Let’s Talk Trauma

00:00
Ali Federwitz
We don’t need to take on what they have experienced and sometimes the most that you can do and the best that you can do is just to let them share. You don’t have to be a clinician to know how do I respond? 

00:21
Rich Rudowske
Welcome to the Essentially Translatable Podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. I’m Rich Rudowske. 

00:26
Emily Wilson
And I’m Emily Wilson. Today we get to talk with Ali Federwitz on the podcast. Ali is our member care coordinator and she is actually third time guest on Essentially Translatable. Her first episode was Healthy Transitions way back in 2020 when we were all in transition. That craziness. And then her other episode is on Sabbath Rest. And what does that look like, especially in ministry? So today Allie is sharing about trauma, a session that she led at Concordia Mission Institute for missionaries and staff members gathered together. She’s able to break down for us not only what is trauma, but also what happens to us as we’re experiencing trauma and our reactions to it. 

01:14
Rich Rudowske
And we really encourage you to certainly listen to this episode, but to those other episodes as well. Member care is really important to us in Lutheran Bible Translators, and it’s not just about caring for people who work in overseas missionary roles, but just the recognition of the care for self that is available to us as the people of God who are the inheritors of all things true, as people that walk in the light of the Gospel. So we hope that this episode will be edifying for you and that you take advantage of listening to the other ones as well. Enjoy. We are here today with Ali Federwitz, the member care coordinator here at Lutheran Bible Translators to talk about trauma. Welcome to the podcast. 

01:52
Emily Wilson
Welcome, Ali. 

01:53
Ali Federwitz
Thank you! 

01:54
Emily Wilson
This is your third interview with Essentially Translatable. So well done. 

01:59
Rich Rudowske
Think at four you get a sport coat. 

02:01
Ali Federwitz
I’m just told it’s because I’ve got a good voice for podcasts. 

02:03
Rich Rudowske
That’s true. 

02:04
Emily Wilson
That’s true, you do! Well, today we are going to be asking you about trauma, and not only from the experience that you’ve gained in your missionary service and as the member care coordinator, but also because you just presented at Concordia Mission Institute about trauma with international missions and ministry in general. So some of the questions that we’ve gleaned were from participants in your sessions and explaining a little bit further to our audience members about trauma. So one of the questions that I would love to hear more about is the difference between big t and little t trauma. And what does that mean? 

02:44
Ali Federwitz
Right. So trauma is quite a large spectrum, and we think about it in different ways. I think it’s important to recognize that trauma is an experience we think about, oh, that was a traumatic event, and that can be true, but trauma is what we experience as a result of that event. And so to further classify that as big t traumas, capital t traumas are those ones you would widely recognize. Natural disasters, car accidents, train wrecks, war, death of somebody close to you in your family, that would be those big t traumas. And the little t traumas are the ones maybe that you would only experience yourself and others around you may not be as impacted by it. So a stressful work or cultural situation, uncomfortable experience out and about at the grocery store, the loss of a pet, some bullying and moving. 

03:33
Ali Federwitz
Actually, those would be those little t traumas. And because they don’t go so widely recognized, those are the ones really to watch out for. Little t traumas have a cumulative stress effect, and so piling them on can really, whatever the last one is, can be that one that really causes the problem or really causes some sort of way that your body reacts, that you take note. Hey, something’s going on here. 

03:57
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, moving especially. Just had a colleague who was supposed to meet with me last week, and she says, I’m moving. It’s just a local move, but I’m sure we’ll still be able to connect. And I was like, I don’t know. And then she texted, like, can we skip this? Because maintenance is just showing up. The truck didn’t arrive. Like, short roofs are the worst. But anyways, we don’t have to dwell on that. But that really resonated with me as much as I’ve moved, you think, oh, this isn’t a big deal. And then I’m just moving up the road a little bit. And that’s the worst. 

04:25
Ali Federwitz
I think it’s so true, actually, just to take note of those things that you think, well, this is a natural part of life for me to go from one place to the next and then not even to recognize the sheer volume of decisions that are made in that process. 

04:38
Rich Rudowske
So true. 

04:38
Ali Federwitz
I mean, if we start listing them. 

04:40
Rich Rudowske
We turn on the utilities. 

04:41
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, right. And then off switch your name, change your address, and then what goes in which box? 

04:47
Rich Rudowske
I can very clearly remember when I moved to St. Louis to go to the seminary, which was the biggest move I’d ever have, because I went to Michigan and I’m trying to get utilities turned on. I’m standing at a payphone at a store trying to make these calls emblazoned in my mind of like, wow, this is really crazy. 

05:04
Ali Federwitz
Yeah. 

05:04
Emily Wilson
So what is going a little bit further back? Trauma. Can you actually just define that, too? Because maybe some people are only familiar with that big t trauma of like, oh, yeah, I went through the natural disaster, know, whatever. Know, Hurricane Katrina for like, affected the whole nation in some regard. And you think of that trauma, that’s almost what people define. Oh, yeah. It has to be this big thing. But what is really at the heart of the definition of trauma? 

05:33
Ali Federwitz
I’m going to use a definition I found from, actually a missionary who writes for a blog called “A Life Overseas”, and her name’s Shauna Ingram. I thought it did a good job of encompassing the large topic of trauma. And she says that trauma results from any event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening, and that has lasting negative impacts on a person’s mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well being. I mean, what doesn’t that definition touch? And so if you really want to think through those words, you cannot deny that every single one of us has experienced multiple trauma. And do we want to be aware of that? I mean, I’ll answer that for you. Yes, you want to be aware of that, but often we try not to be. 

06:25
Emily Wilson
And how in our goal of. This is fine. This is normal, right? This is normal. Just pushing it down. It comes out sideways. 

06:33
Rich Rudowske
It does, yeah. Again, I think of a recent conversation I had with a colleague, and he says, you seem upset by this. And I’m like, you know what? I don’t want to be upset, but, yeah, I guess I’m upset just wanting to push that down. 

06:45
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, maybe I’ll just jump on that. You don’t get to choose your reactions. And sometimes maybe that conversation you were having, maybe it was worth being upset about, but maybe it was speaking to an earlier something that you had experienced, and then now it’s coming out this way, in a bigger way than you maybe had hoped or planned for. 

07:06
Emily Wilson
So you were saying it comes out, and the reactions that we have, maybe we don’t get to choose. How does it affect our body? Like, physically, physiologically? 

07:15
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, I think most people probably have heard of fight and flight responses, and your body is doing everything it can to protect itself from certain situations. And that’s why I say you don’t get to choose your reactions, because your brain is sending signals all throughout and alerting you. So for the fight response, that’s a lot of times where anger comes out explosively. Like, anger is not a bad thing. Anger is there for us. And it’s often the first emotion that we access. But when you have anger response that’s disproportionate to the situation that you’re experiencing, that’s a sign that, hey, something in the past is really trying to work itself out right now because it couldn’t at the time when a trauma was experienced. And so now there’s these little kind of triggers that are happening. 

08:02
Ali Federwitz
So that fight response could come out as feeling like knots in your stomach, a lot of tension in your jaw. Like you may physically tighten your fists, whether you recognize it or not, stomping and kicking and even crying. Those are signals that the fight response is happening. And flight, if you are hardcore into exercising, that could be part of your body working itself out with this flight response being fidgety. I’m a constant fidgeter, but that’s just kind of who I am. But it is a way to be like, wait, I’m fidgety in a situation where everybody else is calm. So what is my body experiencing? Or even just feeling trapped and like, there’s not a way out. And your body is saying, I’m looking for a way out. I’m trying to flee this situation. What is happening around me? 

08:52
Ali Federwitz
What am I experiencing in my body that’s wanting me to get out of here? There’s also the freeze response, I think is also a common one. We say deer in headlights. And that’s a real thing when you may be having a real hard time making decisions. If you’re feeling isolated, if you’re feeling stuck in a situation, this could be some way that your freeze response is being activated. Generally in none emergency situations and generally because of past traumas you have experienced and your body hasn’t worked through those. I hope we’ll get to that. How can my body work through those traumas? And so then that’s the way that this is showing up. As I did some research for these trauma sessions, I noticed that there was fight, flight, freeze. And then I kept finding more and more. 

09:33
Ali Federwitz
And of course, to fit with it, they all had to start with f. And some of them I thought, wow, someone really is stretching there. But I think it’s just a result of us learning so much more about our bodies and recognizing all of the different ways that our body is responding. So I’m going to share two more faint sometimes. I found it called flop. I guess just whatever they thought would work well with remembering. And your body is pretty much completely shut down. Like, I need to preserve all of my internal organ functions, breathing and everything. So I need to put my body into a complete rest state in which you cannot react. Some people may faint at the sight of blood or a needle, and that’s not necessarily an emergency response, but there is something there. 

10:17
Ali Federwitz
Feeling overwhelmed and maybe you start to feel like you’re zooming out, you’re looking around you, and all of a sudden you’re removing yourself from the situation. Could be a sign of this kind of faint or flop. Being unresponsive, like unable to respond physically or mentally to a situation is a signal that your body is starting towards this faint response. And then one I found that’s relatively new was fawn, and fawn was very interesting to me. For people who are in abusive situations, you become compliant to the threat so that it’s something that you can continue to live through. So you may be seen as being helpful in an abusive situation because that’s what makes it so that your body can continue day by day. In a non emergency situation. I would say an abusive situation is an emergency situation. 

11:05
Rich Rudowske
Sure. 

11:06
Ali Federwitz
And that’s how your body is responding. It may have tried all of the others. It may have tried to fight and to run and to freeze, and those things didn’t work. So if it follows a progression, then freeze could be seen as the last one. I don’t necessarily think it’s that simple, but maybe someone who’s unable to set clear boundaries, constantly feeling overwhelmed, being in codependent relationships, not knowing who you are, lack of identity, those are all signs of fawning and could be something to be really aware of and decide, okay, now what do I do when I notice these things about myself? 

11:41
Emily Wilson
Yeah, it really seems like too that the fawning is almost a continuous, where the fight or flight is a momentary. So a specific time frame, whereas fawning has to continue on because it’s a relational aspect. Maybe just thinking about how, okay, abuse is long standing, it might not just be in an exact moment where physical or verbal abuse is happening, but just an ongoing compliance. Also thinking about. Just as you were talking about flight, sometimes there’s tough topics that we experience at Concordia Mission Institute about the complexity of relationships. One of the responses that I noticed I had was like almost this shrinking in. I heard something from one of the presenters and it was like, oh, this really is very close to my story. And just this shrinking in and then kind of holding myself really close. 

12:39
Emily Wilson
As you were describing flight and that trauma response, that’s what I thought of. I couldn’t actually physically leave the room. But what is it that I could feel in myself is make myself as small as possible because this is my story. 

12:54
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, I think that really connects well. There’s always the aspect of just needing a moment to reflect, especially when you’re in such a large room. Like, you can feel the largeness of our rooms where we’re having these presentations. Know, it’s not this tiny, intimate setting. I think a smaller room helps with that feeling of safeness and just wanting to be like, hey, I need to reflect on that a little bit. So there is that element added to it as well. And I think the Holy Spirit works in those ways too. Like, hey, take note of this. This is part of your story. What can you learn from this? How can you grow or how can you heal in those ways not to eliminate those elements from that situation as well. 

13:32
Ali Federwitz
You were saying about fawning, and I do think it helps in the way that your body recognizes this is not a short term situation we have to be able to endure. But there are situations, like with flight response, where people can be workaholics and so they’re hiding away or running away to their work. And that does tend to be a long term situation as well. So that’s just the one I could think off the top of my head. But the other ones do have ways of telling your body, like, you’re going to be in this for a long time, how are you going to endure? And it’s not always a healthy response. 

14:10
Emily Wilson
So thinking about the responses versus resilience, right. Our brain saying, okay, how do I make it through this traumatic situation? I’m going to pour myself into my work and that’s going to help me endure, and I’m going to be resilient. And that’s not actually the case. That’s not an equal sort of relationship there. Can you kind of speak into that a little bit? 

14:34
Ali Federwitz
Yeah. Resilience, I think, gets misused a lot. When we see that someone has come through on the other side, then we just assume resilience. But what they have done is survived, and that also should be celebrated surviving any of those things. But when that stress comes up again in any small way, then you’re not necessarily stronger. You’re not necessarily going to deal with it in a healthier way. A lot of those unhealthy patterns will come up again. I think resilience speaks more to how have I reflected upon, how have I worked through what I experienced in that? So that the next time it comes up, I can say, ding. This reminds me of the last time and what are those healthy patterns that I had told myself that I would take on when this stress showed up again? 

15:22
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And I guess some of those longer term responses are not effective as evident in that you can be walking in them for some time, and then you’ll have a fight response or a flight response. These flare ups, right, that show that all is not well. And that’s what everybody notices and thinks, well, where’d that come from? But you’ve just been living in this other thing all this time. 

15:40
Ali Federwitz
You’ve been living in it. And who knows when that survival mode ever really diminished, right? Or are you just constantly in it now? Now you’re just on high alert all the time, right? 

15:48
Emily Wilson
So that would be that little t trauma playing out in your life, continuous that people are not seeing, but it is a cumulative effect on your body, on your mental state, on your spiritual state, and being able to see and to also give grace to others of what is it that is hidden, but being able to practice a self awareness, that kind of sounds like it’s at the heart of this. Of what is my body doing? How is my body reacting? It’s my first inclination, my first reaction. And what is that saying in comparison? So, like you were saying, resilience versus, okay, I’m just enduring and this is my go to response. It’s not necessarily what is best for us. 

16:34
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, I think resilience comes after the trauma response has been processed. And that threat, your body knows that threat is not there anymore, so that the next time something comes up, you’re able to approach it. Let’s just say head on. 

16:47
Emily Wilson
Yeah. 

16:49
Rich Rudowske
So what are some things that someone can do, or should I say I can do? What are some things that I can do to help my body move through a trauma response? If I feel it happening, feel it beginning, notice it? 

17:00
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, I think there’s the overused term that the first step to you have to admit you have a problem to know that it’s something that needs a solution. So it could be hard when we’re talking about trauma as being little t, that could sound diminishing, but we do need to recognize when something has had an impact on our body. And for me, like going to the grocery store whenever I come back to the United States is a traumatic experience. And I say that even now, 17 years later, it’s less so than it was when we first came. But I just have to know that my body is not going to appreciate going into a grocery store and having the lights and also the cold and the music. And the people. 

17:42
Ali Federwitz
And then having to choose between varieties of apples when, where I have lived for all this time, you have possibly two choices, a red and a green. And that’s it. And that’s just apples. I mean, if you could think about. 

17:56
Rich Rudowske
The grocery store, all this toothpaste, right? 

18:00
Emily Wilson
Do I want to? 

18:02
Rich Rudowske
Who has such discerning tastes for different toothpaste that you got to make all these different things? The brush, hard, medium, or soft? 

18:09
Ali Federwitz
Yes. I just need them clean. 

18:11
Rich Rudowske
That’s right. 

18:11
Ali Federwitz
Exactly. 

18:12
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. 

18:13
Ali Federwitz
And so recognizing for myself, like, I cannot just come back to the United States and walk into a grocery store. There needs to be something set up for me in that way. And so that might not be any big deal to anybody else. They can just happily go into a grocery store. But I know that for me, that’s not going to work. And so I need to process, basically, because of this example, you can hear the things I’ve processed. I’ve processed the lights and the cold and the largeness and choices. And then Aldi opened up in my hometown, and then I didn’t have to process those things anymore because there’s only one of everything. But these are things that I have learned to help myself navigate it after all these years. So I think that’s it. 

18:52
Ali Federwitz
You start to recognize my reaction to this situation doesn’t match the situation, or it’s not the experience of others. And not that your experiences cannot be uniquely your own, but if it starts to be a problem in your life, then there’s something there to deal with. There are a variety of ways. And sometimes for people, just simply saying, hey, going to this place is stressful to me because of these reasons and not carrying the shame in keeping it a secret or what’s happening to me, what’s wrong with me? Like, the thinking of something’s wrong with me, I think, carries a lot of shame. And then being able to share that with somebody else, I think, really can go a long way to helping to heal those things. Sometimes that’s the only thing you have to do. 

19:39
Ali Federwitz
And then trying to make adjustments to make that event or that task a little bit more pleasant for you in whatever way, small or big, those can really help. 

19:51
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And just listening to you made me think of my wife would express that certain things were traumatic to her, and it was an aha moment for me and a very healthy thing for our relationship. For me to just come to realize that is the case. I don’t have to know why. She doesn’t have to explain. It’s okay. And just recognize that is what it is. So sometimes if you’re in relationship with somebody who experiences trauma, just recognizing that it’s trauma and I don’t have to understand why. Okay, so we know it is. So how are we going to walk through this is a really important thing for us. 

20:24
Ali Federwitz
I think that’s absolutely true. We are talking about kind of analyzing how our body is reacting in different situations. But it’s okay also to just recognize this is a problem for me. And to give yourself grace or to give your spouse grace or your friend Grace, I think that’s really hugely important as well. 

20:41
Emily Wilson
Something also that I heard you say was about healing. And this kind of comes along with the awareness piece. But I think there is a huge tendency to avoid. Right. This space makes me uncomfortable. I am going to avoid it, but then continue to. So not talking about it, just avoiding it. What seems to be the effect, the long term effect of just avoidance without looking for that healing process? 

21:14
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, I think you start to change who you are and not usually for the better. Whether you become more introspective, isolated and closed off from people, or your emotions become more explosive and then people try to avoid you. And it wouldn’t just be anger. I really think that you can become overly excitable in different situations, and then it doesn’t match a situation and people are feeling uncomfortable, like, why are you being so loud or so boisterous or so whatever? It draws so much more attention to you when I think that you wouldn’t want that type of attention longer term. I mean, we’re talking health concerns, too. Chronic illnesses and heart issues and all the impacts that stress has on our body. Autoimmune disease, those things definitely come into place. Your body is constantly trying to protect itself and give itself whatever it needs. 

22:04
Ali Federwitz
And sometimes that gets real messy and real complicated and it comes out as illness, which doesn’t sound like protection, but it doesn’t have what it needs to stay healthy any longer. 

22:13
Emily Wilson
As we’re thinking about long term health and trauma’s effect on our body and wanting to be aware, what are some good first steps for individuals as they are considering? Okay, what trauma have I experienced? Because maybe they haven’t actually named it. Maybe they’re just walking through in a coping mechanism, what is a first step for being able to assess what traumas have existed for you and naming it and what goes from there? 

22:44
Ali Federwitz
I do a lot of debriefing with our missionaries when they come back to the United States. We call it furlough or transition debriefing and what that can mean. I think that word has a lot of different meanings depending on what circles you go in, but it’s just kind of talking through events that have happened, reflecting on a period of time, and writing things down. So for what we do is we take an entire term of service, which could be like three or four years. But what if you just took a smaller time period, maybe one year, six months, and you wrote a timeline of what events were impactful? To me, impactful can mean anything. It can mean I celebrated a milestone birthday, or I took a trip to a place I’ve always wanted to go, or I lost my pet of 15 years. 

23:28
Ali Federwitz
Impactful can have a lot of different things attached to it. And laying those things out on a timeline, I think, can help somebody to see, oh, I had a lot of things that really had negative impact on my body, and I didn’t realize how closely together they were and how heavy those topics were. And you do need to take some time to kind of grieve those. And grieving doesn’t necessarily mean just crying in a room by yourself. Grieving can simply mean taking note, like, oof, that was a really hard period of time, and now where am I? Likewise, you find those events, hey, I celebrated a milestone birthday. I took a trip and just noting those and celebrating them somehow. 

24:08
Ali Federwitz
Now, I mean, the birthday celebration was the celebration, but writing something down, a prayer of gratitude, similarly with grieving, lamenting, those are great spiritual practices as part of maybe your daily devotion life. Maybe you set aside a period of time, weekly or monthly, or however, whatever the time period is, and you write a lament. Follow some of those examples in the Bible. If you don’t know how to start writing your own words and writing out prayers, of laying these things at the foot of the cross, like, this is sad and it is hard. And I am a different person, and I don’t know where to go from here. I mean, who else can handle those things if not our God? 

24:52
Ali Federwitz
And a regular practice of noting those things that have had a negative impact and celebrating those things with a positive impact can really help your body also just to be more aware of when those things happen. 

25:05
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And I think, again, just reflecting on what you’re saying, what comes to mind for me is that the gospel is the sweetest and most impactful. When we have the law, when we recognize and really wrestle with, like, this is deep and hurtful and painful, then the word of God is much deeper than a platitude or something that’s kind of surfacey. It can really reach in there and touch it. And so again, the twelve step people say, you have to know there’s a problem before, but the scriptures talk about being called to repentance or recognize, in this case, the brokenness that we’re in. And it’s from that place, then you can really grasp how God’s at work, that God could be at work, that God has called you a new name and redeemed you, and that has implications for that particular situation, too. 

25:51
Emily Wilson
So when people have a realization, oh, my life has had trauma, and actually admitting it, because sometimes, again, they’re expecting it to be those very visible, big t traumas of natural disasters or something that everyone can see this is traumatic, but as they’re processing, as they’re listening, and they’re saying, well, maybe these things in my life qualified. I’ve named them, I have them on a timeline. I’m trying, but it’s not landing. I’m not actually healing. I’ve opened it up. The wound is visible. But what are some next steps for individuals for being able to heal? 

26:34
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, I think doing some individual things is helpful. Prayer, Bible study, sharing with fellow believers that can be supporting you. There are then definitely more clinical responses that are immensely helpful. And also, it’s important to make sure you find somebody, a clinician who is certified to treat any sort of trauma. And so that usually starts with cognitive behavioral therapy, which is just very common, and it’s a starting point. And sometimes that’s as far as you need to go, working with a therapist, just to be able to openly share, what have my struggles been? And then that therapist can kind of probe a little bit and check some of your responses to things to determine where to go from there. Some trauma response therapies include EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which sounds like big, scary words. 

27:31
Ali Federwitz
And someone said to me, isn’t that what hypnosis is? No, it is not hypnosis. You are not in some sort of trance or unaware of what your body is doing, but it is a way for your brain to be able to tell your body, hey, the threat is gone. And sometimes that’s what’s happening in our body. Our body thinks that original threat to a situation is still there. And that’s why I’m running away. That’s why I’m exploding in anger. That’s why I feel unsafe, because my body does not know that the threat is gone. It doesn’t change your memory of a situation it just says, yes, that thing happened and it was bad, but it is not bad right now. That threat is not there. So that one has actually, I’ve experienced that. 

28:19
Ali Federwitz
I’ve worked through some trauma using EMDR and it’s been hugely helpful to me in which now I can tell my story to other people and it’s just like telling them other big events in my life without any sort of anxiety response on me. So, yeah, that’s just one of them. There are other therapies like brain spotting, internal family systems, and dialectical behavior therapy, which those are just big words that you can look up, but if you’re searching for a clinician or you already have one, these are some words you can look for in their bios on their websites, like, do they do some of these therapies? And simply being a trauma informed therapist, they will say, I’m a trauma informed therapist on their site. And then you look for these other things. So those can be other ways. 

29:05
Ali Federwitz
And this is not a one session and done. You have to be willing to really kind of put yourself out there and deal with the yuck for you’ll set that up with your therapist, but several weeks, sometimes months, just to allow yourself the grace in the process of that all. 

29:24
Emily Wilson
So as we’re thinking about too, our own individual trauma, but also those in our lives that we love and care for, whether it’s a spouse or a good friend, or especially like children, thinking about what does that take? And bringing it to an understandable level as well for processing. What are some practical ways to walk alongside individuals who have experienced trauma? 

29:52
Ali Federwitz
Firstly, just recognizing that you never know what somebody has gone through or is going through. And I think we need daily reminders of that. Just like we daily need forgiveness and we need reminders of God’s grace for ourselves, we need to be willing to extend that to others. And I think that we can only do that when we are also held accountable for it with our friends, like, hey, how are you treating yourself and how are you treating others? I think that’s something we need daily reminders of for children. There are lots of great books there on feelings and emotions, and they’ve become pretty commonplace as like storybooks and things. I think helping kids to be aware of what emotions are and what it looks like and naming their feelings. I’ve seen, and we have had these feelings charts like they’re cartoon faces. 

30:43
Ali Federwitz
And actually, I’ve seen that help my own children. They’ve had it on the refrigerator and they walk past. I’m feeling this when they were old enough to express emotions and share those words. But sometimes happy, sad, excited doesn’t quite fit, and so we need to give them those words. This idea of timeline debriefing that I shared is something that can be done with children. There is a book. It is written for missionary families, but it is not something that needs to be used only exclusively for cross cultural workers. But it is called the grief tower, and it does introduce this idea of timeline debriefing with children. And what if that became part of your regular exercise? Some families do highs and lows. At the end of the day, that’s one way of doing these debriefings and just kind of recognizing. 

31:35
Ali Federwitz
And you don’t need to tell a kid, “Oh, yeah, that was hard.” But no, you just need to accept the fact that was hard for them, and maybe you didn’t even know it, and maybe the thing that they’re celebrating, you thought, well, that was hardly anything. But just recognizing this is a way to recognize that we all experience things differently. So, for children, I think sometimes it’s even harder because you’re in the thick of parenting. 

31:56
Rich Rudowske
Right. That’s what I was thinking. Sometimes you are the cause of their trauma, and then that compounds guilt. And what do I do? 

32:03
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, well, I mean, that’s another episode. But I think that’s why our kids have friends and aunts and uncles, whether biological or just relational, that we also encourage them to have these conversations with, because none of us can be all things to our children or even all things to our friends. I think, although we do want to walk alongside our friends, we don’t need to take on what they have experienced. And sometimes the most that you can do and the best that you can do is just to let them share. You don’t have to be a clinician to know. How do I respond? I think that’s often our hesitance to approach someone and say, look, I’m really noticing these things about you, and I just wonder if there’s anything you wanted to share with me. We’re afraid we won’t know what to say. 

32:53
Ali Federwitz
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, boy, I sure don’t have any wisdom to share with you right now. And someone laughed, and they were so relieved, like, I didn’t want you to solve my problem. And actually, it helps to know that there’s just not this immediate solution. Like, what I’m going through is something to go through, right. And I think I am very awkward socially, and so I just admit it. Like, look, I feel really awkward right now. I have no idea what would be helpful. And then asking permission, like, may I hug you? Or how would it be if we prayed right now? Or, hey, let’s go for a walk. Yeah. Those types of things. I think just admitting that we aren’t perfect, we don’t know what to do, but we’re willing to just be here in that time. 

33:35
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. It just really speaks of the grace of the situation, really. And how, as you said, we don’t know what people are going through. And so there’s the tendency can be to think, well, what is wrong with you? That sort of fundamental attribution error of like, instead of just approaching with grace and saying, hey, like you said, I’m noticing something. I’d like to walk with you through that. Or talk or just I care about you, instead of that judgmental feeling, I guess. 

34:01
Ali Federwitz
Yeah. Trying to think of what happened to you in our minds, which I think also could be taken out of context, like, what happened to you, but like, oh, what happened deep down in there, rather than what’s wrong with you, because we say that to ourselves too. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just kind of swirling. 

34:19
Rich Rudowske
Around this issue of how the scripture talks about the things that come from within are from the heart and then to guard your heart, and that’s kind of like, yeah, trauma is something that’s stuck in there. Yeah. That’s just what it keeps making me think of is when you talk about, with kids talking highs and lows, you’re really talking to them about what’s going on in your heart. Can I be in on that and work through some of that with you? 

34:42
Ali Federwitz
Yeah. Anytime we show interest, we show that we’re not going to be distracted by our phones. I mean, guilty of that all the time, but that we can just practice being present with somebody of any age, it can be quite powerful. 

34:57
Rich Rudowske
We could spend hours and hours talking about all of the different aspects of trauma. There are Ph.D. dissertations and whole careers that are focused on helping people walk through this. So what we’ve really tried to do today is just introduce some concepts a little bit about big t and little t trauma, and to recognize that there’s more possibly that qualifies as trauma that you may be experiencing than you thought. So if anybody’s kind of resonating with some of what we’ve discussed here today, and it’s at least opened the door or changed some thought or frame of reference, what are some resources or things they might take a look at that, you know, off the top of your head. And of course, we’ll put some in the show notes as well. 

35:36
Ali Federwitz
Yeah, I do recommend just finding a clinician in your area that you can talk to. And I mean, I threw out a whole bunch of words of different trauma techniques, trauma therapy techniques, and you don’t even have to start there, but just finding a therapist who’s a good match for you. And sometimes that means contacting your health insurance and seeing what your benefits are and starting there. You can also go online and like I mentioned, EMDR, there’s a website to find certified clinicians that practice EMDR. So you can look there if your health insurance lets you go anywhere or if you don’t have health insurance. I think also, just to clarify, too, I myself am not a clinician. 

36:15
Ali Federwitz
I have experienced trauma, and now we all know that we have all experienced trauma, and I’ve worked through some, and I have walked alongside quite a number of people in their own trauma and have an interest in it and what it does to our body. And so that’s the perspective that I’m sharing today. I think also looking within your close circle of friends, maybe family, finding that person that you think is a safe person who you can share this with, because as we mentioned earlier, sometimes it’s just the shame of holding on to what you’ve experienced that is really the greatest impact on your body and on your daily life. And so finding somebody that you can say, hey, I’ve experienced these things, and I’m going to find a counselor to help me on some aspects of it. But I’d also really like to share with you my story. I think that can be really powerful as well. 

37:03
Emily Wilson
We really appreciate you coming onto the podcast and sharing about the concept of trauma and being able to apply healing to our story, but also sharing that with others. So thank you so much for joining us. 

37:16
Ali Federwitz
Thank you. It was really great being here. 

37:19
Rich Rudowske
Thanks. I’m still really wrapping my head around the idea of the big t trauma and little t trauma, and just considering how so many things in life are little t low level trauma, no less significant, but just much more encompassing that we walk through quite a bit and it has an effect and takes a toll on us. And just the recognition of that is potentially the beginning of being able to walk differently and to heal from that. 

37:50
Emily Wilson
And just how biblical it is to express compassion and grace to individuals and to really heal and internalize that. The Lord has called us to this as we’re processing our trauma, big trauma the compassion that comes about is very natural. And what does it look like as people are experiencing trauma that looks a little more hidden? Is that little trauma? But how do we share the love of Jesus in the middle of that? How do we walk alongside people and that he’s called us to have that compassion and that grace and that mercy as well. So I really appreciated Ali’s perspective and just enlightening us further on the impact of trauma. So want to encourage you? 

38:41
Emily Wilson
Check out those show notes of the resources that Ali mentioned in the podcast and again, take a listen to her other member care podcasts on transitions and Sabbath rest. 

38:53
Rich Rudowske
And if you find any of that content helpful, we certainly invite you to share the email that you received where you started listening from, or in your podcast player. There’s a link to share on your social media. If this would be content you think would be helpful to share with others, we’d sure love that.

Thank you for listening to the Essentially Translatable Podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. You can find past episodes of the podcast at lbt.org/podcast or subscribe on Audible, Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow Lutheran Bible translators’ social media channels on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Or go to lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s Word in their hands.

The Essentially Translatable Podcast is edited and produced by Audrey Seider. Executive producer is Emily Wilson. Artwork designed by Caleb Rodewald and Sarah Rudowske music written and performed by Rob Veith. I’m Rich Rudowske. So long for now.