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Is There Unresolved Trauma in My Life?

 

The Sound Of Music song lyric, ‘Lets’ start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start. ‘ comes to my mind as I think about how to start sharing what is so important for you to know about basic healing concepts. I am going to list a few facts to begin.

  1. All human beings experience trauma [get hurt] to some degree.
  2. We do not function well in our personal life, public life or both due to past unresolved trauma.
  3. There are two types of trauma

Trauma A: Sometimes we think of this type as including all those things which
should have happened and didn’t:

  1. Welcome at conception
  2. Nurture/present to the child
  3. Pointing child in the direction of his/her design
  4. Protection
  5. Provision of food, clothing shelter, medical/dental care
  6. Social, academic and spiritual education

Trauma B: Those bad things which happened to the child obvious to any observer

If some of you may already know this, please consider it a good review for what is to come.

We were created by LOVE Himself to be loved and to give love in a loving environment. The problem is that we do not live in a totally loving environment and everyone does not love us and we do not love everyone else. Every hurt is contrary to our nature.  Some painful events in our lives are great and we call those traumatic events. Scientists tell us that just one severe traumatic event can change our brain chemistry.

I would like to ask you to stop for a minute and think about three [3] problems you are having in your life right now. Please write down each of those 3 problems in a single sentence. The sentence should include:

    1. WHO is the problem involved with? [a peer, an authority figure or someone you have authority over] There may not be another person or persons. It may happen if you are alone.
    2. WHAT is the problem? [For example: Every time I try to express my opinion, someone interrupts me.]
    3. WHEN does it happen? [certain situations i.e. traveling; time of year, week, daytime, nighttime]
    4. WHERE does it happen? [at home, in the kitchen, in an auto, outside, group settings]
    5. HOW does it happen? [what is the dynamic of the situation i.e. I start or there is disagreement] I like to include here how I feel and what I think when it happens.

So my sample sentence may go like this:

I feel embarrassed and think no one respects my opinion when I am with a group of female authority figures in an office during an evening meeting and one of them interrupts me.

O.K. Choose to devote about a minute for each sentence.

Are you finished? Thank you. Now, just put your 3 problems aside while we focus more on trauma. We will come back to them in our next chat.

Now we can be a TRAUMA DETECTIVE. Trauma cannot be resolved if we do not know how to recognize it. Here are some clues [symptoms or indicators].

  1. Repeat patterns in life
  2. Dreams: repeated dreams
  3. Flash backs
  4. Abreactions [psychological term for reliving an experience by memory]
  5. Body memories
  6. Overreactions
  7. Food reactions
  8. Over sensitivity to sound, flashing lights, hand movements
  9. Time loss
  10. Interrupted thought
  11. Unexplained illnesses
  12. Inappropriate need to please
  13. Inappropriate need to be in control/authority
  14. Inability to remember childhood
  15. Sudden changes in mood
  16. Use of the pronoun “WE” in reference to self
  17. Headaches or dizziness
  18. Secretiveness or refusal to reveal personal experiences
  19. Urgency about time
  20. Sense of “being ripped off”
  21. Trouble staying awake during worship/Bible teaching
  22. Highly developed use of imagery/suggestible
  23. Uneven achievement in school
  24. Report hearing inner voices
  25. Sleep disturbances
  26. Denial of actions clearly observed by others

Do you identify with any of these? If so, how do we stop them?

First of all we need to find the root cause. You may have experienced the dynamic many times in your life. It may have happened with Grandmother, your teachers in school, coaches in high school, ladies in the Bible Study, Aids in your post-graduate work. But when was the first time….the root…or better said…the sowing? All the other similar situations which occur later are the reaping of the sowing.

You see, there are laws of the universe which are absolute. For instance, if you lift your computer into the air and let it go, it will fall down due to the Law of Gravity. Please do not try to prove or disprove that with your computer. Maybe a pencil would be a better test object. Whew, almost had a crash course in absolutes!

The only way to change that result is to remove the gravitational pull/ or employ an anti-gravitational force. When the Creator designed everything, He also made laws for relationships in life. These were purposed to bring much happiness and fulfillment into our lives. These are the Laws of Sowing and Reaping. The Word of God tells us that the first created people, Adam and Eve broke some of God’s laws and that started the opposite effect to also be experienced. [Genesis 3]

I hope you are able to see that it is possible to have been traumatized but not know or remember it. In fact, about 70% of our brain function seems to be blocking activity. One such activity could be blocking memory of bad things which might interrupt functioning in our daily lives or cause us distress. If we identify signs of trauma in our lives or others, we can start to look for the root cause, heal that root event and the reaped ones which followed just like it [repeated patterns].

We will identify The Laws of Sowing and Reaping in our next chat. We can learn how to get rid of those bitter roots which spring up and cause a lot of trouble in our lives. Start thinking about those 3 problems and times they may have occurred before.

Once we discover the trauma and get it healed, our lives become much less problematic with ourselves, God and others.

 

Prayer: Thank you for your pure agape’ love, Creator God. We are especially grateful that in spite of the hurts and pain we experience in life, that you can heal us. You desire and are able to take the pain, shame and guilt of our lives upon yourself so that we can have a fresh beginning every moment of our lives if we so choose. We boldly ask You to do just that as we come and reason with You because you are a God who says what He does and does what He says. Thank You that You never overwhelm us and that You tell your children what to expect ahead of time. We so delight in your loving kindness. We bless the spirits of those praying this prayer with assurance of God’s desire to help and His constant presence in all the glory with which He has ordained for your life here on earth. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Psalm 63:6-8;     Psalm 91:1-7;      Psalm 92:1-2;        Psalm 95:1-7     Jeremiah 29:11-14      Isaiah 53