On Trauma: Processing or Healing?

January 11, 2018 By gwynn

Definition of heal

1a : to make free from injury or disease : to make sound or whole

…

3: to restore to original purity or integrity

Definition of process

…

2a (1) : a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular results (2) : a continuing natural or biological activity or function

2b : a series of actions or operations conducing to an end; especially : a continuous operation or treatment especially in manufacture

Merriam-Webster online dictionary, December 2017

I stopped using the word healing as related to trauma over a year ago. I did this mostly in response to what felt like an onslaught of trauma coaches and therapists talking about how by working with them you can heal your trauma and everything in your life will be all flowers and sausages because of it.

These messages impacted me in a very negative way. At first I didn’t understand why I found the message so irritating. I mean, I used the term “healing trauma” too. So why did it bother me so much that these other folks were using this very common term?

With some quiet and self-reflection I found my answer.

My own personal experience of trauma therapy didn’t seem to “heal” my trauma in the ways that I thought about healing. Using Merriam-Webster’s definition above, if we heal our trauma, we make it go away, disappear, no longer exist.

Working with my own therapists, this was not my experience. My trauma still existed, even after years of therapies. The events didn’t miraculous not happen. The ways that they impacted me didn’t disappear. I still had memories, I was still triggered, I still had certain behaviors-some innocuous, some relatively harmful-that grew from these experiences.

My trauma was not healed. My trauma is not healed. It still exists. It’s still in me in a myriad of ways, some of which I am conscious of and I am sure some I am not.

This may sound rather hopeless. If we can’t actually heal our trauma, if we can’t actually undo what was done to us, what is the point?

What has occurred for me, through years of talk therapy, EMDR, Sensory-Motor approach, and most recently CIMBS (a body-centered mindfulness/somatic approach), is that I can process and learn to mitigate the impact trauma has on me and my life.

The events still happened. I am still sometimes triggered. My physical health is still impacted.

And.

I have learned how to become aware of some of my triggers. I have learned to listen to my body when a trigger is starting and then can slow down and calm my nervous system so I don’t move into a fully triggered (and out of body, back in reptile mind) state. I have learned how to actually feel comfortable in my own body, to enjoy pleasurable sensations and to tolerate uncomfortable ones.

I have not healed my trauma. And I have processed much of and learned and am learning so much more about myself as I do it.

The processing of my own personal and ancestral traumas has been progressive. It has been both incremental, with the tiniest, almost imperceptible, shifts and it has also in some ways happened all at once, with seemingly huge changes happening in very short periods of time.

It has been a process. It will likely be a process for the rest of my life. A process of coming home to my body, of reconnecting with my Self and the world, a process of self awareness, a process of learning and unlearning, a process of soothing my nervous system, connecting to my boundaries and resources, finding my center and ground, and creating new neuro-pathways. A process of shifting and transforming into new ways of being.

I have witnessed similar experiences with my clients, especially when we utilize my Trauma Informed Embodiment approach. The process is slow and gentle and also results can sometimes be seen rather quickly. This approach doesn’t make your trauma “go away,” it will not magically turn you back into the person you were before the traumatic events happened. And it will give you tools and new ways of entering into your Self and your life that are more mindful, pleasurable, and joyful.

I talk more about all of this in the 12-minute video below.

This essay is the fourth and final 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

On Trauma :: The Psychological and Emotional Impacts of Trauma

On Trauma :: Processing or Healing? (this essay)

On Trauma :: The Emotional and Psychological Impacts of Trauma

January 4, 2018 By gwynn

In PTSD a traumatic event is not remembered and relegated to one’s past in the same way as other life events. Trauma continues to intrude with visual, auditory, and/or other somatic reality on the lives of its victims. Again and again they relieve the life-threatening experiences they suffered, reacting in mind and body as though such events were still occurring. PTSD is a complex psychobiological condition.

~Babette Rothschild, The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment

It is true that our minds and bodies are connected. What our body experiences impacts our emotional and psychological states. Consider how when you have a cold or the flu you also feel crabby or irritable. Or how when you physically feel good generally your mood is also good.

The unprocessed traumas that live within our bodies also impact our moods and ways of being and connecting with our world, including the people in it. Some of the ways trauma appears via our emotions and mental state are:

Unexplained or “illogical” fear
Anxiety, including “panic attacks”
Depression
Hyper-vigilance (also related to fear and anxiety)
Extreme (for you) irritability
Emotional dysregulation (mood swings; cannot soothe self easily; once triggered into anger or sadness or fear cannot easily come out of it)
Disassociated from the present (stuck in past and or future thinking)
Inability to concentrate and stay focused on one thing for an extended period of time
Self-isolation (withdrawing from or not connecting to others)
Feelings of shame and self-blame and claiming responsibility for things that are out of your control
Addiction

Our pasts impact our present and future, this is true. Our experiences impact the ways we interact with our world. And while it is true that many, if not all, of our traumatic experiences were out of our control, it is also true that we have a choice as to how much we allow those experiences to determine our path.

Often when we have experienced a trauma our sense of choice is altered. Because the experience was out of out control, and not our choice, our brain shifts into thinking-both un/subconsciously and consciously-that we have not control over the impact of the traumatic events. The event actually impacts our neuropaths and our ways of thinking and the more we think we are stuck and don’t have choice, the deeper those paths become and the more ingrained those thoughts are.

I often think of entering into trauma processing or “healing” in relation to the Physical Law of Inertia :: A body in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.

In addiction circles this “outside force” is called “hitting rock bottom” – something so awful happens to us that it is a wake up call to seek help and change.

I believe trauma works in the same way. We will be willing to live with the impact of trauma, physical, emotional, psychological, until something happens that “forces” us to move towards processing and shifting. This could be something huge or small, some action we take or path we start down that is so very much not who we are that we are left looking at ourselves and making a decision to change.

Unfortunately, many people do not understand that it is unprocessed trauma that is driving them through their unconscious. Perhaps a person’s mind has blocked the memory of a traumatic event so they don’t even know it happened, or perhaps a person doesn’t understand the wide impact trauma has on the mind and body. Because of this many people are left scrambling for help – going to medical professionals seeking relief from physical impacts and or to mental health professionals seeking relief for their depression or anxiety and not seeing the connection between the two.

Again, this is why it is vital when we seek professionals who are trauma informed. It is also why we ourselves need to better understand the far reaching impacts of trauma.

The more we are willing and able to learn about our Self, the more we are willing to bring our unconscious into consciousness, the more we are willing to face our fears of the discomfort and change that comes from processing our trauma, the more we will be able to reconnect to our Self and our world, in meaningful, loving, and compassionate ways.

I talk more about all of this in the 12-minute video below.

This essay is the third 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

On Trauma :: The Physiological Impacts of Trauma

On Trauma :: The Psychological and Emotional Impacts of Trauma (this essay)

On Trauma :: Processing or Healing?

Secular Blessing 2018

January 1, 2018 By gwynn

As we move from 2017 to 2018, as we continue to shift from the darkness to the light here in the northern hemisphere, I would like to take a moment to share a blessing for all of us.

I believe Neil Gaiman has it right up above there. Making mistakes is vital. It is part of our learning and shifting and changing. Stepping up to our fear and being brave is necessary – change, any change be it personal or communal or political, has never come about without discomfort and often pain of some kind. Sometimes that pain is in letting go of what we know and are comfortable with, yet may not be serving us well. Often the pain and discomfort is in the unknowns, the what ifs, our own personal and cultural perfectionism.

I want to remind you : it is okay to make mistakes. It is okay to not know what’s next. It’s okay to be in dissonance and discomfort.

So with that, my secular blessing for us all as we cross the line between 2017 and 2018, between past and future ::

May we

make many mistakes, and with each mistake allow the experience to shift us and help us learn more about ourselves, about others, about our world

find calm and peace within our bodies, processing old and ancient traumas that live within us

connect to our own bravery, courage and strength in order to sit in the discomfort of metamorphosis

allow our Self to receive love from those who offer it to us

remember that boundaries are two ways, to connect and defend our own while respecting and honoring the boundaries of others

learn that it is okay to not always be right, to not always be in charge, to not always be in control

experience wonder and curiosity, about our Self, about others, about possibilities we hadn’t imagined before

shed our old ways of being that no longer serve us or our world and create space for the unbecoming and becoming that is to come within and outside of us

reclaim our humanity, our humility, and our interconnected autonomy

trust our bodies, our “illogical” knowing, our Self’

settle into our own senses of community and belonging, finding our people by allowing our Self to be seen

process traumas and heal the wounds that live with in us and in our world, allowing the destruction of those stories and systems that cause harm while creating a world of love, respect, and mutual and respectful consent and understanding, embracing and celebrating the differences in us all.

Amen.

On Trauma :: The Physiological Impacts of Trauma

December 28, 2017 By gwynn

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.

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?

On Trauma :: Types of trauma living within us

December 21, 2017 By gwynn

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?