Why We Must Heal Our Past!

Trauma is different for everyone because we all come from different experiences.

Depending on how resilient your nervous system is will determine your ability to handle the impact of negative situations and traumatic events.

A traumatic event is something that causes physical, psychological or spiritual harm.

When someone feels threatened, compromised or anxious - whatever's taking place could be traumatic for one person even if someone else isn't affected.

I often hear my clients say "well, I've never been beaten, sexually assaulted or lost a parent" so the answer is "no, I haven't had any traumatic experiences growing up."

Let's start by dispelling that if an incident has left you scarred or instilled a physical, psychological or emotional fear that's resulted in unhealthy behaviour like 'shutting down' or 'dissociation' there is a likelihood of trauma still living inside you.

Here's an example...a primary caregiver is taking a child out to ride their two wheeler for the first time and the child is already nervous and doesn't feel quite ready but the caregiver insists and the little girl/boy has no choice but to listen because today's the day.

The child expresses they don't feel ready and the caregiver says "if you don't listen I'm going to give you a spanking or punish you."

The child unwillingly gets on the bike in an already nervous state, falls and scrapes their hands and knees. The caregiver doesn't hug them or do anything to make them feel supported and in that moment, the child's perception of threat came true and now has feelings of emotional abandonment from the person who is supposed to keep them safe and free from harm.

Situations from our childhood that caused us psychological, physical or emotional harm embed within our nervous system and causes us to perceive and behave in ways that ultimately affect us as adults.

These situations may be perceived as small to others but may be big in our mind.

When we are belittled, bullied, singled out or didn't have our emotional needs met we in turn have our mental, physical and spiritual self left with feelings of inadequacy, hurt and possible shame.

As children we often aren't taught how to ask for help or how to express ourselves so if a child fears their caregiver then there's most likely going to be an unhealthy emotional attachment style associated in adulthood that will play a large part in relationships and situational outcomes.

Feelings of emotional safety is what we ultimately seek because along with that comes love, stability, kindness and well-being. All these things that remove fear and create that sense of safety are what assist us through our self-evolution to wholeness and happiness.

Again, depending upon our experiences and how our nervous system is 'wired' we may grow up to be led by our own ego as it feeds our deep insecurities and develop traits of jealousy, doubt and low self-esteem.

Often times many of us aren't even aware of our thoughts and behaviours that are ego driven because we've never done the 'shadow work' to seek out the parts of ourselves that we want to hide from others so our ego will continue to feed our mind into thinking that our thoughts and decisions are right.

If we don't look at ourselves the way we really are then we won't be able to create the changes we seek because it's not coming from a place of self-love and authenticity.

It's coming from a place of limiting beliefs. Perception vs perspective.

We know through research that we can't continue to operate from a place of lack or resistance. In order to have healthy thoughts coupled with positive action, we know that when there's absence of emotional support and love there's a chance we 'shut down' emotionally as a child and there's a greater chance of developing illness later on in life such as cardiac issues and auto-immune disorders for example.

Our nervous system is not intended to be operating in chronic "fight or flight."

The goal is for us to have a nervous system that is resilient with healthy ebbs and flow so we can overcome the emotional challenges presented to us throughout life and use the stress responders of 'fight and flight' only when there is real danger.

As long as we're easily triggered, angered and have a cup that's 1/2 empty or has 'turned off' 'shut down' while suppressing words and feelings, there's a higher probability of experiencing unhealthy relationships and ill health because there isn't conscious clarity of the mind to resolve conflict or an ability to emotionally self-regulate based on self-awareness.

Healing our past is vital to all of us because we carry burdens forward generation to generation and instil our 'conditioned' and 'scarred' ideas into our children thinking we're operating from a healthy place where in fact we're often repeating history - just in a different way.

Our past 'hurts' ultimately creep up in ways we don't see. As long as we choose to remain 'asleep', we can't possibly 'awaken' to the truths that are waiting to be healed.

When we've healed we're no longer triggered by the scars of the past.

With Love & Support Always

Tanya💙