Let’s talk about trauma and how we heal.
When a human being experiences a traumatic event our nervous system kicks into gear, releasing cortisol, adrenaline, and other neurochemicals that make an imprint on the brain. Primarily affecting the Hippocampus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex.
The term trauma is used as common language to describe a deeply disturbing or distressing event that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, and diminishes our sense of ability to feel a full range of emotions and experiences. It may be a single event or a series of patterns of stressful situations.
It’s interesting how 2 people can experience the same traumatic event, and one person can be devastated by it and the other relatively ok. Likely the person that is seemly ok has been taught or modeled healthy coping skills to deal with stress, has good social support, and or has not experienced intense trauma in their past, which allows them to have more emotional resiliency and overall wellbeing. So, how do we restore, repair, and heal the traumatized aspects of ourselves to the essential essence of our sovereign beings?
I have learned through my varied traumatic experiences how to navigate my internal world with more compassion and grace. Trauma has awakened me to the exploration of how my brain processes information and where I get stuck.
My ability to bounce back after a catastrophic car accident was difficult physically, but not so much emotionally. I actually flipped the story of that accident from trauma to the miraculous. I could easily have been killed in this crash, I was thrown out of the truck that was going 60 mph, the truck rolled 5 times, but I landed in mud, softening my landing. I had also just unbuckled my seat belt so I could lay down to sleep. If I had been strapped in I would have been crushed as the small truck was pancaked on my side. Yet from my perspective I was incredibly lucky. This has become a story of strength for me.
Quite the opposite were my experiences of feeling, not enough due to my fears of incompetency, based on a diagnosis of having learning disabilities, (which I’ve written about in previous blogs), have been complex and incredibly painful in my life.
I created all sorts of patterns around not enough, not enough in school, socially, not pretty enough, not athletic enough, based on the construct of an educational system that was not designed for my type of learning.
Two potentially traumatic events with two very different outcomes. Perhaps my insecurities about being smart enough continued a narrative that I wasn’t enough due to my mother’s debilitating depression in her early years, she was not able to give me the love and attention that I needed as a preverbal child. Hence, the car accident didn’t replicate a preexisting storyline, but the stamp of being learning disabled gave me perceived evidence that I was not enough.
I now know that the story was not true, that my experiences with depression and lack mentality stemmed from lived experiences, patterns that have played out in my family in different ways for generations.
We heal and repair these experiences by:
- Understanding their origin
- Practicing what it means to be present in ourselves and in our lives
- Untethering from the collective beliefs about who we should be and how to live a fulfilling life
- Regaining the wisdom and power of our inherent goodness
Trauma is part of being human, knowing and accepting all parts of ourselves and our lived experiences that synthesizes our mind, body, and spirit into the WHOLE.
If this resonates, please feel free to reach out.
Love and Light,
Kristine
