Most of the time when people think of trauma work they picture themselves in a psychotherapist's office talking about the story of what happened to them. And while I am a huge fan of psychotherapy, most people don't know that talking about the story is only the first step and is far from capable of resolving the root problems that make trauma so detrimental to our wellbeing.
What is trauma anyway?
Dr. Gabor Maté wrote in his book The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, "Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you."
When we endure a traumatic experience our body is taking in vast amounts of information. Some of this information includes:
Sensory data about what was happening at the time of danger (smells, colors, shapes, sounds, etc.)
The posture our bodies made in order to find protection
The emotions we experienced and those around us during the experience
The intensity of our body's reaction required to handle the situation
The duration of the experience
The body codes this information into our nervous systems so that the next time a similar threat is faced we can respond quicker or avoid it completely. This information is evolutionarily critical to keep us safe throughout our lives.
When the Trauma is Processed
Processing the trauma means the nervous system returns to a place of safety and stability, packages up this lovely data, and offloads it to a proverbial external hard drive – to be accessed only when necessary for future protection.
When the Trauma is Unresolved
Unresolved trauma is like having that data remain on the surface – becoming an algorithm by which you experience the world around you. The nervous system never got the go-ahead to offload the data.
A Basic Example:
Let's image you grew up in a house where there was a lot of yelling and violence. Your nervous system took in the situation and encoded the following into your algorithm:
loud noises = danger
arguing = danger
Then you grew up and had children of your own. When the children begin to bicker over a toy your nervous system begins to prepare for danger. Instead of feeling like there are two children arguing over something your body is reacting as if you were back in your childhood home, helpless in front of your screaming parents.
Your heart begins to pound, you begin to sweat, cortisol, and adrenaline are flowing in your bloodstream as your nervous system (unbeknownst to you) is preparing you for the violence it has programed you to avoid or escape.
You snap. You are incapable of rationally addressing the argument between your kids because in your body you aren't dealing with the bickering of small children, you are in danger. You do what you have to to make the threat stop – you scream at the kids.
This is an oversimplified, but not unfamiliar example of how trauma can become an encoded experience living in our bodies.
The Story Is the Fruit Not the Root
Talking about what happened to you can be very impactful, especially if you've never had someone listen to your story without judgement before. But the trauma is in the "coding" we talked about, not what happened to get it there. It is the roots of a great, big trauma-tree that grew from the poisonous fruit of our experience.
The roots are what give life to this trauma-tree and keep it strong and vibrant in our garden. And it produces that same poisonous fruit. Recurring memories and reminders of how that tree got there – the story of what happened to us.
Seeing the fruit is very helpful! We understand a lot about the tree just by looking at its fruit. We can know what kind of tree it is, perhaps what kind of roots we're dealing with. But when we have a tree growing poisonous fruit in our garden, we can't expect to kill it by picking off the fruit.
The Roots Of The Trauma Tree Are In The Body's Sensations
Code, algorithm, roots – pick your favorite metaphor here. The point is, the body is the place where all this traumatic memory is stored. It is the reason that talking about your story to a hundred people hasn't changed how you see the world or react to your triggers. Until you work with trauma at the source (sensations in the body) you cannot resolve it.
This can look like:
Learning what different emotions feel like in your body
Recognizing signs that your nervous system is triggered in the earliest of stages (when you still are capable of controlling your reaction)
Learning the language of how your body tells you what it needs to feel safe again
Identifying how fight-or-flight and freeze manifests in your body
Learning how to resource yourself when you feel trauma taking over
Interpreting your body's sensations accurately
All of these (and more) are the tools of somatic healing. Overtime the experience becomes processed and lives in a place within us that is held with compassion and only reached for in times of need. It no longer encroaches on how we see and feel the world around us. And finally, our story can become just that...a story.
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