Episode 21: Ep 21: Understanding and Healing from Trauma + Our Personal Experiences with Panic Disorders, Dissociation, and Paralyzing Fear

This week, Shannon chats with Erika Straub, who is an anxiety & trauma coach for women. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Psychology, earned a MA in Depth Psychology, holds 500+ hours of yoga teacher training credentials and is a nationally certified personal trainer. As a coach, Erika operates through the lens of Polyvagal Theory, Somatic Experiencing, and Jungian Depth Psychology. Her deep knowledge in psyche and soma are the genesis for her coaching programs. Erika specializes in resolution and repair from symptoms of complex trauma, childhood trauma, sexual trauma, and post-traumatic stress.

Topics discussed:

1. What is trauma?
2. How do you know if what you're feeling and experiencing is the result of a trauma (whether complex or acute)?
3. How traumas show up in our bodies (symptoms)
4. What fight, flight, or freeze is and what it all means for us
5. How simple routine tasks like going to the grocery store made Shannon become paralyzed with fear
6. Erika and Shannon's experiences with panic attacks
7. What panic attacks are, what they feel like, and how they can actually change your brain and your life
8. Why Erika and Shannon are both grateful for their traumas
9. Shannon's experience with claustrophobia
10. What "dissociation" is. What it feels like and why Shannon says it's the worst feeling she's ever felt
11. Why dissociation happens after trauma
12. How our brains can't distinguish between "having" an actual experience and just simply "thinking" about an experience. Symptoms arise from thought alone.
13. How Erika and Shannon both managed their panic attacks (and it's not by "just trying to relax and calm down")
14. How shame plays a role in trauma
15. How our brains physically change from trauma, and why self talk alone isn't enough
16. Shannon's traumas throughout her life that led to a constant feeling of "what's coming next"
17. The vagus nerve and why it's important
18. How the mind and body are connected
19. The difference between general anxiety and panic attacks

Links mentioned in this episode:

• https://www.instagram.com/_anxiousfemale/
• https://www.instagram.com/getthegunkout/
• https://www.anxiousfemale.com/