The Pressures of Change

“Everything you judged about yourself, served a purpose at that time.”

- Gabor Maté

Often we assume that once we healed an emotional wound, tapped into more spaciousness & freedom, we naturally need to feel relieved, more energetic, focused & all the good stuff. In my experience that’s often not what happens right away. And here’s why:

When trauma occurs - that is when we’re faced with an overwhelming situation & we’re not safe/ protected enough to handle it - our psyche splits three-fold: into a traumatized part that is carrying the massive experience & related emotions (of anger, fear, grief); a survival part that is a strategy we develop in order to not go under; and a healthy part which is our inherent sanity & clarity.

Now in trauma healing, our healthy part is gradually strengthened, so we’re better equipped to see & feel the original traumatizing experience & emotion. As a result the relating survival strategy is slowly released as it’s no longer needed.

This is a dynamic process obviously as all good things are :) It’s often not working out in a linear fashion. Sometimes a trauma healing session helps us to “only” strengthen our healthy parts; sometimes we’re able to fully see & feel the traumatizing experience & accompanying emotions; sometimes we release strategies that are nor longer serving us; and often it’s a combination of all these elements.

Survival strategies (e.g. people pleasing, over-compensating, defensiveness, over-achieving etc.) are valuable tools to help us keep afloat & in relationship with those that caused our trauma. For little children that’s the only way to remain relatively intact and move forward. When we’re adults though & exclusively carry the responsibility for ourselves, those survival strategies keep us limited & stuck in behaviors & relationship dynamics that inhibit our true potential.

At this point, many people seek solace in therapy, coaching or other modalities that might help them release these patterns. In trauma healing, we know that underneath these strategies there’s a lot of unresolved trauma energy which actually means unused life energy. When we managed to release survival strategies, this energy might show up in all its force. We might feel giddy, confused, restless, unfocused, floating above ground or develop physical symptoms that are uncomfortable. It’s not uncommon that people get sick after they’ve encountered their trauma on a deep level.

It is therefore important to give yourself time for your process & to take breaks (mentally & physically) after each session. In my experience, if I’m not taking the aftermath serious & treat myself with care, I only feed the beast that I wanted to get rid of, i.e. I (re)strengthen behaviors & beliefs that aren’t doing me any good (i.e. the need to perform, the need to stay active, distracted etc.)

The hardest part of course is to keep patient, caring & spacious for yourself. After all that’s why we started in the first place. It gets better with each healing session & eventually we’ll become well-versed in dealing with the pressures of change - inside & out.