The mountains and waterways may bring joy to many outdoor adventurers, but when disaster strikes, they can also bring trauma, suffering and a life-time of pain. One woman from Jasper is doing her best to diminish that pain.

Gilly Thomas is coming back to Jasper to talk about her training in stopping short term accidents from becoming long-term, chronic pain through harnessing the power of the mind. Thomas, who has a bachelors of education and is a certified Rubenfeld Synergist — synergists address ailments with treatment for the body and the mind as a whole — said that her services have a lot to offer for people in Jasper.

“Healing trauma is an especially relevant topic in a town like Jasper which sees more than its fair share of mountain accidents, road accidents and the regular traumas of surgery, divorce and life. I used to volunteer on the crisis team in Jasper, so I know this is true,” said Thomas in an email.

She will be in Jasper on March 18 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Cavell Room at the Jasper Seton Healthcare Centre. She describes it as a “presentation about the latest brain and body research and some effective modalities for healing short term and chronic trauma.”

Trauma can be a tricky, nebulous thing, explained Thomas.

Someone who has been in a violent car accident on an icy road might associate things that have very little to do with the car crash with the pain from the crash. If the person was drinking coffee when the accident occurred, coffee might bring back the pain of the accident years later. If the person was listening to country music when the crash happened, twangy guitars might bring the pain back.

In short, sometimes trauma hangs around in unexpected places.

“The person is caught in a trauma cycle,” said Thomas.

The reasons are primeval, she explained.

When a person is threatened, the limbic, reptilian parts of the lower brain are activated. The body primes itself for defense against danger. Animals can shake off the effects, but humans seem to be different, said Thomas. The reactions can linger.

Trauma can be easily solved if caught in time, said Thomas, but if something like childhood abuse or sustained emotional cruelty goes untreated, the victim can start to believe that they are under danger and threat all the time.

Trauma can have long-term, painful ramifications, explained Thomas.

She told about a patient who she treated who was suffering aches and pains from an event that had happened over 20 years ago.

The woman came in to see Thomas, and after examining her, Thomas said she noticed that the woman seemed to be physically twisted in one direction.

“It’s a little hard to describe,” said Thomas. “Her whole body was twisted away from her right leg.”

Thomas asked the woman if she had ever had anything traumatic happen to her leg. Sure enough, the woman told her that when she was seven years old, she had some kind of knee surgery.

Incredibly, Thomas said that the trauma from the woman’s knee surgery was now causing her neck, shoulder, and lower back pains.

Helping people over come their trauma is really the best part about her job, said Thomas.

“Meditation is fantastic. It really helps reprogram the brain,” said Thomas. “People need to be able to visualize a different reality and that can be soothing.”

Thomas said she doesn’t want people to retreat into a dream world and run away from their problems. Instead, she wants people to visualize making the right hand turn instead of the left hand turn that caused them to crash, while at the same time remembering that they actually made the left turn.

Training your brain that there are other possibilities can be soothing, she said.

Thomas said that in the end, her work is about making people safe. She is trying to make people recognize that the danger and pain they once felt doesn’t have to last forever, that the past doesn’t control the future.