What is trauma — really?

In this foundational episode of Psychology & the Soul™, Kellee White and Dr. Shirley Impellizzeri explore what actually happens inside the nervous system when we experience trauma — and why so many people feel overwhelmed, anxious, disconnected, or shut down.

Trauma is often misunderstood as a dramatic event. But psychologically, it is defined by what happens inside your nervous system when an experience overwhelms your ability to cope. Spiritually, it does not damage your soul — but it can disrupt your sense of safety, identity, and connection.

This intelligent, grounded, and calm conversation bridges clinical psychology with spiritual integration — without bypassing, minimizing, or sensationalizing.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
• The difference between acute and chronic trauma
• Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses
• How the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems function
• Why trauma is stored in physiology — not just memory
• The danger of spiritual bypassing
• Practical nervous system regulation tools
• How to integrate psychological healing with spiritual meaning-making

You’ll also receive evidence-based regulation practices including orienting, breathwork for vagal tone, and somatic awareness — alongside spiritually grounded integration tools like embodied meditation, journaling, nature immersion, and creative expression.

Trauma is not weakness.
It is adaptation.
You are not broken.
You are adaptive.

This episode is for anyone navigating anxiety, hypervigilance, emotional numbness, overwhelm, or identity disruption — especially in today’s climate of global instability and digital saturation.

Psychology informs the mind.
Spirituality informs the meaning.
Together, they inform the whole human.

Subscribe for future episodes as we continue exploring trauma healing, attachment, relationships, identity, grief, and the evolving relationship between mental health and conscious awareness.

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