Outrunning Powerlessness: A Discussion with Nkem Ndefo
This content was gathered from a live session with Nkem Ndefo in the June 2024 Somatic Trauma Healing Summit. Become a Member of The Embody Lab and access the complete recordings of the entire 2-Day Summit LEARN MORE.
Arriving Practice
Understanding Trauma Logic
“Trauma is a universal and unifying experience of being human, yet, we don’t always have the best understanding of it.”
What is trauma?
Trauma can simply be defined as too much, too fast, or too little for too long. It is a universal and unifying experience of being human. Now we’ll get into the core features of trauma related to power, the concept of Trauma Logic, and how this manifests in our daily lives. We’ll punctuate these topics with activation check-ins and settling practices throughout.
How are trauma and powerlessness related?
Powerlessness can be a core feature of trauma, as the roots of trauma often trace back to experiences or situations that were out of our control. Feelings of powerlessness can be quite overwhelming to experience. So much so that we often can’t bear it when the feeling itself or even the memory of the feeling arises within us, and that’s when we find ourselves, or others, searching for ways to disconnect - from ourselves, from our environment, from those around us.
What is Trauma Logic and Coupling?
A lot of trauma logic revolves around the concept of coupling. Coupling happens when our somatic, emotional, and bodily experiences during a traumatic event become intertwined or linked to the intensity of that traumatic experience. A classic example of this is illustrated by Pavlov's dogs in his famous experiment: by repeatedly pairing the ringing of a bell with receiving food, the dogs eventually began to salivate at the mere sound of the bell, even before any food was presented - this is a great example of coupling. Unlike Pavlov’s dogs, when it comes to the overwhelming intensity of traumatic events, the coupling usually occurs right away.
“When we are exposed to a feeling, sensation, or condition similar to the original trauma, our body goes into the response that we had in the original trauma.”
The emotional or bodily response then becomes immediately associated with the traumatic event, so when we encounter circumstances reminiscent of the original trauma, it can immediately trigger a recurrence of the initial reaction. While these reactions may feel illogical in circumstances where we are technically safe, trauma logic explains that our brains and bodies have developed the response in connection to specific circumstances or experiences, leading to our reacting in ways that mirror those experienced during the initial event.
Due to this coupling and the phenomenon of re-experiencing, individuals often develop reflexive avoidance behaviors towards anything resembling the original trauma. This avoidance can manifest consciously or unconsciously as we steer clear of situations or stimuli reminiscent of those past traumatic events.
“There can be a compulsion to “fix” things, but emotions aren’t meant to be fixed, they’re meant to be present with.”
How can the concepts of Trauma Logic and Coupling manifest in our everyday lives?
Some common behaviors in trauma survivors are control and rigidity. We might develop a strong need to control things as we’re trying to avoid what feels ambiguous, unknown, messy, or uncertain, as it can trigger feelings of powerlessness. This drive for control can manifest in many different behaviors, including:
Micromanaging and prioritizing logic over emotion, as emotions are seen as messy.
Preferring the familiar to avoid surprises, which feel safer.
Perfectionism as a defense against vulnerability and the fear of making mistakes.
Needing to be right in order to assert control.
Overcompensation or striving to be "super people" — accomplished, successful, and in control of our lives.
Feeling a sense of urgency - we’re always moving in order to outrun feelings of powerlessness.
Using anger and aggression as a means to assert power and avoid feeling powerless.
Engaging in aggressive or hostile behavior to maintain a sense of control.
Taking risks to regain control and power over our lives.
Hypervigilance and mistrust to avoid being caught off guard or losing control.
Difficulty accessing internal safety, as letting one's guard down feels unsafe.
Hyper-independence, relying solely on oneself to avoid being let down by others.
We might even see these behaviors in other people but not be able to access how the trauma logic works and identify what’s really happening under the surface for them.
“By bringing in practices that help us settle, we are rewriting a little bit of the script, reconditioning ourselves to safety and settling instead of activation and discomfort.”
A key thing to learn when we get to this stage is to recognize when we’re starting to feel overwhelmed. Being able to become more aware of what’s happening inside of our bodies and determining whether we’re carrying more of a reaction than we need to - can we settle it in this moment in order to recondition ourselves, stabilize our energy, and unlock a creative capacity for changing systems of oppression?
Through stabilization, we are growing spaciousness, skill, and the resilience to be able to do the re-patterning work of these practices.
What’s Next - Building the Future
This stage is often overlooked and rushed. However, when you rush it, you decompensate. The second stage is for when you’re ready to talk about the trauma, but you need the prepping and the stabilization stage beforehand in order to do so.
“We are all doing the best we can with what we have.”
Settling practices help us to recognize our responses, when they’re useful and when they’re not. It helps us to not pathologize ourselves, and to learn how to settle ourselves in real time and in an accessible way. When we’re able to access internal safety like this, the stabilization can help us face the feelings of powerlessness without feeling overwhelmed, and that’s when we heal!
That’s when we no longer need all the behaviors of avoiding helplessness or powerlessness, because we can just be. That’s how we rewrite and build the future.
Learn more about the power of somatics to heal trauma at our upcoming Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certificate Starting in September 2024.
About Nkem Ndefo
Nkem Ndefo, MSN is the founder and president of Lumos Transforms and creator of The Resilience Toolkit, a model that promotes embodied self-awareness and self-regulation in an ecologically sensitive framework and social justice context. Licensed as a nurse midwife, Nkem also has extensive post-graduate training in complementary health modalities and emotional therapies. She brings an abundance of experience as a clinician, educator, consultant, and community strategist to innovative programs that address stress and trauma and build resilience for individuals, organizations, and communities across sectors, both in her home country (USA) and internationally.
