Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Copy of the Teleconference held on July 11, 2013 - Guilt, Shame, and Vulnerability
Thank you all for following me on this blog. Here is a free copy of the recording from the teleconference held on July 11th, 2013 of Reclaim the Life YOU were Meant to Live! Teleconference Series. This is for all of you to listen to who were not able to participate back then, and I want to give it to you because I think you will get so much out of it! I want to particularly express my thanks to all those who are reading this blog in so many different countries - Russia, China, India, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Iran, Israel, Afghanistan, Japan, Ukraine, Belarus, Australia, Sweden, United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Angola, Iraq, Singapore, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Spain, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan, Qatar, Norway, and those in the United States. I am humbled and honored.
Please enjoy the recording and feel free to pass it on to anyone you think would benefit from it. I love you all! Thank you for any feedback, I would love to hear from you. Click or press the link below (it may take a few minutes) to receive the mp3, or you can hear it by phone by calling the free conference play back number: (605) 475-4099, Access code: 520966#. When prompted for the reference number hit 9, then press #, and it should get you to the recording on Guilt, Shame, and Vulnerability. If you have any problems with the download, please let me know.
The next teleconference seminar is scheduled for Thursday, October 17th, at 6PM PST. Please send me an email if you would like to join and participate.
Please enjoy the recording and feel free to pass it on to anyone you think would benefit from it. I love you all! Thank you for any feedback, I would love to hear from you. Click or press the link below (it may take a few minutes) to receive the mp3, or you can hear it by phone by calling the free conference play back number: (605) 475-4099, Access code: 520966#. When prompted for the reference number hit 9, then press #, and it should get you to the recording on Guilt, Shame, and Vulnerability. If you have any problems with the download, please let me know.
The next teleconference seminar is scheduled for Thursday, October 17th, at 6PM PST. Please send me an email if you would like to join and participate.
Monday, August 5, 2013
My CRN Digital Talk Radio Interview on Healing from PTSD
June was PTSD Awareness month, and I had the great pleasure of being interviewed by Dr. Sarah Larsen, one of the co-hosts of Divine Love Talk on CRN Digital Talk Radio, and one of my dearest friends, about Healing from PTSD. It was a wonderful opportunity to share my experience with PTSD, my family's history of it, and how I was able to heal it within me through the program I created and now offer to others to help them reclaim their lives who suffer from PTSD, trauma, or stress. I am so excited to share this with all of you! I would love your feedback! Find me on Facebook, Twitter, or email me at charlespacello@gmail.com and let me know what you think. So much love!
Healing From PTSD
If you have difficulty with the above link, go to www.crntalk.com, then scroll down and click on "Divine Love Talk'. When it moves to the next screen, click on 'Watch Divine Love Talk videos' and scroll down to the video titled 'Healing From PTSD.'
Healing From PTSD
If you have difficulty with the above link, go to www.crntalk.com, then scroll down and click on "Divine Love Talk'. When it moves to the next screen, click on 'Watch Divine Love Talk videos' and scroll down to the video titled 'Healing From PTSD.'
Saturday, August 3, 2013
A Powerful Email Communication with a Client
Below are some questions asked in an email communication between me and one of my clients. This is such a powerful exchange, and we thought, we know, you are going to get so much out of it. Just this one post, reading it over and over again, can be all you need for the transformation to occur in your life. Susan is a 22 year old female who is experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and is seeking help to heal and recover (see my previous post on What works for PTSD?). Her questions are penetrating and I could relate to all of her thoughts when I was in the deepest part of my PTSD and trauma, when I was going through the experience before I healed it within me. You'll probably relate to it as well, and that's why I thought it would be worthwhile for others to read it who might be in the same situation. I have changed my client's name and any other information that might identify this person, and with my client's permission, we share it with you. I really know you'll get something out of this. This could be life changing for others. It could be life changing for you.
Charlie,
I have so many questions running through my mind tonight. Most are insignificant. For example: What tone is the fan creating? Is there a pitch that dogs can't hear? Why wont the permanent marker bond to the metal? Then there are the second level questions. How long is the layover in Chicago? Did I remember to get everything done before Stephanie comes in? I wonder how Mark is making out at the game? Lastly come the deeper questions. What happens when you die? What regrets do I have? Is it even worth contemplating this? I wonder if everyone thinks about killing themselves? If you pass along your traumas (see my earlier post Evidence That Traumas Get Passed Down) do you also pass along your healing to the next generation? What if I'm not strong enough, brave enough, intelligent enough? Am I asking the right questions? And so on and so forth.
I can't turn my brain off. I keep thinking about that first video you showed me during our meeting in LA about reincarnation. I'm a skeptic at heart. I'm still not sure what I think about it all. And then I start to wonder: Okay, so if the past no longer exists then what is the point of the now? (I write about this in one of my first posts of this blog titled Why is all time and space now?) Does anything hold inherent meaning? or, is meaning something we place onto things as a way to process its existence? Is that statement logical?
What hope do we have if we don't even know what the future will hold? We don't even know what the next second holds for us. Maybe what I'm asking is whats the point? If there is something beyond ourselves then why are we here now - what am I supposed to be learning in this life that will aid me in the next? What is my purpose and is it even attainable?
Do you think there is something after death? Do you believe in God?
Here was my answer.
Hi Susan, I apologize for not writing to you sooner, I was working this evening and just got home.
First off, I have to say you have such a beautiful, inquisitive mind, as innocent as a child, wanting to know about all sorts of things. I totally get what you are feeling. I felt the same way when I was suffering from PTSD and trauma, and my life was filled with doom and gloom (see my post where I write about my experience with PTSD: Reflections on 2012; What I want to Give in 2013). I, like you, was reaching for answers, anything to give meaning to my life. I was filled with so much despair and hopelessness, I didn't think I'd ever see the dawn of a new day. Now, some of the answers to your questions are easy, and some not so easy, and are learned as one moves forward in life.
Have you noticed that questions and thoughts pop up automatically in your mind without any of your control? It's like the "pop-ups" on your computer. Our thoughts are like these "pop-ups". We're not meant to give them attention. They're just trying to get us a place to land. It's a part of our ego's internal virus. It will keep popping things up until one of them grabs your attention. And then, you're like 'Oh my God, I can't deal with this thought!' So then, it pulls you out of the present moment, and into the thought. These "pop-ups" are called ANTS, or Automatic Negative Thoughts. ANTS pop-up across the screen of your mind all the time. They are trying to pull you out of the present moment and into pain. They are part of our body, they are in the consciousness of our cells, they are in the environment all around us. If we give them any power, we become paralyzed in ourselves. So we constantly have to clean ourselves of ANTS, the ones that "popped-up".
Have you noticed that questions and thoughts pop up automatically in your mind without any of your control? It's like the "pop-ups" on your computer. Our thoughts are like these "pop-ups". We're not meant to give them attention. They're just trying to get us a place to land. It's a part of our ego's internal virus. It will keep popping things up until one of them grabs your attention. And then, you're like 'Oh my God, I can't deal with this thought!' So then, it pulls you out of the present moment, and into the thought. These "pop-ups" are called ANTS, or Automatic Negative Thoughts. ANTS pop-up across the screen of your mind all the time. They are trying to pull you out of the present moment and into pain. They are part of our body, they are in the consciousness of our cells, they are in the environment all around us. If we give them any power, we become paralyzed in ourselves. So we constantly have to clean ourselves of ANTS, the ones that "popped-up".
We all want to know the answers to these questions: who am I? Why am I here? What is this all about? Let me ask you to think about this for a moment: do you realize what a miracle it is to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, to touch? And who is it that is experiencing these sensations? Where are you? They've searched all over the brain to find this 'command center', the man or woman in the chair taking in all this information, and have yet to find it. Because it is consciousness, and consciousness is a state of being, it is an awareness of itself. But who is the seer seeing? Who is the feeler feeling? Whenever you get caught up in the stream of thoughts, bring yourself back to the miracle of who you are. Existence is a miracle! Take the time to absorb and appreciate this, truly reflect on what it is to exist.
Now, many of these thoughts originate in fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the future, fear of some unexpected calamity awaiting us around the next turn. Our minds are so powerful, we can create and bring into our experience the very fears we are so afraid of experiencing because you will create what you defend against. You will subconsciously create the situation you are trying to avoid. Thus, we have to learn how to control our minds, select the thoughts we want to hold on to, and learn how to discard and detach from the ones we don't want. If we have this much control on what we experience in our lives, and we do, then we want to empower ourselves with the thoughts of the things we do want to experience. That doesn't mean we won't face challenges or conflicts in our lives, we will, human beings are designed to struggle, its how we learn and grow. It's our attitude in the face of external circumstances that makes the difference. It is the greatest and best of the human freedoms, and those who have faced the most horrid situations, for instance the Holocaust, by virtue of their attitude made all the difference in the world in how they overcame their challenges.
What is the point of life? Life. Reality is what it is. We give it the meaning it mean to us. Enjoy life. Seek what is joyful, be grateful, find the good in all that occurs, and take full responsibility for your experience. You are responsible for your own happiness. The outside world is not. While you were thinking all these things, was the outside world doing anything to you? No. We project the source of our happiness on the world, and when the world doesn't come through for us in the ways we think it should, we get angry, depressed, and filled with hopelessness and despair. This vulnerability is a consequence of the way we were taught to believe that the source of our happiness is "out there". To place the source of our happiness on something outside of ourselves creates a negative energy field because it is basically a lie. The source of happiness is not something that is outside ourselves at all. We give meaning to the world. And what we project onto it, or the way we hold it, depends on the meaning we give to it. In and of itself, it has no meaning; it merely is. Meaning is a mental construction that we have projected out, thereby assigning value to something. The values arise out of our own mental/emotional values which are then projected onto something outside of us. Value and significance is given to a person, place, or thing, by you. The context and meaning in our lives is re-energized by recognizing that nothing outside of us can make us happy; you are the source of your own happiness. Don't give out to the world what is within your power to control. You are the one who sets up the meaning and give these thoughts power over you. Take back your power. Be the source.
Did you know the universe never duplicates itself? There will only be one Susan, there's only one you. Cherish it. Be your best friend, be your lover, this is your experience of life! How do you want to live it? Ask questions only if it leads you to a deeper understanding and enriches your life experience. If it causes you grief or suffering, that's a sign you're allowing yourself to be pulled down by the gravity of the lower thought forms. If you want to know the darker truths, let the purpose behind it be to bring this awareness to the light, so that it makes you a more whole and complete person. When you reach a state of hopelessness that's an indication that you need to re-think this and find something that's uplifting, motivating, and energizing. It's your life. You are creating it with your thoughts. You are responsible for how you act and respond in your world. To do your part in changing the world, you must conquer yourself, you must master yourself, and be the change you want to see in the world. Begin with you.
The point of the reincarnation video is to open your mind to new possibilities. If you want to learn more about the scientific evidence supporting reincarnation, I suggest you look at the works of Dr. Ian Stevenson. It is the most respected data supporting the case for reincarnation. His credentials are impeccable and his studies are scrupulously objective and methodologically impeccable. Of 2500 cases that he investigated, 1500 of them were considered 'confirmed', meaning they were verified and substantiated. That's a significant number. However, I'm not here to convince you to believe in reincarnation. Just the possibility of it. You make the decision for you.
As to the question, do I believe in God? Yes. I do. God is. In the deepest darkness of my despair I made contact with something inside of me that had always been there, and now, I feel it all the time. I have had a personal religious experience with my Creator, a reunion with my Source. And it grows everyday. I'm not the type to go around preaching about it, or chastising people for living in sin, blah, blah, blah...it's what is called a mystical experience of the unknown. Because you asked, I have told you the truth. We each get to decide what kind of a world we want to live in, and based on our beliefs, we get the world we choose. I'm not here to convert you. I'm here to get you healthy and recover from the effects of PTSD. Your relationship to the universe is up to you.
That was the conversation. Have a wonderful weekend!
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Breaking Trauma Down
Since I started my practice and began working with clients, doing interviews, and talking with people, many have asked me how do you know if someone has been traumatized? What does it look like? What are the ways in which people cope with the traumas in their lives and how does this affect them in their relationships, at work, and in social situations? I knew from my own experience what I did to cope with the traumas that I experienced: I drank a lot and did drugs to medicate myself from the pain; I stopped doing things I once loved; I became very reticent and withdrawn from people; I was chronically depressed; I escaped by watching tv, or reading books, or depriving myself of things like money or good food because I had a core belief of unworthiness. All these things and more were the ways in which I unconsciously and consciously dealt with the traumas I was experiencing or had experienced in my life because I didn't have the courage to seek help, face the painful emotions brought on by these traumatic events, and find a way to transform and integrate them into the fabric of my life in a healthy, positive way. Now that I have, I can't believe I allowed myself to remain in that state of quiet desperation for so long, as though I didn't deserve to live or feel good about myself again. But as I've stated before, traumas change the way our brains function, it alters the chemicals and hormones released into the body, and therefore, one's life is significantly detoured because the way we are processing life has become damaged. Traumas get lodged in our bodies as well as in the painful recollection of the memories of our past. It's like a part of us gets frozen in time, trapped in that original traumatic experience, and unless we do something about it to heal our minds and bodies from the effects of the trauma, we become unconscious victims of our own coping strategies as we try to resolve these issues within us and eliminate the pain. Unfortunately, because we haven't yet learned the tools to effectively heal from these wounds, we make matters worse by falling into destructive coping strategies that only compound and complicate the problem.
All stress becomes traumatic whenever there is danger, fear, anxiety, or risk involved. Your body mobilizes its defenses, everything goes on high alert, and there is a heightened state of alertness and vigilance. The electrochemical reactions between the synapses in your brain accelerate; it's like you are driving your car at it's maximum speed. Everything is being pushed to its limits, and pretty soon everything breaks down. Our minds and bodies can only take so much, we all have our breaking point, and often these traumas have residual effects, meaning they don't show up until much later in life. Now some traumas have an immediate effect, they only happen once or a few times, but the impact is so great, it immediately affects our lives. Examples of this are combat, rape, assault or physical abuse, or accidents. Other types of traumas are much smaller, and happen little by little every single day, but the cumulative effect of these relatively minor traumas can have just as significant effect on a person as a major event. Little acts of degradation, humiliation, or shame on a daily basis take their toll on a victim until one day they just fall apart. We often make compromises to trauma which deaden us over time. We lose the sensitivity we once had, the joy, the sense of well-being, and our lives seem filled with dread, sadness, or depression. It is only when we remove ourselves from a situation, heal ourselves from the pains of our past, does our sensitivity and joy return. But so often we are caught up in the cycles of trauma that continue to act on us long after the event has happened that we can't seem to find our way out. If only we knew what the signs were that indicated to us we had been traumatized and need to heal our wounds. If we knew what they were, then maybe we could recognize these coping behaviors in our own lives, and if present, seek the help out there to change these coping strategies into healthy ones.
Well, Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. has broken down the ways that traumas continue to affect people over time in his book, The Betrayal Bond. Dr. Carnes is an expert in the fields of addiction, recovery, and compulsivity, and his book elucidates the profound impact traumas have on people. His book breaks down trauma into eight different ways in which people cope: trauma reaction; trauma arousal; trauma blocking; trauma splitting; trauma abstinence; trauma shame; trauma repetition, and trauma bonds. For the purposes of this blog post, I will focus on the first seven, and if you would like to know and understand the eighth, I suggest you purchase and read Dr. Carnes' book. It's well worth the read and explains how and why we get involved with exploitative relationships. However, I want you to understand what people do to cope with their traumas, and Dr. Carnes has listed all the characteristic for each one, which I will share with you after I explain each one specifically. I am very grateful for the work Dr. Carnes has done in putting all of this together in such a simple and easily understandable way.
Trauma Reaction
A man has horrifying nightmares as he recalls hearing the battle sounds of war all around him - the exploding bombs from the air, the chattering of machine guns, the thud of mortar rounds being fired, the cries of men wounded and dying. He's suddenly aroused by his wife whose being attacked by him while he is sleeping. He finally comes back to reality. It was all so real. So vivid. He has no idea how to get rid of these terrible dreams, and so to cope, he drinks, which only complicates the problem, because then his guard is down and he is easily provoked into rage.
This is just one example of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now, as I've stated in previous posts, PTSD is not limited to just combat veterans. People who've experienced physically or emotionally abusive relationships, accidents, disasters, or any kind of traumatic event where there was an overwhelming sense of fear and danger can get PTSD. Please look at my previous posts to learn how one can get PTSD. One of the problematic issues with PTSD is how the alarm system in the brain is activated. An overwhelming sense of fear and danger causes extraordinary changes in your neurological system and your organs - in particular your brain. These changes in your body, especially in your brain, alters how you perceive and relate to the world around you. Most people whose flight or fight response is working properly, react and respond to an emergency or crisis, and then, return to normal. Those who suffer from PTSD have experienced trauma that is so overwhelming and sustained, the entire body's ability to stay in an hyper-vigilant state is enhanced. The body adjusts as does the mind. You can't slow down. The accelerator is down, you are on full-throttle, and the result is a highly reactive, difficult person who is a challenge to be around and who doesn't want to be like this.
Characteristics of PTSD reactivity:
If you see yourself or someone you love exhibit some or most of these characteristics, chances are you or your loved one suffers from PTSD.
Trauma Arousal
Some people after experiencing trauma in their lives only feel alive when they are dealing with crisis or taking high risks. Soldiers coming back from war often engage in high-risk sexual behavior because it stimulates the system and helps them to dull the pain they experienced from the war. Women who were sexually abused or raped when they were young, often when they become adults, can only become orgasmic when a man is hurting them. They will find partners who will re-victimize them over and over again because the behavior is now supercharged and addictive.
As Dr. Carnes points out, "Stimulation and pleasure compensate for pain and emptiness." [1] With sex alone the possibilities for arousal based on fear or danger is endless. There is highly addictive sex, violence, dramatic exits, passionate reconciliation, threats of leaving, seeking sex outside the relationship through prostitution or anonymous sex, this and more constitute just one of the pathways people who've been traumatized use to seek stimulation and pleasure, especially in the presence of fear, danger, violence, or shame.
Characteristics of its presence are:
Arousal can become very addictive. Those who have been traumatized may need the heightened stimulation and high-risk pleasure seeking just to feel normal. And when your brain adjusts to this way of living, it can severely disrupt your life and cause you and those you love a lot of pain.
Trauma Blocking
Blocking is an effort by the survivor to numb, block out, or reduce the residual negative feelings associated with trauma. You will do anything to obliterate the painful memories and feelings of the interior world. It is about anxiety reduction, and you will do behaviors and substances that induce a state of calm, of relaxation, of comfort. You basically are anesthetizing yourself from the fear and pain of your past, you want to avoid reality because reality is too painful, but again, as the body and mind adjust, you will need to do these things compulsively in order to feel normal.
Characteristics of trauma blocking are:
Any kind of trauma can create this kind of response in order to cope. But, by choosing to act out in these ways, you are changing the neuropathways in your brain, and your ability to function normally is impaired. And often many survivors of trauma use a combination of these strategies to cope, which only compounds the problem and makes it more difficult to break free from the painful past.
Trauma Splitting
Sometimes the reality you are living in is just too painful to bear and you want to go to another one. You want to escape. Therapists call this splitting - where the victims of trauma split off from the uncomfortable reality, dissociate from the experience, and live in another reality or fantasy. This can take many forms: amnesia - the survivor doesn't remember significant facts about the event; sometimes survivors find themselves in places and have no idea how they got there; sometimes they feel detached from their bodies while in reality; or "the lights are on but nobody is home" because they have completely detached themselves from the reality of their world. This living in 'fantasyland' becomes addictive, because the survivor's fantasies are often accompanied by arousal and obsession. Sex addicts will have a pattern of falling in love. And when the romance subsides, they'll seek another to fulfill the thrill of romance and believe this is the one who will take all my pain away. An alcoholic will think he is a wine connoisseur to cover up his alcoholism. Both of these examples illustrate how one dissociates from their painful realities.
Thus, trauma splitting is when you ignore traumatic realities by splitting off the experiences (escaping) and not integrating them into your personality or daily life.
Characteristics of trauma splitting:
We all want to space out sometimes. The problem is when we want to stay there.
Trauma Abstinence
Sometimes survivors of trauma will engage in compulsive deprivation or abstinence as a way to control and manage their fears, anxieties, and stresses about their lives. This type of response as a solution to a trauma experience occurs especially around memories of success, high stress, shame or anxiety. Most important, is this response is driven by terror and fear. When a person deprives themselves of good things - spending money for themselves, avoiding eating healthy foods, sabotaging opportunities for success - it's a way of reinforcing the core belief that you are unworthy. For example, people can use debt as a form of impoverishment and self-fulfillment. They cannot seem to get ahead or make any moves to improve their lives because of the overwhelming debt burden resting on their shoulders. This becomes a poverty obsession where you deny yourself basic needs and avoid taking risks on opportunities that might lift you from the financial constraints you find yourself in. However, this constantly depriving yourself of the good things in life has a counter-force as the individual reaches a point where they can't stand it any longer, and suddenly go out of control with spending or drinking. Then, the individual feels guilty for doing this, and returns to the state of mind of needing to deprive themselves in order to feel good again. It becomes a vicious cycle of being in control and then, being out-of-control. It is very common in our society, especially among professionals, who are so overworked and struggling to make ends meet, or who are working in jobs where they feel unappreciated, to have these excessive, out-of-control aspects of their lives which are rooted in compulsive deprivation. As Dr. Carnes points out, "Wherever addiction is, there will also be deprivation. If not addictive in its own right, the deprivation becomes a life pattern that, in part, is a solution to traumatic experience." [1]
Characteristics of trauma deprivation:
Trauma Shame
As I've discussed before with regards to shame, it is the profound sense that you are unworthy of love and belonging. You feel defective, or even worse, responsible for the trauma which happened, and therefore, the shame is coupled with a deep and corrosive self-hatred. A person who is shame-based has as their core belief that they are unlovable, and that if people knew who they really were behind the facade they present to them, they would leave in disgust. There is a fundamental break in trust. The person doesn't believe anyone will truly care about them based on their own merits, will only exploit and magnify their unforgivable faults, and hold them hostage to their failures in the past. Survivors will often try to overcompensate for this by doing everything within their power to meet the unreachable standards of others and who they want them to be, in order to gain their love and acceptance, only to fail miserably, which only adds to their existing shame. The whole binge/purge phenomenon associated with addictive behavior which often follows after a person has experienced trauma is deeply rooted in the shameful feelings one has about oneself. At its worst, the shame-based person can be filled with so much self-hatred, that the person feels they are worthless, totally unforgivable for what they may have done, been a part of, or had done to them, and the only solution to this merciless stance is suicide. This stance is far beyond depression, and is often marked with a preoccupation and acting out of self-destructive behaviors.
Characteristics of trauma shame:
You cannot numb your feelings of unworthiness into submission. Whether you use alcohol, drugs, or another person, these coping strategies will make you vulnerable to addiction, co-dependency, and exploitation. And whatever the addiction may be, or whatever you use to bury the pain, pretty soon, it will no longer be able to keep you from feeling those toxic emotions, and you will become desperate to find a solution. Better to face what needs to be faced, and develop healthy coping strategies to deal with the trauma and pain of your past, instead of ignoring the problem until it ultimately and inevitably puts you in a life threatening situation.
Trauma Repetition
This is something I've spoken about before in that we repeat behaviors or re-create situations in our lives over and over again until we transform them. Trauma repetition is about re-enactment. We are living out our present lives in the unremembered past. We continue to re-live a story from our painful history over and over again as we vainly try to bring some resolution to our pain and heal it. But, instead, we keep re-creating the same situations, finding ourselves with the same type of people, without ever realizing we're stuck in a pattern of repetition. Or, another form of reenactment is to abuse others the way others had abused you. You were victimized and now you take on the role of perpetrator. Or, you can play the role of rescuer, coming in to save the person from the trauma they are experiencing. The hero who saves the day, who rescues the damsel in distress, or the wounded warrior. Whether you are playing the victim, the perpetrator, or the rescuer, you are attempting to bring resolution, healing, and a way to eliminate this deeply held fear that traumatized you somewhere in your past. But instead of healing the original traumatic wound, you deepen it, and make it worse, because you've added traumas on top of each other. Suddenly, you are wrapped up in an endless cycle of unconscious programs playing out in your mind and your life that spans lifetimes. Yes, I said lifetimes. These traumas are carried with you, in your soul, lifetime after lifetime, and you will continue to re-create these traumatic experiences on some level until you finally decide to heal it within yourself.
Characteristics of trauma repetition:
Steps you can take to get on the path of recovery
If you recognize yourself in any or all of the above categories of trauma, you can take steps right now to interrupt this pattern and put yourself on the path of recovery. When I looked at these lists, I found I'd used a combination of all these coping strategies to deal with the traumas I experienced, and I was humbled by what I learned about myself. I took a hard inventory about the kinds of behaviors that continued to bring me pain, what I call 'left turns', and discovered that if I behaved in a certain way, or responded in a way that was opposed to the person I wanted to be, this would inevitably feed into the self-loathing and shame I'd felt about my life and who I'd become. When I finally made the choice to stop this, to end this cycle of pain, although it was difficult at first, the end result is miraculous. I found me. Underneath all that pain and trauma, was me, this beautiful, incredible man who had such love for his family, for his loved ones, for his friends, and for all people on this earth. That's why I want to share with you my program. I know it works, if you follow the steps.
Instead of repeating the same behaviors and getting the same results, you need to develop other coping strategies that are healthy. You want to create a plan of action, one that we agree to, where you will have a mentor who will hold you accountable to the plan so you will not fall back into old compulsive coping strategies that have been destructive to the quality of your life. After we've reconnected to who you truly are, we examine the traumas that have plagued you in your life, we re-frame them, putting them in the larger context of your life, the big picture, and learn to get the good that came from those experiences. These stories you tell cannot survive the empathy and unconditional love from someone trusted with the goal of your healing. You reclaim your connection to life, and to another human being. This begins the total dismantling of the past, and soon, the shackles are unlocked, and the past holds you down no more. Then, we build new skill sets to bring out the person you already are who just got buried underneath all that trauma. We are going to re-build you based on the work we do in re-connecting to who you truly are.
Below are some immediate actions from Dr. Carnes's book that you can take based on the trauma categories described above:
Trauma reaction recovery plan:
Learn to manage your reactivity by listing the ways you underreact or overreact. Describe what the reaction is, what the feeling is like, and what the behavior that results from it. Describe a specific event in which this reaction happened. Then describe what the appropriate response would have been and the probable result that would have happened if you did that. Your objective is to find the balanced response.
Arousal recovery plan:
First, take notice what "arousal" addictions you have in your life that you use to bring relief to the trauma and pain you've experienced. Then look at the intensity these arousal coping strategies had on your life. Did it truly bring you relief or did it just add more problems? How did it affect your relationships with your family, friends, loved ones, and co-workers? What were the sources of your intensity? Make a list. Once you've done that, write a plan of action for distancing yourself from the addiction to the intensity. Be very specific.
Blocking recovery plan:
In this plan, you need to look at what satiation addictions you use to sooth and calm yourself. Anything you do to relax, medicate, or anesthetize anxiety to block out the trauma and pain. Make a list. Then write a plan for soothing and calming yourself in healthy ways.
Splitting recovery plan:
Look and examine the areas in your life where preoccupation and obsession is used to escape from reality. List this all out clearly without hiding anything from yourself. Separate illusion from reality. Be very honest with yourself. Then, once you've done that, compose a brief statement of "Ten Rules to Stay in Reality." These are your new rules to live by.
Deprivation recovery plan:
In this plan, you want to look at the areas where you have gone far beyond neglect of yourself. You want to identify and list the forms of compulsive deprivation or self-harm that exist in your life. Then, after reviewing your list, you want to make a list of what a healthy, thoughtful, caring human being would do for his or herself. Then pick from the list 3 things you can do in the next week, and 3 more you can do in the next month.
Shame recovery plan:
Here you want to begin the process of self-restoration. Begin by making a list of the sources of shame in your life, whether it was from an event, a relationship, or an error on your part. Think of all the times you felt unworthy, ashamed, embarrassed, or flawed. Write it down. Jot down your feelings associated with each entry, and then ask your life coach or therapist or group what you need to do to re-build support for yourself.
Repetition recovery plan:
Dr. Carnes offers a wonderful exercise in his book to understand repetition compulsion and how to change it. Unfortunately it is far too lengthy for me to condense in this blog. However, my whole program is designed to liberate you from repeating the traumas over and over again by transforming them.
Thanks to the work of Dr. Carnes, we have a greater understanding of trauma and what it does to people, and I am very grateful for the work he has done to bring greater awareness to this issue. Here's the bottom line: most of you have experienced trauma in your lives or you wouldn't be reading this blog. And just because you can now define it so you can understand it more, instead of repeating these behaviors, you develop other coping strategies that are healthy. That's what I am an expert at. I've already got it in this system, and you are going to learn even more when you start working with me.
Instead of having these problems repeatedly, I've decoded them for you. I've broken it down simply so it's easy for you to digest, and to understand. We'll be covering this in future teleseminars and future gatherings.
Let's not repeat this pattern for yourself or for humanity, let's let it go; I've got the tools.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Carnes, Patrick J., Ph.D. The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitative Relationships. Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, Florida. 1997
All stress becomes traumatic whenever there is danger, fear, anxiety, or risk involved. Your body mobilizes its defenses, everything goes on high alert, and there is a heightened state of alertness and vigilance. The electrochemical reactions between the synapses in your brain accelerate; it's like you are driving your car at it's maximum speed. Everything is being pushed to its limits, and pretty soon everything breaks down. Our minds and bodies can only take so much, we all have our breaking point, and often these traumas have residual effects, meaning they don't show up until much later in life. Now some traumas have an immediate effect, they only happen once or a few times, but the impact is so great, it immediately affects our lives. Examples of this are combat, rape, assault or physical abuse, or accidents. Other types of traumas are much smaller, and happen little by little every single day, but the cumulative effect of these relatively minor traumas can have just as significant effect on a person as a major event. Little acts of degradation, humiliation, or shame on a daily basis take their toll on a victim until one day they just fall apart. We often make compromises to trauma which deaden us over time. We lose the sensitivity we once had, the joy, the sense of well-being, and our lives seem filled with dread, sadness, or depression. It is only when we remove ourselves from a situation, heal ourselves from the pains of our past, does our sensitivity and joy return. But so often we are caught up in the cycles of trauma that continue to act on us long after the event has happened that we can't seem to find our way out. If only we knew what the signs were that indicated to us we had been traumatized and need to heal our wounds. If we knew what they were, then maybe we could recognize these coping behaviors in our own lives, and if present, seek the help out there to change these coping strategies into healthy ones.
Well, Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. has broken down the ways that traumas continue to affect people over time in his book, The Betrayal Bond. Dr. Carnes is an expert in the fields of addiction, recovery, and compulsivity, and his book elucidates the profound impact traumas have on people. His book breaks down trauma into eight different ways in which people cope: trauma reaction; trauma arousal; trauma blocking; trauma splitting; trauma abstinence; trauma shame; trauma repetition, and trauma bonds. For the purposes of this blog post, I will focus on the first seven, and if you would like to know and understand the eighth, I suggest you purchase and read Dr. Carnes' book. It's well worth the read and explains how and why we get involved with exploitative relationships. However, I want you to understand what people do to cope with their traumas, and Dr. Carnes has listed all the characteristic for each one, which I will share with you after I explain each one specifically. I am very grateful for the work Dr. Carnes has done in putting all of this together in such a simple and easily understandable way.
Trauma Reaction
A man has horrifying nightmares as he recalls hearing the battle sounds of war all around him - the exploding bombs from the air, the chattering of machine guns, the thud of mortar rounds being fired, the cries of men wounded and dying. He's suddenly aroused by his wife whose being attacked by him while he is sleeping. He finally comes back to reality. It was all so real. So vivid. He has no idea how to get rid of these terrible dreams, and so to cope, he drinks, which only complicates the problem, because then his guard is down and he is easily provoked into rage.
This is just one example of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now, as I've stated in previous posts, PTSD is not limited to just combat veterans. People who've experienced physically or emotionally abusive relationships, accidents, disasters, or any kind of traumatic event where there was an overwhelming sense of fear and danger can get PTSD. Please look at my previous posts to learn how one can get PTSD. One of the problematic issues with PTSD is how the alarm system in the brain is activated. An overwhelming sense of fear and danger causes extraordinary changes in your neurological system and your organs - in particular your brain. These changes in your body, especially in your brain, alters how you perceive and relate to the world around you. Most people whose flight or fight response is working properly, react and respond to an emergency or crisis, and then, return to normal. Those who suffer from PTSD have experienced trauma that is so overwhelming and sustained, the entire body's ability to stay in an hyper-vigilant state is enhanced. The body adjusts as does the mind. You can't slow down. The accelerator is down, you are on full-throttle, and the result is a highly reactive, difficult person who is a challenge to be around and who doesn't want to be like this.
Characteristics of PTSD reactivity:
- recurrent and unwanted (intrusive) recollections and experiences
- periods of sleeplessness
- sudden "real" memories (vivid, distracting)
- extremely cautious of surroundings
- startled more easily than others
- distressing dreams about experiences
- flashback episodes - acting or feeling as if the experience is happening in the present
- distress when exposed to reminders of experiences like anniversaries, places, or symbols
- outburst of anger and irritability
- distrustful of others
- physical reactions to reminders of experiences (breaking out in cold sweat, trouble breathing, etc.)
If you see yourself or someone you love exhibit some or most of these characteristics, chances are you or your loved one suffers from PTSD.
Trauma Arousal
Some people after experiencing trauma in their lives only feel alive when they are dealing with crisis or taking high risks. Soldiers coming back from war often engage in high-risk sexual behavior because it stimulates the system and helps them to dull the pain they experienced from the war. Women who were sexually abused or raped when they were young, often when they become adults, can only become orgasmic when a man is hurting them. They will find partners who will re-victimize them over and over again because the behavior is now supercharged and addictive.
As Dr. Carnes points out, "Stimulation and pleasure compensate for pain and emptiness." [1] With sex alone the possibilities for arousal based on fear or danger is endless. There is highly addictive sex, violence, dramatic exits, passionate reconciliation, threats of leaving, seeking sex outside the relationship through prostitution or anonymous sex, this and more constitute just one of the pathways people who've been traumatized use to seek stimulation and pleasure, especially in the presence of fear, danger, violence, or shame.
Characteristics of its presence are:
- engaging in high-risk, thrill-seeking behaviors such as skydiving or race-car driving
- seeking more risk because the last jolt of excitement was not enough
- difficulty being alone, calm or in low-stress environments
- using drugs like cocaine or amphetamines to speed things up or to heighten high-risk activities
- feeling sexual when frightened or when violence occurs
- seeking high-risk sex
- loving to gamble on outcomes
- difficulty completing sustained, steady tasks
- seeking danger
- constant searching for all-or-nothing situations
- associating with people who are dangerous to you
Arousal can become very addictive. Those who have been traumatized may need the heightened stimulation and high-risk pleasure seeking just to feel normal. And when your brain adjusts to this way of living, it can severely disrupt your life and cause you and those you love a lot of pain.
Trauma Blocking
Blocking is an effort by the survivor to numb, block out, or reduce the residual negative feelings associated with trauma. You will do anything to obliterate the painful memories and feelings of the interior world. It is about anxiety reduction, and you will do behaviors and substances that induce a state of calm, of relaxation, of comfort. You basically are anesthetizing yourself from the fear and pain of your past, you want to avoid reality because reality is too painful, but again, as the body and mind adjust, you will need to do these things compulsively in order to feel normal.
Characteristics of trauma blocking are:
- excessive drinking
- use of depressant drugs or "downers"
- using TV, reading or hobbies as a way to numb out
- compulsive eating
- excessive sleeping
- compulsive working, especially at unrewarding jobs
- compulsive exercise
- bingeing (with any of the above) when things are difficult
Any kind of trauma can create this kind of response in order to cope. But, by choosing to act out in these ways, you are changing the neuropathways in your brain, and your ability to function normally is impaired. And often many survivors of trauma use a combination of these strategies to cope, which only compounds the problem and makes it more difficult to break free from the painful past.
Trauma Splitting
Sometimes the reality you are living in is just too painful to bear and you want to go to another one. You want to escape. Therapists call this splitting - where the victims of trauma split off from the uncomfortable reality, dissociate from the experience, and live in another reality or fantasy. This can take many forms: amnesia - the survivor doesn't remember significant facts about the event; sometimes survivors find themselves in places and have no idea how they got there; sometimes they feel detached from their bodies while in reality; or "the lights are on but nobody is home" because they have completely detached themselves from the reality of their world. This living in 'fantasyland' becomes addictive, because the survivor's fantasies are often accompanied by arousal and obsession. Sex addicts will have a pattern of falling in love. And when the romance subsides, they'll seek another to fulfill the thrill of romance and believe this is the one who will take all my pain away. An alcoholic will think he is a wine connoisseur to cover up his alcoholism. Both of these examples illustrate how one dissociates from their painful realities.
Thus, trauma splitting is when you ignore traumatic realities by splitting off the experiences (escaping) and not integrating them into your personality or daily life.
Characteristics of trauma splitting:
- fantasizing or "spacing out" during plays and movies that generate intense feelings or are reminders of painful experiences
- experience confusion, absentmindedness and forgetfulness because of preoccupation
- living in a fantasy world when things get tough
- feeling separate from body as a reaction to a flashback
- experiencing amnesia about what you are doing or where you are
- being preoccupied with something else than what needs to be attended to
- having a life of "compartments" that others do not know about
- living a double life
- daydreaming, living in an unreal world
- obsessing around addictive behavior
- losing yourself in romantic fantasies
- the use of marijuana or psychedelic drugs
We all want to space out sometimes. The problem is when we want to stay there.
Trauma Abstinence
Sometimes survivors of trauma will engage in compulsive deprivation or abstinence as a way to control and manage their fears, anxieties, and stresses about their lives. This type of response as a solution to a trauma experience occurs especially around memories of success, high stress, shame or anxiety. Most important, is this response is driven by terror and fear. When a person deprives themselves of good things - spending money for themselves, avoiding eating healthy foods, sabotaging opportunities for success - it's a way of reinforcing the core belief that you are unworthy. For example, people can use debt as a form of impoverishment and self-fulfillment. They cannot seem to get ahead or make any moves to improve their lives because of the overwhelming debt burden resting on their shoulders. This becomes a poverty obsession where you deny yourself basic needs and avoid taking risks on opportunities that might lift you from the financial constraints you find yourself in. However, this constantly depriving yourself of the good things in life has a counter-force as the individual reaches a point where they can't stand it any longer, and suddenly go out of control with spending or drinking. Then, the individual feels guilty for doing this, and returns to the state of mind of needing to deprive themselves in order to feel good again. It becomes a vicious cycle of being in control and then, being out-of-control. It is very common in our society, especially among professionals, who are so overworked and struggling to make ends meet, or who are working in jobs where they feel unappreciated, to have these excessive, out-of-control aspects of their lives which are rooted in compulsive deprivation. As Dr. Carnes points out, "Wherever addiction is, there will also be deprivation. If not addictive in its own right, the deprivation becomes a life pattern that, in part, is a solution to traumatic experience." [1]
Characteristics of trauma deprivation:
- deny themselves basic needs like groceries, shoes, books, medical care, rent or heat
- avoid any sexual pleasure or feel extreme remorse over any sexual activity
- hoard money and avoid spending money on legitimate needs
- perform "underachieving" jobs compulsively and make consistently extreme or unwarranted sacrifices for work
- spoil success opportunities
- have periods of no interest in eating and attempt diets repeatedly
- see comfort, luxuries and play activities as frivolous
- routinely skip vacations because of dedication to an unrewarding task
- avoid normal activities because of fears
- have difficulty with play
- be underemployed
- vomit food or use diuretics to avoid weight gain
Trauma Shame
As I've discussed before with regards to shame, it is the profound sense that you are unworthy of love and belonging. You feel defective, or even worse, responsible for the trauma which happened, and therefore, the shame is coupled with a deep and corrosive self-hatred. A person who is shame-based has as their core belief that they are unlovable, and that if people knew who they really were behind the facade they present to them, they would leave in disgust. There is a fundamental break in trust. The person doesn't believe anyone will truly care about them based on their own merits, will only exploit and magnify their unforgivable faults, and hold them hostage to their failures in the past. Survivors will often try to overcompensate for this by doing everything within their power to meet the unreachable standards of others and who they want them to be, in order to gain their love and acceptance, only to fail miserably, which only adds to their existing shame. The whole binge/purge phenomenon associated with addictive behavior which often follows after a person has experienced trauma is deeply rooted in the shameful feelings one has about oneself. At its worst, the shame-based person can be filled with so much self-hatred, that the person feels they are worthless, totally unforgivable for what they may have done, been a part of, or had done to them, and the only solution to this merciless stance is suicide. This stance is far beyond depression, and is often marked with a preoccupation and acting out of self-destructive behaviors.
Characteristics of trauma shame:
- feeling ashamed because you believe trauma experiences were your fault
- feeling lonely and estranged from others because of traumatic experiences
- engaging in self-mutilating behaviors (cutting yourself, burning yourself, etc.)
- engaging in self-destructive behaviors
- enduring physical or emotional pain that most people would not accept
- avoiding mistakes "at all cost"
- feeling that you should be punished for the trauma event and being unable to forgive yourself
- feeling bad when something good happens
- having suicidal thoughts, threats and attempts
- possessing no ability to experience normal emotions such as sadness, anger, love and happiness
- having a deep fear of depending on people
- feeling unworthy, unlovable, immoral or sinful because of trauma experiences
- perceiving others always as better, happier and more competent
- having a dim outlook on the future
- avoiding experiences that feel good, have no risk and that are self-nurturing
You cannot numb your feelings of unworthiness into submission. Whether you use alcohol, drugs, or another person, these coping strategies will make you vulnerable to addiction, co-dependency, and exploitation. And whatever the addiction may be, or whatever you use to bury the pain, pretty soon, it will no longer be able to keep you from feeling those toxic emotions, and you will become desperate to find a solution. Better to face what needs to be faced, and develop healthy coping strategies to deal with the trauma and pain of your past, instead of ignoring the problem until it ultimately and inevitably puts you in a life threatening situation.
Trauma Repetition
This is something I've spoken about before in that we repeat behaviors or re-create situations in our lives over and over again until we transform them. Trauma repetition is about re-enactment. We are living out our present lives in the unremembered past. We continue to re-live a story from our painful history over and over again as we vainly try to bring some resolution to our pain and heal it. But, instead, we keep re-creating the same situations, finding ourselves with the same type of people, without ever realizing we're stuck in a pattern of repetition. Or, another form of reenactment is to abuse others the way others had abused you. You were victimized and now you take on the role of perpetrator. Or, you can play the role of rescuer, coming in to save the person from the trauma they are experiencing. The hero who saves the day, who rescues the damsel in distress, or the wounded warrior. Whether you are playing the victim, the perpetrator, or the rescuer, you are attempting to bring resolution, healing, and a way to eliminate this deeply held fear that traumatized you somewhere in your past. But instead of healing the original traumatic wound, you deepen it, and make it worse, because you've added traumas on top of each other. Suddenly, you are wrapped up in an endless cycle of unconscious programs playing out in your mind and your life that spans lifetimes. Yes, I said lifetimes. These traumas are carried with you, in your soul, lifetime after lifetime, and you will continue to re-create these traumatic experiences on some level until you finally decide to heal it within yourself.
Characteristics of trauma repetition:
- doing something self-destructive over and over again, usually something that took place in childhood and started with a trauma
- reliving a "story" from the past
- engaging in abusive relationships repeatedly
- repeating painful experiences, including specific behaviors, scenes, persons and feelings
- doing something to others that you experienced as an early life trauma
Steps you can take to get on the path of recovery
If you recognize yourself in any or all of the above categories of trauma, you can take steps right now to interrupt this pattern and put yourself on the path of recovery. When I looked at these lists, I found I'd used a combination of all these coping strategies to deal with the traumas I experienced, and I was humbled by what I learned about myself. I took a hard inventory about the kinds of behaviors that continued to bring me pain, what I call 'left turns', and discovered that if I behaved in a certain way, or responded in a way that was opposed to the person I wanted to be, this would inevitably feed into the self-loathing and shame I'd felt about my life and who I'd become. When I finally made the choice to stop this, to end this cycle of pain, although it was difficult at first, the end result is miraculous. I found me. Underneath all that pain and trauma, was me, this beautiful, incredible man who had such love for his family, for his loved ones, for his friends, and for all people on this earth. That's why I want to share with you my program. I know it works, if you follow the steps.
Instead of repeating the same behaviors and getting the same results, you need to develop other coping strategies that are healthy. You want to create a plan of action, one that we agree to, where you will have a mentor who will hold you accountable to the plan so you will not fall back into old compulsive coping strategies that have been destructive to the quality of your life. After we've reconnected to who you truly are, we examine the traumas that have plagued you in your life, we re-frame them, putting them in the larger context of your life, the big picture, and learn to get the good that came from those experiences. These stories you tell cannot survive the empathy and unconditional love from someone trusted with the goal of your healing. You reclaim your connection to life, and to another human being. This begins the total dismantling of the past, and soon, the shackles are unlocked, and the past holds you down no more. Then, we build new skill sets to bring out the person you already are who just got buried underneath all that trauma. We are going to re-build you based on the work we do in re-connecting to who you truly are.
Below are some immediate actions from Dr. Carnes's book that you can take based on the trauma categories described above:
Trauma reaction recovery plan:
Learn to manage your reactivity by listing the ways you underreact or overreact. Describe what the reaction is, what the feeling is like, and what the behavior that results from it. Describe a specific event in which this reaction happened. Then describe what the appropriate response would have been and the probable result that would have happened if you did that. Your objective is to find the balanced response.
Arousal recovery plan:
First, take notice what "arousal" addictions you have in your life that you use to bring relief to the trauma and pain you've experienced. Then look at the intensity these arousal coping strategies had on your life. Did it truly bring you relief or did it just add more problems? How did it affect your relationships with your family, friends, loved ones, and co-workers? What were the sources of your intensity? Make a list. Once you've done that, write a plan of action for distancing yourself from the addiction to the intensity. Be very specific.
Blocking recovery plan:
In this plan, you need to look at what satiation addictions you use to sooth and calm yourself. Anything you do to relax, medicate, or anesthetize anxiety to block out the trauma and pain. Make a list. Then write a plan for soothing and calming yourself in healthy ways.
Splitting recovery plan:
Look and examine the areas in your life where preoccupation and obsession is used to escape from reality. List this all out clearly without hiding anything from yourself. Separate illusion from reality. Be very honest with yourself. Then, once you've done that, compose a brief statement of "Ten Rules to Stay in Reality." These are your new rules to live by.
Deprivation recovery plan:
In this plan, you want to look at the areas where you have gone far beyond neglect of yourself. You want to identify and list the forms of compulsive deprivation or self-harm that exist in your life. Then, after reviewing your list, you want to make a list of what a healthy, thoughtful, caring human being would do for his or herself. Then pick from the list 3 things you can do in the next week, and 3 more you can do in the next month.
Shame recovery plan:
Here you want to begin the process of self-restoration. Begin by making a list of the sources of shame in your life, whether it was from an event, a relationship, or an error on your part. Think of all the times you felt unworthy, ashamed, embarrassed, or flawed. Write it down. Jot down your feelings associated with each entry, and then ask your life coach or therapist or group what you need to do to re-build support for yourself.
Repetition recovery plan:
Dr. Carnes offers a wonderful exercise in his book to understand repetition compulsion and how to change it. Unfortunately it is far too lengthy for me to condense in this blog. However, my whole program is designed to liberate you from repeating the traumas over and over again by transforming them.
Thanks to the work of Dr. Carnes, we have a greater understanding of trauma and what it does to people, and I am very grateful for the work he has done to bring greater awareness to this issue. Here's the bottom line: most of you have experienced trauma in your lives or you wouldn't be reading this blog. And just because you can now define it so you can understand it more, instead of repeating these behaviors, you develop other coping strategies that are healthy. That's what I am an expert at. I've already got it in this system, and you are going to learn even more when you start working with me.
Instead of having these problems repeatedly, I've decoded them for you. I've broken it down simply so it's easy for you to digest, and to understand. We'll be covering this in future teleseminars and future gatherings.
Let's not repeat this pattern for yourself or for humanity, let's let it go; I've got the tools.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Carnes, Patrick J., Ph.D. The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitative Relationships. Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, Florida. 1997
Friday, June 14, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Evidence that Traumas Get Passed Down
Some people look at the world as it is and say 'why'? and some people look at the world and say 'why not?' for the way they imagine life could be.
Imagine a world where there is no war between nations and between families, no PTSD, no cause for violence in any form, where people from all walks of life and from all cultures and traditions can be clear, truthful, transparent, authentic, real, honest, and loving towards each other and themselves. John Lennon imagined this in his song, 'Imagine':
Science and research are catching up and validating something we've known for centuries: the Sins of the Father are visited upon the generations below. Now, some people look at the world we're living in and really question why all this is happening and other people are looking at the world and what they want to create and say, 'why can't we make that happen?' The way I see it happening is when you heal yourself, every generation moving forward heals.
"We are affected by the seven generations that come before us and affect the seven generations that will follow," prescient words of wisdom and warning from a great Shoshone Elder, Francesca M. Boring. Think about that for a moment. Everything our ancestors did, on both sides, seven generations back, affects us today. And what we do today, how we live our lives, what we do with the events that happen during our lifetimes, will affect the seven generations after us. A powerful message bearing a call to take responsibility for all of our lives, to heal the wounds inside so that we don't pass this down to others to heal for us; all the unconscious, undigested emotions, pains, sufferings, horrors, and secrets that we unknowingly, unintentionally pass down when we don't take the time to heal ourselves from our own pain, which includes individual, familial, and the collective pain of humanity. I've got the evidence below to show you that traumas from your parents, and their parents, get passed down. So, as you read this remember: what you're doing affects everyone on the planet, especially the generations below.
Epigentic Transmission of the Impact of Early Stress Across Generations
A 2010 study conducted by Dr. Isabel Mansuy, a neurobiologist from the University of Zurich, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, discovered that some impacts of traumas cross generations and cause genes to change which are then passed down to the offspring. They raised male mice, and frequently separated them from their mothers inducing stress. This was done for about 14 days, at which time, the mice were cared for normally. As the males became adults, they began to exhibit PTSD like symptoms -jumpiness, isolation, hyper-alertness. They also noticed their genes functioned differently than other mice, most notably, the gene that helps regulate the stress hormone CRF and the gene that regulates the release of seratonin, and what they discovered was that these genes were either overreactive or underreactive. These mice are equivalent to those who experience combat, or the Holocaust, or some intensely traumatic event. Then, they bred these male mice with females to see what, if anything, occurred in their offspring. Once they fathered pups, the males were removed, and the offspring were raised by their mothers with no trauma separation. What they discovered was that as these males grew into adults, they exhibited the same anxious and jumpy behavior of their fathers and had the same gene changes! [2,1]
Here's what John H. Krystal, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, and the editor of Biological Psychiatry had to say about these results:
Lost in Transmission: Studies of Trauma Across Generations.
The subject of this book by M. Gerard Fromm, published by Karnac Books (2012), is that all the traumas that are so overwhelming and too unbearable to even discuss are passed down to those who are closest and dearest to us. Our loved ones end up carrying what we are unable to carry, and we do the same. For time, I will print the synopsis of the book as it is written.
Here's what some leading psychologists and scholars are saying about this book:
As Molly Castelloe, Ph.D. writes in her article in Psychology Today about Lost in Transmission:
That's just some of the supporting evidence of how traumas get passed down that I've compiled. I haven't even mentioned all the studies they've done on the survivors of the Holocaust and the effects of the trauma experienced and passed down to the second and third generations. This information is all very recent, too. Now, before you start accusing and blaming others, specifically your parents for what happened to you or someone else in your family (I want to remind you it's important to take responsibility for all of your life - all your choices, decisions, and errors -being the author of the totality of your whole life), remember, they were doing the best they could under the conditions and circumstances of their lives. And they were traumatized too. These things, as I've pointed out above, get passed down. We know it now, we have scientific evidence to support it, and for men, we need that, (I know I do), we need to see the evidence, the logic and science, before we take action to do something. We are not as intuitive as women, at least not yet, we have to develop that ability. Nonetheless, what I'm saying is there is no one to blame. It doesn't serve you to be upset with someone when they didn't even know themselves the value of cleaning up their inner life. It doesn't serve you to accuse, blame, or shame someone for what may have happened to you. It also doesn't serve you to live in guilt, shame, or self-loathing. That just keeps you stuck in the past, shackled to the events that traumatized you. It keeps you there, and not in the present moment where life is happening. To open up your present, you've got to clean up your past, even if it includes the past of your parents and ancestors. What you don't clean up, you give to your future generations to clean up for you. I really want the men out there who are reading this to get this. We will pass it in our genes if we don't heal this within ourselves first. Now that you know this, the next step is what do you do with this new information in your life. Are you going to stop it from being passed down? It's is your choice, and what you choose, has consequences.
I also want to point out that there's no "fixing" anything. You're not broken and need to be fixed. The idea is when you are already perfect and whole, you just have to remember your wholeness. Transparency and truth equals healed. Being able to share whatever has occurred, heals it. It's different from fixing it.
Imagine a world where there is no war between nations and between families, no PTSD, no cause for violence in any form, where people from all walks of life and from all cultures and traditions can be clear, truthful, transparent, authentic, real, honest, and loving towards each other and themselves. John Lennon imagined this in his song, 'Imagine':
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace
You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
"We are affected by the seven generations that come before us and affect the seven generations that will follow," prescient words of wisdom and warning from a great Shoshone Elder, Francesca M. Boring. Think about that for a moment. Everything our ancestors did, on both sides, seven generations back, affects us today. And what we do today, how we live our lives, what we do with the events that happen during our lifetimes, will affect the seven generations after us. A powerful message bearing a call to take responsibility for all of our lives, to heal the wounds inside so that we don't pass this down to others to heal for us; all the unconscious, undigested emotions, pains, sufferings, horrors, and secrets that we unknowingly, unintentionally pass down when we don't take the time to heal ourselves from our own pain, which includes individual, familial, and the collective pain of humanity. I've got the evidence below to show you that traumas from your parents, and their parents, get passed down. So, as you read this remember: what you're doing affects everyone on the planet, especially the generations below.
Epigentic Transmission of the Impact of Early Stress Across Generations
A 2010 study conducted by Dr. Isabel Mansuy, a neurobiologist from the University of Zurich, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, discovered that some impacts of traumas cross generations and cause genes to change which are then passed down to the offspring. They raised male mice, and frequently separated them from their mothers inducing stress. This was done for about 14 days, at which time, the mice were cared for normally. As the males became adults, they began to exhibit PTSD like symptoms -jumpiness, isolation, hyper-alertness. They also noticed their genes functioned differently than other mice, most notably, the gene that helps regulate the stress hormone CRF and the gene that regulates the release of seratonin, and what they discovered was that these genes were either overreactive or underreactive. These mice are equivalent to those who experience combat, or the Holocaust, or some intensely traumatic event. Then, they bred these male mice with females to see what, if anything, occurred in their offspring. Once they fathered pups, the males were removed, and the offspring were raised by their mothers with no trauma separation. What they discovered was that as these males grew into adults, they exhibited the same anxious and jumpy behavior of their fathers and had the same gene changes! [2,1]
Here's what John H. Krystal, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, and the editor of Biological Psychiatry had to say about these results:
"The idea that traumatic stress responses may alter the regulation of genes in the germline cells in males means that these stress effects may be passed across generations. It is distressing to think that the negative consequences of exposure to horrible life events could cross generations," says Krystal.
"However, one could imagine that these types of responses might prepare the offspring to cope with hostile environments. Further, if environmental events can produce negative effects, one wonders whether the opposite pattern of DNA methylation emerges when offspring are reared in supportive environments." [1]
Lost in Transmission: Studies of Trauma Across Generations.
The subject of this book by M. Gerard Fromm, published by Karnac Books (2012), is that all the traumas that are so overwhelming and too unbearable to even discuss are passed down to those who are closest and dearest to us. Our loved ones end up carrying what we are unable to carry, and we do the same. For time, I will print the synopsis of the book as it is written.
"A central thesis of this volume is that what human beings cannot contain of their experience - what has been traumatically overwhelming, unbearable, unthinkable - falls out of social discourse, but very often onto and into the next generation, as an affective sensitivity or a chaotic urgency. What appears to be a person's symptom may turn out to be a symbol - in the context of this book, a symbol of an unconscious mission - to repair a parent or avenge a humiliation - assigned by the preceding generation. These tasks may be more or less idiosyncratic to a given family, suffering its own personal trauma, or collective in response to societal trauma.
This book attempts to address the heritage of trauma - the way that the truly traumatic, that which cannot be contained by one generation, necessarily and largely unconsciously plays itself out through the next generation..." [3]
"...The more "unmentalized" the trauma of parents, the greater the likelihood of its suppressed whispers finding their echoes in children's lives. To render the unthinkable aspects of a trauma into a cogent, if fumbling, narrative, therefore, goes a long way to minimizing its long-term adverse effects..."
-Salman Akhtar, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College; Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic of Philadelphia [3]
"'Lost in Transmission is not simply about how traumatic psychological injury is passed down to the children and grandchildren of those who originally experienced it. Even more, the insightful and personal essays in this collection are about finding the shared humanity in families, in psychotherapy, in society, and in memories of the past that repairs the damage people do to one another. A moving and inspiring book."
-Thomas A. Kohut, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Professor of History, Williams College, USA [3]
"...Lost in Transmission teaches us how the unacknowledged terrors of one generation can lead to the neglect of the next...; how historical traumas can be used to mobilize hate and violence; how the shame of previous generations can be stealthily imprinted on children's psyches - leading them to avenge historical humiliations or assuage historical pain they may not even know of. These wise healers unlock the code. A critically important contribution to healing history's lasting wounds."
-Jessica Stern, Former Erik Erikson Scholar; Advanced Academic Candidate, Mass. Inst. of Psychoanalysis; author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror and Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill [3]
As Molly Castelloe, Ph.D. writes in her article in Psychology Today about Lost in Transmission:
"Transmission is the giving of a task. The next generation must grapple with the trauma, find ways of representing it and spare transmitting the experience of hell back to one's parents. A main task of transmission is to resist disassociating from the family heritage and "bring its full, tragic story into social discourse." (Fromm, xxi)
She goes on to write: "How does one discharge this mission? It is a precarious terrain of finding one's way through a web of family loyalties to which one has been intensely faithful. The working through of transmission entails a painful, seemingly unbearable, process of separation. It can become an identity crisis, the breaking of an emotional chain. As Fromm puts it, "something life defining and deeply intimate is over." The child speaks what their parent could not. He or she recognizes how their own experience has been authored, how one has been authorized, if unconsciously, to carry their parents' injury into the future. In rising above the remnants of one's ancestors' trauma, one helps to heal future generations." [4]
That's just some of the supporting evidence of how traumas get passed down that I've compiled. I haven't even mentioned all the studies they've done on the survivors of the Holocaust and the effects of the trauma experienced and passed down to the second and third generations. This information is all very recent, too. Now, before you start accusing and blaming others, specifically your parents for what happened to you or someone else in your family (I want to remind you it's important to take responsibility for all of your life - all your choices, decisions, and errors -being the author of the totality of your whole life), remember, they were doing the best they could under the conditions and circumstances of their lives. And they were traumatized too. These things, as I've pointed out above, get passed down. We know it now, we have scientific evidence to support it, and for men, we need that, (I know I do), we need to see the evidence, the logic and science, before we take action to do something. We are not as intuitive as women, at least not yet, we have to develop that ability. Nonetheless, what I'm saying is there is no one to blame. It doesn't serve you to be upset with someone when they didn't even know themselves the value of cleaning up their inner life. It doesn't serve you to accuse, blame, or shame someone for what may have happened to you. It also doesn't serve you to live in guilt, shame, or self-loathing. That just keeps you stuck in the past, shackled to the events that traumatized you. It keeps you there, and not in the present moment where life is happening. To open up your present, you've got to clean up your past, even if it includes the past of your parents and ancestors. What you don't clean up, you give to your future generations to clean up for you. I really want the men out there who are reading this to get this. We will pass it in our genes if we don't heal this within ourselves first. Now that you know this, the next step is what do you do with this new information in your life. Are you going to stop it from being passed down? It's is your choice, and what you choose, has consequences.
I also want to point out that there's no "fixing" anything. You're not broken and need to be fixed. The idea is when you are already perfect and whole, you just have to remember your wholeness. Transparency and truth equals healed. Being able to share whatever has occurred, heals it. It's different from fixing it.
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world
You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one
What a beautiful and inspiring vision of what this life could be and will be, based on all of us doing our part.
Do honor to your ancestors, do honor to your parents, do honor to your future generations and get this healed within yourself. Be the one who stops the pain and heals it. Be the one who finds the courage to speak the truth of your experience, without blame, guilt, anger or shame, and find the miraculous release that comes with transparency. You're a beautiful child of God. Every single one of you. No exceptions.
References:
1. www.ts-si.org/healthcare/26795-do-psychological-trauma-impacts-cross-generations
2. www.helphealingtrauma.com/2011/04/15/genetic-trauma/
3. www.karnacbooks.com/Product.asp?PID=30112
4. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-me-in-we/201205/how-trauma-is-carried-across-generations
Thank you for following me on this blog. I wanted to share with all of you a free gift: Reclaiming the Life you were meant to LIVE! Teleconference. Please enjoy the recording and share it with anyone who you think might benefit from it. I want to share with you my story so that you know you are not alone, and that you can be healed from this. I love you all. Thank you for all your feedback. Click or press on the link below to receive the mp3 or on the phone, call the free conference play back number: (605) 475-4099 Access code: 520966#. Hit # for the most recent recording when prompted.
References:
1. www.ts-si.org/healthcare/26795-do-psychological-trauma-impacts-cross-generations
2. www.helphealingtrauma.com/2011/04/15/genetic-trauma/
3. www.karnacbooks.com/Product.asp?PID=30112
4. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-me-in-we/201205/how-trauma-is-carried-across-generations
Thank you for following me on this blog. I wanted to share with all of you a free gift: Reclaiming the Life you were meant to LIVE! Teleconference. Please enjoy the recording and share it with anyone who you think might benefit from it. I want to share with you my story so that you know you are not alone, and that you can be healed from this. I love you all. Thank you for all your feedback. Click or press on the link below to receive the mp3 or on the phone, call the free conference play back number: (605) 475-4099 Access code: 520966#. Hit # for the most recent recording when prompted.
The next teleconference is scheduled for June 13th, at 6PM PST.
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