Why trauma can’t be talked out of you

• 5 November 2020
• Jane Evans
• no comments

Have ever felt you must be failing at moving on from your past?

You’ve tried so many ways to let go of past traumas, negative experiences and sabotaging beliefs. Yet not much has really shifted.

Please know you are not alone in this. You do NOT lack willpower, resilience, a growth mindset or strength.

I tried for years, and years, and yes…years. First to starve my trauma out, smoke it to death, then drown my trauma with alcohol and toxic relationships, and plenty of near-death experiences!

Then I tried huge amounts of counselling, along with different medications. Relief was always temporary. (Many of my Clients have been a similarish journey. Hear from my amazing Client Natalie.)

How about you?

What have you tried? Has it ever left you feeling there must be some deeper flaw in you. Maybe you need to ‘change your mindset! This popularized belief has been around for years and years. And can be so harmful as it’s really not that simple, especially with any kind of trauma.

Director of Mindcanyon, Steve Carr,  asked me a great question on Facebook about Mindset Coaching and trauma. This was my response…

Changing mindset using the ‘intelligent mind’ will take years and years of repetition on a daily basis. Why? Because the intelligent mind is weak, only online 5-10 % of the time.

The intelligent, conscious mind is creative, exciting and loves to consume knowledge but it’s power and efficacy is tiny, compared to the powerhouse that is the habitual, life preserving subconscious mind! This is the mind we don’t notice, yet it holds our deep, core beliefs about our self-worth, ourselves, others, and the world around us.

 Surely it’s good to talk?

YES! It is, but, although there’s a deeply, long held medical and therapeutic belief (based on outdated science) that talking helps. What is now clear, is that safe relationships with a caring  other, such as a therapist, counselor, friend, partner are helpful. They offer safe relational experiences which feel soothing, and feed our need to understand why we are are still struggling so much.

But intellectualizing, our body based memories, beliefs, behaviours and reactions which were so life preserving. Won’t help them disappear. Neither will being talked at and about, made sense of, or pushed away by using a different mindset.

Nature is too clever to give up life preserving responses that are brilliant at automatically sensing something, or someone feels threatening. Whether you are a lizard, cat or human, what preserves life will kick in again and again as it works! Any life conserving sensory information is safely stored at a primal, visceral, level in our survival focused brain areas and in our bodies. (Subconsciously) This totally makes sense, and mean our trauma-based reactions will automatically jump in, to save our lives. And they won’t logically be overpowered, or just fade away over time.

What if our trauma isn’t clear cut?

When we weren’t FEELING safe, especially in the first 2 years of our life when our brain and nervous system were developing so rapidly. The responses we had then, at an emotional and body-based level, don’t simply evaporate. Bruce Lipton, a renowned cell biologist and author of the incredible The Biology of Belief (not a light read!) explains this so well.

Trauma that comes after our early years, is layered on top of the early stuff. It creates additional subconscious states and beliefs. Ones we can’t find without the right help. And we need to remove and replace at this below conscious awareness to have lasting changes.

Moving forward starts with your ANS!

Being trained to use a subconscious technique developed by Dr Melanie Salmon, I have come to learn that the first thing we all need, is a balanced, healthy nervous system. Most of us go through life with an autonomic nervous system that gets chronically stuck in fight/flight, or shut down and withdrawal. It’s not fun to live this way. It is the core of anxiety and low-mood, plus so much physical and emotional pain and dis-ease. We often try to force and fight to overcome this, and we numb ourselves out in order to live well beyond it.

This video explains about ANS or autonomic nervous system dysregulation which is a key part of trauma. https://youtu.be/N-cvYbs4OPI

Can trauma be healed?

If you asked me 3 years ago, I’ve have said, “not really, you can learn to live more comfortably with it.”But once I understood the power of clearing it carefully at a subconscious level, I’ve seriously changed my beliefs, for good.

Years of working with trauma and learning from my clients. And permanently clearing out so much of the trauma I’ve identified in me. And doing the same with my Clients on an ongoing basis. |I see and experience amazing outcomes.

Right now I’m consistently pretty damn blissful 95% of the time. I finally feel calm, peaceful and safe on the inside, and when I don’t, I can get back to it ASAP!

Endlessly, and happily studying all of the neuroscience, neurophysiology and neurobiology (and more) from the  ‘trauma greats.’ Has led me to only working with clients carefully at a subconscious level, using my trauma expertise, and the technique I’m trained in. I respectfully, gently hold people through getting the life they want now. Rather than risking retraumatizing them by trawling through things they’ve already been traumatized by!

Mindset change is like pushing an elephant up a glass mountain!

Mindset change is often about ‘having a plan’ and thinking differently. Telling yourself ‘you are strong!’ ‘You can do this!’ It sounds good and millions buy coaches and products based on this as we are obsessed with the idea, we can think ourselves straight.

But all these rational approaches, feed the weak, ego driven intelligent mind. Trauma doesn’t care about your ego. Or the latest self-help book you are reading or the affirmations you recite everyday.

Trauma only cares about keeping you alive in this moment, based on what you’ve lived through and stored. Trauma isn’t only from the BIG stuff. It can also be created from the small childhood doses of isolation, emotional abandonment, threats of being smacked, conditional love, shaming and more in the first years of life. In fact, that’s what I spend my days humbly clearing for so many.

Trauma is not for life. You didn’t create it. You sure as hell don’t deserve it to still be tripping you up by repeatedly jumping in with the negative beliefs and reactions you are so sick of!

Your trauma got you this far. So, let’s talk if you want to be free from it and create you now. E: jane@thejaneevans.com