About Trauma

Trauma doesn’t happen to us, it is created within us as a result of threatening experiences, real (more uncommon) or perceived (a constant flow, especially in western culture). These experiences activate the primitive reptile-brain responses (sub-conscious mind), which, in turn, flood the neuro-chemical system with neurotransmitters to induce the fight/flight state, to immediately and aggressively defend our survival, or indeed induce a freeze/flop state - to accept fate. Trauma is a state of hypertension in the body or a feeling of dissociation from the body. The body is naturally equipped to deal with this, as part of our evolution, and our muscles contract to fight or take flight, ready to react. As a continued habit for coping the repeated journey from relaxed to tense, or to dissociation, over and over (e.g. caused by constant exposure to ‘safety threats’ in 24/7 media, marketing to embed ‘less-than’ belief, agitators on social media inducing conflating responses) effectively causes the homeostasis of the nervous system to rise out of ease into some stress response state, or to decline towards dissociation. This new altered baseline becomes what is the normal state of experiencing life, one which is ultimately stress or dissociation inducing, and repeated often enough locks the sense of felt-trauma into the body.

It is my experience that trauma is not a disorder but rather it is an injury. A disorder is a condition that can be, at best, managed as there is no currently known cure, e.g. Type 1 diabetes (which my eldest daughter is affected by), and in the more commonly accepted and practiced trauma therapies this belief has been upheld, even today. There are emerging fields of therapy, however, which supports the idea that, as an injury, trauma can be healed by bringing the therapeutic focus from working solely with the mind to working with the body’s physiological state (posture and gait) and the breath, to explore, understand and alter its response patterns to trauma inducing memories and experiences.

One of the marvels and curses of the human mind is its capacity to remember, and to relive memories, particularly of traumatic experiences, on an internal screen over and over and over again, and to respond physiologically as if it were real, here and now. The body can quickly work, faster than we can consciously perceive, to take the required and immediate action to respond appropriately to the threat, a move to fight/flight/freeze/flop reaction. All mammals, and particularly in the taxonomy of higher order primates (to which we belong) innately do this. At worst the most extreme response is akin to tonic immobility and our mode of operation is almost exclusively run by the Sympathetic Nervous System rather than the Parasympathetic Nervous System. Those animals finding themselves as prey or victim to their circumstance, life-threatening conditions of attack, if fortunate enough to escape use an innate sub-conscious method of releasing the trauma of the experience by shaking. It doesn’t think, “I should shake my body to get rid of this immense unease.  This involuntary action serves as a profoundly effective method to reset the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which ultimately releases and relieves the animal of the attack-borne muscle hyper/hypo-tension, that it can almost immediately return to whatever activity it was engaged in previous to the attack, maybe wiser and more aware, and with good fortune pass this behaviour to the next generation. They don't know why they do it.

The body does not know the difference between a real (survival) threat and memories of past events, or fears of what may come (anxiety), it’s response is led by the mind’s and brain’s resulting chemical release function, and learning to clearly separate genuine problems from imagined ones is extremely important. The real problem for us comes when we believe the imagined problems are real and we unwittingly open the gates to building up an increasingly traumatic psycho-somatic experience in the body, by locking our minds into and reinforcing these thoughts as real, here and now, over and over. The body, as a result and over time, tries to express this thinking as it is deeply programmed to, but due to our conditioning of (accepted) behaviour (can’t shake, shout, scream, yawn, sigh - all forms of release - in front of others) the tension builds without release and over time becomes distorted, posturally and internally pained.

There is direct correlation between how we think and how our body feels and expresses these feelings. It is my personal experience that the most resilient and successful individuals have learned to appreciate and relate with (communicate, respect, respond, nurture) their bodies in such a way that they take care of their thoughts, knowing that when a discordant, unhealthy thought arises they ensure that whatever has happened in the mind and trickled into the body is released from the body as swiftly as possible. By doing this they can potentially breathe, shake and move out the impending physiological trauma as it arises. That’s not to say that a traumatised person can’t achieve financial success, in fact it is the case for most, but their emotional freedom is hindered and overall quality of life lacks. These congruent people learned activities efficiently and effectively release the sense of potential mental overwhelm, physical lock-down/paralysis, and heals what typically would otherwise induce a state of dissociation,and they can effectively, and with a balanced systemic homeostasis. The breath, the mind and the body swiftly realign and the whole of the individual is free, from whatever trauma could bed in if not understood and positively acted upon, to move forward and engage with their experience with clarity, resilience and ease. If they do not do this, if they allow any sense of trauma to accrue without release, their efficacy is less than optimum for experiencing a fulfilling life.

It is around these ideas that I offer Kiflow coaching, to encourage and support clients to learn to centre their attention to the areas of life where freedom is lacking - emotional, relational, financial - and to develop a set of tailored tools to overcome their common fears, immobility and risk of enduring physiological trauma in the body.