You think you can outsmart your own trauma...

You think you can outsmart your own trauma...

But stop. That is actually what is keeping you stuck.

Because your brain cannot process what your body has not regulated.

We sat in our Streamyard studio yesterday with Peter Brickey, a man who has spent 15 years in the trenches of mental health, and we stripped down the machinery of why we stay broken.

It’s not because you’re weak. It’s because you’re doing it backward.

The Physiology of the "Black Box"

Emotional regulation is the physiological prerequisite for cognitive processing; without it, the prefrontal cortex remains offline, rendering "talk therapy" largely ineffective.

We treat the brain like a computer with 500 tabs open. You cannot install new software (habits) when the RAM is maxed out on survival.

Lisa Feldman Barrett’s research hits hard here: Emotions are just the brain's best guess at making sense of bodily sensations.

Read that again.

Your body feels a sensation (tight chest, heat). Your brain, trapped in its dark, silent skull—the "Black Box"—scrambles for a label. It guesses "Anxiety." It guesses "Fear."

And once you label it, you become it.

But Peter dropped a truth that shattered the room: You don't need to "fix" the emotion. You need to regulate the sensation.

The Monkey Doesn't Want a Banana

Mindfulness is not about silencing the mind; it is about assigning the "monkey mind" a specific, mechanical task to override the default mode network.

We try to silence the noise. We try to force the monkey to sit still.

It doesn’t work.

The brain is an energy-conserving machine. It hates the void. If you try to empty your mind, it will fill it with chaos just to feel safe.

The Strategy: Give the monkey a job.

• Don’t try to stop the thought.

• Notice it.

• "I am noticing I am having the thought that I am a failure."

This subtle shift—from "I am a failure" to "I am noticing"—creates the Observer Gap. It is the difference between drowning in the river and sitting on the bank watching it flow.

The 254-Day Myth

Neuroplasticity is not a linear process; habit formation takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days depending on the level of emotional dysregulation present during the repetition.

We love the "66 days to a new habit" statistic. It’s clean. It’s marketable.

It’s also a partial truth.

That number assumes you are regulated. If you are in survival mode—if you are dysregulated—you are not building new neural pathways. You are reinforcing the old ones.

Peter noted that in high-trauma cases, they track treatment in 24-week cycles just to begin the stabilization process.

If you fall off the wagon, you aren’t "lazy." You are dysregulated. Your brain is prioritizing safety over growth. It is pruning away your "new habit" because it deems it non-essential for survival.

The Container Protocol:

You cannot carry the weight 24/7. Peter teaches a visualization:

1. Build a container in your mind.

2. Put the trauma in it.

3. Lock it.

4. Leave it there until you have the capacity (or the therapist) to open it safely.

This isn't avoidance. It's containment. It keeps the acid from eating through the floor of your life while you sleep.

The Reframe

You are not a broken machine. You are a biological entity operating exactly as designed.

Your anxiety is not a defect. It is a feature. It is your system trying to make sense of a sensation it doesn't understand.

The path out is not "thinking harder."

It is:

1. Regulate (The Body).

2. Identify (The Label).

3. Pattern Interrupt (The Action).

This is my work right now. Not to be the "guru" who has it figured out, but to be the man willing to sit in the discomfort of the buzzing lights and ask, "What am I actually feeling right now?"

Here Are 4 Ways We Can Walk Together

If you are ready to reclaim your agency, here is how you can move forward:

• The Archive: Visit the website. I have dumped hundreds of videos, blog posts, and "brain candy" there. It is all free. Take what you need to build your own map.

• The Test: Curious if the 12 Journeys are for you? Drop a comment with the word 'WISDOM' and I’ll send you the first week’s framework for free. Test the methodology yourself. No strings attached.

• The Cohort: Ready to stop drifting? Register for our SG Programs and do the work alongside a community of Giants.

• The Proximity: If you need to go deeper, ask me about working 1-on-1.

#fyp #mentalhealth #traumarecovery #12journeys #emotionalregulation #neuroscience

Services provided are for educational and wellness coaching purposes only in compliance with Utah SB48 & SB26. We do not diagnose or treat clinical mental health conditions. This is not a substitute for professional therapy. In a crisis? Call or text 988.