Hypnosis For Trauma
April 10th
If you have ever experienced trauma, you know that it is not generally an easy thing to overcome. We often are told that our emotions are uncomfortable to witness, ,so dont have them or that we should hide our bad feelings, or that we should be grateful even when we don’t feel grateful. The thing with all emotions, not just emotions created from a trauma is that they are not going to go anywhere, until you face them and hear them out. They have come to share something with you, and they won’t leave until you have heard what they have to say. Now, don’t get me wrong, emotions do come and go, but if you have not dealt with them in a way that the energy of the emotion feels heard or seen they will come back again and again. In fact anytime a situation or experience resonates with that emotion, it will creep back into your experience. And you might end up asking yourself this – “I thought I dealt with that… Why does it keep showing back up?”
This is very true of Trauma as well. Trauma is something that has literally gotten stuck in the physical body. Meaning, it is in your cells, you tissue and even in your organs. The Body Keeps the Score – Also a well known book by Author Bessel van der Kolk MD talks about this very thing. Our bodies are amazing in that they do keep score and they help us in so many ways, but when it comes to trauma, that is not something we usually want to stick around. Another little known fact about trauma, is that it does not even have to be something that has happened to you personally. Meaning you could simply witness a horrible accident and then feel the effects of that trauma showing up in your life, creating a fear of driving. Or you could hear a gun shot and not even know if anyone was shot, and then find yourself being very skiddish around loud noises. Here is what most people don’t really get about trauma. It isn’t necessarily the situation that is causing the issue, it is the story you have told yourself around that expereince and the emotions that coincide with that story.
Examples of Trauma
These are true expamples that I have worked with. The first is; you are a small child, say of about 5 years old. You are walking across the street with your mom and you reach for her hand. She is too busy and distracted to notice, or she just cannot hold your had at that moment and so she slaps your hand away. As a 5 year old, you will tell yourself that Mom doesn’t love me. That is why she isn’t holding my hand. You might even cry and feel like your little hand has been wounded from the slap that mom gave you. From that point forward, every time someone does something of a similar nature, like avoiding you, or pushing you away you tell yourself you are not lovable. No one will every love me… Sounds pretty silly right? But it happens. This particular client held onto that belief for over 80 years.
Next, I had a young woman in her 20’s come to do some work as she had been near a shooting. Now mind you, she was not shot, she didn’t even see the shooting take place, she only heard it. She was so scared to be alone in her own home that she had to leave the city and move back home temporarily to her parents house. She didn’t understand why all of a sudden every little noise, made her heart race and fear show up. So scared she didn’t even sleep most nights.
Lastly, there are more serious traumas such as war or something of more dire consequences. Such as a child witnessing a family member being abducted, or killed in front of them. We don’t often witness these things in our country, but think of all the people who are living in a war torn country. They as children here air raid sirens going off, which immediately sends their nervous systems into overdrive. This type of trauma can last for decades and can be debilitating. Often termed PTSD. The effects are long lasting and can sometimes never be helped unless the person has serious mental health counseling, medication etc… to help them overcome. I don’t often work with this type of trauma, but I do know clients who have grown up in this type of environment.
How can hypnosis help with Trauma?
Hypnosis as I have talked about in so many of my other blog posts, is all about helping the individual understand their story and their emotions around a particular subject. So in this case, I am helping them rewire their central nervous system to be more calm and at peace and also I am helping them get in touch with their personal story and the emotions around that story. Let’s say you have been telling yourself for years that mom didn’t love you. She slapped my hand away when I was just a child. Then she punished me for crying about it. That is the story and while it may be accurate, the point is not what happened so much as what story did you tell yourself around that incident. So we help people come to terms with what was really going on, we help them reframe their knowledge around the situation and more importantly we help them change their belief systems so they can be more healty and helpful. We do all of this through the subconscious mind. That is where all this stuff is kept anyway. That in the body like I stated at the begining of this blog post. So through hypnosis we address a persons emotions and their beliefs and help them understand and let go. We are not meant to carry this crap around forever. We are mean to learn from it then move on, but many of us don’t know how.
If you are ready to address some long standing trauma or to learn more about your own belief systems and how to make them work for you. Please reach out. Schedule a consultation. It’s free and 30 minutes, what have you got to lose? Worst case scenario I am not the right person for you or this is not the right process, but taking that step could lead to the right path for you. Not matter what it is.
