Soulful Journeys - Let's Chat About Trauma

In this intimate episode of Soulful Journeys, we engage in a heartfelt conversation about trauma. Join us as we share our personal experiences, insights, and practical strategies and advice on processing emotion in the body and moving through trauma.

Transcript

Welcome to Soulful Journeys,

Transforming Trauma and Healing Lives,

The podcast where we embark on a deeply transformative exploration of the human experience as we navigate the paths of resilience and recovery and renewal,

Guided by stories of triumph and healing.

In each episode,

We'll embark on soulful journeys and now and then I'll give you a little bit of a tour of where we're headed.

We'll be joined by survivors and therapists and healers who've courageously transformed their trauma into sources of strength and wisdom.

Together,

We'll uncover the power of the human spirit and the tools that can help you to heal and thrive.

I'm your host,

Belinda,

And I'm honoured to be your companion on this empowering voyage of self-discovery and growth.

So let's deep dive into the heart of healing.

I'm Belinda.

I work with healing trauma and empowering lives through coaching and using a body,

Mind,

Spirit approach to wellness.

I'm a psychic medium and a transformational healer and spiritual teacher.

So I use those tools to connect with spirit and bring through information with guidance and support to help people move through their limiting beliefs and to help heal and guide and support and move forward with a bit more ease and grace.

Yeah,

That sounds great.

A little bit like myself,

I guess it's one of those things that you step into this kind of work because it's something that means something to you and there's been something in your life that you've experienced that you bring to that work.

In my case,

At least,

I repartnered later in life and going through fertility later was a very,

Very different experience to when it was younger.

And so there was a lot of trauma attached to some of those experiences as well.

And,

You know,

It was the case of I really couldn't move forward with anything that we were planning,

You know,

Fertility or just general life wise because I was so caught up and impacted by the trauma of some of those experiences.

And so,

You know,

I think it's really,

Really important for people to learn how to identify that trauma,

Work through it and transform it and feel it like what you're talking about.

So I'm really keen to,

You know,

Find out some of your techniques and some of the things that you work with.

See,

That's the thing,

Like with my own healing journey,

Like there's been a lot of trauma throughout my life and there's all different types of trauma a person can experience.

For myself,

I've been to psychologists and I've been to countless people for healing in my life.

And it was like having to sit there and talk about your stuff.

It's like it was re-traumatizing me all over again because I just kept having to bring up the same stuff.

And it got to a point where I just,

It was like I was having to relive it,

But I wasn't actually healing it.

So then I started looking at a different approach and started working with the energy and the body more because what I knew about trauma was that it affects you on your nervous system level.

And that's a result of a dysregulated nervous system.

So just having the usual talk therapy doesn't actually get to the bottom of it.

It's needing to work with the energy and the body to get down underneath it.

And I'm a hypnotherapist as well because I had that done and it had such a profound effect on me that I wanted to go and learn that and help people with that as well because you're not having to relive it.

So that was where I really started to grow and expand my knowledge base.

And then it's just evolved from there.

So what I learned is that with my healing,

A lot of it was from early childhood.

And because that had imprinted throughout my life,

It had shaped the way I was.

And I was finding myself blaming myself for everything that happened around me when it wasn't necessarily my fault.

And that's a pattern that's carried throughout my life and created fear of failure and self-sabotage patterns and all of that.

More recently with the learning around informed trauma and the differences between the talk therapy and all of that sort of thing,

I've noticed that trauma is more of an adaptation because you've had to adapt to certain situations that have happened in your life.

It's not that it's an actual disorder where the perception out there is that it's a disorder.

You know what I mean?

Yeah,

Definitely.

Yeah,

That was a bit of an aha moment for me.

And then even people around me that I know have been traumatised,

I started to view things a bit differently with them and see things differently with their behaviours and the way they go through life as well.

Yeah,

As in your perception of their behaviours.

Yeah,

It created big shifts that way as well because I understood more of why they were the way they were.

And I don't know if it's just because it's like perception of certain behaviours that people have like anger and fear and all of that.

Those lower frequency emotions.

Yeah.

It's understanding that that's just a symptom,

Not the cause of it.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

Yeah,

It does.

So,

Yeah,

You start to view things a bit differently knowing that they are the coping mechanisms and it's because they've had to adapt to their trauma.

Yeah.

Because of their dysregulated nervous system.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One of the interesting things I learned,

Like what you've explained with trauma,

I read a book called A Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.

I think that's how you pronounce it.

But one of the things that that book talked about was,

Like you're saying,

Trauma being a person's way of coping and experiencing after an event or an experience.

And the way this book sort of talked about it was that it's like an energy or a feeling that your body has had in flow for some time.

And then all of a sudden something happens,

Whatever that thing is,

And it causes that energy or that feeling or that emotion or whatever it is that's underlying it to have this abrupt stop.

And then you don't know where to put that energy or that feeling or whatever it is anymore because you just can't put it there or where you use it anymore.

Yeah.

And so it's almost like it becomes stuck.

And then once it's stuck,

It stagnates and just kind of sits there.

Yep.

That's exactly what it's like.

Because when something traumatic happens,

And it doesn't need to be some big event or something that happens,

It's just anything that makes you feel unsafe.

Yeah.

That's what it comes down to.

Yeah.

It could be something that you might perceive as insignificant,

But you still feel unsafe.

So it's a thing and it has a real consequence for you.

Yeah.

If it's putting you into the fight or flight,

Freeze,

Fall state,

Then that's the start of it.

And that's where if you're not present,

You won't notice that happening so that you can deal with it there and then.

Yeah.

Because you go from the fight or flight and then you move into the emotions of it with the anger and all of those kinds of emotions and your adrenaline starts pumping or your cortisol starts going crazy.

Yeah.

That's basically when you've moved into survival stress.

Yeah.

That's starting to create that imprint because then you've got the narrative that you're creating around what's happened.

Yes.

And all of that's going in on an unconscious level and it's just feeding it within you until you then end up with it's almost as if you have orphan parts within you because you've got all these emotions and you're not really processing them and you don't know what to do with them.

So they end up just getting squashed down and then something else will happen and you'll squash some more down.

And before you know it,

You're on a subconscious level.

There's just a whole world of stuff going on in there.

Yeah.

And then when something else happens,

It triggers it because that's been sitting there festering the outburst or the way you react is going to be bigger.

Yeah.

Because you haven't actually learned how to process or you haven't been able to stop a process or you haven't got the tools there to do it so that you can just move on from it,

Like process it and move on from it quickly and easily.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then you're in a loop that's just going to keep going around.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's amazing how many parts of our lives,

Just generally speaking,

Can be impacted by that stuff that is squashed down and how it can pop out at quite unexpected times.

And I find,

Not just for myself,

But with clients and other people that I know,

They're often sometimes surprised by their own reactions or triggers.

Yeah.

And then there are other people who are just completely oblivious to the fact that it's going on at all.

Yeah.

I thought it was really interesting what you were saying there about the fight or flight and the survival mode.

And one of the things that I work with people on is exactly that,

Particularly during labour.

So a lot of people will have sort of fears and thoughts about things and,

Like you talked about,

Having those imprints and attaching stories or thoughts to particular things.

And they can even play out in situations like labour,

For example,

And have physical impact on the body because when those stress hormones are sort of taking over,

The other hormones in labour that you're wanting to be higher are quite suppressed.

And so for those,

I mean,

It can actually suppress labour completely and,

You know,

To the point that contractions will stop and,

You know,

Labour can go on for hours and hours.

Whereas if they were feeling safe and they weren't sort of grappling with those thoughts or those triggers that were popping up,

Labour would be a much different experience.

What's something that you do to help people identify those hidden squash?

Well,

It's basically being able to just stop and be present to emotions that you're feeling because everyone's busy and we get lost doing our own thing and stuff comes up and you're like,

I'll deal with that later.

But it's being able to just stop and be present to what you're feeling and noticing it.

You don't have to read into it and go digging into it.

It's just being present to it and noticing that there's an emotion there and saying hi to it,

Like befriending it.

It's almost like making the present,

Like making it present so that you can notice it and be able to shift it.

Because if you're completely unaware of it,

It's just going to keep rolling.

So if a situation comes up and you feel unsafe,

It's reminding yourself that you are actually safe.

There might have been a situation where you didn't feel safe in the past,

But you're looking at it with your current adult eyes and that may not necessarily be the case anymore.

So stopping and reminding yourself that you are safe and that it's okay to feel and being able to recognize what you're feeling and put it into words is huge for people.

Because if you consider like there's people that go a lifetime without feeling emotion because they're used to squashing it down and being too scared to feel it.

And when they do start feeling and opening themselves up to that,

There could be a lot that they start feeling because they have blocked it and that sort of stuff.

That's where the sabotage patterns come into it as well.

Yes.

Because people could move to blocking it and numbing it,

Which is where your addictions come into it because they don't want to feel their emotions.

Yeah.

So it creates other patterns.

Yeah.

It opens.

It's like a Pandora's box,

Really,

Because there's so many different ways people can suppress their emotions and people get really good at doing it because they've done it for such a long time.

And if there was awards for it,

They'd be taking out gold.

But it's reteaching yourself,

Really.

Yeah.

And learning how to manage it.

But feeling safe is at the start of it.

Like if you don't feel safe to be able to express yourself or process emotion,

You will keep squashing it down.

Yeah.

So it's being able to do that.

And you'll have that emotion coming up in your body somewhere.

So even just telling yourself,

I feel it in my heart or I feel it in my stomach,

It'll come out as a feeling somewhere.

It's just recognizing where you feel it and then making a choice,

Really,

Whether you want to keep feeling that or whether you want to start looking at things a different way and wondering what it would feel like to bring in what you'd rather bring in instead.

Like what's the opposite of the negative feeling that you'd rather feel?

And what does that look like?

What does it feel like?

What does it taste like?

You know,

Going through your senses.

Yeah.

And I guess an important step in that process,

Too,

Is when you say people need to start processing that emotion.

Sometimes I find people struggle to identify what that emotion actually is in the first place.

And so it seems a really important part of that is actually learning to sit with it and explore it because,

You know,

Sometimes you might attach a label to it that isn't the label you would attach to it after you've sat with it for a little while.

And so then the emotion that might be the opposite or a higher vibration might shift as well as you work through it.

Yeah.

For me,

Because I had suppressed emotion for such a long time,

I ended up Googling a sheet that tells you emotions,

Like what emotions there are.

So I could pinpoint what I was feeling.

Like I had to go to that level just to open myself up to it.

I don't know what I'm feeling.

Yeah,

I was actually amazed how many were on the list.

Yeah,

It was like there was a lot.

I was like,

Wow,

There's that many emotions a person can feel?

Okay.

Yeah.

So,

Yeah,

Like something simple like that,

That's what I had to do.

And then I'd sit there going,

Okay,

What am I feeling?

And I'd pick it and then I could start to unpack it and process it.

Yeah.

But it's really interesting.

What you said before about labor,

Trauma can start from preconception.

Yeah.

And I don't think people realize that.

No.

Because if your mum's stressed while you're in the womb or before,

Like that all plays a part in trauma.

And it starts from back then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And some of the things that come up during spirit baby readings are exactly that.

You know,

That there's been that stress and trauma sitting there.

And it might not actually be yours.

It might be something that you were carrying from that experiencing womb,

Like you're talking about,

Where your mum might be the one that's stressed.

Yeah.

And so sometimes people,

You know,

End up holding feelings or carrying feelings or emotions that maybe aren't theirs.

And they need to do some of that clearing work to really,

You know,

Understand where their stuff starts and finishes versus someone else's.

Yeah.

And that's something like when people are working through their money stuff,

That's something that comes up a lot,

Too,

Because it's happened way back then where mum was stressed about money because there's a baby coming and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And they're in their life now going,

I don't know where the money thing comes from.

I don't know why there's blocks around money,

But they can't pinpoint it and they don't think to go back that far.

Yeah.

And it can all play a part and become the loop that you then get stuck in because that leaves an imprint on you.

Yeah.

And whether you're aware of it or not,

It creates the loop because the imprint's there and you don't know how to process emotion then.

So it's going to sit with you on an unconscious level.

So unless you can start dealing with the emotion and the body,

You can't get down underneath it.

Yeah.

Just talking about it isn't going to fix it because you're not getting to it on an emotional level.

Like you're just talking about it.

Yeah.

You're not getting deep enough,

If you know what I mean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it can even then become,

You know,

When you're not dealing with things on the emotional level,

It can even sort of drop further and present on the physical level as well.

Yeah.

Which is why when you're processing the emotion and you're putting a label to it,

You notice where you're feeling it as well because then you're dealing with the body and the mind.

Yeah.

Making that conscious connection.

The emotion.

Yeah.

It's like if you're looking at it with a triangle,

You've got the body,

Mind,

Spirit,

Like you need to address all of them.

So then you are dealing with all of them and then you are able to process it more easily because you will feel it in your body somewhere.

Because any unresolved emotional stuff is going to come out as a physical illness or ailment because that's where else is it going to go?

Yes.

Yeah.

It has nowhere else to go.

It's going to come out in some way.

Yeah.

So there's a book that I always refer to is The Body is a Barometer of the Soul.

I can't remember who the author is at the moment.

Okay.

I flick through that when I've got something that I'm feeling to see what the emotion is that's attached to it.

And it's actually really fascinating because then you sit there going,

Oh,

Yeah.

Yeah.

And do you find that when you do go through that process of identifying the body and the attached emotion that it's something you're more easily able to process or work through?

I can shift it easier because with me in the past,

I am known for being stubborn.

So to be able to move out of the self-sabotage patterns and all of that stuff,

I've needed that help to be able to understand what I'm feeling.

Yeah.

So if it's a book or if it's a chart or something,

I've needed that help.

And that's also helped me with journaling and meditations and stuff like that to help process stuff as well instead of me just talking myself off the ledge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sometimes and particularly when you're first starting out without those tools,

It's a little bit like that saying the blind leading the blind because you're kind of not aware of yet what you need or how you need it or what can help you.

And so you do sometimes kind of revert to those things that you've always done to get that feeling of security or safeness which you've relied on.

And that might not necessarily be the best thing for you.

Yeah.

Correct.

At that time.

Yeah.

Especially if you're in survival mode because that will be your go-to because you literally don't know any better.

You don't know any different because you haven't got the frame of reference.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I guess when you're working with people,

Do you find that at the beginning of looking at this transformational work,

People can feel overwhelmed?

Yeah,

They can.

So it's really important to be aware of where they're at and paying attention to like their body language and their emotions and helping to support them in that way.

And like gently nurturing them because if they drop into a state where they don't feel safe,

Then it's going to slow the process because you then have to work back to get them to that safe point again to be able to move forward again.

Yeah.

It's something that people will do it in their own time and they've got to have that guidance and support and the trust there to be able to do it in a way that feels safe for them.

Yeah.

They'll move through it quicker if they've got that support there.

So it's really important before I go into a session to make sure I'm aware of where I'm at and what I'm feeling so that I'm not taking that into a session because that's not going to be helpful to my client either.

Yeah,

That's a really good point.

Being aware of those,

Like we talked about earlier,

Like where your stuff starts and stops and where someone else's begins.

Yeah,

That's like super important as far as I'm concerned,

Whether you're doing energy work or like client sessions of any kind,

You really need to be present to what you're feeling before you walk into anything.

And it's the same socially.

If you're going out with friends or whatever,

You need to know where you're at.

Like you've just got to be present and grounded and mindful about where you're at before you drop your stuff into someone else's space.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It's almost like I want to use the word crowding,

You know,

Coming in and crowding someone's space with your own stuff.

Yeah.

People have enough stuff going on.

Yeah.

They might not want to deal with your stuff.

Yeah.

Especially if it's a paying client.

Yeah.

That's not cool.

They're paying for a session so they want to deal with their stuff and have it be all about them.

That's what they're paying for.

That's right.

Yeah.

So you've got to be able to empower them and help them transform,

Which is making sure that you can hold space for them in a way that's healthy and loving and supportive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It's interesting what you say there about holding space for other people.

Sometimes,

You know,

That's one of the most important ingredients in tackling trauma and that's having that safe place and or someone to hold space for you so that you do feel like you can start working through it.

Yeah.

And you can start breaking it down and sitting with those feelings and working through it.

One of the things that,

You know,

Often comes out,

Particularly in spirit baby reading,

And can often surprise people,

Is that some of the stuff that baby wants,

Particularly mums who've been trying for quite some time,

Is to address some of those things that have been sitting there and that have been squashed.

Yep.

And in order for them to,

You know,

Manifest the next thing in their life,

Whether that be,

You know,

A baby or whatever it might be,

A lot of that old stuff needs to be worked through and transformed so that it can clear a path.

Yeah.

And I find with a lot of people,

Because of the stigma that's attached to trauma and that there's something wrong with you and all of that kind of stuff that just comes with the word trauma and the perception of it,

It's moving the stigma away from that to taking out the shame aspect of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And instead of saying to someone,

What's wrong with you,

Ask them what happened.

Because it's,

It will get a completely different response.

And then you're actually empowering them to be able to move forward instead of shaming them.

Yeah,

Because they've learned to adapt because trauma is basically just adaptation.

If you're saying to them what's wrong with you and you're dropping them into the blame and the shame and all of the stuff that goes along with that,

They're not going to be forthcoming,

But it's also not going to help them digest what's happened to them.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And it could be something that's affecting them 30 years later.

If you're going to say to them what's wrong with you,

It's going to trigger them.

That's not healthy.

That's not supportive.

It's not loving.

It's not empowering in any way.

So it's reframing the way we see it and the way we deal with it and the way we feel it within ourselves,

Which is really important.

Yeah,

That's a really,

Really important topic and probably a whole other podcast is that whole blame and shame cycle.

Yeah.

It's very,

Very much part of trauma.

In fact,

You know,

Often at the core of it.

And I think a lot of people,

You know,

Do feel ashamed and sometimes,

You know,

Like go into like blame mode,

I guess,

As a way of covering that or compensating for that shame.

And,

You know,

Sometimes people can be labelled as,

You know,

Judgy or critical or aggressive or whatever it might be.

And like you say,

Taking a different approach and sort of wondering what is it that that person experienced that's brought out that judginess or blaminess or whatever people attach to it.

And that's generally a trauma response because all of that dysfunctional stuff is a symptom.

It's not the actual cause.

Yeah.

So until you're going to get down to the actual cause,

The symptoms will remain.

And even if you deal with one symptom,

It's going to come up another way.

It's just going to morph.

Yeah.

Because you're not getting to the cause.

It's like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound.

It's not fixing the problem.

It might stop the flow for a little bit,

But it's not actually addressing the cause,

If that makes sense.

It does make sense.

Yeah.

And it's a really important part of processing and working through traumas.

It's basically because a lot of people think that they can just think their way through their trauma.

And it's like,

If you're in your head trying to fix something that's based in the emotions and the body,

That's a disconnect.

It's not going to be as effective because you can't think your way out of that.

You've got to get down into the body and process the emotions and look at what you're seeing and feeling and working with that.

Because all of those,

Wherever you felt unsafe in your life,

It's all being stored on a subconscious level,

Which is not in your head.

It's down lower.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's feeling relaxed enough to be able to get down underneath it as well,

Which is like with hypnosis,

That bypasses the conscious mind and the head gets your head out of the way.

So it is helping you to get down underneath it and helping you to process it.

And it's not making you have to talk about it over and over again.

But you're still shifting it and you'll still feel the difference.

Yeah.

You're not having to relive it.

Yeah.

And there's all different therapies out there that can help with that.

But the grassroots of it is having the capacity to feel because you've got to feel it to heal it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have to be open to that to be able to start moving through it.

Yes.

That's the biggest thing.

Yeah.

And so those sessions where you've got someone holding space for you or someone supporting you through hypnosis,

That's a really good opportunity for people to feel safe and to start then exploring those feelings.

Or not necessarily exploring,

But maybe even just feeling them for the first time in a really long time.

Yeah.

To be able to start understanding them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's a really helpful tool to do it.

And because I've experienced for myself what that's like and the impacts it's had on me,

That's made me want to learn more about it and help people the way it's helped me.

And that's shaped my journey and brought me to where I am today.

Yeah.

So,

Melinda,

If people wanted to connect with you and have a hypnotherapy session,

How would they get in contact with you?

So,

They can go to my website or they can head on over to my Facebook page and there's links to find out more and to book in there.

So,

Sessions can be done online.

Being online is no different to face-to-face with any of it.

Okay.

So,

You can still have the same effect.

It's exactly the same because it's energy and it's talking.

And yeah,

Whether it's face-to-face or in person,

It's no different.

That's great.

So,

It really opens it up.

It doesn't matter where you are,

People can connect with you.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Yeah,

That's fantastic.

Thank you for joining me on another soulful journey.

I hope today's episode has brought you insights and inspiration and a sense of connection.

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Remember,

Your journey is uniquely yours and your resilience knows no bounds.

If you have a story that you'd like to share or a topic that you'd like me to explore,

Reach out to me on my website or on my socials.

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Your voice matters and together we can create and nurture that rich and safe container for healing and hope.

Until next time,

May your journey be soulful,

Your heart be light and your healing profound.

This is Soulful Journeys,

Transforming trauma and healing lives.