When most people think of trauma they think of Big Trauma, like childhood abuse or neglect, or witnessing a horrific event, something that’s newsworthy.
But there’s also Little Trauma. The little things that leave a mark and continue to ache over time. Like when your second grade teacher scolded you in front of the class and everyone laughed at you or when your parents got divorced. You might even now think, “yeah that sucked, but it was a long time ago. How does that even apply to me now?”
It applies to you now because no matter what kind of trauma, Big or Little, if it doesn’t get processed, it continues to show up. Even when you think it’s not.
Trauma is trauma and we all have it. Because…..
Our brains are very powerful and they work really hard to keep up alive. So when something happens that makes us feel bad (especially when our brains are young & still developing), it keeps it out to remember it - “We don’t want to feel like that ever again, that sucked! I better leave this where I can always remember it” - in an attempt to keep it from happening again.
Unfortunately, when those things are kept out, they don’t get processed and when something doesn’t get processed, it just simmers on the back burner.
Your brain then starts to do a handy dandy trick called generalising. Anything that reminds your brain of that first “bad” thing, it adds it to the pile of “things to remember.”
This is helpful when we’re talking life or death. Like when you ran into the street after a ball and almost got hit by a car. We want our brains to slow our role when we’re headed into danger.
But it’s not so helpful when you have to do a work presentation or find new friends or actually talk to someone in order to date them and you can’t seem to do any of these things without overwhelming anxiety, self-doubt, sweating or all of the above.
Years and years of your brain maintaining a pile of bad things leads us to feeling like complete crap!
Too many little traumas or big traumas adds up to your body asking you in the language of anxiety, depression, OCD, or relationship or health problems to finally sort through your stuff.
Whatever is bothering you today is tied to the past. Healing your brain and no longer walking into every new situation with 15 garbage bags of bull**it from your past, is the way to feel better!
