Monday, May 31, 2021

More on Trauma

 The past is never dead, it is not even past.

William Faulkner


I came across this video from Tara Brach today and it beautifully explained what I have expienced over the weekend so perfectly. She spoke to how we may react to a trauma trigger and be taken back to the all too familiar feelings of shame and guilt. 

She explained that trauma is a cutting off or disconnecting from  the Real Self and recovery is a reconnecting. 

In trauma we may expience enough of an assault on our nervous system in the form of intense fight, flight or freeze that , as the shamans say, the soul checks out of the body. We lose our sense of who we really are and get lost in the drama. This is traumatizing. 

We spend the rest of our lives skirting around this very active but hidden self in fear that it will somehow make itself known in a different way.  I also see that which is hidden will surface...eventually..like what my trauma pain is doing. It just needs a trigger.  That reactivation sets off another spiral of fear and shame...we do not want this to be exposed or judged. 

The point is...There is no escaping or getting around it...just  going through it. :) We do gradually with a lot of patience, awareness and self compassion. This compassion is three part: empathy for the suffering, benevolence toward it and a desire to help if we can. 

We learn to create space around it to observe, notice, allow, accept unconditionally and to offer a little loving compassion. The more we take it in the less attachment we have to the past. The less attachment...the less it impacts us. 

Falling asleep for some reason...will be back on this topic. 

Tara Brach ( March 2021) Healing Trauma, the Light shines through the Broken Pieces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR-DN7JYSLo

All is well 

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