Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad TRAUMAwolf?
Hey all
I'm in the trauma zone at the moment. What does that mean? I suppose it means how I look at trauma is changing all the time, becoming a bit more clear.
We are all traumatised, so let's live with it. Yeah! Nothing to celebrate, necessarily, but definitely nothing to fear.
When I trained as a mindfulness teacher we were told "whatever you do, don't stimulate someone's trauma!" And it makes sense. It's uncomfortable for that individual and the best way to train us was to tell us to avoid it. This felt the same when it came to how I would generally hear people talking about trauma. Stay away from it. There's a general consensus that it can't be shifted and just needs to be managed with absolute expertise and sensitivity. And I would agree with that too. But I think it can be shifted, sometimes very quickly and easily.
But what is TRAUMA?
My understanding of trauma is that:
a) It's something that's not currently happening
b) It's an unconscious defense system, to stop the thing that's not happening (has happened) from happening again.
c) Because it's unconscious and therefore outside our direct (conscious) control, we fear it.
Trauma reactions make us try to avoid the triggers and therefore generally cause us to blame what's happening in our lives for the trauma reactions. Hence our wonderful habit of blaming others and our life situation instead of 'seeing' that the trauma reaction may be what is actually causing us to be unhappy. It's perfectly normal behaviour and also a bit broken. And that's fine.
I've been learning a lot about shifting trauma reactions and have been having good success so if you fancy a go, give me a shout. If you're feeling stuck in some area, this is likely the cause.
Let's have a chat about it, even. totally up for that. https://calendly.com/alancreedon/find-out-more?month=2024-03
Peace