It’s that T word nobody wants to talk about. It’s the elephant in the room. Most people would rather run from it for a lifetime than turn around and face it.
Yes, I’m talking about your childhood trauma.
If you’re anything like me, you want to just pretend it never happened, sweep it under the rug and move on with life. Which is exactly what I did for a huge portion of my life.
I thought I was unscathed, like I was “stronger than my trauma”. But the truth is, it was affecting me in ways I didn’t even realize.
And it’s not just me. Most of us don’t realize that trauma, especially early life trauma has a massive impact on us, affecting the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us. It distorts our reality and can cause us to react strongly (a.k.a “trigger us”) in our everyday lives.
However, there may come a point where you are ready to work on your abandonment issues, explosive temper, or deep-seated shame, and when that time comes, your childhood trauma will be waiting patiently to be healed.
Understanding Childhood Trauma
You might think that trauma is only defined as physical, emotional or sexual abuse, but you’d be wrong. Trauma can come in many forms. The details of what happened to you aren’t as important as what happened within you. Whether it was physical abuse, a traumatic accident, or even a parent shaming you for something you’ve done, the defining factor is how it effected you.
What matters is how that distressing experience changed the way you perceive yourself or the world around you. If after your parent shamed you for what you’ve done, you see yourself as a shameful, unworthy person, then that was traumatic.
What are the Effects of Childhood Trauma
Many of the issues we have as adults are just symptoms of unhealed childhood trauma. In those early years we create our model of the world and when we experience stress, shame, fear, guilt, etc. it changes the way we perceive ourselves.
For example, a child that experiences and unsafe or unstable home may store the fear from those experiences and struggle with anxiety or fear later in life. The fear from the trauma has been stored and is getting triggered in their everyday life, causing them to feel unsafe in non-threatening environments.
Let’s say their parent was unpredictable and would lash out at seemingly random times. The child felt like she had to walk on eggshells because she never knew when an angry explosion would happen. That trauma, if left unhealed, may go on to cause her anxiety in relationships or even at work with people of authority because it triggers that stored fear inside.
The same can be said for a child that felt ashamed. That stored shame could go on to cause her to feel unworthy, affecting many different areas of her life.
As a Hypnotherapist, I never go searching for trauma. Instead, I help my clients get to the root of their issues, which sometimes leads us back to traumatic experiences.
How to Heal the Effects of Childhood Trauma
Healing trauma -childhood or otherwise- is not as difficult as you might think. Yes, there could be many layers, and yes, it may take patience to work through it all, but it is possible to heal the effects of childhood trauma.
It’s a simple process of acknowledging the pain that you felt, then reframing the experience. A lot of the time the “healing” takes place naturally and completely unprompted once we get to the root of it.
Something that I find helps a lot is to bring your adult perspective into that traumatic experience. As the child, it was scary or painful, but now as an adult you can see it completely differently. You can see your child self with compassion and understanding, and you can create enough safety that the fear or shame just melts away.
It’s a absolutely beautiful experience to guide my clients through and often brings me to tears simply because I am witnessing something so big and heavy that they’ve carried for so long finally be released.
The Verdict
Healing the effects of childhood trauma is often not a one-and-done process. It takes time and patience. As you journey through your healing, you’ll find that the more you heal, the less burdened you feel. Facing your trauma may seem scary, but it’s truly the only way to be free of it. If you have unhealed trauma, I wish you courage and strength to face your fears and heal from the inside out.
If you'd like to try getting to the root of trauma quickly and effectively with Hypnotherapy, feel free to check out my Hypnotherapy Services page or book a Free Consultation to meet with me directly.
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