When I was growing up my parents did not have a stable and secure relationship. Just after I got married my mom became preoccupied with the distance between my parents and it became the focus of all her relationships. Because she was preoccupied, I lost out on a lot of motherly support in those years. And, when my youngest was two, the dis-ease within her took over and she put herself in assisted-living and a couple of years later into a nursing home - her physical body had given into the loneliness she felt.
Some of her problems came from the marriage and a lot came from her childhood but neither of them was looked at or addressed. That is one of the reasons I am so passionate about healing - about not being afraid to look. It doesn’t get better - and then you die. This was a phrase I used a lot as I mourned her death that first year. Her death was the beginning of so many traumas that I had to make a choice about the future of my life. I needed to get some tools for really feeling better or life was going to get dark. That was 2015 and 2016 was the beginning of my transformation. I am still transforming.
I never got to ask my mom about the normal things a daughter would want to know from her mom as I was raising my family. If you saw her headstone you would see two female names along with my dad's. Yes, he was remarried before the headstone was placed even at my tearful request not to.
In the case of these traumatic situations, it wasn’t about the things that happened to me that caused trauma to exist within me as much as it was about the things that didn’t happen.
Trauma is often associated with big catastrophic events. These events may be traumatic but trauma is what happens in the body or more precisely the brain. Trauma is the fast-beating heart. It is a change in oxygen levels in the blood. It is the sweat on the hands. Trauma is the reaction to stressors, not the event that caused it.
For most of us, the way we deal with trauma is to wait it out. Eventually, our system gets us back on track as the trauma goes dormant until the next time it gets ”triggered”. We are becoming more aware of these triggers and you will find people are good at warning people when things they are saying might cause a reaction for those with similar traumatic events. This is good, but there is something better.
Removing the trauma from the body is a real thing. I’ve compared trauma before to a little ball of electricity much like a blood clot. When this trauma passes through the energy of the heart or the thoughts within the mental body, it can wreak havoc like a blood clot would in the heart or brain.
I have been trained in a very simple and effective method for trauma release. When I am doing the release on a person I can feel the electricity in the head - I actually feel it. Sometimes it makes my body shiver.
Once we remove the trauma, it is important to set up the boundaries we need to feel and be safe - being careful that we are not building walls. We must know the difference.
Removing the trauma does not remove the experience from our minds or make the feelings change into happy ones. It simply discharges the spark. It is vital to release the trauma from the body. I was watching a YouTube video with Peter Levine. I agree with his quote,
“Although humans rarely die from trauma, if we do not resolve it, our lives can be severely diminished by its effects. Some people have even described this situation as a “living death.” ― Peter A. Levine
He was working on camera with a war veteran. He was a young man. This young man had a severe tick very similar to the reaction one would have if an explosion happened right in front of you - which is what happened to this hero.
As Peter Levine worked with him to release the trauma, his involuntary movements almost completely diminished. It is a miracle. The thoughts and feelings are not all of a sudden gone but the trauma - the body’s response - had changed. Now, healing can really begin.
I don’t talk about my trauma to disparage my parents. In my dad’s world, getting married was right and good for him and, at the same time, it wasn’t right and good in my world. These are the complexities of life. My hurt requires my healing and I am so grateful to the handful of people that have helped me thus far.
Our closest relationships are affected by our trauma. I believe we are so used to it, we think dysfunction is normal and we might think secure and stable are idyllic or belong in fantasy land. Secure, stable, supportive relationships are the way life is meant to be lived.
Emotional attunement between intimately related people is as vitally important to one’s well-being, whether that’s physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual than anything else we might need.
When these are not in place we need healing. And, it doesn’t matter if the other gets healing. Life will improve as you do your own work. Waking up grateful for our lives is how we should feel most of the time. It is not impossible.
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