Overwhelming Emotional Trauma
Things in our lives become trauma when we reach a point where we can no longer cope. We become overwhelmed by the experience and are unable to utilize any tools or skills to help us get through this event. Our sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive and we are stuck in a flight or fight mode that is longer than our body is designed for. When we are in this situation of high alert for too long it depletes and disrupts the normal functions of our system. Acute cases of this phenomenon are referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Unfortunately, this diagnosis is a made up boundary. Trauma is carried within all of us in varying degrees. We all have a sliding scale that goes past the line that tips into a diagnosis of PTSD. Each of us experiences things differently, and one person's minor issue is another person's full-on PTSD. Some examples of what some may consider simple, but will trigger others are; being laughed at for not knowing the answer to a question, being teased as a child or adult, and any moment of pain and tragedy no matter how small or great. Simply put, any pain that remains with us and becomes overwhelming and continues to be overwhelming, becomes trauma. Trans-personal psychologists have studied trauma. What they have found is, trauma becomes so overwhelming that the only defense mechanism available is to avoid feeling it.
How do you avoid feeling it? Well, ask an addict. The problem is the pain that the trauma caused does not go away and the addiction simply forces it down where it waits for its chance to come to the surface. The only way to overcome this is to face this pain. You must feel all of it in order to come to an emotional completion. Just because a physical event ended long ago, does not mean the psychological damage is not there. There are many reasons why someone would choose to avoid this path. First, a person does not feel they are in a safe environment. Second, they do not believe they have enough support to become that vulnerable and experience that level of pain head-on. Third, the person may have difficulty being re-traumatized by reliving the memory of what traumatized him or her.
The Importance of Releasing Our Trauma
Releasing pain sounds easy in theory. However, it can prove to be the hardest thing you have ever done. Whenever you judge and label your inner pain as something bad or something you don’t want or like, you inadvertently grab and hold onto your pain and keep it from leaving. If you want the pain to leave, you must abandon your efforts to stop the pain and allow it to flow freely. However, do not do this lightly. There is a risk of re-traumatization. This can occur when an individual awakens their old pain and trauma in an attempt to release it, but fails to accept it. The pain does not flow out of them and the feeling of this being something they don’t want to deal with overwhelms them. They feel the pain again and fail to release it resulting in a relapse back into their familiar coping mechanism of addiction. Individuals that suffer from PTSD often experience these past pains and trauma involuntarily. These bouts can be triggered by anything remotely resembling the original trauma.
Failure to Release Old Pain and Trauma
When someone experiences trauma and fails to come to an emotional completion, the environmental influence of those events on the body, through immense amounts of stress hormones, signal to the genes there is a hostile and unsafe environment. This hurts the epigenetic quality of our genes. When this happens, the epigenetic structure of our genes are changed, and we pass on bad genes to future generations. When a generation is born carrying the trauma of their parents, and the parents and children are still living in traumatic circumstances, as is often the case for many generations, the damage can be immense. Some techniques such as breath-work and vipassana have been successful in releasing trauma. Some severe cases of PTSD have even been healed through psychedelic means such as MDMA-assisted psychotherapy or ceremonial use of Ayahuasca.
Many people upon searching will find that their trauma originates in their childhood. Many people have and are having bad childhoods, and I now many people that say yea and I turned out just fine so you can just suck it up and move on. However, if it was that easy you wouldn't be here. Therefore, moving forward we will have to go backward and take a deep look into your childhood. Then we can truly begin to make lasting changes, heal the trauma and find the happiness you are seeking.
Have you ever heard the expression, 'hurt people, hurt people?' How about seeing someone who has been hurt, hurting someone else the same way they were once hurt? It seems illogical, however this phenomenon happens all too often with trauma victims. Dr. Sandra D. Williams has written a fantastic book about this & I would like to take a deep dive into this with you & explore why people that are hurt would ever hurt someone the same way they were hurt!
