YOUR Body Keeps the Score: Unwinding Trauma with Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk

Jen: Hey everybody, welcome to the For the Love podcast. Today is going to be fun. You guys don’t even know you’re not even ready. So I’ve got two cool things to tell you. I’m introducing two fun things that we’re doing every month on the pod from here on out. The first is we have taken the tip-top like most popular episodes from the show, and we are at this point, in our seventh year, so we have had some doozies and killer guests, killer conversations, fire episodes, and of course, we always know what those are because you vote with your downloads. We’re taking our most popular episodes, and once a month we’re going to be bringing those back around to you in your feed with brand new thoughts on it. The number two fun thing I am excited to tell you is that I am bringing in someone else on the show. A partner, if you will, and if we’re being a little bit more specific, a long-time friend. I’m going to have a person with me to talk about these episodes specifically and other stuff. We have ideas, we have thoughts, we have opinions. We’re going to talk about life, our feelings, our opinions, and everything in between. I’m excited to introduce you to her. This is my friend Amy. 

Amy: Hello. 

Jen: This is my friend Amy. I’m struggling right now. I just want to upload everything that I want you to know about her all at once which is an impossible feat because there’s too much. I’m going to start right here. Amy is super smart and super funny. She’s got a super-specific point of view of life in general, but you (the listener) are going to very soon discover that we have been friends for 15 years. We have been through it all and Amy is going to be joining these episodes with me.

Jen: How does this feel? 

Amy: A little weird. I’m a little nervous. I’m working on remembering this feeling in my body which some people call excitement. So maybe this is excitement and not nervousness. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Jen: I have wanted a friend/partner in the podcast space for a long time and I thought to myself, “I have this friend who’s quirky” and I would say, that to your face.

Amy: You say it all the time. I don’t see it yet.

Jen: The rest of the world would say she is quirky, funny, interesting, and peculiar in all the best ways. So I sent Amy a very vague text that said something like, “So I have an idea that I want to run past you.” Isn’t that what I said?

Amy: This is what you said. 

Jen: Amy will know for sure.

Amy: I asked a question, like a specific question about something, and you replied with, “I’ve got something for you. You’re not even ready. I’m leaving town. I’ll call you next week.” 

Jen: That’s the worst possible lead-in I could have ever given you. 

Amy: I said, “Absolutely not. Call me immediately.” and I know you don’t make phone calls. 

Jen: You’re right on both counts and I cannot believe I almost saddled you with that emotional turmoil for  4 or 5 days. You were like, “Well, I won’t do it ” So, I will tell you what Amy said back to me, though, which is even funnier. When I tell you I had not even hinted at anything like this, I mean she had no idea what I was talking about. I could have been talking about taking a weekend trip. Anyway, she had no idea what I was going to say and she goes, “Well, I can tell this is probably something I’m not qualified for, but because it’s you, I’m going to be forced to say yes.” I was like, “Oh God, you’re not far off the mark. Do you want to podcast with me?” So I’m very proud of you for being like, I will entertain the idea. 

Amy: Well what I said was, “This is effing ridiculous, but you’re not a dummy and you don’t make bad business choices, so I guess this could work. Sure.” 

Jen: I like your confidence in me. So, the way that Amy and I first became friends was through the church like that old-fashioned way that people used to always become friends. We were in the weeds of parenting back then.

Amy: I had a six-month-old. Number four was six months old. 

Jen: Oh, God. This is very important information for you to know, listener. Amy has four sons. This is very important. She was at number four who was a tiny infant in arms. Now I know you, of course, but back then I didn’t. It was kind of a big deal for you to reach out because that’s the way that you said I need a friend. I would not say that’s your normal way to be vulnerable in the world with another human person that you’re inviting into your home. 

Amy: Not ever. I reached out and asked for help. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: I did not know what I was asking for. You did not deliver. 

Jen: I believe you.

Amy: At all. 

Jen: That feels true. 

 Amy It was actually the worst. You showed up at my door. I don’t know what I needed. I needed you to take a nap. I needed someone to watch my kids so I could take a nap. I showed you my color-coded spreadsheet with my children’s schedules in 15-minute increments. Including things like, this (child) watches the A block of Arthur at this time and this (child) gets to switch to Little Einsteins. I showed you my spreadsheet and I said, “It’s not working. They’re not following it.” And you took my spreadsheet and you ripped it in half in my living room and said, “You can’t live like this.” Then I had nothing. All my parenting skills just down the toilet. I had no idea what to do.Then, I think I’ve blocked the rest out. I don’t know what happened next. We must have just sat in the living room and talked, and I never got a nap.

Jen: I was about to tell our origin story and forgot that I physically destroyed your spreadsheet. That could have been considered aggressive behavior. 

Amy: Our actual origin story which I don’t even know if you know about this. Someone invited me to a lady’s night at the church where my kids went to Mother’s Day out, which I chose not for curriculum or denomination, but because it went until 2 p.m. and everyone else got out at 1pm and it was the same price. So this person invited me to mom’s night out and you were speaking and I said, “No, I don’t do those things.” And the person who invited me said, to her credit because she had known me for two years at that point, “I hear there’s going to be a chocolate fountain.”

Jen: You’re like, “I’m not going to go for Jesus. I’m certainly not going for friendship, I don’t want to hear this lady talker, but I will go for Chocolate Fountain.” 

Amy: I did and I sat in the audience and you did a talk you’d probably done a hundred times and I liked it. So, I went home and googled your church and was like, “I guess I should visit.” and then I liked (the church). We had been church hopping for years. 

Jen: I remember. 

Amy: And I gave up completely. 

Jen: That part I remember because you had grown up. A dyed-in-the-wool Methodist. 

Amy: Yes just like you did! I don’t know how I got from chocolate fountain bribery to asking you to come to my house to help me. 

 Jen: Yeah, that was a leap. 

 Amy: It was a low point. 

Jen: You’re like, “I’m gonna invite this Christian lady speaker to come, I guess watch my kids so I can take a nap.” It was a leap but you did not know that I had aggressive ways where I’d be like, “I don’t want to see your Arthur time slot. I won’t look at it.” 

Amy: Also, I thought, “How can this person have three kids? How does she parent? How does she get through the day without a schedule?” 

Jen: To be fair, I had a schedule, but my schedule was primarily related to sleep and naps. Those were my priorities. 

Amy: I had those on the schedule in 15-minute increments

Jen: Okay, Mam. Excuse me. Nobody can quite comprehend the level to which you had micromanaged the day. The listener will know this about you soon enough. 

Amy: Anyway, to this day, I have not recreated that spreadsheet. I never did. A million times I sat down and thought it was a good plan and I’m going to reinstate it and I didn’t do it. I thought maybe there was a different way. I tried to keep it all in my head. 

Jen: Well, we’ve got to save something for later, but I will say you 100% did roll that evolution into your full parenting mechanism, which turned out to be homeschooling/unschooling/a more ethereal way of parenting. You went away from this regimented approach when you had to. You have four boys. They were practically feral.

Amy: Practically. 

Jen: Are they going to fit into your spreadsheet a day? 

Amy: Well, no. It was a bad plan from the beginning. Yes, they did end up feral, and now they’re back on track a little bit. 

Jen: I can’t wait to talk about that. We have a lot to tell you guys about all of our kids because they’re all around the same age. There are many stories embedded in their young lives. They are characters all. So between us, we have nine children. So you guys can get excited about that. All right, moving on. Plenty more where that came from. 

Jen: I would love to move into this episode that we are repairing because it is too good. In fact, I just re-listened to it this week and learned from it all over again. I heard some things I didn’t hear the first time and I remembered why this was one of our top ten downloaded episodes of all time of the whole show. I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s why.” Not only is the whole episode fire, but you guys shared it a bunch. This was one of those that got sent to friends, daughters, sons, moms, and sisters with good reason, because this is our interview with Doctor Bessel Van Der Kolk. If that doesn’t immediately ring a bell, this is the brilliant mind behind the definitive work on healing from trauma in his seminal masterpiece, The Body Keeps the Score. Did you read it, Amy? 

Amy: I did.

Jen: I read The Body Keeps the Score when it came out in 2014. At the time I had not heard anybody talk like this before. I hadn’t heard of this kind of teaching. I hadn’t been exposed to this degree of science. It was for me absolutley groundbreaking. I didn’t understand it back then. I was on the very front edge of that conversation. His instruction that trauma is stored in our bodies and that the good news about our body storing trauma is that our bodies are also the conduit which we can use to heal. There’s a million reasons why I and so many of you love this conversation. I was tickled because I was so excited to meet and talk to him face to face. I was so excited that I could not sleep the night before. This is some of the most powerful instruction on trauma recovery in our generation without a doubt and I think my favorite thing about him, in addition to his brilliance, is his manner. You’ll see this as you listen to this Encore Episode. He is tender, he is gentle, and he has this generosity of spirit that feels rare these days to be honest. I wonder where did that go? Where did these kind of leaders go? This is a powerful episode and we’re so happy to bring it back to you. 

Jen: One thing I want our listeners to know about you Amy and they will find out about this in quick order. This is kind of your space. You’re a body person. 

Amy: It is my space. 

Jen: Embodiment is not new to you like it was to me. Now you have many more practices. What do you think about his work and what he added to this conversation? 

Amy: I went back and listened to the episode again and I read the book when it came out. That’s all we talked about for months. What I realized when I rewatched the episode was that I had been so focused at the time on how our bodies store everything. I looked at it as prescriptive for everything. I felt that it was wrong or bad and I somehow missed the peace of the gentle healing on the backside. I’m really slow to incorporate things in a meaningful way. I think a lot of times I do chase a diagnosis. So I loved everything in the book, but I teated the healing part as a sort of checklist, which is not embodiment at all. So going back and listening to him, it made me feel so much more gentle towards the process. 

Jen: Yeah, that was one of my key takeaways too. This sort of generous nature towards the whole discussion, which I love a checklist. In some ways, I’m like you. Maybe we come at it from different angles. Our motivation might be different. Mine motivation is productivity, but I will take something really lovely and shove it into a checklist. 

Amy: Yes. 

Jen: His way of being so tender in the world and within ourselves was so lovely. As you guys will hear, there’s a lot of tangible stuff. It’s very practical. He recommends practices that are all free. I think my favorite thing from this interview is when he essentially says, “Your body starts to trauma and your body also can heal the trauma. We have everything we need inside of us to heal.” which is a relief. So much therapy instruction is only accessible to privileged people. You have enough money to buy it. You have enough money to pay for therapy. You have health care. Those all matter. I’m not at all suggesting those are not genuine solutions but his particular instruction says you have what you need inside of you and he uses practices that are plain, ordinary, low hanging fruit. For example, human touch. 

Amy: Right. 

Jen: He’s obsessed with human touch. Meditation is free. Being outdoors is free. Gentle body movement, like you just said, are accessible to all people. Something about that felt like an important message to revisit. 

Amy: Yes.

Jen: While we always can certainly reach for some of our other types of healers that might be more traditional or might be more in the talk therapy space, our bodies are also a source of healing. What do you think about that? 

Amy: Well, it makes sense. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: We have everything we need. I think a lot of it is the intention with which you do those things. For example, If I have to remember to reach out and touch my friend’s hand four times during lunch. I don’t think that’s the same thing as just becoming comfortable with human touch throughout the day. I think when I find cold water and I think I must get in that cold water for physical cryotherapy benefits. It’s very different than just being in the water. 

Jen: Yes, exactly. 

Amy: I think I need to unravel some of the thought processes around it when I participate and all the things he recommended. 

Jen: Yeah. He’s such a trustworthy leader. Not just because of his outrageous credentials, but I was reminded when we listened to it this week that he was born in 1943 and, as he said, arguably one of the worst years in human history. 

Amy: Yes. 

Jen: He’s European and the world was on fire at that time and he experienced community trauma from the second he was born. So he’s got this real experience with physical trauma and with trauma that you inherit as a child. So he’s not just a biological and physiological guide, he’s a personal and credible leader through what it means to have very real trauma. 

Amy: Yes. 

Jen: It’s just lovely to hear him talk. He did say one funny thing that I will share and then we’re going to send you into the episode so that you guys can hear it. He goes, “I’m definitely against gun control.” Which was surprising because he’s a gentle, peaceful, and pacifistic kind of person. He continues with, “…because I want everybody to have the opportunity to shoot their television sets.” I was like, “There it is. He’s got jokes.” 

Amy: He’s got jokes. 

Jen: I think you will be delighted to listen to this no matter what trauma you carry in your body, no matter what you have gone through, and no matter how long ago it was. We talk about how there’s not an expiration date on trauma if it is not faced, if it is not alchemized, or if it is not worked through. It may be 40-year-old trauma, it still counts. You may be currently in it right now. So no matter where you are on the spectrum. I think that this episode will serve you so well. It will give you hope, resources, and maybe a fresh place to start. So I am absolutely delighted to bring you this Encore Episode featuring the wise, the wonderful. We’re so lucky to have him in our time. Doctor Bessel Van Der Kolk.