Gay

Can I interject before you answer that, Jeremy? I love the outline. I didn’t get a chance to read the article. One of the things that comes up for me as you’re asking that question, Bill, is that history often informs the peripheral nervous system in terms of what the next event will look like and how it’s framed. So, a lot of the work with behavior management or psychology concerns that reframing process when working with people who have trauma-related triggers. instead of working with the trauma or with an event that was traumatizing, we work to reframe it as a challenge.

We operate in a way that aligns with what Jeremy is reporting. We attempt to do the reframing didactically with people when we’re doing psychotherapy. I think our history informs the response to trauma. You are fortunate if you’re inclined to sports and you happen to have a mindset that enables you to come to the sport as a challenge. There’s more of an opportunity for you to view something as a challenge as opposed to viewing it as a threat if you’re already hold this mindset. Otherwise, there is a greater chance that you will be having an over-sympathetic arousal as opposed to the oxytocin arousal that Jeremy identified. Many women my age who didn’t get a chance to participate in sports or didn’t have that frame available to them.

Bill B

There is another thing to keep in mind. A powerful feedback loop is often engaged. We’re threatened by the prospect of a threat, and we’re challenged by the opportunity of a challenge. Double looping is going on there–which somehow makes the anticipation even more powerful. So, we say to ourselves: “oh my god, I’m about to be in a place where I’m going to be overwhelmed!” And, it’s self-fulfilling when we anticipate what is about to happen. It becomes just the fear of being overwhelmed, not fear of the event itself.

Mark

I’m getting more deeply involved in music production, I just listened to a podcast about leaning into frustration. In effect, we are encouraged basically to look at things as a challenge, as opposed to looking at something as a threat and screaming at the monitors. That shift in attitude has resulted in some amazing creativity. They cited David Bowie on the podcast as one example of somebody who quite successfully reframed a threat into a challenge.

Gay, you mentioned the importance of getting help. The trigger topic that I offered a couple of months ago was about mentorship—especially in socioeconomically kind of deprived areas. Just a single mentor made all the difference in the world, turning hopelessness into potential positivity. I think it’s all connected. As somebody who ran track against Olympic alternates, and usually finished last, I found my participation to be a challenge rather than a threat because I had a mentor who got me on the relay team. This made all the difference in the world to my going forward. Because I definitely could have gone the wrong way.