12: My Therapist, Justin Stum, Explains Trauma

In this podcast episode, I have Justin Strum, a licensed marriage and family therapist, (and my therapist) explore the complexities of trauma and nervous system responses. Justin distinguishes between trauma as a prolonged emotional response to distressing events and temporary nervous system reactions to triggers. I share my journey with trauma and EMDR therapy, underscoring the importance of a compatible therapist. Justin explains EMDR's origins and its use of bilateral stimulation for reprocessing traumatic memories alongside brain spotting and other healing modalities like yoga and breathwork. They delve into the mental discipline required to manage trauma, discussing brain gym techniques and the need for personalized healing approaches. Justin emphasizes the conscious management of thoughts and responses, using the metaphor of supervising a two-year-old with a knife to illustrate the importance of awareness and redirection. 

How your Nervous System Responds to Trauma

https://www.justinstum.com/how-your-nervous-system-responds-to-trauma/

EMDR and Trauma Therapy

https://www.justinstum.com/emdr-trauma-therapy-st-george-utah/

EMDR by EMDRIA (video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkfln-ZtWeY

Breath Work: Balancing Your Nervous System

https://justinstum.com/breath-work-balancing-your-nervous-system/

Finding Yourself - 18 min. Meditation by Justin Stum, LMFT

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RDCFyobE9H3w03weveAL9sUKKjIjP7rc/view?usp=sharing

Follow Justin on IG: https://www.instagram.com/justinstum/

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Transcript

Michelle: 0:28

Welcome to the podcast. I am really excited to introduce you to my guest today. I reached out to my therapist because I, I thought, you know what, let's, let's clarify a few things because we had such a great episode and so much interest on my episode on trauma. I wanted to do a little bit more information and deep dive for everybody. So welcome to the podcast. Welcome, Justin.

Justin: 0:52

I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for

Michelle: 0:54

having me. Yeah, this is gonna be great. can you tell my listeners just a little bit about you and kind of what you do and, you know, just, we want to get to know you a little bit.

Justin: 1:05

Yes, I would, I would love to. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm delighted to share a little bit about, the nervous system and about trauma today. I'm, by training or by license. Anyway, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I've been in practice about 20 years and I have a practice in St. George, Utah, which is delightful. I have a few other therapists that work with me and they're delightful as well. As far as treatment population, I primarily see. young adults and adults. I see a small handful of teenagers. I don't see any kids typically. But the presenting issues I think that come into the, that people bring in as part of their journey and often part of their struggle would be a depression, anxiety. relationships and gosh, what else am I seeing other than some faith expansion, faith transition, faith crisis kinds of work and trauma. And so most people are coming in and find me in that way. I do a fair amount of referring out as well. I see people throughout Utah in office and virtually and, and love the work.

Michelle: 2:10

Yeah. So Justin was really instrumental. I mentioned in my other episode about trauma, he is the one that helped me and we did EMDR and just really helped me be able to get a handle on the trauma that I experienced with my first son's mission. And it was really, really life changing for me to be able to kind of heal that wound that I had. And so that I didn't feel like I was crazy. The other thing that I really liked about him that was amazing was he had no agenda for me and he never told me that I needed to pay more time or go to more church. Like. He was very open. And so it was very, very validating and very, very helpful. Whereas just talking to my friends and stuff was not very helpful because they didn't know what to do with me. And I didn't know what to do with me. And it was kind of a catastrophe. So anyway, I'm so glad you were able to come. So we're going to just jump right in. You ready?

Justin: 3:07

Yes, I'm ready. And I'm glad just real quick on what you just said. I just want to respond to that and jump in. I just want to say that I believe strongly that when we allow theology, Or the practice of faith and those things that are of the metaphysical or divine origin, perhaps when we allow, when we allow theology to stay theology and psychology to stay psychology, I think that's when we heal in the best way and maybe you are honoring that you're giving me some kudos. I don't feel that I deserve, but, but to that end, yes, I think that there's a lots of room for growth and that when we know better, we feel better and live better. And, and I think that's what I witnessed with you. What was beautiful to see. that psychological and consciousness expansion, it was awesome. And you just showed up. So thank

Michelle: 3:53

you. Yeah. It was so, it was so remarkable because like I wasn't, I, I, if I had been able to pray my way out of it, I would have. Right. And it's not that I don't think that God could intervene. But it's just like when you have a broken boner, you have to get stitches, you go to the doctor. So. Justin treated me and and I, and I, and I also mentioned on my podcast that I went through a couple of other therapists before I got to him. So I think it's always important to find somebody that just matches you energetically and like can really hear your issues. So if you haven't found that person, like, don't give up because they're out there and you just have to. Just keep looking and keep interviewing and shopping.

Justin: 4:33

Yeah, you do. They're for shopping. I love it. They're not all created the same. Yeah. Yes. Thank you.

Michelle: 4:38

All right. Okay. So let's get into this. First of all I've, I did a episode on trauma. I did an episode on nervous system. So I want to just talk about what is the difference between a nervous system response And trauma so that we know how to distinguish

Justin: 4:54

them. Yes. I think operationalizing our terms would be helpful. I'm going to frame trauma in light of the dialogue a couple of keywords here to listen to. It's the sustained and continued response to a distressing or upsetting event. So trauma as a as a thing, isn't necessarily an event in itself. I'm going to be framing trauma and most professionals would as the sustained and continued response versus an upset. Or something that was provocative or lightly overwhelming or irritating that you might have in a neighborhood activity or in a relationship in your home, perhaps with a child's teacher, maybe even as we think about this idea of missionaries with a missionary who's geographically removed from you. So trauma is, our response to something. And it's, it's an event often an activating event that promotes an entire nervous system reaction. Your question on, you know, what, what is this nervous system reactivity, or how do I know if it's, it's something that's traumatic is really going to be a function of, of how much and how long. Right. So when I say that, I mean, If we have some nervous system activity or reactivity that typically is going to involve temporary and relatively moderate emotional responses to specific triggers, I was joking about being on podcast here a moment ago. And I spoke at one time, I was invited to a beautiful event with the mayor, which had me a little bit anxious in front of a lot of people. And I would say that that wasn't traumatic, but my nervous system. My sympathetic nervous system was activated. That part of me that wants to fight or run or flee was on and I was feeling some of that. It's something that I felt, but that wouldn't be traumatic. Trauma typically involves intense and persistent emotional reactions that don't always subside quickly. Even after the triggering event has gone, so, but go ahead. Yes,

Michelle: 6:56

respond to that. Okay. So that makes sense. Like, okay. So a nervous system response would be like possibly something like I go to my son's wrestling match and the ref makes a call that maybe I disagree with and I'm getting active and yelling and losing my mind. But it passes and it's not something that is a constant like coming up, but like when I came to you with the issue with my son, it was my, my nervous system was responding. Even though my son was home from a mission, he'd been home for four years and I was still getting triggered by even the word mission.

Justin: 7:35

Yes. Perfect. Yes. And that, that would be an indication of a traumatic series of events. There is, there's this stimulus, there's this external thing, it's breathing, that's bringing your nervous system into a different space and way. We've got your parasympathetic nervous system, right? This part of us that wants to calm us, it wants to soothe us. And then this other part that seems to be almost more primal in some ways, I suppose both of those are part of us as mammals, but the sympathetic nervous system, which moves into your concern could be the call to the missionary, call to the mission president. Anxiety or not wanting to go to the mailbox, whatever that is, but the, the intensity that comes later when the activating trigger, which was the sun being on the mission, for example, is an indication that there's been some trauma and We stay stuck in that. Yeah, it gets stuck in kind of, for lack of a better term, encoded in our bodies. And we can have people, I remember being at the Washington city here in Washington County, Utah at a parade and they're shooting muskets. And when you see someone who's I mean, I don't know that I'm getting old, but a Vietnam veteran who the musket goes off and their shoulders move. Of the individual and I'm looking at that thinking that's a traumatic that that's a response to gunshot. And this was 2030 40. I don't know. I'm not a historian here on the Vietnam. But that's a response of something that happened a long time ago. That's been encoded in this this beautiful person's body to duck. Be careful. Watch out. You could get hurt again. I don't know if it's hurt again, but you could be hurt here. Move to safety quickly. Oh, yeah. Okay. We would know that.

Michelle: 9:22

Okay. That's how we would know that. So a nervous system is kind of an acute, like you have this nervous system response and it's acute. It happens. It passes. Right. And you can get yourself back into regulation. But if it's trauma, then it's more like chronic. So if it comes up. Yeah. Even, even when you know you're safe and it's still coming up, like I got triggered when my son decided, my younger son was like, I'm going to go on a mission. And I was like, wait, what? And then I felt like my, my body became like, it came up through me as like a train and up out of me. Like, it's like, I lost my mind, my, my CEO brain offline,

Justin: 10:03

it

Michelle: 10:05

was all very dangerous. So sure.

Justin: 10:08

Which is less about the mission perhaps in that moment. And I can't say that it was or wasn't as I'm looking back retrospectively with you and more about I'm a mom, I love my offspring, I'm a mama bear, and I'm, I'm concerned in this moment. This is all unconscious. I'm concerned that people that I love or me could be under threat in a moment or be under threat in a few months. And that activates the sympathetic nervous system, what says, watch out, fight. And we move into that way, even when there's not anything that's, that's there. So with the sun and the mission, clearly a situation that's overwhelming. I remember some of the details, though I won't restate them in this moment, that are overwhelming, that are painful, that are threatening, and that are so complicated, at least in that moment, in subsequent moments, that it overwhelms our ability to deal with it. Almost like if you're thinking of a computer, if you're on a Windows machine, it's that blue screen of death that comes up on those old Windows XP's or on a Mac, it's that little spinning. It's when, you said the CPU, it's when the CPU gets overwhelmed and the computer, in this case the brain gets completely stuck on. And sometimes we can have post traumatic stress disorders. We think about trauma. And so perhaps to think about your body almost like a light bulb. And so triggering and synonyms would be being activated or triggered. I think are kind of synonyms here, but I'm using activated because we can scale it. Right. And I don't know what level you moved to when you said this, this other son was called on a mission, but that moved you to, you maybe weren't at a nine, but you probably weren't at a two. Yeah.

Michelle: 11:45

I was probably at a 12 on a scale from one to 10. 12. Okay. You weren't at 12. Okay. Yeah. Everything felt so dangerous. I was like, wait, can you just join the military? That's safer. When, you know, people would bring up missions or they're my friends, kids were going on missions or anything like, I couldn't even have the. Discussion about it because just that word like everything was just so activating and I felt like I was crazy And my husband pointed out like you're not getting better, you're getting worse. And so at that point, that's when I knew like, Oh, the, like I had a coach point out like this is trauma. You actually need some help. And I was like, Oh, it was such a relief because I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm not crazy.

Justin: 12:29

Yeah. But you feel crazy.

Michelle: 12:32

You do. That's the hard part. Yeah, because like, even though logically, I knew my son came home and he was safe and all the things, but I felt like I was like four years later, I was still acting crazy. And so, okay. that really does help clarify. So I've had some people ask me, what is EMDR? Because I talked about it specifically. That's the modality I chose. Like I mentioned before, I think there's gonna be a modality that works better for your brain than others. This one is what works for mine. So can you explain what EMDR is and how it works? Sure, yeah, I

Justin: 13:08

can, I'll, I'll give you a little bit of the history and, and just some, I actually did an EMDR session. With the gentleman today that I'll reference not with any PHI, not with any personal health information, but just generally that might be helpful as a context, but EMDR is eye movement desensitization reprocessing. So it's a technology. It was I don't remember the exact year, but it was the late eighties Francine Shapiro created this technology which is beautiful. In so many ways, I have to talk about the, the, it's inception because I think there's, I think there's something that's beautiful and kind of disgusting actually about the world of psychology and that is she stumbled on a technology that helps the human brain and human body heal. And in a fairly male driven community in the world of, of licensed psychology and therapists that was male dominated, at least at the university level. Anyway, maybe not so much at the practitioner level all the time, but she stumbled on this and I'll talk about that in a moment and she saw a reduction in her symptoms. She's either riding a bike or walking. And there were trees on either. I believe there were trees remembering the story quickly on either side of the road that we're passing her by. And she would rotate her head just each way as she was thinking. And as she was thinking about some traumas in her life. That she had realized that some symptoms, I don't know if it was her sleep or nervousness or what the symptoms were that she had correlated in her mind or were connected to those traumas, but the more she thought about those as her eyes rotated the trees over time, the less symptomatic she became. So then she said, Well, I'm going to try this with my with my clients. And she did. And they started becoming less symptomatic. So she went to the patriarchy. I joke, it wasn't the patriarchy, but it's this male dominant world of psychology, the APA, the American Psychological Association. And they were like, you're, you're kind of nuts, actually. Swinging your eyes around and thinking about hard things isn't doing anything. Go back home. Well, over time, she was able to, to make the right connections and now we have a technology that's used by most therapists and most offices, at least to have the training. It is a formal training that you have to receive postgraduate school doing something that the Department of Defense is doing for people and that we're doing for people in central Utah or in southern Utah that have trauma. It's so cool, right? That there was this, This, this window of insight based on her own experience. And so as we think of that's the history of it, but the I movement desensitization reprocessing is, is the, the idea that. If you're moving your eyes in a, in a bilaterally stimulating way, meaning it's to the left and to the right, almost like you're, you were a dog and you're in the yard and someone's throwing a stick from one end of the yard to the other, but your head's not moving, but a little bit, but your eyes are trying to follow the stick as it goes back and forth. Right? So as your eyes are moving. Where your eyes go, energy flows. So the theory, and at least what we see happens as a result of that is individuals can engage in this research proven evidence based technology to relieve their symptoms. So the whole thought here based on the research, isn't that by talking about something that's traumatic, While that's healing because you're being validated and someone's listening, it's not thorough enough and it doesn't move on the level of the nervous system. So if you and I were talking here in the office, for example, and we were talking about your son and the mission and some of this trauma, we're not moving in at the neurological level. We're just staying at this cognitive level doing. Talk therapy or coaching, like, like we're here with each other and we're present and there's some grace in that, but you're not accessing and reconnecting or re encoding. Those memories and your beliefs associated with such right, because a lot of this is what happened, how you conceptualize what happened and what you believed about yourself and that event and what you believe right now, or what you're going to be coming to. So EMDR is the revisiting of a traumatic event, but for lack of a better term, not being back in the bonfire, but instead being 20 feet removed from it and looking at it. And a calm, safe space with this bilateral stimulation eye movement. And the result of that is a reduction in your symptoms and adults can fake things. But when we have someone who's 12 years old and sadly has had some kind of sexual assault or sexual abuse and ends up symptomatic, unable to sleep at night without crying or wetting the bed, and then they engage in two or three or four sessions. And then they stop wetting the bed. Kids don't fake it. Adults. We can kind of white knuckle these things. we moved through and the way that we believe about what happened and the way that we look at it changes.

Michelle: 18:18

Yeah. It's beautiful. And I think for me, it made it go into like a past memory. Like in my regular memory bank. And it wasn't like I was stuck in this frantic state anymore. So it didn't make like the event okay, like, Oh, I'm so glad and I feel so blessed. It didn't do that, but it made it move it to like neutral where I could think about it without having a total freak out. And I could talk about it and be okay with my son going on a mission and stuff like that. Yes.

Justin: 18:55

And that's. Beautiful. And that's what we would hope would happen is that you're not forgetting what happened, but maybe to think of a symbol here that may reference kind of what you experienced. And that is the memory almost becomes black and white, maybe, and what you're experiencing right now and how you, what you believe about what is happening right now is in color. And so people will say, well, is this, will this make me forget it? And I say, no, I don't know how to convince people to forget things, but what we can do. Is help you reprocess what happened in a way that is cool, calm and collected and safe where there are supports because during these traumatic moments or lots of these micro traumas that are still traumas that build together, our brain is moving. I call it rabbit brain and monkey brain, but we're moving in some pretty unhealthy ways. And we're obsessing about fears. We're looking at how we're perceived. Or adopting or embracing maladaptive coping patterns, whether that's eating, hyper exercise, pornography hyper religiosity and, and, and things actually get better because we're starting to disassociate not meaning that we're having a complete disconnection from our body. But we, we started embracing activities in an attempt to heal which isn't, it's, it's helping us

Michelle: 20:17

numb. Yeah. Just buffering away from the reality of what has happened. Okay. Yes. That's really interesting. So other than EMDR, what other modalities are there that you could recommend that help with maybe something with trauma that people could read up on and research? Yeah.

Justin: 20:37

There's another technology that I'm trained in as well called brain spotting. It's newer. I don't know that we have the same amount of research out about brain spotting that we do EMDR. David Grand is the creator of that. My trainer they stood the brain spotting process I was trained by David and there's just so much beauty there. And that's a similar eye movement technology. But rather than you having this bilateral stimulation process, which happens and, and I, I didn't add and probably shut up earlier with EMDR. It's not always with the light bar. Which is what I use. I have one from the Netherlands. That's just amazing and cool and all tech, but it can also be through butterfly taps. If you were to cross your arms and tap your shoulders we'll find that people have as a former, I'm injured and kind of out at the moment but ultra ultra marathon or a lot of insight and connections can be made during exercise. Because you're also being bilaterally stimulated. My arms are moving in this oscillating way, and there's a focus on the breath, which doesn't mean all of our trauma is healed through aerobics or running per se, but it can aid in that process. And so that's important to remember too, but the things that I'm thinking of in addition to EMDR would be brain spotting by David Grand and Eric Gold. I think, additionally looking at yoga and other body movement, things that help you engage and strengthen the parasympathetic nervous system whether that's cold plunging, which is something that I'm a huge fan of in addition to yoga and things that allow you to focus on the breath and get grounded in your body can be really helpful. In fact I'm going back Biesel van der Kolk, who wrote the body keeps the score. It's a little bit heavy on the clinical side in terms of trauma and how that's stored in the body at the, in a neural network. But I did listen to him in a small group of therapists in Boulder, Colorado, some time ago. And he, in this kind of closed meeting, non formal I don't know, there's probably 80 people are in Boulder at this, it was a conference, but there was this. Meeting and he was reviewing as this leading nationwide trauma expert and a lot of what he talked about with yoga. And I remember this would have been 2007, 2008 before I knew what I know right now. And I'm thinking, why are we talking about yoga? I came to listen to the world's foremost drama expert and we're talking about yoga. And I know a lot of things now that I didn't then, but yoga, super helpful and breath work also super helpful. And so finding a breathwork practitioner looking online and learning to strengthen or, or activate or expand your body's level of parasympathetic system control or influence is, can be really helpful getting in a cold bath for two to three minutes. With motion, which is very hard or motionless, is it about being strong? It's about me getting in the water and saying the water is neutral and I'm going to determine how I'm going to respond to it. And right now I'm making a choice not to be shaky or shiver and I'm going to sit still and I'm going to breathe in this way and I'm going to manage me right now, but that kind of engagement over and over will help me, you know, I'm wondering if I'm in these other places where my brain wants to completely what did you call it? You said you pointed at your brain and said override. I forgot what you called it earlier, but my CEO brain, your CEO brain goes out when that brain tries to check out, it's you who is more grounded and less reactive and a lot more mindful and a lot more responsive that says, Oh no, things are really out of control. But I'm, but I'm, I'm managing me right now and I'm just right on top of my two feet. And so I think it's important to remember that we, that like anything else, stretching our hamstrings, that, that it is brain gym, it takes some mental work and that this, and you alluded to this at the beginning, that this isn't a spiritual issue. As much as it is an organic and brain issue, but it's really hard to pray trauma away. I'm not claiming there are not miracles. I do believe in miracles. I think the struggle is, no, I need to do something with my brain and my body.

Michelle: 24:52

Yeah. I like the idea of it's a, it's a brain gym because our, our nervous system, what I found as I went through EMDR and even at the end, I remember coming in on the last day and I was like, Am I supposed to feel better? Like, I can't drum up the anger that I was feeling. And you were, and you were like, that's what we're after. And I was like, Oh, so surprised. I didn't know it was going to feel like that. And so there is that mental part, but I, but I really liked what you said about like the part with yoga, like just tuning into the breath. I think sometimes we are neck up only, and we try and think our way through. And fix things that are happening only in our brain when we're having a full body response, right? Like when I'm, when I had a traumatic response, my whole body was engaged. Like I was shaking, I was sweating. So the idea of connecting with our body through our breath, focusing on like some of those that bilateral movement of running, that is so fascinating to me because I have one of my siblings that. went through a really horrible divorce and really, really traumatic marriage. And that's how he's healed is by doing ultra running. And, and he said, this is, this is my therapy. Just like we talked about, everybody heals, maybe a little bit different maybe that is somebody's like, he felt very pulled that way. I felt very pulled towards EMDR. So it's being really in tune also to our, our body and what our body. I think what our body thinks will help us heal.

Justin: 26:44

Yes. And so, yes, to all that. And that is, is you getting in touch or becoming more aware of your own interior. What, what, what is needed? What would sustain me? What's nurturing? What serves me? It's asking those kinds of questions because for some, they may not do EMDR, maybe exercise and yoga. And I've seen tremendous results there. For others, it's brain spotting. And for some others, it's. Things like somatic experiencing, which we don't have time to go into, but that's a whole nother technology in itself for others. Through a variety of different modalities that can help people heal. That what we learned, at least when I was in graduate school 20 years ago, that that most of this is going to happen through talk. What's beautiful, but they found from too many veterans. There's really where it started. I think in a lot of ways, it wasn't changing, the symptoms weren't changing, the clients weren't claiming that they were healing. And so that's one of these other beautiful, Francine and others created these things that kind of came to them and perhaps were inspired that way for the benefiting of people, you know, helping

Michelle: 27:50

them. Yeah, so that's good. It's good that it's involved evolved over 20 years. It means we're still learning and growing and Learning new things about the brain and the body and so that's amazing.

Justin: 28:03

Yeah, it is and I think we'll see more of that That expansion within the the trauma The trauma treatment world and we'll see a lot of that we're just starting to realize that there's more trauma that's occurring. And we see that by the, the duration and the intensity, which we talked about earlier, like with your son, which can often be interpreted as. I haven't forgiven or I haven't healed or I haven't well clearly the healing but I haven't prayed or I shouldn't be feeling bad or I'm overreacting and those things from a partner, perhaps from an ecclesiastical leader can really be damaging, actually, or maybe it's something that we're doing to another and it's someone else's had a traumatic response here that we're attempting to to marginalize or minimize in some way by saying that they need to out think it and they're thinking wrong about it.

Michelle: 28:56

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that really does make a difference, like being able to be heard, but also get the treatment that like is, is appropriate for you and being able to be in tune enough with your own intuition that you can be open to finding what will help.

Justin: 29:15

Yeah. I think it's being open to that and coming to terms. In, in the benevolent and graceful way that there's not anything wrong with me, the problematic, or if we can use a moral term wrong, is that I don't feel, I don't feel a full expansive experience in my life, because in these settings, I have these symptoms and this struggle, and I don't want to have that anymore. As part of that EMDR process, I didn't cover it, but the gentleman didn't cover the specifics of the actual EMDR protocol, but one of the things he said earlier today, during some, he was reprocessing a lot of bullying that happened in a youth group and some bullying that he had from some teachers at school due to some social awkwardness and other things. And one of the things that he said as part of that process, as we attempt to identify beliefs he has about himself now, but definitely beliefs that he had then and these aren't the beliefs he always has now, but sometimes, but a lot then, and it was I am weak and I'm powerless. Right. And so during some of those bilateral stimulation sets, he wasn't repeating those words. He was just considering those as the light bars moving and he's reflecting back on whatever comes up in his mind on those experiences. And it was in some of the work today. Where we were doing what we call an installation and that's where we start looking at beliefs. He has about himself now connected to that event and that's part of what you talked about in your process where it seems like a past memory, right? He said, I deserve love and I can stand up for myself. Or two of the insights he had. So not magic sounds like as soon as we have light bars and tapping, it sounds a little bit like voodoo and it's not, but it's clearly not us talking about the problem. It's individuals revisiting, but at a distance and actually experiencing something, something that, and well, you know, you've been there, so you know what that process is.

Michelle: 31:14

Yeah. No, it's, yeah, it's super helpful, but it's super helpful to know also that we can do some brain gym where we are expanding our ability for our nervous system. Like I, I used to get like very activated about like a lot of things and through doing some of this work and then nervous system work, my ability to stay calm and not get so activated all the time has expanded. But it's practice. There's a lot of practice.

Justin: 31:49

So are you a cold plunger?

Michelle: 31:52

Did I know that? Yeah. I am a cold plunger. Yes. You're like

Justin: 31:56

a pro. That's probably a big part of it. It's not the therapy. It's the, it's the, I am putting my parasympathetic nervous system in charge. And when every part of me says at the molecular cellular level, get out, you're going to be dead in 10 minutes, which is happening unconsciously as are these other triggers that happen with your son and his mission and different things. No, I'm in charge of me and I'm managing me, which I'm sure has probably influenced your marriage and other relationships because your, your reactivity level and that nervous system response is it's more seasoned. It's wiser. It's more deliberate. It's on purpose. Yeah. Versus just moving into wherever the brain happens to go in that moment.

Michelle: 32:41

Yeah, I talk about it like supervise my brain consciously now a lot more. And so when we got done with EMDR, I was like, okay, first of all, I couldn't just show up and have you doing the work. Like I still had to during off hours when I wasn't in therapy, I still had to manage. What my brain was doing and be aware of what was happening because it is somewhat like letting a two year old with a knife run around unsupervised and my brain was doing the best it could, but I had this old pattern with. You know, thoughts about my mission or it could be anything. I'm just using my own that I had to start to supervise those thoughts and like, Oh, actually, I don't believe that anymore. Like we're okay. I'm safe. He's safe. We're safe. My next son that's going to go out, he's going to be okay. And I know when to intervene, but otherwise my brain was just having, it was like all willy nilly running around unsupervised. And so I, I really got very conscious of what am I thinking? Is that serving me and is it true? Because my brain's doing the best it can and sometimes it serves me some really crappy ideas.

Justin: 34:04

But

Michelle: 34:08

I felt like that was my work, right? Like I came to you, I was doing MDR, I was healing this trauma and my work on the off time was to supervise my brain. So it didn't just go down some old roads because I could gaslight myself. I almost re traumatized myself if I didn't. And so it's not a matter of like suppressing, but it is a matter of being aware, like what's happening in the moment and why am I thinking this?

Justin: 34:41

Right. Which is this idea of interception and that's, am I aware of my interior? Am I in touch with what's happening with me right now? And using words and phrases like. I don't know. This is what I use personally. So I'll just throw out here. But when I want to say and scream or react in this way, it's Oh, that's interesting, even though it's not exactly interesting. So I'm BSing myself a little bit here. But some of that's to lead me into Oh, that's interesting. I've seen this before. I'm still on top of my two feet. I've had a kid call me more than one of my kids or my spouse calling me about my kid. Who's been this person's been in a car wreck. Ai Okay, let's assess this. And it's, it's moving into a position where we're choosing to, as you said, supervise our thoughts. You, I am not my brain. My brain is an organ and I, I'm connected to my brain and my body and I'm going to move into this mindful, deliberate way of influencing what I'm thinking rather than moving into, there's a book about that. That's about anxiety and thinking. Don't feed the monkey mind. I think that's what it's called, but it's a good one. But along this idea of, and I, in fact, it came up when you were talking, it was like, yeah, she's talking about the monkey mind right now, you know? Yeah.

Michelle: 35:55

So yeah, you know, when we get on autopilot, when we're driving a car and we're driving home, but we've moved, we've moved, but we like are driving to the old home and then we're like, Oh, like, wait a second. I don't live here anymore. Yeah. Right? Oh yeah. Dumbass. We didn't make it in, we didn't make it into the house, but like, we could have freaked some people out if we did. Right? But like, that's how I think about my brain. I'm like, Oh, like I don't live here anymore. So now if my brain decides like, we're going to serve up, you know, some drama about mission, I'm like, Oh, we don't live here anymore. Remember? Like, we live across town. And so that's like one way mentally that I redirect myself. Like, oh, like, that would have been really weird if I would have walked in that. Like, we actually don't live here anymore, but that was good. Thanks brain for getting me this far, but I'm going to be conscious here and we're going to drive over to where we actually

Justin: 36:48

live. I love it. Having a conversation with the brain. Yeah. Right. And maybe even some of the vernacular there, this idea with, I don't know that we have to get too wordsmithy here, but. With the brain versus my brain, I think my gives us some association, but the can create a little bit of the division that you've created. That's thanks brain for protecting me. And that's not what's happening. That's what did happen. And right now I'm in this moment and that could doesn't look like this is that, and I am safe. So we'll go this way. Yeah. And yes, And, and again, the brains on autopilot. And I think that happens. I think I witnessed a rollover accident in central Utah and was a first responder to that. And I look at some of the things that happened during that pretty major trauma for me. And so much of it was completely controlled by parts of me that I didn't know existed that were all about preserve and protect and get safe. But that to some degree, and I won't go into a whole lot of detail here, but we're pretty irrational. There were some pretty rational things I did and said, and some very irrational ones because my brain didn't even know how to articulate what was happening. Yeah. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. And I don't know that parents know as we think about. Missions and parents and geography and sickness and stress and expansion of, of individuals that are growing and developing in their own social and spiritual ways. It can bring up a lot.

Michelle: 38:15

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a, there's a lot there. Well, this has been a great conversation. I so appreciate your time. Is there anything that you want to mention that you haven't yet?

Justin: 38:28

Nothing specific other than I gave you a few links of just. Resources that might build on some of the things that we shared, you can put in here. Comments or show notes or whatever that is. Just if people want to go deeper, there's an Andrea video by the foundation that trained me that can give them the official word on what EMDR is. There's some articles I've written that kind of explain the process that may be helpful for people to learn that technology and, and do that. That can be done online or in person. And the only other piece was a meditation I put together for individuals around worthiness and value. That just may be helpful may just be something to share a little light for them, you know, in whatever way.

Michelle: 39:08

Yeah. No, that'll be great. And I'll include those in the show notes. If my audience is interested in following you or finding you in any way, are you on any social media platforms that you are public that they can

Justin: 39:20

follow you on? Yes. I'm so bad at publishing. I'm terrible. I did publish a bunch I'm on. I have a I, what do I have? I have a Facebook page that's the business page that I hardly ever post on. I have an Instagram where I put my heart and soul. For many years, COVID happened. The business picked up about 20%, 30%, and I stopped. You'll see that it stopped in 2019. There was a reason it stopped because it was fun to write content, and there's a ton on my Instagram. That's probably the best way for people to find me on Instagram. I have a website just my. Justinstum. com and ElevatedCW is the group practice site that I own, Elevated Counseling and Wellness, and they can learn things. There's articles there, but in terms of getting other nuggets of stuff around relationships and boundaries and trauma that can be on Instagram. But yeah, there's lots of, lots of good out there. The only other thing I would just say is, yes, you can find a therapist. or coach and get all kinds of guidance on your life, finding someone who fits for you and someone who has the kind of skills that you need because we're not all created the same. Not all therapists do EMDR or brain spotting. I only know of two others in Washington County that had brain spotting training. There's probably a bunch now. And not everybody has EMDR. So I like what you said earlier about finding someone who fits for you. Yeah, that's super important. But yeah, other than thank you, I've just been so humbled to be on and share light in this way. And I have a passion in seeing people heal. It leads to a lot of utility for me,

Michelle: 40:49

you know. Yeah. This has been so helpful. I'm sure my audience will appreciate it. And I will list all of those things that he mentioned in the show notes. So if you want to go to his Instagram, you can go follow him and read some things that he's put on there and and the, and the other things that he mentioned. So I'll make sure that those are all linked so that you guys have access to them. Thank you so much for joining us today on the show. And for having me. If you have enjoyed this, please make sure you drop us a rating. That helps us immensely so we can keep this going. All right, everybody have a great day and we will see you next time. Bye bye.