Healing Our Trauma

We hear the word 'trauma' a lot. What does it mean?  The definition of trauma I am working from is an event (or events) that overwhelm our nervous system or our emotions and our ability to respond successfully at the time of the event (or events), resulting in an adaptation of the system that then alters the way we interact with life going forward.  The nervous system 'remembers' the event and then is on lookout for the same thing happening again.  In effect the nervous system says "woa... that was not ok!!  I'm going to remember that and the NEXT time that happens I'm going to be ready!"  So we move forward on guard that it could happen again and indeed we feel it WILL happen again.  Then, when our nervous system recognizes anything as remotely similar, our body reacts as though it WAS happening all over again, right here, right now.  Our brain might recognize that this is different, we are in a safe place, we have support with us, we are an adult now etc.  But the body is not listening.  It screams "FIGHT!", "RUN!", or we simply freeze and find ourselves unable to respond at all, or we become emotionally overwhelmed and unable to respond in a way that is helpful.  Does this sound familiar?  If you find yourself answering yes then you have unresolved trauma acting in your system.

Fight, Flight, Freeze

Let's first look at the fight, flight, freeze response of our survival brain to perceived threat.  Peter Levine (founder of Somatic Experiencing) discovered that animals in the wild, although they regularly face potentially life threatening situations, typically instinctively move through the entire threat response cycle and then settle back to a calm pre-threat state.  When faced with a threat, animals respond instinctively.  Their system floods with adrenaline.  They instinctively and instantly assess if they are able to fight or to flee and they act automatically if they are able.  If not, they go into a freeze, which is also a self-protective response.  If they are able to fight or to flee then the act of fighting or fleeing uses up all of the energy that was released into the system.  If they go into a freeze and are lucky enough to survive then as they slowly come out of the freeze their bodies shake convulsively as their muscles process the excess energy in the system.  In this way, in all three cases the animals are able to complete the entire threat response cycle and by so doing are able to return to a fully relaxed state once the threat has passed.  They go back to foraging for food as if nothing had happened.  Moments later, or weeks later, the entire cycle repeats and each time they survive they return to their pre-threat state -- unchanged.

Bio-physiologically, our systems respond in the same way as these animals in the wild.  However, due to our big cognitive brains and our over-socialization, we often override our threat response or we are unable to respond naturally (ie. if we are in a car accident we cannot really run, and beating up the other driver will not be helpful).  We have the same surge of chemicals released into our system to prepare us to respond to the threat but then we don't adequately respond.  If we freeze we typically don't allow ourselves to shake like the funky chicken when we begin to come out of it.  Therefore, in many cases the threat response cycle becomes interrupted and the survival energy becomes stuck in our system.  Our nervous system is then left always waiting to reactivate that energy by the mere recognition of something resembling a previously encountered threat so it can hopefully complete the cycle.  This all can make life rather tricky depending on how many times - and to what degree - our nervous system has altered itself through these mechanisms.  

The good news is that our bodies innately know how to complete these threat responses and thereby resolve these stuck traumas allowing the system to return to a natural pre-threat state just like the animals in the wild.  Somatic Experiencing, and similar modalities, support our bodies to do just that.  These methods work by bringing our conscious awareness to what is happening in our body in the here and now.  When we are able to do this from a place of curiosity (rather than a place of fear or trying to control the system), then our nervous system can take over and allow our organic innate responses to move from stuck through to completion.  When we are able to do this, fundamental shifts occur within our system that we will likely be able to feel and that we will be able to recognize in how we naturally begin to respond differently (in healthier ways) to our environment and experience.  Our system moves one step closer to our natural pre-threat state similar to the animals in the wild.  With successive sessions of working at this level our system (and consequently our experience) become transformed.

One can learn how to allow such processing to occur within their bodies unassisted.  However, it is highly recommended that one begin this way of working with the support of a skilled somatic therapist.  This is key in learning how to engage in one's system on this level in a way that is helpful rather than further dis-regulating.  Also, there is a powerful aspect innate within safe human connection that greatly facilitates and supports the healing process.  Refer to your local counsellor listings to identify qualified somatic therapists.  

Understanding Our Emotions

In a similar way, our emotional experiences can become 'stuck' in our bodies.  In many western societies, emotions are not well understood and emotional expression is often not particularly popular.  Many of us therefore learn to suppress our emotions and try to keep them under control or we just don't know what to do with them so our emotional experience feels volatile and out of control.  We use our rational minds to decide which emotional experiences are socially acceptable and which ones are not, or which ones make sense and are 'valid' and which ones are not.  Consequently, many of us develop a convoluted relationship with our emotions that does not serve us very well.  

Emotions are simply signals.  They indicate to us the qualities of our experience to help us better navigate through life.  This is their job.  We can choose to feel and honour the signal, or we can choose to ignore and control it.  If we ignore and control then the signal cannot flow through us - it cannot do its job - and instead gets stuck.  As these stuck emotions build up over time they can make navigating life quite challenging.  Our signalling system becomes more and more out of alignment and we can become confused about our experience and no longer know which signals to trust to guide us.  Also, as the buildup becomes more intense our emotional experience can become overwhelming resulting in our experience becoming very volatile or we learn to shut ourselves down to avoid feeling much of anything.

We can heal our emotions in similar ways as healing the threat response cycle in our nervous system.  Our emotions know how to do their job.  We just have to again learn how to let them.  By simply allowing our emotions to be there and allowing ourselves to feel them, without analyzing them, they can deliver their message and move through us.  When we are able to allow our emotions to move through, we find ourselves returning to a place of calm often with increased clarity of our overall experience.  

When attempting to heal emotionally, it is important not to get caught up in 'figuring out' our emotional experience.  Especially if our emotional experience has become layered and convoluted over time.  When this is the case, our current emotional experience is typically only partly (perhaps even minimally) actually about what is happening in our outer experience at this time.  Often, a large portion of our emotional experience is tied to a past experience (or experiences) that at the time we were unable to allow ourselves to feel fully.  This often leads to us invalidating our own emotions, because we interpret them logically and literally according to our current experience without understanding that they are largely about something that happened much earlier that is colouring our current experience.  An emotion is valid simply by being present.  It is just a signal - a pure response to an experience.  If we do not understand the signal this does not make the signal 'wrong'.  A signal is just a signal.  Therefore, if we are having an emotion then it is about SOMETHING that we experienced, whether our brain remembers, or understands, or not.  When we can come to understand this, then we can begin to learn to honour each emotion as it arises and let it be there by its own merit.  If we can then just feel it and express what comes to us, we are well on our way to allowing our emotions to heal.  

Again, engaging in this process initially with a skilled therapist can be extremely helpful.  As we are able to build a healthier relationship with our emotional experience, we will be better able to process our emotions on our own.  

Healing

What is the result of healing our traumas and our emotions?  As our systems have the opportunity to return bit by bit to their natural pre-trauma state, we are not simply getting rid of the 'bad' thoughts and feelings.  We are in fact regaining, bit by bit, aspects of ourselves that have gotten 'tied up' within the stuck trauma energies.  By healing our traumas, therefore, enables us to have more and more capacity to be present with ourselves and with life.  We regain the ability to live life more fully and authentically.  We gain the opportunity to be more of who we really are and live our lives from this place.  We regain the ability to fully FEEL our experience rather than being somewhat removed and only witnessing with our brains.  All of these increased capacities bring a sense of aliveness, excitement, fulfilment, and joy.  It is a grand gift we can give ourselves - and indeed those around us.

Wishing you courage, ease, and gentle movement forward on your journey.