Ep. 22- Meditation and Betrayal Trauma, Ryan Raleigh, LCHMC

Becky and Autumn sit down with Ryan Raleigh, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor with LifeStar Salt Lake and Redwood Therapy. Ryan has been married for twenty years and has eight kids. On this podcast, he shares his personal and professional journey and insights about meditation and provides a guided meditation during the podcast.

Ryan shares that he experienced betrayal trauma both as a child and in his first marriage. He identifies with and remembers the agonies of betrayal trauma, such as the hard-to-manage invasive thoughts, feeling crazy, and feeling like a private detective.

Ryan says began integrating meditation into his personal life and his counseling practice several years ago. He describes meditation as

the process of “looking inward” on your body sensations, thoughts,

images floating by and what is happening all around you.

Ryan asserts that you can do meditation anywhere you want; it doesn’t even have to be quiet around you. He explains that when you meditate and your mind wanders, be really gentle bringing the focus back. 

Like bringing a bubble over with a feather.

Ryan says there are no “have tos” in meditation, and that even a one-minute meditation is okay. He explains, however, that meditating for at least three to five minutes is enough to change you.  Ryan shares he began his meditation journey with guided meditation and there are many other types of meditation including transcendental, yoga (moving meditation), and mantra (a repeated affirmation over and over).

Ryan is particularly interested in how meditation can heal trauma. “Trauma scars the brain,” he says. “It creates ruts and neuropathways—it hurts the brain in ways we’re still trying to understand.” Betrayal trauma is particularly harmful because “the person you want to talk to is also the enemy,” he says.

Ryan reminds us that trauma is stored in our bodies, not just our brains. Because of this, we often feel like our body is betraying us and letting us down. However, Ryan shares that our bodies are actually trying to protect us, and he invites us to:

 Love that protection instead of shaming that protection.

Meditation can help the rumination, invasive thoughts, and triggers associated with betrayal trauma. Ryan describes that, “So often we’re acting in a reactionary mode. But just the understanding that we’re being triggered helps us to slow down.”

Ryan says that during a trauma response, blood is going to the center of our brain and it doesn’t have access to the prefrontal cortex. But when you can recognize that trigger, we re-route the pathways to our brain to allow more blood to the prefrontal cortex.

Kindness to ourselves, Ryan shares, is of paramount importance. “If we were to shame our reaction and our trigger, we stick ourselves in place. But if we are to be kind, we can move through that.”

If we are kind to ourselves, then we can grow.

Ryan reminds us that, while meditating, we’re not going to use judgement, but we’re just going to notice.

Becky shares that one of the things she loves about meditation is you can always make it your own. Ryan explains further that he started, years ago, with guided meditations, but now does self-guided meditations. These self-guided meditations often involve utilizing his authentic, higher self to help heal.

When asked about what restoration means to him, Ryan responds: “All my mistakes will be accounted for my gain. All those struggles and trials will serve to strengthen me. The parts of me that I hate the most, I have to learn to love those. God can help us love those. The atonement was accomplished by equal measures of love with equal measures of pain”.  He shares that 

Restoration was always meant to happen.

Becky reminds us that, “the pain is an essential part of this process, of this life.”

Autumn shares that she feels like this pain is generational because we take on our ancestors’ DNA, their problems and what they left behind, and we are healing that. For her, restoration involves “repairing what has been broken before and giving love and light ahead.”  

Ryan encourages the practice of meditation by inviting us to “Take something that you’re struggling with and allow your mind to focus on it. When your mind wanders and you bring it back, that’s one push up. When our mind wanders and you bring it back again, that’s two push ups. And so on.” 

With meditation, the “right” way is the way that works for you. Honesty is essential to this process. 

“When we hide,” he says, “we can’t be healed. That’s freedom—to let ourselves be seen.”

Ryan’s favorite resources:

Honesty

Self-Kindness

In meditation, let your mind wander and practice bringing it back

Meditation app that works for you (“Calm”, “Breathe”, other free apps available)

Music- pay attention to notes and your body

Practice!!!

Ryan’s Song: 

“If We’re Honest” by Francesca Battistelli

Ep. 21- Holiday Q&A

Becky, Autumn, and Tiffany gather together virtually to answer anonymous questions about dealing with betrayal trauma around the holidays. 

Question #1:  What are common holiday triggers and how can I navigate them?

Tiffany shares that seeing happy families can be triggering. “It’s so hard to see other people who look so happy in their marriage and their family,” she says. 

For Autumn, the whole season of fall is triggering because that’s when she found out about her husband’s addiction.

Becky shares how during the holidays, she would look around and see really happy people, and then she’d go home and there would be fighting, pain, and sadness. 

Autumn used to feel resentment around the idea of gifts, because no gift her husband could give her would ever be big enough to compensate for the pain of his betrayal.  It was also hard to give gifts to her husband for a while; for a time, she stopped giving sentimental gifts.

Tiffany shares how the holidays brought up more feelings of being isolated because she felt more removed and that she was hiding more. Vacations were exponentially more stressful during the holidays.

Becky agrees, stressing that: 

“One of Satan’s biggest tools is isolation and he really pushes that idea during the holidays.”

Autumn explains how the opposite of isolation is reaching out. Because she had a helpful support person, and because over time she felt more safe with her husband, those holiday triggers began dissipating. She worked really hard to find the good things in other areas of her life, like her kids, or starting a different tradition. 

Another way to deal with the holidays is to temporarily shelf the situation.

Tiffany shares how her therapist told her it’s okay to shelf the situation for a time, to go and participate and have fun. “That doesn’t mean everything is super happy and good,” she says. “What it means is, I don’t have expectations of working through things, or solving things. I have an expectation to try to enjoy myself, to try to be involved and show up the best I can. I don’t expect to address the problem or make big decisions during this time.” 

One thing that has helped Becky during the holidays has been connecting with safe people. “I also attended a couple of extra 12-step meetings during the week of Christmas week, just to get a little extra strength in me,” she says.

Autumn adds that we can skip these holiday events, if need be.  

“If it’s triggering and you can’t participate, and it doesn’t create safety for you, you can skip it,” Autumn says.

Becky also reminds us that it’s okay to simplify the holidays down to only the things that truly bring us joy.  

Question #2: How do I provide good holidays for my kids when betrayal trauma has happened?

Becky explains that:

Our kids know when something’s wrong, even if they don’t know the details.

“Sometimes we can put on a happy face when we’re not 100 percent there. But I’m not one to lie to my kids,” she says. “I tell them, Dad and I are having a hard time right now. We’re okay, but there are some hard things going on right now. But please know we love you fiercely and nothing’s going to change that.”

Autumn shares that when her kids were little, they weren’t as queued in on what was happening, 

When they’re young, trying to normalize things as much as possible means keeping the traditions that are important to them.

Becky assures that normalizing for our kids in many situations is okay. If there’s heavy abuse in the home though, it’s time to get to safety. “But if you’re working with your loved one and things are hard, it’s okay to try to provide some stability for your kids,” she says. 

Tiffany stresses the importance of honesty. 

Saying, “My heart is sad and I just need a minute,” can mean you’re being honest with your children without giving them difficult things they couldn’t carry. 

Tiffany also shares how helpful it is to engage other people in this cause. For instance, going to a family member’s home to enjoy some of the traditions sometimes helps the energy change enough so that we can provide meaningful experiences without having to shoulder the burden alone.

The bottom line is: you can still maintain the traditions that are really important to you.

Question #3: How do we navigate family events when we’re not on good terms with our loved ones during the holidays?

Tiffany admits that sometimes we do it horribly and that’s okay! There will be another event where we can do it a little better. Sometimes her main goal in holiday social situations is to just breathe.  She reminds us that it’s okay to not be the life of the party sometimes.

Autumn shares that for a period of time, her husband was uninvited to one side of family events. That was a boundary that her mom had set. So, her husband went to other things with his side of the family. Autumn set a boundary with family, where she asked them not to talk badly about her husband when the kids were around.

Tiffany found it helpful to set a time limit for the event and share that with the kids. If she knew she had the emotional bandwidth to only stay an hour, she would prepare the kids beforehand for that.

Becky says that, “I’m one to not go to things if I know it’s going to be too hard for me. I recognize there are going to be people who don’t understand and who don’t agree, but if my emotional energy is gone, I just don’t attend things.” 

But how do you navigate it when people start to pry?

Autumn explains that a lot of people step away from functions in general when suffering from betrayal trauma. “I was a very social person and I turned into a very reclusive person. I’m just now starting to turn into a social person again out of my family setting.”  

When people have experienced betrayal trauma, it’s a totally normal reaction to want to step away from social events.

Autumn shares some good ways to respond to questions you don’t want to answer:  “I’ve stopped saying yes to things that I don’t feel comfortable with.” Or, “They just won’t be here this time, but hopefully they can come next time.” 

Tiffany has discovered that isolating works really well to avoid people who are prying. But when we can’t isolate, in order to avoid oversharing or overcommitting, she would respond with, “I’m going to have to get back to you on that.” Or, “I don’t know, let me check my calendar.” Responding in that way gave her space to think things through and answer in a way that made her comfortable.

You don’t owe anyone anything.

Becky shares that “Culturally, we’re taught to always say yes, but giving yourself just a little bit of space to say ‘I’ll get back to you on that,’ then you can come at it from a place where you’re not so triggered.”

Autumn asserts that “The space is the grace.”

Tiffany explains how she has learned to say no. “Every time I say no to something that didn’t feel right to me, that’s the best case for both of us,” she says. “If it’s not right for me, I believe with every fiber of my being, that it’s not right for them.”

Becky believes that we need to give ourselves permission to take the space that we need and the time that we need. “All of these holidays that we navigate, there’s a lot of pressure. We need to give ourselves space and grace to step away as needed. Attend when we can and when we recognize when it’s great for our kids, but utilize self-care.”

Lastly, Autumn shares how she has learned over the years to simplify greatly, as well as to say no when it’s appropriate and to say yes when it’s appropriate. 

Tiffany reminds us to continue personal care rituals and routines (daily meditation, scripture study, exercising, etc.) during the holidays. “Be even more intentional and keep doing it,” she adds.

Finally, Becky shares how she hopes everyone has the holiday season that they need!

Holiday Song: 

“Behold” by Plumb

Please continue to send in your anonymous questions through Facebook, Instagram, the website, or email them to Becky@riseuprestored.com.