Understanding Trauma

PTSD Doesn’t Lower Vibration

Trying to figure out where to start this post was complicated. I know some of my followers understand energy, vibration, etc., while some are new to the concepts. So I sat down to write and realized I needed to determine where to start so I’m not confusing people or repeating what they already know. There are times like this when I get tangled up in my thoughts. The technical term is “executive dysfunction”; parts of…

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General Understanding Trauma

Lighting The Path

Too many times, I’ve seen “spiritual” practitioners tell people “You can’t help others until you’re fully healed.” Which, unfortunately, results in some people giving up on ever being able to help others. There are some things from which “fully healed” just plain doesn’t happen, and there are some things from which healing takes a very long time. People who live with chronic illness, whether physical or mental, may never “heal” from it. People who have…

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General Understanding Trauma

Things You’ll Never Hear Me Say

Things you will NEVER hear me say as a spiritually-based practitioner: – “Have you tried meditating?” – “If you really want it, you’ll figure out how to pay for it.” – “It’s in the past. Get over it.” – “Only positive vibes!” – “You chose to be sick/traumatized.” – “If you think about the negatives, you’ll bring negatives into your life. That’s why bad things have happened to you.” I have seen/heard all of those…

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Personal Understanding Trauma

Stop Saying “Get Over It”

Over the course of my life, I have experienced various forms of abuse and other trauma. For nearly two decades now, I have been on a journey to heal from those experiences. And for most of that time, I have had occasional people tell me “Just get over it, it isn’t happening anymore, you’re just dwelling on the past.” (Or, worse, “You just want attention.”) Trauma is not an event. It is not a “thought…

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Personal Understanding Trauma

Practitioners Do Not Have to Be “Fully Healed”

I am a trauma survivor. For me, that means throughout my life, I have experienced abuse and other things that caused long-lasting effects on my physical and mental health. I have been working for years toward healing from those experiences. But trauma is not just “dwelling on the past,” and it isn’t the same for everyone. Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional, nor have I ever been enrolled in an educational program on…

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Conscious Creation General

Honest and Authentic

Some people are genuinely positive and happy all the time. This is their natural state of being. They don’t have to put work into it; it’s simply who they are. When they talk about feeling positive emotions and thinking positive thoughts, they are speaking their truth. For many of us, though, “all positive all the time” is not who we genuinely are. We feel potentially problematic emotions like anger and fear. We think negative thoughts.…

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General Understanding Trauma

Work With Your Whole Self

Too often, when someone is on a healing journey, they’re told to eliminate certain aspects of themselves. To “conquer their shadows” and stop feeling anger toward those who have harmed them. This rhetoric does not lead to healing. In fact, it can hold people back and even worsen their difficulties. When someone is bullied, abused, or otherwise mistreated, it almost always includes an element of rejection and of showing or overtly telling the person that…

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General Life Changes

Working With Darkness

At times, someone who is on a healing journey is told that in order to heal, they have to eliminate their “shadows” and have and project “only love and light.” This is not the case. The parts of you that are sometimes labeled “shadows” are, often, the parts that have been the most damaged by your experiences. Seeking to eliminate or deny those aspects doesn’t move you toward healing; it simply furthers the rejection and…

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General Life Changes

Everything Requires Balance

In some corners of the spiritual community, practitioners claim that in order to heal, you have to think “only positive thoughts” and feel only positive emotions. They preach “love and light” and even go so far as to tell trauma survivors that they have to stop thinking about the past because they’re lowering everyone else’s vibration. Yeah. I’ve actually had that said to me when I tried to explain one of my triggers. “You aren’t…

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Understanding Trauma

Heal In Your Own Time

Last week, I wrote about how trauma is an individualized thing. No two people have exactly the same experiences, and no two people will respond or react to similar experiences in the same way. Just as how one reacts to trauma and whether one is traumatized by an experience is individual, so is the healing journey. How–and whether–someone heals from trauma depends on a number of factors. How old they are when the experience occurs.…

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