THE SOURCE OF OUR TRAUMA

 

We all have emotional trauma that negatively affects our relationships. For this reason I want to describe for you, as concisely as possible, how most emotional trauma is developed in our lives; As a baby, you were perfect, beautiful, and innocent, but also deeply needy. And as you grew, you began to understand that if no one cared for you—gave you food, gave you a bed, gave you affection—you wouldn’t survive. But one day, you began to experience some intense emotions within your little body. You felt a need, but instead of love, you were ignored, or even punished. You cried, only to see your father’s annoyance or your mother’s frustration. So you began to question your parents ultimate connection to you and develop self consciousness. Then questions began to come subconsciously; “Do they not like me?” “Could they ever leave me?” “If I did something bad enough, might they completely abandon me?” And at that moment you discovered that expressing certain parts of yourself could put you in danger. 

 

Your survival required your parents to love you. But because you doubted their love and commitment, that insecurity caused you to begin suppressing those vulnerable parts you perceived were unacceptable. This is a natural part of assimilating into society and learning social cues and boundaries. This is fine when a family demonstrates healthy restoration and repair after a correction, but when repair doesn’t happen, or when it is not perceived, you can begin to believe that love comes at the suppression of your authenticity. If you never learn to repair your broken connections, you could grow up believing your genuine self is unlovable and therefore, you must wear a mask to earn love. 

 

The little girl who grew up with an absent father, who left  her alone in her feelings of sorrow and fear often becomes the hyper-independent ‘boss lady,’ who gives off the facade that she needs no one, which attracts the exact same type of emotionally unavailable men who leave her feeling just as abandoned as her father did. The little boy who was yelled at by his angry mother often grows up to be the nice guy, afraid of his own anger and struggling to stand up for himself. He often ends up seeking the nurturing closeness he lacked as a child from a wife who instead is ultra critical, leaving him feeling just as un-nurtured as his mother did. It is a divine set up. Because trauma isn’t simply the fact that your mother was violent or your father absent. Trauma is growing up without knowing that you can set boundaries. It’s not that your parents weren’t present; it’s that you grew up unaware of your worthiness of care.

 

Essentially, trauma isn’t what happened to you, but the ways you sacrificed your authenticity for the illusion of love. It’s the masks you created and stories you told yourself to cope with the rejection of your true self. It’s when you are forced to disconnect—disconnecting from self, from God and from others. Disconnection lies at the root of all pain and trauma. Disconnection from the true self most of all. The solution is reconnection—reconnecting to self, to God and to others. 

 

WE ARE OUR OWN BIGGEST PROBLEM

 

People are usually only ready to recognize their need for a savior when they have come to understand that their biggest problems are not external, but internal—not in other people, or in an unjust world, but in themselves, or in the depravity of their own separated identity. Whether or not someone else gave you the wound matters not—the trauma now belongs to you. It is now your responsibility to heal it. Until you realize the thing you need to be saved from is not others, or hell, or anything else, other than yourself, you are not ready for wholeness. Hell is believing in your own utter aloneness, along with the paranoia and self sabotage such belief brings. Our sin nature is the identity we each have built around the insecurities of detachment. Until we understand that we ourselves are our own biggest obstacle, we will continue to think we can save ourselves. It’s only when a person realizes they themselves are their own biggest problem that they are positioned to value Christ. Until someone realizes this, they will remain blind to separation’s reign over their lives, and will resist the embrace of the Savior. But once a person recognizes their need and accepts Christ as their Savior, their mind will be transformed and their life will change. Jesus called this change “repentance.” Repentance means, “to change or transform your mind.” 

 

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” - Romans 12:2 

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THE POWER OF CHANGING OUR MIND

 

Repentance is a constant habit of those in Christ. Our lives will always regress into self destruction unless constant surrender is made to Christ-consciousness through repentance. We experience Christ-like transformation every time our perspective shifts from detached-consciousness to Christ-consciousness. Your mind is renewed in each present moment that you choose presence instead of absence, closeness instead of distance and connection instead of separation—first to yourself and God, and then to those around you. As you train yourself to be present and surrender your present moments to love again and again, you begin to embody Christ’s presence within yourself, and then to those around you, breaking cycles of disharmony and dysfunction wherever you go. This shift in perception, where we choose the Holy Spirit’s narrative of love over the illusion of separation, is the foundation of our transformation. 

 

“...we have the mind of Christ.” - 1 Corinthians 2:16 (NIV)

 

THE POWER OF OUR NARRATIVES

 

The narratives you rehearse in your mind shape everything about you, including how you allow the emotions of your past to infect your present actions; from how much stress you tell yourself to have over running late, to how generous you are to a stranger in need, to how quickly you allow repair when a loved one offends you. The manifestations of your life and the way your relationships play out are the general result of the narratives you rehearse in your mind. 

 

“For as he thinks within himself, so he is.” - Proverbs 23:7 (NASB)

 

Research indicates that about 50% of our internal narratives are separation-fueled distortions, not truth. We see what we choose to see, because all perception is a choice. The detached ego spins tales of victimhood and separation, constructing a false self rooted in fear, guilt and blame, convincing us we’re alone, unlovable, or wronged. Yet, Holy Spirit offers a different narrative—one of unity, love, and wholeness in Christ. In close relationships between husbands and wives or parents and children, a glance, a tone of voice, or even a specific phrase can trigger these false tales. Narratives like “I’m unlovable” or “They don’t care,” which will trap us in the separated identity’s downward cycle unless we reframe these stories with positivity, enabling our bodies to replace trauma with healing and closure.

 

Your narratives decide whether you see yourself as a failure or a success, a victim or a victor but most importantly, your narratives decide who has power over your present life. Whoever or whatever you give responsibility to through your narratives are the ones who hold power over your present, and therefore your future. If you make something or someone else responsible for your attitudes, your limitations, your actions, or your situation, you have no power to change these things. You maintain that someone else has power over your present because of the story you are telling yourself about your past. But the moment you take complete responsibility for yourself, that is the moment you take back power to change your life. If your separated mind tells you to maintain a cold and hardened attitude toward your partner because your feelings were hurt, you are allowing the illusion of that narrative to replace actual Love in the present. 

 

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” - 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NIV) 

 

THE POWER TO AUTHOR YOUR LIFE

 

“Authority” is the power to author. Whoever has been given the power to author your story has authority over your life. The only way for you (or Christ) to be the author of your life is for you to take full responsibility for every part of your story. This even includes the wounds other people gave you. As long as you are holding them responsible for your current state, and this includes even spouses and parents, you are giving the wound the power to author the state of your present life. The only power the wound actually has over you in this present moment is the power you say it has. The only way it can affect you in this moment is if you choose to let this moment serve the illusion of the wound instead of the reality of love. 

 

You have likely known or heard of people who have had radical life changing conversions or experiences that transformed them from the person they were to a radically different person. Perhaps you yourself have had such an experience. There are millions today who claim that an encounter with Jesus or something else has transformed them and it's truly undeniable that many of them now operate out of a completely new identity than they did before. But for others, they’ve never had such an encounter, or when they do, the encounter doesn’t create lasting change, and they fall back into their former ways—So what's the difference and why do some change while others don’t?

 

THE TWO REQUIREMENTS FOR LASTING CHANGE

 

In recent years research led by Joe Dispenza and others have confirmed there are two primary things that determine whether or not a transformation experience would create real lasting change or not; First, the transformation experience must change (or complete) the narrative you have been replaying in your mind, and second, the old negative emotions those narratives provoked must be replaced and new positive emotions must now be associated with those memories or narratives. In essence, they found that a lasting conversion or transformation is the result of the reshaping of former internal narratives and the emotional response those narratives provoke. 

 

Taking full responsibility for our attitudes can feel overwhelming, even sickening, because our bodies can become addicted to the stress chemicals, like cortisol and adrenaline, that ego-driven narratives trigger. These narratives tether us to familiar pain, like depression or anger, as a way to avoid the responsibility that comes with accepting ownership. 

 

When we experience a traumatic emotional event, our adrenal glands immediately flood our nervous system with these chemicals as a survival mechanism. Meanwhile our minds race trying to create a story to explain why this happened. When our minds can’t find a sensible way to bring a positive conclusion to the story, a detachment theory will try to hijack the storyline, casting us as the victims and others as the devils, creating an open emotional wound which then acts as a lens through which we see future interactions. Each time we are then reminded of the story, our bodies release the same chemicals, forcing us to relive the same emotional pain, keeping the wound festering. This cycle will continue on until your mind can find a positive closure or resolution to the story and our body can rewire itself to release different chemicals, replacing negative emotions with positive ones, thus initiating closure and change. In other words, the same things will continue to trigger you until you exchange the negative emotions you experience from that story to positive ones. 

 

We can break it down like this; Your life is controlled by 2 invisible forces—your STATE and your STORY. Your State is your moment-to-moment emotions and your Story is the meaning you give to your life events. If you want to gain control over your life, you must gain control of both your state and your story. You might have heard the saying, "change your story, change your life.” This is true, but it’s incomplete unless your state is changed with it. 

In relationships, detachment’s narratives and the emotions they provoke are the primary source of dysfunction. Something as small as a one-word response, a facial expression, or a tone of voice can trigger the wounded emotion with its rehearsed narrative, “I’m unlovable” or “They don’t really care about me.” The wound freshly opened drives them to launch their defenses—coping mechanisms of fight, flight, or shutdown. These come across as offensive, triggering the opposing partner’s insecurity, and the cycle continues to spiral further down into the false narratives of separation. 

 

To change these patterns and end the downward cycle you’ve got to pick up the author's pen and write a better ending to your stories. By realigning them with a higher truth, you can replace your negative emotional response with positive emotion, like thankfulness. In this exercise, we will guide you step by step through the process of retaking your authority, rewriting your story and changing your emotional response to your life events.