It’s Not Just Your Trauma

The increasing awareness of the impact of trauma in recent years has been positive and much needed in a traumatizing culture.

Yet like many topics, the raised awareness of these issues has also led to a loss of nuance and understanding.

Something missing in the conversations about trauma is this:

You can be severely impacted by your childhood experiences, without a specific or acute trauma in the standard sense of the word.

Much of your life, your relationship patterns and who you are can actually be shaped not just by what DID happen to you… but also what did NOT happen to you.

The love and attunement you didn't receive.

The curiosity about your inner experience that was rarely there.

The acceptance of your FULL range of emotions.

The celebration and encouragement of your authentic self.

The stability and consistency that didn't exist.

The sense of being cherished for who you are - not for what you DO, or what you achieved as a child.

The healthy, compassionate guidance that you didn’t receive.

Missing out on these things doesn't always mean you have acute ‘trauma’ - even though it can leave an impact that is just as profound.

These missing experiences are called 'attachment wounds' or 'attachment injuries' in the field of Attachment Theory.

They are our deep emotional needs that have gone unmet.

They are the thousand small experiences that add up to an unconscious blueprint of what we come to expect in relationships, how we feel about ourselves, and how we react in certain situations.

Absences like these are profoundly impactful on us:

They can be the reasons why we keep attracting unavailable partners, why we feel anxious in relationships, or why we struggle to have healthy boundaries.

They can also be why we are avoidant in relationships, and why we withdraw when someone gets too close to us emotionally.

To truly heal from the impact of such experiences, we need to understand the nuances of that impact beyond simply calling it all trauma.

Trauma healing work - such as somatic work - can be profoundly healing with acute trauma.

Yet in many cases, it will NOT heal these kinds of attachment issues. It was never DESIGNED for that in the first place.

Likewise, working on your nervous system - without ALSO working on the distorted attachment blueprints that are often CAUSING emotional dysregulation - is only partially helpful.

Nervous system work will not heal the attachment wound that is continually activating the nervous system.

To heal from the impact of attachment wounds, we need something entirely different.

As a result of the groundbreaking work that has been done in the field in the last decade, we now know what DOES heal attachment wounds.

To heal, we need to experience all of the things that we missed out on.

We need to experience the deep, full, and unconditional acceptance of our true self.

We need to experience celebration of who we actually ARE - not what we DO.

We need to experience a deep sense of security and safety in closeness.

We need to experience what it’s like to rely on someone, and trust that deeply.

We need to experience what it’s like to have our own space, and trust that deeply.

We need to experience what it’s like to not be invalidated - to have our feelings and experiences truly heard on every level.

We need to experience these things in a specific set & setting that allows us to fully take it in, to reach the parts of us that never got to experience this.

We need to experience these things in a way that does NOT make our dates & partners responsible for giving us these experiences.

The reality is, they will never be able to offer it to us as completely as what we need. They are not our parents and it is not their responsibility to take that on.

There is a magical process that has been created to allow someone to experience this in the deepest way possible, and in a relatively short period of time. This is the process that I guide the people who work with me through.

When a person gets to experience everything they always needed in this very unique and embodied way, they start to find true peace in their life.

Our relationships to others change. We are no longer stuck in our inner child, or in a power struggle with our partner for them to fill in the holes from our childhood.

We are no longer unconsciously looking for a partner who reactivates all our wounds, and then insist that they change.

We can finally escape those wound cycles.

We evolve into our integrated, adult self.

We start to relate to people from a place of wholeness, that is neither co-dependant nor hyper-independent.

We start to know the meaning of true intimacy, of true togetherness.

It’s the most profound pattern-breaker I’ve ever witnessed.

Everything we missed out on is still part of us. Those parts of us are always waiting, waiting until they can experience something they never got a chance to experience.

- Serdar Hararovich