Transforming Trauma
It is almost impossible for us to avoid trauma in some shape or form. Some people may experience huge life events such as loss, life threatening situations or illnesses, whilst others may experience compound trauma in the form of smaller traumas that happen regularly and chip away at the core of who we are.
I became interested in trauma when I began to realise just how much adversity I had faced throughout my life, and whilst mentally I thought I had dealt with it all just fine, the truth was my body was bearing the brunt of the unresolved trauma and beginning to suffer.
Our bodies work hard to protect us from potential threats, and although we may feel as though we have processed our emotions and moved on, chronic health conditions can arise as the body becomes fatigued from burying these events deep inside.
Our muscles and sinews harden as though braced for impact and tension arises. Our immune system can either go into overdrive and begin attacking itself or it can become depleted and weakened.
To transform trauma I use the 3 R's: Recognising, Releasing and Restoring.
Recognising Trauma
The First Step of Treating Trauma is
Life Threatening Events
These events activate our fight or flight response and can include the sudden loss of a loved one, a life threatening situation or an injury or illness.
The automatic response our bodies have involve our vital functions for survival, such as increased heart rate, respiration, body temperature & even our balance.
We may observe changes to our ability to digest life, our interactions with others, our relationship between internal & external world and hyper-vigilance & overstimulation may result. We may not feel safe in this world and constantly fear perceived threats.
Emotional Trauma
Emotional trauma usually involves events in our life regarding our relationship with others and how we interact with them and the world.
Painful interactions or judgements, excessive expectations from others or perceived rejection can be traumatic to us, especially if it occurs during our childhood years when our sense of self is fragile.
This aspect of ourself controls the memory of behaviours, emotions and value judgements in order to either avoid pain or gain pleasure. Are the labels we have given ourselves really us, or are they a projection of what we perceive others think of us?
Self Identity
Our self identity can be built around many things, such as our belief systems, our self preservation mechanisms, our subconsciously learned behaviours and our ability to manifest our dreams in day to day life.
Negative experiences in the workplace, school or home can shape us and hold us back from becoming our true selves. Even the process of becoming a parent can make us question who we are and our purpose in life.
This type of trauma can block our capacity for higher thinking, executive function, abstract thought, imagination and consciousness.
Restoring Peace
There is no blueprint for trauma recovery and some may also need to seek professional talking therapies or counselling to help them through the process.
From a TCM perspective, I will examine where in the body has been affected by the trauma, which of the emotions may have become imbalanced, and how has it impacted on your ability to thrive. From there we can begin to formulate our treatments.
Trauma release is not intended to make you relive the traumatic memories as such, but for some, emotions can come to the surface. It is not possible to simply make the memories go away, instead, we aim to release the effect that they had/have on the body, leaving it free to heal.
Alongside acupuncture and nutrition, we may also use self-hypnosis to help reframe any thoughts or behaviours that are not beneficial to our health.
Once we have released any trauma, we then need to restore the function and harmony to any organs or meridians that have been suffering as a result of keeping the trauma buried away. Recovering from trauma is a unique process and some prefer to move slowly through it, giving time to work through emotions that come up one by one, whereas others wish to move faster. You decide the pace.
