You might be thinking you need to heal your childhood trauma when… When you get your life back together. When your health improves. When your stress level goes down.
Or you might think childhood trauma is something you left behind long ago. After all, how could something from childhood still be affecting you?
In this post I am going to discuss how childhood trauma can remain in your mind and body long after the event is over. And how it can create many problems for you.
If you have been trying to improve your life and nothing has worked, this post could help.
Read on for real solutions.
What is a trauma?
First of all, you need to understand how I define trauma. An event (or a chronic situation) becomes a trauma when you are not able to process the painful emotions and release them. You felt helpless. You didn’t have any options. Maybe you were paralyzed with fear.
All of those painful emotions that flooded your system did not go away. They remain stored in your body and mind.
According to Candace Pert, author of Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine (1999), those traumatic emotions are stored in your body at the cellular level. Your cells feel and act like the trauma is still happening. These emotions are triggering your body to produce stress hormones. You are primed to feel the emotions from the trauma, whether it is fear, anger, shame, guilt, hurt or helplessness. These emotions may become limiting beliefs such as I’m not good enough or I’m not lovable.
All this is happening outside of your conscious awareness. It has been going on so long it feels normal.
Acknowledging how childhood trauma is still affecting you is the first step in healing. Now you can realize that it is not your fault. And once you know the root cause, you can begin to heal.
Are you still wondering if childhood trauma is still affecting you? Here are 15 symptoms that can be tied to childhood trauma.
15 reasons to heal childhood trauma
1. Do you have low self-esteem?
2. Do you have a tendency toward depression?
3. Are many of your relationships troubled?
4. Do you experience shame and guilt?
5. Do you worry more than most people?
6. Do you struggle with addictions of any kind?
7. Do you have a chronic disease, such as heart disease, autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia, or cancer?
8. Do you over react to minor problems?
9. Are you critical of yourself?
10. Do you have chronic muscle tension (stiff shoulders, neck, etc.)?
11. Do you suffer from anxiety or panic attacks?
12. Are you an underachiever?
13. Do you constantly feel like a victim?
14. Do you have chronic pain?
15. Do you have trust issues?
Did you see yourself on this list? What other issues would you add to this list?
One root cause
This list includes a wide variety of issues. How could there be one root cause?
Before I get to the root cause, I need to make it clear that some issues have multiple causes. For example, a poor diet or smoking can affect your health. And there are some issues that are unrelated to childhood trauma such as genetic disorders, congenital disorders, etc. Finally, there are some issues that need a different approach such as psychiatric disorders.
The root cause of many of our modern problems is unresolved childhood trauma.
Let me explain. This childhood trauma is stored at the cellular level in the form of neuro peptides or molecules of emotion. Your cells feel like the trauma is still happening. They signal the body to produce stress hormones and they have been doing that day and night since the trauma. Your body is not meant to live with constant stress. Eventually your body breaks down and the result is chronic disease and pain.
You experience those unresolved emotions every day. You can’t ignore them. You can’t think enough positive thoughts to make them go away. Some of you may have shut down your emotions just to get some relief, but they are still there. These unresolved emotions create low self-esteem, feelings of guilt and shame, under achievement, and even addictions.
The solution is healing childhood trauma.
How to heal childhood trauma
I have developed a whole brain healing system called the poetry of emotion process. With this system, you can release emotions stored in your cells without reliving any traumatic events.
For more information, go here to read my free foundation posts.
Scroll down and get my free report, “5 Lies You’ve Been Told About Health and Happiness”.
For those of you who want to go deeper, check out my Poetry of Emotions Workbooks. Or schedule a consulting session with me. I will walk you through the process so you can safely release difficult or scary issues.
(Image: Tejvan Pettinger)
