86: Hidden Costs of Trauma (Part 2)—Trauma-Informed Systems

"We say that we want healing, but when it comes down to how that healing is going to be manifested, we are not willing to do those things."

In the second of a three-part series, recorded as a live webinar in May for Mental Health Awareness month, we explore the pervasive impact of oppression and victimization on various groups, and workplace trauma and recognizing power differentials within professional environments. 

You will also learn about the importance of trauma-sensitive leadership, how effective communication can foster resilience and engagement, and the need to build systems that empower post-traumatic growth, rather than perpetuate cycles of victimhood.

Don't miss this comprehensive exploration of trauma and the collective effort needed to build a healthier, more connected society.

Panelists:
* Martin Simms. Founder and Director of Performance Enhancement at The DOPE Coach Academy
* Ingrid Cockhren, CEO Cockhren Consulting
* Connie Iannetta, Founder, FosterStrong
* Jesse Kohler, Executive Director on loan for the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP)

Resources:

• Economic Burden of Health Conditions Associated With Adverse Childhood Experiences Among US Adults, JAMA Network

Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.

Chapters

• 1:14 Unveiling Trauma's Workplace Impact
• 6:16 Understanding Workplace Trauma Dynamics
• 13:15 Healing Trauma and Society's Interconnectedness
• 18:57 Challenges and Solutions in Healing
• 26:03 Empowering Trauma-Sensitive Leadership

Transcript

Ingrid Cochhren: 1:14

It's not by chance or just oops, we oppressed you. There is a very intentional process to victimizing some groups and then to be able to turn that back around and say that we want healing spaces. And this is where we get stalled in the trauma-informed movement. We're only going to be able to get so far as long as there are people who benefit from our collectively traumatic experiences.

Manya Chylinski: 1:39

Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience.

Manya Chylinski: 1:42

I'm your host, manya Chylinski, and today we have the second part of our three-part series Unveiling Trauma's Hidden Costs.

Manya Chylinski: 1:52

From the webinar that we did in May with our guests Martin Simms, founder of the Dope Coach Academy, Ingrid Cockhren, CEO of Cockhren Consulting, Connie Iannetta, founder of Foster Strong, and Jesse Kohler, executive director on loan for the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice, and in this episode we start looking at what it means to be traumatized and making your way through our society and how can we start to be addressing the root causes. I think you're going to find this episode pretty interesting. We got a question from one of our attendees that I think connects to what you were just saying, Connie. One of our attendees that I think connects to what you were just saying, connie, you were talking about you can't just using something as an excuse of oh, I can't do that because I'm traumatized, and how we do have some personal responsibility. And we got this question about the impact of trauma in the workplace and I'm curious your thoughts on that connection and what's expected of us in the work environment and how that interrelates with trauma.

Connie Ianetta: 3:04

So for me, I have lived experience in child welfare and I also work full-time in child welfare and that is a tough balance because I'm also an advocate, I have a lot to say about a lot of things, and so it is a matter of balancing kind of tokenism to just not being that token person with lived experience on the payroll who contributes to things and also being respected for my professional accolades and stuff like that, and not just the perception of, oh, if you have feelings about this, it's because of your background or you're triggered or something like that. So it's also. Managing secondary trauma is a lot more important if you have a trauma history. So, for example, when the pandemic happened and the COVID shut down, I was working from home. Now I have small children. So at the time, you know, I had actually just had a baby at that time and I had two other children that were adopted from home. Now I have small children. So at the time, you know, I had actually just had a baby at that time and I had two other children that were adoptive from trauma, and one of my hats at my job is actually reading referrals. So I have small children.

Connie Ianetta: 4:08

Steps away from me as I'm reading reports of horrific things that have happened to children. So I had to find a way to protect my peace and give myself the grace to recognize that and say this upsets me, and I needed to have a plan in place of what I would do whether it was, you know, step away from the computer for a while, shut it down, talk to somebody. I had to have a plan in place of how I was going to deal with that and manage that. So I own the responsibility. I had to take care of my own well-being and protect my peace so that way I could function appropriately in my job. Thank you for that.

Manya Chylinski: 4:45

Martin or Jesse, do either of you have thoughts on that, about trauma in the workplace?

Martin Simms: 4:51

Yeah, but I think it'll just go into my own personal stuff, and I don't. I prefer not to do that here. What I will say is there's definitely impacted trauma in the workplace. I think it's one of the places where it's probably perpetuated the most. We spend a lot of time in the workplace. There's as much time, if not more time, in the workplace than we do awake in our homes, so it's a huge thing, and I think there's a lot of things that protect employers versus the employee, and so there's a whole power differential aspect of the workplace that has tremendous implications across the board in so many ways, whether it's from a trauma perspective, I think trauma is just misunderstood overall in general in the society, and so being able to define trauma what's a trauma to one person might be a walk in the park for someone else, and so like being able to pinpoint what's trauma, what's not, is one of those things that really is one of those shit road downhill type deals, because when you're at the bottom, when somebody say it's not a trauma, then it's not a trauma, so nobody cares about what you're going through, and then they can really dictate how a trauma is being handled, if it's being even recognized or acknowledged, and then that has tremendous implications on the household because that's your economic situation and I think you know, if you look at even just poverty as trauma by itself, it doesn't have to have anything other than it doesn't have to have abuse attached to it, doesn't have to have neglect attached to it. Just not being able to know where your next meal is coming from, where your next bill is coming from, is a perpetual state of trauma anyway.

Martin Simms: 6:25

And so when we look at the workplace it has tremendous implications, like so that that's a it's almost obvious but it doesn't be obvious because of the people at the top can just gaslight the thing away. And I think that even goes into the last issue, what we were talking about, what Ingrid and Constance were saying when you asked the question. What if they're saying that this is just not accountability but that's gaslighting? There's a great deal of gaslighting in that question that does not allow me to have a traumatic experience and also own the process of me getting through this traumatic experience to a level of place where I can show up even like integrated into the healing process, because trauma changes and so if we get a chance to change and integrate that change into a growing perspective where we have post-traumatic wisdom over post-traumatic stress disorder. That's a process and that takes time and it takes an environment that's conducive to that. If you go to work and you deal with somebody who gaslights that away, that's a compounding trauma completely.

Jesse Kohler: 7:26

I got nothing more to add for myself. I'll just put in the chat a link to trauma-informed workplaces and my colleague Whitney, who is absolutely brilliant, doing a presentation on what that can look like if folks are interested and there's a toolkit to support advocates. If it's OK to just quickly tell a story on like, the perpetuating of like victim mentality through trauma, informed care.

Manya Chylinski: 7:50

One, yes, yes, do, and then and then. Ingrid would like to add to this topic as well.

Jesse Kohler: 7:56

So for me, like when I think about not trauma-informed systems, like when I was 15, so I had this best friend, doug, who was the greatest friend you could imagine, and we became best friends when we were three.

Jesse Kohler: 8:09

When we were 15, he and his dad passed away in a plane crash over the summer and when I went back to school, rather than and we went to the same school folks knew about the loss.

Jesse Kohler: 8:22

I was immediately prescribed a series me through an education process when I was thinking about things far bigger than Punnett squares and different educational concepts that they were trying to take me through.

Jesse Kohler: 8:46

A truly trauma-informed system works to create conditions of empowerment, uplift voice and choice and safety, so that way we can navigate through systems for all the things that everybody on the panel is talking about, and we've been giving a lot of love to Dr Bruce Perry and I'll just give one more piece where I think that when there's truly trauma-informed systems, one of the things that I learned early on in my venture through trauma-informed care that gave me a tremendous amount of hope were the concepts around post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic wisdom and when we are supported to venture through the difficulties that we've experienced, that adversity can build strength and support us getting stronger, and so it's not about a victim mentality, like everybody's been saying.

Jesse Kohler: 9:30

It's about understanding what is driving at that point, what was seen as dysfunctional behavior in the classroom, which was really just me not being able to pay attention to what they were teaching in class, because I was reminded of my best friend every day that I went in the classroom and didn't see him. It's about really creating conditions that allow for us to grow, and so just wanted to share that. Ingrid. I pass it back over to you.

Ingrid Cochhren: 9:54

I just wanted to kind of talk about implications of the workplace trauma and being and having trauma-informed workplaces and how important that is. All of the work that we have been able to do around research of trauma is just really points to relationship issues as being kind of the main well, not, I wouldn't say the main, but definitely the most impactful symptom of trauma our inability to form and maintain relationships, and we tend to think of that as more of those loving connections. But it's also work. It's co-workers, it's your boss, it's your, you know, it's those kinds of relationships as well, and we come into spaces and workplaces with this trauma that's going to be disruptive to our ability to connect and communicate well and things of that nature, and that is a huge driver workplace stress, workplace bullying.

Ingrid Cochhren: 10:47

And I would also like to just you know, kind of bring it back around that the workplace is an institution. We have a labor day for a reason, and so when we think about workers in general, they're a vulnerable population that are subject to be mistreated and subjugated and exploited, engaged in wage theft. I mean this is also tied to a systemic issue of the way that our economic system is set up with the goal of subjugating people and kind of like what Martin was saying, this gaslighting again. You know, some groups are being victimized and so it's and it's an intentional process. It's not by chance or just oops, we oppressed you. There's very intentional process to victimizing some groups and then to be able to turn that back around and say that we want healing spaces. And this is where we get stalled in the trauma-informed movement. We're only going to be able to get so far as long as there are people who benefit from our collectively traumatic experiences.

Manya Chylinski: 11:50

Absolutely. Thank you so much everyone for adding into that, and, Ingrid, I appreciate that perspective of this is not an accident, especially when we're talking about a lot of workplaces. Absolutely so, Jesse. I've got one more question for you as we're coming up on our break whether they're actually hidden or we're just pretending we don't see them. How do we reconcile that there are actual potential economic benefits, like industries built around trauma recovery or the therapeutic community's financial interest?

Jesse Kohler: 12:26

I think that, to what Ingrid just said, we've got to be really careful to not build industrial complexes around human suffering, right, and so there is a $14 trillion economy, according to the JAMA article, for us to promote that healing and the work of trauma healing and recovery will be around for our entire lives and likely for many, many generations to come. But you know, for CTIPP, our mission to create a trauma-informed society in which every individual, family and community has the opportunities and supports necessary to thrive. Our goal is not to be around forever. Our goal is to achieve that mission and have that mission be so ubiquitous in systems around us that we don't need to exist anymore. And I think that it's important when we're doing this work to recognize that there is very important work to do in the trauma healing and recovery spaces and, as we, like I was saying earlier, around the economic costs, as we get to a society in which the prevalence of trauma is so much less and we invest more in prevention, there will be different sorts of opportunities to leverage those relational skills always. But we've got to be really careful to not be worried about if we are putting trauma recovery out of business because we are healing as a society.

Jesse Kohler: 13:50

Again, that will take a tremendous amount of time, but I think that it's important for our missions to be on a pathway of truly reaching what it is that we're striving for and not be interested in our own pockets that are built around suffering and harm that is perpetuated at individual, community, systemic levels. We want to truly fix those and there's a lot of economic benefits, there's a lot of room for us to grow in these fields, but that we shouldn't try to keep them around forever, because in an ideal world, they will need to be around at some extent and to some level. But in an ideal world we would just be able to continue to move forward and not worry about how we're going to make money because of the existence of trauma. We should be able to continue to move forward and not worry about how we're going to make money because of the existence of trauma. We should be trying to solve and address the root causes as best as possible.

Manya Chylinski: 14:42

A little bit wanting to kind of continue in that vein. And, Ingrid, I'd love to start with you. We're dealing with a mental health crisis these days and there are some people who think of trauma as one of our most critical issues to address. And how do we make sure that focusing on trauma healing doesn't detract us from addressing some of these other really pressing societal challenges?

Ingrid Cochhren: 15:13

Just in general, I believe that everything is interconnected. I think one of the main drivers for poor mental health is intergenerational transmission. I also believe that when we think about our larger societal issues, I tend to believe that they're all connected to include trauma, connected to how we have really separated ourselves from our true nature through colonization and kind of the ways that we think of ourselves as human beings. Climate change is a perfect example of that, as we have really have a deep dive into tribalism and how we've made it so that we cannot see ourselves in our full humanity that this has led to many poor outcomes for us as a collective. Mental health, climate change, violence these things are all connected.

Ingrid Cochhren: 16:10

I was just talking about the book the Myth of Normal and it really outlined how Western society, these beliefs that we have that are driven by colonialism, have really impacted us and have really separated us from understanding what our needs are as human beings, are not aligned with our needs as human beings, and one of the people who really helped me to really think through this was Dr Sandy Bloom, who is the person who came up with this phrase what has happened to you?

Ingrid Cochhren: 16:46

And she calls it biopathy that all of our systems need to align with the human body the way our brain works, the way our physical body works and if it's not, then it's leading to again these states where we are traumatized and dysregulated and experiencing toxic stress, and so that's how I believe it's all connected. It's part of a larger issue of this disconnection from how we should actually be operating as human beings, which ties back to the way that we should be incorporating Indigenous practices. How we got here is how we're going to get out. The process of colonization has got us here. How we get out is by embracing Indigenous practice and other ways that we know works best for human beings.

Manya Chylinski: 17:31

You are leading us into the next question, Ingrid, about how can we overcome these systemic or structural barriers that are really preventing us, maybe, from moving the needle on this.

Ingrid Cochhren: 17:43

I think they're in Richmond, and they do a great job of helping people to visualize what healing looks like in a collective manner and a social, ecological model, what it looks like individually for communities, institutionally, and then, ultimately, our larger macro and chrono systems, which is how we see ourselves, the beliefs and values that we hold, and things of that nature in our history, and so, for me, I believe that history shows us the way. In this space, we have a clear understanding the different ways that we have been separated from the way that we would normally operate as human beings, us being able to reverse engineer. That would be due to us embracing all the ways that we've gotten here. One of the real big issues in the way that we've gotten here is wage exploitation. That doesn't just include slavery. That includes, you know, the way that we treat people who are not citizens, how we exploit their wages, and so what does that mean? That means you need to pay reparations, and that's one, and this is an example of how our work gets stalled.

Ingrid Cochhren: 18:58

We say that we want healing, but when it comes down to how that healing was going to be manifested, we are not willing to do those things. Our education system is another perfect way that this manifests. We say, oh, you know, schools shouldn't be segregated. Manifest. We say, oh, you know, schools shouldn't be segregated. We need a different way to fund our schools besides property value. But no one wants to.

Ingrid Cochhren: 19:23

No matter how liberal my counterparts are in this discussion, when it comes down to it, they're going to move their kids into private school, they're going to leave, they're going to move out of the area that they're in if their public school is not serving them. Well, I am saying this as someone who has done that myself, so I'm being very transparent. But when it comes down to doing the things that actually are needed as a society, we're not going to do it. Reparations will throw off a discussion around. What are the ways in which we can help the Black community, which I sit on those type of panels all the time? Well, you can pay us back. You can pay us reparations. Conversation's over and so healing looks like doing all the things that got us here. You know we have to make amends.

Manya Chylinski: 20:09

Thank you for sharing that. Martin, I'm curious your thoughts about overcoming systemic and structural barriers here.

Martin Simms: 20:16

Yeah, it's a loaded question, but I think there are already structures in place and we know that they're toxic and we know that they don't. They're not trauma-informed and they're not in these spaces and I think the work that we do and the conversations that we have here is making some headway in some space. Somebody that's in some position of power, having a change of heart, a change of scenery, a change of perspective, may allow somebody with a stroke of a pen to allot money towards that. People becoming aware of us with lived experience of not only the trauma but the overcoming of the trauma, becoming advocates for trauma and things of that nature. This now, is what allows for these things to happen.

Martin Simms: 21:02

Because some of these people who sit in these powerful positions, who can just say yay or nay to something and I mean, I think reparations is such a big topic and we could, we could look at it from that perspective but I also look at people that are unwilling to like, just flat out unwilling, so like we don't see that that being an option anytime soon, like I really don't have that on the high list of what I think will be possible soon. So then, what could we do in the meantime and, in the interim, have that on the high list of what I think will be possible soon. So then, what could we do in the meantime and in the interim, while we wait on somebody to pay us back for something that they refuse to acknowledge? And so I say, okay, I can take what I can do in my own hands. Like she said, we own our healing. And then I, yeah, I would say I kind of own my healing, but my therapist saw me for free in the beginning. So then that was somebody who said that, hey, look, I'm going to forfeit the fee for this particular service to help this young man out who is seeking the help that he thinks that he needs in order to build his own personal family. I didn't know that that would lead to a Dr Perry book recommendation, which would lead to a Dr Perry actual partnership. I work with Dr Perry right now. So this is. I didn't think that that would be the trajectory, but here I am and I sit with you as I think part of the solution versus a part of the problem I could have went left in a bunch of different ways, based on my environment and then also my experiences.

Martin Simms: 22:32

And so, because I didn't, because I had the angry. I don't know if you know I follow you. I've been following you for a long time. So the whole paces thing helped me out a lot because it helped frame the things that happened for me, not to me. When I was going through I was like, wait, I did have.

Martin Simms: 22:46

I had this particular person who just decided that he wasn't going to let me make all these mistakes regardless of. I was no longer in consent. I'm like look, bro, get away, get away from me. Like I really want to be in my head and in my feelings right now. And Holmes was like nah, you need to. You know, that's that adult that can help you out. Right, you know what I'm saying Outside of my parents.

Martin Simms: 23:06

So that positive, those positive things that were going on in my life that I was unbeknownst to me at the time was like, hey, look, ok, well, we can focus on those things. So now my sports organizations look at the paces, list those seven things. How can we be these seven things for athletes that come through our program? How can we influence other people who aren't necessarily athletes? How can we put those sports and exercise programs back into the spaces that we all occupy if we turn pe to trauma informed and they will understand how weight lifting could help them process some of their bodies, some of their traumas throughout their bodies and things of that nature. So I do like I think there's a lot of solution just built into understanding how trauma affects our bodies in the first place and our brains and our nervous systems.

Martin Simms: 23:52

And so when I see it from that perspective, I'm like, hey look, I've already can tell you that me being in sports made me stay in school far longer than I would have if I wasn't in it. And then when I dropped out, it's like, oh, I dropped out. I dropped out because of the traumas that I was going through, but I could play sports. So somebody gave me another opportunity to go to college and get my GED and take the ACT and all of those types of things which gave me a different perspective, because now I have a different vantage point to see it, from a college perspective, from an educated perspective, and I saw both sides of the field.

Martin Simms: 24:26

So I'm like, ok, so I take all the knowledge and awareness that I come into contact with and I take it to people who I take it to and I I'm not going to say dumb it down, but I talk in a language that they can understand, because shared language makes a big difference. So it's like oh, why would he name his company dope? Because they understand dope more than they understand the neural sequential model. So if I could break it down into their language, then we could talk about the brain in a more accessible way, because that's a part of inaccessibility too. If we keep everything up here, then the people who actually need it, who can't get it, can't digest it. We're not speaking their language, and then I think that's where a lot of things get disconnected as well. And so I don't know that's I know you can hear it in this answer where like this is where I actually feel we can transform things on the level of where things are already taking place anyway.

Martin Simms: 25:19

Just infuse the awareness. Help people understand like this is why you're making this response. Help people understand what they've been through and how that can affect them right now. Help people understand when they get dysregulated they can do some dumb things that aren't necessarily in alignment with their thoughts and their beliefs that they have going on. So you can kind of remove the shame from some of the responses that they're having, because they have a better understanding of how that could have come about. Even if it had nothing to do with things in their household, it could have been something their grandmother would do. So it really, really makes you become whole and try to be whole yourself, and that gives you the accountability to go through these societies, and I think that's part of the solution, if anything could be.

Manya Chylinski: 26:04

Martin, thank you so much, and I can so hear your passion for this, and I love that, but I really appreciate your point about the way that we communicate about this. Thank you for listening. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did. So if you'd like to learn more about me, I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences, and I do this through talks and consulting. I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn about resiliency, compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership to build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil. If this is something you want to learn more about, visit my website, wwwmanyachilinskicom, or email me at manya at manyachilinski, or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thanks so much.