Healthy habits (patterns) that we can't maintain happen when present motivation for change doesn't stand a chance against unhelpful, past learning leftovers that bond us to reason for not changing. This is a form of trauma.
just hear me out
For those new here:
Hi, I'm Carolyn, a an EMDR Certified Trauma Therapist
that specializes in complex traumas, without the specific traumatic events.
Trauma definitions on search engines and social media are grossly limited in their own ways.
They're either hyper-clinical or validating as a means to an end...
I find it ironic, because treating the root cause of trauma doesn't require specific events, diagnoses, symptoms, obvious triggers, or non-functional distress levels.
It requires understanding that trauma looks like any type of pattern (feeling, though, behavior, limiting belief, etc...) that simply is NOT serving us.
Patterns, the good kinds, stubborn kinds, and traumatic kinds, are all the result of continually reconsolidating meanings of mind-body learning from the past, all the way up to today.
The types of patterns we experience today depend on the number of related learning experiences we've had, the quality of learning we gathered from them, and the weight of each's impact on the core learning theme they all contribute to.
Themes of traumatic learning details are at the root of all of our uncomfortable patterns (considered traumatic or otherwise).
That said, I focus on most on them, when identifying, reorganizing, and treating the negative effects that usually ensue from them (mental health symptoms)- the latter being what clients most often seek therapy in general for. The thing is...
...all mental health symptoms are rooted in experience, and all experiences are rooted in and contribute to various themes of learning.
This includes all details we pick up from autobiographical/ personal experiences, limited somatic ones, witnessed ones, ones we've heard of, inherited, and most often a combination of them all.
But before learning details get added to their overarching memory network themes (assigning them more or less comfortably experienced meaning),
they're kinda just t h e r e...
not unlike leftover food in our fridges, or a surplus of pens in our necessary, but unnecessarily messy 'junk drawers.'
Trauma is like our Mind's 'Leftover Parts' that get lost and found when triggered.
Why? Because incoming learning details from new experiences don't ever wait for us to healthfully finish processing those before them.
It's like getting more food, pens, make up- what have you- and then adding to your prior collection, without regularly checking in, to ensure that everything still has a place and purpose for you that's helpful & desirable, as opposed to neither.
When client's share problems and symptoms they're experiencing today, I said before that I look for ANY patterns.
I don't specifically look for the following, but it will give you an idea of what you could look for to determine how your personally collected learning details contribute to the problems you might be experiencing today.
Ps. check out my Freebies Page, because I just added a new one to go more in depth on this trauma healing approach I use.
Just some general things I think you might benefit from knowing as well...
A). Trauma is timelessly pervasive. It can be 'triggered' in innumerable ways, when actively focusing on the past, present, or future. It also may or may not be associated with a consciously identifiable event or period in life, making terms like 'acute,' 'chronic,' and 'complex' trauma labels without practical healing/ treatment value.
B). Trauma responses vary immensely. They aren't just in the form of flashbacks, hyper sensitive emotions, or somatic fight-or-flight response. They can also take the form of undesirable patterns of thinking or behaving, specific habits or unhealthy coping mechanisms, relationship styles, and even overall lifestyle preferences and occupational choices.
C). Trauma is held in memory networks, which encompasses a lifetime of mind, body, & soul memory. Not just one or the other, but all.
D). Trauma healing is ongoing because our experiences in life are. Memory Networks are forever shaped by our old and incoming new experiences. Some new ones will strengthen the helpful learning pathways forged by the old, while others might challenge them in new ways.
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