a top-down and a bottom-up approach in story engagement.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And the story you just told us that came to you while you were in the river, you might not have ever come to, but while you're in the river feeling young, you recalled a beautiful thing fishing with your grandfather and a heartbreaking thing that your dad was never there.
SPEAKER_01:When my granddad passed, my dad enlarged a photo. And it's a photo of my granddad and I hunched over a lure. And we have that in our hallway. And it's just telling his favorite photograph of me is one that he's not in.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because someone took his position of fathering you. And it was a it's a very sweet fathering photo. It's intimate and it portrays the playfulness and the intentionality and the attunement all in one photo that your grandfather had of you, and it wasn't your father. And that's heartbreaking. And I don't know if someone said, Hey, will you write a story? We have an upcoming story workshop. Will you write a new story? I don't know that you could have gotten to that story without going to the river with your friends. And so sometimes it's these bottom-up therapeutic practices that take us to stories. They remind us of a memory that we can then write, read, and engage while staying safe and present in our bodies, right? I often say, Can you feel the carpet under your toes? Can you feel your feet within your shoes? That's keeping you aware. I'm here right now, today, but I'm telling a story of the past. So we can re-feel it, but we're safe.
SPEAKER_01:So I want to just, as we come to a conclusion, draw us back to a place I go often and I've already gone to in the last episode in scripture, where we've already talked about Romans 7, where Paul's naming the high road and the low road of trauma, right? He's naming that because he's become aware that coveting is sin, when the sensation of coveting comes to him, right? He says, It's good that I know that it's a sin. He says, That means I think the law is good. But in my body, like in my members, it's not. I'm I'm not able to obey, I'm struggling. And he lands on the fact that because Jesus took away condemnation, he's safe. And that's why he can experience emotions that aren't fun. And so when we talk about triggering, that's exactly what we're doing, is we're actually saying we're moving toward and even befriending emotions that aren't fun. Van der Koelk says, You're looking for ways to draw out the sensory information that is blocked and frozen by trauma. The goal is for patients to befriend rather than suppress the energies released by their inner experiences. So again, rather than hating the trigger and hating the feelings, what I think we're learning from Roman's Day is, I can actually move toward them, right? So when we are freed from shame, which is not just a one, it's it's an ongoing process, right? We can then actually move with empathy, kindness, curiosity toward these emotions and using what we know to be true of the gospel and our standing, calm them. And I think what's happening and what we're seeing is the limbic system and the brain stem that would be the heart, so to speak, and the mind that would be the cortex, are becoming trusting of each other. So that the amygdala is, if you can imagine the amygdala having a voice saying something like, Hey, I'm I'm nervous right now because of what I just heard, but I'm gonna see what the prefrontal cortex sends me because I think we might be fine. Like it's a lot more of an integrated piece. And I think that the ultimate goal is to become the people we were designed to be, right? In Romans 8, the spirit brings life to our mortal body. And then Romans 12, he picks it up with a transformation, right? A renewal that you're being renewed in your mind, basically embodying and understanding God's way, his will. And that is shalom restored, and that is the goal of this healing. And so we just would say as we draw this to a close. When you hear somebody or even yourself use the word trigger, always have the mindset that a trigger is actually the gift that James refers to and counts at all joy when you face trials of various kinds. You know, what he's saying is when you're triggered, when something that shouldn't freak you out does, it's an opportunity for faith to help you understand that you're safe and you'll grow through that. We're not saying, yay, I want to be triggered. We're not saying go after trigger, but we are saying when you notice it, first of all, become someone who notices the sensations of being triggered. Like we want to grow in that. And then secondly, seeing those sensations as sort of a tracer chemical to the wounds that need healing.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And I want to just caveat that I think you're not saying something that I heard, but that we are thankful that the amygdala doesn't pause and ask questions. The amygdala keeps us alive. So there are moments that we in this world that we live in need our amygdala to kick us into grab that child and pull her back because it's a busy street. Like we're not going to think through, like, is this a really a busy street? So our amygdala, we want to bless that it is the fire alarm. It's what we're saying today with the trigger is that why is the fire alarm not able to be turned off as soon as it was turned on? Meaning if it's a button that you can turn it on and a button to turn off, but why is there a lingering so there's two things, if I can add to that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. One, we don't want it to be overactive. So there is a sense in which by trusting the information from the cortex, it can shift and change and grow so that as those stimuli are sent from the thalamus, it's not overreacting. Secondly, I imagine the way it's designed, if there is a high road and a low road, remember the low road is it goes straight to the amygdala, which then, if need be, brings the hypothalamus online, which then creates the physiological and biological responses. And then there's like a millisecond later, the further understanding from the cortex, right? Well, I would imagine then the amygdala ideally recognizes we're doing two things. We're getting ready just in case, but we're also kind of waiting for the final confirmation at the same time. Like there's a sense of trust that it is doing its job, but it's not doing it sort of to the exclusion of the other parts, which is what integration is about.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And the comment you made about over-reacting, how often is our fire alarm going off? That's an indicator too of possible living in a hyper-arousal state, which just as a little reminder, we've said this before in our Sela and Embodied Gospel, our amygdala sends the message to our psoas muscle that activates it for fight-flight. Like our body can do amazing things. If it needed to lift a car, it would lift a car. Like our body is activated within seconds. And if that's happening on the daily, we're gonna have a worn-out psoas muscle that manifests in lower back pain. I mean, there's all kinds of bodily responses to this kind of living with a fire alarm that goes off too easily, right?
SPEAKER_01:The amygdala can fire too easily, but it also can fire too strongly.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. We're saying both. And I just want to say one thing before we close out. I got to hear you processing your story with me when you came home from your recent fly fishing and horseback riding trip. And I've been really thankful to hear about your experience as you've processed stories that came up for you, sensations that have led you into some really good morning pages and really good thinking through a scripture. Like it's been a really sweet week to hear about your experience. And I'm not, this is not being negative. This is just a reminder of what we're up against. You mentioned something to that 29-year-old guide that you were with. And he asked you a little bit about your most recent life story. In that discussion, you mentioned something that has happened in our lives in the last few years, a very difficult story. And his initial response to you was, Are you still holding on to anything? And his comment, it felt like you should just be able to get past things like that. Which I think for you as a story coach, someone that deeply values what's happened in your past or people's past and how it's affecting you today, you understand that really what he's saying is, have you moved past the hurt? Like, are you good? And yet, because you're not fully healed and it's still a process, you're really taking these experiences you had in the river, the story that came up for you about your dad, and you're actually integrating how it all fits together in certain ways that you have felt young or wounded or vulnerable. And I'm really thankful that you didn't just get past it or let it go. I'm thankful that there's been a process of healing, that you've been faithful to the process, I should say. I think you and I have that longing to know, like, yeah, why does this hurt so much? And if it hurts for you, maybe it doesn't hurt for someone else, but you have a particular story and God has met you in that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I want to receive that and also add, I think it's magical thinking. What is that we can just let something go? Yeah. If if you've been harmed and you are a Christian, then you must affirm that the only reason you can heal from any wound, especially the original wound, is through the blood of Christ. And so any language that bypasses the propitiation on the cross, that he did take the shame, you know, the father turned his face away. If we don't go through that route and we just sort of let things go, it's magical thinking. What we're really doing, it's very similar to the work we're talking about with trauma, is we're pretending the wound didn't happen and the body keeps the score.
SPEAKER_00:And so we shame our body for having these responses. But what I love, and I know you didn't say this, but and I don't know that anyone should, but in response to a comment like that, I want to say, actually, I haven't let it go. I've used it as a doorway and a hallway and a journey to need Jesus all the more deeply as I've grieved, as I've lamented, as I've had anger, as I've been tempted to be bitter and not forgive. All of that has led me into a deeper relationship and a more intimacy with the Father that we all long for. And I'm so thankful I didn't get past it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I think that's right. And I think, you know, scripturally, and Joseph could have just the brothers kind of lied and said, Hey, when Tao died, he said, You are not gonna be mad at us. You know, that's my paraphrase. He could have been like, guys, we're great. We're great. Look at everything, look at Egypt, all that God's provided. But he weeps and he says, What you meant for evil, God meant for good. That is not letting go, that is redeeming.
SPEAKER_00:Redemption. That's what I want people to hear. We're not saying to not let things go. We're saying let it be redeemed, let it be a healing journey that you could be like Joseph and say, There was evil done against me, and even you particularly did evil, but I am redeemed, we are redeemed, God has worked for good.
SPEAKER_01:You may be wondering, okay, did we get off triggers? And the answer is no. A trigger, as we've already said, is the residue of an undealt with wound that you probably tried to let go.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks again for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you have any questions or thoughts about the topics today, we'd love to hear from you. We can be reached through our website, emails, and social media. Just go to Story Matters Initiative. If you're interested in doing individual or group work, we'd love to discuss that with you as well.