Trauma is trans-generational.  This means if we are born to parents who are carrying trauma or experiencing severe stress our young nervous systems attune to their nervous system and we do not learn healthy self-regulation.  We will, by default, develop strategies to cope and self-soothe that often include dissociation and emotional suppression.  From a very young age we need a calm, regulated nervous system to co-regulate us so we learn how to calm ourselves.  If we do not, we create a template for future stress and trauma in our body and future stress and trauma will be layered, creating a lifetime of dysregulation, dysfunction, pain, heartache and ill health. 

The most significant consequence of early life relational or shock trauma is a lack of capacity for emotional and nervous system regulation. Shock and developmental trauma in our childhood compromise our ability to regulate our emotions and disrupts autonomic functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and sleep. This means if your parents divorced, or your family experienced a sudden death, or you experienced home or school based bullying and abuse (as examples) you body is likely to be carrying trauma even if you have received counselling and sought to recover. As adults then, any similarity to past stresses and trauma in our current lives subsequently activates the unresolved energies within the body and this causes us to react as though those events are happening now. This is why we often respond in ways don’t make sense. 

Like other mammals, our nervous system is equipped to deal with stress. We are energetically activated when a threat to the body’s wellbeing is detected and deactivated when the body feels safe.  If the body doesn’t feel safe it will not be able to perform the biological function to switch off the stress release. The body will then continue to send messages to the brain that “it’s not over” and the stress response chemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol continue to flood the brain, compromising the function of many body functions including digestive and immune systems.  This dysregulation will eventually take a significant toll on our mental, physical and emotional health and wellbeing. The Heart Math Institute have explored and measured the ability of horses to regulate humans autonomic nervous system (via heart rate variability analysis in relation to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems).  You can watch the webinar where Ann Baldwin Ph.D. presents the outcome of this research. 

If you would like to explore your own trauma and how you might begin the journey to wholeness, please reach out to Elizabeth who is a trained CEEL and AEFL practitioner.