Intro [0:00]
Hello my dears! My name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast.
In this episode we will talk about why emotions are more important than facts - in the healing process - something I mentioned several times, but never really gotten into in greater detail. It is one of the most crucial things to get right to cure yourself.
So let us tall about it.

Prelude [0:30]
While I was uploading and editing my older episodes to the archives and Youtube - I noticed I skimmed over this point but not really explained it. I just regularly emphasized on how it is important. But as said before - one must understand it.
Only when we truly understand something we can modify it and securely apply it in different scenarios. That applies to everything. As the saying goes, if you can not explain it in your own words you didn’t really understand it.
And despite my many attempts I was never able to disprove it. It is really a great test to see if you truly understand something if you can explain it to someone - especially without using the big words. Very useful for exams or the like.
And crucial for understanding the elements during the healing process and to be able to improve it. Naturally you understanding grows the more you use it.
We first start with the purpose of facts, then an example and then applying example to a trauma.

The purpose of facts [1:40]
Now I used the phrase “more important” for a good reason - as facts serve an important purpose. They give us important information about the framework, situation, state of things and so on. Of course it strongly depends on what facts are being used.
It is important to understand that in the healing process the facts are there to convey emotions. So the amount of books in the room is not relevant information - usually at least. Especially men rely overly on facts - and shy away from using emotions.
One told me everything that happened to him in detail but not once referenced or gave any impression on how he felt about anything in this. Therefor completely sidestepping the issues. There is a huge cultural and social issue connection - which we won’t get into.
When we ask how hard you were hit - it isn’t about trying to measure the physics of that punch, but how it felt to you. A slap from a loved one will hit harder than the punch of a stranger.

The example of getting for the importance of emotions [2:52]
Which is an good example we can use. The facts are a person balled their hand and in a swift movement hit the side of your face so it moved slightly to the side. Now we can gather from the facts that that was uncomfortable and likely hurt.
But what decides how this moment impacts you are other factors. Like, how close were you to that person? Did you trust this person? Was it humiliating? Was there support? Did you feel threatened? Did you feel in danger? Were you surprised? Did it stress you?
Did it hurt you emotionally? Did you feel angry? And so on. Basically: How did it make you feel? Now answering these questions isn’t easy - definitely way harder than telling the facts of what happened. It takes a bit of experience to confidently express your own feeling.
The more you do it - the easier it gets - as usual. But our memory in processing happens in emotions and impressions. Reducing situations to facts can help better convey to others what happened - but not why it impacted you or how you felt or experienced it.
The movie “inside out” does an excellent job in visualizing simplified how memories are basically created via emotions at the start of the movie. I put a clip from exactly this in the description.

Applying example to a trauma [4:25]
But how does that apply to our trauma? Well this is how we remove trigger and the trauma cores - but for that we must truly understand them. Like I said in the prelude - only if we truly understand something we can apply it. The questions earlier are the key.
Because one of these questions usually is the reason - or at least where the trigger or trauma core is hidden. That is why we keep asking why questions until we reached the point where it hurts the most. That is where the wound is - where the hurt is.
Of course a trauma is usually SIGNIFICANTLY larger and has more segments in it. Which is why it is SO easy to overlook some triggers when dealing with it and you have to revisit a few times before you can really be sure all of it is gone.
But what we do, when we ask these questions is deciphering and taking it apart - and we do this segment for segment until we find the answer. Once we found the answer we need to try to empathize with ourselves and basically give us a hug. More or less.
Though that is a topic on its own. So to summarize: Why something happened is more important than what happened, as trauma is a construct of emotions and can only be found and resolved with feeling emotions - which often aren’t obvious.

Outro [5:56]
That was it for todays episode, I hope you found it helpful. Hope you are safe and well. And as always, if you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com.
More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com and links are in the description.
I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.