Trauma affects everyone. Every person we experience in life is walking around with trauma. Some have developed healthy coping mechanisms, allowing them to release or successfully manage the effects of trauma. Some are aware of their challenges with trauma but fear that facing it is too high a feat to endure, and there are others who don’t even know they are carrying it in their bodies, brimming into every aspect of their lives.
“Trauma is personal. It does not disappear if it is not validated. When it is ignored or invalidated the silent screams continue internally heard only by the one held captive. When someone enters the pain and hears the screams healing can begin.” – Danielle Bernock
Even more troubling is that some may have encountered experiences that caused trauma and didn’t even know those experiences were traumatic. And there are many kinds; examples include physical trauma, emotional trauma, and trauma from community violence.
Trauma is often associated with significantly distressing events or violence within interpersonal relationships. Could you accept that trauma can also result from a situation that may have left you feeling overwhelmed or isolated? Any challenging emotional consequences an individual acquires from experiencing or living through a distressing event can cause trauma.
Deun Ivory
Deun IvoryWhile we may not recognize it at first, whether intentional or unintentional, over time, untreated trauma begins to bleed into other areas of our lives and affects how we experience life, from health concerns to our relationships with others.
Chakras
Religions such as Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism often relate to trauma as blockages within your chakras.
Chakras
Religions such as Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism often relate to trauma as blockages within your chakras.
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” – Rumi
Awareness often leads to healing in a multitude of ways. To heal a wound, however, you have to get to the source so that you can heal the wound thoroughly instead of just masking the issue with a temporary fix.
Long before it appears physically, trauma will be held within the body, progressing into external expressions such as pain and depression. Evidence supports the intimate relationship that exists between the body and the mind. Here are five signs you may be holding trauma in the body.
Dissociation or Detachment from a particular thought, emotion, or behavior
Dissociation is the intentional or unintentional Detachment from thoughts, memories, feelings, and behaviors. It’s a coping mechanism to deal with the stress associated with past traumas or avoidance of the pain associated with reality.
Addressing dissociation and learning healthier ways to cope with past trauma is essential. Dissociation makes dealing with the present a challenge and can negatively impact personal relationships and attract relationships that enable behaviors that keep you stuck in a lower state of being.
“You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.” – Aberjhani
Mood Swings
Occasional mild or moderate mood swings are common, and everyone is bound to experience them. But when a sudden and or intense change in one’s emotional state is not the result of being hangry, tired, or in a stressful situation at home, work, or between friends, it’s likely time to consider there may be an underlying issue.
If you find yourself quickly shifting between emotions, such as feelings of sadness and hopelessness, or you find yourself quickly overwhelmed, it may be helpful to take time to recognize those emotions within yourself and take a bit of time to honor them. Honoring them may look like journaling, taking a notebook, and writing down what may have triggered this change. Journaling can bring awareness, a powerful key to change.
Questioning the Self
Trauma can make one have negative beliefs about oneself. It can lower your self-esteem and cause you to question your self-worth. Sometimes, this can look like focusing on one negative comment, despite being given ten positive ones and internalizing negative experiences. You should know that you are worthy. Challenge negative thought patterns and give yourself more positive affirmations. Reframing negative thoughts and retraining your mind with positive beliefs about the self can help to improve self-esteem.
Self-Loathing
Self-loathing can look like self-hate. It is a constant inner critic that lacks self-compassion and convinces you that who you are is not enough. When self-loathing, you lack trust in yourself; you may believe that bad things happen to you because you deserve them or that maybe you are unworthy of love. These feelings develop over time by perhaps having false expectations or comparisons, the ultimate thief of joy.
Bring awareness to these feelings and beliefs if you are experiencing them. These thoughts and feelings are debilitating. The best way to counteract self-loathing is to challenge your negative thoughts: breaking down the patterns in negative thinking can be challenging initially, but like anything you consistently make an effort to work towards, interrupting critical thought patterns will become easier. It is also helpful to eat living foods that fuel your body, find ways to become more active, and get enough rest. Also, therapy.
Emergence of Physical Manifestations
It’s important to bring awareness to trauma blockages within the body and their effects on the body when left untreated. Untreated trauma keeps individuals reliant on harmful coping mechanisms that negatively affect their overall well-being.
Physical manifestations of untreated trauma can look like frequent headaches, trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, fatigue, digestive issues, and when left unaddressed, can possibly progress into chronic musculoskeletal pain, cardiovascular disease, depression, lung and kidney disease, and a stroke.
After reading about the different sounds, frequencies, and affirmations that many have used to reprogram the subconscious mind, I learned that this hack is used for all kinds of messages, from the law of attraction and manifesting an abundant and prosperous life to releasing negative beliefs by replacing them with self-love, confidence, and success affirmations, aura and chakra healing and cleansing, and even changing their physical appearance. You name it, there’s a video for it!
Be mindful of your cup and keep it full. Take careful consideration of the cup from which you pour and prioritize your well-being always. You are worthy of everything beautiful and abundant.
Take good care of yourself.
What do you think?