How To Become Trauma-Informed
In today’s episode, Katie explores what it means to become trauma-informed in everyday life and emphasizes the importance of personal attunement, choice, and consent. The episode provides practical tools, resources, and insights for professionals and individuals seeking to integrate trauma-informed care into their personal and professional lives.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Show Transcript:
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode. We have been talking a lot about shared language, understanding around trauma, and trauma-informed care. You're hearing me use this term a lot. That's the whole point of the podcast.
So today I thought we could go over what does trauma-informed care actually look like in everyday life? What are the elements of it? How does someone become trauma-informed? If you haven't already, I hope you listened to the first few episodes where we started by creating shared language and understanding, which will help us get on the same page as we move through this podcast together. That will be really helpful.
Because as I share today, it's important to note that while I honor the inaugural model of trauma-informed care and all the interpretations that have come after my approach and what I'll be sharing here and throughout, this podcast is different. And it's expanded because I want to create a more inclusive and adaptable approach for every profession. And most importantly, a lot of times we have a lot of awareness and knowledge, but we're not always taking that knowledge and awareness and putting it into everyday action. And that's what I specialize in. I don't want it just to be something, you know, I want it to become a lens through which you lead your life both personally and professionally.
So let's do a little recap because if there's one thing I know and what we'll learn throughout this podcast, our nervous system loves three things predictability, consistency, and repetition. I talked a little bit about this in the first episode when we talked about the nervous system, but you're going to hear me say things kind of consistently, maybe repeat myself for a lot of different reasons. But our nervous systems love predictability, consistency and repetition because it allows us to generate a felt sense of safety.
So you know how you watch the same Netflix show over and over again even if you're not paying attention, you just gravitate towards that same show or maybe it's the same song or playlist over and over again. Well, you're not crazy. You're just doing what your nervous system loves best. You're seeking out something that's predictable, repetitious and consistent. And I bet that you go to that song, that playlist, or that TV show or movie because when you do, you are able to access a sense of regulation or a felt sense of safety.
So more on that later. We talk more about the nervous system, but I share that because you'll hear me repeating some things over and over again just to allow for that predictability and consistency. So as a recap, trauma-informed care is a long standing approach that has various origins and it wasn't formalized till about 15 years ago into a model that was made by and for mental health clinicians.
Since then, we've had many people and groups create various interpretations of that model in order to adapt it into various settings, including education, yoga, and leadership. I believe that trauma-informed care is available to everyone, not just people within clinical settings. And I believe it's non negotiable, especially if you work with humans in any professional setting.
So, with that being said, let's talk about how someone becomes trauma-informed. I think anyone can become trauma-informed. However, the first thing that needs to happen is that you have to have a desire for it. This isn't just something you check off a list or someone should be forced to become, because that's not what this is. You need to have a desire.
Why would you want to become trauma-informed? What's the why behind it? And if you're unsure, that's okay. But there should be some level of desire to want to commit to this approach. Is it because you have your own lived experiences of trauma? Is it because you know people who have or and that's impacted you?
Is it because you want to extend this approach to other people so people can access a felt sense of safety or trust or belonging in your presence, from your services, your products. Perhaps you run a company who values respect and dignity, trust humanity, whatever it may be. We can't just have values for our companies and our businesses and our leadership and then not follow it up with living out loud those values through our actions.
So let's start with the desire. If you're entering this podcast and you're listening here and maybe you are not yet trauma-informed or using this approach, I really want you to get curious. We're always going to opt for curiosity over judgment in this space and get curious as to why you would want to adopt this approach.
Why would it be important to you? How could it impact you and also impact the people that you work with or you hold space for? A reminder that I teach this approach in a bi directional way, meaning it's not just the approach you offer to others, it includes you yourself as well. So let's start first with that desire.
The second thing is, if you do want to have this desire to be trauma-informed for whatever reason, the next thing I would encourage you to do is look at finding a qualified trainer or training that you can learn these skills and really adopt this approach. Now, a lot of people teach trauma-informed care in a variety of different ways. Like I said, most people are still utilizing that inaugural model and I do too. It inspires me in everything I do.
However, I personally teach an expanded version of trauma-informed care because of the many years of doing this work in different industries and seeing how we need to expand it in order not just to say this is a safe space, but how does one feel safety in that space? Not just to say that we respect people's choices, but then how do we offer choices in this space to go beyond knowing that consent is important, how do we speak and use communications that are consensual?
So I really recommend, if the desire is there, to seek out a qualified trainer and a qualified training. The reason why I suggest this is because we can't just pick up a book or learn our way through trauma-informed care on our own. It's an approach that has various components and elements and most importantly, we can't just say we're trauma informed. We have to be it. We can gather all the knowledge and read all the books, but if we're not actively applying what we learned, then it's incomplete.
So I really encourage you to find a qualified trainer and training. And the reason why I say qualified is because the more we see trauma-informed care enter new industries, we're also seeing a lot of people capitalize on this and seeing it as a trend or a buzword and therefore something that people can make money off of. And unfortunately, I've seen this a lot and it's really disheartening. And we're seeing people who may have their own lived experiences of trauma or have maybe taken one or two trainings and then think that they're a qualified trainer and then sell these really expensive trainings. But once you're in them, you're not necessarily receiving the level of attention or caliber of skills that you may have thought you were going to receive.
So I really encourage you to seek out somebody you feel resonant with. I obviously have a lot of different tools and trainings that I offer, so if I feel resonant with you, amazing. But I will be the first to tell you that if we don't align or you're looking for something specific, I am going to have a lot of different people on this podcast. Find somebody that really aligns with you, with your values, with your desires.
Ask questions, be discerning. People who are trauma informed, especially people who are qualified trainers to train people in this approach, are going to welcome questions. If somebody is hesitant to answer something or is not being transparent about their learning lineage or specifics about their training programs, I would see that as a yellow flag to really slow down, pause, ask some questions and be discerning. But I love when people ask me questions because I have nothing to hide.
I want people to really make an informed decision for themselves and if I'm not the right fit, that's great. I'm so happy that you're trusting yourself and honoring yourself in the moment. Seeking out trainings can be challenging if you don't know what you're looking for.
So I encourage you to really start if this is a totally new approach to you, just start with some basics. Maybe find a one on one or a foundational course. Or if you really have a specific niche, maybe you're in yoga or fitness, there's some really great niche programs out there for specifically specific types of professions. Again, you want to be looking for trainings that have give you solid foundational knowledge, but then also go into the active application of those skills so that you can really put it into your everyday practice.
The next thing to look for is to remember, okay, you have this training, you sign up, you're with a trainer. You want this work to be relational. This work isn't meant to be done solo or individually. It's meant to be done in community. So finding people, finding peer support, finding mentors, this is such a common practice in so many different professionals. But in coaching and wellness and business it can feel so isolating. So finding people that you can really resonate with, again, that you can ask questions, that you can have support offered to you. So it doesn't feel like competition, but it feels like collaboration.
And that you can actually feel trust exist in those spaces. It's so important as you begin to evolve in this approach to have those people to turn to, to talk about certain situations or certain dilemmas, or to ask for feedback, or to review certain parts of your website or whatever it may be. It's so important to have that peer support, that mentorship available to you. Another key component is to then have that training where you can develop the skills. But again, if you're developing these skills and you're not utilizing them, then it just becomes stagnant. You want to find people and spaces and tools to be able to really integrate this work into everyday practice.
So if you learn about key components of trauma-informed care which are being able to promote trust and safety in your space, how then are you going to actually do that in your everyday business? And lastly, another big component of this is that ongoing commitment and practice. It's a practice for a reason.
It's not a one and done or something to check off a list. I always say trauma-informed care is, there's no arrival, it's an evolution. Literally like any other skill set. You don't walk into a cooking class and leave a Michelin star cook afterwards. It's extremely rare for that to ever happen. But I'm using this as an example is we don't walk into anything, a 45 minutes yoga class, you don't leave as this expert yoga teacher. Like any other skill, it takes time and commitment and practice to keep showing up day after day to explore, to be open, and to put these things that you're learning into practice and not doing it alone.
So you have that support so that you can continue to sustainably, show up, build that capacity and really live this work out loud. So those are just some of the components that I would suggest to start with when looking to become trauma-informed. But what does trauma-informed care actually include? I say all these things like promoting trust and felt sense of safety and belonging. But what does that actually mean and how do you actually do that?
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In previous episodes, I shared a little bit about the inaugural model of trauma-informed care, which includes the four R's and the six principles such as safety and trust, empowerment, choice, voice, cultural considerations, et cetera. I've also shared a little bit about my interpretation of the trauma-informed care model, which I utilize through the Trauma Informed Space Holding (TISH) Blueprint and I teach the five R's: recognize the trauma exists and the impact of trauma in our everyday lives, regulate our nervous system so we can offer co-regulation in our spaces so a felt sense of safety can be accessed over time, to reconnect people to their felt sense of safety through knowing our scope of practice and practicing various skills in setting up our spaces, to realign our intention and impact to minimize and resist harm that resist being that fifth R.
So when we think of trauma-informed care, that's specifically how I teach it. And I'm going to share a little bit about the key elements to look for in a trauma informed training or for someone to become trauma-informed. Again, please honor the nuance here, and I'll reiterate this a lot throughout the podcast. The way I interpret and express and deliver trauma-informed care is not the only way or the best way. I don't teach in prescriptions. I don't say this is how you have to do it. I teach in invitations. I'm always encouraging you that you know yourself best.
So practice discernment, trust yourself, find people and programs that resonate most with you. Explore and ask questions. I am not coming into this space or this podcast saying my vision for a trauma-informed future is the vision or the only vision. I am just here and open and willing to continuously learn and unlearn and be with other people who have this shared vision so that we can collectively come together to co-create it together. So with that being said, here's a few things you can consider when you're looking for different elements of becoming a trauma-informed care leader, trauma-informed space holder, whichever terminology you want to use. The key things about trauma-informed care is that it's an approach that is going to promote trust, safety, belonging, et cetera. So what we've learned is that trauma thrives in isolation. It disconnects us from our sense of self.
Nobody chooses trauma, we don't consent to it. And so often what happens is that when we experience trauma, it disconnects us from our sense of autonomy, agency, sovereignty. So if we go into spaces, when we go into lead, when we go into serve, whatever it may be, we can be trauma-informed by first recognizing that virtually all of us, including ourselves have a lived experience of trauma or toxic stress. That doesn't mean we need to know every single person's life story. It's none of our business, to be quite frank. What we do need to know though, is that we can recognize this reality.
So if it's a reality that our customers, our consumers, our coworkers, our colleagues, et cetera, likely have this lived experience or will have this lived experience, how will that impact how I show up? How will that recognition impact how I lead, how I develop products, how I provide services? With that recognition, we're able to expand our empathy, expand our awareness, and most importantly, expand our mindfulness to include that in our everyday work. So we need to start with that foundational knowledge and understanding of trauma.
Now, personally, I don't believe we need to have a PhD in trauma to be trauma-informed. I actually think sometimes we go way too much into the weeds and the details of trauma and the nervous system and the neuroscience that it becomes overwhelming and people start to shut down. I think we just need to know enough so that we can be cognizant and that we can use that then to inform how we act and interact with others.
Other key components of trauma informed care you want to look for in becoming trauma informed is how are you showing up so that you are resisting and reducing potential harm? Trauma-informed care was formalized with its intention first and foremost to not re-traumatize people who already have experienced trauma, which is very noble and very important, but I always sit with that. Again, with curiosity over judgment is yes, okay, let's make sure we're not further causing more harm or traumatization. But how? So what I would consider here are learning specific skills and utilizing specific tools to reduce and minimize harm as much as possible. That really gentle reminder that we're not going to be able to avoid or perfect or eliminate harm because we're human first. But we do have within our agency and our control to actively reduce and minimize harm as much as possible.
So with that being said, that is why we utilize skills such as knowing our scope of practice, aka our professional boundaries. This is something I really start off the gate teaching because this is what makes the approach that I teach adaptable for any profession. I'm not asking anyone to become a trauma therapist or social worker. I'm actually saying absolutely not. You're absolutely not somebody who should be responding to and through other people's trauma. What I'm inviting you to do is to think about how can you recognize the realities of trauma and the impact of trauma and then apply it to your specific professional boundary. We're clear in our scope of practice, we're able to get clear on where we begin and where we end. And in that boundary, we can then apply this approach.
I also teach people how to practice consent and choice. Consent and choice are such key components of trauma-informed care. If we think about trauma being something that takes away our ability to consent and choose, we want to then offer as much as consent and choice back to people. Again, we don't need to know their specific story for people to benefit from autonomy and agency. There are no losers here. We all benefit no matter what. So what does that look like in our everyday practice? We can start with our language. Shifting our language to use consensual communications.
Small shifts that allow us to instead of powering over or using a power over dynamic or telling people how to be or give advice or try to people how to fix or solve their lives, instead, we can shift to invite them in, to ask them what they want, what they need, how they would like to show up. Now, I often encourage people to watch where they might swing to extremes here because sometimes we then feel like okay, then we have to offer a million choices or we have to ask consent for every little thing.
If you notice yourself swinging to those extremes, I invite you to come back to neutral. Sometimes we're going to be in spaces where choice is not available. So as long as we are clearly and transparently communicating that, that's okay. And if we're over giving or over accommodating to the point where we're overriding our own needs, then we're missing the point altogether. Again, we are included in this approach. So it's about being more mindful of consent and choice and what that can look like in the spaces that you exist in. I often like to start with communications and our language because it's our most accessible way to infuse these skills and these practices into our everyday lives.
Some other things to consider too are how we are attuning to ourselves. Now I do think this is a big difference between how I teach trauma informed care and a lot of the other models out there because again I believe this is a bi-directional approach. How we show up impacts other people in the spaces we live and lead in. So if we're not personally attuning to our own nervous systems or to our own lived experiences or our own capacities or biases or the ways in which we are still invested in oppressive systems, then that's going to impact how we show up with other people, which will then impact if they're able to build trust with us or feel safety in our presence.
When we're able to attune to how we're showing up and then resource ourselves in ways that build our capacity, we're then able to have more capacity to show up for others and ourselves no matter what we're doing. Some other things to consider here are ensuring that again, when we're utilizing these practices and getting into a flow, that we're being more mindful that there's no perfection here, there's no arrival. Like anything we're going to mess up, we're going to misspeak, we're going to misstep, we're going to forget. And that's okay.
We're human first, everything else second. It's more important of asking ourselves what do we then do afterwards. We're putting all these tools and practices into place and there's so many more. So I'm giving you a very brief overview of what we're going to go into more detail throughout this podcast together. But all of these things reduce and minimize potential pathways for harm. What I want you to consider too is what happens then when harm does occur? What are you going to do? How equipped do you feel? Who can you turn to for support and wise counsel? How can you repair that harm when it occurs?
Conflict, rupture, relational dynamics, all of these things are very human, very natural parts of our existence. They're going to happen in any relationships we have. Harm happens when we remove the humanity from the space in which we're existing in. And so whenever anything comes up, whether it's betrayal or a break of trust or rupture, conflict or harm, we have a responsibility to be able to respond and have an ability to respond.
And that's where being able to repair harm and have a harm repair plan can be so beneficial. And that's also where having peer support and mentorship and community spaces you can debrief in and have aftercare is so crucial. So there's so many components here that create this trauma-informed approach. And again, each trainer, each program comes from a different lens in which they teach or train. And I do too. And so I wanted to just highlight just a few key components and elements of trauma-informed care and how to become trauma-informed. Again, I really encourage you to practice discernment and always think of discernment as judgment with a capital J.
We're all judgy humans, right? We judge all the time of that person's hair or that person's doing this. Discernment is different. Discernment is wise wisdom, it's the wise counsel within, that ability to trust your intuition, that judgment with a capital J. And sometimes because of our own live experiences or relational experiences, discernment may be hard so I'm definitely not saying discernment is an easy practice. It takes time and it takes effort and that's why it's relational work, to find people who can help support you.
But discernment helps us judge and make decisions that are best suited for us in the moment. I'll be the first to tell you it's not easy and it does take a lot of practice and we're going to make wrong decisions, I do too. But again, it's about rebuilding trust with ourselves so we can also rebuild trust with others. Yes, of course, if you're listening to this podcast, you know that this is what I do. I specialize in trainings and integration support.
So if you find what I say and do resonate, amazing. But I'm going to tell you again and again with really gentle reminders that I'm not for everyone. I want you to seek out people and trainings and programs that feel more most aligned for you. I'll be sharing a lot of resources throughout this podcast so that you can find those people if I may not be that person for you. If you're coming to this podcast with existing trauma-informed care, training or education, I also want to remind you that even if you're in this work that we're not done, we're always in continuing education learning and again, integrating.
So I encourage you to find the areas of strengths you have and those areas that may need strengthening and just stay open and curious to your ongoing evolution of trauma-informed care. Even though this work is something I specialize in, there's still so many aspects in which I need further and deepened learning, to find more mentorship around, and to find more experiences around.
And so sometimes people feel it's daunting to say, oh, I'll never get there. But it's not about getting there because where is there? It's more about how do I strengthen? How do I continue to evolve, how do I deepen my capacity to do this work so that I can hold myself and others with more depth? I hope that you found this podcast helpful or supportive as you either begin or continue your trauma-informed journey. This is just the beginning of this podcast where we'll continue to explore these different elements of trauma-informed care to go deeper, to provide different resources and ways that you can strengthen your practice. But for now, thank you again for being here. And until next time, take good care.
