#21 | Part 1 Annalie Howling - How To Navigate Trauma and Healing: A Journey with a High-Performance Coach

0:00:00 - Speaker 1

And honestly I thought I dealt with my shit, I really did. Just the universe does this thing when it kind of hands your ass back to you and goes you're not done, babe. I am still trying to work out a home for that because it's.

0:00:16 - Speaker 3

It's Hanley Howling. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on again.

0:00:20 - Speaker 1

My pleasure.

0:00:21 - Speaker 3

For those of you, the people who didn't see episode one, can you take it back for us and tell everyone a bit about you and a bit about your story Of?

0:00:28 - Speaker 1

course, thank you. Yeah, so I am a by day a performance coach, high performance coach and trauma specialist. I specialize in sort of the trauma effects that may affect our performance in every way and in all of our connections, and my background is sort of had a big corporate job, had a massive cracking burnout If anyone wants to know about that, please look at that episode and then became really fascinated in finding not even my way back to health, just finding out who the hell I was frankly, and that led me on the path towards coaching. Then the trauma piece, and then everything else has sort of come from there and now I have a big sort of platform socially and a very big sexy project coming up.

0:01:09 - Speaker 3

So nice, I love that. Yeah, we did. The film was six months ago. Six months ago, the filming what's been new in your life in the last six months so there's the huge project.

0:01:17 - Speaker 1

You two know about that. I hate people like me. I can't tell you about it.

0:01:20 - Speaker 2

I can't say a lot about it.

0:01:21 - Speaker 1

I'm writing at the moment and so I can't say a lot about it. I'm writing at the moment and so I can't say much about what it is, because people obviously like to save that for the big kind of PR reveal. But what I will say, linked to what's new about me and I think this could be quite relevant for here is I had not anticipated the healing journey. I would have to go on doing this writing, so you both know quite a bit about it and in it is story my own story and other people's and some interviews expert interview and honestly I thought I dealt with my shit, I really did. I was like maybe even a little bit like healing smug like you know skipping around like nothing can bring me down, namaste.

and then what's been happening? You know I'm not triggered, like. And then there was just the universe does this thing when it kind of hands your ass back to you and goes you're not done, babe, and just a few things from into and other people that honestly and I'm someone specialised in trauma we've spoken about this I had completely repressed, totally forgotten about and it was like big stuff and I am still trying to work out a home for that because it's big stuff.

0:02:35 - Speaker 2

What do you put that down to? The fact that you maybe put that to one side, or maybe you just felt you had dealt with it.

0:02:40 - Speaker 1

So definitely had not dealt with it. I put that down to and this is sort of something I guess I Two things Like the universe will show you what you need to do when you're ready. There's a reel of mine that went viral and it's the paradox of healing and it's like why me? Why now, like I'm skipping around, you know loving life, and I've just been slapped around the face with something that I'd totally forgotten about. And I say in that reel and go into more detail, it's like a compliment from your system that you're able to deal with this.

Now Maybe you've had grief, a loss of someone you love or anything, and you might obviously be terribly upset and be dealing with it. And then a few years down the line, you get more triggers or flashbacks, like I thought I dealt with that. I was so low then and that's why. But the other reason and this is sort of what I'm hypothesizing because I shoved it down and I really shoved it down and I really shoved it down and I didn't want to think about it like when we depress, like depression, depressing things down into our system. I did a really good job of that. I pushed it right down and also I think I would be, uh, in fight or flight at that time and, like I say, I had.

0:03:49 - Speaker 2

No, I had forgotten about that completely did you find it was easier or harder, because of the job that you were in, to do that?

0:03:56 - Speaker 1

Which part.

0:03:58 - Speaker 2

Well, the bearing it deep down, because you're dealing with people day to day that go through trauma, so I guess it's one thing to. It's slightly ironic, isn't it, that you're having this thing in the back of your mind whilst dealing with other people's traumas as well, which is easier than your own, of course.

0:04:08 - Speaker 1

Yes, because we can be compassionate for other people, so it's much easier.

0:04:11 - Speaker 2

That's not a problem, yeah.

0:04:12 - Speaker 1

Well, it's always easier to feel compassion for another, so it's easier. The cure for shame is self-compassion. That's the only cure for shame. And it's just so hard for us to generate true self-compassion, whereas I could. You know, we're all just. You know, it's so much easier for me to empathize or feel compassion for you or remind you of the great things about either of you. Yeah, harder to do for ourselves. But this stuff is like how old am I now? This stuff's about 10 years old. So you know, I did it. This is before I'd I was doing coaching, but fairly new, but before I'd got to sort of towards a trauma piece. So this has, uh, come now and that's. That's kind of something that I'm dealing with on this whole trauma side.

0:04:54 - Speaker 3

I'm really fascinated by after that first chat remember we talked after. We were like we didn't really know anything about that. One of the things you spoke about was thorning thorning, thorning can you tell people a bit more about that and that trauma side of things there which people might not have listened to on the first episode?

0:05:10 - Speaker 1

sure. So I'm gonna need to be quite careful what I say here, but I'll talk about what's come up for me, because that is fawning like 101, right? So something happened to me, a couple of things that were absolutely 100 not okay, and I formed in that situation. I felt unsafe, safe. It was quite violent. I was scared. I was in a situation and circumstance where I think I was definitely frightened and didn't know what to do and probably didn't feel that I had any resources available.

And the perpetrator involved, shall we say, also asked me to collude with them and told me it was my fault. And in the past episode that we did together, I talked about childhood stuff with me. I grew up in a very violent childhood when my father was incredibly violent with me Incredibly, like the age my daughter is now and him punching me in the face in a restaurant, like blood everywhere. And getting back it was on holiday in Spain and getting back to the apartment and my mother hadn't been out for dinner that evening and them looking to each other and colluding and telling me oh, you did say you'd never had a nosebleed before. Like, oh, you did say you wanted a puppy for Christmas. So the collusion is really confusing. So the collusion is really confusing If you've ever been in a circumstance like that when something's happened and you know inherently it's not right.

But someone said to you well, you made me do that, you made me do that. And there's going to be a lot of women listening to this that are like there's shivers. So for me, growing up in a household where I was told I was bad and I made my father do that, you think, well, it must be so awful these people are put on this earth biologically to care for me. I must be so bad, I must be so terrible to make him do that. Now, rationally, I know that's not true. Inside myself I knew that wasn't quite right because, seven, I can't meet my own needs. You know what am I going to do? You've got to fawn. I've got to try and win back his affection or his favor. I've got to try and be a really good girl.

0:07:18 - Speaker 2

If.

0:07:18 - Speaker 1

I'm a really good girl. He won't do it again. And that's where you learn to people please, and be perfect, because then I won't get hurt. That's fawning. Someone has actively done something to me. That is so wrong, but I don't have a choice.

The other trauma responses wouldn't work for me. So fight, you know, if we go to my father I was seven you know I can't fight him or do anything. Flight if I run away. Let's use a holiday example. Where am I going? What am I doing? Not gonna help me freeze. That's probably what I did do, in all honesty, in that moment.

And then the other one is flop, which is passing out, or fawn and fawn's, the one that you're like. Well, this is a really fucked up situation, but I need to be safe. And then, not forgetting my other caregiver, my parent, my mother, who could have helped me, they, you know, made it into a situation again as if it was all absolutely lovely and fine. So you have no choice but to fawn. And that comes up in, uh, cases of sexual assault. So I deal a lot with, um, cases of sexual assault, male and female, and quite often people are like, oh, but there's a gray area because I had a kiss with them earlier that night, or uh, I know them because they're a friend of a friend, or it was a family member.

You know we're much younger Very often Very common, Very very common.

0:08:39 - Speaker 2

That's crazy. I want to take you back to the seven-year-old self is different, because it's very hard to do anything about that at that time. Someone slightly older who might be listening or watching this is going through one of those experiences of that. What advice would you give to those young?

0:08:56 - Speaker 1

particularly young boys and girls who are going through that thing, who are listening to this, being like, oh my god, that's me. What would you say to them? If you think it's wrong, it probably is, and no matter how afraid you are, please tell someone, and there are chat rooms. Do it anonymously first. If you need to. There are good helplines. Maybe we can find someone put them on. We can put some of the numbers yeah, yeah uh, call them privately.

Do you know what? Sometimes the the best thing that you can do and actually this came from one of the conversations uh, from someone with regards some of the writing, and it's unfathomable. What happened to them and god loved them like is owning the story, um, and they said tell, even if the first person you say it to out loud is yourself in the mirror. Please do it, just yourself. Just say what happened, because shame, again, it's shame that controls you, because you collusion and confusion. It's like this weird dance and that happens in people that are in narcissistic partnerships right now.

Also, maybe ask yourself the question if you're afraid to tell one of your friends, if you're afraid to tell one of your friends, if you're afraid to say they did this. You know it's probably not right, you know that, okay. So I would just offer again, no judgment, but just if that's within you, be curious about it and find either one person to tell a small part to or, like I, I say there are phone numbers, there are forums, there are, and again, just speak it out loud to yourself. And this is not your fault, no matter what people said. It's not your fault.

0:10:24 - Speaker 3

Generally curious that if, when that happens, I completely agree with that side Down the line, say, if you didn't speak about it, I've just, yeah, how do you sort of deal with that? Later down the line say you didn't speak about it. Hi, yeah, how do you sort of deal with that later down the line? Obviously, we spoke about this before, but there are ways to sort of minimize it. Is that going to like a CBT type route, like talking behavioral therapy, or is that just you need to figure out in yourself and like close a chat somewhere, or does it just never leave you?

0:10:51 - Speaker 1

I'm just generally curious 100% it can leave you you. So there's a couple of ways of doing it. I practice emdr. That's what I do. That's my technique. It's the best thing you can possibly do. In my opinion, that is also, I'm very aware, a privilege. Okay. So I want to be helpful for people that maybe and also maybe they don't want to take that step because it's kind of someone. People that are in um abusive relationships. They don't have their own bank accounts. They're monitored. Computers are monitored, technology is monitored. That might be impossible for them. They might be listening to this on a walk, because it's the only time they can, or in their car. I was listening to a podcast with mel b.

You know this by yeah and she has reissued her book and she's now going into organizations, for example, to train big companies to look for signs of people that might be in abusive relationship, because they probably don't want to go home, because work actually is the safe place where they are school right, exactly.

So she's doing that with and her daughter's doing it at schools, which is amazing and really helpful. So I mean also to people listening, if this isn't happening to you, like potentially if you're concerned about a friend, it's good to sort of understand some of these signs. So, taking privilege aside, if you can get cbt, if you can concerned about a friend, it's good to sort of understand some of these signs. So, taking privilege aside, if you can get CBT, if you can get help, emdr is available in the NHS. If you can get your good doctor and ask them and kind of maybe be a bit pushy if you need to, that is available. There are practitioners there.

If you can't do any of that, there is a cure for the shame. There is a cure for what you're feeling. You know the confusion, the collusion, the being told a message, not thinking it's right, but going along with it, the fawning, coming out the other side of it later, potentially a bit like I did. You do have to be able to practice self-compassion and that is like, oh, brilliant, like self-love. No-transcript is a healing, is an incredible journey, right so, and there's loads of paradoxes in it, but that is a way. So, if there's a. If you're looking at something from your childhood a niece, a nephew, a friend's kid you're in a child. Or, like I say, if it's something fairly recent, that younger version of yourself you know sexual assault you put your best friend in that situation and you tell me if they did anything. That is a grey area. Quote, unquote. Because as soon as you do that and I do do that with clients a lot, no, no, well, of course, not Right.

0:13:52 - Speaker 2

We need to learn how to put that lens on ourselves. So that'll be a brief explanation of what emdr is yeah those that don't know listening and watching, for example yeah.

0:13:58 - Speaker 1

So emdr is eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing, and what it does actually is. Emdr allows you to sort of finish the loop, complete the cycle, because when we're experiencing trauma, we go into our you know, you think about it, think about your heart rate going and you're becoming activated, right. So that's your amygdala, your limbic system, animal prehistoric brain, you know, in the arena, and then your prefrontal cortex, which is cognition, let's say, shopping lists, dates, times, everything, and your broker's area, which is language offline. We don't need that right now. I don't need to know what. I need to get a waitrose later, I don't need to remember my Spanish lessons. I need to get the fuck out here right now, in whatever way is safe, fight, flight, freeze, flop form. You do not get to choose. And that I want to say, like if I could scream it or have it tattooed, I would, because the shame lives where you think you could have done something differently. I think we touched on this last time. You know, when you have a brow and you're like fuck it, I should have said

that and it's like you know you would have been in freeze, you know, or you would have been in form. You're like you know. Why did I kiss him after? Why did I give him a kiss the next morning? You were fawning, you were terrified, but shame lives there now. What we don't understand, this is why I want to say this fires so much faster. That's why it's, that's why it lives there. It's our like really quick system. Okay, so the blood's there, it's firing, it's keeping us safe, it's choosing for you. You did not get to select it. It was done to keep you alive. You are still alive. It worked. What we get left with when we get our prefrontal cortex back with bits missing, like you know, I'm talking live about bits missing that are just coming back and you're like, oh my God, you know, and maybe not all of it fragmented.

The police are being trained in EMDR now, because if I was attacked there's every chance, because times dates, language is off I might say I went to this shop first and then I went to that shop and then he attacked me and I could have got it wrong, because if I had an awareness, if my body started activating a trauma response because I felt I was being followed or something like that, I've gone, I'm here, I'm not here. So this is why, when people are listening, oh, I couldn't remember all of it. So I've taken on the responsibility, I've taken on the shame. No, when we do EMDR, you do a bilateral eye movement or you tap. So you either tap on knees or you tap on palms someone's hands.

What that is eliciting bilateral movement. So if you're walking or you're driving the car, your eyes are scanning the horizon, breath counting, bilateral movement. So we know we're walking or you're driving the car, your eyes are scanning the horizon, breath counting you know everyone's like you're anxious count your breath. Why? Because it keeps your prefrontal cortex on line. So when we're doing emdr, we have all of our functions back, which means we're able to complete the cycle and not just live in our emotional, our reactive, and you discharge the event. And I do do it week in, week out. I have people in this week for all manner of different things and every single person leaves. It's one session, by the way, you don't do loads of them, it's one session. And when they leave, they leave with a complete sense of there was nothing differently. I could have done whatever. It might be Parents dying, assaults, big life events, accidents, you know, you name it anything.

And because when shame comes out, that is where self-compassion can come back in. And again, even though our prefrontal cortex is off, when this is happening, it's tagging. So this is where we get flashbacks. You know, when you walk past someone and they have your ex's perfume on, boys are like, yeah, right, but so that's the smell tag. But there's tags for you know, let's just say, um, oh, smells are a good one, right? So I've got a lot of people that come uh because they maybe did have lost moments with a loved one, or there's grief. They just can't get past, yeah, and they can't be with it, as in, they can't have last moments with a loved one, or there's grief.

0:17:51 - Speaker 2

They just can't get past.

0:17:52 - Speaker 1

And they can't be with it, as in they can't have pictures up of their loved one they lost, they can't talk about it. It's still so overwhelming years later, and then they, for example, might realise they have trouble at the airport is quite a common one. Now, if someone's been in hospice or hospital care for a long time and then you find you're traveling and you're having issues there, the smells, the chemicals use, the cleaning products are often the same.

So, but you start feeling out of control. You're like, why can I not be at the airport? I used to love flying like, why is this what's happening to me? And you don't understand. You don't understand what's going on in your system. So, tagging, it's tagging, tagging, tagging. Like if someone came in here now to attack us. They had a red scarf on and we all had our different responses and we were all okay in the end. Eight months later, two years later, someone could cycle past you with something bred on and you could be floored, but you wouldn't know why and you wouldn't be taken back to this moment because your brain has tagged it, we've repressed it, we've forgotten it, but that is enough to send you into the same emotional, physiological response that you were in before. So this is why we need to look at ways body keeps the score. That's why we need to look at ways to get out of our system. Interesting, it's amazing.

0:19:05 - Speaker 3

I'm gonna say from my point of view, this isn't something we've spoke about on camera before. It's quite a private thing. Obviously I spoke to you about this but, um, I was on a lads holiday. Situation happened where with um like people were driving like tuk-tuks and stuff like that, something happened. I won't go into details of it. I saw, uh like a tuk-tuk driver type thing in london, although this was thousands of miles away when this situation happened um drive past nice straight away, like that, straight away, like duct. Why was that kind of similar to what you said about the red scarf thing of someone?

0:19:39 - Speaker 1

walking in 100%, because I couldn't control that either. Exactly I went.

0:19:43 - Speaker 3

I looked down straight away. My girlfriend was like you're right.

0:19:45 - Speaker 1

I was like how did you and how did you feel after you, could you, were you like? Why did that happen?

0:19:49 - Speaker 3

Racing hot.

0:19:50 - Speaker 1

Yeah. And I was a bit like will it happen to me again, so in England as well it had, like no correlation to anything.

So then you can start feeling out Thank you so much for sharing that and like, because then you can be like. Will it happen to me again? Do I have to avoid Leicester Square? Now I can't go because this is what happened. This is real Because, like you say, you were hundreds of thousands of miles away and this is a very real thing for people. And then they will start changing their life. They will start not going to the West End. They will start because maybe they don't understand what the thing was. And yet you think about people that served someone in the room that served, you know. You think about people that served and, like I work for a charity Veterans of the Armed Forces and they come off a tour and they'll be on a holiday somewhere you know, somewhere lovely like Mallorca, and you hear some construction noise and they are under the sunbed.

We're laughing. The ex-medic in the room is laughing, you know. So we've got. But it's true, you can't control it. It's not a, it's not. I think that's gunfire. I shall get under this sunbed. That is just like with you in the tuk-tuk. It's with it because it's in your system. Still, it's like muscle memory. That's what this is. It's muscle memory.

0:20:57 - Speaker 3

I just went into that fight, fight or flight type thing straight away. Yeah, it's very weird. It's never happened to me before. Apart from that, it was obviously not a great situation on a lads holiday, but just classic lads, yeah, yeah, it's just, it is what it is, but I didn't understand how like traumatic in a way, that would have been for me, because it sounds very silly. We spoke about this off camera again, I won't go into details of it but like um, I didn't.

It didn't seem like something that, when I come back, it would bother me as much as it did, if that makes sense well, you probably were repressing it at the time.

0:21:27 - Speaker 1

You're away from home, you're in another country. I mean I don't know what's happened, but you know there's a lot of factors there that kind of make you unsafe. Let's look at it that way. You know you're not at home. I don't know what's happened, but you know you're. There's a lot of other things that you're not in your normal environment. You haven't got to go home to your own bed and decompress any of those things takes you know, why me?

why now? Yeah, and that was probably the first time that you saw something that yeah did elicit, that they had a something for all you know. It could have been like a sound that it made, and you may not have even been, or a flash of the, the shape of it, the size of it, that's all it takes, yeah all it takes.

0:22:08 - Speaker 2

Hi guys joe here. Hope you enjoy part one. Don't forget quickly to like and subscribe. Our stuff really, really helps the page massively. Here's what you can expect to find in part two, enjoy relationships ask us for intimacy.

0:22:21 - Speaker 1

Okay, relationships drive us for commitment. We want to know everything about the other person, you know. We said, like, why is it best sex with the worst people? Usually you are free because you realize it's not you and it's not something you did.