"There will be zero growth, without failure."

“We get caught in this idea that it’s going to pass…..and it doesn’t necessarily just pass.”

-Renee Groenemann

Big T and little t traumas affect our mental health AND our physical health. Our body remembers these traumatic events and often holds onto a trigger that will stimulate our sympathetic nervous system into the fight, flight, or freeze cascade. In other words, these triggers can cause not only nervousness and anxiety, but also muscular tightness and pain.

Much like as we go throughout our days and the stress builds we often tense our shoulders, as we experience any type of trauma our bodies respond by tensing our muscles. Later in life, our triggers then bring back this muscular memory and tense those same muscles.

Think back to your own personal birth experience. As you go through the events in detail do you notice anything about your body? Do you feel….

…the pain in your back from contractions?

…your incision from the c-section you needed?

or maybe you can feel your pelvic floor tighten thinking about the pain from tearing?

These are just a few examples of things you may feel physically alongside your emotions when remembering your birth story.

So often, women who are in pelvic floor PT will need to see a mental health practitioner to help work through the emotions that are associated with their specific pain or problems and vice versa. That’s why it’s so important to find an integrative professional who works cohesively with other professionals to fully address all their patients/clients needs.

EMDR

Again, this is also where EMDR can be so effective. *If you missed Part 1 with Renee, go back and listen to it first.

When you have a trigger point, one of the most common treatments to start is to first apply a consistent pressure to it to fatigue the muscle until it releases. This is sort of how EMDR works, by fatiguing out the memory of something traumatic to lessen the bodies response to it.

Pelvic floor issues are a prime example of how physical therapy and mental health can work closely together. Pelvic floor issues can sometimes arise from a traumatic birth and until you fully process your birth story, it’s difficult if not impossible to physically recover.

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“I had this belief that is I went to sleep, my baby would die.” 

-Renee Groenemann

Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum can be a whirlwind of events that can fly by in the blink of an eye. Some of these events can be more traumatic than we initially realize. Trauma comes in 2 main forms: 

Big T- things like rape, assault, war, near death experiences.

little t- things that are more emotionally charged, but are not life threatening. 

These little t’s can add up over time and are unfortunately very common surrounding our birth experiences. Things like:

• Deviating from your birth plan- especially emergent c-sections
• NICU experience
• Extreme nausea while pregnant
• Lack of support
• Issues with breastfeeding
• Lack of sleep

Honestly, I had no idea that there were different types of trauma and it felt extremely validating to know that things like this can truly be traumatic and cause lasting stress, anxiety, etc. 

RENEE GROENEMANN

Renee is a mental health counselor, certified EMDR practitioner, certified yoga therapist and yoga teacher, certified hypnotherapist.

She specializes in perinatal mood and trauma to help prepare women for birth and recover from challenging pregnancies, births and postpartum periods using body-based approaches and mindfulness. https://www.spiritedgrowth.com/childbirth/

Renee has experience trauma surrounding her birth story, however even as a trained counselor it took her 3 years to realize what was really happening. That’s how sneaky this trauma can actually be.

SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM

When a threat appears we have 3 options- fight, flight, or freeze. All of these options are given by our sympathetic nervous system being activated by something our body perceives as a danger.

A flood of hormones are released, our heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, your muscles tense, and our other body functions come to a halt. Why do we respond this way? Well, it’s based on our past experiences. 

Ever been pulled over by a cop? I’m guessing yes… So, it’s possible that everytime you see a cop car you have a bit of anxiety as you anticipate him pulling out behind you. However, often we have these responses as our body remembers past traumatic events.

TRAUMA

All forms of trauma are held within our body and may manifest in many different ways. Some of the most common manifestations are stress, anxiety, and depression. These trauma’s also come with triggers. 

Triggers are often the tricky part. We often don’t realize what is triggering us until we really dig deep into our past experiences. 

For instance, Renee had a client who would often experience anxiety attacks when in public places. It took a very deep dive into this woman’s life to figure out that double doors were actually her trigger. 

She had experienced an emergency c-section and banging through the double doors into the OR got...