Natalie (00:00)
Hi, and welcome to the Complexity of Trauma Workshop. My name is Natalie, and I'm a licensed somatic therapist in the state of California and a somatic coach for folks all over the world. I specialize in working with queer and neurodivergent folks who are healing from trauma and codependency or other attachment-related issues. And this workshop is really focused on unconscious behaviors that create excessive worry for queer and neurodivergent folks and how to start healing them with somatics. Now

Natalie (00:28)
This workshop is going to be very simple, but it's also going to be very generalized. So there's probably pieces of this that will resonate really deeply for you, and a lot of it that won't resonate. And the workbook that is provided in your course portal will help you start to kind of unpack how this all shows up for you and your unique brain and body and nervous system and circumstances and all of those things. So you can either

Natalie (00:54)
Pull up the workbook and look at it while we're going through all of this, or you can just save the workbook for after and just sit and absorb the information. There's really no wrong way to engage with this material as long as it feels like it's the best way for you and your unique brain and body. So I'm gonna start with just how these things show up. And then I'm gonna take you through five complexes that I notice in my practice. I've been doing trauma work.

Natalie (01:22)
For nine years, and I've been doing trauma work from a somatic lens for almost six years, and I've been specializing in queer and neurodivergent folks for the last three years. So these are things that I've noticed. One of these complexes are some is something that is well documented, and the rest of them are kind of just things that I've noticed and put together. So I'm gonna pull up my presentation portion of the workshop.

Natalie (01:47)
So here we are, we're at the complexity of trauma workshop, unconscious behaviors that create excessive worry for queer and neurodivergent folks, and how to start healing them with somatics. Now let's start with the definition of a complex. So a complex in the context of psychology is a group of deep unconscious emotional ideas or an excessive worry, such as an inferiority complex. I feel like the inferiority complex is something we're all super familiar with, and that

Natalie (02:14)
there's gonna be elements of an inferiority complex in almost all of this. but this is a little bit more nuanced in terms of how the complexes themselves show up. Also, I have notes down here, so you will probably see me looking down this way every once in a while, too. So, what's going on? Surviving trauma requires your brain and body to come up with really creative ways to survive. And so I often refer to them as boxes.

Natalie (02:41)
Like we create these boxes of behavior patterns that help us feel contained, help you feel like maybe you're not too much or maybe you're just enough. And that usually works in the beginning. Maybe sometimes these don't work at all, but eventually the boxes themselves start to feel really problematic. And so you place yourself inside of a certain set of behaviors and in an attempt to stay safe.

Natalie (03:07)
And then eventually those become problematic or sometimes feel suffocating or like they're just not working in some way. And so we have to deconstruct the very specific set of rules that you've created to survive so that you can step outside of these patterns of behavior without feeling like your nervous system is gonna go completely haywire. And so in somatics, we often call that titration. We're gonna take a toe dip in the water of trying something new, and then we're gonna back off and we're gonna notice how your body and your

Natalie (03:37)
Thoughts respond to that trying something new and then create a really unique plan for you. The most important thing, starting point for healing these complexes, is bringing them into your awareness. We have to make the implicit explicit. And these are often things that are running in the background of your awareness. So bringing them forward will be essential to helping you heal.

Natalie (04:00)
And the irony with a lot of these is that they isolate you from the very thing you need to heal. So the only way out is through, as the cliche says. And this workshop is going to help you get through this in a way that maybe you haven't before. So we're going to start with the complexes now. And then at the end of the complexes, I'm going to take you through a guided somatic exercise that will help you kind of get in touch with this version, this part of yourself.

Natalie (04:30)
And then again, you can take the information you learned from that somatic exercise and start working with the workbook. So first we have the justice complex. And the quote I have here is this can't be happening. And this is actually something that's pretty well documented. This is not something that like I came up with. and it often shows up when folks have built strict rules and norms that they live by very rigidly.

Natalie (04:56)
There is a right and a wrong way to look at any given situation and when themselves or people in their life step outside of those rules, it feels like a betrayal. This often shows up as like a profound and deeply felt commitment to fairness, equity, and consistency that is intensely experienced by a lot of individuals who have like autism, ADHD, AuDHD

Natalie (05:19)
or a lot of other neurodivergent things that fall under the neurodivergent umbrella. and so there's a hyper awareness about ethical alignment or social imbalances, and that can be like social imbalances within a relationship or relationships or like bigger systemic issues. So

Natalie (05:39)
Having like this rigid adherence to ethical rules and honesty and transparency is why neurodivergent folks are experiencing the current state of the world more intensely than others. There's pattern recognition that you can't turn off. And so you are able to experience and understand how the social injustices of the world are really impacting people that maybe have nothing to do with you, but you can put yourself in those. There's a lot of empathy here, is what I'm trying to say.

Natalie (06:09)
and so what an example of this would be that a lot of times, like not being completely honest or sharing all of the information that you have about something feels like lying. So when there's a choice to make about how much information you want to share with someone and how much information you want to keep to yourself, the only option that feels right, and I put big air quotes around right, is sharing.

Natalie (06:38)
Literally everything. So when we have a justice complex, a lot of these folks end up oversharing a lot of the time because it feels more honest. and if a relationship in your life treats someone else differently than how they treat you in your circle, it can feel like a betrayal because they find safety and consistency. And so what ends up happening is that this

Natalie (07:03)
Complex really isolates people from the gray and like really messy areas of life. And our healing lives in the messy. Our vulnerability is messy. So we have to be able to start build your risk tolerance for the messier, more vulnerable parts of life. things become very all or nothing with this complex.

Natalie (07:26)
And what you need to heal is to be in the middle of that, or to have more color in your life, or to have more like welcome, more messiness. And so each of these has a like an emotional profile and a sensation profile that I'm gonna go through. and so for this particular complex, the emotional profile often looks like a high value on morality.

Natalie (07:51)
hypervigilance around other people's behavior and a nagging at themselves for their own behavior as well. There's often like a defeated, angry, betrayed, and like an anxious attachment style often comes up with people who are experiencing this complex. And the sensation profile, so what's happening in the body as you're experiencing a complex like this, is often like a slouched, gut turning, flushed or clenching sensation. And again, this one stands out for

Natalie (08:21)
Neurodivergent folks, but it also stands out for queer folks because queer folks are often the ones who are experiencing the un injustices of the world. And so there's really a mix of of both and all, I imagine if you're here, you're either queer or neurodivergent or both. And so pieces of this might really resonate for you, especially with everything that's happening in the world. And so, just to kind of like close this out.

Natalie (08:46)
there's a clear focus on what is right, what is wrong, and that ends up backfiring when life inevitably becomes really messy.

Natalie (08:55)
So we're gonna go to the next one, which is the trouble complex. And the quote I have here for this is I will pay for this. And so this person is always worried that they're gonna get in trouble. The person often builds rigid internal sense of what will get you into trouble. And the extreme version of this is that no answer is correct. An example that I often see is like a lot of times, if I set a boundary, I'm wrong for having the boundary.

Natalie (09:22)
But if I don't set the boundary, I'm miserable. And so no matter what I do, I'm paying for this choice. Right. and so this often comes from an overbearing or highly critical caregiver or trauma related to an attachment relationship that removes warmth or gives emotional punishment after doing something wrong. And so what happens is this isolates you from trying new things.

Natalie (09:49)
Because there's a deep fear that you'll get it wrong and you'll lose everything, which is a really scary place to be. And without there's often not like a consideration that maybe what you have right now is worth losing because the brain will always choose the familiar thing that it knows how to survive over the unfamiliar thing that it doesn't have the skills or doesn't have the understanding of how to survive that particular scenario. Right. We always we hear that.

Natalie (10:19)
In the like your brain will choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven. That's the like cliche that we hear that kind of relates to what I'm talking about. And so it often keeps you isolated from community, making decisions or living your life in a way that feels really authentic. and that's what we need to start doing when we start healing from trauma, is we need to start taking a toe dip in the water of being authentic.

Natalie (10:44)
And then backing off and noticing how your body and your nervous system reacts to that experience and then trying again, right? Just taking it really slow over a period of time. Which I know can be really hard when you have been masking a lot or living your life in a way that is focused on other people's comfort. And you want to just like jump in the pool of authenticity, right? And so if you're if you're having this experience, I hear you and I see you in that.

Natalie (11:12)
and gentleness is always going to be more helpful than force. And you'll probably hear me say that a couple times in this workshop. so the emotional profile here is like fearful of consequences, frozen when trying to make choices, feeling inferior to other people and their opinions, like other people's opinions matter more to you, or you take them more seriously than you take your own opinions, and often experiences like an anxious attachment style.

Natalie (11:39)
and so the sensation profile here is tense, bracing for impact. So like all the muscles being held really tightly, trembling, unsteady. And this one stands out for queer folks specifically who have felt unsafe being their true self. And it also stands out for neurodivergent folks in the sense that there is a real rejection sensitive dysphoria that can come up in this particular complex.

Natalie (12:06)
And that can happen to going against societal norms and generally not conforming, which we're doing if we're queer, neurodivergent, or whatever, right? Because we all have unique needs and unique ways of expressing ourselves in the world. And so bumping up against those societal norms can feel really, really, really scary. Okay, so next we're gonna go through the burden complex. And the quote I have here for this is I am a burden.

Natalie (12:30)
And so this person really struggles to ask for help because they believe they're going to be a burden for other people. There's a real I'm too much energy here. And the fear of being too much for someone else has become so great that they hold everything on their own until it's too heavy. And having needs feels deeply, deeply wrong. and so this often comes from having to figure out emotional problems in isolation as a child or in a significant like attachment adult relationship.

Natalie (12:59)
And so the extreme version of this struggles to ask anyone to really do anything at all. Go out to dinner, come to a birthday party, celebrate them in some way, share your true feelings, be honest when you're having a hard time, reach out for help. and it isolates you from asking for help and eventually the weight of carrying everything alone and for other people, because this this complex often comes with a caregiving role. These people are very good caregivers.

Natalie (13:29)
so when that becomes too much, you break in some way. And so I see a lot of burnout with this complex. and you're either forced to ask for help, or in the more extreme version of this, you isolate and try to replenish yourself as much as you possibly can, and then go back into the same cycle over and over again. And so this complex often experiences an avoidant attachment style.

Natalie (13:56)
Right. So they're moving away, they're processing things in isolation. And that's not to say that processing things in isolation is a bad thing. It's not. sometimes our brains and our bodies need that, but when we're talking about this complex, it's on a more extreme level, and there really isn't a whole lot of room for processing with other people, which we need. We're human beings. We need we need other people, we need connection. and so being isolated.

Natalie (14:22)
from connection and from support from other people becomes really, really hard and harmful. So the emotional profile here is hyper-independent, lonely, anxious, nervous, often experiences an avoidant attachment style. so this person can like seem really cool, calm, and collected. and internally the experience the sensation profile is very heavy, turned away, curling, curling up or curling inward, or like an empty or a hollow sensation internally.

Natalie (14:52)
Because we really get a lot of fulfillment from connection with other people. And so that the lack of that can often bring this like very hollow sensation. Okay, so next we have the pleasure complex. Joy and pleasure are not safe. And so pleasure feels unsafe or at the very least, transactional. If someone does something nice for you, you feel like you will owe them later.

Natalie (15:18)
And this often comes from like a hypervigilance around waiting for the next shoe to drop. And so even when there is joy, peace, or pleasure available, you often struggle to enjoy it because you fear it will be taken away from you. probably because it was taken away from you, or probably because there was a longer term trauma that kind of kept interrupting any experiences of joy or peace or calm or pleasure. And so this person.

Natalie (15:47)
often feels a lot safer in like a chaotic environment. A lot of times you probably do well under pressure. you do well when there's like a lot of chaos happening and you know how to navigate that pretty well. And so there's usually a fear that the joy or peace will be taken away or that you'll owe someone for it. And so they want and support others in their joy and pleasure, but can't access that for themselves.

Natalie (16:15)
They often find joy by seeing it through somebody else's eyes or their experience. And so what I the sentence I hear a lot in session with folks who have this is like, yeah, they can have all of that, but that's not for me. There's no way that I could enjoy that or experience that.

Natalie (16:35)
and so the example that I like to give with this one is that like watching your kids play or watching kids that are in your life play brings you a lot of joy. but taking part in that play or taking part in that joy feels deeply uncomfortable. and that's like just a kid example. This could also just be like you really enjoy watching your friends have a lot of fun, or you can experience joy and pleasure through the eyes of somebody else.

Natalie (17:04)
and so this isolates you from joy and pleasure because you are afraid you will lose it. And because you are not allowing yourself joy and pleasure, you probably feel like your healing's not going anywhere. Because that's kind of the whole point of doing trauma work is for us to be able to experience more joy, more peace, more pleasure in our lives. And so this person can often feel like they've been doing a lot of the work and they're not really getting anywhere.

Natalie (17:32)
Because there's not a whole lot of like joy and pleasure being experienced in life because it still doesn't feel safe to do so. So the emotional profile of this person is often on edge, irritable, pent up. There's like a pent-up energy to this. And then the sensation profile is often like a bracing for impact, a tense, a flush, like there's an embarrassment that comes with this profile or this this complex.

Natalie (18:00)
And then there's also like a numb sensation, especially when trying to receive pleasure. And I'm talking about like just joy and pleasure in life, like playing a game, but also like sexual pleasure, things like that. Like all of those things are deeply, deeply, deeply uncomfortable. and if we aren't aiming to feel good, then like what are we doing? Right. And so this one can leave people feeling really stuck in that way, where like they feel like they've been doing a lot of the work, but it's not really like getting them anywhere.

Natalie (18:33)
Okay, and then the last complex we have here is the alien complex. And the quote I have for this one is no one will ever understand. And this is an extremely isolating one because this complex believes that other people can never be trusted and that no one will ever understand what you've been through. And so there's a high value placed on being understood rather than being seen and heard. And so there's a sensation of always being othered.

Natalie (19:01)
and for example, like by extreme bullying or abusive siblings, things like that. But the extreme version of this leaves someone feeling completely isolated from other people because being alone feels safer than being connected to other people, because there is a deep fear and belief that you cannot trust other people. and it can also show up as having relationships, but being extremely avoidant or guarded in those relationships. And so

Natalie (19:28)
you want to let people in, but you can't actually like let them in in a way that feels like it can build a real authentic and intimate, like emotionally intimate relationship. because that feels really, really, really unsafe. And so this often comes from chronic neglect in an attachment relationship or a lot of neglectful people in their lives abandoning them when they needed them most. And so it feels safer to be alone because people have let you down so much. But what ends up happening is that

Natalie (19:56)
This complex really isolates you from community, from connection and shared vulnerability. And so ultimately none of us are alone but you feel like it's safer to be alone because so many other people have let you down. And I wanna be clear with this one that any sort of attachment related issue, which almost all of these are, requires

Natalie (20:21)
a secure attachment to self to work through. Often we need to feel like we have our own back more than we need to get reassurance from other people. There's actually some interesting research that's come out about people who have kind of like an anxious or an avoidant or disorganized attachment style that reach out for reassurance from their partner, for example.

Natalie (20:46)
And that reassurance makes them feel better for like 10 minutes or a couple hours, but then it dissipates really fast. And so with a lot of these mechanisms, we're gonna be really working through how to build that secure attachment for yourself to make you feel like you have your own back, which is how these somatic practices for each one of these complexes is designed. but this one can be a little bit unique in the way that it's really, really isolating.

Natalie (21:16)
From community connection, shared vulnerability, and like camaraderie in a painful experience, which we need to grieve in community. We need to like have these experiences by processing in community. And so the emotional profile for this complex is often lonely, isolated. There's this is often a very avoidant attachment style with this one. and then the sensation profile is like untethered.

Natalie (21:42)
hollow, empty. but when I say untethered, I almost imagine like an astronaut floating in space without a cord, right? and it's like imagine how terrifying that would be. That's kind of like the sensation profile of this complex.

Natalie (21:58)
Those are all of the complexes that we have for this workshop. And I'm gonna take the screen down so that you can see me again. And I would love to just take a big deep breath together. So I want you to take a big deep breath in through your nose and I want you to blow out through your mouth like you're blowing out a candle. And we're gonna do three of those together. So big deep breath in through your nose.

Natalie (22:22)
And exhale.

Natalie (22:26)
Big deep breath in through your nose.

Natalie (22:30)
And exhale.

Natalie (22:35)
And a big deep breath into your nose.

Natalie (22:39)
And exhale release.

Natalie (22:44)
And before I get into our like collective guided somatic exercise, I'm gonna take you through something in this workshop. I wanna go through just a little bit of some of the stuff in the workbook. I'm not gonna read like everything to you from the workbook, but I do wanna talk about in the workbook, each complex has its own somatic exercise.

Natalie (23:07)
And again, this workshop is generalized. So if you're reading through these and you're like, I really resonate with a trouble complex, but I feel like the somatic practice for the burden complex would actually help me more after I've answered some of the exploration questions, go with that. The real core of somatic work is that you're listening to your body and what your body and your brain are telling you more than like.

Natalie (23:35)
Doing it right. So if you're looking at some of this and you're like, I actually think this one resonates for me more, please go with that. like I said in the beginning, there's no right or wrong way to engage with this material. And so it's really about what's gonna feel helpful for you. but for the for each complex, there are two exploration questions in the workbook.

Natalie (24:01)
And so I call them exploration questions because you can explore them in whatever way you want. You could talk to yourself out loud on a walk, you could journal, you could make art around it, you could talk to a friend or a therapist about it. There's really no wrong way to engage with those questions, but I like to call them exploration questions instead of journal prompts because then everybody feels like they have to journal about them and you don't. If journaling isn't your thing, then like great, you can do this in a completely different way.

Natalie (24:28)
But I want to go through the somatic practice for each one of these just really quickly. So for the Justice Complex, we have a shoulder shrug exercise. And so you're gonna be really this this one is meant to help you experience the idea of releasing right and wrong. And so tensing and releasing, tensing and releasing, kind of going back and forth is what we call like a pendulation experience, a version of it.

Natalie (24:54)
and so noticing the extremes of them and then focusing your attention on neutrality. So that's the exercise for the justice complex. For the trouble complex, I have a tension release shake exercise. So you're this one is designed to really help you explore freedom to move because this complex often feels so stuck and so rigid and so like kept. There's no right way to go, right? Like there's no right way to move. And so this exercise is really.

Natalie (25:23)
To help you kind of experience a little bit more freedom in your body. And then for the burden complex, I have a physical support exercise. And so this is designed for you to be present with how it feels to be physically supported as you move into challenging yourself to allowing yourself to be supported by others, right? And so with all of these, what we're doing is we're giving you a physical experience of something that you're trying to work through emotionally.

Natalie (25:52)
And so with this complex, the the point is really for you to experience physical support so that you can start to ask for emotional support from other people.

Natalie (26:02)
the body scan exercise is the one we have for the pleasure complex. And again, this is designed to help you experience pleasure in your body in a really gentle way. And then for the alien complex, we have an orienting practice, and this is meant to help you start connecting with the world around you instead of feeling so disconnected in a really gentle way. And getting consistent with these, is really going to be super helpful.

Natalie (26:29)
And for this alien complex, like getting consistent with it and then starting to explore it in relationships. So orienting towards relationships that feel good and exploring why they feel good and things like that is really what we want to do here. So, with all of that, we are going to go into a guided somatic exercise.

Natalie (26:51)
So you can do this guided somatic exercise in whatever way feels best for your body. That could be laying down, that could be sitting in your chair, that could be really any way that your body feels comfortable right now. But I'm gonna recommend that you sit or lay for this for this exercise. And so

Natalie (27:16)
We're gonna begin, and I'm gonna invite you to close your eyes. And if closing your eyes doesn't feel safe, I want you to just soften your gaze like down in front of you, or if you're laying down, you could soften your gaze up at the ceiling. And we're gonna start with three deep breaths, the same way we took a deep breath earlier. So in through your nose and then out through your mouth, like you're blowing out a candle. So big deep breath in through your nose. And exhale, release.

Natalie (27:47)
Big deep breath in through your nose.

Natalie (27:52)
And exhale release.

Natalie (27:56)
And one more big deep breath into your nose.

Natalie (28:01)
And exhale release.

Natalie (28:05)
And I want you to just bring your awareness from your mind down into your body.

Natalie (28:12)
And I want you to place, like I want you to hook your thumbs together and place your hands on your chest kind of like a butterfly. And you can open your eyes for a moment and look at me if you need to see what I'm talking about. And we're gonna tap back and forth like this as we go through this. And if this doesn't feel comfortable, you can also tap back and forth on your thighs. Close your eyes again.

Natalie (28:42)
And we're just gonna go left, right, left, right. There's no pace that's correct. So I want you to start tapping. And I want you to bring up the version of you that feels like it's operating in one of these complexes. And maybe you can feel that as a sensation in your body somewhere, maybe like a tightness in your chest or a bracing for impact in your muscles.

Natalie (29:11)
Maybe you're a more visual person and you're seeing a version of yourself, or you're seeing a younger version of yourself, or a color, or a texture, or maybe you're hearing a sound.

Natalie (29:28)
Pulling this up can come to you in a lot of different ways and there's no like right or wrong way to do that.

Natalie (29:39)
I want you to just focus on one complex. If you resonated with more than one complex, that's fine. But for the purpose of this exercise, I want you to just focus on one.

Natalie (29:54)
What does this version of yourself feel like in your body?

Natalie (30:00)
What sensations are present?

Natalie (30:04)
Is there a hollowness or a heaviness or an anxiety or like a buzzing or a tingling? A numbness?

Natalie (30:19)
And if at any point any of this feels like it's too overwhelming, I want you to focus on all of the places where your body is supported.

Natalie (30:30)
Couch on your back, your feet on the ground and come back if and when you're ready.

Natalie (30:41)
So as you're sitting with this complex.

Natalie (30:47)
Where is it located in your body? Where are you experiencing sensation?

Natalie (30:57)
Is there an image with this complex?

Natalie (31:02)
Colour, a texture, a sound.

Natalie (31:07)
Breathing in, breathing out.

Natalie (31:15)
Maybe there's an age related to this complex.

Natalie (31:27)
Keep tapping gently unless you've organically stopped and that feels better for you.

Natalie (31:38)
Breathing in. Breathing out.

Natalie (31:44)
We're just here to briefly make contact with this part of you.

Natalie (31:50)
Noticing where they are located in your body, what sensations they are experiencing.

Natalie (32:01)
And if there's anything that they have to share with you about how they'd like to be supported.

Natalie (32:13)
Maybe there's thoughts or words or songs.

Natalie (32:21)
Breathing in. Breathing out.

Natalie (32:37)
Keep tapping for just another minute. We're gonna stay here just noticing what this complex is experiencing in the body. What kind of messages it has to share with you about what its experience is like and how it might like to be supported.

Natalie (33:04)
What do they have to tell you about how you can support them?

Natalie (33:11)
Breathing in.

Natalie (33:15)
Breathing out.

Natalie (33:31)
We're gonna take a big deep breath together and through the nose.

Natalie (33:36)
And out through the mouth like you're blowing out a candle.

Natalie (33:46)
And I want you to pay attention to all the places, shift your awareness to all the places where your body is supported right now. Your back on the chair, your legs on the couch, your feet flat on the ground.

Natalie (34:05)
Noticing physical support, maybe you want to place a hand somewhere where there's a lot of like emotional intensity. Maybe your body wants to move or stretch, or you want to do like a self-massage on your shoulders, like really anything that your body is asking for in this moment, do that.

Natalie (34:32)
Can even take a sip of water if you need to.

Natalie (34:45)
Taking one more big deep breath together, big deep breath in through the nose.

Natalie (34:52)
And exhale release.

Natalie (34:57)
I want you to take a super slow transition. Just wiggle fingers and toes or kind of stretch and move a little bit. Take a slow transition back into the room. If you're feeling particularly overwhelmed, you can kind of orient yourself to the room by looking around and naming objects and their color. Kind of just noticing your environment.

Natalie (35:30)
Breathing in, breathing out.

Natalie (35:38)
And with that, I wanna say thank you so much for coming to the Complexity of Trauma Workshop. I hope that this was so helpful to you and there are resources in your course portal that can help you take some of this a little bit deeper.

Natalie (35:55)
your workbook is where I would invite you to start for this workshop. And then there are additional resources in there to help you navigate other parts of maybe the somatic piece or the attachment piece, things like that. And so again, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for trusting me to learn from and to grow with. And I hope that this provided you with a new perspective that can help you heal and grow on your trauma recovery journey. Bye.

Natalie (36:25)
Thank you so much.