"Trauma creates changes you don't choose. Healing creates changes you do choose" - Michelle Rosenthal
The profundity of the above statement is something one may not grasp until they have been through a journey of healing.
What is a trauma?
Going through very stressful, frightening or distressing events is sometimes called trauma. When we talk about emotional or psychological trauma, we might mean:
situations or events we find traumatic
how we're affected by our experiences.
Everyone has a different reaction to trauma, so you might notice any effects quickly, or a long time afterwards.
Trauma can be categorized into two different areas.
Big trauma - Big 'T' traumas include serious injury, sexual violence, or life-threatening experiences. Threats of serious physical injury, death, or sexual violence can cause intense trauma even if the person is never physically harmed. Witnesses to big “T” events or people living and working in close proximity to trauma survivors are also vulnerable. recover differently.
Little trauma - Little “t” traumas are highly distressing events that affect individuals on a personal level but don’t fall into the big “T” category. Examples of little “t” trauma include non-life-threatening injuries, emotional abuse, death of a pet, bullying or harassment, loss of significant relationships and constant disappointment
People have unique capacities to handle stress, referred to as resilience, which impacts their ability to cope with trauma. What is highly distressing to one person may not cause the same emotional response in someone else. This is due to our belief system. Our beliefs are created between the age of 0-6 and the are often influenced by our childhood experiences, epigenetics and the environment we grew up in. So the key to understanding trauma is to examine how it affects the individual rather than focusing on the event itself.
How are trauma and anxiety related?
If anxiety is traced back to the beginning for most people,
Major incident (big or small trauma)
create intense emotional pressure
creates neural networks
the memory of that experience causes the person to think about that episode over and over anticipating similar experience
a belief or a set of belief is created and these beliefs play in the subconscious driving decisions
In the recess of the neo cortex, a series of particular hardwired neural networks will fire, supporting continuous though process
Neural connection is created impacting the body's chemical flow
The cycle continues until trauma is resoled and body's chemical flow is reinstated to its normal
Case Study:
Rachel is in a loving relationship with her boyfriend. She is suffering from severe avoidance anxiety where she is not even able to come to the phone to make a phone call. Her anxiety levels can be so high that sometimes she can't breathe or concentrate. Her moods fluctuates between being very happy to being so down and sad the next second. Her life is on hold because of this. She wants many things for her in her life. She is ambitious, but she can't take the initiative to reach the phone to make an enquiry about her course nor she can apply for a job. When she does finally apply for a job, she spends months and weeks worrying about the interview process and often this makes her feel so unwell.
We traced the anxiety back to when her father left her. This was a big trauma for her and what followed that was a series of both small and big traumas. These unresolved traumas lead her to create a repetitive pattern of behaviours and triggers throughout her life. The main beliefs were that the world was not a safe place, it was her fault that the father left her and she was not worthy. Rachel had spent nearly 20 years in conventional therapy when she came to me. We worked with both her mind and body gently and safely releasing trauma and within 6 sessions, she enjoyed the following benefits.
-went back to University
- feeling calmer and when her anxiety rises, she is aware and knows how to calm herself down without letting it spiral out of control
- started a new job
- planning for a family
- 6 months later, when I contacted her she mentioned that the results are permanent
Trauma Resolution
Completing 'memories' in the field not only creates resolution, but changes the function of cells, DNA and the nervous system in the present
Change negative beliefs into positive beliefs creating a different reality for us
Matrix Reimprinting using EFT very is valuable in its ability to send a message to the body that the trauma is over
It ends the trauma cycle where the trauma is constantly being replayed over and over the subconscious
This enables the mind, body and the cells to respond in healthier ways and begin to heal
"You can recover from all that happened to you"
Recommended reading - "Transform Your Beliefs, Transform Your Life" Karl Dawson with Kate Marillat
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