What's your rhubarb pie? How trauma impacts choice | Jacy Imilkowski | TEDxFondduLac

Rhubarb pie or a piece of toast? In her entertaining Talk, Jacy Imilkowski shows how you can't make a choice if you don't know it's there.

Jacy Imilkowski (just think “I-milk-cows-on-skis”), PMP, CPCC, ACC, CLL is a mental health advocate, communication nerd, and champion of finding choices. She combines emotional intelligence, stories, and brain science to help people see the choices they didn’t know they had in their communication, relationships, and lives.

An avid learner, Jacy has spent the last 20 years trying out careers to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. She’s been a store and restaurant manager, customer service representative, massage practitioner, professional trainer, professional artist, project manager, and executive coach. Jacy is currently living her dream as a professional speaker. She’s also the Co-Dean for the National Speakers Association-WI chapter Speakers Academy and a foster home for Greyhound Pets of America-WI. She loves her dog and probably loves your dog too.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Remember Halloween as a kid,

when you got to dress up
and play make-believe

but out in the real world?

What was your favorite costume?

Kitty or a superhero

or whatever I'm dressed up as here?

(Laughter)

I think this year
was Rainbow Brite princess.

Halloween was so awesome.

It was so much fun
and laughter and excitement,

but not always.

In my family, you never knew quite
what was going to happen

when my dad was there.

One minute, you're coming back
from trick-or-treating super excited;

and the next minute,

your candy bucket
is flying across the room

amid shouting and tears,

bruised feelings or even bruised bodies.

All right, that got serious
really quick, didn't it?

To be clear,

today's talk is not explicitly
about domestic violence or my father

or the tragedy of spilled Halloween candy.

It is about trauma

and how trauma impacts our ability
to see and make intentional choices.

Before we get to that,

I'm just going to share
a little more background.

So, my family was dysfunctional,

like if there was a family Olympics,

we'd be bringing home the gold

in events like mental illness
and coping mechanisms

and crushing passive-
aggressive commentary.

(Laughter)

It was always weird
going to friends' houses

where no one was screaming at
or hating each other,

and I'm like, "What is wrong
with these people?"

(Laughter)

And while I'm okay now,
what I didn't know then

is that there was something
wrong in my family.

I didn't know

that I was growing up
in domestic violence;

I didn't know

that I was growing up in trauma.

Now, we don't all have
the same background,

but it's very likely

that you or someone you know
has experienced trauma in your life.

Some people think trauma is only
for soldiers or survivors of violence,

but bullying, growing up in poverty
and losing a loved one

are just a few of the many
sources of trauma

that surround us every day.

And trauma changes our brains,

especially children's brains
that are still developing.

Parts of the brain related to stress
and threat responses overdevelop,

while other parts of the brain

related to emotional regulation
and decision-making underdevelop.

For me, growing up,
one of trauma's big impacts

was the inability to see
and make intentional choice.

Now, intentional choice,
and the keyword here is "intentional,"

requires you to be aware
of your situation,

think about your options,

and then make a decision
based on that thinking.

Trauma prevents us from thinking
by launching our fight-or-flight system,

where our brain is flooded with chemicals

that drive us to react
to a situation without thought.

Say a healthy fight-or-flight system

goes from zero at rest to ten,
which is fully activated.

Imagine walking down the street,

and a crazed alligator launches
out of the bushes in front of you.

Your fight-or-flight system kicks in

from zero to ten
without you thinking about it.

Ideally, you're running away,

but individual results may vary.

(Laughter)

And eventually, once you're safe,

that system is going
to start resetting back down.

Now, following such a trauma,

what happens is it may not reset
back down to zero.

After that, it may only reset to eight.

So now, you're starting from eight,

and then you could
be walking down the street,

and a fluffy bunny could launch
out of the bushes in front of you.

Your system, already
chronically activated,

goes from eight to eleven.

It stays there longer,

and it takes longer
than an un-traumatized brain

to reset to eight.

So thanks to my good friend trauma,

I spent most of my youth
reacting to my environment,

therefore not thinking,

therefore not making intentional choice -

until the morning of the rhubarb pie.

Now, I have to tell you all

my mom makes the best
rhubarb pie on the planet.

And I know your mom
also makes the best rhubarb pie,

so let's just agree to disagree, okay?

I'm 15.

I head into the kitchen
to make some toast for breakfast,

and sitting on the counter
is one of my mom's rhubarb pies.

Now, some of you rebels in the audience
already know where this is going.

Who here has ever had
cold pizza for breakfast

or leftovers or a dessert?

Well, I was 15,

and I hadn't crossed that majestic
meal-mixing threshold yet.

Breakfast was breakfast.

It was eggs or cereal or toast.

And to be perfectly clear,

I wasn't afraid of eating rhubarb pie
for thinking that I would get in trouble.

What was happening

was that long-term exposure to trauma
had made my brain so reactive

that I have literally never stopped
to think about the possibility

of eating such a wildly
non-standard breakfast food.

So I'm making my toast,

and I look over like,

"Oh, wish I could have a piece
of that rhubarb pie for breakfast."

Stupid toast.

(Laughter)

Rhubarb pie for breakfast?

Stupid toast?

Rhubarb pie for breakfast!

I served up a big slice,
and I ate a forkful,

and I will tell you that first bite
tasted like a victory.

That was the moment

that I realized I had made a choice.

See, there are levels
of visibility to choice:

high-visibility choices,

like an alarm going off
that you can't ignore;

low visibility choices,

like when your phone rings
and you answer it

even if you didn't want to;

and no visibility choices -

these are invisible choices

that we don't have the experience
or perspective to even see.

They're hidden from us -

in my case, hidden
by the reactivity of trauma.

Eating pie for breakfast
was an invisible choice until that morning

where I took the time,

thought about my options of toast or pie

and chose to eat
rhubarb pie for breakfast.

Choice is one of the only things we have,

but you can't make a choice
if you don't know it's there.

So, what's your rhubarb pie?

What's the choice
you didn't see until you did?

Because choice can be hidden,

here are three steps
to help us see our choices:

Be kind to yourself.

Be honest with yourself.

And seek outside perspectives.

First, be kind to yourself.

When we're unkind to ourselves, it hurts,

just as if someone else had done it.

And that can trigger our reactive system

and drive us away from thinking
and away from intentional choice.

The skill to learn here

is to stop and notice
when we're being unkind.

Just observe it:

I notice I'm not being kind
to myself right now.

Eventually, that moment of observation

will turn into an opportunity
to choose compassion instead:

I notice I'm not being kind
to myself right now,

and this is a really hard situation.

And it's okay that I'm sad
or angry or upset.

Dr. Richard Davidson
with the Center for Healthy Minds says,

"We can change the brain
by changing the mind."

His research shows
that engaging in self-compassion

can actually help rewire your brain
for more compassion in the future.

When I was in my 30s,

I went in one day
to see my favorite therapist,

and I have to tell you I love
that I've had enough therapists

that I have a favorite.

(Laughter)

I go in to see Dr. Fish, tell him
that I'm really frustrated and upset,

and he says, "JC, what do you say
to yourself when you're frustrated?"

"Well, Dr. Fish,
I tell myself to shut the F up,

don't bother anyone else with my problems,

put on my big girl panties,
stop whining, don't cry,

and shut the F up."

(Laughter)

And I know, I'm not alone.

I know some of you here
know what I'm talking about.

You don't have to come
from an abusive family

to beat yourself up.

"Well, JC, it sounds like
you're not very nice to yourself."

And I literally laughed
until I cried like,

"Oh, my god, Dr. Fish. What?
Are people nice to themselves?"

"Yeah, JC, they are."

"Oh ...

Oh ...

Oh."

And at that moment,

I saw that I had a choice
in how I treated myself.

I could choose to be kind to myself.

Prior to that,

being kind to myself
was an invisible choice.

Now, it was my new rhubarb pie.

Choice is one of the only things we have,

but you can't make a choice
if you don't know it's there.

So, what's your rhubarb pie?

What's the choice
you didn't see until you did?

Step two in seeing choice is
"Be honest with yourself."

Sometimes the truth hurts,
and then we judge ourselves,

"Why are you still upset by this?

You should be able to handle that."

And that causes reactivity
that focuses us on our pain,

not our choices.

Once you're able to be kind to yourself,

that makes space where it's safe
to be honest with yourself -

honest about what you feel,

what you want, what your choices are.

Transformation expert
Patty Hendrickson says,

"I live with my choices,
and they live with me."

Patty has an outstanding tool
called a choice journal,

where in the morning you grab
a piece of paper and ask yourself,

"What are the choices
that I see for today?"

At the end of the day,

come back and reflect without judgment.

This is your chance
to be really honest with yourself.

What choices are you proud of?

What choices would you
have made differently?

And was there anywhere
you felt like you had no choice,

and is that really the truth?

Choice is one of the only things we have,

but you can't make a choice
if you don't know it's there.

So, what's your rhubarb pie?

What's the choice
you didn't see until you did?

Step three to seeing choice is
"Get outside perspectives."

Have you ever wanted to really talk
to someone else about something,

but you didn't, because you were afraid -

afraid of judgment, of repercussions,

that nothing would change?

Fear undermines connection,

and the neurochemistry of a fearful brain

drives us to isolate ourselves.

It's critical that we connect
to other people,

especially when we're fearful,

because we need their perspectives.

We cannot see our own lives -
we're too close.

It's like we're fish,

and we don't even know
we're swimming in water.

We need someone else
to come along and say,

"Hey, did you know
you're swimming in water

and your water is blue?"

And we need to be open
to these outside perspectives

when they're shared with us.

To wrap up today,

I'm going to share a story

of when someone else's perspective
changed my life.

In my early 30s,

I had a badly ruptured
spinal disc, required surgery.

And due to the nerve damage,

for three months afterwards,
I needed a walker to get around.

And then for the next few years,

I had a knee-high leg brace and a cane.

By my early 30s,

I was still struggling to get around -

I was in pain every day.

So to try and rebuild the strength
in my affected leg,

I joined this fancy boot camp-style gym.

I saunter in for my first class,

all excited, not realizing
that there are three levels to class:

low, medium and high intensity.

So, which group do you think
I randomly wandered into?

High intensity, of course.

I am barely making it through class

when we finally come to the crab walk.

It's where you get in a push-up position

and walk sideways across the floor.

That was it, I knew it -

the crab walk was going to end me.

(Laughter)

We're going in a line -

there's people in front of
and behind me.

So when it's my turn, I get on the floor,

I start walking across the gym.

And immediately, I'm sweating,

I'm panting,

literally dragging my leg
behind me like,

"Go on without me."

(Laughter)

I stopped to catch my breath,
glanced to the right,

and who do I see there

but Mr. Super Fit Dude -

Mr. Super Fit Dude is happy as a clam.

He's cruising along,
not even breaking a sweat.

And seeing him, I turn to myself and say,

"What the hell are you doing here?

You're so stupid. You don't belong here.

You're just in everyone else's way."

And on and on and on ...

Eyes brimming with tears
of humiliation and frustration,

I'm about to start crying,

and Mr. Super Fit Dude looks over,

and he knows exactly what's going on.

And he says just loud enough
for me to hear,

"Hey, you're doing a great job.
You're going to get there.

Take your time.

Don't worry about me.

I could use the extra exercise.

You're doing me a favor."

(Laughter)

And in that moment, I saw it.

I saw the choice to open myself up
to his compassion.

And his kindness reminded me
that I had a choice.

I didn't have to be a victim
of my horrible self-talk.

And so I chose to be kind
and believe in myself,

just like Mr. Super Fit Dude did.

I crab-wobbled the rest
of the way across the gym

and collapsed on the floor
in a cramping heap.

And the world was different
in a way that I cannot explain.

I'd opened myself up
to an outside perspective,

and this amazing stranger,
whose name I don't even know,

somehow managed to find a piece
of my mom's rhubarb pie

to share with me.

Choice is one of the only things we have,

but you can't make a choice
if you don't know it's there.

So what's your rhubarb pie?

What's the choice you haven't seen
that you will now?

And what will happen when you do?

Thank you.

(Applause)