What is Trauma?
What Is Actually Happening?
Neuroscience has now shown that all human beings suffer from trauma throughout their lifetimes. It does NOT have to be a major event that is commonly understood as Traumatic, like a major loss, injury or exposure to a terrorizing event. Perhaps better described as Micro Trauma, everyone perceives feelings that are difficult to handle every day.
The dissonance of the news, reports of disturbing happenings in the world and thoughts of our own personal lives and loved ones require feeling emotions that run the gamut of all that a person is capable of sensing.
We know that our brains react to trauma on every level, from a mild “shock to the system” to overwhelming shock waves that coarse through out entire bodies and minds. The neurons that fire together in response to shock (trauma) actually wire themselves together. Every time you feel a scary or shocking emotion the bundles of neurons that have wired themselves together fire together!
The result of this is the flowing of neurotransmitters signaling our bodies to respond with many kinds of emotional and intellectual functions that sometimes protect us through defensive states of consciousness such as denial. Other times we experience high anxiety along with fear so intense it sets off the fight or flight mechanism. This mechanism stimulates the release of powerful neurotransmitters and hormones controlling your body and mind.
If you only talk about your feelings and thoughts you are actually re-traumatizing your body! Over time this wears on your defenses, you can become tired, anxious, fatigued and depressed. Our bodies and specifically our neuro-cognitive systems must be-calibrated in order to stop the cycle of repeating the response to trauma.
How Do You Do That?
When creative expression of our emotions is facilitated along with intellectual / analytic understanding at the same time our neurons have the ability to unbundle the trauma based wiring and other times re-route the nerve endings around the compromised area and make new connections, re-establishing a non traumatic based system of internal communication between our hearts, minds and bodies.
Commonly Referred To As Healing
Most practitioners (therapists) are not schooled in the delicate understandings of our nerve ganglia which are located along our spine acting like frequency modulators. This is usually referred to as our Chakra System, which are 7 energy centers (modulators) that are associated with a specific range of color and perceptual feeling. Using the tools of the artist to safely express the rainbow of emotions and thoughts that characterize the human being with a compassionate psychotherapist who can accompany you in your healing journey allows for the subtle frequencies within us to re-harmonize and restore us to a state of balance and health.
This is more than important in understanding why people who have a neuro-cognitive variance (from a mainstream population, maybe)…ie: “on the spectrum”, have such a hard time achieving success with traditional “talk therapy”. The therapy that will work must be sensorially based and infused with new cognition, not simply learning verbal cues and commands (CBT and ABA). As an “Autism Whisperer”, art psychotherapy is extremely successful in speaking another language , that is universally understood on a deep, unconscious level. Everyone relates to colors and images.
I can accompany anyone, on your journey, however unusual, wherever you need to travel, no matter how deep or how far.
It is my honor and mission to bring more healing and peace to you as an individual as we all contribute to healing our world…one heart at a time.
