Today, I want to talk to you about the importance of dealing with your trauma if you want to thrive in life.
I've been working with clients and their traumas for a while, and I've been working on myself.
If you read this and think that you have no trauma, think again. Even if you've had a relatively unscathed childhood and great support, we've all experienced minor traumas.
Traumas are part of everyday life, and they are probably the most unrecognized mental health issue catalysts in our society. According to the trauma expert Peter Levine, "Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering" (Healing Trauma Study Guide (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 1999), 5).
What is trauma?
In colloquial language, trauma is often perceived as something major that happens to the individual: natural disaster, abuse, or war. It gives the impression that trauma belongs to the realm of the unusual.
Trauma is an inner injury. Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside of you. It causes a split within the self.
If you're exposed to a hurtful event, your mind will find a way to protect you from feeling the hurt. A child whose emotions are neglected and not attended to will develop a coping mechanism of cutting off emotions and hurt from the conscious experience. This is how split is defined. Your emotions and experience are cut off from your conscious experience.
Trauma causes suffering and keeps you from fully living and engaging in life. If you want to thrive, you must, therefore, be courageous and deal with your trauma.
Unhealed trauma can even cause you disease, even if you feel like you can function in your daily life and even grow and build the life you want.
Trauma has to be dealt with from below and up
The dilemma of dealing with trauma is that it's not available to our conscious minds. We have to find another way to approach it.
You can access your unconscious trauma via the sensations in your body. Your sensations are where the unconscious mind is found.
Freud knew this and later forgot it in his theory. But this has been taken up by trauma experts and mindfulness teachers alike.
If you want to deal with your trauma, you have to work with your body and its sensations. Trauma has to be released to be healed.
The challenge is that we tend to distract ourselves the second a discomfort shows up in our sensations. Food, drugs, social media. You name it.
But one thing is clear: the only way out is through.
To heal from trauma, you must find a way to reconnect with your embodied experience and allow the discomfort to be felt. Your sensations are longing to be heard, felt, and seen.
A step-by-step process to approach any difficult experience
Dealing with trauma can be difficult. Sometimes, you need somebody to talk to and guide you. The most important task for a therapist or anyone to help you through your trauma is to create a safe space where you dare explore difficult experiences.
You can also start doing this on your own. Here's a guide that should take roughly 10-15 minutes:
- Create a safe environment.
- Anchor yourself by closing your eyes and taking deep breaths. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Let the outbreath be longer than the inhale. Do this for a few minutes.
- As you go to normal breathing, turn your attention to each body part with a non-judgmental attitude. Start from the head. Let your attention rest on each body part for a few breaths. Note the sensations you have. Are you tense? Stay there longer as you keep breathing.
- When you're done scanning your entire body, return to any part that was stiff or constricted or where you didn't feel anything. Put both your palms over that part and see what sensations come up. How does it feel?
- Affirm yourself with words such as: "May I be well. May I be happy."
- Slowly open your eyes.
- You may be lost in thought as you do this and lose your focus. This is normal. When you notice that you've lost track, begin again without judgment or frustration.
Note how you feel afterward. Journal about anything that came up. Do this several times per week.
Notice also how releasing trauma is about moving from constriction to openness. This happens in the body. Stiffness turns into a looser sense. This is called pendulation by trauma experts and expansion by mindfulness experts.
Trauma keeps you from self-transcending
Practice self-compassion. Healing trauma takes time. It is a long journey. Part of the trauma is that you may be afraid of feeling and dealing with it.
It is, therefore, crucial to establish a safe environment and perhaps with someone you feel safe with.
If you're a solopreneur, not healing and feeling everything you are and have experienced in your past will stifle your self-transcending tendencies. It will stifle your potential as a solopreneur.
If you're a parent and want to take responsibility for not transferring your traumas to your kids, then healing is the best way to make sure your kids thrive and you thrive.
Whoever you are, you are worthy to be fully engaged in your own life and to be happy.
If you want to book a discovery call with me, here's my calendly link that you can use.
See you next week!
