 Okay guys, so today I'm going to talk about trauma and something called the trauma cycle so this is really about processing feelings and emotions properly so that an underlying trauma, I'm really talking about complex trauma today, so that's to do with deeply rooted traumas that date back usually to childhood and that affect our relationships in their life Things like our attachment style whether we have a secure attachment style an insecure attachment style Avoid an attachment style, but you know, I'm not going to go into that too much today. I just want to keep this simple This is a way for us to start healing Complex trauma and it's a simple way to think about it, right? So the first thing we're going to talk about today is Trauma what is trauma so trauma That's where this all begins a lot of these emotional problems this emotional roller coaster in life Comes back down to an underlying trauma that we have We may be denying it or we may be repressing it, but it does show up in our life in myriad of different ways Now what is trauma? Okay, again, I'm talking about complex trauma here There's a way so a lot of people aren't really too sure what is trauma. How should I think of trauma? I want you to start thinking about trauma not necessarily as some sort of a distant memory in your psyche or in your mind But as an injury, okay? Trauma is an injury So it's quite a clear way to think about a trauma Imagine if you were to cut your arm, you know, it would bleed you'd have a scar left over our problem is This cycle of trauma Because it's not really dealt with Maybe in childhood we had a parent who wasn't attuned to us or we had abuse We weren't able to talk about it where there was no safe Environment or support for us so in order to get by in life what we do is we just bury it Keep it repressed keep it away and try and muddle through life as best we can with this underlying injury still there Very hard, you know, we can we can heal our physical wounds quite simply most of the time but our psychological injuries are less obvious, but certainly Maybe more painful. Okay in many ways. In fact, I would say they're definitely more painful Because they last a lot longer and no one sees them. These are the invisible injuries that we carry with us in our lives So how does the trauma show up? It's in our subconscious mind. Usually we don't go around talking about I'm aware of my trauma But it shows up and this brings us to this cycle. So how do we heal this trauma? How do we start to begin to heal it? Well, it shows up in our lives One of the most important things in this video is this word. This is how it shows up that is our Emotions our emotions You can think of these as secondary emotions that relate to an underlying trauma that we have be that abuse be that Isolation our needs not being met in childhood a parent who wasn't attuned wasn't available for us emotionally Whatever it is these show up all throughout our lives So we want to start to know what are these telling me? How can I deal with them? What are these emotions that might be? for example could be Anxiety it could be anger another one or it could be you name it It could be loneliness sense of isolation disconnection Despair okay, you name it a depression right so these are our secondary emotions So this is where on the the trauma cycle we're going to start by looking at this now by the way I want you to think of this as it's in your subconscious Right your trauma is buried trauma, and I want you to start thinking of it as like a bank, okay? Bear with me, and I'll explain that This is like your trauma bank So you make deposits you make withdrawals and what we really want to do is Empty this bank entirely Okay, just take it all out and then have something else in there other than this trauma But the problem is we keep making deposits here Okay, that's the issue. So that's why we're talking about the trauma cycle We're going to start trying to break a cycle that keeps feeding into trauma. It starts off with emotion Okay, so you're going about your life. You might think everything's okay Normal, but you have these underlying feelings of anxiety and anger, and they're not easy to deal with that's the thing Now what is the first thing we want to do with these feelings these secondary emotions? Anxiety anger one the first thing we want to do is Get rid of them. Okay. I don't want this. Please get rid of this. So that's the first step First thing we do is get rid of it. And how do we do that? How do we get rid of them? How do you get rid of an emotion or? Something psychological that is true projection. We project it projection So we are motivated here to get rid of our feelings. We don't want to deal with them. They're too difficult Maybe we don't have any support anyway, right? So it's very very difficult for us to do this So we do that by projecting on to and that could be something like another person or it could be Situation but really as long as we have this we will find some Thing to project on to it really doesn't matter what it is so Let me just make one other point here actually This video is about trauma, but I want this to be like a personal video for you. Okay, I Want you to hopefully get a better understanding of this cycle that perpetuates an underlying trauma But use it personally. Okay. I want you to be compassionate to yourself with this information and to never blame yourself For any of this. Okay. Another thing as well is is to use it personally. Don't Maybe point this out to somebody in your life that you think is doing this In a way, that's not compassionate Probably don't even point it out to them at all if you feel like they're not ready to hear this. Okay. I mean I'm When I work with someone in in a one-to-one session Sometimes I wouldn't even point this out, you know, because it depends on whether the person is ready to Beware that they're projecting Because of an underlying trauma because primarily the first thing Maybe the only thing a person who has an underlying trauma needs is Compassion and understanding. Okay, that's first and foremost, but you personally if you have These feelings and you think it might be down to a trauma Compassion is the first thing you need. So none of this is to do with blame. This is just awareness and empowerment. Okay Hopefully a tool we can start to use as we go forward and I'll explain more that will help us to deal with this in a Better healthier way that gets rid of this. Okay, it starts to heal this trauma So we're projecting right we're projecting on to the person or the situation Okay, so what's the problem with that? Well We project it now Because we feel like this and the next step is after we project we come down here To well, what do we do after we project on to something a person for instance? Well, the next thing we do is we Rationalize we rationalize our projections. So here what we're saying to ourselves is If only that We're different Okay, if only That person changed if only that thing didn't happen if only this and this and this Was not the case All a justification for the projection, okay So we've projected and now we have to justify that projection. We have to defend that projection So at that point if you rationalize the projection Then there's only really one more step. You've justified it You're focusing on defending and rationalizing You're focusing on the situation the person or event What are you not focusing on? What are you not focusing on here? Here, you're not focusing on the secondary feelings because you haven't dealt with them We'll talk about that in a second. You haven't processed them properly You make a deposit right back here where the whole thing started Your bank the trauma the injury is sustained. It's replenished Okay, it's not the kind of healthy bank account we want We want to be empty in that bank account So the trauma is sustained and sure enough the negative emotions continue and It's a cycle it keeps going on and on and on right So it's it starts here. This is how we experience it. This is how we deal with it This is how it's sustained and then it keeps going on and on and on like this, okay So what do we do with this? How do we stop this? well Really, you could break this cycle anywhere. Okay, you could break the cycle absolutely anywhere if you were to Break the cycle here What you've done is you haven't even projected before you even project you just become aware. Oh my god I'm anxious. I feel incredibly anxious. I I'm angry. Okay. I feel so lonely Before you even just Project on to any situation. Okay. I'm angry with that person or if I lived in a different city The city is the reason I'm lonely. Okay, whatever it is. Just sit with the feeling. Okay Breathe with it. Give it time. Give it some space. Be present with the actual emotion itself You learn not to be afraid of any of these emotions and They start to dissipate and they start to change into something else They actually start to change into life energy if you're like more fulfilling Empowering emotions that are certainly a lot easier to deal with than these ones So you could do it there once you break that cycle you stop feeding this. Okay, or Later in the process you could break the cycle there and that's after you've rationalized So almost at the very end Before you bank it back here to feed the trauma again, you realize, okay, I'm rationalizing about this I'm I'm I'm telling myself that it's that other person. It's that situation I'm in So you go back and you look at okay, what am why am I projecting? Well, not why am I projecting? I am projecting. Okay, and you you accept that you're projecting onto something. What you do at that point is You mentally remove this situation of the person from your mind. Just mentally remove them and See, what are you left with? You're left with an emotion Okay You're left with an emotion and then you can start to process that properly to feel it. Okay to feel your emotion By the way, I'm not saying by the way that that there's there will never be any people or situations in your life That will be challenging Okay, of course, they will But what I'm saying is if we start to process here and we don't project Those situations that arise that are challenging will be far more relaxed and able to deal with them in a proper way, right, but Here is our number one job right dealing with the anxiety the anger the loneliness to despair the depression, right? That's our responsibility Ultimately our biggest responsibility is to be compassionate to ourselves, but this is what we need to do. This is our job here So we don't project we stop rationalizing We will have ample opportunities in life to practice this. Okay, how do you know you're projecting? How do you know you're projecting? You're projecting when you have an emotional reaction to someone or a situation outside of yourself. It's emotional Emotionally charged. That's how you know you're projecting as soon as you know you're projecting as soon as you spot yourself rationalizing That's how you know. It's time to get still Slow down Opportunity here to heal myself. Okay to just go back here bring my focus to where it needed to be okay, don't Give it to that temptation to get rid of the feelings or to even you know do other things like distract yourself or There's a multitude of other sort of Ways we do that that we'll look at maybe in other videos, but today we're kind of talking more about projection But we deal with the feelings. Okay, we deal with those feelings so that is the trauma cycle if If you're going through any of these kind of feelings and you think you'd like to talk more about them It does help to talk with with someone. So I'm available for for either online sessions or Sessions in my practice You can feel free to contact me and we can set up a session Food for thought I think Let me know what you think about this feel free to share this with other people. Okay, but be compassionate about it and I hope it helps guys and I'll see you in the next video. Take care of yourself