Security Halt!

Healing Relationships After Trauma: Danielle Sebastian on Communication, Coping & Conscious Connection

• Deny Caballero • Season 7 • Episode 356

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What happens to love and connection when trauma enters the picture?

In this heartfelt episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Danielle Sebastian to explore the real-life challenges couples face when trauma, service-related stress, and emotional wounds impact a relationship. Together, they dive into what it takes to build trust, communicate with purpose, and heal together.

This conversation is raw, insightful, and packed with real tools for veterans, military families, and couples navigating emotional wounds—whether from deployment, past trauma, or the daily grind of life after service.

You’ll learn:

  • How trauma affects emotional connection and communication
  • Why vulnerability and trust are foundational to healing
  • Practical coping mechanisms for partners on both sides of the struggle
  • How to identify and manage emotional triggers
  • The importance of community, self-discovery, and shared growth in a healthy relationship

This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to repair, rebuild, or deepen their connection while navigating the long shadow trauma can cast on love. 

 

🎧 Available now on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts
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SPEAKER_03:

Oh my gosh. And I g I have to thank you for the connection you you made with strong call.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Did you know I'm going to their retreat?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm excited for you.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a great organization. Yeah, absolutely. I constantly tell Flo and Donnie, I'm like, look, man, at some point you're going to realize that I am a great connector. I will bring you the best of the best because I feel that our soft community deserves that.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Especially when it comes to our couples. I didn't understand the importance. And I think a lot of young men fall victim to this. Don't understand the importance of finding the right friggin' companion for your life. And when you get into this job, you tend to think that this is the only thing I'll ever do. This is my identity, is who I am. And then somewhere along the line, you realize, A, you're mortal. B, you're you're you're not going to walk away from this got free. And that the only team that truly matters is the one at home. So if you don't start investing in yourself to become the best version of yourself, unlucky and lucky woman will find you, and then they will have to go through the fucking battle of fighting to get you to be the best version of yourself. And our soft couples have struggled and they continue to struggle. So once I found out about you, I was like, well, man, I gotta bring you on the show to talk about this.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Danielle, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_03:

You're welcome. I am so excited to be here and talk with you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Let's dive into your journey. How did you find yourself in this space?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh gosh. Yeah. About 15 years ago now, I met my dream guy, got married on a beach in Kauai. He had a daughter, so I became a stepmom right away. Just the man of my dreams. Um, he was a fireman, so he was did that shift work at the time. And man, he was a great dad. He was a great dad. On his days off, he was 100% with his daughter. They were just this little team. And he was the first guy who just really took um a big interest in me, you know, and asked me all the right questions. And it just became really clear that we had this great connection. And so we did, we got this married. We're talking about bringing somebody else into the family. But there wasn't long after we were married that I started noticing quite a few behaviors that I just couldn't didn't understand, couldn't put my finger on. We were constantly fighting about the stupidest stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Sounds very familiar.

SPEAKER_03:

My goodness, stupid cycles. And it seemed like they were normal things that other couples could get through that we couldn't get through. And there was just a lot, he really needed to control his environment very much. And I, you know, it became sort of unreasonable to me at some things. You know, we just couldn't get on the same page. And then every single time there was conflict, my husband really withdrew. And I'm talking about withdraw for days, sometimes weeks. And it became unbearable, and it seemed like I was just constantly walking on H shells. And yep, the walking on eggshells, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

I talk about so, like many, many of our guys, I want to pause and reflect on this to give it because it needs to be talked about, it needs to be given that much of space and discussion. It's that is the greatest, most powerful, most vulnerable your spouse will ever be if she says that. I ignored it in my first marriage. I ignored it, and I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Walking around eggshells. I'm not a tyrant, I'm not making it and making it difficult. But when I heard it in my current marriage, when I was at my worst and I heard that, I am so grateful that I was in a moment in my life where I could at least be receptive and open in understanding of like, I am causing damage, I am causing harm, not only to my marriage, but to my spouse. Like, this is the one thing that if you hear your spouse say this, like, you gotta stop. You gotta get help. You gotta all it the fight is already there, the war is already brewing. And if you haven't destroyed the relationship, you're damn close to when you hear that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and what I found out the hard way was that you know, my my husband had childhood trauma in addition to being a first responder, which I think is very common.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

I think that there's a lot of people, I don't know if they're just attracted to the job or whatever, but their life situation, chaotic home, often end up in military, first responder, even elite sports. 100% kind of professional lives. And so it's a double whammy when there's that chaotic childhood, in addition to being trained to never give up, to show no vulnerability, no weakness, always have a plan, be in control because control means survival, right? And unfortunately, those coping mechanisms that kept my husband alive, helped him survive his childhood and survive his career up to that point, were things that definitely needed to be tweaked in a relationship. They were breaking it down. And, you know, while it takes two to tango, you know, there was a lot of things that I was doing, of course, that was adding fuel to the fire. But until we were really able to talk about what those coping mechanisms were doing to our relationship, that's when things really started to change.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And it for a lot of people, it never gets you never you're never able to cross that bridge, you never get to the good side of life. You're stuck in the fight or flight, you're stuck in the battle, and then you walk away. How did you guys persevere? What changed in both of you to where you're you're able to look at each other and say, like, hey, like this is hell, but I love you and I want to get over this. How did you guys move forward?

SPEAKER_03:

We hit rock bottom, like a lot of marriages do. We hit rock bottom, and you know, God love him. He was like, he realized he had never told anybody about his childhood trauma. And so the first step for him was telling somebody, and he told me he trusted me with that information. Hardest thing he ever did was meant to go to the grave with him 100%. But he did it because he loved our kids and he loved me. So he went deep and he revealed that he realized there was something in him that realized he was gonna lose everything unless he addressed what was going on. And he took he understood his part in it finally after he was about to lose everything. So that was really it. But I have to tell you that I'm be I was very naive. I didn't I didn't really have a trauma, I didn't know people.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

unknown:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

I was just like, great, we put our finger on it. This is that missing piece of the puzzle, and we're just gonna do some counseling for six months to a year, and we're gonna figure this out, and everything's gonna be great. That is not the case.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, and and you know, you're you're almost the ideal model for this because our guys, a vast majority, you know, and and it's not every every guy's the same way, but a good portion of our population has the same attributes. They they come from the same backgrounds, and then they meet high-achieving spouses that they don't have a point of reference for this hellacious nightscape uh the night terrors and the violence they dealt with, the things they saw before combat and during combat. They don't have a frame of reference. So when the that husband finally gets vulnerable enough and they say, Hey, look, like this is the reality of what I went through as a child and this is what I've I experienced in combat. That spouse is sitting there like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_03:

And I felt very lied too. I'm not gonna like, what? Oh my gosh, this would have been some good information to have, right? You know, yeah. Before we got married. Not that that would have made a difference for me, but you know, you do you feel bamboozled a little bit, and that was hard. It was hard, and there was a lot of times where I'm like, I didn't sign up for this, I didn't know about this, right? But that wasn't me. That wasn't me. And like I said, I told you the story about how I met him, and I knew who he was deep inside, and I was able to realize that it was just what had happened to him. It was not him that was having these behaviors in our relationship. And when I was able to identify that, and then it released, as you probably know too, so much shame with childhood trauma, and then shame with you know not showing any weakness, right, in the job. So this the shame that he felt for everything needed to be addressed. And when I was able to understand where he was coming from, then it released a lot of that shame in our relationship and created more trust.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's the important thing is having that trust, understanding. But I think the one thing that we need to understand too is the importance of choice. You have to make that choice for yourself. Like a lot of guys often say, Well, I want to get better, I want to get better for my wife. And I'm like, Yes, that is important, but you have to dive into this journey for yourself. You gotta want this for you. Otherwise, you're never gonna stick through it. Otherwise, it's just gonna be very superficial, short-lived success, and eventually the full circle moment, you'll come back to being the person you were. Like you have to make this choice by looking into the mirror and saying, I want to be better for me. I want to be better for who I want to be a better version of myself.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's hitting that shame. Yeah. That shame and whatever that deep stuff is needs to be addressed. My husband was physically sick before his appointments. It is hard. It is really hard, and I don't want to discount that. But at the same time, the life he was living without doing that work.

SPEAKER_00:

That's no life at all. That's no life. It's destroying everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And how did you guys just he was able to glam onto that, and just really that was that was what kept him going.

SPEAKER_00:

And as you move forward together as a couple, because we always we always talk about building yourself up, getting to the point where you're you got your tools, you have your resources, but then you have to move together as a couple. You have to come together to build back that marriage and make it bulletproof, fireproof. What were some things you guys were doing together to show each other, like, hey, we're in this together, we're rebuilding these foundations together.

SPEAKER_03:

It took a while. It was, you know, me, I really started to understand trauma better and why this was affecting our relationship, how it was. That was the first step for me. Because if I could understand the why, then I could finally get to the what. And but I have to tell you, it wasn't easy because me knowing the why, the tools that we I was taught were not working, despite me knowing the why. And uh because so many of those the communication advice that's out there is for regulated people. It wasn't for somebody who had survival on the brain who was like, you can't reason with somebody who's seeing a bear.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Right? And so I was like, I'm trying my I feel statements, you know, we're taking the 30-minute break and coming back to it, we're not, you know, going to bed mad. We tried date nights, we tried everything. And none of those things were actually helping in the day-to-day stress. They worked really well when we were both in good places, right? But the second that our kid got hurt, right, playing sports, or the second that something really stressful at work happened, then guess what? All those things went out the window and we were back to the same old spirals. 100%. And so it was us figuring out what worked day to day in those stressful moments that really made the big difference.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You hit on something that's really important for us to focus on on the fight or flight. When someone's stuck in that hyper-aware, vital reptilian brain. And that's where a lot of our guys are stuck at. And you can't reason with that. You can't I statement or I feel your way out of that shit. And that's like the biggest thing that people don't understand. It's like there's so much great therapy out there and great books out there, but if you can't get that person out of their fight or flight response, or at least get them to understand that that's where they're operating, like, because that's the thing that it becomes your normal operating mode. And that's why guys are like, what the fuck are you talking about? I'm not in danger. Yeah, dude, you perceive danger in every single, every single moment of your life.

SPEAKER_03:

If we ask you to take the garbage out, you're feeling like a failure or something. I don't know. But you are in survival mode. And it's really hard when you're in it, right? To identify it. And I guess that's kind of what your partner's here for.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

To help you realize, okay, so let me tell can I tell you a quick story? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

How absolutely came to this realization?

SPEAKER_03:

And it's helped a lot of other uh, you know, clients that I work with. And I I love to run. So I've been a runner post post-college, actually. I started running and I started doing it, you know, where I was running races and stuff. But I we have this beautiful trail in Missoula, Montana, and it's called Greeno Park. And I two of my friends, some of my best friends I've met running, and so I was with two of my friends, Bree and Jenny, and it's this paved trail around this beautiful park. And you can take these little offshoots into the middle of the park in their uh dirt trails, and they go over bridges and the creek and all this stuff. It's one of my favorite places to run. So one morning we were down there and we decided to take one of those offshoots. So my friend Bree goes first, and I'm next, and then my friend Jenny, and we go in there, and all of a sudden, Bree stops, and we stop behind her, and we're like, What? And she slowly turns around and she looks at us kind of with excitement, but kind of with a little bit of fear, and she's like, It's a mare. I'm like, What? And so Jenny is behind me. She doesn't really, she loves being outside and running, but she doesn't like to touch it. So Jenny is running off like a crazy woman, and all I can see is the bottom of her Nikes as she is running as far away from us as possible. Bree, she's like worked at the Humane Society, loves bears, she does backtrack count. You know, she gets big, like you're supposed to, I guess, when you ran into a black bear anyway. Um, and so she gets big and she's in fight mode, right?

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_03:

And I'm somewhere in the middle, and I freeze behind Bree. And I'm cowering behind her trying to see what's gonna go on. Well, we've kind of Brie and I kind of went back to where we could get to that that paved trail, and this huge mother, mother, like brown bear, black bear, I don't even know what, Johnson's right past us, goes into this neighborhood, and there's an apple tree, and just starts gnawing on the apples, right? And that was the moment that I realized, oh my gosh, that's what everybody's been talking about with that fight, fight, or freeze. Right? You can have a plan for what you want to do when you run into a bear, but it's instinct, right? Every one of us had a different instinct, fight, fight, or freeze. And then guess what? Every single time I go to that trail, I get that same feeling every single time I go down that road. Right? And that is when I started realizing, okay, so when my husband but he's seeing he's seeing a bear when there's really a stop.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

He's seeing a snake where there's really just a stick. But that survival response and those responses that you get when you see a snake and when you see a bear, they're real. And as you mentioned, the only thing you can do is start to identify when your partner is not the bear, but really the stump.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is so true. And and not enough people are fucking talking about this. They're not talking about the reality that we don't understand. We're not Ph some some guys are. I've served some incredible, remarkable, soft guys that did a lot of school before they came in. But for the vast majority of us, we don't understand what the fuck's going on. We think we're normal. We think that we're people are abnormal for not having the reactions that we have. And we think it's perfectly justified to be on alert, ready to go, constantly at that moment of being able to just snap into action. And that is dangerous. That taxes your body, that destroys you. You're not meant to be pumping cortisol through your body nonstop. You're not, it's not supposed to be your normal operating mode to walk into the front door and just pass out because of adrenaline dump after a full day of work. Like, that's not reality. That's not a life, that's not how you're supposed to live, but that's the way that we've we've been raised and brought up into the military. And it's so hard to get guys to understand, like, hey, look, like this is basic biology. This is basically like this basic understanding of how your brain is rewired has been rewired to operate because you're constantly in that band of high stress. Like it's it's having to be like literally break down basic biology to people and get them to understand that you're a human being and you're not meant to be in high stress your entire life.

SPEAKER_03:

Not only that, you can add on the fact that these things worked for them. Why in God's name? They're thinking, would I stop doing this?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

When it kept me alive.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Right?

SPEAKER_03:

When it's worked for me. Um and so you add that little nugget on. But the fact of the matter is that these are the coping mechanisms did help you survive. They did serve a purpose. They are not shameful. They are not shameful, they just need to be tweaked, especially in relationships. And it can be done. It can be done if both people are willing to work on it and being patient because it doesn't happen overnight.

SPEAKER_00:

You can't reverse decades of coping mechanisms overnight. But and we we shouldn't, we shouldn't want the magic wand, right? Because the reality is life and companionship, it's a journey together. And and how much like there's nothing greater than hearing my wife tell stories and then or talk about like the way things used to be, and and then hear positive affirmations of like, man, like the other day, like just seeing you handle being sick, and seeing you handle me being sick, and not looking at it like a team sport of like you gotta endure, you gotta push through everything. Like, no, we're both fucking sick. Like, whatever you need to do, you take a knee, you take some time, you rest. I'll cover down. Like, life isn't meant to, you're not supposed to be in your ODA in your marriage. Your marriage is supposed to be your friggin' marriage, you're supposed to be there for each other and support each other. You're not supposed to treat her as your junior echo. And now, like seeing those those moments where your wife can take a knee and look and say, like, wow, like I don't have to worry about him. I don't have to worry about the way he's gonna react if I can't do something. Like, thank God you've you've had this growth. That's amazing. Like, that's that's a reality, what you can have. You can have your marriage back, you can have your partner back the way they see you and see the growth. You want that because anytime you make the superficial change really fast, and and it's like, wow, you're amazing, it's all great. Chances are you haven't really made a lot of changes. You've just you're just fucking showing off, and you're like, you're doing all the right things, just a little bit enough to get back into good graces. It's about the long game, it's about doing the right thing and going showing up every single day. The continued growth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I think that's the first step a lot of men take is this fine. I'm just gonna push it down and I'm not gonna show any emotion.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And then guess what? All that kind of emotion will come blowing up just when you don't want it to. And that is not the answer. The answer is not to have not have the emotions anymore and suppress them and push them down. It's about how can you have those emotions without taking it out on those you love.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Emotion is such a tricky thing, too. Like, not only is it something that it's learned societal, like within our culture, within where you grew up in, but it's it's also within the home, the way you're raised to, and a lot of us for men, emotions is something that we don't talk about. If you look at our our media, if you look at the the way men are are raised and brought up in in our American way of life, like it's never something that it's brought brought to guys as a positive. It's always like talked down upon. And the reality is, it's like it's it's part of the human experience. Everybody has emotions. You have to acknowledge them. The most humbling thing is getting that. If you've ever gone to a treatment center or talked to a psychologist, talk to a therapist, and they hand you that feelings wheel, and you're like, you can identify as like angry, happy.

SPEAKER_03:

I feel as anger. That one right there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's it's that it's that one emotion that you can touch, and you're like, I know what this is. I'm like, oh, did you know that there's there's guilt or shame? All sorts of things. It's like yeah, all sorts of emotions, and you're sitting there like, how fucking ignorant am I?

SPEAKER_01:

You're sad.

SPEAKER_00:

But the only one we can identify and touch is like, I know, I know anger. I it's the one thing, and guys choose it. I've I've been with guys that don't understand how to mourn or grieve, so they just get angry.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because it's what they know.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And, you know, in the case of, you know, my husband too, he'd been suppressing all that childhood, you know, trauma, severe childhood trauma. And I'm not saying, but he needed to get, he needed to be angry over what happened to him and mourn the loss of the child, you know, that he had. And so when I realized that, because I when I said I, oh, we'll just do some counseling for six months and a year and we'll be fine, I thought, you know, it's all the emotions are gonna get better. And it was when I realized, oh, so the emotions are getting worse right now. Because he needs to get it out. He needs to get it out. But I was literally like doing trying to tell him not to, right? Like, why are you getting so angry? And so I was, you know, adding fuel to the fire, you know, but it was all about okay, yeah, you should be angry about what happened to you, and you should be able to get it out, but how can we do it so that it just isn't wrecking our marriage?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and so it's not directed or feels like it's directed towards you or the kids.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because it was, it felt very personal.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But when I realized it was coming from somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's the important part. And and you talked about it a little bit earlier, not trying to tamp it out and not trying to ignore it. You gotta acknowledge it, you gotta figure it out. But at some point, you gotta give way. Like at some point, that's like the the big and everybody has their own path, their own, their own journey to go on. But that's why like a lot of the childhood stuff is so hard to deal with because at some point you gotta forgive, you gotta let go, you gotta move forward, you gotta walk away from it. And I'm I'm right there. I didn't want to forgive. I it took me going through every form of therapy and finally plant medicine to finally say, like, okay, I can let go of this, I don't have to carry it with me. That that's everybody has their own journey with it. How did you guys get to the point where, or for you specifically, how did you get to the point where you're like, okay, I understand this unique problem set. Now I need to help others.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Um, I looked everywhere. Like after my husband, you know, when he told me about the childhood trauma, I'm like, oh my gosh. And I looked everywhere. I'm like, where is the support group for partners?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But they're when their husband is in trauma healing. Where is that? Where are those people? They're nowhere. They're nowhere. I couldn't find anything. And then even, you know, the websites or the there was no book. I couldn't find a book for partners. And the articles that I'd read were very superficial and weren't very helpful. And so after we got to this point in our marriage where I'm like, okay, I think we got we have the tools. We are gonna make it through this. We've made it. Now we have these tools when the the trauma's not going away, those triggers aren't going away, but we know how to deal with them now.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_03:

I told I told my husband that I had this idea about that I might want to create that community and write that book that I couldn't find. And he'd done enough work where he was like, wait, what? And let me think about it. But I he knows me that once I get an idea in my head, I don't really give up. And he said, Well, if it helps even just one couple out there, that's why we made it. That's why we had this happen to us, is to help others.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Yeah. It's I think it's human nature when you're able to overcome something so friggin' difficult and impactful. You can you come across that choice of like, okay, now I can just focus on my family, be happy, just be great, or I can start helping others. I think more people are choosing now to start reaching out and share their journeys and share resources, information, write books because we need it. Like our modern men are are dealing and they they struggle with a lot. Like society likes to kick us down fucking in so many different ways. And and one of the biggest things that I find really problematic is marriage counseling. It's such a negative connotation, it's never held up in a positive light. And guys in and and their wives need to know there's a way out. There's a good, there's there's a guidebook, there are resources that can help you overcome this stuff. Like are there's a lot of men that are broken, there's a lot of men that need help. Doesn't mean that you have to throw away the marriage. You can get a hold of people such as yourself and start fighting back together. It's a personal choice, but there are resources out there. How have you um what are some of the changes you've been able to help some some people make in their relationships so they can avoid the pitfalls?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, the the biggest thing that I found. So we had when we went through it, we had a team. So he was working on himself, I was working on myself, and then we had this, the couple's counselor as well. So we had this team, and that got us really far. That got us really far to understand what was going on. But like I said, day to day, we were still just not making it through a single day, it seemed like, without some sort of conflict. And so what I found is that a lot of times you are when you're in a fight, when you're in conflict, there's all these things that are said after the original inciting events. Yes, and there are lots of things said or done in that post period. And guess what? It's really easy to focus on those, even with your marriage counselor, right? You go, well, she said this, she said that, but nobody ever goes back to what happened here. Okay, and so that is where I found the most the most value is when I was able to diffuse those things in the moment, we were able to diffuse them in the moment, not take them personally, figure out where they were coming from, and engage later, much later sometimes, to come to some sort of solution. And then when we went to our marriage counselor, we were coming with okay, we were talking about the incident of the event what caused the emotion in the first place, and that's where things really started changing in the relationship. And I also found that us trying to have a plan for the fight was creating more shame and distress between us. Because, as you know, when you run into the bear, you can have all those fight plans that you can have your what do you call them rules of. Of engagement. I know you guys really want a rules for engagement, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, man, you're you're hitting on some uh yeah. You want to hits close to home, yeah. Yeah, but you want armor, you want to have you want to have weapons, yeah. You wanna you want to come into the battle with all your ammunition ready to go.

SPEAKER_03:

Indeed. And guess what? It doesn't really work, and then you feel really big you would feel really shameful because you didn't follow the rules of engagement, right? In that moment. And then the cycle just keeps going and keeps going. So the biggest thing I learned is diffusing in the moment. Literally, when those emotions come, you know, when you get the snarky response back, or you get the eye roll, or you know them, whatever they were in your relationship, that you just stop right there. Stop right there. Don't let it go any further. Don't start apologizing, don't start, you know, trying to fix it, don't start trying to make it better because you're talking to somebody who saw a bear. And eventually the more you do that, the more you both as partners will identify when those are happening and take those breaks. It's hard when somebody has a childhood of abuse of abandonment, right? So it's a little, it it's kind of you have to figure out how it works for you as a couple to diffuse. But if there's abandonment issues, sometimes just leaving in the moment can seem really hard. But you need to work on it on how you want to do that safely as a couple, right? So that's the biggest thing because if you can stop it then, then when you re-engage, you're not talking about all the stupid stuff that was said after. You're talking about, hey, I asked if you could take the garbage out. It seemed like you took that personally and felt like I was telling you you were a bad person.

SPEAKER_00:

So friggin' true. That's like the it's the most common occurring when you talk to your friends and how they go through their discussions, their arguments. Like, guys always say the same thing. Man, I go in there locked and loaded. I've got 15 things from the entire week. I'm ready to just unleash. It's like, why, dude? Like, why do you keep score? Why do you why are you keeping tally? Like, that's the fucked up thing. And we all do it. And and it's just like I have to be validated. I have to know that I am right. I have to, I have to feel that I am I'm heard and I am right. It's like, fuck, it's it's not a it's not a competition. This is your wife.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It's okay to take the armor off, but man, is it scary for you guys.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's it's one of the hardest things. Like I said, it's we for a lot of us, we prioritize the wrong team. We take for granted the spouse at home, the person that chose to build a life with us, the person that chose to come into our chaotic world and try to make sense of it and to make something out of it. And it's not until late in our careers that we finally realize we're like, fuck, I've been fucking up. If we're lucky to have that recollection before they walk away. And and it's just one of the things that I love to champion and advocate for is like your marriage is more important than the ODA. Your marriage is going to care for you, take care of you, nourish you, pour back into you more than the ODA will. You're at some point you're going to age out. Some point you're going to have to leave. Your wife's going to be there. She's the one that's ultimately going to be there with you. Your kids are going to be there. You have to see them as the priority. If not for yourself, like think of the future, think of those kids. Like we make marriage seem so disposable these days. It's like, oh, it's frivolous. You can just get married. Yeah, you can find somebody else. Those problems are going to still be there.

SPEAKER_03:

You're still going to have those Hate to break it to you, but yeah, you're going to bring those same ones.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. They're going to continue to be there.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Because there is no, there is no perfect, there is no perfect person, right? And the close the ones closest to us are the ones that are the most triggering.

SPEAKER_00:

And how does this work? How has this work changed you? Being, you know, having experienced it from somebody living it on a daily basis to now helping others? How has it changed you? And and we talk about caregiver fatigue a lot on this show. Do you feel that sort of the same weight weighing on you now that you're helping others? Have you been able to walk away and find ways to rejuvenate? Or do you are you able to just understand, like, hey, this is not my lived experience? Like, this is me helping others. I'm not reliving this stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

Geez. Um, I realized that I had lost myself in my marriage. 100%. I was trying to do everything I could to not rock the boat, to keep things calm, to do the things that my husband liked and not push him to do things that I liked. Right? Anything to not rock the boat to keep things calm. And I completely lost myself. And I was exhausted and I was in survival mode. And so all the things I loved, you know, going to yoga class and all those things, I put them on the bath burner. And I realized, you know, that when I actually started doing those things again, it actually helped my marriage because obviously when you're you're completely, you're more reactive, right? As a partner when you're not taking care of yourself. And so that was part of me finding myself again and realizing that I was this person that couldn't just take this and not help others, right? And not I wanted to figure out why is nobody talking about this? What's really going on in these marriages, right? The fights that we're having day in and day out. Because if we just keep suppressing it, if we keep not talking about it, then we can't make it better.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_03:

So it has I have so much more empathy for the entire human existence because everybody has trauma of some sort, right? It's changed me at work, it's changed me in the grocery store. Like when I see somebody do something like really like be a big jerk or something, I'm like, oh gosh, they must have something, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Hurt people, hurt people. That's exactly what comes to my mind. I'm like, if somebody's being yeah, I'm like you, you're dealing with something, you're you're hurt, you gotta heal. Yeah, I'm the same way.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's a lot lighter.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

When you, you know, when you realize, oh my gosh, everybody has a whole bunch of crap going out there. But I do want to do my part to try to make it better.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's like being of service to others. It's that calling. Seeing that great suffering that's out there and wanting to stand up. It's everybody can help somebody. Like you just gotta figure out what you're passionate about. You gotta figure out what you want to do and figure out how you can turn it into something where it can be beneficial to someone else. Like we all have a journey, we all have a story. Getting out there and sharing it, helping somebody overcome their pitfalls, that's a wonderful life. That's something I can get behind and hope and promote and help other people find that. It doesn't have to be your nine to five, it can be something you do on the side, but get involved, reach out, be willing to help somebody go through their journey. Because, man, like it it's uh that common humanity piece. Like we're a lot more connected than we tend to think. Uh, and suffering is a universal language, like everybody's had a really bad relationship. Everybody's had that really bad testing moment in their marriage. And sometimes we need some perspective and some outside influence to help us be the best version of ourselves, man. Um, because like I said, like family units are important, marriage is important. Like you shouldn't see it as something you can just walk away and be okay with. And more often than not, now that's the thing that I see that it breaks my heart, man. Like, you should be willing to fight for your wife, fight for your husband, be the best version of yourself for them. Because man, like that's something that's uh it only makes us better when we have a strong family unit.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I heard I heard this the other day that like you so many people spend so much time and energy and resource into their wedding date.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And then we don't spend that time and energy on actually helping the marriage once we're married.

SPEAKER_00:

I absolutely believe that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And I'm like that. Don't I just don't want people to hit the rock bottom that you know I did in my relationship. And if you can start to see these signs, right, that these things might be happening and address them sooner than retirement.

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Number one.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because by then you've had 20 years of these patterns, right? And it's harder to it's hard to make those those tweaks. Because it really is tweaks. It's not big, huge things that need that need to change. It's not like this whole life you have to change your personality or anything, right? It's little tweaks that you can make. But the sooner you can do that, you know, when you get married, if you start noticing these things are happening, the better. Otherwise, you're gonna get to retirement and it's gonna be forced on you anyway.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah. Well, let's break it down. Let's share some common um common little helpful tips that we can help like just share right now for some of our married uh listeners.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. I I have this three steps to diffusing conflict that you can literally start today, that I want you to start doing right now. Okay. So first and foremost, you kind of know the why now. Usually all these emotions, if the emotion that is you're seeing in your relationship is bigger than it deserves, right? That's a good way of putting it. If you are feeling an emotion that is seems way more loaded or bigger than the situation deserves, that's most likely somebody being triggered. Something is coming up in them physically, they are seeing that bear, even though it's a stop. And so that is when I want you to pause is when that happens and not start down the road of you know, all the things that get said afterwards, right? So pausing in that moment, and you're gonna figure out how to do that as a couple. So often it will be a wife, right? Saying something like, I'm not engaging with this right now, right? Let's think about why whatever I just said, I didn't mean it in any way, shape, or form to be any anything negative, right? Let's just stop and take a moment and then come back to it. Okay. So I'm not engaging in this right now. This isn't necessary that we go down this route, anything. I mean, I even am like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't mean anything. I that's not what I meant by that, right? You're gonna figure out in your relationship how you can be like, oh wait, I think you've seen the bear when it's really a stop. Okay. So you're trying to figure out and stop it right there, and then you're gonna take a break. Now, I don't know how many people out there have seen a trigger end in 30 minutes, but it's pretty rare.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

At least in my experience and in the wives that I work with. That when you once you have that emotion to something, it takes a while. And so it is okay for it to be hours or even days. Okay. So you're letting those emotions come down and you're not taking it personally. You're realizing that that's somebody seeing a bear, even though you didn't that wasn't the case. Okay. And then you have to give them that time to realize, okay, I was seeing the stump and not the bear. Sorry. But that's how I felt. And so you're you're giving that time. So that's step two. So one is trying to fuse it in the moment, two, give it time and give it enough time. There is no limit on the amount of time that it can take. But the third one is to re-engage, because so many of us are like, I'm just gonna throw that under the rug. We're finally over it, we'll move on, right? But you never talk about what happened there to make it better. And so that's the third step is to re-engage when both parties are ready. And you literally talk about it. Seems like when I said this, you felt this. Okay. Do you see how you're not saying, gosh, why can't I just ask you to take out the garbage without you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And you're creating that shame. It's just all about identifying the emotion that occurred so that you can start identifying those things as stumps and not bears. She wasn't telling you you were a bad person and that you didn't, you can't do anything. She was literally just asking for help. And if you do those three things consistently, you will get on a better pattern with your partner. And guess what? Remember how I said you can have this plan and it may go haywire when you're talking about somebody seeing a bear? It's okay if it goes haywire. You just try again next time.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Yeah, that's that that is an awesome plan of attack. And I will throw one more attitude out there.

SPEAKER_03:

Tell me. Tell me.

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of times we can't get to the point where we can talk because we're stuck in this fight or flight. And the first thing that was given to me where I found as a resource that could really finally bring me down to a real level of zero was stellar ganglion block. Like that was one of the few things that I could get.

SPEAKER_03:

Tell me, tell me about that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, it is the stellar ganglion blocks. It's the stellate nerve bundle. There's right on the side of your neck. And you can get them on most, most of I think, I think for the most part, most soft bases, you can get access to these. I know you can get them at seventh group, but the world's like leading experts are the stellar center, and you can get nonprofits, specifically the Special Forces Foundation, they will pay for you and your wife to go there and get a still ganglion blocks at the same time so that you can both be brought back brought back down to a true zero. So you're not up elevated at each other's throats, and you are more receptive for things like conventional talk therapy, because you're finally back down at a true zero. Yeah. So if you find yourself where you're constantly fighting and you're at each other's throats, and you never feel like you're actually at a true baseline of zero, not in a constant state of stress and alertness, like maybe check out a stellar ganglion blocks right for you. And if you need reach, if you need help getting access to it, check out the Special Force Foundation. It'll be in the link. I highly recommend it. Uh, it doesn't have to be the combat stuff, it can be all sorts of stuff that gets you into that fight or flight that's stuck mode where you feel like you're constantly aggravated, up elevated, constantly on alert. You can get that from just being in the military, being soft for such a long time. So please check it out. It's an important thing to have on your back burner to understand that, like, hey, you don't have to live like this. You can get a celliganglion block, and for a lot of people, it's once and done. And you can start moving forward and be more receptive, not only what your partner's saying, but what your therapist or mental health professional is sharing and giving the resources they're giving you. So I highly recommend it. Please check it out. I'll send a I'll put a link to the blog post I wrote a while about it. It's a great resource, a great tool, and it literally changes lives. It's um it's it's helped a lot of people in our community and it continues to change. So yeah, please look into it.

SPEAKER_03:

And I know some people, I think you mentioned it, CBD helps some to be, you know, to start coming out of just constantly living in survival mode. Man, I mean, my husband, I'm like, because of all the stress he's been under that he's lived with for 50 years now, he's tired, you guys. His body's taking the toll.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It is taken a toll.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, first responders, and uh, if you haven't have you read the operator syndrome uh white study or the book?

SPEAKER_03:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll send you the point paper study. It uh it's absolutely critical to understanding first responders, especially EMS, firefighters, SAP professionals, anybody within the combat arms that's been in sustained operations for the past 20 years. It absolutely wrecks your body, and people are just now starting to understand the cognitive changes, the physiological changes that occur when somebody's constantly operating at a high threshold of stress, alostatic load. So it's under, it's very important to understand that stuff. But the great thing about it is uh just like G.I. Joe used to say, the more you know, and learning is have to battle.

SPEAKER_03:

It is.

SPEAKER_00:

So once you know what you're facing, what you're going up against, you can be better informed and you can show it to your wife. That's one of the greatest things I ever did was print it out and show to my wife, like, look, this I am not losing my mind. This is everything I'm going through, everything I'm feeling. And uh yeah, the cell ganglion block is a great tool to get you to a point where you can actually start making forward progress because you're not hesitant. You're not stuck in seeing everybody as the opposition. You're finally down to like, it was the first time I felt like I could take a deep breath and really understand belly breathing because I could feel the restorative effect of my own vagus nerve. I could actually tap into that of like, oh wow, that really does calm you down. Any other time I was talking with a therapist about taking a deep breath and I'm like, I don't feel a difference. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Grounding, I don't, I don't feel different, I don't feel relaxed. And then after my second stellic ganglion block, then it started like really hitting me of like, well, I'm in control of my physiological reaction. I can go put my face in cold water, I can go ground, I can de-escalate this stuff. It just takes work. But you gotta be willing to do it. That's the main thing. You gotta be willing to do it, you gotta see the benefit of it because your family's important. Like your wife was willing to go up there and stay with you for how many years? For how many combat deployments? You owe it for yourself, but you owe it for her too. Be willing to change, be willing to see the benefit of being the best version of yourself. Danielle, I can't thank you enough for being here and for doing the great work that you're doing. Before I let you go, though, how's your husband now? How are things for you guys?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh God. He um he does not, he realized that he doesn't have any shame for what happened to him, right? That shame was gone. And when he was able to really address that, right? That shame that he felt that was keeping him blocked, and we were able to have success in our relationship, right? We were finally able to communicate better. Man, he is a different, he's a different person, you know, and he's happy and he feels like he deserves everything that he's gotten where he didn't before. He always felt like this was this was too good for him, right? He didn't deserve this. If anybody knew what had happened to him, what he'd been a part of, they would never want to be with him. And he was just waiting for that shoe to drop. And he's not anymore. He knows he deserves it. What happened to you in your past does not define what you deserve.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. That is so true. And and and so many of our guys need to hear that. Um that's a perfect way to end it. Danielle, thank you so much for being here. If people want to connect with you or learn more about what you do, where can they go?

SPEAKER_03:

Go to my website. It's danielle sebastian.com. I have free resources on there. The one that I that's getting that I just talked you through, those three steps, there's a freebie on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice.

SPEAKER_03:

Go grab it and start implementing those now because those will entirely help um your the the conflicts that you're seeing every single day. Um, and then I also, like I said, I work with partners that are like, oh my gosh, I need help with this. And so uh that is also on my website where you can book a call. It's relationshipstrategy.com.

SPEAKER_00:

Heck yeah. Well, do you want uh do you guys a favor? Pause right now, go to the episode description. All the links you need will be right there. And here's one more. I'll make my editor do something right there. There's a link. Can't click it, it's a video, but you can write it down. Or go to the episode description. Danielle, thank you so much for being here. I am so happy we connected. I cannot wait to have you back on. Um, it's just an absolute pleasure seeing you and everything you're doing for our great American couples out there because families are important, marriages are important. So do yourself a favor, take care of yours, prioritize your family and your well being. You deserve it. Thank y'all for tuning in. We'll see y'all next time. Until then, take care. Secure to have a podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head up the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.

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Deny Caballero

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