Let’s talk about childhood Trauma.

Welcome back to Seller's Reflection. It's yet another Wednesday at 11 a.m. Well, if you're in the UK, you'll see other hours, but in Kenya, this episode will go live at 11 a.m. Nairobi, Kenya. So, I don't know your time. But yes, we are back. Thank you for your suggestion. Thank you for you guys reaching out. My email is down here. If you want us to talk about anything, if you have a story that you want to share on Seller's Reflection, your experience, or your friend's experience, or your experience. This is my email. So, reach out to me. Come sit here. Like today, I have a guest, a very wonderful guest. A guest called Kamau. I don't know his name. You won't be able to make it to the third episode. I told you next time, just come, let's do everything. Every, after every two months, we talk about something, every two months. Because the people here love you, like, they like your episodes very, very much. That's the feedback I got by the way, thanks for Mr. Kamau, I noticed I have something. They get to associate there. Life or their experiences with either something you mentioned on Celeste. So it's like a win for both. The person is happy, I am happy. And I'm excited. So I think I win the most because you're happy, they're happy. I am excited. So I win. Thank you for having me. You're looking great. Thank you. This year you're beautiful. This year you're beautiful. Ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, so maybe for those who don't know you, maybe we can introduce ourselves. My name is Kamau Mwangi. I'm a counselling psychologist, a psychotherapist now for nine years. I've been a lecturer in psychology for four years of those. Now I'm a private consultant, so I offer psychotherapy and workshops to organisations and to institutions. And I'm also a co-founder of a mental health company called My Afia Africa. So in case somebody, by the way, your followers need a therapist, you just go to myafia.africa and you'll get a therapist there. It is down here. And by the way, before you continue, I brought you a customer last year. And the feedback she brought back to me, oh my God. She told me, it's just been two episodes, like two sessions. Two sessions with Mr. Kamau. And let me tell you, I discovered myself. I didn't know about design, I knew a lot about myself. So she was happy, I was happy, I guess you were excited. Yes, I am excited, yeah. We therapists live for that. Yeah, so thank you so much for that. You're very welcome. And she said, you're still going to continue this year. Absolutely, I'm very happy. On the other hand, Sele, you're still working on it. Really, yeah? You're still there. At least the intention is there. It is, by the way. Even though we spoke with the lady. Veronica. Right. So, we're still... I am on my way. I'm just a little bit in. Thank you for coming here. That's excellent. Today's... This week actually is my week for seeing my therapist. So... Oh, nice. So, it's always a cycle. Yeah. Yeah. So, towards the end of last year, or rather, I think we are now... People are now embracing... Seeing a seeking therapist, like seeing those counselling helps, like someone who wants to talk to someone, not knowing whether for self-awareness or self-improvement, or growth, or to seek help. So although we have this trend of, oh, that's trauma, oh, childhood trauma, oh, you have trauma, like, we tie almost everything that we do to trauma. I just want you to know this trauma, this trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma. Let's start from the beginning. What is trauma? So first of all, you know, I really admire the fact that you're admitting openly that you're going to look for a therapist so that people can normalize that going to see a therapist is actually a very normal process. You don't have to go to have something wrong to go to see a therapist. You can come even for personal development. But let's come to trauma. So we think of trauma in three ways. Trauma is the event itself, the experience you had and the effect it had on you. OK, so trauma is not so much what happened to you. Trauma is what happened within you when that particular thing happened to you. So whatever event that happened, how did you interpret it? Consciously or unconsciously, how did you interpret it? And how did it influence you? Okay, so let's talk about those three. So let's talk about the events. So in psychology, we call them adverse childhood experience. So today we're going to focus on childhood experiences particularly. And we have a number of them. We even have an assessment for them. So they're divided generally into three, and I'm going to take time just to describe them. So we have, first of all, emotional, we have, first of all, abuse, first of all. So we have sexual abuse. So was there anyone when you were growing up who showed you pornography, by the way, just, sexual abuse is not just penetration, you know? Showed you pornography or fondled you or touched you in any way or showed you their sexual organs, you know, or, of course, penetration, okay? Was there something like that? Was there emotional abuse? Was there shaming in your family or humiliation, you know, or being told you are so useless and stuff like that? Okay, so emotional abuse through verbal, maybe language. Okay, so verbal abuse. You're talking about physical abuse. Were you beaten or had thrown items thrown at you or, you know, or shoved or, you know, hit? Um, So did you see all that? So that's the form of abuses that we are speaking about. The second category we talk about is neglect. Okay. Did you see your parents maybe neglect you to give you like physical needs like food, water, shelter that you are going with Matambara and you know they could afford. It's not like poverty. You know they could afford, but maybe they were too drunk even to take you to the hospital. Okay. So that's physical needs or emotional neglect. How many times did you cry and nobody took care of you? How many times did you have a negative emotional state? You are sad or you are feeling low and you are just ignored. Okay. Or nobody took care of it. You know, you've seen children sometimes they are crying and nobody picks them up. Really, the mother or the father is there or some adult is there and they're crying for hours on end and nobody pays attention to them. What is happening to that child over time is... They're learning my emotional states don't matter. My negative emotional states don't matter. So next time, just repress them. Just ignore them, okay? And so that is what is happening. So the third category is what is a domestic situation? How is it like? Okay, did you see your mom or father get beaten or harassed or humiliated by someone? So I have a client who, when she was young, she used to see the mother being forced to eat soil by the father, okay? So you can imagine that, okay? Okay. Was any of your family members ever imprisoned? Okay. Did any one of your family members, especially the adult, have, let's say, an addiction of any sort, say, alcoholism, and you saw that consistently, and possibly you're the one who was sent to go and pick them up or anything like that? Did maybe your mom or dad have high levels of any mental illness, say? High levels of anxiety, high levels of depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, it's very, very possible because some of the abuses and dysfunctionalities we see in families come maybe from one of your parents have a mental health disorder, maybe bipolar. One time your dad is very happy, goes drinks, and really becomes very, very violent. So traumatic experiences are, so these are the ones that we categorize as traumatic experiences. So that is the event. Now, how did that affect you? So I think it's very important to realize this. So now those are the three. Those are the three potentially traumatic events, okay? So we have neglect, right? We have abuse and we have the domestic situation, the violence in the family, you know. So did you feel like your family was a unit when you're speaking about neglect? Did you feel like your family was a unit where you are important, you know, where you are loved that people had each other's back? Okay, so that's important. Now, These are the potentially traumatic events. It does not necessarily mean that if you experience this, you will have PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, okay? It has to, what happened to you because of that? And so there are things that mediate whether you're going to experience trauma, and one of them is your personality, okay? So if you're high in extroversion, maybe you're an extrovert, extroverts have very high positive emotion. Okay, so they may not be they may not experience trauma as someone who has very low positive emotion We call that neurotic. They have neuroticism or maybe they are introverts. Okay, so it depends So personality plays a role gender plays a role women on average have higher levels of anxiety Okay, so you might find a boy and a girl of similar age The girl cannot sleep because of what is happening to the mother or to the father or at home. And the boy is fast asleep, having fun and enjoying it. So those two things are at play, okay? And don't simply say, no, you're just acting up. The boy is just acting up. He's also affected. Not necessarily. In fact, the statistics show that only between 25 and 30 people experience PTSD once they experience a traumatic event, okay? So how did you experience that? And this is what happened. There are five responses when you experience this. Now, if it starts to happen to you, number one, we know them very well. It's the fight, okay? You defy, you act out, you become aggressive, you have a very naughty child. You can be that child forever. They don't care, okay? So they are very defiant, okay? They are very naughty. They are very aggressive. That is the fight. Then there's the freeze, okay? And this happens again more to girls. They freeze, they faint, you know? You know, you speak to someone And they just suddenly, they black out, you know, like that, okay? Or even they pee on themselves and, you know, they start crying. So there's a freezing. There's the flight, the physical flight. You run away from home, okay? But then there are two that people don't speak a lot about, okay? And that one is what you call fawning, fawning, okay? So, yes, fawning. Phoning is where you realize that the only way that I can learn to survive is to please, right? To do whatever my mom or dad tells me. And so I start to be a pleaser. Whether people pleaser. Yes, people pleaser. And as an adult, I become a classic people pleaser. Because that's how I learned to avoid conflict. I realized if I do whatever my mom or dad or whoever is traumatizing me wants, I survive. And that has become your modus operandi. That's how you operate now as an adult, okay? So you're a classic people pleaser. And oftentimes that goes back to how you survived as a child. You don't know, you avoid conflict by all means. And so you will go out of your way to please people, even at your own detriment, okay? You can suffer to please people. You can go out of your way to take care of other people. To avoid conflict, because that's how you survived, okay? So that's the one that we call fawning. And then the other one is we call flocking, okay? So flocking is where if you were to hear a loud voice, take for example, we are seated here, and we hear a loud bang, and we cannot see what the bang is. What we do is you look at people. If they are running, you know Nikubaya, okay? We call that flocking. So when you grow up in a traumatic event, what you do is you learn how to modify your behavior according to other people, you know, to fit in. Okay, what are they people doing? So what can I do to fit in? Okay, I learn how to, like, it's like an act now. So this is what people do, and then I respond to that. So we call that flocking, okay? So these are the responses. Now, because of traumatic event, and you cannot run away, take for example, let's say you cannot run away from home. You learn to run inside. We call that dissociation. You run inside. You can find your child in class, but it's not listening. He's in his own country, inside there. I cannot learn how to physically, so I'm going to run away inside my head, sorry. So where is this person? Like, is his mind... They are daydreaming. They are fantasizing. They are creating their own world within. And often times this can manifest as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which can be provoked, not caused, not by trauma. ADHD is genetic, but it can be provoked by traumatic experiences, also as bipolar. And people do this a lot. People who have learned to, who have had traumatic experiences, they just withdraw to their head, they run away. And I just space out. I find myself at night. My husband, my wife, my boss is shouting at me. And I just space out, right. Okay, wow. Let me tell you something. You know why I love having you here? Because we learn. I feel like I've just been in session. Now I can tell people what trauma is, I can tell people exactly what this thing is. So it is this event that happened to me when I was young. It is what happened within me when this event happened. So now it's what I'm... Like, I'm coming out of it now. Why am I doing this? It's because there's an event when I was young. And it affected me. It affected me in a certain way, that's why I'm doing this. Yes, and it's unconscious. The effect is unconscious. Oh, you can't tell. I'm not aware of it. So you can't tell exactly which event. Yes, I mean, you can tell the event that happened, but the effect of the event is unconscious. So take, for example, we have mentioned this about relationships, take for example, and there's something you are very curious about, trauma bonding. Why do certain people keep attracting very toxic people and keep in that relationship for so long? It's from a bonding, OK? Right? Why? Because we tend to attract people who love us with the same pain that we experienced when we were young. Guys, do you see why we need to bring Mr Kamau more and more here? Because honestly, now we are learning. We are in a class. We know. Even now, if someone is watching, they might ask, wait, so there's an event that maybe when I'm a child I remember very well. And that's why, somehow, I feel like I want to please people, maybe, or people will please me. Yes, but here, let me cut you short. Sorry, let me interject. You may not remember. Why? Because, remember, your brain is the hardware, right? But your mind, what the brain does, okay? So, mind is what your brain does, okay? So, think of it this way. Your brain is like feet. Walking is the mind, okay? So whereas your brain gets done by around nine years, the hardware, the software needs around 26 years to 28 years to get done. And what that means is some traumatic events can happen to you before your capacity for language happens. That means you cannot see what happened. You can't remember. But your body remembers. Your emotions remember. You're just afraid of certain room. You don't know why. You're just afraid of certain uncle. You don't know why. You can't remember. I just don't like that uncle. Maybe he fondled you. Okay, I don't like loud noises, so I don't know why right somehow the brain is protecting you from that Also, your language capacities were not there for you to remember to be able to say what happened But your body your emotions do remember because they're already there You understand? So that's why some people will say, even they'll come for therapy and say, yes, I have these behaviors, but I can't remember anything happening to me when I was young. But honestly, like me, I can't remember anything that happened to me when I was young. Correct. When I'm with Tim, he'll talk about his... When he goes to school, he remembers how well he used to ride a bicycle. I'm like, when you wake up, you hold your phone and drink water. I don't remember it the way he does. So somehow it's also for your safety. Don't even remember it. But unless I'm doing something in a certain way... ...that's when you'll start digging in deep. So there'll be some practices we can do, like hypnosis. Remember, even though it's not entirely reliable, And maybe some exercises like drawing, that's why we have art therapy to help people. Especially people who cannot verbalize what happened. Some people have better memories in other things than others, okay? But there are things that you might remember more than Tim does, maybe because you're interested in them. So like my brother is very interested in history, so he remembers what happened in our family a lot. I can't remember, there are things even I did, my mom is the one who tells me. But I noticed that my father and I have that kind of similarity. We may not remember certain details, but my brother and mom remember. And I can see they have a similar personality. So that works. But it's important to remember that not every memory can be verbalized. And you're right. It's possible that your brain can be like, okay, you cannot process this. We're going to numb it, emotional numbing. It can be none. But oftentimes it's because it's happened at a time where we did not have the language capacity to remember with. Because we have to remember with words, and we have not learned that. And so take, for example, if a child has a traumatic event before they are two years, obviously they cannot speak, okay? But that's where their brain is very green. And so when you have a traumatic event below the age of two, even if your family changes and become an angelic family, the effect of this will remain. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, really? Yes, yes, still remain. But if you had a very healthy first two years, and maybe a lot happened to the worst, you'll still be better than the child who had first two years of experience. You'll still, most likely, you might still be a good... So let me, let's say this. My first two years of life, it was chaotic in my family. My mother was depressed, there was violence, there was all that, okay? So first two years, great. I mean, horrible. Then after, from the third year, everything was peaceful. But my brain was very green, so the effects will remain. But maybe for you it was the opposite. The first two years were beautiful, great, okay? But then after two years, there was a lot of chaos. If we are to be compared when we are teenagers, I will have more issues. Really? Yes. Oh. Okay, I'll have more difficulties. Okay. Because the chaos happened when the brain was very green. So that tells me right now, because I have under two. Yes. I should take care of that brain. Yes, carefully. And that's why we, that's why pediatrics say, children's psychologists take, for example, say, children below two years should not be exposed to any screen at all. Right? Oh, yes. Below two years. Right? Yeah. It's partly that. The brain is growing. Okay, so you want your children to learn the colors, to move, to engage with things, to be spoken to. That's why your house help matters. Does she play with your child? You know, speak with them, engage with them. I'm just sitting here watching you guys. You know, just give them a screen and they watch the whole day. And so these children become overstimulated, such that when they start going to school, it becomes so difficult for them to learn. You know, they're used to a lot of pleasure hormones of watching and all that. And now you want them to sit down and listen? For like two, three hours, it becomes very difficult. So they start spacing out and then they are diagnosed with ADHD, not necessarily. Not necessarily, but coming to trauma, yeah, that is important. Now, so what happens now as an effect? So we say the first thing is the event. And we say there are three, the neglect, the abuse, and the domestic situation. Then we spoke about the experiences. How do you experience that? You know, the flight, fight, flocking, fawning, you know. And then we spoke, now we're speaking about the effects of that. How do they affect you? So let's start with the thoughts. Okay, so you have, now as an adult, you have trouble focusing. You have trouble making decisions, you have trouble sustaining conversations, you know. You have trouble thinking through, you have brain fog, okay. So that can happen. You have trouble concentrating, really. So there's a lot of difficulty with that. We speak about the emotions. You have maybe an avoidant personality, okay. Or you avoid certain people, certain places. You are very moody, okay, maybe usually very moody. You can't, you feel like you cannot control emotions. And when children experience a very high traumatic experience and it affects them, then their capacity to deal with stress lowers. So now as an adult, little things just feel overwhelming. You know, they just feel overwhelming. And people say, you need to toughen up. What is wrong with you? But for you, because of the experience you had when you were so young, you just need so little to be broken. Okay, and that becomes a challenge, you know, so there's the emotionality, so you have anger and resentment and hate and frustration and all negative kind of negative emotions that you can think of, they reside in you in some sort, okay, and especially for men more than women, men tend to be now exhibit more aggression, that's why you see when men are going through something difficult. They make their family suffer, they become aggressive, they take alcohol, they withdraw from having conversations, okay, so all that can happen. Think of relationships. You really have trouble with relationships. The trauma bonding now comes in. You're moving from one terrible relationship to another. It's not working for you, okay? So that becomes another issue. So relationships are not working very well. Either you are very anxious in relationships, you're very clingy in relationships, okay? Or very aggressive or very avoidant, okay? You desire to be in a relationship, but as soon as someone starts loving you and being close, you pull away, okay? Think of behavior, okay? So behavioral addictions, you are into, you have some sort of a behavioral addiction. Think of shopping, you know, take for example, or gambling or any other kind of addiction. Pornography is very, very, very good sign, especially more than even the others. You can have other addictions like alcohol. Okay, so traumatic events can lead to that. Smoking and all the kind of substance addictions, okay? And then in terms of even spirituality, you're either close to God in a very fanatical manner or completely distant from God, you know? So all those can be affected. And then in terms of physical health, traumatic event as a child can make you have higher risk of asthma. Of diabetes, of cancer, osteoporosis. Almost everything. Yes. So they increase your chance. They don't cause. Because I need to clarify this. Yeah, they increase. Okay. You had it. Yes. It was there. No, no, not they had it. They lower your immune system so much. Oh, okay. Stress hormones lower your immune system so much they make you susceptible. And I'd like to clarify here. It is not the traumatic event that caused the disease. They increase the risk. So let me give a silly example. If you are black, you're more likely to be in Africa. It's not that Africa is causing you to be black, okay? Do you understand? So just that's that difference, okay? So after you've learned all this, because now I feel like we're analyzing ourselves one by one, and now, okay, now maybe that's why I keep on pleasing people. I mean, when people say, when I come, I don't want to express myself more because, you know, is there a way now I can get to... Once I've understood myself, I'm doing this thing because of this and this and this. Because you've taken us through it very nicely. Is there something that I can do to... Yes, yes. Because, like, for me, one thing that I know, now I'm thinking of my kid, that one under two, I'm one of the small ones. Right. Because now I might do something that later on in future, I'll be like, did you grow up in a family that... So now that I'm that mother, I'll tend to have a better... It's not abuse, it's not emotional, it's not family, maybe from someone else. But now I'll tend to have a better space. Being very intentional on that, because now I see what it brings later. But now that I'm that person who has those things to do, what can I do? So see, the first thing is, let's not walk around eggshells around children now, because of what I am saying. Because this is not parent shaming. I am not making the parent feel guilty for every single thing. So, in fact, the effect of parenting on children is only seen in the extremes, where you have such an exceptionally good parent or you're an exceptionally bad parent. Otherwise, there's no difference in the middle for most people between one child and the other. And that's why you might find that you feel more comfortable with someone who is not your sibling. You know, you're more friendly with that person, it's not, it's because it's, so let's not be too scared, like the parents now start going around eggshells, just because you made a mistake or one day you shouted at your child does not mean now you have traumatized your child for life, you know, like again, again, and that's why I'm very, very skeptical of this idea of blaming everything in your life to your childhood. To trauma. Yes, to trauma, you know. Again, and this has been somehow even spread by very prominent psychologists without very good data, unfortunately, you know. That you cannot blame everything wrong in your life to your childhood. And you've said it's only 30%, 25 to 30%. So we can't say we're doing it because of childhood trauma. You cannot say everything is that, yes. I don't know if I'm doing it because of childhood trauma. There is, unfortunately, there is a culture of being a victim today. That has come from the West, okay? You are a victim of something. You are being oppressed by something, okay? Thank you. So people are oppressing you by their language or what they are saying and all that. So there is a culture of playing the victim. That can make a situation, that can create a hill, you know, the way we say a mountain from a molehill. Yeah. Yeah? So they just need to be careful about that. We don't want to take responsibility. That's a good word. Yeah. Okay, that's a good word. So there is a language where we speak more of rights than responsibility today. What is my right? What is my right? My right against the state. But maybe you don't even vote. You don't even think, I don't care about that. So I don't care about my responsibility, okay? So, and now the problem that happens is we want an explanation for the things that we are not doing good at, at times. So I'm not downplaying the impact of trauma, but I don't also want to exaggerate it. That's not how we put it, by the way. It's a little bit too much. Yeah, I agree. Because every small thing is a trauma. But I'm like, if it's a trauma we just know, we've been through everything, you know what is right and wrong. So you're doing what is wrong, then you're saying, oh, it's a trauma. No. So, again, for people who have experienced terrible trauma, we are not downplaying your experience. I just want to be clear about that. We are not downplaying your experience. But on the other hand, we cannot put everything that is happening to you. So you can be good at making better choices. Like, maybe learn some skills about relationships, about expressing yourself. Maybe that's the challenge. It's not necessarily trauma. So, okay, so like, generally women experience imposter syndrome more than men. Just because of being a woman, not because of childhood trauma, really, okay? Because women have higher levels of anxiety. Anxiety can make you doubt yourself a little bit more than on average. Okay, anyway, let's come back to your question. So how can you deal with this? Generally speaking, as a parent or someone who has experienced trauma. So the first thing is regulation, okay? If as a parent you're not regulated, it's going to be very difficult to regulate your child. So if you have your own trauma, unprocessed trauma, you have your own difficulty that you're experiencing from work. It's not necessarily childhood trauma. It could be that you have a really bad boss, Okay, or you chose a career in the university because your parents told you to do so, and now you have a lot of depression because you're in a career that you're stuck in, that you hate. 83% of Kenyans don't like their jobs. Yeah, that was a report just last year, right. It's a very high number, okay. And they'll say it's trauma. Anyway, guys, yeah. Okay, so now, so the first thing is regulate. Find a sort of a rhythm for you. Is it walking? Is it painting? Is it cooking? You know, first of all, find something that works for you. A sort of a regulation. Ensure that you're as much as you can, that you're sleeping well, you're well hydrated, that you're not feeding your body too much alcohol and you know, find a sort of a regulation, your body finds a rhythm. So maybe in the very evening I walk or I go for a run or I go to the gym or exercise, something that works for you or I dance, a sort of a rhythm. So regulate yourself, regulate your body. Number two, relationships. So I'm putting this in R for easy remembering. So regulate, number two, relationships. Find someone to work with you. It could be a therapist like myself. It could be a friend. It could be going to social places, social spaces. So don't withdraw because that is, That's what depression does. That's what, when you're feeling so horrible, you do. You start to withdraw from people. You can even be among people, but they don't know what you experienced. You withdraw from people because you feel a certain sense of worthlessness, which is a very central mark of trauma. Nobody cares about me. If I share, nobody will even care. You know, I'm just bothering people with my problems because when I cried when I was small, nobody picked me up. Now as an adult, I totally believe telling people my problem is bothering them. Okay, so all these things can happen. So find someone, and they may be the first person could be a therapist, so regulate. Number three is reason. Understand what happened to you as a child now. Okay, understand, it could be during the therapy session. What happened to me? So instead of reacting, now reflect, okay? Be more reflective. Why am I acting the way I'm acting? Why am I going from this relationship to the other, okay? Why am I so much into this alcohol? Why can't I control my anger? So reflect, okay? Number four, relief. So release your emotions. So just because you understood what happened does not necessarily mean that the effect is over. You need to release the emotions attached to that. You can do that through journaling, okay? You can do that through going to the gym, of course, but journaling is much better. You know, speaking to a therapist, speaking to someone, that can be very, very helpful, okay? So you need to release. You need maybe to cry if that's what works out for you. So just because you understood your mom was a terrible mom or your father was a terrible father, you need to allow yourself to let go of the anger that happened. Just because you understood does not mean you can fix it. That is skipping a whole very important step, okay? Then the last one is redesign. Okay, so start to redesign. Just telling the story is not the end of it. You have to end the story differently. Okay, you have to relate the conclusion of the story. And this is where some people don't heal. Because they simply tell the story and say, I have gone for therapy but I've not healed. Because you have not attached a different conclusion. I'll give you just a quick example because I guess you're running out of time. If children, say for example, who are migrants, are swimming and they survive, let's say, the ocean, they are rescued. What psychologists do immediately is this child is really in a state, oh my goodness, I could have died. The child psychologist sits down with them and says, you survived. You're so strong. Look, that was the ocean and you survived. The fact that that story has been changed prevents a child from having trauma. Instead of you could have died, now you survived. Ah, you survived. Look at how strong you are. So you have to change the conclusion of the story. Not just, you know, I suffered, but I survived. Okay? So that's something very, very important. And learn to reward yourself. Go have some fun occasionally. You know, this journey, it takes a lot of time. So be self-compassionate. Be patient with the progress. It might take you three, four, five years to get to the place that you want to be. And so when you make a progress, enda mahali, kula ka ice cream. You know, go for a movie and say, hey, I am doing a lot of growing here. Yeah. True. Nini unonge sana. No, you're not speaking. You're just speaking well. I'm analyzing myself. Lena is telling me. Because now I get to understand. Eh, ru, eh, ri? The first one, regulate. Regulate, then reflect. Then relate. Relate. Relate, yes. Then reason. Then reason. Then relief. Relief. Or release. Then reward. Then redesign. Redesign. Then reward. Redesigning is where you change the story. You change the story. As much as it was very bad now, have a positive thing on the story. Yes, on the story. And then start saying, what kind of person do I want to be? So I have been living the voice of my mom or dad who abused me or whoever it is. So what kind of person do I want to be? So I kind of now have a goal of the person of my future self. Someone who is more trusting. Someone who is more assertive. Someone who can communicate their boundaries better. Someone who is not a pleaser. So I am starting to redesign. So next time when someone asks me to do something that I don't want to do, I say no. I'm redesigning myself now. I don't have to say yes all the time. If I give feedback to somebody and they get offended, a pleaser will be like, oh my goodness, why would I have done, why do I do that? No, I redesign, I tell myself, no, no, no, no. If I politely and firmly give someone feedback of what they are doing to me and they get angry, that is their problem, not mine. They will call you a don't care. Yes, they call you a don't care. Yeah, correct, correct. I start cutting off relationships that are harmful to me because I have trauma bonds. That is redesigning me. You know, I'm redesigning my whole self. And so I have a picture of a healthy me now, and I'm aiming towards that. So you're going that direction? Yes. Wow. I think I'm just here analyzing everything that you've said. Because you take us step by step. You take us from where these things start, the event, how you interpreted the event, how it affected you, what you might be doing. So now the viewer, even the viewer who is watching, maybe they're in a place where they're waiting. And maybe I do this because of this. But it doesn't mean necessarily... That's the point I want you to get. It doesn't mean what you're doing, you have to have that trauma. It doesn't mean. Sometimes you're just giving yourself a reason. I don't want to go to work. It doesn't mean there's something. Maybe you just need to re... Redesign. Redesign yourself. Maybe sometimes we are lazy, but we don't want to accept we are lazy. You know? We don't want to do something. We want to tie it to something. Why am I not doing this? It's because my mum. Yeah, there's a thin line. Sorry, yeah. There's a thin line between constant physical exhaustion and emotional exhaustion. Especially people who have had trauma and now they have mental illness. They constantly feel exhausted, emotionally, physically. But as you're saying, you're right. Sometimes you can just be sloth, just maybe lazy, just lazy, you know. And so you don't, or maybe, as I mentioned, you did not know any better when you were choosing courses in university. And now you're stuck in a job that you have no interest, no passion in, okay. And that is affecting how you are, your quality of relationship, because you're always tired, you're always bored because of the work, you feel anxious because of it. And so your relationships are not working, you know, because there's a sort of a displacement. You're always angry as a consequence of the job. Not necessarily because of what your mom did to you, okay? It's because maybe you're in that terrible situation. Sometimes, You might be just in a terrible life where someone in your life is struggling, you know, and they depend on you. And so you're constantly emotionally exhausted. It may not necessarily be because of trauma. It's because maybe you are sick, you know. Certain diseases can cause mental illness just as mental illness can cause certain physical diseases. So I'm very sympathetic, and I do this for a living, you know, to help people who are dealing with trauma. So I know the effect of trauma. I understand it. But at the same time, I am... Again, I'm skeptical of the idea of pointing everything that is wrong to that. And so baby steps. If I tell you, you might be a whole elephant. But if I tell you, I want you to eat this elephant in the next three years, you'll be like, okay. Okay, ah. That's the thing that people don't want to do. Like today, just aim for a little step. A little step. Bill Gates says that over time, Oftentimes, we overestimate what we can do in a short period of time and underestimate what we can do in a longer period of time, okay? And so we want to achieve a lot now instead of spacing out and say. And that's why sometimes the resolutions don't work. We want to achieve so much so quickly instead of giving ourselves time. And so five years later, you are at the same place you were five years ago because you constantly want to achieve too much too quickly. So we just space out. Space out and work on yourself. Even if you don't understand what happened in the past. Even if you can't remember. You can aim to be a different person. You can picture what kind of person you're in. And you can reflect. You can sit down in your room and say, what is not going well in my life? Maybe my relationships are not going on very well. My finances are not going on very well. My relationships with my parents are not going on very well. My relationships with alcohol and temptation and sex is not going on very well. Okay. What is the one thing that I can focus on this year on, okay? And maybe I can get an accountability partner, someone to encourage me, okay? So maybe I can say, okay, so as soon as I get, even if it's a thousand shillings, I will save 50% of that, and I'm going to be very intentional about that. All right, maybe when it comes to relationships, I am not going to go into a sexual activity or active relationship if I want a long-term relationship until maybe, what, six months or nine months are over, okay, so that I get to know the person well. Okay, so I can put certain guards against myself. Then I become intentional. Surely I might fail. Maybe not every 50% of the shillings I have I will save. Maybe sometimes I'll go first in one relation or the other, but now I can catch myself and say, okay, this is not what I want. So I can be intentional by being faithful to my future self instead of allowing myself to be the prisoner of my past self. So that's what I would say to that. Thank you so much. Eh, mask, eh. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel like I was in that session. Because even last week I've also said the same thing. Not every new year you're supposed to start with everything new. New year, same me. I still had my last year keywords. Intentional, gratitude. Has it changed? Because I'm still working on still being more intentional. So I'm not letting that go. I'm going with it forward. So I agree to what you're saying. Not every new year, I think goals is now. Then you have so many. I didn't even, exactly. So let's keep working slowly by slowly. Progress. So I think everything that you've said here today. One or two people out there need help in a way or the other. Especially when it comes to analysing myself. And we stop on that thing. Honestly, when you say there is that, there is trauma, it is there. But we don't carry some sort of a reason for you not to do what you're supposed to do. It is there and we are sorry. As you said, with those who are going through it. But it shouldn't be like this. Reason to, yeah, for you not to do something. If your job is not interesting, maybe you can start doing the things that you're doing. Maybe somehow you love it. Then if you can't love it completely, you can choose to change. Absolutely, that is true. For a better you, there's no need for me just to be here every day. You're right on the money, yeah. Yeah, so thank you so much, Mr. Kama. You're very welcome. And people who are interested in reading to, like, heal, like, get this sense of responsibility, you can read books like What Happened to You? Very good books. Or even Extreme Ownership by others like Jocko Willink, Can't Hurt Me by Goggins. These are good books of people who have, like Goggins, David Goggins, very, very popular. He's a person who really everything, like has really a horrible childhood. And with a very, by his own admission, not very low IQ, such that he has to read the same page three, four, five times before he gets it, just one page. And so... People can learn from people like this here. If you're willing. If you're willing. If you're not, unfortunately. I tell my clients out of the time, healing is intentionality. I'm here to support you, encourage you, but you've got to be intentional. I tell you, journal, we discussed that you journal, try as much as you can. Even if it's just one page a day, do that. Now you get bored, and I say, this is what a therapist does. You have to be. If you want to be yourself, to be better. What better person to make yourself better than yourself? You're the one who has to make progress. And you make progress every week. Last week you didn't do well, next week. Don't give up. Yes. So thank you so much. You're very welcome. You're very welcome. And guys, if you want him again and again, or if there's someone else out there who is listening to you, just come. It feels nice talking to you. Personally, I might not watch this episode again, but you see what you've heard right here. I'm already feeling like, keep, you know? In one way or the other, you're like, okay, maybe there was that. Or it's not even there. You tend to learn something from these conversations that we have. So thank you so much, Mr. Kamau. You're very welcome. That was very well explained. Thank you. Like, I told you, my mother can't read and understand trauma. And she doesn't know what trauma is. My mother can hear and understand. I appreciate that. So thank you even for your very, what can I say? You talk to us like a teacher, like those kids in class. We understand step by step. From here to here. And that's why we have this. So thank you so much for coming. And don't get tired. I love this. Don't get tired. Let's tell him to talk about giving you space and calling you. Mr. Kamau, they said. I love it. I'll be glad to help. But thank you so much. Maybe just one word of encouragement. Thank you. So to someone who has experienced a lot of trauma, one of the things that you might experience is a lot of internal criticism. Every time you make a mistake, you criticize yourself, you shame yourself. And one thing that you want to stop is to tell that voice, now it's a red card now. Your time is up. And in turn, start to speak to yourself with self-compassion. You make a mistake, instead of shaming yourself like someone did when you were young or humiliated yourself, speak to yourself gently and then start again. Constantly start again. If there's something that mediates growth, it's self-compassion. Sometimes you feel like self-compassion is self-pity, especially if you've been very much unloved. But self-compassion is not self-pity. Self-pity is, oh my goodness, me, you know, nothing I can do. But self-compassion is, I am aiming high, but I made a mistake. Okay, poof, we breathe, we start again. Okay, that's how you do. So self-compassion, people, over self-criticism. And thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, guys. I hope that episode was, it was very enlightening. Like, now I understand trauma. Now I can even tell someone on Instagram, I can even counter someone. Even if it's Mr Kamau, I will counter you. But thank you so much, Mr Kamau. Thank you so much, guys, for watching. In case you want something you want to share with us, in case you have a story, your experience, your life experience, your journey as a kid, or something you want to teach us about, please feel free. This spot is ours. This space is ours. The email is down here. Reach out. Reach out to us. We'll get back to you. We'll come to you, we'll tell you something, we'll teach you something, we'll get to hear your story. And then we'll learn something from that. I just want us to make progress, slowly but slowly. A step at a time. That's how we do it. Yeah, and that's it from me today. So maybe we can tell them in the future. Oh, in the future. And by the way, there's something we haven't talked about. Don't say you don't have trauma. First of all, you're saying I was beaten and nothing happened to me. I'm very scared of you people. For real? Bye-bye. But you've said personalities. People who are very hyper. Yeah, but sometimes we're just lacking empathy, no? I mean, I'm very realistic. Well, you're not empathetic, take for example. I have seen this in relationships where one person has zero empathy. Life is like this, life is hard, life is military. Without realizing it, what they've just learned is to repress their emotions. Yeah, so you can be very enthusiastic and happy and extrovert, but you know how to empathize with your wife, with your children. You can listen to them and say, hey, I understand that hurts. Thank you guys for watching. Oh my goodness, we were online. Yes. Bye bye. Till next week. Bye bye. Bye.