In this insightful and heartfelt episode, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey DeVos explore how trauma reshapes our autobiographical narratives—and how we can transform those stories into sources of resilience, wisdom, and even transcendence. Keith presents his four-stage model of trauma healing, beginning with the recognition that “something is wrong” and culminating in the emergence of a wise, self-aware presence capable of navigating future challenges. A key insight: trauma doesn’t just come from what happens to us, but from how our innate personality structures—which Keith describes as largely pre-wired—interact with those events. Using tools like the Enneagram, Keith shows how accepting our core “type” becomes the foundation for authentic growth. Healing, in this view, is not about erasing wounds but about metabolizing them into strength, compassion, and self-leadership. The conversation weaves together developmental psychology, narrative reframing, and practical tools like HeartMath, mindfulness, loving-kindness, and Internal Family Systems. Along the way, Keith and Corey touch on peak experiences (à la Tony Robbins or psychedelics), the role of negativity bias, and the subtle shift from trauma memory to resilience memory. With humor, depth
, and an integrally-informed lens, they illuminate the inner alchemy of turning pain into presence.
Trauma isn’t the fire — it’s the smoke.
Most people believe trauma causes their distress. But Keith reframes trauma as a signal pointing to deeper, pre-existing psychological defenses. The real “fire” is the wiring and adaptive strategy we were born with — trauma merely reveals where the defense isn’t working anymore. Healing isn’t about removing trauma; it’s about understanding what it was trying to protect.
You don’t grow despite your wiring — you grow through
it.
Many of us view traits like anxiety, fear, or shame as things to “fix.” But Keith emphasizes that we are each pre-wired with a temperament and defense structure
. Growth begins when we accept who we are at the root, not bypass or reject it. You don’t heal by becoming someone else — you heal by becoming a more integrated version of who you already are.
Your autobiography is a living system — and you can rewrite it.
Our sense of self is fundamentally a narrative process, not a fixed truth
. Traumatic memories tend to freeze these stories in rigid, self-limiting patterns. But the narrative is plastic — we can reinterpret, update, and even transform our stories in light of new understanding. This narrative flexibility is key to post-traumatic growth.
Resilience and trauma are both forms of memory — and we build them differently.
Trauma learning is a kind of sensitization memory — it makes us more reactive over time. Resilience learning is the opposite: it wires us to decrease our reactivity through successful adaptation. Recognizing both as trainable memory systems opens up new practices for rewiring our nervous systems toward strength and flexibility.