Part Two, The Benefits of Healing from Relational Trauma

Resisting  our past traumas can affect our quality of life and block other emotions such as joy.

Transcript

Trauma Unpacked, Episode Two 
SUMMARY KEYWORDS 
body , trauma , relational , healing , acknowledge , aware , triggers , emotions , joy , compassionately , recognizing , feel , pain , sick , important , explore , ignore , smell , deny , benefits 

Hello, welcome to trauma unpacked, my name is Ingrid Andress. And with me I'm Anna Sorenson. 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.

So today, we're talking about the benefit of healing from relational trauma. One of those benefits is how it manifests itself physically with our bodies, if we don't deal with the trauma and how it comes in shows itself in other ways. How have you experienced that on on your life, I think initially, I wasn't aware of some of the physical triggers that I had that would send me into a fight or flight response, whether it was a sound smell, a touch that from another person's perspective would seem big deal at all. And for me, put me into kind of a frightened place where I kind of would freeze. 

Yeah, knowing enough about physiology and the body. In my occupation, as an occupational therapist, I was aware of what could happen, I should just say, for myself, when I responded in that way, it felt very still real, even though I knew the situation wasn't dangerous. And so it took several years for me to be able to recognize that I could have control over those triggers by recognizing what they were. And really, for me, it was about getting myself more aware of my body using for me what worked and unknowingly sort of ran into it with another therapist was doing like a full body relaxation. And it just took a couple times to realize I didn't actually have a good awareness of the lower part of my body that I was just sort of unintentionally ignoring that part of my body. And it makes sense now when I can look back and relate some of the trauma, but it was healing for me to be able to be more whole and be comfortable with my body, the area of smell is the hardest trigger that I've had to move beyond or learn how to ignore for my for my body to be able to say that's not a danger, but that is beginning to heal, as well as I'm more aware of my body and what's real. And what's from the trauma?

Once again isn't amazing how our bodies truly want to adapt and help us with the trauma that we go through. And when it comes to relational trauma, I think because there are connections within us in our heart has been somehow connected to it, or there's been some damage where we turn in on ourselves, it keeps us from acknowledging what our bodies are trying to communicate to us. So many times relational trauma survivors have issues of separating ourselves from our bodies in some way, shape, or form. What I found is yoga has been an uncomplimentary way of trying to get me to connect with my body and my mind together. So it's that kind of adaptation that I feel it's important for us to just put out there over the radio waves right now and understanding we can actually become a good nurse to ourselves. 

If we acknowledge, for me it was every Sunday when the abuse would happen, that I would get sick, physically sick to my stomach, and you're saying the years later, you would still get sick, yes, but we're talking from a young age to finally at age 35. Even recognizing, you know what, I get sick every Sunday, it took me that long to even acknowledge that something happened every Sunday. I didn't know why yet. But just to acknowledge because I lived with it for so long. I didn't even think of it as something my body had adapted to it. That's just what happened. And so it took even years after me acknowledging this is what's going on with my body to finally realize why it was going on with my body, which was when some of the abuse was repeated was on Sundays.

 And so that's that point of thinking, either I'm crazy. Why is this happening or compassionately looking at myself in wonder going? There's a pattern here without feeling condemned, good or bad? None of that. I wonder why I feel this way. That's part of what we're trying to take out the scariness of this and trying to bring this into everyday talking and conversation so that this doesn't become a threat within us, but actually starts to become something that we can explore in a very curious way. 

That's a healthy dynamic of caring for oneself, and it's not selfish. It's not whatever the games that were played in your mind to make you think that you had to turn on yourself if you confronted what you're feeling to dismiss all those and go, Why I'm allowed to identify what's going on right now and to let yourself explore that is really the biggest emphasis that I would like to share.

I think it relates to as well, the idea that I've learned over the years of recognizing that we need to actually approach and be aware of our pain, and not ignore it or protect it. Because when we deny our pain, we deny joy. So when when we deny those hurt feelings, the anger, all the things that we choose, or you shouldn't save and choose that we have, our body has protected us from dealing with, we also are keeping ourselves from the positive feelings of joy. And so that's one thing that I learned, I didn't even realize how much I was keeping myself I thought I could have one or the other. Right. But our bodies are built that were you have to have the whole spectrum and you once you deal with those, the pain, you also can have the joy in you're not numb anymore. 

You use the word block that if you block pain, you're going to block other emotions, and joy is one of them. And so there you go, folks, that's that's why we're here right now is trying to help you know, it's very important for us to unpack our relational trauma because there are so many. There's so many more emotions that we can experience in life if we allow ourselves to go there.

 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 kind 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. Cheers!

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