Episode 17 Season 2: Applying Polyvagal Theory to Heal Trauma and Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Trauma Recovery

Welcome to Season 4! I'm excited for a new season of Christian Emotional Recovery. This episode includes updates on Season Four of Christian Emotional Recovery and the expenses that go into the podcast for transparency.

• Ever wonder what goes into making a podcast? 
• When will the new season be out ?
• What's happening in 2024 on the platform?

These questions will be answered, plus you can learn about what goes into a podcast and learn how you can support Christian Emotional Recovery. 

***Here is a breakdown of what goes into the podcast (expenses spreadsheet). ***

Expenses Spreadsheet At This Link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vZjQLESN_oY7TBJXNAze-ysN3G1tkxmq/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112266298807594036821&rtpof=true&sd=true

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Check out the resources at the website, podcast website, and check out opportunities to support the podcast and free resources linked in the shownotes.

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Episode Description

Don't Make Trauma Your Whole Identity, discusses how trauma survivors have their entire brains rewired when they experience trauma. As a result, when we become aware of what has happened to us and start our healing journey, it can be challenging not to make trauma our entire identity. It's easy to get into a loop of overidentifying with trauma and what has happened to us, to the point we can get stuck. This isn't our fault, but we can do something about it. By separating our core identity with what happened to us, and by rewriting our identity, we can start to move past the trauma and not get stuck in this loop. No doubt, trauma impacts our identity, how we think, and how we live day to day, including how our "default mode network," or the part of our brain involved in identity, operates. However, how we relate to trauma, think about it, and work toward recovery can help us build a strong identity outside of our trauma. Additionally, knowing who we are in Christ and what God says about our identity helps us build a strong core self, so we can build a healthy identity separate and free from our trauma. 

Breakdown of Episode
1:17 Info About Podcast
5:16 How Trauma Can Become Our Entire Identity
13:54 What is Identity? 
16:37 Rewriting Your Identity
28:14 What Is the Default Mode Network? 
33:47 How Does Trauma Impact Identity?
41:40 How We Think About Trauma to Move on From It
46:46 What Does God Say About Healing our Identity? 

GO HERE FOR SOURCES
 https://docs.google.com/document/d/15JybwJM2RcEKSxLhd-k7bacXMTafKAeeeJraln9JDhw/edit?usp=sharing

Christian Emotional Recovery Resources

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Facebook Group
Join Community, Get Support, and Get Weekly Encouragement

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Get meditations, infographics, journals, and other resources for your healing journey

Trauma Survivors
Check out Resources Page for Trauma Survivors

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Free Resource
Free Visual A.C.O.R.N Resource to Heal Difficult Emotions

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Episode Description

What's the Connection Between Love Languages and Healing Trauma? discusses how we can harness the Five Love Languages, based on Gary Chapman's 1992 book of the same name, to cultivate a sense of safety, connection, and practice to help us heal trauma. This episode explains what the five love languages are, how they operate, and how people's love languages are often formed by unmet needs from childhood. We then discuss how our love languages can be our deepest vulnerability, but they can also be an entry point into our deepest sense of connection and safety, two essential parts of trauma healing. Lastly, the episode discusses how using the right healing practices based on your unique language will help you heal most effectively, how we can heal and find safety through our love language, and how we can help those we love find the same through their love language. 

 
Breakdown of Episode

1:17 Info About Podcast
5:46 Intro to Topic and What Are the Five Love Languages? 
21:10 What Determines Your Love Language?
29:12 How Your Love Language Is Your Deepest Insecurity
33:31 A Trauma Informed Approach to Love Languages: What Has Safety Got to Do With It?
54:48 How Can You Be Responsive to Others and Get What You Need Through the Love Languages?

***Click Here to See Sources***

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZkWg_dAOMMpiPhXS6ejJNjh77t2WpG2nT1KijcWYyYY/edit?usp=sharing 

Christian Emotional Recovery Resources

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Access Episodes, Get Free Resources, and More

Facebook Group
Join Community, Get Support, and Get Weekly Encouragement

YouTube Channel
Subscribe for Exclusive Material Not on Podcast

Christian Emotional Recovery Store
Get meditations, infographics, journals, and other resources for your healing journey

Trauma Survivors
Check out Resources Page for Trauma Survivors

Email List
Get updates on episodes, platform, resources, and products

Free Resource
Free Visual A.C.O.R.N Resource to Heal Difficult Emotions

Donate Monthly Through Patreon
Help More Trauma Survivors Through This Ministry

Donate One-Time Through Ko-Fi
Help More Trauma Survivors Throu...

For FULL Description, GO HERE.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cHI9NbBGvQg5UbcaQrS-R0HQ9r-fDhwOh8r7K2FNa14/edit?usp=sharing

Megan's Bio:
Fully-certified since 2012 as a crisis pastoral counselor (MAR, Pastoral Counseling), Megan has been successfully companioning clients all over the country while facilitating their self-growth. She offers crisis & spiritual process groups and individual Christian therapy, specializing in abuse, trauma, and dissociative disorders, utilizing therapeutic models such as Development Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR).
Additionally, she is certified in bereavement therapy, crisis response with the AACC, trauma therapies and suicidology with CAMS. She is also a Chaplain, certified with the ACPE. Megan has written curriculum for a domestic violence non-profit advocacy program, spiritual processing groups & identity based therapeutic course. She has also been featured on many podcasts & conferences, such as Courage 365 with Ashley Easter, etc.
Megan resides in Denver, CO, with her four adored and adoring children. She loves her job and will walk through the fire to help a client find healing. You can find her drinking hot coffee and breathing in the fresh mountain air, every chance she gets!
We just began a new course for CPTSD and abuse survivors called SOURCE. This course is designed to bring you home to yourself. Please go here to get more info:
https://www.mountaincitychristiancounseling.com/Courses 

Christian Emotional Recovery Resources

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Access Episodes, Get Free Resources, and More

Facebook Group
Join Community, Get Support, and Get Weekly Encouragement

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Get meditations, infographics, journals, and other resources for your healing journey

Trauma Survivors
Check out Resources Page for Trauma Survivors

Email List
Get updates on episodes, platform, resources, and products

Free Resource
Free Visual A.C.O.R.N Resource to Heal Difficult Emotions

Donate Monthly Through Patreon
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Help More Trauma Survivors Throu...

Rethinking Our Thoughts Part II: What Is Learned Helplessness and How Do I Overcome It? is the second part of a two part series. Last episode, we discussed cognitive distortions and how they contribute to the trauma cycle. Similarly, learned helplessness is "a condition in which a person has a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression," according to Oxford Languages. Learned helplessness is the opposite of grit, which we discuss often on the channel. This episode discusses how learned helplessness occurs, who it impacts, and how we can get our lives back by practicing it's opposite: Learned Optimism. which a is cultivated practice that helps us develop grit, hope, and flexibility in the face of adversity, even if we've experienced trauma in the past.  

Time Stamps
1:17 Intro to Topic
4:23 What Is Learned Helplessness? 
22:36 Causes, Symptom, and  Effects of Learned Helplessness
25:32 The Solution: Learned Optimism 

Sources:
What Is Learned Helplessness? Medical News Today by Jayne Leonard
Learned Helplessness and CPTSD Psych Central by Jared C. Pistoia
Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin Seligman
Season 1: Episode 8: Flip the Script of Your Life: Personal Narratives and Learned Optimism is episode recommended from this talk.

Christian Emotional Recovery Resources

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Trauma Survivors
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Free Visual A.C.O.R.N Resource to Heal Difficult Emotions

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Episode Description

Rethinking Our Thoughts Part I: What Are Cognitive Distortions and How Can I Overcome Them? discusses how hope is not just something we have in Christ, but is also something we can cultivate on the healing journey, even if we're feeling hopeless. We learn hope by practicing it daily. Investing in our healing and taking daily steps toward progress today can give us hope for the future. Think about a time you made good choices or cultivated healthy daily habits in the past that you are benefitting from now. Now connect this experience to a current difficulty. If you make good choices now, you are giving yourself something to look forward to and hope to your future self. However, the process cannot be forced. It's accepting our difficult emotions with compassion--and not forcing healing--that moves us forward in hope. But the path doesn't always appear on its own. Cultivating a daily practice, meditating on hope in Christ, and trying something constructive will move us forward. When we take a leap of faith, then the path appears.

Breakdown of Episode
1:17 Intro to Topic
5:30 What Are Cognitive Distortions? 
18:16 What Causes Cognitive Distortions and Examples of Them
22:36 Why Working on Cognitive Distortions is Scriptural
26:28 The Ten Cognitive Distortions
1:00:00 Healing Cognitive Distortions

FOR EPISODE RESOURCES, GO HERE
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IZVC2w3J721YzMEg84f1a7tH-8glzxQGeqxpOq9gg1c/edit?usp=sharing

Christian Emotional Recovery Resources

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Access Episodes, Get Free Resources, and More

Facebook Group
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Trauma Survivors
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Free Resource
Free Visual A.C.O.R.N Resource to Heal Difficult Emotions

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Help More Trauma Survivors Throu...

The Power of Hope in Emotional Recovery discusses how hope is not just something we have in Christ, but is also something we can cultivate on the healing journey, even if we're feeling hopeless. We learn hope by practicing it daily. Investing in our healing and taking daily steps toward progress today can give us hope for the future. Think about a time you made good choices or cultivated healthy daily habits in the past that you are benefitting from now. Now connect this experience to a current difficulty. If you make good choices now, you are giving yourself something to look forward to and hope to your future self. However, the process cannot be forced. It's accepting our difficult emotions with compassion--and not forcing healing--that moves us forward in hope. But the path doesn't always appear on its own. Cultivating a daily practice, meditating on hope in Christ, and trying something constructive will move us forward. When we take a leap of faith, then the path appears.

Breakdown of Episode
1:17 Intro to Topic
3:45 The Nature of Hope on the Healing Journey 
6:00 Investing in Healing Now helps Our Future Self
13:42 Acceptance Helps You Move Forward With Hope
19:59 Scriptures on Hope for Healing Trauma
25:38 A Step of Faith Toward Healing Makes the Path Appear

FOR EPISODE RESOURCES, INCLUDING FREE RESOURCES GO HERE

Christian Emotional Recovery Resources

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Facebook Group
Join Community, Get Support, and Get Weekly Encouragement

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Get meditations, infographics, journals, and other resources for your healing journey

Trauma Survivors
Check out Resources Page for Trauma Survivors

Email List
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Free Resource
Free Visual A.C.O.R.N Resource to Heal Difficult Emotions

Donate Monthly Through Patreon
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2023 Podcast Update
 

 This unofficial episode includes updates to the platform and podcast. Check out this episode to learn the following:
  

• What's new with the podcast
• Upcoming episodes to the podcast
• Why I'm taking a *temporary* break from the podcast
• How you can help the podcast to grow and help more people
• Upcoming interviews for future podcast episodes
• What you can expect in the next few weeks and months
• New and exciting events occurring on the platform.

Listen on to find out more. 
  

Christian Emotional Recovery Resources

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Facebook Group
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Trauma Survivors
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Email List
Get updates on episodes, platform, resources, and products

Free Resource
Free Visual A.C.O.R.N Resource to Heal Difficult Emotions

Donate Monthly Through Patreon
Help More Trauma Survivors Through This Ministry

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Help More Trauma Survivors Throu...

Please use this link for episode description and sources. Often, there isn't enough room to include these in this space, so I include links in Google:

LINK TO DESCRIPTION, SOURCES, AND RESOURCES

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qnfbc_nUC8cuLecY1_an7JOLRR2O5orI2K4Ip-2g97E/edit?usp=sharing

Christian Emotional Recovery Resources

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Access Episodes, Get Free Resources, and More

Facebook Group
Join Community, Get Support, and Get Weekly Encouragement

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Christian Emotional Recovery Store
Get meditations, infographics, journals, and other resources for your healing journey

Trauma Survivors
Check out Resources Page for Trauma Survivors

Email List
Get updates on episodes, platform, resources, and products

Free Resource
Free Visual A.C.O.R.N Resource to Heal Difficult Emotions

Donate Monthly Through Patreon
Help More Trauma Survivors Through This Ministry

Donate One-Time Through Ko-Fi
Help More Trauma Survivors Throu...