Understanding Perceptions of Trauma

Mind-Body Relationship

According to the meaning on Wikipedia Trauma is; “the response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual's ability to cope causes feelings of helplessness diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences.” This happens because in the process the individual is perceiving a past event or a future event- it's more prevalent in perceptions of the past- in a highly negative aspect to have more challenge than support, the mind sees this event as a risk to the living organism and thus activates the flight or fight mechanisms within the body that was once saved when the event occurred, this trigger happens when the individual perceives in the present tense something to do with a past tense event, such as the smell of smoke that is linked to a past event of a burning house.

The event in itself has no aspects of trauma, it becomes trauma when the individual judges the event to be a reminder of a past fire experience, if misperceived the body can react in the same manner that it did in the past, the same senses are activated, the activation happens in different levels. At the lowest levels the body simply experiences the sensations felt in the past and the individual continues to judge it as a past experience. At the highest level of activation, the body can react to the sensation and judge the past a present danger the individual experiences the event in the present time and the body acts in the same manner that it did in the past to get past the perceived danger.

When we isolate the smell of smoke event in the present tense, we find that the cause of the smell is simply food being overcooked on the stove, when we isolate the past event we find that the smell of smoke is closely linked to the cause of the fire, the trauma happens when the individual continues to perceive the past event of smell caused the fire to be a highly negative event that caused more damage than improvement, when that perception 2 continues to be lopsided towards more damage than improvement the sensations will continue to activate the flight or fight autonomic nervous system whenever the smell of smoke occurs.

Our brains are designed for survival and at the time of the smell of smoke, the brain activates all the sensations for survival on a normal day of cooking the brain sends a signal to the body to attend to the smell because if the food is burnt we will not eat a good meal and thus we are in danger of dying from hunger so you can manage the fire in a more relaxed manner, whereas if it is a fire that is burning down the house the response is to get the body to move as quickly as possible to avoid death and danger. Survival means being alive so the brain/ mind can regress to memories of trauma just to get the feeling of existence and sometimes this regression can help the person become more active in the present in order to get a job done just like drinking a cup of coffee alters the body to get more energy trauma at times is used in the same way- Which is highlighted in the book titled; The Body Keeps Score “Some war veterans become more alive when they describe their past traumatic war experiences where they were pushed to the limit”. In the event that a war veteran.

3 Mental Wars

The three wars that happen in our minds are the past, the present, and the future. The past war language is; "If I hadn’t or if I had then my present would be different", in this state you are trying to change what is a reality for a fantasy that is unreal, and the more you become infatuated with fantasies the more depression you create. The future war language is; "the year 2021 should be like this" or "if tomorrow I wake up energetic and the weather is better then I will be more productive" or "Friday is either too far away or Friday is almost here so I will be happier when Friday comes". These are mental wars that we do not have much control over. The war that we have the greatest control over is the present-time war because we have the power of choice in the present, we can direct our perceptions, decisions, and actions toward what we want or love. The more present your mind is towards the present the greater degree of 3 control you have over events and your autonomic nervous- a control system that acts largely unconsciously and regulates bodily functions, such as the heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response and controls the flight or fight responses.

Bringing Balance to Trauma

When the mind perceives more danger/ challenge than safety/support it activates the sympathetic autonomic nervous system which deals with flight or fights and the opposite occurs when the mind perceives more safety/support than danger/challenge it activates the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system which deals with relaxation. The key to balancing perceptions of trauma is to bring balance to the sympathetic nervous system by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and this is done by making the perception of danger/challenge equal to the perception of safety/support in revisiting the past event. The main aim is to get the mind to function in the present tense. Although it may be mild; when we analyze sports performance, the athlete that can get the best is the athlete that focuses on the game at hand, not the past game where mistakes were made or the past game where the performance was an outstanding one, the same rules apply when a general is fighting a war, the more he fights according to past battles the greater the probability of failure is.

Exercises for you:

1. Write down 7 Highest Goals for the year

2. Develop Routines that are linked to long-term goals by prioritizing 6 Important Tasks that are linked to Year Goals and make sure that you act on the things that are most important to least.

3. Go back to memories of trauma and ask; “how has this event benefitted me?” don’t stop until you get at least 20 benefits of the event.