Healing from trauma while in a relationship with Karen Robinson

Episode Summary of “Healing from trauma while in a relationship with Karen Robinson”

Welcome to The Communicate & Connect Podcast, where we delve into the essentials of managing and healing from trauma while in a relationship. In episode 39, “Healing from Trauma While in a Relationship,” host Elizabeth Polinsky sit down with special guest Karen Robinson, a seasoned trauma recovery expert. Karen brings a wealth of knowledge from her extensive career as a military therapist and social worker with the Department of Defense. Whether you’re part of a military couple or a civilian, this episode is filled with valuable insights into how trauma can profoundly impact relationships and how couples can take active steps toward healing and reconnection.

In this power-packed discussion, we explore Karen’s personal journey as both a survivor and an expert, revealing how trauma manifests emotionally, physically, and relationally. She guides us through the challenges couples face, especially military couples, in maintaining effective communication and keeping the spark of playfulness alive amidst adversity. Karen offers actionable strategies for improving communication, resolving conflict, and fostering closeness, ensuring couples have the tools needed to rebuild their bond.

Discover Karen’s innovative concepts like the importance of establishing boundaries for time, the healing potential of maintaining playfulness, and the necessity for effective conflict resolution strategies. Learn about the transformative potential of mindfulness, mediation strategies, and the benefits of attending couples therapy to navigate your path to recovery. With detailed advice on creating a self-care toolbox and fostering empathy, Karen provides a roadmap for couples to reconnect and thrive together.

Guest Speaker Bio – “Karen Robinson”

Karen Robinson is a seasoned trauma recovery expert whose professional journey is deeply rooted in personal experience. Growing up between Canada and Maine, she pursued her passion for helping others by obtaining a master’s degree from the University of Maine over 24 years ago. Her extensive career has been largely dedicated to serving as a military therapist and social worker with the Department of Defense. Through countless individual, marital, and family sessions, Karen has leveraged her intimate understanding of trauma to support and guide her clients. Her firsthand experience as a survivor fuels her dedication to healing and advocacy, making her a compassionate and knowledgeable force in the field of trauma recovery.

Check out her website at healthrivedream.com.

Free Relationship Pattern Assessment

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Episode Transcript for “Healing from trauma while in a relationship with Karen Robinson”

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:00:00]:
This podcast is sponsored by Communicate and Connect Counseling, where we have a team of therapists who provide individual, couples, and family therapy services, all tailored to meet the needs of military and veteran families. To learn more about our services, visit www.communicateandconnect.com.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:00:30]:
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Q Communicate and Connect podcast for military relationships. This is episode 39, healing from trauma while in a relationship with Karen Robinson. So I’m really excited to have Karen on the podcast today. We’ve had some trouble getting scheduled. I’ve been waiting for her for a while, and she’s here, so it’s awesome. Thank you so much for being here and for. For going through the scheduling difficulties with me to get here.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:01:07]:
So.

Karen Robinson [00:01:08]:
No, thanks, Liz, so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here with you today, too.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:01:13]:
Yeah. Do you mind just sharing with our listeners, like, a little bit about yourself and kind of what. What you do and your experiences, kind of working with. With trauma?

Karen Robinson [00:01:26]:
Sure. So I am a trauma recovery expert, but I’m also a survivor, and that’s probably the main reason why I do the work I do is intimately familiar with trauma and the impact trauma can have, not only on our personal lives, but in all of our relationships. I grew up in Canada and also Maine. My parents lived near the border. I graduated from the University of Maine with my master’s degree over 24 years ago.

So I feel like an old dinosaur at this point in my career. Most of my career has been with the Department of Defense as a military therapist and social worker. I’ve had countless individual and marital sessions, family sessions.

Karen Robinson [00:02:20]:
I’ve done a lot of different things with the military. I’ve worked in the emergency room. I’ve worked in inpatient mental health, outpatient mental health. I supervise multiple units. At one point, I was supervising four different programs, including medical, social work, outpatient, inpatient, emergency services for the DoD.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:43]:
Yeah.

Karen Robinson [00:02:44]:
So I hope that answers that question.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:47]:
Yeah. That’s so amazing. Like, you have so much wealth of experience with working with, like, clinically with the DoD and military service members and their families in a variety of different settings. So this is kind of exciting. I love having people who are clinicians, therapists, social workers, who also. Who have sort of that healing profession view, but who also work specifically with military population. So I’m super stoked. Is there anything else you wanted to add, like in your intro before we talk more about trauma?

Karen Robinson [00:03:31]:
Sure. I mostly private practice now. I do contract with agencies, and I work with a lot of veterans, active duty, still family members. I Do coaching and I also do therapy. So anyone that lives in Virginia, I. I’m available to do therapy. Anyone outside of Virginia, I offer coaching services.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:03:56]:
Okay. All right. That’s so great. Yeah. What’s the. What’s your website so people know where to find you?

Karen Robinson [00:04:04]:
It’s healthrivedream.com.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:04:08]:
Okay.

Karen Robinson [00:04:09]:
So Heal thrive dream dot com.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:04:11]:
Okay, great. So I know we have covered trauma and oftentimes post traumatic stress disorder, which is a common outcome of going through an experience of trauma, but not always. We’ve sort of covered symptoms in a previous episode. But I’m hoping you’ll give us sort of a little bit of a refresher to get us started. Like what, what is trauma and how does it impact people?

Trauma and Moral Injury Explained

Karen Robinson [00:04:41]:
Sure. So a traumatic event is an adverse event that is disruptive to a human, you know, on emotional, physical, relational, spiritual way. So the easiest one to start with, not easiest to deal with, but the easiest one to start with is the symptom of moral injury, which is when an event happens.

Like if you’re at war and trying to make sense out of it afterwards, like what would God think? Or being really angry with God, not understanding war and the harder things in life, like why, why is this happening? So working on moral injuries is huge for people. Emotional injuries and depth. What we call the. I think you just did them. The anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress.

Karen Robinson [00:05:38]:
This is when we feel really dysregulated. It could also be anger. So there’s this concept called the window of tolerance. Most survivors of trauma fall just outside of that. Either hypo aroused, where they feel lethargic, fatigued, lost dissociation, and then above that window is called hyper arousal. This is when we feel really agitated, moody, disgruntled. It feels like we’re coming out of our skin. It’s panic attack type symptoms with full fledged anxiety.

Karen Robinson [00:06:19]:
So the goal for survivors is to learn how to get back into that window of tolerance. And it’s really not easy for survivors. It takes a lot of practice. So those are the emotional symptoms. Relational. What tends to get impacted are things like our ability to communicate effectively, our decision making, our ability to handle conflict. And we often lose our. Just our sense of humor.

Karen Robinson [00:06:46]:
So working on that in relationships and being playful again is. Is what I notice. I hope I answered that.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:06:54]:
Yeah, I think that’s. I think that was a great answer. Do you mind? I’m just going to repeat it. I repeat a lot and it helps me keep things organized in my head. So. So trauma is sort of like a really bad negative Experience an adverse thing that would be overwhelming to anybody. Like, every human out there. Like, failing a test wouldn’t be overwhelming to everybody.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:07:21]:
So that wouldn’t count as a trauma. It would have to be something really, like, really intense. Big. That for every single human out there, our nervous systems just react to it, and then it has an impact on our. Our sense of self as a moral individual. I would almost tie in, like, spirituality maybe is like, kind of connected to that, and then our emotional self and then our relationships. And you listed several ways that it could impact each of those three areas. Yeah, yeah.

Karen Robinson [00:07:57]:
The one clarifying point I would probably make is that we individually can still respond to trauma differently, and that’s because of genetics or environmental factors. So someone in combat may have a more severe reaction. If they’ve had a previous history of being an abused child or someone with a lot of abandonment issues or already has depression, their experience of trauma could be more significant.

In fact, the DSM also now in the DSM 5, back in the day, it was trying to be more objective on how trauma is seen. Now it’s a little more subjective. So if the person feels traumatized and has those symptoms, that’s what gets treated, whether it’s a smaller thing or not. To an observer. I hope that makes sense.

Individual Trauma Impact Variability

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:01]:
Yes, it does. I think that’s an important point that I have heard. You know, I used to be a trauma therapist for the Department of Veterans affairs before I went into couples counseling. And there were times where someone would come in and they would sort of say, like, well, my trauma wasn’t as bad. You know, I’m air quotes right now, as bad as someone else’s trauma and sort of kind of dismiss their experiences or the experiences someone else had gone through.

But the way something impacts us is all is so different. Some people might have a harder time recovering from trauma than someone else, and the symptoms might have a lot of similarities, but some of them might be more strong compared to others. Like, I think you mentioned it, hypo versus hyper arousal.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:57]:
Like, which one do I type? Do I go to? Might vary from person to person as well. So I’m glad you included that piece because I don’t want. I don’t want anyone listening to this episode right now thinking like, oh, my, my trauma is somehow not good enough or. Or not big enough compared to someone else’s. So since our podcast is so focused on couples and obviously military couples, and.

And so many military members do have experiences of trauma while in the military, I want to talk a little bit more about how, how that might impact military couples, their relationships, what even like what spouses might be seeing from their partner after their partner’s gone through something traumatic. I’m wondering if you might be able to comment a little bit more in depth on, on some of the, the ways trauma shows up in military couple relationships.

Marriage: Navigating Relationship Challenges

Karen Robinson [00:11:07]:
Yeah, so marriage is already pretty challenging. Having two people with their own separate sets of baggage to come together. So it’s like quadruple baggage that we’re working on as a maybe quadruple, maybe triple the baggage.

So they each have their own separate baggage and then the baggage that comes with trying to negotiate a marriage. It’s, it’s, it’s really a lot of work and I think calling it something outside of work is maybe not accurate. So if we, if we think of marriage as work that needs attention, just like anything else in our life, that will be helpful.

A lot of times we get complacent, we take our relationships for granted and we don’t, we’re just get too comfortable with just being, being not considerate at times or just talking to our spouse like any old way. And so if we can consider our spouse as the person that’s supposed to be on our team and we’re on their team, if we think of the, the arrangement as best friends.

Karen Robinson [00:12:20]:
If you would not say something to your best friend, you probably should not say that to your spouse. So in my experience, you. Yes, in my experience, couples that can have fun together go a long way. And I don’t mean the partying fun at the bar. I mean generally enjoy each other’s company, enjoy each other’s joking around, that light hearted playfulness, quality. And sometimes after trauma, that’s really hard. So things on an individual level that can help is having your own set of hobbies, your, your, your activities that bring down so that you can also play in your marriage. I think that’s huge.

Effective Couple Communication Techniques

Karen Robinson [00:13:05]:
The other thing I think is really helpful, even if you think you’re an awesome, amazing communicator. Take a class, go to a workshop. I teach something called Communication skills with couples and it’s about a four session where I have people stand on maps. The listener has their set of maps, the speaker has their separate set of mats. And so they can practice what it is to be an effective speaker. Like not rambling on and on and on and on and on. And then partner, expect your partner to get it all. Like you say what you need in a concise manner and then the listener is repeating it back, asking for clarification.

Karen Robinson [00:13:50]:
Inviting for more information is doing the, the actions, the non verbals to show they’re following along. You know, there’s eye contact, right. And so what I noticed with couples is once person’s trying to watch tv, one person walks into the room and starts talking. That’s not very effective.

So if you’re having a hard time getting out your message across, there’s techniques like touching your partner on the arm, not during their favorite TV show, but just at another time and saying, you know, could you come in the other room with me for a minute? I really have something I want to talk to you about.

And then another technique I heard about in practice when I was doing marital training is think about what does that person like to eat or drink. So maybe make their favorite beverage and make it a sandwich. Because sometimes if, if an intense conversation that helps them feel like it’s almost like their stress toy, you know, having something to fiddle with with their hands, it takes the intensity down.

Karen Robinson [00:14:59]:
Just having something to eat, to drink, and then just saying, you know, I really wanted to talk to you about this and I just need you to listen. Okay. And then seeing what you need from your partner, like, do you need validation? Do you need tangible help? Like I need you to rent a pickup truck so we can move this stove is driving me nuts.

Or do you need physical affection? I really just need you to hug me. Do you need information or you do? Do you just need your partner to have your back? Like, I don’t want you to give me advice. I want you to hear what I say and tell me that you support me.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:43]:
I’m following. Do you mind if I pause you and just repeat? Because it’s a lot of information at once and I’m just trying to grasp it all. One of the ways that trauma really impacts people is that they can lose their sense of playfulness, which is really important for couples to sort of maintain their best friendship, their friendship aspect and the playfulness between them.

And so then you, I think then you went into. Here are some of the ways that, oh, also communication so impacts playfulness and communication. And then here are ways to help your partner or help navigate that as a couple. When, when we want to try to in like improve communication or improve placefulness. Let me see if I can repeat what you, what you’ve said so far.

Effective Communication and Positive Engagement Tips

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:35]:
You said you sort of teach people to be effective at communicating instead of rambling, being sort of succinct and clear and how to, how to focus on listening to their partner. You also mentioned inviting your partner To a conversation versus sort of like I don’t. I sometimes think inflicting, which is. Is harsher than I, than what most people are doing, but you know, helping invite them into a conversation with you versus kind of interrupting whatever they were doing.

And then you said making it, you said like doing something help make it a positive experience. So can we like. I love coffee. So I, for me, my partner could give me coffee and then that would be a way to like soothe me or butter me up, sweep me into a good, A good moment to like start this conversation on a good feeling between us.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:43]:
Did I miss one of the, one of the ones that you had mentioned?

Karen Robinson [00:17:48]:
I don’t, I don’t think so. I think that was pretty succinct.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:51]:
Okay.

Karen Robinson [00:17:52]:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:52]:
Okay. Yeah, I like all of those. Did you have other, other thoughts on ways that couples can improve their communication when there has been trau.

Karen Robinson [00:18:03]:
Yeah. So I think another important skill is to learning to. Not learning to learn how to have a conflict. How to resolve conflict. Yes.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:18]:
How do you teach people how to resolve conflict?

Karen Robinson [00:18:22]:
Yes. Great question. Because with survivors, emotions can be pretty dysregulated. This is when something really negative or harmful can happen anywhere. To seeing things you don’t mean to domestic violence or abuse or somebody leaving, getting into a car accident. So learning how to handle conflict is huge. And I do have ideas for that. One is if you need to take a time out, simply say that, say where you’re going.

Karen Robinson [00:18:58]:
It’s preferred actually, if you can do it in the house and not leave. If you need to leave, it’s important to state what time you will be back and that you agree to work on the issue when you return. So reassuring your partner something like, I love you. I’m really upset. I need to step out to calm myself. I’m going to go to the grocery store, get some snacks for later. And then when we come home, I will let you know when I’m ready to talk again. Okay.

Karen Robinson [00:19:35]:
So I don’t recommend going to the bar if you have a conflict with your spouse, you know, and the person who’s receiving the information about the timeout. You know, don’t go and block the door. Think of it as a healthy separation to make the two of you better when you come back together. You know, negotiate with each other on the appropriate time to get back together, to talk through the conflict.

Sometimes it’s the next day. Some funny tips for, for getting past the conflict is you have to hold your hand, hold hands together the whole time you’re working it out. Another tip is be naked. It’s really hard to be nasty and mean to your partner if you’re both naked because it’s a vulnerability thing.

Karen Robinson [00:20:32]:
So I think it’s an experiment of what’s going to work with you and your partner by having a lot of grace for each other. If you’re both on the same team, if one of you wins an argument, that means the other loses. That’s not teamwork. So it needs to be a win win. The one person needs to feel they could speak what they need to say. The other person feels like they heard it, and then you switch roles. The speaker becomes the listener. So both people say what they need to say and feel heard.

Karen Robinson [00:21:13]:
And that takes away a lot of conflict. Just in that itself, you don’t have to agree on everything. You just need to feel like you can say what you need to say and feel heard.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:25]:
Yeah, I love that you are talking about this, especially in. In the context of trauma, because while. While I could see this being helpful for any couple, like those tips on. On conflict. And every. Every couple has to learn how to navigate conflict. Sometimes when I think about trauma, I think about a coffee cup. So I’m gonna.

“Stress Cup Overflow: Managing Trauma”

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:49]:
I’m gonna hold my coffee cup up so listeners can visually imagine my coffee cup here and. And that, like this coffee cup is how much stress I can handle in a day before it just spills over into me being, for me, grumpy and hangry and moody and snappy.

For other people, it could be all sorts of different things. But sometimes when I think about trauma, I’m thinking, like, when I wake up in the morning with my stress cup, if I have trauma, it’s already halfway full. And so other things, you know, I overflow my ability, my. How much stress I can take. I have less stuff that you can add to my cup because I’m already dealing with the stress from the trauma. And.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:22:45]:
And so with couples, I’m thinking you’re really talking about how do we sort of prevent the cup from overflowing? How can. Especially when conflict for every couple is so stressful already. How do we. How do we make conflict the least stressful it could be so people aren’t overflowing so much. I love your idea of holding hands or being naked or, like, doing something that is. Let’s try to be in this comfy place together before we have to figure something out.

Karen Robinson [00:23:23]:
I love that you say comfy, because I think about getting naked. I’m not super comfortable.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:28]:
Oh, yes. Well, that’s not comfortable.

Karen Robinson [00:23:31]:
Either you’re healthier.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:33]:
I don’t know. I think all of us have. I think all of us feel exposed when we’re naked. You know, I think that’s a little bit different. Like if I’m holding hands, I think I’m. I’m more in a comfy spot.

Karen Robinson [00:23:49]:
Connected. Yes.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:50]:
Yes. Or if we’re cuddling or we’re. We’re hugging each other while we talk or something that’s more comfy. But your vault, your naked idea, what that does, I think more is strip the defenses.

Karen Robinson [00:24:04]:
Yes. Yes. Literally and figuratively. Yep.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:24:09]:
Yeah.

Karen Robinson [00:24:09]:
Yes.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:24:10]:
So, yeah, that’s probably not comfy, but it does put you in a less defensive spot.

Karen Robinson [00:24:19]:
Yes.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:24:20]:
Yes. So I like this around communication. Just because you mentioned playfulness, I find myself thinking, do you have any thoughts on how couples can also increase their playfulness since that’s such a huge, huge part of. Kind of what you’re talking about is like trauma sort of robs us of our ability to just relax, have fun, be playful.

Couples’ Time Management and Communication Tips

Karen Robinson [00:24:44]:
Yes, I do. The most common thing I discuss with this, with couples is the boundaries around your time. So I think out of a month, say your typical time together is Friday evenings. It doesn’t have to be. There’s no right or wrong day. So I say take those four Fridays, for example, and rotate. So every other Friday is your business meeting where you discuss your communication, any things that need to happen in the household. It’s like a CEO meeting that you’re having where you’re dividing tasks up, talking about any issues, any child issues, parenting, your in laws, who needs to take the car for an oil change.

Karen Robinson [00:25:35]:
The other two Fridays, this means a minimum of twice a month more is always welcome and encouraged. The other two Fridays are dates. And one partner plans for one day and the other partner plans for the other. They plan everything from start to finish. So if child care is needed, they plan that. They plan time, they plan location, and then there’s rules around the dates. Rule number one, no problem, talk. No I need an oil change or your mother yelled at me on Thursday.

Karen Robinson [00:26:16]:
Yeah, no, the date is fun. It’s. You can even pretend that you’re just meeting your partner. Okay. It’s fun to try different activities. So if you’ve never gone ice skating before, try that. You know, mix it up. The dates don’t always have to be expensive or extravagant, but spend some time in the date.

Karen Robinson [00:26:43]:
Just plain. Maybe it’s a wine and art class. You know, we are art. I’m sorry, Painting and sipping wine. You know, maybe it’s going to try gymnastics together and tumbling around, you know, I, I don’t know. Just, just play. Maybe it’s running into the waves. If you’re near a beach.

Google: Ultimate Relationship Solutions Guide

Karen Robinson [00:27:05]:
Google is your best friend. I had a couple session yesterday and the, the male partner was having a hard time making up for being inconsiderate with his spouse. And he’s like, I don’t know what to do. So I had him pull out his phone and get into Google and I said tell Google to ask Google how do I show appreciation for my partner? And he did that and he started reading it and I said to the his partner, what is that like?

Would you love your partner to do some of these things or say some of these things for you? And she goes, oh my gosh. And he goes, it’s so simple. It’s right on my phone, you know, so you don’t have to know all the answers. Ask a friend, ask Google, ask a therapist, ask a teacher, ask again. I said too much probably on that for you to summarize.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:28:09]:
I’m sorry, I was just thinking, I like that like there are so many resources and I think I sometimes I think about that with trauma too is like it’s hard like going back to the coffee cup when if my coffee cup is filling up it sometimes is hard for my brain to remember all the resources that I have access to. And so I think this is so great. It seems so simple. Like why would, why wouldn’t we think about this? But I wouldn’t have thought of that. Go to Google. You know, it’s also great.

Karen Robinson [00:28:46]:
Yeah, sometimes it’s our age to like those of us that are under 25. Going to Google and YouTube seems to be more natural. You know, those of us that didn’t grow up with that. It wasn’t like a tool that we had available for those of us super young, I mean super older now. Ah, that’s not coming out right. You know what, you know what I mean. But you said some things also I think that are important that I didn’t mention earlier. Other symptoms of trauma are difficulties with sleep and difficulties with food, difficulties taking care of ourselves.

Karen Robinson [00:29:22]:
So it is hard to be resourceful when we are not doing those basic self care things. Speed before working on a relationship issue, making sure you as an individual are hydrated, you know, eating in a nutritional manner, getting enough rest. And then the first, the last one is some kind of movement. It doesn’t have to be running, just you know, taking those walks, taking those breaks when you’re able to do those four things. You’re able to give more to your partner as well. But if you can’t take care of your basic needs, it’s going to be really hard to be healthy in your relationship.

Trauma’s Impact on Spousal Relationships

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:30:08]:
Yeah, I’m thinking for, for the spouse too. For the spouse who has not had the trauma experience, there still is kind of like a shockwave in the relationship from the trauma that can be really great if the spouse does that same thing, make sure that they’re eating or sleeping. I’m even thinking like my, my husband’s not a trauma survivor, but he has sleep, funky sleep stuff and there’ll be times where like I don’t want to go to bed without him or, or like I want to be together so stay up later or I won’t eat until he comes home.

But then if he comes home really late, then he just wants a snack and then I’m like, do I just want to snack? Like, you know, so even though it’s just thinking on with when there’s trauma, that whole experience is probably like on steroids, you know, so much bigger for the spouse to continue working on their sleep or their, their health, I’m thinking can also then help.

Karen Robinson [00:31:17]:
Yes.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:31:18]:
Help in the relationship as well. So.

Karen Robinson [00:31:22]:
Absolutely.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:31:24]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I find myself thinking about there’s sort of like an individual healing journey when there has been trauma, but there is also like a couple healing journey. And I’m wondering if you have any thoughts about how, how couples can journey together in, in recovery from trauma.

Karen Robinson [00:31:48]:
Sure. So my official answer would be couples counseling and doing. There’s lots of different interventions, but Imago Therapies is specifically for couples where there’s at least one person with, with trauma. My unofficial answer is if you’re working together as best friends and you see your partner struggling, go grab them their, their self care bag. So for trauma survivors I work with, I recommend they all have their self care bags or notes.

And I’m, I’m glad I’m saying this too because I was thinking what you said. When our cup is already full and we can’t think about our resources, it’s helpful to have our resources together like in a bag or I cut for men, I call it the toolbox. You know, for women it could be a fancy purse and, and you could, you know, no gender issues here.

Karen Robinson [00:32:48]:
You can use whatever, you can use a plastic bag, it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. And then things that won’t fit in the bag, you just have stickies or index cards that says Google XYZ you know, or call this person or get your weighted blanket off your bed.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:33:07]:
Yeah.

Karen Robinson [00:33:08]:
Okay. So when you see your partner struggling and you know, what works for them, like, oh, they’re. They probably had an overwhelming day at work. Maybe I should just go ahead and make them a sandwich or say, hey, are you hungry? Can I. Can I get you some tea or drink, you know, grabbing their self care bag. We should have things like Silly Putty and play doh things for, you know, the sensory things for our hands or this, the stress balls. It could be maybe their favorite comedy show. Do you know, put that on or play their favorite tunes.

Karen Robinson [00:33:46]:
You know, if they have music that kind of energizes, maybe there could be a dance party with the couple. You know, that goes back to that playfulness. So knowing you know, your partner, most likely. Right. You know, most of us know what makes our partner tick. If you don’t ask them. Right. Keep working on that and then ask yourself, what’s one thing I could do for my partner? You know, if I am my partner’s best friend.

Karen Robinson [00:34:15]:
The other idea I have is see the child in your partner. Because when we’re wounded, our behavior and how we react can be pretty childlike. Our brain never grows up. Our brains are brats. You know, our brains like to have fun. Our brains like to be rewarded no matter if we’re 85 years old. So if you think of that little child and your partner like, okay, what could I do for this. This little person? And I think our tendency will to be a lot more gentle, a lot more nurturing.

Karen Robinson [00:34:52]:
So there you go. Yeah, I think that’s the best of what I have.

“Effective Spousal Empathy Techniques”

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:34:56]:
I think that’s a good strategy for the spouse to find empathy. I often think, like, one of the things we all need is this sort of empathy, emotional understanding and support. And if I am struggling to find my empathy, that seems like a really great strategy that the spouse can use to say, okay, how do I. How do I see the wound here to have empathy for it? So let me repeat that one. So we’ve got go to couples counseling. I know you mentioned imago, but I wanted to also share like there’s cognitive behavioral therapy. No. What is it? It’s conjoint.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:35:39]:
It’s conjoint CBT for ptsd. Yeah. So there’s a specific cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah. Conjoint cognitive behavioral therapy for ptsd. You could google that to find a provide nearby.

Karen Robinson [00:35:52]:
I’ve also had that training. It sounds like you have as well.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:35:55]:
Oh, the. I do. Emotionally focused. So The. The way that I work is emotionally focused couple therapy, but it does have research to support it with trauma survivors as well. So. But it’s just a different. It’s just a different underlying theory.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:36:12]:
But they. They just. Like imago is as well, so that. But they could all be. They could all be helpful. They just work on slightly different things.

Karen Robinson [00:36:22]:
And it’s good to have choices, because imago may not work for everyone. You know, it’s. It’s okay if you find that something isn’t your style. It’s research. Like, what else is there? And who’s a therapist near you or in your state with. Virtually usually have to have somebody licensed in your state, or they may be licensed in a few states. So it’s good to ask.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:36:46]:
Yeah. So therapy that has been shown to help work with couples where one or both has trauma. Of course, there’s individual trauma therapy, but when we’re thinking about the relationship, there are specific couple therapies that help couples where one or both have trauma. And then you were sort of saying, like, let’s be really thoughtful about what our partner needs. Can we help if they’re struggling to get resources? Can we help bring the resources to them in, like, a shorter summary phrase? Does that sound like I. Was that an okay summary of what you were sharing?

Karen Robinson [00:37:20]:
It’s perfect. Beautiful.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:37:22]:
Okay. All right.

Karen Robinson [00:37:23]:
Thanks.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:37:24]:
Yeah. And I love your resource bag idea. So I don’t have to remember all the resources. I just have to remember where’s my. Where’s my place, where my resources are.

Karen Robinson [00:37:35]:
And work on those resources. On a day you feel. Well, like, you feel like you’re thinking clearly. Like, okay, one. A bad day. Yeah. Maybe my journal should be in this bag, you know, or men like those gripper things, too. So, you know, it’s, you know, maybe, like, if.

Karen Robinson [00:37:52]:
If it’s your male spouse that’s been to combat, maybe you. Maybe the next present for him is a toolbox with all these little, you know, fidgety things or comforting things, like, if he loves beef jerky, put some of that in there. If he has a favorite tea, put some of those tea bags in there. Yeah, that kind of thing.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:38:11]:
Yeah, I like that. Well, I’m curious. Do you have any sort of, like, final tips or takeaways for. For the listeners?

Karen Robinson [00:38:20]:
Oh, I feel like we stuffed this episode with lots of great tips, for sure.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:38:26]:
Yeah. There’s no pressure. You don’t have to have any. If. I mean, people can just go back and listen to all the tips you did give because you gave so Many throughout this episode. I just wanted to give you a chance if there was anything final you wanted to say.

Karen Robinson [00:38:42]:
Sure. I think a helpful tip that I give a lot is having an app on your phone that has something to do with mindfulness or meditation. Couples that do, you know, restorative yoga or yoga nidra or deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, guided and like whatever your favorite is. Guided imagery is another doing those activities together to really help bring some Zen to the relationship. So that’s, I think, another helpful takeaway.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:39:17]:
Yeah. Are there any specific apps for on the phone that you tend to recommend?

Karen Robinson [00:39:24]:
Mm. The common free one is Calm. I have a love hate relationship with that one because I think some of the the providers or service professionals who do them are corny or too woo woo for me. I’m fairly woo woo. But some are like when they say pretend you’re a flower, I get really annoyed. I. I’m sorry. I am a survivor too.

Karen Robinson [00:39:52]:
So an app that I consistently love that is a paid app, it does have a free trial is Headspace. The. The monk who does most of the recordings. He has a very soothing voice and he also kind of is more guided.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:40:05]:
Okay.

Mindfulness Tips for Stressful Days

Karen Robinson [00:40:06]:
And then on really bad days, first of all, I think meditation is more prevention than something you do when you’re reacting. But on bad days where I still want to do a little meditation, Headspace has kids meditations that are shorter, two to five minutes. So I’m like, okay, I can do anything for two to five minutes. And that’s what I’ll kind of go to when you just need to kind of center yourself more, bring down that distress.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:40:35]:
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much for being on this podcast, Karen. I think this is, it is very jam packed full of a lot of tips that people can take away from this on how couples can navigate together around this, this healing journey from trauma. Can you just repeat again how people could find you, work with you, learn more, learn more about working with you?

Women’s Virtual Trauma Healing Group

Karen Robinson [00:41:04]:
So currently, for female survivors or people who identify as female, I have a virtual group. It’s called healingfromtraumatogether.com and in this group, it’s an accountability group for survivors where we set goals each month on how work on our foundation, which is ourselves, how to work on improving our relationships, whether that’s marriage, parenting, our families of origin, so forth.

And then the other area we work on is our dreaming. What do we want for our futures. So every month I do coaching calls virtually. There’s a workbook every month has a theme. The workbook has journaling, prompts, counters or affirmations of CBT work for the month and then other exercises so that currently right now I have that for females only. I do work with a lot of men so I envision having something similar for men in the future.

Karen Robinson [00:42:07]:
But I also have coaching services where we can work on communication, conflict resolution or even just how to be more playful. We can have play sessions for adults. The best way to get me and if you’re not sure what kind of service you want right now, I do have 15 minute consultation calls that are complimentary. The best way to get those is heal thrived dream.com yeah, wonderful.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:42:35]:
And all all of those links and the information will be in the show notes in case anyone wants to go. Just have an easy way to like click and find you. So yes. Yeah. Well thank you again for being on the podcast.

Karen Robinson [00:42:49]:
Thank you so much for having me.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:42:59]:
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If so Please take a second to go rate, review and subscribe so you get all of our future episodes. Make sure to check out the show notes to sign up for our FREE 10-week relationship email course.

This email course is really designed for people who are maybe having trouble with communication or connection in their relationship and helping them develop some quick wins right away to start improving it. While I am a therapist, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not considered therapy and it should also not be a replacement for therapy. If you think you need a professional of any kind, you should definitely go find one. Until next time.