Trauma develops when we cannot process a distressing event or situation in a healthy manner. While we would all likely view a plane crash, or a soldier’s experience in battle as traumatic, no one can measure the depth of your experience. Mishaps and hardships, heartache and mourning befall all of us at some point.
Your trauma may be an illness or medical procedure, an accident, divorce, or financial crisis. It may be the loss of a loved one, a sexual assault, or witnessing a horrifying event. It can arise from a difficult or threatening childhood, or physical or psychological abuse in relationships or the workplace. It is possible for trauma to linger for decades, even from our earliest days.
You don’t need to justify your feelings, or compare your wounds to others. You don’t need to blame yourself. You have done nothing wrong, nor made a terrible mistake. Indeed, your innate life force enabled you to survive. But your capacity for resilience has been harmed, and the boundaries that keep you feeling safe have been eroded. Lingering trauma diminishes your ability to find joy and fulfillment, instead leaving you with an underlying unease and anxiety.
Yet there is a way to reclaim your inner peace, perhaps even more deeply than ever before. Even if the trauma occurred long ago, in childhood, when you never received full acceptance and affection, you can come to know you are deserving of love.
