- Do you have a fear of commitment due to trauma?
What does that look like for you?
How do you break through it?
I mean, living in that fear,
is that what you wanna do your whole life?
Let's talk about it.
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So I think so often we don't realize the fears we have
and why we have them until we've like repeated them
over and over and over again in our lives.
And to work through those fears of commitment that we have,
we need to recognize what we've experienced is a trauma.
Now, this isn't the trauma from like going to war
or running into a burning building
or being shot at most of the time, right?
Those are violent traumas.
But it is a trauma where we thought our world was safe,
we experienced something, that safety changed
and we no longer feel safe.
Now, in the case of complex PTSD,
if we experienced abuse in our childhood
or abuse that was repetitive,
like that happened over and over again
because of our environment,
we might not even have a safe place to go back to
or a safe relationship to go back to.
And that's why CPTSD is so much more challenging to overcome
than just regular trauma.
But it's important to recognize
that yes, we did experience a trauma
and then how that trauma has affected our life.
So trauma can show up in our emotions
and how we handle things,
but it can also show up physically in our body.
So there's an excellent book out there.
It's kind of long.
It's called "The Body Keeps the Score,"
and it talks about different types of trauma,
sexual, physical, emotional abuse,
being in war, veterans,
and it talks about abuse in childhood.
It has all these different segments,
but then it brings it all together,
and it talks about how trauma shows up
in each one of our lives.
And it absolutely affects your physical health,
and it absolutely affects your emotional health.
It's because trauma affects our nervous system,
and our nervous system regulates our emotions.
It also regulates the functions of our organs
and everything that we do.
And so it makes sense that trauma affects us
on all these different levels.
So what this can look like physically in our body,
it can create autoimmune diseases.
It can create issues with our digestive system.
It affects us on a huge, huge level.
Something to understand is that when your body does that,
it is protecting itself.
And it might feel like a betrayal
when you're in a situation and you experience a trigger,
you don't feel like you can control your emotional response.
If you've dealt with chronic pain,
it can feel like a betrayal from your body.
And something to understand
when it comes to healing from that trauma
is that it's not a betrayal.
It is your body and your mind trying to get your attention
so that you can heal.
And so often this can be challenging
when we're just wanting to bury it
and pretend like it doesn't exist.
So if your first step is recognizing
that you have experienced a trauma
and recognizing how that trauma has affected your life,
along with your trauma,
you've probably experienced a lot of shame
associated with it.
Depending on the trauma that you experienced,
shame that you didn't do more,
shame that you didn't stop whatever happened,
shame that you think that maybe you deserved it
and on some level you're responsible for it.
I wanna tell you that that is absolutely not true.
So there's the shame
of whatever initially happened in our life
that caused a trauma,
and then there's the internal judgment
of how we handled that trauma, right?
So let's say I grew up in a home
where I had a very angry parent.
So my safety revolved around not being seen,
not being heard and not being understood
because at any point
that could be a very unsafe place for me.
So my coping mechanism was to take responsibility
for other people's emotions that weren't my responsibility
and to not be seen and to not be heard
and to not be understood.
And so I grew up, I go to college,
I graduate, I have a career,
and I'm sitting in a conference room
where I disagree with what's being said,
and I have a very valid reason for disagreeing with that.
But yet I have such a hard time speaking up
because speaking up would require me to be seen
and to be heard and to be understood.
And the programming that I'm running in my nervous system
is that that is not safe.
And we show up in our lives with this old programming,
and we need to recognize that once what used to keep us safe
and was a survival mechanism,
may now be keeping us stuck.
And I might have these experiences over and over again
in my personal life and in my professional life
where I do not feel comfortable being seen
and being heard and being a understood, right?
And I might have this unconscious belief
that I'm not worthy of those things.
And then I go, why do I do that?
What's wrong with me?
Why don't I care about myself?
Why don't I just speak up?
But that whole internal dialogue that's taking place
is taking place from a place of more shame and judgment.
Well, why aren't you just different?
Well, why don't you just change?
And we have to go back
and we need to recognize to some extent
what caused these coping mechanisms,
show ourselves love and appreciation
and understanding for those coping mechanisms,
and then with absolutely no judgment,
ask yourself a couple of questions.
One, what are my coping mechanisms?
Bring an awareness to your life
of how do you handle hard things?
'Cause here's the deal, we all have coping mechanisms.
We all have challenging experiences,
and we all have ways to handle them.
The next question is, is this coping mechanism serving you?
And I'm not here to tell you
whether or not it is serving you or it's not.
That's for you to decide
because the other thing about trauma
is we often feel like we don't have a choice
because maybe we were in experience
where our choices were taken away,
either through having an unhealthy adult in our life
that took those choices away,
or even being in a terrible car accident, right,
where we were stuck and we couldn't move.
There are so many circumstances
where we feel like our choices are taken away,
and so on an unconscious level
we have the programming of we don't have a choice.
And so even just bringing that awareness into your life
that you do have choices and you can make them,
and you are worthy and responsible
and trustworthy enough to make your own choices.
And such a healthy way
of reintroducing that into your life without judgment
is to start asking yourself questions.
Is this serving me?
If it's not serving me, what do I wanna do about it?
How can I show myself love in this specific instance?
How can I show my child love in this specific instance?
And so depending on how you answer that question,
is this coping mechanism serving me,
if the answer is no, like awesome, great,
let's move on to the next step.
Because of those experiences, we have certain beliefs
about what those experiences say about us.
So going back to the example of I grew up in a home,
not me personally, but let's say I grew up in a home
where I had a not safe parent,
and there was a lot of anger.
And if there wasn't physical violence,
there was a lot of emotional abuse
that wasn't healthy or manipulation.
So digging in to what do I believe
that experience said about me,
everybody will have their own experience,
but on a very core level,
so often we don't feel worthy, we don't feel heard,
we don't feel understood, we don't feel loved.
And taking the opportunity to release those untrue
or incongruent beliefs and releasing that I am unworthy,
I am unloved, I am unlovable, I am untrustworthy
and replacing that with I am loved, I am worthy,
I am trustworthy, I am lovable.
And that is such a challenging thing to do
when you're stuck right in the middle of it,
and so if you need support with that
or anything else in your life,
we have a free complimentary consultation
that you can schedule.
Click the link below.
So recognize that when we experienced that trauma,
that was in a place of not being safe,
and you will use those coping mechanisms to survive
until you are in a place of safety.
And once we're in that place of safety,
that's when our mind and our body
starts bringing those memories up
and those emotions up in a really big way
'cause your mind and your body was burying it
because it wasn't safe.
And ultimately we need to be seen,
we need to be heard and we need to be understood,
and so it was keeping it safe in a box until it was safe.
And so sometimes that betrayal that we feel from trauma,
where like, I went through these hard
or these horrific things,
and now I'm maybe in a safe or healthy, loving relationship
or I'm in a safe or healthy place in my life,
or nothing, you know, everything is wonderful
and going great,
but all these things are coming up for me.
It's because you are now in that place of safety,
and you have the bandwidth to heal it
that it comes up in that time.
If this video has been helpful,
check out our video "How the Brain Keeps Itself Safe
from Traumatic Experience."
We continue all the conversation about trauma
and healing and safety.
Remember to like, subscribe and click the bell,
and we look forward to seeing you next time.
And remember to keep shining.
We need your light.
Look at that video.
It's coming at you.
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You know you wanna hang out some more.
All that healing and hope, we got you.