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Trauma and attachment in love

Time doesn’t heal trauma. You do!

Trauma was misunderstood for a long time, it was associated with a fraction of adverse things that can happen to us, which can immediately or decades later lead to full-blown, debilitating trauma. Now, we know that even things that we consider normal or everyday occurrences can lead to trauma and a life lived in perpetual fear and anxiety. However, we also know that trauma can be healed, but it isn’t done by waiting for time to pass, it’s done with working specifically on releasing trauma, rewiring our mind, and empowering ourselves. 

What is trauma?

“The trauma response is not a cortical deficit in understanding, it is difficulty with perception and regulation that comes from the activity of deep brain structures and the autonomic nervous system.” 

Bessel A. van der Kolk

Which is why trying to heal trauma only at the cognitive level is unhelpful. Hypnosis facilitates a state of mind where you’re able to access memories and most importantly emotions that had been repressed and unacknowledged. 

Your mind tires to keep you safe, activating the fear centre of your brain whenever you’re in a situation that is in any way ambiguous or could be interpreted as dangerous. The more micro-trauma and misattunement you experienced as a child, the more activation there is in the present, leading to anxiety and depression, as well as a host of autoimmune diseases. 

“In response to threat and injury, animals, including humans, execute biologically based, non-conscious action patterns that prepare them to meet the threat and defend themselves.” 

Peter A. Levine

If you were brought up in an environment that wasn’t safe for you: you weren’t loved unconditionally, experienced verbal of physical abuse, your parents didn’t have time for you, didn’t tell you they loved you, or maybe they told you they loved you but weren’t able to make you feel it, berated or shamed you, you will have become an adult who is constantly in flight, flight, freeze, flop or fawn. Meaning that you’ve developed certain unconscious coping mechanisms that help you cope with highly stressful situations but keep you in chronic stress and disconnected from who you truly are and how you want to live. 

“Trauma is a chronic disruption of connection.” 

Stephen Porges

Trauma is not merely a disconnection from who you are but also from others. If you don’t feel safe to be yourself, you’ll never feel truly connected with your environment either, leading to deep sadness, a sense of emptiness, and loneliness. We’re wired for connection. But “Trauma replaces patterns of connection with patterns of protection.” Deb Dana 

Instead of connecting with a partner and a community and feeling happy, people who suffer with trauma start avoiding social situations, or cope by people pleasing, perfectionism, shyness, wearing a mask, substance abuse, etc. 

In a romantic relationship context, trauma can show up in various ways:

  • you might be uncomfortable with emotional intimacy
  • you might find physical or sexual intimacy intimidating or alien
  • you might be the one doing all the heavy lifting in your relationship
  • you might feel disconnected and lonely in the relationship
  • you might doubt your partner and feel immensely jealous and angry with them
  • you might jut feel that you’re not entirely alive
  • you might select partners who are emotionally of physically abusive
  • you might select partners who have avoidant, anxious, or disorganised attachment styles
  • you might be unable to find a partner or keep a relationship going

Trauma is a chronic disconnection that can keep you feeling lonely even in a relationship that has the capacity of love and personal growth. It’s not a matter of personal disfunction, it’s a matter of healing wounds that keep you from learning to love yourself and then extend some of that love to your partner, without sacrificing your authenticity or autonomy.

How do we heal trauma?

All healing is self healing, but we need the support of a therapist or coach who we can connect with deeply and who can guide us to the answers within ourselves and to a safe space where we can access the emotions that keep us stuck. 

Trauma is healed at the emotional, subconscious, and somatic levels  — not at the cognitive level. 

Which is why the therapy I practice is able to bring phenomenal results within a short time. Merely talking about the emotional pain reinforces our feelings of helplessness and disconnection rather then liberate us from them, leading to confusion and a more acute sense of alienation. 

What we need instead is to feel the feelings we were unable to, and sense our body while doing it, and befriending ourselves in the process. Thereafter, we can let go of the weight of these feelings by replacing them with empowering beliefs about ourselves. 

All my programs are designed to access the root cause of the pain, where true and lasting transformation happens, and empower you to change the thought patterns that are holding you back.

What is RTT and how it helps with trauma healing?

Rapid Transformational Therapy is a multi-award winning complex therapy form that uses hypnosis as a vehicle to help you get to the root cause of your issue rapidly and gain a deep understanding of yourself and your personal history.

“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.” 

Bessel A. van der Kolk

In my experience — both personal and as a therapist — people find the courage to be open with themselves and consequently heal their past in hypnosis more readily than in any other mental states, thereby ending the ongoing internal war and disturbances that have been at the heart of the chronic stress, anxiety, low self-worth, or depression they’ve been living with.

After you’ve gained knowledge of the root cause, you’re guided through a number of empowering and deeply transformational steps, helping you to reconnect with your innate vitality and your personal power. You’ll feel more connected with yourself, more at peace, and in control of your life.

And once you have learned to love yourself and to prioritise your needs, you’re ready to build a loving, mature, and enduring romantic relationship with either your current partner or if you’re single the person you meet next.

Conclusion

Love starts at home. Whilst we do heal and grow through the love we experience with another person, if you’ve been ending up in the wrong relationships or been manipulated, gaslight, and emotionally abused by your ex partners, know that healing these and even deeper traumas will liberate you. You will have the ability to choose a different partner who cherishes you and who you can build the life you desire.

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Do you need personalised support?

If you’re interested in honing your embodied relational intelligence skills to build a loving, mature, and enduring romantic relationship either with your current partner or the one you commit to next, reach out or simply buy one of my coaching and or hypnotherapy services and I’ll meet you on Zoom.