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Imagine you broke your leg, and it needs surgery, rather than a plaster cast. The surgery will leave a scar. If it didn’t heal, perhaps it got infected, and you needed further surgery, which would leave another scar on top of the previous scar. Any further surgery would create further scars and scar tissue.
The leg finally heals, bones knit and the cells mend. But you are left with scars, that may cause pain, but will certainly be reminders of the initial incident when you broke your leg, especially if you knocked your leg close to the scar and break.
This is the same with emotional wounds or traumas.
Each event, however big or small will leave an emotional scar. Those scars can’t be viewed in isolation. Just like the leg scars they build on top of each other, leaving more and more scar tissue.
Whilst we don’t remember the events that caused those emotional wounds, our body remembers the emotional hurt.
So, when something happens, however small, we are likely to respond in the same way as we did at the time of the initial incident.
Have you ever thought to yourself ‘ Why am I getting so upset about this? It's trivial, I’m just being stupid’.
Perhaps your partner isn’t listening to you, because they are distracted. You may feel upset, angry, frustrated, ignored, insignificant, lonely, dismissed………..
When you think logically about it, it doesn’t make sense. What is happening is that your body is responding to the initial emotional wound. Perhaps you weren’t listened to as a child. Told to be quiet, dismissed, or ignored. Your body is responding to the initial emotional scar, and the many others that happened in your life.
If you want to learn more about this, there is an excellent book – The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk.- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748
Watch this on YouTube – How your past trauma really works - Gabor Mate
PODCAST NEWS
The Love~Listen~ Talk~ Repeat Podcast with Wendy Capewell - link here
#152 -How Art Therapy Can Help Release Trauma and Assist Healing - with Sue Kennedy
Sue Kennedy is a book coach and art therapist who helps people who have been through traumatic experiences, write their story, which helps them release all that’s happened and helps them heal.
She realises that many people feel anxious being presented with a blank canvas, so instead she uses her specifically developed 5-step process using Neurographica
ART THERAPY
Art in its many forms can be great therapy. You really don't have to have to be able to draw or paint, as Sue says in the podcast. There are lots of other ways in which you can express yourself, when it may be too difficult to talk.