Hello, welcome to trauma unpacked, my name is Inger Andress. And with me, I'm Anna Sorensen. And we are actually trying to bring awareness to the obstacles of unresolved relational trauma in our lives. And to look at it because we want to see the benefits of healing from that relational trauma that we sometimes knowingly or unknowingly keep hidden. Our goal is to have a conversation about several topics around relational trauma to share with you how it has helped move us through our process of healing, in hopes that it will help you as a listener to grow through your process of healing and anger.
Can you expand more on how you want to achieve this today?
Yes, today, we're actually going to dive into some sub terrain territories, where it's going to ask us some questions that are going to be so vital for us to ask ourselves, because what we tend to do as victims is to blame those around us for our trauma.
And it is a very sad thing, because usually the people that care for us the most get hurt the most, and that they had no intentions whatsoever of being untrustworthy. But because we believe so strongly that we are victims, and that this is what's going on, it's only repeating from our past, we have not created other options in our head to take life in a different perspective that sees that that's not what's going on. And so it ends up hurting our friends or whoever that might be greatly, and causes great division, because we falsely accused them.
The issues that we're going to talk about today are very difficult to pinpoint, because they are subconscious. They're so ingrained that trauma is actually inlaid in the brain. So the trauma has actually set up neuron pathways within our chemistry to truly believe that we think and see something that sets us up to be rejected as we were when we were younger, whether that is in a friendship, that we think that somebody just said something offensive to us when they didn't. And they honestly had no intention, nor were they even close to it. Or with our significant others, we're in a public setting. And we think that we set ourselves up to be rejected. And so unless we take time to start understanding our story that's been repeating since our childhood, and take the time to identify it first, and then learn how to rewrite that and make it our own story. It will repeat itself, cut off friendships, relationships with people in a premature way. That's mainly based upon false accusations that we put on the other person if we're not aware that we are repeating and setting ourselves up, to feel that rejection.
So this is our story that we come with that we're born with that we didn't have a choice in how what family we were born into, and how our our foundation of our relationship skills got set up, we bring that story with us into our young adulthood or adulthood. Wherever we discover what this story is and how it affects our lives, we do have the choice to rewrite that story in our new present day relationships. As we have more awareness come to ourselves how those patterns interact, we have a choice of how we rewrite that story.
Good. So let's just take a boyfriend girlfriend situation that's gotten close or a partner. If trust issues have still not been resolved within the trauma of one's past, there can be a scenario where in your mind, you're setting up that this person is being unfaithful to you. Or you're thinking that you see them trying to get this person's attention or that you start to actually make up in your head scenarios to make you be rejected in the relationship.
So you're saying that our perception is where the trauma interferes with the story that when we look at something, and how we perceive it may not be accurate, because the trauma is creating the background to try to fill that in. Right?
I just think this is such an important piece of miscommunication that happens in relationship, whether it's with our friendships, whether it's with our co workers, or even with our partner, and especially with our partner because the more we are in a trusting relationship. Those of us who are through relational trauma tend to have an alarm go off the closer it gets, the more dangerous it gets.
What do you mean by dangerous that is side, because there's been hurt?
There is a tendency for a subconscious alarm to say, Don't get any closer, because you're gonna get hurt again. And so that alarm system in our current relationships tends to be set off unnecessarily. And yet, it's very hard to know the difference because we think unless we have this awareness piece and know that there are actually going to be times when we're going to think something really is happening. But we need to ask the other person, honestly, is this what just happened, instead of assuming it right away. This is where we can't just do this by ourselves, we need a friend that we truly trust in a point of time when we're not triggered at a time when we're feeling safe enough to share our thoughts is to discuss this with the person that you're close with. And ask them whether or not those things have happened in different scenarios or could happen, because eventually you'll go from one relationship to another from one friendship to another, you won't be able to hold those friendships or relationships because there will be always setting the story you will be rejected in one way shape or another and it will prove itself out because you will falsely accuse the person that you care for and want to be in relationship with.
So you're repeating a pattern regardless of the next relationship unless you are mindful of it, and how it affects your life, your perception on relationship.
And so many other stories have not been identified, that they can change and they don't have to be the same as what we're used to. And that scariness of, of changing it. Because we don't know of another way sometimes prevents us from even wanting to try to know that there's other options out there and how to think of something.
So I really would like us to participate in these next few podcasts to understand different relationships that we have written a story about, whether it be about our relationship with ourselves, how we view ourselves that can be based upon the trauma of the past that relational trauma that really isn't who we are, but we're still allowing it to define who we are. So that's one area. And then the next podcast will be about how it affects our current friendships, how it affects our work, connections with leadership responsibilities, and then the last one is going to be how our story affects our relationship with our partner.
Thanks for joining us today. We know that some of this information can be very hard to hear sensitive raw feelings want you to love yourself, if there were any of those kinds of emotions drawn up when listening. We're in this together. Thank you for listening today. We hope this encourages you in your journey of healing and that you feel loved and cared for.