What is trauma?
Trauma is stuck survival energy that has stayed stored in the body after overwhelming life experiences.
When our nervous system feels threatened, it activates its survival reactions. This starts with Fight or Flight: an action-oriented response that mobilises a large amount of energy inside of us.
However, if our nervous system perceives that it cannot fight or flee, it activates Freeze. This response is like a brake: it “freezes” the energy inside in order to immobilise us, with the hope that the threat will lose interest.
Once the threat has passed, this frozen survival energy needs to be released for our body to come back into balance. But, until we get the opportunity to do so, it can stay stuck inside, disregulating our bodies, minds, and spirits.
**There is a fourth survival state after Freeze — Collapse — where the nervous system shuts down and we dissociate from the body. The evolutionary purpose of Collapse is to help us cope with the pain of the experience as a last resort. After the threat has passed, the nervous system can stay stuck in Collapse, further disregulating us.
Symptoms of trauma
Common symptoms of trauma include:
Chronic Stress: Feeling under threat and anxious, in a state of high-alert.
Chronic Fatigue: Feeling exhausted and depressed.
Chronic Tension & Pain: Anywhere in the body, head, back, chest, etc.
Chronic Illness: Disregulation in the vital systems, including the immune, digestive, nervous, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems.
Addiction: Compulsive behaviours that we want to stop but are unable to do so.
Dissociation: Feeling out of touch with our bodies, our lives, and our selves.
Types of trauma
There can be a wide variety of types of events that can cause trauma, including but not limited to:
Physical: violence, sexual violence, war, accidents, medical interventions.
Emotional: loss, abuse, neglect, betrayal, burnout.
Biochemical: infections, mold exposure, chemical exposure, substance abuse, dietary imbalance.
Developmental: pre-natal, birth, post-natal.
Intergenerational
What’s more, trauma can have many layers and connect across various life events, for which we use the term Complex Trauma.
It is important to note that although the events of the past may have played a role in the formation of trauma, ultimately the trauma is not the events themselves, but the reactions to those events that are still happening in our body, in the present moment.
This is crucial because while we cannot change what happened in the past, we can change how we relate to those experiences as we move into the future.
Healing trauma
Healing trauma involves releasing the stuck survival energy from the body in order to restore its natural balance.
This begins by restoring our connection to body’s Felt Sense. That is, the flow of sensations in the body, beneath the layer of our thoughts.
Now, trauma can be quite reactive and can easily overwhelm us with difficult sensations, emotions, and images. So a key part of this process is to develop internal resources: these are body-awareness, breathing, and visualization practices that support the internal sense of safety and resilience.
From this place of resource, we can then contact the trauma and gradually enable the stuck survival reaction that was initiated in the past to complete itself and release, restoring internal balance.
This work is gentle and in tune with each body’s unique rhythm and needs, ensuring the sense of personal safety and boundaries at each step of the way.
The Gift
Though it might seem a little hard to imagine, in my experience healing my own trauma and helping others to heal theirs I have observed that every trauma brings gifts.
One of these gifts is the gift of wisdom: gaining knowledge about ourselves and the world.
Another one is the gift of compassion: deepening our ability to relate to people in their wholeness— their joy and their pain.
Though the greatest gift of all, in my perspective, is the gift of remembering our essence.
As we heal our deepest wounds, we come in contact with the part of ourselves that is deeper than the wound, more essential than the pain.
That part that can experience the past while remaining unwavering and inherently free.