C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t
Psychology & Relationships
About
CPTSD: Let’s Make Sense of This Sh*t Living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) can be overwhelming, confusing, and lonely—but you don't have to face it alone. CPTSD: Let’s Make Sense of This Sh*t is your go-to podcast for breaking down trauma recovery with honesty, compassion, and a touch of humor to keep things real. Whether you’re just starting your healing journey or have been working on it for years, this podcast offers practical strategies, emotional support, and relatable stories from those who've walked in your shoes. Tune in twice a week as we explore what it truly means to live with CPTSD. Our Main Podcast episodes (Tuesdays) feature in-depth discussions, expert advice, and actionable tools to help you understand and navigate CPTSD. On Fridays , our Healing Episodes deliver short, calming exercises and grounding techniques to help you find balance and relief in the moment. Through raw conversations, expert insights, and an unshakeable sense of empathy, we’re here to help you make sense of the tough stuff and remind you that healing is within reach—even when it feels impossible. Whether you’re battling anxiety, emotional flashbacks, or the daily weight of trauma, this podcast is your companion on the path to recovery. You’re not alone, and just by showing up, you’re already doing great. 💛 Join Our Supporters Club 💛 If this podcast has helped you make sense of C-PTSD, consider joining our Supporters Club. Your support helps us continue these crucial conversations on trauma and healing—conversations that can be hard to find but deeply needed. By joining, you ensure we can keep offering insights, support, and real talk to those navigating their journey with C-PTSD. Together, we can make sure no one faces this alone. Click here to join our Supporters Club and support more people. We’re in this together. 💛
Episodes
- Healing Through Art & Writing - When Words Aren't Enough
This episode explores the healing power of creativity in trauma recovery, explaining how art and writing can access parts of the brain where trauma is stored, bypassing traditional talk therapy limitations. Creative expression helps surviv…
- CPTSD: Managing Transitions When Your Nervous System Screams Danger
This episode discusses how Complex PTSD (CPTSD) influences reactions to life transitions. It explains how trauma-wired brains may interpret change as a threat, leading to distress even during positive changes, and offers evidence-based met…
- Building Emotional Resilience Without Toughing It Out
This episode discusses building emotional resilience for trauma survivors, emphasizing it as a skill involving internal flexibility, nervous system regulation, and self-compassion. It covers practical tools, community stories, and research…
- When Gratitude Feels Impossible - Finding Your Way | Trauma Podcast
This episode discusses how authentic gratitude practices can aid trauma recovery. It explores how acknowledging small moments of goodness can help rewire neural pathways without invalidating painful experiences, sharing scientific research…
- Independence After Trauma - Build Your Agency
This episode discusses reclaiming independence after complex trauma, focusing on rebuilding agency rather than isolation. It explains how trauma affects decision-making and offers tools to foster healthy autonomy through gradual, consisten…
- Finding the Right Therapist for Long-Term Recovery
This episode discusses the crucial role of therapy in C-PTSD recovery, highlighting the importance of the therapeutic relationship, trauma-informed care, and navigating challenges like transference and plateaus. It emphasizes that healing…
- Breaking CPTSD's Negative Self-Talk Cycle: Science-Backed Tools
This episode discusses how negative self-talk in CPTSD develops as protective mechanisms during trauma and offers science-backed tools like cognitive restructuring and self-compassion to manage these patterns.
- Mindfulness Techniques That Actually Work for Trauma | CPTSD Podcast
This episode of the C-PTSD Podcast discusses mindfulness techniques adapted for trauma survivors. Host Gregory explores how trauma-informed practices, emphasizing safety and gradual awareness, can help individuals manage trauma responses,…
- Reclaiming Your Voice After Trauma Silenced It | CPTSD Healing Path
This episode discusses how complex trauma can silence individuals, impacting physical, emotional, and social expression. It explores the neurobiological basis of voice suppression due to trauma and offers practical strategies and insights…
- How Friends and Family Fuel Healing | CPTSD: Trauma Recovery
This episode discusses the crucial role of relationships in healing complex trauma, explaining how supportive connections can help regulate the nervous system and foster healing. It highlights the importance of relationship quality over qu…
- CPTSD: Breaking the Trigger-Reaction Cycle | Reclaim Your Power
This episode explains trauma triggers as neurobiological responses and protective mechanisms stemming from past trauma. Gregory discusses how to recognize triggers, create space between stimulus and response, and foster self-compassion for…
- Taming Overstimulation When Your Nervous System Screams
This episode addresses overstimulation in complex trauma survivors, explaining how trauma impacts the nervous system and leads to intense reactions to stimuli. Practical regulation techniques are offered to manage overwhelm and expand tole…
- Creating a Calm Mind When Your Brain Craves Chaos
This episode explores creating a calm mind for trauma survivors, focusing on nervous system regulation techniques. It discusses accessing calm through sensation and rhythm, utilizing state-dependent memory, and customizing strategies for i…
- Calming Your Racing Mind - Proven Peace Techniques
This episode explores techniques for CPTSD survivors to calm a racing mind, focusing on breathing exercises and personalized grounding practices. It discusses how trauma affects the nervous system and offers tools to reduce hypervigilance,…
- CPTSD: Reclaiming Your Body Through Movement - Healing Pathways
This episode discusses how trauma is stored in the body and explores the role of physical activity and mindful movement in trauma recovery. It highlights practical techniques and research supporting movement as a key healing tool for survi…
- CPTSD: Breaking Free from Isolation - Connection That Heals
This episode discusses moving from isolation after trauma to finding healing connections. It covers protective aspects of isolation, practical strategies for gentle reconnection, and how small, consistent social interactions can help rewir…
- CPTSD: Trauma-Informed Affirmations - Beyond Toxic Positivity
This episode explores trauma-informed affirmations, contrasting them with toxic positivity. It details how authentic affirmations, supported by research on neuroplasticity and nervous system regulation, can aid trauma healing and foster se…
- CPTSD: Breaking Free from Guilt and Shame - Real Tools That Work
This episode explains that guilt and shame in CPTSD are outdated survival mechanisms. It offers practical, neuroscience-backed tools to help survivors break free from these patterns, emphasizing self-compassion and healing over perfection.
- Boundaries, Guilt, and the Messy Miracle of Healing: Why Saying No is Essential for CPTSD Recovery
This episode discusses the challenges of setting boundaries for individuals with CPTSD, exploring guilt, self-loss, and the science behind healthy boundaries. It offers practical tools, listener stories, and insights into why people-pleasi…
- CPTSD: Building Real Support Systems - Quality Over Quantity
This episode discusses building authentic support systems for CPTSD recovery, emphasizing co-regulation and the importance of quality connections over quantity. It offers practical tools for creating meaningful relationships and understand…
- CPTSD: Reconnecting with Joy - Small Steps That Transform
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t explores how to reconnect with joy after trauma, addressing "joy guilt" and "joy anxiety." It emphasizes that joy is a birthright and can be reclaimed through small, consistent practice…
- Handling Emotional Overwhelm: Strategies for Calm
This episode discusses emotional overwhelm as a common CPTSD response, offering practical grounding techniques and self-compassion strategies to help manage intense feelings and find steadier ground.
- CPTSD: Coping with Loneliness
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t explores loneliness in the context of CPTSD. Gregory discusses how trauma impacts the nervous system, leading to isolation, and offers practical strategies and research-backed insights…
- Healing Trauma Through Breathwork and Meditation
Gregory guides listeners through using breathwork and meditation for complex trauma healing, explaining how intentional breathing and mindfulness calm the nervous system and build self-safety. The episode offers actionable practices for al…
- Morning Anxiety: Starting Your Day with Calm
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t discusses morning anxiety related to CPTSD, explaining how the body can enter 'danger mode' upon waking. It offers strategies like gentle routines, grounding techniques, and self-compas…
- CPTSD: Navigating Romantic Relationships After Trauma
This episode discusses how complex trauma impacts romantic relationships, exploring intimacy fears, self-sabotage, and the role of past wounds in new connections. It offers tools for healing, communication, and building courage to be authe…
- Meditation for Emotional Healing: Reclaiming Calm, Connection, and Self-Compassion with CPTSD
This episode explores using meditation as a tool for emotional healing for individuals with CPTSD. It emphasizes trauma-sensitive practices focusing on self-compassion and building resilience through small mindfulness moments, offering pra…
- Building Trust in Yourself and Others: Gentle Foundations for CPTSD Healing
This episode discusses rebuilding trust after complex trauma, focusing on self-trust and healthy relationships. It offers practical tools and strategies for making small, consistent actions to build trust, honor boundaries, and navigate se…
- Staying Grounded Through Difficult Conversations: CPTSD Survival Skills for Tough Talks
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t focuses on practical strategies for staying grounded during difficult conversations. Host Gregory shares insights on preparing for, managing, and recovering from high-stress interaction…
- Healing Through Gratitude Practices: Gentle Tools for Emotional Recovery
This episode discusses how gratitude practices can aid in CPTSD recovery, focusing on gentle, grounded techniques to manage pain, calm the nervous system, and foster hope without denying difficult emotions.
- Building Real Resilience: How to Strengthen Your Emotional Core with CPTSD
This episode discusses building emotional resilience for those with CPTSD, emphasizing that resilience is learned through daily acts and self-compassion, not innate toughness. It offers practical tools like grounding techniques, creative e…
- Understanding Triggers: Practical Tools for Trauma Recovery & CPTSD Healing
This episode discusses understanding triggers in CPTSD healing, exploring the neuroscience behind reactions to stimuli and offering practical tools for managing them. It includes listener stories and science-backed practices to help indivi…
- Recognizing and Reducing Hypervigilance: Gentle Ways to Reclaim Safety After Trauma
This episode discusses hypervigilance as a trauma response and offers gentle strategies to reduce the constant sense of threat. It covers accessible science, listener stories, and step-by-step practices to help build trust with your body a…
- Grounding for Life: Long-Term Techniques for CPTSD Recovery
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t focuses on long-term grounding techniques for recovery, discussing how repetition, predictable rhythms, community support, and joy can create lasting safety. It offers practical tools a…
- CPTSD and Sleep: Establishing a Night Routine That Heals
This episode focuses on building a healing night routine for complex trauma, emphasizing how predictability and gentle rituals can calm the nervous system. It offers practical advice, listener stories, and research-backed strategies for im…
- Breath as Rescue: Practical Techniques for Calming Panic Attacks and CPTSD Moments
This episode details practical, research-backed breathing techniques for managing panic attacks and CPTSD. It covers how slow exhalations act as a "circuit breaker" for fear, introduces resonance breathing for anxiety and attention, and di…
- Healing Together: The Transformative Power of Social Connection
This episode discusses the importance of social connection for healing CPTSD, highlighting how small interactions and supportive relationships can foster trust and belonging. It covers the neuroscience behind connection, practical tools fo…
- How Mindfulness Rewires a Traumatized Brain: Real-Life Tools for CPTSD Healing
This episode discusses how mindfulness can help manage CPTSD symptoms by rewiring the traumatized brain. Gregory shares practical tools, listener stories, and emphasizes using everyday moments and self-compassion as anchors for healing, ev…
- Nourish to Heal: Rebuilding Your Relationship with Food After Trauma
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t discusses the link between nutrition and trauma healing, explaining how food habits relate to survival mechanisms and why cravings and digestive issues are common after C-PTSD. It offer…
- Morning Routine for CPTSD Relief: Simple Daily Practices to Calm Your Nervous System & Kick-Start Healing
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t focuses on creating a trauma-informed morning routine. Gregory discusses simple, neuroscience-backed practices to calm the nervous system, reduce cortisol, and foster self-compassion, r…
- CPTSD Recovery: Why Real Progress Isn’t Linear (and How to Trust the Process)
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t discusses why CPTSD recovery is a non-linear process. It covers how setbacks are normal, the importance of self-compassion, tracking small victories, and utilizing community support for…
- Rewriting Your Story: Everyday CBT for Healing Unhelpful Thoughts
This episode of C-PTSD: Let's Make Sense Of This Sh*t explores Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques for healing trauma by challenging automatic thoughts. It discusses neuroscience, behavioral experiments, self-compassion, and thou…
- Unlocking Calm: Vagus Nerve Techniques to Heal Your Nervous System
This episode explores vagus nerve techniques for complex trauma, explaining how practices like humming, cold splashes, and dietary changes can help regulate the nervous system. It highlights how small, repeatable actions can strengthen vag…
- Guided Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Stress Relief & Inner Calm
This episode features a guided Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) practice to release physical tension and promote calm. It explains the neuroscience behind PMR, its benefits for the nervous system, and offers techniques for integration i…
- Optimizing Somatic Practices: Rewriting Body Memory in CPTSD
This episode discusses body memory as a physical manifestation of trauma and introduces three somatic practices—grounding, four-part breathwork, and body scans—to help retrain the nervous system towards safety and reduce stress.
- Surviving Stressful Family Gatherings with CPTSD - Proven Tools for Calm and Connection
This episode provides CPTSD coping strategies for stressful family gatherings, including breathing exercises, grounding techniques like 5-4-3-2-1, setting boundaries, and self-compassion practices. It also touches on polyvagal theory and o…
- Visual Sanctuary: Guided Imagery & Breathwork to Calm Panic Attacks
In this episode, Gregory guides listeners on using mental sanctuary visualizations and specific breathwork to manage panic attacks. The session includes practical techniques like micro-visualizations, listener success stories, and a 20-min…
- Home Sanctuary: Healing CPTSD Through Safe Spaces
This episode discusses creating a home sanctuary for CPTSD recovery by using sensory adjustments, micro-decluttering, and self-compassion practices to establish a safe space. Practical techniques and resources are provided to help rewire h…
- Journaling for Trauma Recovery - Reclaiming Your Voice with Compassion
This episode explores how journaling can aid in healing complex PTSD by helping to process memories and calm the nervous system. It offers practical techniques, addresses common obstacles, and emphasizes meeting oneself with compassion.
- From Shame to Self-Compassion: Rethinking Progress in Complex Trauma Recovery
This episode discusses the pressure trauma survivors face to heal quickly, how complex PTSD (CPTSD) distorts expectations, and the role of shame in driving self-criticism. It offers strategies for setting realistic, self-compassionate goal…