What is trauma?
When you mention the word trauma, the first thing comes into most peoples minds is either being a war, sexual abuse, domestic violence or the worst scenarios you can possibly think of. However, you would find that everyone has suffered a part of the spectrum of trauma. The definition of trauma can vary from person to person according to our own life experiences.
Trauma is any autonomic nervous system response that does not find completion in the moment. It leaves the person in either a Fight Flight Freeze Fawn mode (FFFF) that keeps perpetuating whenever they are triggered. It's a survival response that doesn't find completion. It gets stuck in the nervous system & plays out throughout life as survival pattern. We continue to meet people who keep switching this survival switch on as life has a way to show us what we're still holding on. For this reason, the individual is never living is the present moment. They are always recycling experiences from the past over and over again. As Peter Levine says: "Trauma is the inability to be here & now".
Our human brains comprising of 3 main parts - the most basic reptilian brain, mammalian brain and then the Neocortex - our human conscious, analytical brain. The FFFF originates from the most basic part of our brain that still exists: the reptilian part. This part govern all the automatic body responses & fear & survival mechanisms. It's this part that we have no control over as its automatic. But we can let the cycle find completion so that it does not keep playing out. Trauma always wants to find completion.
For example a 6 year old girl loses her mother & gets lost in a mall. She starts freaking out, gets really upset and scared. Now, even after she is found by her mum, the event creates a fear of abandonment that is etched within her subconscious mind. From this point onwards, the little girl can end up with a subconscious programming forever running in the background of "I am always going to be abandoned". This can lead to social anxiety as she finds it difficult to be in a mall. She may even end up sabotaging relationships as she has the programming running that says they will abandon me.
Now to a sexual abuse survivor, the above obviously would not even come close to being a traumatic event.
Trauma from childhood can manifest as anxiety & dysfunctional behaviours as adults. Most don't have any conscious memories of the trauma. For this reason working on mental issues on surface level with talk therapy does not fully heal the issue as they only work on the conscious mind. Surface level mental issues are only manifestations of the trauma & dysregulated nervous system. Unless we get deep into our physiology & in the body, then we are working in the wrong place. Cognitising trauma in the head is not going to resolve issues as they are so much more deeper than that.
Trauma can also keep negative self beliefs playing out in the back ground - many that you are not consciously aware of. However, the subconscious mind & body always remembers. Most keep repeating same patterns of behaviour over and over again without even realising that they are stuck in this repetitive loop.
For myself, I hadn’t realised that I was subconsciously stuck in a repeating loop. That loop was a life long pattern of repeating failures. I would find myself never getting through some circumstances first time around for example, passing important exams. It would always take a second or even a third attempt for me to get through a hurdle. I always thought it was normal for myself and never questioned it.
It was only when I sat as a client for a student colleague, that I gained a massive ‘Aha’ moment of the why behind repeated failures. You see the belief we worked on was “ I fear failure”. My subconscious mind guided me into an event where I was around a year old learning how to walk. I could see turquoise walls of the room I was in, through my subconscious mind. I later asked my mum, and she confirmed yes, we did have turquoise walls. Any way, as soon as I entered that event on my time line, my whole left leg started shaking from the hip joint all the to the toes. You see, even though your conscious mind does not remember, your body remembers trauma. As I sat in my chair over a zoom session, my leg appeared to have a mind of its own and started shaking uncontrollably. Tears started to stream down my face as if I was really that one year old again, learning how to walk. You see, no one knew that I was born with a hip problem that prevented me from walking properly.
That trauma of failing to walk had set into my subconscious mind and body at that moment and has followed me throughout out life. It blew my mind on how clever the body is.
Trauma is also what DIDN’T happen as well. When a need goes unmet, it can leave a very damaging imprint that we carry with us for the rest of our lives. It would appear that child developmental trauma is just some form of abuse that can cause arrests in development. However, childhood trauma is also about what didn't happen.
Not being held as a baby, lack of eye contact, lack of validation, not being seen or heard, our needs not being met, not being helped to feel safe, our boundaries not being respected, not being allowed a voice, not being given a choice, mum and dad not showing up to our football game or dance competition are just some of the more common examples of what didn't happen.
It’s much easier for out minds to remember to what did happen as opposed to what did not, as events stands out more in our conscious minds. But the essential things that didn’t happen can equally play out as what did happen when it comes to how we move and behave in the world. It just acts on a subconscious level, I.e completely outside our awareness.
These subconscious layers can be healed by going into the body and working on the trapped emotions that keep us repeating patterns. We can start to close these perpetuating loops of FFF and gain clarity as well as plenty of ‘Aha’ moments. We also start to uncover our true self that exists at the core.