Trauma Unpacked, Episode 3

Hello,

Welcome to Trauma Unpacked.

My name is Inger Andress and with me I'm Anna Sorensen.

And we are actually trying to bring awareness to the obstacles of unresolved relational trauma in our lives.

And to look at it because we want to see the benefits of healing from that relational trauma that we sometimes knowingly or unknowingly keep hidden.

Our goal is to have a conversation about several topics around relational trauma to share with you how it has helped move us through our process of healing in hopes that it will help you as a listener to grow through your process of healing.

Today we're going to be going into the relational breakdown area that happens when we hold on to our relational trauma.

Part of the benefits of healing though if we do allow ourselves to sort through these patterns in our life,

It will allow us to get closer to people.

So today I just want to dive into the area of how relational aspects of our trauma cause us to distance ourselves from relationship because of the lack of trust that we have.

Anna,

Do you have anything to share about that?

I think naturally the area of trust is broken in relationships when there is abuse and therefore especially when it's at a very young age.

And if there was an adult who was supposed to be taking care of you and protecting you broke that trust and hurt you instead.

Naturally you're going to be a little more cautious of creating relationships in the future.

And for myself,

Trust has been something that I don't give people easily.

I tend to think of it as something that's earned.

I have to make sure they're trustworthy before I can share my innermost thoughts and feelings,

Which has been challenging with certain relationships because I may misinterpret something based on my past because I'm so cautious of what people's intentions are.

And so learning how to trust in a childlike way again has been a very long journey.

It is difficult to start from ground zero unless,

Once again,

We sort through some of these behavior patterns in our life that bring anxiousness,

That bring fight or flight triggers when we start to get close to people.

So being able to identify and even possibly understand that in our pain we have targeted certain words,

Certain phrases,

Certain behaviors for our protection that when we see displayed in our partner,

In somebody else that we supposedly thought we could trust,

They might not be using it the same way that we're thinking it.

We think that they're using it the same way.

And this causes great disruption because then they feel betrayed because we are accusing them of something that they didn't even do.

And so that becomes a completely confusing situation.

And whether or not we're able to understand that we possibly could be falsely accusing them of something that actually has more to do with our past than truly their behavior.

That's a tough one to swallow because until we're honest with ourselves with this,

We really can't get past that.

And people will always be held prisoner to our past trauma when that was not their intention.

So it has great implications upon how we can relate to people.

So even in that,

I believe there's an element of needing to trust ourselves first before we can even trust somebody else to feel safe within ourselves,

To not think that we're constantly playing the shame or blame game within ourselves.

And to be more free and whole in who we are to ourselves allows us then to have the capability to let the other person be free and not held hostage to our fears and trigger points.

When I think about trust for myself,

There's a lot of me questioning myself,

Like you said earlier,

Is it me getting triggered from something from my past or is this person really not trustworthy?

And it goes back to that being more aware,

Taking the time to listen to your voice.

Even for me,

I know journaling has helped quite a bit as well as even recording myself talk out loud as if I were journaling and then listening back to that,

To hear what I'm thinking and trust my feelings and really decide what is this about is it sometimes can help lead to helping me work through what the real issue is rather than maybe what happened within the relationship so that I can go back and deal with the real issue in the relationship and recognize my own trust issues.

I'm always on high guard.

I've had people say to me,

I'm so surprised that you question my trust.

It should just be there.

And to me,

That is astounding because I am always looking for reasons to trust that person,

You know,

In a positive way.

But I'm always on guard and I recognize that that is from my past.

But in a way,

It's who I am.

And I'm trying to understand how other people work when they haven't had their trust broken to the core when they were growing up or developing.

What does that even look like?

How do people relate?

Because it's a very challenging core relational glue.

I think what possibly might be another vein to speak about this is things that have been done that go against your will.

That internally,

I believe,

Actually causes us to doubt ourselves because we actually participated in something that was against our will.

And that causes great confusion within us.

So until we come to peace within ourselves that that is not who we are,

Then there's a reconciliation within ourselves to ourselves that then helps us be able to not latch ourselves onto others to see whether or not they're trustworthy or not.

We then have a firmer understanding,

A centering of ourselves that no longer needs to put out tentacles as much because we realize that that was originally never what we wanted in the first place of being able to trust our own voice.

So I do believe that that is the freedom at which allows us to see the person separate from us and to embrace the quality of trust as the fruition of what a loving relationship is.

So you're saying really that first step is trusting ourselves and our own feelings and our voice.

So that helps bring clarity to distinguish boundaries between that person and who they are and who I am.

And so knowing who I am allows them to be completely different than bringing all my past with me,

Inserting it on them.

So it allows me to stay within myself and let them be them,

Which then is two individuals choosing to trust each other in love.

So to summarize what brings benefit with relationship awareness in our past traumas is to understand that this actually will bring a fullness of what was entitled for any human being on this earth to be able to enjoy relationally is a trusting,

Loving relationship,

That it can happen.

And not only can it happen,

That's actually the design of being able to trust and love each other.

And those go hand in hand.

And when we don't have that experience that we've lost out and been robbed of something that every person really has been given the right to experience.

We know that some of this information can be very hard to hear,

Sensitive raw feelings,

Want you to love yourself.

If there were any of those kind of emotions drawn up when listening,

We're in this together.

Thank you for listening today.

We hope this encourages you in your journey of healing and that you feel loved and cared for.

Cheers.