Taken by Merichel Sanchez
Experiencing traumatic circumstances during our childhood creates a ‘dint’ within our mental, emotional and spiritual development. It can sometimes cause as to mature much quicker than other children or take on responsibilities that are not ours to carry. There are many different scenarios of what childhood trauma does to a person.
It will not look the same for everyone, which is normal. One of the best ways to heal and understand trauma for our selves is by educating our self on what happens with it. Understanding that trauma does not just stay in our mind, it also stores in our body. As the mind and the brain are connected through the nervous system.
-- The thing is with our mind, as soon as we process new information, the other information in our consciousness will make its way to our subconscious, eventually until we ‘forget’ about it. This is a way for new current information to be processed, learnt and adapted into our mind.
We might not even be aware that we are holding onto a belief, memory, emotion or conditioning that is rooted in our traumatic experiences. It does this thing where if we ignore it in one area of our life, it will manifest and shapeshift itself into other areas; until we can no longer ignore it.
Trauma healing is hard, daunting, uncomfortable and scary. I’m not going to sit here and create this illusion that it’s easy and glamorous or just love and light type of inner work. I can’t tell you how much times I’ve finished a box of tissue within all my therapy sessions. It’s this inside joke I’ve had with all my therapies because during the first couple sessions, I use to finish like 2 boxes of them in one session and toward the end, I’d only go through 5 sheets of tissue papers. This joke is so funny to me and it shows the process of what therapy does.
I use to cry when the question ‘who is Merichel?’ would pop up. This question was so daunting to me because I didn’t know who I was. The things that came to mind was the habits I participated in which was drugs, partying, sex and being mentally ill. I was the one that people would go to for advice and vent too, the ‘counsellor’ of the group. Those were the characteristics I believed made up of my identity.
The deeper I unpacked my traumas I realised that those roles and identities were trauma responses and the desire to escape reality through substance abuse, sex and partying had deeper roots and reasoning behind it; which was trauma. Same with mental illness, since I was a teen I’ve always dealt with mental illness and the idea of it not being embed with my identity was confronting. It's like who am I if I'm not that sad, depressed, anxious girl?
At the time the thought of unpacking my identity and the root cause of the behaviours I indulged in was scary. It was stepping into the unknown. It's the first awareness I had of the unknown. I didn’t know who I was outside of my trauma, my pain, illness and trauma responses, I had zero clues.
If I had the 2019 version of myself in front of me, I would embrace her and that's it. No word just embrace and acceptance for where I was at during that moment. Expressing enough gratitude and love I have for all the versions of myself that held pain and trauma; for believing that it was the way of living until something tragic would happen to me. A belief I didn't know I was holding on to at the time.
Facing my trauma and pain was the key to my self-awareness. No drugs, no ritual, no magic just simply facing and feeling my pain awaken my soul.
I began to stop listening to others and retreated to myself. Back to who I am naturally and who I am supposed to be. I went into solitude. I cut off communication with a lot of people that was rooted in trauma bonding and the ones that were one-sided and tended to myself and my own needs.
We get to a point in life that all the identities, roles, bandaids and short term fixes we use and chuck on, are no longer working. It losses its effect and then we are called to either find a harder fix or we go and see what we are running away from.
This is where many people spit up, some go within and some people look for something harder. This doesn’t make them a bad or toxic person, it’s just an example of what pain truly does to a person.
How pain can change someone to someone we can barely recognise today. -
It’s not selfish to tend to our wounds and fill our own cup, especially if we have been always been the ‘healer’ or ‘counsellor’ of the group. Sometimes the best thing we can do for all parties involved is to retreat and tend to our own needs. And those who are our true friends will understand this, they will not take it personally as they hold the same value and concept. For those who take offends to us catering to our own needs, they are not the people we are supposed to build long turn legacy or infrastructure with.
When we experience trauma (especially at a young age) our brain is wired to be in survival mode and constantly looking out for danger. This also means that we have created traits and characteristics base on survival, rather than authenticity. These responses and identities are what we go out into the world creating relationships and attachments with. When we embark on trauma healing, there is a need to let go of those identities we believed made us who we are.
As we free our self from embedding our trauma responses and pain within our identity the attachment we have created based on those versions of ourselves will no longer resonate when we begin to live out authenticity.
Sometimes people coming into our lives to teach as the lesson of who we are and who we are never going to be again and other times they reflect a fragment of our self that need acknowledging and healing. For that, we gratefully thank them for being a part of our journey and showing us the lesson we needed to ascend.
Most of the time we are called to take the lessons with us and have to learn to let the person go. Welcome, grieve in with open arms as we let go of the past versions of ourselves with kindness and compassion that resonated with them. Giving them thanks for having to assist us in overcoming challenges we thought we couldn't at the time. Letting them go with grace and forgiveness for teaching us the valuable lesson that ascending our soul and awareness.
Trauma is never something we asked for nor are we to blame. We do have a choice though, to either heal and grow from it or let it decay us and make us turn into a person we no longer recognise. -
Our past will never define and predict where we are going in the future or what we can accomplish. It doesn't define us nor is it a reflection of who we truly are. Healing is a journey, not a destination, having to let go of the idea that we can't reach content and peace in the present moment is an illusion. We can be at peace and content with our past and heal from it.
We can embark on a new beginning while healing, we don't need to 'fully healed' to be in a new cycle or embark on a beginning/journey. Let go of guilt for having the desire to move from a place of authenticity and higher vibrations. Don't feel bad for having outgrown people or certain versions of our self, instead embrace the change that is we are being lead to.
Enjoy this paradigm shift and transformation that is occurring internally and in our external world. Trust our own process and begin with loving and nurturing our self in the smallest way each day; as those efforts build up to something bigger.
Be Kinder, Less Critical
