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Rita Black: [00:00:00] So many of us walk through life carrying pain we can’t quite name. And today’s episode shines a gentle light on a truth most people never hear. PTSD isn’t a personality flaw, it’s a brain injury. Whether it grew from one major trauma or the slow echo effect of years of gaslighting, chaos, or neglect, that stuck fight, flight, freeze response can leave us anxious, exhausted, and cut off from our own body.

Rita Black: When the brain is stuck on high alert, it changes everything. Our hunger cues, even our gut health, often leading to emotional eating and a deep sense of self shame and self blame that we absolutely do not deserve. In this powerful conversation with Joanne Williams, PTSD expert, we explore simple science back tools that help calm the nervous [00:01:00] system and reconnect us with our inner wisdom.

Rita Black: You’ll learn the four eight breathing technique, a rapid vagus nerve reset you can use anytime, as well as Joanne’s three brains framework, gut, heart, and head for shifting out of reactivity and into conscious choice. We even touch on how our pets can become intuitive partners in healing. If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t trust your body or why you turn to food when stress is high, this episode offers both clarity and hope and a path to get back to yourself.

Rita Black: So take a deep breath. And come on in.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn’t start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight [00:02:00] struggle is mental. That’s right. The key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I’m Rita Black. I’m a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, bestselling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process.

Rita Black: And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery. I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs. I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years.

Rita Black: Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I’ll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need, not only to achieve your ideal [00:03:00] weight, but to stay there long term and live your best life.

Rita Black: Sound good? Let’s get started.

Rita Black: Hello? Hello? Hello. I hope you are loving the holiday season this year is loving a out there word for the holiday season. I am personally trying to stay grounded with exercise and healthy eating. But this is the time when all of that can fly out the window and we’ll say to ourselves, I’ll refocus after the holiday.

Rita Black: And I am here to say, don’t buy into that voice my friend. That is a voice that doesn’t care about how you feel in the morning after eating that pound of peppermint bark that your neighbor dropped off, or that is a voice that could care less. About what you fit [00:04:00] into on January 1st. That voice just wants you to give into the ghost of holidays past and the food memories and not the food realities, or even your body’s reality.

Rita Black: So thank that voice for sharing. Thank you. Thank you for that thought and just stay grounded in the you today and coming to January 1st where you can feel healthy and light. And if you haven’t checked out my masterclass, contrary to popular thought, it’s a great time to do meaning it’s a great time.

Rita Black: People are like, why would I worry about weight during December? Because when you stay connected with yourself through the holidays, you actually enjoy the holidays more, rather than being in food fog or having all that food noise run. Your holidays. My masterclass link is www.shiftweightmastery.com/free.

Rita Black: [00:05:00] It’s a powerful class in how to shift your mindset to move past those mental roadblocks that keep us struggling. And there’s also a free weight release hypnosis session, so come get light and aligned before the holidays. And as the season heats up, many of us are experiencing feelings that are surfacing holidays can bring joy, it can bring a lot of pain and memories.

Rita Black: And so I’m excited to have as our guest today, Joanne Williams, who is A-P-T-S-D expert, and I think you’ll love what she has to share with some very tactical tools you can take away today and use over the holidays when you feel anxiety. Triggers and emotions springing to the surface. Joan S. Williams is a licensed social worker.

Rita Black: With over 30 years of experience, she has become recognized as an expert helping individuals navigate the often overlooked ways. PTSD [00:06:00] impacts daily life from panic attacks and hypervigilance to relationships, parenting, and even weight and body trust. She helps people reclaim safety, calm, and confidence in their bodies and minds using practical tools.

Rita Black: Neuroscience and mindfulness in private sessions. Joanne specializes in guiding clients through the a DA process to use their own dog as a psychiatric service dog for therapeutic support and treatment for anxiety and trauma. Her personal experiences growing up in a chaotic traumatic household fuels her compassion and insight, allowing her to connect deeply with clients who have lived through complex trauma.

Rita Black: Joanne is also a podcast host on anxiety simplified speaker and author dedicated. To translating clinical [00:07:00] knowledge into practical, everyday tools for healing and empowerment, and just FYI. As a future plug, I will be on Joanne’s podcast on January 5th, anxiety simplified podcast number 2 85. And now it’s my honor to introduce Joanne Williams.

Rita Black: Welcome Joanne to the Thin Thinking Podcast. I am so excited to have you on and have this conversation with you today.

Joanne Williams: Oh, thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Rita Black: Yeah. So I know a lot of our listeners are probably very interested in your work because you deal with trauma and PTSD, and I know some of our listeners maybe don’t even know what the definition of that, but maybe start by what fascinated you, like how did you get into this field of working with PTSD?

Rita Black: Yeah,

Joanne Williams: I’ll have to share that. I [00:08:00] just feel like you do what, in my personal experience really started in a chaotic household that my brother had outta control attention deficit disorder, and my parents had no parenting skills whatsoever and how to confront that. So I was a younger sibling of his and got the brunt of his ways of controlling things.

Joanne Williams: And, but it really did allow me to connect on a more compassionate level with deeper insights into the complex nature of trauma. And that’s why I do have the podcast anxiety simplified and talk about ways to manage this and PTSD recovery, because I do not feel that it’s a well understood journey of P-P-T-S-D recovery.

Joanne Williams: And so I do like to clarify that. A little bit. That’s okay.

Rita Black: Yeah. What is PTSD really like? What would you say? Yeah. ’cause I think it’s a big, we [00:09:00] use, we hear it all the time now. Yeah. But it’s thrown around with not much understanding.

Joanne Williams: I agree. And post-traumatic. Stress disorder as PTSD, but I see it, or I even deal with almost every one of my clients and they come in and, they might say something, oh yeah, my father beat me or something, there wasn’t blood and I wasn’t on the floor and it wasn’t that bad.

Joanne Williams: Or there was sexual abuse, you didn’t penetrate. So it’s all, it’s not that bad. I hear that minimization all the time and how that affects our sense of self, the way we look at life, whether we can trust our own intuition. And I consider it a brain injury because when the brain gets this.

Joanne Williams: Alert that something has happened that could hurt me, kill me, or in the long run, it turns on the amygdala, the part of the brain for alert, fight, fight, freeze. It does [00:10:00] not shut off unless we cognitively with the upper part of our brain shut it off. And that’s what we don’t get the tools to know how to do that, right?

Joanne Williams: And so that what if I call it the what if I could do this? Oh, something bad’s gonna happen. It’s always predicting the brain is always predicting a possibility of something in the future happening that might hurt us. So when that’s going wild or having its way with us, I call it, we just don’t realize those kinds of effects.

Joanne Williams: And I think the other piece that I like to look at is also the ripple effect of traumatic experiences, not only on the individual but the family with sh. School shootings with community shootings and parades. I feel like for every one person that might been directly affected, there’s 10 people around them, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles that are also affected by this.

Joanne Williams: So I think as a [00:11:00] community, we are now having more and more effects from even one event that has happened.

Rita Black: Yes. I couldn’t agree with you more and you and it seems that with everything going on right now, we’re just all holding a lot and it’s reverberating, right? Yes. Yeah, that’s

Joanne Williams: exactly, and that’s why I go into the second step that I’ve coined the echo effect because it adds additional layers.

Joanne Williams: This understanding, it isn’t just about one catastrophic event that happens that leads to PTSD. It’s often the accumulation of smaller ones. Smaller events, traumas or even, left at the store or abandonment by a, the breakup that somebody was abusive or gaslighting you but didn’t even know.

Joanne Williams: But these layers of stress, hormones, tension and emotional pain, until the body goes, I can no longer [00:12:00] handle this. I can’t recover between these episodes of these things, even loss and grief. And then that moment of the last drop, it breaks the system’s ability to cope and it becomes a full blown PTSD syndrome that emerges.

Joanne Williams: And the way I see it. When I explain this to clients, I see that clients with PTSD, there’s really four points to this, or four pillars that I look at. There’s anxiety, I don’t know what might happen. Bad always and over. Easily overwhelmed or gone into depression itself. Trust issues with themselves or others.

Joanne Williams: And the coping is avoidance. I’ll pull the covers over my head and make believe this really didn’t happen and let’s don’t look at it because it’s too painful to look at. And especially if it happens before age 12, a child doesn’t even have the cognitive abilities yet to logically understand.

Joanne Williams: So till [00:13:00] they’re even 12 to 25. So they’re using their imagination or magical thinking about what happened and they can’t make sense. It must’ve been me, right? It must’ve been, I blame me. I don’t know who else. These people are big people. They know everything. So it’s complicated in that sense. And there’s actually 16 different symptoms.

Rita Black: Oh my goodness. In

Joanne Williams: PTSD. Yeah.

So people, can I just ask you, so people come to you and they may have been suffering from PTSD for years, for decades, and not realize that they have it. No. But you are able to from the symptoms that you’re maybe gonna share with us say oh PTSD.

Joanne Williams: Yes. And I don’t just guess this, we have a diagnostic manual, right?

Joanne Williams: It’s called the DSM five. And so I go by these symptoms and that’s where I get these from. I don’t just, and what even drives me crazier is people may be in therapy. And I said have [00:14:00] you talked to your therapist about? No. Did they ever bring it up? Nope. And so that’s one of the reasons I like to talk about this because I like a client not to be blaming themselves.

Joanne Williams: ’cause that’s one of the symptoms. It turns into self abuse.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Joanne Williams: And you can imagine that on weight and blaming sha. Oh yeah. That

health abuse is huge.

Joanne Williams: Yeah, but I wanna take that off them because people often say, or I say, this is not your personality.

Joanne Williams: This is because something happened to you.

Joanne Williams: You’ve internalized it and now expressing it like it is. Like for instance, I’ll ask, do people say to you, you are always controlling things or you’re a controlling person and probably at least 90. Oh yeah. All the time. I’m like, that’s to keep you safe.

Rita Black: That’s

Joanne Williams: the reason why you do this. So to take it off them as their [00:15:00] personality and put it on that something happened to them so they can take it off themselves and look at this differently.

Joanne Williams: It’s the accumulation of these things that have happened through time.

So they develop this sort of hyper vigilance or need to control that’s.

Joanne Williams: That’s one of the reactivities of these four sections that can happen because of whatever happened on the outside. Yeah. Now I call it a hypervigilant, his head on a swivel all the time looking around like something might be happening.

Joanne Williams: So I have to control everything from the outside because I can’t trust. Myself and my intuition on the inside. But there is other ones that I think also people don’t realize, even dreams, distressing dreams.

Rita Black: Is

Joanne Williams: our subconscious way to process this. And if you have, and there’re metaphors and if you haven’t learned ways to just look at [00:16:00] this and not think it’s some weird thing, and I’m a weirdo for having these, no.

Joanne Williams: It’s your brain trying to help you master this by looking at it in a metaphoric ways so you can process this. Let it go and you don’t have to continue this kind of, again, that reactivity or re-experiencing things to master it or avoid it.

Rita Black: Yeah, because

Joanne Williams: I feel like that’s what happens in most. I really feel for soldiers that, and I think that’s what most people think, that’s the only ones that would have PTSD is returning veterans, but their avoidance.

Joanne Williams: Keeps them from ever dealing with it ’cause they’re macho or they don’t have to, or don’t have any feelings and I don’t wanna, or whatever. And that’s why I think the suicide rate is so high. They just have never, that pain is too great. I don’t have an outlet and I don’t know how to express this in any way.

Joanne Williams: So because I’ve avoided [00:17:00] it, then it compounds even worse because the relationship is worse. My kids aren’t talking to me and then the family thinks I’m a weirdo. It just, again, it just compounds these things. And I think again, oh, that’s just the way I am. I really want them to hear anybody out there listening, no, this is not your personality, this is because something has happened to you and it creates maybe a reactivity irritable mood.

Joanne Williams: That’s the anxiety. Or self abuse. Reckless, destructive behaviors. And that could be drinking, dragging. Overeating. Any kind of addiction kind of thing to punish themselves because again, they’re thinking I’m just such a piece of crap, it doesn’t matter anymore, and I don’t want them to hear that this is an effect that’s happened to you and there are ways to deal with this.

Something that you were mentioning or maybe you can share with our listeners [00:18:00] about how the PTSD can affect the weight and hunger. Yeah. I think they might be very interested in your insights into that.

Joanne Williams: Absolutely. And this will be personal in that sense too, because I and I didn’t understand it, I don’t think most people understand how it scrambles your hunger cues.

Joanne Williams: And it disrupts metabolism because of adrenaline. And cortisol is her or her per pulsing, sorry, pulsing through your system. When you have a fight and flight, when this alert goes off, your body is made to survive. And so it goes into this fight or flight and you’re looking around for things that are happening.

Joanne Williams: They’re not. But our old stories tell us they might in your brain, and that can lead to these cycles of over overeating undereating because of depression, our gut issues. Because so much cortisol and adrenaline is going through, or maybe to comfort, to soothe [00:19:00] yourself because this can be maddening.

Joanne Williams: And really the bottom line is there is an internal compass that we can listen to about hunger, energy, safety. But this PTSD causes false perspectives on life or false. Way that we’re looking at life and stories that we’ve told ourselves. And so we don’t know how to get out of them. And our brain is actually tricking us into protection mode.

Joanne Williams: That are false realities or perceptions that working against our own efforts. And we do not realize, ’cause we’re blaming ourselves, we’re right. This doesn’t work for me. I’m a victim thinking.

So it’s creating a world that they get that can easily get triggered and they get triggered back into the story, triggered back into the behavior to soothe and comfort.

And then that cortisol adrenaline is going through the body, maybe disrupting hunger cues. [00:20:00] You mentioned the gut gut biome maybe being impacted by Absolutely. Chemical imbalances and stress.

Joanne Williams: I think the worst one is you lose your trust. In your own body. Yes. Because the PTSD cuts eye spine cuts off our communication between our head and our body.

Joanne Williams: Yeah. And it’s all in our head. The overthinking and the worry and the stress and the what’s what ifs. And so we gotta connect and we lost that trust or lost even with connection to our body. And to our gut. We are left pretty helpless in many ways. Sure. And numbing is one of the symptoms disa, I call the disassociation or un, it is like the big avoid.

Joanne Williams: I’ll just stay out here in la land, or I’ll disassociate, I’ll get outta my body.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Joanne Williams: To avoid these feelings that I’ve created in my [00:21:00] mind that are so painful I cannot deal with. And I’m afraid that therapist, all they wanna do is talk about the horrible thing that happened to me and bring it all up and it’s gonna make me feel worse.

Joanne Williams: And that’s just not the way it has to be. I really want people to hear there are skills you can learn to manage things in the moment. Just breathing the four and eight breathing that will get you out of the worry loop, reset you back to grounded so you can build a new story. It really can start right there.

Joanne Williams: And it provides, it’s the vagus nerve getting stim. It is the longest nerve from our gut to our brain that is for the exact purpose to calm. You say four eight breathing. Can you describe what that is for our listeners? Yes, I would love to. I do it with every single client [00:22:00] I have because it is so effective and all it is, and these are medical researchers that we’re really looking for a combination inhale and exhale that would stimulate the vagus nerve.

Joanne Williams: And when it gets stimulated, it will send a calming chemical acetylcholine into every major organ. And it can relax you in minutes.

Rita Black: And

Joanne Williams: all it is breathing in through your nose to the count. And I like people to do the 1, 2, 3, 4, and count out 8, 7, 6 out their mouth till eight and count the 1, 2, 3, 4 in your nose and count eight and it’s hypnotic.

Joanne Williams: And I know you there. And when you count 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, it becomes a little hypnotic. I could see, get into a trend and you can calm yourself.

Joanne Williams: Yes. In minutes you’ll feel, and I ask people feel what it feels like before. And then after you see their shoulders come down, you see the stress. You can actually literally.

Joanne Williams: See [00:23:00] what the effects are of doing this for five rounds. One minute they recommended doing it 10 rounds or two minutes, three times a day. And I say when you eat morning, noon, and night. So it is for digestion. It will calm the digestion system as you start with this or before you go to bed, it’s proven to help you sleep, lower heart rate, blood pressure, or even concentration, lower anxiety and depression symptoms.

Joanne Williams: So it has been a key I find to PTSD for moments also. So if you get start getting triggered by something I use, do I? I certify people to use their dogs as alert dogs because dogs will a lot of times notice even before you do, wow, that your anxiety is starting to increase or your breathing. That’s another one with P ts D, the breathing, if you’re breathing through your mouth, breathe through your nose and out through your mouth.

Joanne Williams: You cannot get dizzy and faint if you’re breathing [00:24:00] into your nose and out through your mouth. But dogs notice, so I say use your dog as your alert dog to start doing your breathing so then you could calm yourself and reduce your own anxiety. So it’s a real powerful way to start looking at ways to manage the PTSD symptoms.

What are the, so you talk about awareness, being aware of the trigger. Is that the first one of your kind steps to bring yourself into center and then noticing your thoughts? Absolutely. ’cause the thoughts stop the thoughts, start the emotional process of anxiety or whatever. But it’s the story you’re telling yourself.

Joanne Williams: Of, and I know you mentioned that in your book is rethink because it is what you’ve been telling yourself for years. And if you were a little kid and something traumatic happened to you, or it [00:25:00] could be to somebody else and you witnessed it or heard it. So it doesn’t even have to be directly, but if you notice that noises ah, put you into that fight or flight and I don’t know what to do.

Joanne Williams: Yeah. And start breathing, but look at what you’re thinking about any kind situation if you can in that moment. Yeah. There was yelling. So that means I’m gonna die or they’re gonna die, or I don’t know what to do. I don’t, I’m confused. So then you could say, that was thin. This is now the breathing will bring you back into the present.

Joanne Williams: Are you safe?

Rita Black: And look

Joanne Williams: around. Yes, I am actually safe right now so I can tell a new story. That was then, I was a little kid. I didn’t know what to do. I’m a big kid now. I can handle things. And it’s really important that we understand this from, also from a scientific place, because this is well-researched now.

Joanne Williams: Dr. Peter Levine started this. He’s a psych psychologist and he [00:26:00] de developed the somatic experience and then Dr. Bessel VanDerKolk. And he started looking at and wrote this book about understanding that this gets held in our body. And he, the book was, the Body Keeps This, the Score and Brain and Mind, body and Healing of Trauma.

Joanne Williams: And I think that was revolutionary for a lot of us understanding that yes, trauma actually gets held in our muscles or even the fascia of the muscles. And they’ve actually found the forniate breathing if you do it and expand your ribs. It, lets go of this trauma in the fascia. Oh wow.

Joanne Williams: That’s fantastic. It is. And then you can just feel and you could feel it. And this one is the only one I put a caution on. Usually you can do the four and eight, you don’t have to worry about it. But if you include expansion of the li [00:27:00] ribs as you breathe in and you contract kinda like cat and cow and yoga, yes.

Joanne Williams: As you breathe out and you breathe in, you can feel that. You can almost feel the release. So it’s, it is important. Just notice, slow it down if you feel emotions flooding in at all. Notice it’s not happening now. It’s probably what happened yesterday. So just breathe through it. You’re gonna be fine.

Joanne Williams: Maybe stop the whole expansion and contraction and just breathe normally and just notice what happened. Journal it, write it down, look at how you are thinking about it and how you can write a new story about it.

I love that. And I think that it is. Powerful to remind yourself you’re safe. I think that is such a mantra to be repeated over and over again.

It’s interesting about the fascia, fascia to feel it. Yeah.

Joanne Williams: And I wanna say it till you feel it Uhhuh.

Okay. Because that’s a

Joanne Williams: disconnection. I can think, oh, I’m [00:28:00] safe. And I’m flapping my hands. Yeah. But it’s intellectual.

It isn’t. You aren’t embodying it.

Joanne Williams: No,

you’re not.

You’ve gotta get to I really am. I am. I’m really safe.

Rita Black: Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I like that. And I, and I know you were gonna talk about the gut too. I wanna just stick on fascia for a second. Sure. Because I find that really interesting. I just learned, fascia is such a kind of new frontier for a lot of people.

’cause we’re. It’s coming to the forefront of, I have a, I call it my older lady workout class. And my instructor is very into fascia and she was saying, and I found this very interesting, when you get up in the morning and you’re stiff, it’s not your muscles that are stiff, it’s your fascia has become depleted of oxygen and blood.

And so that when you start breathing, which is interesting ’cause you’re connecting the breath to the fascia that it, you start to loosen up pretty much right away. I, so that is interesting, and I [00:29:00] could imagine if you are going into a stress response that your fascia might get depleted of the oxygen too, and that might open you up.

And when you’re expanding your diaphragm, like you were exper Yes. That would be very powerful. And it puts you into a different state. I just went to Tony Robbins Unleash Your Power. Oh, yes. A month and a half ago, and he was talking about that as well. The breath. Yes. And just being like that breath and the state and having that state of con like you’re saying that creating that story that makes you feel confident or not confident, but safe.

Joanne Williams: Safe.

Yeah.

Joanne Williams: That’s what everybody with PTSD wants to feel is safe. Yeah. And that’s what the brain is telling you. You are not Yeah. ’cause of what happened.

It, yeah.

Joanne Williams: And this is the three brains that I would love to go into because our, yeah, our brain is always overthinking. [00:30:00] And with anybody with anxiety, that’s what they’re gonna tell you.

Joanne Williams: Oh, I can’t get out. I call it a thinking loop or a fear loop. I can’t get out. I can’t get out of this. And that’s what causing the anxiety. I call it the negative what ifs. And what if I do that? I, and then something instead of, I want them to go into positive possibilities. What if something positive happens?

Joanne Williams: What if something you meet the greatest person in the world? Oh, what? So it’s a shifting of this overthinking into putting it in a positive possibility instead of a negative What if, so our brain is always going to go to, it can go to past and future of what happened.

Rita Black: And.

Joanne Williams: Trying to predict the possibilities of something might happen that will harm us.

Joanne Williams: That’s its goal, that’s its issues. But our heart, we put the three brains together. The heart is also intuitive in that way, that it’s all about others. I [00:31:00] care. I’m supposed to be a good girl and this is what it’s supposed to be. Or caring for others. The gut is the third brain they’re talking about now and understanding it’s all about me.

Joanne Williams: What about me? And think about that for food, I want this, I want that. I don’t care. I’m deprived. I need this. But we need to put all three together.

Rita Black: Is

Joanne Williams: what I feel like is the real goal here. Yes. I think in saying no, let’s talk about a people pleaser. That’s an easy one to understand. A lot of times the people pleaser, oh, it’s all about the heart, right?

Joanne Williams: I’m thinking about others. I don’t wanna let them down. I don’t wanna disappoint them. Your gut’s going, Hey, what about me? I don’t wanna go to that stupid party. I wanna stay home and sit down on the couch and read a book, right? But the guilts come in or something I should be doing from the brain, right?[00:32:00]

Joanne Williams: But if we listen to our gut first, and it’s all about you. Is it good for me to eat that thing or go to that party? And if your gut goes, I suppose it is, then we can go to our heart. Is it good for that person or that other?

Joanne Williams: Then we proceed. But if it’s not good for me, I don’t do it. If it’s not good for both, I don’t do it either.

Joanne Williams: And the brain is the one that’s instructing with the past and the future. Our gut and our heart does not have that. It only believes what the brain is telling it that it’s happening right now. So it thinks we are in a fight or flight. Okay. Prepare panic attacks, release, get ready to run and fight.

Joanne Williams: Or same with the gut. Let’s send in the army, to get steeled up and tighten up and then we’re ready for this. But if the brain you, if the gut’s gonna say to your heart, it’s okay, let’s do this. And the brain says, oh, alright, we are safe. All three will be [00:33:00] aligned and be able to move forward in a way that’s best for the whole.

Joanne Williams: Being because you’re listening to all three, not just the heart for others or just the gut for you, or letting the mind do what’s overthinking thing and not be in the past. Let’s be present so you can really be present. And the Forin eight breathing won’t bring you present. If you’re listening to your gut and your heart, and your brain, it’ll help you get out of that overthinking.

Oh, I love that. That’s and that’s a very powerful bottom, middle, upper. So you’re moving down and up. Yes.

Joanne Williams: Think about that for food.

Yeah.

Joanne Williams: And if you could understand what your gut’s physical. Gut biome now is big. Yeah. About that. We really need to pay attention to process foods, these packaged things.

Joanne Williams: I heard that the other day. We are eating 50% of their diet are packaged foods that are [00:34:00] overprocessed. So it’s not, it’s destroying our gut biome. It’s not doing anything for it. And so of course we’re deprived. Yeah. And we can need this or that. And they’re seeing sodas, sugar candies, and these overprocessing are causing more colon cancers.

Oh, now I bet.

Joanne Williams: And so we gotta build this gut biome in a way that is good for this body. And you talk about that, and looking at what is good. For us. But then put the heart, because the heart is, oh, I’ve gotta meet, feed my kids first. Mothers, women mostly. No, what about me first? Again, and then we can help others.

Joanne Williams: And so it’s a, it’s an interesting kind of combination if we can look more at ourselves, what our needs are first, because I don’t think we’re gonna have as much deprivation. What do you think if we looked at the gut, what is my gut or what is the best foods for this [00:35:00] body? I just don’t think we would choose the overprocessed that are addictive.

Joanne Williams: As much. Don’t you think we’d choose better foods? I think so. I

think we’re, when we are really present to our body Yeah. Then we choose a lot differently than if we’re reacting. Which, is often what happens when we’re making those decisions.

Joanne Williams: Do you think we’re also dealing with addictions?

Joanne Williams: Because I really wonder that if these processed foods, like they’ve shown some of the diet soda and things are absolutely addictive,

they are showing, there’s a great book that I have been recommending diets, drug drugs and dopamine written by Dr. David Kessler.

Rita Black: Yes.

E Kessler. Yes. And he is, has research that just backs up a lot of these ultra formulated foods have the same neuro response as cocaine.

We are [00:36:00] definitely a and when eaten in a repeated way, as we get into the habit, because these, he’s written a couple of books that I love because his first book, which was called The End of Overeating. Was all about the, they’re sitting in board rooms going sugar, fat, salt.

How do we formulate them in a way to create a new food that is gonna get people to buy even more of our product, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, for sure. That I think and I would imagine what you’re talking about that these ultra reformulated foods also impact our gut, probably impact serotonin production, break so that then we are, we get depressed more easily.

We get into a negative feeling spiral, so then we need to eat more ultra processed foods because it’s gonna mimic those things. It’s all of those things. So I do, I love this idea of getting present. I love the idea of [00:37:00] thinking. E even the slowing down of the thought process of going to the gut first, going, oh, wait a minute, this is a reaction.

Let me go to my gut, be in my body, let me go to my heart get in my center and then go to my head. Okay. Now I’ve just slowed down that process and now I am more present because there’s more of me here than just my old, like you said, reaction.

Joanne Williams: And think about if we just emotionally eat. Again, because I feel guilty or ashamed or I hate myself anyways and I’m never gonna get out of this and I have a victim thinking that, that critical voice or way we talk to ourself, it’s not truly nurturing

Rita Black: in any

Joanne Williams: way, shape, or form. And I think that again is a PTS thing of self punishment in this. This happened, I must have had something to do with it. And so getting out of that kind of story that we’re telling ourself, which is really a pain story, which I see as addiction is covering [00:38:00] up the pain that I feel and I don’t care what kind of pain.

Joanne Williams: It’s emotional pain, physical pain, gut pain, thinking I can’t pain and get out of this in some way, or addiction, pain, oh lordy. That’s just seems is a never ending spiral downward. And why wouldn’t we eat? Or if it can be a safety and protection, I eat so people won’t see me. And they’ll see me as something that, that I’m not attractive anymore.

Joanne Williams: I don’t get the attention. So there’s so many levels of this and I really wanna encourage people to get help for this because I just do not see easily. This has taken me years and years of study degrees and then and working with clients to really see this whole profound echo effect that goes through and the ripple effect through our family.

Joanne Williams: So even if you’ve had some traumatic experiences, then your family does. [00:39:00] And your family may feel sorry for you. Maybe they baby you, maybe they give you everything or they abandon you and either is just as bad, but this is a compounding effect that. We can’t blame ourselves and we probably can’t get out ourselves out of this alone.

Joanne Williams: Because, and I think your hypnosis, but the only caution I would have there is there’s a lot of stuff in there that can come bubbling up and you know that even with that breathing with the fascia, because if it’s held in there and we’re releasing it, people don’t know what to do or have skills sometimes on, what do I do when I’m panicking?

Joanne Williams: Now I think it’s bad and instead of this is your body’s release, it is trying to help you. But I don’t see it. It’s trying to kill me. Oh my God. It’s trying, it’s just a lot of under re-understanding or re-patterning some of these old [00:40:00] beliefs that I know your book talks about too.

Joanne Williams: Or believing you can, limiting beliefs in that victimization that it’s possible. Yeah. Even to get out of this.

You mentioned earlier, which I was fascinated by that you can work with your own dog because I think a lot of our listeners have dogs, and I know that is no replacement for professional treatment, but I’m very curious about how, if we have a pet, how they can be trained to be.

’cause you obviously, I have a friend who trains dogs for blind people. She, it’s a two year process. It’s a very involved and I always think of service dogs as the same. Like these dogs are somewhat trained in being tuned into you. And maybe that’s a false idea. No. Can you talk about that a little?

Like just what a service dog is and then how you [00:41:00] could. Shift your own dog into a or pet into a service pet. Yeah, obviously you’re not gonna tell people how to actually do it, but what would be that transition?

Joanne Williams: It’s interesting that we’ve had actually three laws starting with the Fair Housing Act back in 1968, The Flying Law and then the Americans with Disabilities Law, or the a DAI think we know since 1990 we’ve had these laws on the books about service dogs, or it was emotional support for flying and still is similar for housing, but we’ve had these laws for a long time, over 50 years now.

Joanne Williams: And so there are laws to protect people with disabilities. And so we usually understand the disability like you’re talking about as physical blindness, hearing impaired or medical, but also in the A DA law or really all three laws, they’ve recognized emotional disability, psychological or psychiatric disabilities as a disability.[00:42:00]

Joanne Williams: And so I think that’s where. Or when the flying law changed in ni in 20 2020, they redefined and used the language from the Americans with Disabilities Act that it has to be a psychiatric service dog. They remained psychiatric service dog. It used to be just service dogs and emotional was already incorporated since then, 1990 or whatever it was.

Joanne Williams: So when they redefined it, I think that’s when more confusion actually even started. Oh, you, we always thought it had to be a medical thing to be a service dog. When they named it a psychiatric service, now they pulled it out from service dog umbrella, medical psychiatric service dog. And the training that you’re talking about for blindness or hearing impaired or blood sugar.

Joanne Williams: Truly the neither one, none of those three laws says you have to have a professional trainer or [00:43:00] training organization. Okay? You could train your own dog. I’m not sure I would want to train my own dog to take me across a busy street. I get it. I

certainly wouldn’t want my dog taking me across a busy street.

Joanne Williams: No. So we kinda understand there can be different levels of training,

right?

Joanne Williams: What I do when I certify or work with people for their psychiatric service doc, the a DA states, to be a trained service dog or psychiatric service doc, they must, your dog must recognize, respond, and reduce psychological symptoms consistently.

Joanne Williams: Okay? So that’s what I certify as I certify the symptoms. It’s usually anxiety, panic, PTSD, depression generally. It can be social anxiety or things like that. But what the dog has to do. Like I said earlier about, they may recognize before you have a panic attack, your breathing starts to change. Or your mental state, you started getting anxious.

Joanne Williams: So that’s the recognizing that the dog is [00:44:00] recognizing response by coming over. Maybe they paw at you, maybe they look up my dog stairs, he doesn’t stare at me and it’s this weird, oh my goodness. You can’t ignore, it’s like laser beams at you. But then, or some dogs will jump in your lap to apply pressure therapy.

Joanne Williams: So that is the response that reduces the anxiety or the psychological symptoms. So that can, a psychiatric service I recognize, respond, and reduce. So they can fly with you on your plane. If they’re small, they can be in your lap the whole time. No fees be in housing, no pet housing for no fees or deposits or go in all public places as a service dog.

Wow. That’s cool. I didn’t know about the

Joanne Williams: pressure thing and I’m telling you for PTSD, it is probably the simplest first step because we know our dogs help us. We know that. And the difference is they have to recognize it and help us. Not like for depression, that they don’t get [00:45:00] outta bed. It can’t be, the dog comes to go pee.

Joanne Williams: I get up because I gotta go. It’s gotta be, the dog recognizes they got different behaviors and comes over and helps that person say, get up. It’s not about the dog, it’s about the person. So that’s the differential. A lot of times they’re no longer pets. They are service dogs that are doing a task that they’re trained to do.

Joanne Williams: I think the other piece that’s really confusing. They have to be behaviorally trained and you can do that, or you can go to PetSmart or get a professional to do that. But they have to be, behaving. They can’t be biting people or lunging, jumping or being aggressive in any way. They do have to be able to do that, but it’s not about just the behavioral training or emotional support.

Joanne Williams: Animals had to be behaviorally trained, but it’s more they’re recognizing and responding to psychological symptoms. And PTSD, I just cannot tell you how much help, and we used to use the word comfort for emotional [00:46:00] support. We can’t use that anymore, but that’s exactly what these dogs do. They bring down the anxiety so they can go into the crowded store or a crowded event and, or maybe it’s the art show, and be able to do that and feel like they’re not experiencing such high anxiety.

Joanne Williams: They avoid it.

Wow. That’s amazing. Yeah. That makes total sense. What are some affirmations that you could share about our, if a listener was wanting to start to connect with their body a little. Oh, I

Joanne Williams: love that. That is the first step, because, or recognizing that you are cut off Yeah. From your head to your body.

Joanne Williams: Yeah. And that’s just what happens with this, with PTSD. But I’m gonna say, start slowly with this, because especially if, if you wanna try some of this yourself, you can start with affirmations, but I say find a a therapist that is qualified in PTS [00:47:00] understand these effects. Use the breathing that will start the connection.

Joanne Williams: And then you can, stretch that a little bit in events or whatever, do the breathing first. But always know that your brain’s gonna go to safety first. Because what if I do this? I’m gonna be embarrassed or they’re going to think I’m stupid, or all these crazy thoughts that we have.

Joanne Williams: That’s what we do to ourselves. So maybe start with, I like putting my hand on my heart. Me too. That’s a connector. I love that. Right there, yeah. Even for gratitude or appreciation, if you just start with your, a hand in your heart or your gut. I actually have a technique about this but you can say to yourself, am I safe in this situation right now?

Joanne Williams: Look around and tell your brain, yeah, my, I am safe right now. Look around people are how happy and joyful, and your brain’s gonna Yeah. But brain, we are safe right now. We are. Okay. But you gotta feel it. [00:48:00] And that breathing will help you get out of those loops and bring you into. Okay, I can handle this.

Joanne Williams: And I would like them to think back in a situation, especially if you’re a mother, that you are a father, that you have handled a million of these. So effectively before we forget how effective we can handle things. But as parents, we do this all the time and we don’t even think about it. If you’re a mama bear a papa bear, you are gonna handle it no matter what.

Joanne Williams: I want you to have that same conviction about yourself. I got this, feel it. I can do this. I can handle whatever comes. I get, a lot of times people with flying they’re really afraid they’re gonna die or the planes gonna crash. Yeah. That’s a huge one. And that’s, dogs will comfort you. But I wanna say have.

Joanne Williams: Have you really thought this through in the sense that, have you been in a crash? Because [00:49:00] most people survive, so there’s the thinking. If you can go to the thinking that, yeah, most people walk away. It’s amazing. Nowadays your guts actually saying, all right, but what about me? Get close to the exit.

Joanne Williams: Then. Anxiety is always to get prepared, so maybe you need to sit in a row that’s closest, count the numbers to it and so you can prepare. I am safe no matter what happens. Maybe it’s trying to tell you don’t have a will. You haven’t prepared, get prepared then. Then you get to practice letting go.

Joanne Williams: I’ve done it all. Now I have to say, I’ve done everything I can now, if I, this is the question, this is what I had to do, then if you don’t, if you continue with what I call self-abusive thinking, then you’re gonna get self-abuse. Are you ready to let this go and know you’re safe and you’re calm? So sometimes you just have to work this through with your brain, your heart, and your gut to [00:50:00] feel it, that I am safe no matter what, or I’m ready to go.

Joanne Williams: I don’t have the timing on any of this, and I have to believe and trust myself that if it’s time or I’m ready to let go of the self abusive thinking and be okay in the moment.

Beautiful. I love that and I love the way you you know, with, in our shift community, we have what we call our inner coach, and it sounds like this powerful part of you is that inner coach working with that scared child.

Yeah. Within

Joanne Williams: absolutely. And

that, and we

Joanne Williams: all have that.

We do. Yeah. Yeah. So that is wonderful. I think you’ve given so many great ideas and definitely opened up a door probably for a lot of people to some ways for, what would you say is that first step, Joanne? I know. Find somebody, maybe find somebody but what would be, that’s would be if they had a panic attack tonight.

Like so [00:51:00] the four eight breathing that absolutely. Okay. The breathing, the breath.

Joanne Williams: Absolutely. Because, and remember. The body is doing this for you to survive. It’s not doing against you, it’s trying to help you. The symptoms of a panic attack is that your heart racing hot, sweaty, short of breath, maybe you’re breathing.

Joanne Williams: Those are to get you to fight. Or you are gonna be able to run. So your brain is telling you something that you’re gonna die or some version of that is why you have them. So if you change your thinking back and you’re doing the breathing, oh, what do I need to be thinking? It’s always the opposite, basically.

Joanne Williams: Okay, what you’re thinking, oh, I handled stuff like this before. I am fine. The breathing will get you out of that fear loop and into something else. And then you could tell that new story even in a panic attack. And no, your body’s not against you. It’s actually trying to release the anxiety that has grown till [00:52:00] it expands to.

Okay, John, thank you so much. I know you have tell us if a listener wants to know more about you and how you help people. I will be putting all of your links in our show notes, but please let us know. And I’m looking at a this is a listening podcast, but I’m looking at your beautiful book with a beautiful front cover.

Tell us about your, you have a book for children, which I love, and many of our listeners are moms or their grandmothers for that shy child, that child that has a hard time. Maybe tell us a little bit about your book and about how our listeners can find you.

Joanne Williams: Okay. It’s called superD Dog Helps Boys Fear, and you can find it on the Amazon under superD Dog Helps Boys Fears, but I wrote it because.

Joanne Williams: I wanted parents to know how to talk. If it’s a traumatized child, I didn’t go into that, but it can be the same kind of reactions. I’ve withdrawn, I’m shy. This may not be a [00:53:00] moody teenager anymore. If they’re having big behavioral changes withdrawing. This can be depression. I don’t want you to avoid it.

Joanne Williams: Suicide rates for kids are way too high, and it’s because we don’t know how to talk to ’em, I believe, and think, oh, it’s just a moody teenager. No, not necessarily. It might be, but you talk to ’em about ’em. I notice you are, leaving your room. You’re not leaving your room and you’re not doing with your friends and you’re not doing your homework and your grades are down.

Joanne Williams: Just talk about it. But this book was written for a younger child from six to 11 that is shy and fearing going out to play because the kids will laugh at him. And so it is a common fear sometimes of children. And so I avoid. Again, that avoidance keeps it going instead of being able to talk about it.

Joanne Williams: So he finds his dog, his little white, fluffy dog, and he plays with him, and that’s great. I don’t have to do anything now, but then his mom notices and tells [00:54:00] him to go, maybe we should talk to somebody, a counselor, or this teacher’s noticed, and he was an anxious child, a sensitive child. And so now they talk about it, and the parts of the book is about how to talk to a shi or sensitive child.

Joanne Williams: Opens the conversation and open-end questions. Or maybe it’s an angry child because depression can come off as angry. And we’re like, oh crap. Now what do I do? And it gives you ways to structure this conversation so they open up and it’s interactive. So it could be for a parent, it could be for a teacher, it could be for a mental health therapist.

Joanne Williams: It could be for a grandparent that doesn’t really know how to do this. And so it’s a way to relate to this shy boy and that we’ll talk about the shy boy instead of you in this story. Have you ever thought that way? Have you ever noticed when you’re shy or sad? And so it’s just an easy way and it’s cute and sensitive.

That’s wonderful. [00:55:00] I love that. Great idea for birthday presents or a holiday presents. Absolutely. And Joanne, how I know you live in Oregon in a wonderful place called Grant’s Pass. Which we were talking about a little earlier. And I know a lot of my clients. Live all over, but how can they connect with you?

Joanne Williams: Okay. Yes, I do have a website. Sup Super dog. Whoops. Service Dog pro. Service dog pro.com. And there’s a 32nd evaluation if you ever wanna consider using your own dog as a service dog. You could see more there. I do have a podcast, anxiety simplified going Beyond psychology that Rita will be on January 5th about Think then in her book.

Joanne Williams: So she’ll be on there. So anxiety simplified and all the major platforms you can find that. And I’m on social media and I do TikTok as well. I love TikTok. I love just seeing some quick little. Things about anxiety is [00:56:00] really my specialty. How to reduce it, how to reclaim your trust in yourself and confidence or PTSD recovery.

Joanne Williams: So I, you can find me in a lot of different places and I love to hear from people, so don’t hesitate. I have a free call they can find on my website and all kinds of places as well. If you have questions, just ask and we’re here to help.

I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much and we’ll look forward to having you back on the Thin Thinking Podcast.

Joanne Williams: I would love to anytime.

Thank you so much Joanne, and make sure you visit the show notes for the links to connect to her podcast and website and all the value she brings. And have a wonderful week and remember the key and probably the only key to unlocking the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it, especially during the holidays.

[00:57:00] I will be back here with you. Next week. Thanks for listening to the Thin Thinking Podcast. Did that episode go by way too fast for you? If so, and do you wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release? Head on over to www shift weight mastery.com. That’s www shift weight mastery.com, where you’ll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release tips, strategies, and more.

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