Cognitive Bypassing, Traumatic Experiences, and Feeling Your Feelings with Simone Saunders
I dive into cognitive bypassing - a common strategy many of us use to avoid feeling difficult emotions - with trauma therapist Simone Saunders. Simone and I discuss the connection between cognitive bypassing and trauma before exploring somatic tools that can help us avoid an endless cycle of overthinking, and fully process our experiences. We focus on the “freeze” and “fawn” stress responses, and talk about how these responses can impact our relationships and everyday interactions. The conversation widens from there to include topics like letting go of unhealthy relationships, navigating the shame that can come with self-awareness, working through triggers, finding more agency, and changing our models of conflict.
You can watch this episode on YouTube.
Key Topics:
0:00: Introduction
1:25: What’s cognitive bypassing?
5:55: Somatic approaches, and widening the window of tolerance
18:10: The freeze and fawn responses
22:25: Grieving letting go of unhealthy relationships
26:20: Shame, the problem with self-awareness, and identifying your values
35:35: How to move through “first contact” with our triggers
38:05: Feeling connected to others
41:55: Agency, and being embodied in a relationship
47:30: Changing how we see conflict
51:15: Grief as self-awareness, and expressing ourselves
57:25: Recap
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