Trauma and energy

Trauma can arise from a physical or emotional event(s). A single event (accident, injury) or events over a longer time period (childhood abuse, domestic abuse, work stress or bullying). The causes can be many, but the injury to the psyche, the trauma mechanism, is the same.

And people can respond to similar events with or without a traumatic response; whether we are susceptible to trauma is determined by a multitude of factors, part of which is our psychological “make-up”. There are “degrees” of trauma, and of course, it is clear that certain events will be traumatic for anybody.

The experience of trauma is a huge disruption to our being on multiple levels. We can view this as a disruption in our bodies energy, which is experienced at a very visceral level. The trauma aspect of an experience is what we unconsciously hold onto after the experience has happened, because it was too much to process at the time of its happening.

There is the actual memory of the trauma (although with some people, they may have sealed off the memory from conscious access most of the time) and the aftershock of the trauma, stored somewhere in our system. The aftershock comes from resistance to the experience – which is of course, natural. If somehow, we were able to enter deeply into the traumatic experience and process it while it was happening, it might pass. This is just hypothetical though, because we are not capable of processing the enormity of some experiences; they instead, become lodged inside us.

         Trauma is an energy disruption in the body. If everything proceeded smoothly from birth to death, our inner energy wouldn’t encounter any disruptions or blockages - and everything would be perfect. However, life is not like this, and throughout our development we encounter traumas, small and large, from the very first trauma of birth (which may have been more difficult for some than others). Trauma tends to build on trauma, so that difficult experiences “catch” on the rough edges left by previous trauma’s.

Sometimes, unpleasant thoughts or impressions, are attached to the trauma, such as negative self-perceptions of shame, guilt or worthlessness. As trauma overlays previous trauma, we can end up with these malign thoughts hovering just beneath the threshold of conscious awareness, making us feel bad, perhaps in response to certain events, with us not knowing quite why we feel this way.

         We need a technique that can get into the psyche and bodily energy system to collapse this trauma, and allow energy to flow smoothly again. Due to the peculiar nature of trauma and its resilience, it can be hard to “crack open” or access the trauma experience easily. Talking therapies may somehow fail to adequately “touch” the trauma, which remains stubbornly in place.

         The sufferer should be able to think about the traumatic incident(s) in a way that is free of emotional charge, the unnecessary excess emotions attached to the issue, which are often very intense. They are emotions linked strongly into the autonomic arousal system and the limbic parts of the brain, that are associated with automatic thinking and deep, stubborn, often negative emotions.

         That traumatic incident bubbling below the surface of consciousness can cause anger, irritability, insomnia, panic, nightmares. It is as if the incident is constantly being re-lived – over and over again - on an emotional and bodily level, even if it is not being remembered in its details. This excess charge, when removed through effective therapy, results in a clearer remembering of the incident – but from a more emotionally detached perspective.

         Since trauma is a disruption on an energetic level, it is particularly amenable to energy therapies, which include EFT.