The second video in this series on Recovery from Childhood Trauma introduces the model for recovery from childhood trauma that is the basis for this series.
This particular model focuses on the process of integration. We often think of healing as a journey toward wholeness. Moving toward wholeness involves gathering up all the fragmented pieces of our lives and of our selves and bringing them back together. Part of what happens in childhood trauma is that we instinctively do whatever we need to do to push away from the pain that is being inflicted on our developing sense of self. If we push away long enough and hard enough, we begin to disown parts of our experience and even parts of ourselves. Disowning our experience and ourselves includes anything from forgetting what happened to knowing what happened but convincing ourselves that it wasn’t so bad or that it didn’t have any long-term impact.
This model assumes that major unresolved trauma of any kind in childhood leaves us with internal states that are separated from each other and often in conflict with each other. In particular we will look at three “internal states” or “senses of ourselves”. These three internal selves include a wounded self, a judgmental self and an observing, compassionate self.
Recovery from childhood trauma involves owning the experiences we have disowned. It includes owning parts of ourselves that we continue to want to push away. This is a painful process because it means that we will need to embrace painful realities. Everything in us (and often around us) tells us that this is not the right path to take. But it is always truth, no matter how painful, that frees us. Embracing our life experiences and their ongoing impact on us is the path to freedom and wholeness.
The audio meditation for week two is a guided meditation that invites you to quiet yourself, to slow your breathing and to picture yourself in a peaceful place (real of imagined) and to let yourself rest there for a few minutes.
I would love to hear from you in the comments section. Feel free to share from your own journey. Feel free to ask questions and offer your perspective.
I agree with your insights and such meaningful considerations. I am fifty years old and it’s only been in recent years that I have come to appreciate the necessity and role of legitimate suffering. The irony is that any attempt to repress or dissociate from pain causes us to dwell in the shadow of light instead of in the light of truth itself. And I eventually came to understand that living in any degree of inaccuracy causes consequences. So there’s incentive to move forward into the pain once we recognize that we aren’t really escaping anything by avoiding it. Dissociation is only a temporary psychological process of Gods mercy destined to spare us from the threat of annihilation but was never meant to be a permanent solution. Integrating and owning those fragmented and repressed realities represents the Hero’s Journey toward the light of truth. God encourages us to mature and to learn to conquer the forces of darkness in our lives, not to run from them. He wants us to learn how to manage our thoughts and emotions so that they don’t overwhelm us. And think it’s wonderful that your life’s work is teaching people how to take that journey. Cheers!
Thank you, Lisa, for sharing your story so beautifully. I love what you said about dissociation being a “temporary psychological process of God’s mercy designed to spare us from the threat of annihilation but which was never meant to be a permanent solution.” I so agree with this. And, yet, how challenging it is to move, with God’s help and the help of others, out of our dissociation and toward painful realities. Thank you for sharing your gifts of strength and hope from your own journey– that as challenging as this is, it is possible, and so necessary for our freedom.
Thank you for writing! I totally agree that dissociating is a detour route. I feel scared to embark on the journey of acceptance and being with the pain. I know from the past experiences that the place that seems last for thousand years in pain is only minuets and will be a relief. Blessings to you!
Yeah….I don’t think anyone really enjoys the pain. I guess that’s why so few people actually engage in the process, so congratulations on your bravery. I don’t know if what I experienced is considered a *normal* part of the healing process but I went through several years of rage like anger. There were many days when I felt like I could rip the pages out of any book with my bare teeth and i was angry from morning till night. But keep in mind that when this occurred in my life I was around 46 years old so I had a lifetime of repressed emotion. And I had been through a lot in those 46 years so I guess I was finally ready to let it out. Maybe it’s not the same for everyone?
Lisa, I think that powerful feelings of anger are often a part of the journey of recovery from childhood trauma. I certainly experienced a season of deep anger. I did a lot of jogging in those days, pounding out my protest. The anger frightened me at the time, but in hindsight I could see that it was clarifying and releasing. It helped me find my voice. It helped me connect with my compassion for myself.
That’s very helpful to hear Juanita. Yes, the anger was certainly frightening to me as well. Thank you!
Bless you, Ana, as you ask for courage to face the pain you have been carrying. May you know deep release and greater freedom.
Amen.