What Does It Really Mean to Heal Your Trauma?

So I don’t expect you to remember this or anything, but two weeks ago I went into detail explaining what trauma REALLY is.  If you missed it you can check it out by scrolling to the post before last called “What is Trauma Anyway?”

To summarize, it’s not what you think it is!  Trauma isn’t just “something really bad” that happened to you.  In fact it has nothing to do with how “bad” it is.

Most people don’t think of themselves as having trauma per se.  In fact, even people that I’ve worked with who have objectively really severe childhood abuse histories almost never think of themselves as having “trauma” or being “traumatized.”  They often say things like “that was just my life” or “yeah but there’s people who have it way worse than I did.”  So even if the severely abused don’t see themselves as having trauma, why would the rest of us?

But as I explain in last week’s blog, it’s not the event that matters, it’s where the memory gets stored in the brain.  If the memory gets stored in the emotional center of the brain, it can really impact our lives.  This is what makes something a trauma vs a normal experience.  Normal experiences are stored in the “prefrontal cortex” or the “adult brain.”

SO what does it mean to “heal” trauma?  It actually means to “re-file” the memory into the appropriate place in the brain.  Now this explanation is metaphoric.  It’s not like we know exactly what happens in our brain and memories aren’t literally stored in different sections.

HOWEVER, it’s a good metaphor because we can test this by using PET scans.  A positron emission tomography (PET) scan allows doctors to see how your brain is functioning.  The scan captures what parts of the brain are active and which are less active at any given time.

When someone with unprocessed trauma thinks about the traumatizing event, the limbic system or emotional center of the brain lights up and shows activity while the prefrontal cortex is not active.  For example, the post war veteran is told to think about being bombed at war.  She thinks about it and the scan will show the middle of her brain lighting up.  She feels her heart beat getting stronger, her palms sweating, she goes into fight or flight mode and she feels “triggered.”

This is what we call “trauma” because that part of her brain is lighting up when she thinks about it.  But that happens to all of us from time to time because we ALL have unprocessed trauma.  For us it may not look like feeling like we are being bombed because we didn’t experience that particular trauma.  For us it might show up as getting really upset about something we know shouldn’t be that upsetting.

That’s why I define trauma as “Anything that REALLY bugs you.”

SO what does it mean to HEAL trauma?

Well, basically, it means to create a situation where the memory no longer lights up the emotional center of the brain and instead lights up the prefrontal cortex (the area behind the forehead).

How do we do this?

There are many ways, but what I find most efficient and effective in my practice is through the use of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). EMDR has been incredibly well researched since the 90’s.  It used to be woo woo, but now is considered to be the gold standard in trauma treatment and just an all around effective therapy modality.

It’s a kind of bizarre process, not gonna lie. I ask you a few questions to “set up” the memory and then we do these weird sets of either back and forth eye movements or tapping to simulate REM sleep. The dual focus on the memory and the tapping causes the memory to process through.  We are stimulating the body’s own natural process by doing this.  It’s kind of like taking a laxative for your neural networks.

When this works (and nothing is a magic bullet) people experience an almost magical distancing from the difficult memory and a sense of freedom that a big burden has been lifted from their life.  It is weird but amazing at the same time.

If a memory has been healed we can see it by doing another PET scan.  If the memory is healed, the person would now think of that same difficult memory and have the adult brain/prefrontal cortex light up.

In my office, I of course don’t have a PET scan machine!  But I can tell if a memory has been processed by what people say about the traumatic memory.  There is usually a big shift in how they view the memory of what happened to them.

Trauma memories are very upsetting when people think of them.  People also see only one, usually very negative, interpretation of the event.  When a memory is “healed” the person remembers more positive details about the situation and sees that they were not to blame and sometimes even see the whole situation differently.  The emotional reaction when they remember the event is much less and people report seeing the memory from a much more detached perspective.

When trauma is unprocessed we feel it as if it is currently happening.  When we think about it we can feel almost like a gut punch feeling in our belly or nauseous.  When it is healed, we can then see it as something that happened but it doesn’t feel as important somehow.

There is a lightening that occurs that allows people to relax more and release it.

It is one of the most empowering things people can experience.  They are instantly freed of beliefs that have limited them in the past!  It’s AMAZING!

This is why I enjoy my work so much.  It is so rewarding to be a part of releasing people from their limiting beliefs so that they can create a life they love, that is more in alignment with their joy.

So how do you know if you have unprocessed memories?  Well, you do.  The answer is YES, you do.  Because we ALL do.  And as we uplevel our lives, progress and mature, our latent unprocessed memories get activated in different ways.  This is why the parenting journey is so tough.  Our kids activate our unprocessed memories like nothing else!

Anytime you try to uplevel your life in any way old memories that are stuck in the limbic system get activiated.  This will not show up as actual memories but as sensations in your body, fears, procrastination, stuckness, anxiety, depression, drinking too much, you name it!

This is actually what makes ANYTHING challenging.  Anything we try to do requires a deeper level of healing to do it.  We have to become a more healed version of ourselves to meet the challenges that we face when we try to do something important.

This IS what personal growth really is and what healing really means.

Any questions on this?

Just hit reply and ask.

I’d love to know if I explained this in a way that’s meaningful.  I find that a lot of what is written about trauma out there is always about overcoming really bad situations, but in my practice I find that people really benefit from healing their minor traumas as much as the major ones.  And most people don’t think of themselves as having any trauma anyway! So that really blocks their ability to seek out deeper healing that could really set them free.

I really want to change this about mental health.

Thanks for reading!

And as always if you are interested in learning more about releasing your own limiting beliefs through trauma work, please get in touch!  Even if you’re a friend and I can’t work with you personally, I can help you find someone who can help guide you through this amazing process.