processing trauma

Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.

~Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Many have researched and written about the truth that trauma is not all in our heads, but that it also lives in our bodies. It is there in our epigenetic DNA, in our cellular memory, in our muscle memory, in our sense memory and lives on in our nervous systems (which then impacts the functioning of every other bodily system).

The ways this trauma shows up in our bodies is both universal and individual. It can appear as any (or any combination) of the following ::

autoimmune disorders
gastrointestinal disorders
fatigue
insomnia and/or nightmares
racing heart beat and shortness of breath (panic attacks)
muscle tension
sexual dysfunction
reproductive system disorders
chronic pain
migraines
“clumsiness” (i.e. bumping into things constantly or finding bruises on your body that you don’t know where they came from or when you got them)
neurological disorders (numbness, loss of use or sensation in extremities or in your face/jaw

There has also been research around certain types of cancer and the correlation to specific types of trauma.

As Bessel van der Kolk and Babette Rothschild have both stated : Our bodies know, and they keep score.

Having trauma living within us causes physical discomfort and dis-ease. Multiple studies have found this to be true. When we consider that all of us have unprocessed trauma living within us -if not from our own lived experience, than from that of our ancestors- we can begin to make sense of the different medical diseases and disorders we see passed down through generations.

It is important for us to not only expand our definitions of trauma to include the experiences of our own live life (including the list of experiences found on the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) study) but also those of our ancestors and to also consider the traumatic impact of living in our current patriarchal culture.

Our bodies know. And they remember. Trauma is not something that can be ignored forever. It does not just “go away.” If one generation does not process the traumas they have experienced, future generations will feel the impacts of those traumas within their own bodies.

It is vital when we seek professionals to work with in processing our trauma that they understand and know how to work with the impacts trauma has on our physiological systems. It is vital when we do our trauma work that we have others versed in body-centered and somatic approaches. Studies have shown how not having a somatic/body-centered component to trauma work, and only using talk therapies, can actually be re-traumatizing.

As professionals we need to be trauma informed. Not everyone needs to be an expert, and I do believe that any person working with other humans in the medical, mental health and body-work (massage, chiropractice, acupuncture, physical therapy, etc) need to have a basic understanding of trauma, how it impacts the body, and have some very basic tools to help their clients, and have a list of referrals for those who need someone more well versed.

I talk more about all of this in the 10-minute video below:

This essay is the second in a four-part series introducing the topics we will be exploring in my new six month program Trauma Focused Embodiment Level 1. We begin February 1. You can learn more here.

Additionally the main focus of my individual work is trauma and utilizing trauma informed embodiment with my clients. If you are looking for an individual therapist, you can learn more about me and my individual therapy work here.

And finally, I facilitate a free online group on Facebook where we explore trauma, grief, embodiment,and their intersections. It is called Trauma Informed Embodiment and you can join us right here.

Other Essays & Videos in this series ::

On Trauma :: Types of Trauma Living Within Us

On Trauma :: The Physiological Impacts of Trauma (this essay)

On Trauma :: The Psychological and Emotional Impacts of Trauma

On Trauma :: Processing or Healing?

The ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

~Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

~Laurell K. Hamilton, Mistral’s Kiss

As we move through the close of 2017, as we move from the ever growing darkness into the expanding light here in the northern hemisphere, I want to take some time to speak about trauma, how it lives within us, how it impacts us, and what all trauma truly is.

You may be thinking, what a depressing topic to talk about as we are supposed to be celebrating and jolly. My response to this is, that what better time to talk about our shadow parts, what better time to bring what is hidden within us into light, as we are celebrating new beginnings, awakenings, and births?

And so, let’s talk about trauma. Because it lives within all of us. Whether it be trauma from our own lived experiences, trauma from our ancestors, or trauma from our oppressive culture, we each carry trauma in our bodies and psyches and spirits. So today, let’s explore the different types of trauma that we each have within us to better understand what I mean when I say “we all have trauma” and so we can all better understand our own Self.

TYPES OF TRAUMA

Lived Experience Trauma. This is the trauma that lives within us as a result of the traumatic events we personally experienced in our lives. It can be chronic (multiple events, like ongoing childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse by a caregiver or later in life an intimate partner, neglect, living in poverty, etc) or acute (one time events like a surgery, car accident, a one time assault like a rape or mugging). This trauma is based in our own personal history and story. We may remember or not remember events, and either way they occurred during our lifetime.

Ancestral and Inter-generational Traumas. These are the traumas that are passed down to us from our family. Ancestral trauma, in my definition, is what is passed down through our bloodline – it appears in the epigenetic markers of our DNA and our cellular memory. Inter-generational trauma is passed down by our family too, however it is passed down through actions. The impacts of a trauma experienced by a mother for example would include how she was able to care for her children, and could impact attachment bonds. Additionally inter-generational trauma can also be passed down through language (we all have specific “trigger” words that either we don’t want to be associated with or we desperately do want to be associated with and our reactions to these words influence our own actions and thoughts; these words are often passed down through generations).

Cultural Relational Trauma. This is the trauma of living in a white-supremicist, misogynist, ablist, homophobic, capitalist, patriarchal culture. It is a trauma that lives in all of us, but to varying degrees. It is the trauma we need to explore when considering intersectionality and remembering that not all of us are having the same experience in our world.

All of us carry at least two of the three traumas in our own bodies and being : inter-generational and ancestral trauma and cultural trauma. Most of us also have our own lived experience traumas coursing through us too.

Having an understanding of these different types of trauma allows us to begin to understand what is impacting us, what our triggers are, how some of the ways we view world are from our own experiences and also much of how we view the world is from those who came before us.

As we are able to unravel and decipher our traumas, we are able to dismantle and process them out of our bodies and being. This is intense work and cannot be done alone in a vacuum. It is work that needs to be done in community, with some parts worked through in settings with only one other person and others in larger groups.

We are relational beings and trauma impacts our ability to relate with each other. As we learn more about trauma and our own trauma we can also begin to understand how others are also impacted and influenced by trauma.

I talk more about this in the 10-minute video below.

This essay is the first in a four-part series introducing the topics we will be exploring in my new six month program Trauma Focused Embodiment Level 1. We begin February 1. You can learn more here.

Other Essays & Videos in this series ::

On Trauma :: Types of Trauma Living Within Us (this essay)

On Trauma :: The Physiological Impacts of Trauma

On Trauma :: The Psychological and Emotional Impacts of Trauma

On Trauma :: Processing or Healing?