Episode 012: Hope for Healing: Childhood Trauma and Resilience with Ryan Pink

Ryan Pink is a survivor. Like many of us, he’s faced some hard things, and has come out the other side swinging.

In this episode, we dive pretty deeply into trauma – what it is and isn’t, and how we can protect our kids from trauma digging too deeply into them.

Ryan walks through his own healing journey, including how expensive it was (I hope you’re sitting down!).

That experience led him to ask a lot of questions and talk to over 500 adults trying to heal from their own trauma, and he came up with some answers…and more questions.

“What did we do to heal from trauma before therapy existed? Can we still tap into those strategies?”

What if people don’t have a lot of money or bandwidth to figure out how to heal from their own demons?

Ryan founded HopeGuide, an online service designed to reduce the barriers to healing for those with trauma. You’ll love hearing about how HopeGuide works, and even more, how Ryan instructs us to build resilience in our families for our children.

Shall I spoil the ending? I think so:

”Relationship is THE most important thing we can have.”

If you’re on board with that, this interview is for you!

 

Can’t see the video? Watch Healing Childhood Trauma here on YouTube!

Zoom to what you want to find with time stamps!

Time Stamps for Healing Childhood Trauma

• 0:49 Ryan Pink is my guest today, a personal longtime friend! He experienced acute complex PTSD, which we used to think was limited to war veterans, but now are finding that’s just not true, unless you consider childhood homes a war zone.
• 1:28 Ryan has formed six businesses, sold four, had six children with his wife and traveled to 85 countries with his family. He is the founder and Chief Hope Officer for HopeGuide.
• 2:38 He was diagnosed with acute complex PTSD a few years ago and knew he had to deal with it since it was affecting his life significantly. He spent $300,000 (!!!!!) to recover.
• 3:28 While experts now consider PTSD something you deal with for the rest of your life, Ryan refused to accept that for himself.  (He does say most of that money he spent wasn’t necessary at all!)

Ryan’s Picture of His Own PTSD

• 5:15 I asked Ryan to paint a picture for the listeners of what living with PTSD looks like.
• 5:29 Ryan had deep and perpetual suicidal ideation. His nervous system was not functioning and he turned to alcohol to deal with it.
• 7:05 Here Ryan describes more of the coping mechanisms he used to deal with the nervous system issues. He would also yell out in the night and have awful nightmares, problems we associate with typical PTSD.
• 8:44 We all experience nervous system overload sometimes, but probably not to the extent that someone with PTSD does.

 

Defining Trauma

• 9:49 We’re defining the word “trauma” and how Ryan describes it for people. Ryan quotes Gabor Maté’s book The Myth of Normal, saying trauma is not the thing that happened to you but the way your body responds to the thing that happened to you.

• 11:41 Trauma is an incomplete emotional process that’s stored in our nervous system until it’s able to be processed.
• 12:05 As parents, we have to think both about our own trauma and what we’re passing along to our kids and how our trauma is affecting our parenting.

Building Resilience in Ourselves and Our Kids

• 12:40 We talk a lot about helicopter parenting around here, but it’s not the answer. Ryan’s response is raising more resilient kids!
• 13:28 HopeGuide is focused on how to heal from the things in our pasts and how to build resilience for the future.
• 14:18 Ryan didn’t fully realize the effect his trauma was having on his own kids as they mirrored his defenses for dealing with the nervous system overload.

• 15:46 “Vicarious trauma” is when your kids show the symptoms of the trauma without actually having experienced it themselves.

What Hope Guide Does

• 17:03 Ryan realized that maybe without the whole $300,000, he might not be alive. But he knows that amount is not possible for the majority of people. And when people can only afford five therapy sessions, sometimes it makes the trauma even worse rather than better.
• 18:47 He started examining what practices were used for PTSD before therapeutic practice. 
• 19:51 Therapies accelerate healing, but they aren’t the healer. They’re working with natural healing mechanisms.
• 20:50 Ryan spent so much money because he didn’t know what would work. But he’s found there are things that can support your nervous system, and therapists don’t have any training in what they are.
• 21:25 HopeGuide helps people figure out the best and least expensive path to healing.

Four Pillars to Help Mental Health

• 23:43 There are four major categories that affect mental health issues, and if we address them, our body’s natural healing mechanisms will take care of most of the nervous system issues.
• 24:21 Number one: how are you sleeping? (Here are some tips for good sleep!)

• 26:15 Number two: what toxins are we putting in our bodies? And what good things are we putting in? Vitamins B and B12, omega-3 fatty acids, and magnesium are supplements our brains and nerves need.
• 27:35 Number three: How are we moving our bodies? Movement like walking and lifting used to be a natural part of life, but we’ve replaced moving with screens. Let’s encourage our kids to be active – and us, too!
• 29:08 In teens and kids, we are seeing epidemic levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
• 29:53 Number four: We were made for connection with each other, not lots of little social media moments with people we may not even really know.

How Can We Help Our Kids with Connection?

“Honestly the best thing we could do for our kids is to model connection for them by connecting with them.” – Ryan Pink

• 33:05 Our kids need to learn what it means to build strong connections; and if not from us, where from? They’re not going to learn it from social media.
• 34:01 Connections with adults count – parents included! Family dinners have such a huge impact on kids and teens’ mental health and success at school.
• 34:49 We are imperfect and we are going to wound our kids’ hearts at times. But we repair relationship trauma through relationship.

• 36:10 Helicopter parenting is wanting to give our kids a shield around them … but these four steps can create a shield.
• 37:47 If you’re not eating dinner with your kids and without phones in the room, start that now!
• 39:39 Find Ryan at RyanPink.com, and check out his special offer for Healthy Parenting Handbook listeners at HopeGuide.com/KidsCookRealFood.

Resources We Mentioned Today:

• Hope Guide, for lower-cost guidance on healing from trauma
• The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté (Amazon/Bookshop.org)
• I talked all about helicopter parenting and free-range kids with Lenore Skenazy
• Building resilience in kids through self-compassion with Dr. Mary Wilde
• Tips for improving sleep quality
• Research on the different forms of magnesium
• Dr. Kelly Brogan on helping kids with depression and anxiety
• The benefits of family dinner
• Dr. Meg Haworth on how your body might be holding onto trauma from childhood