When we think about healing, oftentimes we believe that we go to counseling once, or a few times, or for a few months and talk about a specific incident and we’re healed forever! Unfortunately, that’s not how healing works. Trauma is multi-layered.
Think about a cut or abrasion that may have occurred on your body. There are many layers of skin that get penetrated when there is trauma to the body. The same happens with the psyche. When we experience emotional trauma, there are many layers of our psyche that are affected.
What happens when you bump a scar on your body? It may be a little tender and you may not realize at the moment what that scar is from. The same thing happens with emotional trauma. It creates a psychological scar in our subconscious and when we are triggered, our subsconscience pushes the emotions from that traumatic experience through to our consciousness, however we may not know why we are feeling such intense emotions.
When we work on resolving our trauma, we learn what may be triggering for us, although we may not discover every single trigger. We learn the majority of triggers and where we may feel them in our body. That feeling in our body is often a signal to our brain that we’ve bumped the psychological scar. Those triggers may get further between as you heal, however keep in mind that triggers may not go away completely.
As we conceptualize healing, we often think in linear or circular terms and landmarks, however that’s inaccurate. Healing is more like a cone shape spiral. We heal in layers that are attached to one another.
Try to remember that if a trauma reappears, it’s not a step backward, it’s a step forward to the next layer of healing.
