Understanding Trauma by Patrick Boulan · Shangriballa

Understanding Trauma by Patrick Boulan

Non-Duality and Trauma. This article by Patrick forms part of a more extended discussion in our classroom, "Shangriballa Method" Understanding Trauma and integrating it is very much part of non-dual states of awareness.

It is essential to understand that trauma is not in the event we have to face, but in the unfinished response of our nervous system and emotions to that event.

Trauma can be the consequence of a shock in the face of an extreme or harrowing situation, but it can also be the consequence of a more gradual process when a child is faced with adversity, or when their needs are not met, or when they are hurt. This is known as developmental or complex trauma.

Etymologically, the word trauma comes from the Greek Trauma, which means injury. But the injury is not in what happened to us but in what happened within us in reaction to what happened to us.

We can, therefore, define trauma as a fixation or blockage of our nervous system's natural response to a situation that threatens our physical, psychological, emotional, or energetic balance.

When faced with a highly adverse situation, the autonomic nervous system triggers a chain reaction that sets up a fight, flight, or freeze response. This reaction simultaneously creates significant energy charges in the body and a range of emotions.

But if the situation is perceived as too dangerous or unsettling, or if it generates too high a level of insecurity, or if it causes an internal reaction that is experienced as too strong, too violent, too intense, or too disturbing, or if it leaves us feeling too helpless or destabilised, then our whole being contracts around the experience because we feel threatened in our ability to restructure ourselves or to survive.

Because of this contraction, the response initiated by the nervous system to the situation remains constrained and cannot be fully executed. The nervous system can no longer work towards its return to equilibrium and its regulation. Furthermore, the energy charges, emotions, and feelings evoked by the system's activation cannot unfold normally either and are prevented or repressed, unable to find their resolution.

The entire system then remains blocked in a survival mode, maintaining a high activation level without being able to self-regulate or digest the experience. As long as the system is thus blocked, it continues to strengthen its activity as if it were perpetually confronted with the initial threat, even when the original situation has passed. And a part of the psyche also remains blocked in the narrative around the trauma, and no longer matures, thus creating an identity sub-structure (it is as if the frozen part no longer continues its development process).

A form of dissociation then sets in to help us either compensate or feel the internal consequences of the experience less, and to help us survive despite the threat or adversity. But this split from the body and emotions maintains the resistance, preventing the system from returning to equilibrium.

Once trauma is established, it causes changes in the body, the nervous system, and the brain. It will continue to operate as if the original situation were still present. Thus, it will lead to the establishment of conditioned reactions to situations in our daily lives—reactions that are determined by the projection of the continuity of the initial threat and by control mechanisms that seek either to avoid this threat or to minimise the level of internal insecurity.

Here is a list of the main ways trauma will impact us:

• Creating muscle tension chains that will alter how we hold ourselves and how the child's body will develop.

• Maintenance of a certain level of alertness, stress, and hyper-vigilance.

• Energetic changes in the body that will also affect the functioning of the organs and the organism as a whole.

• Modification of how we feel in our body (discomfort linked to the sensation that something is wrong and the conclusions we draw from it, which suggest that something is wrong with us).

• Disconnection from the body and sensations, and a shift into the sphere of the mind and analysis (dissociation).

• Disconnection of the two hemispheres of the brain. The right brain (where stressful childhood perceptions are recorded) gives ground. The left brain becomes predominant while losing much of its ability to process emotions. This leads to more mental fragmentation and makes it more challenging to open up to the richness of experience in social connection and intimacy.

• Negative impact on our memory and our ability to concentrate.

• A decrease in our ability to understand and evaluate the consequences of our actions.

• Reactivate blocked emotions and energies in situations that evoke (even in a very distant way) the original trauma.

• A part of the psyche remains frozen in the traumatic experience, unable to reach greater maturity. This part continues to project the initial threat and the negative conclusions we drew from it into our relationships with others and the world.

• Modification of how we perceive ourselves and the world.

• Establishment of protection, control, and dissociation mechanisms that distract us from our deep Self.

As we can see, trauma causes numerous and profound changes in all spheres of our experience, while colouring our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world. Furthermore, trauma triggers adaptive, protective, and survival mechanisms that cause us to develop strategies, behaviours, and ways of being to survive adversity and to allow us to continue to adjust to our environment. In this sense, we can see trauma as an adaptive mechanism.

But over time, these adaptive modes become habitual and embedded in our personality structure, so much so that we believe they are who we are and lose sight of our deep Self. They then keep us in an illusory and limiting identity that, although familiar, continues to maintain and reinforce the impact of the trauma and the image of a wounded and deficient self.

But no matter what traumas (shocks or developmental traumas) we have faced, no matter what mechanisms we have developed in response to the lacks and threats during our development process, everything can be healed and transformed.

HOW TRAUMA IS ENCODED AT A CELLULAR LEVEL AND HOW TO DE-PROGRAMME THESE IMPRINTS

The amygdala registers the potential danger when faced with an event perceived as a threat or activates the fight, flight, or freeze response. It sends the information to the other brain regions.

The gland then signals to the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland to launch the production of stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline, which are generated by the adrenal glands). These hormones will then begin a process of protein synthesis, instructing specific amino acids to attach to and remain fixed on neuronal receptors.

The interpretation of the event and the conclusions we drew from it will thus be structured in neuronal patterns. This will also affect the hippocampus, responsible for memory management, chronology construction, and putting experiences into perspective. At this stage, the traumatic event is recorded and sealed in our consciousness with its meaning, the conclusions we drew about our identity, and the negative or diminished images of ourselves associated with it.

After its initial activation, the amygdala will be more profoundly affected. It will begin to function like a sorting centre by filtering daily experiences through the memory information and imprints related to the trauma. Thus, anything that seems to evoke something similar to the original traumatic event will generate a signal that will once again trigger the activation of the nervous system and create the production of stress hormones and the activation of energy charges, feelings, and emotions related to the trauma. The contractions that seek to repress these emotions and energy movements will remain active and become chronic, structuring themselves more and more deeply in the body, the fascia, muscles, tendons, and organs, creating a psycho-corporeal armour. This configuration remains in place as long as the trauma is not resolved.

From then on, the more frequently traumatic memories are reactivated and the nervous system is activated, the more the neuronal and energetic response patterns are reinforced and solidified, and the more the effects of dysregulation on the body, mind, and psyche intensify.

Moreover, once everything is structured and densified, the part of the brain that recorded the experience can no longer receive signals from other parts that could tell it that there is no real threat in the moment. We therefore cannot overcome the traumatic imprint by opposing it with concrete reasoning or a form of rationalisation.

The good news is that the nervous system does not know time. We certainly cannot change the past, but we can at any time return to how the trauma takes shape in our experience and heal the initial imprint. Because trauma is in the body and affects all bodily functions, we must come into contact with it and work towards its resolution with and through the body.

First, realising that trauma (with the thoughts, emotions, and contractions that make it up) is an adaptive response of our nervous system that seeks to protect us in the face of a problematic situation, allows us to take a specific step back.

We will thus be able to understand that trauma speaks of what we have lived through (internally), but not of who we are: we are not responsible for the injuries and traumas we faced in childhood, nor for how our nervous system was impacted, nor for the strategies by which we adapted to survive with these injuries.

Thus, when the trauma is reactivated and keeps us in a form of mental and emotional trance, it says nothing about us. It teaches us about the imprint established within us in the face of adversity and difficulties.

Furthermore, in these moments of reactivation of the traumatic vortex, the way we perceive ourselves and the world is not reality, but a reflection of the interpretation errors set up in the original situation.

Thus, when we were children and faced with lack, injury, or a significant break in the bond of love and connection with our loved ones, we felt that something was wrong. However, we did not have enough perspective to see that the problem might be because the parents were too stressed, grappling with their own injuries or traumas, or overwhelmed by emotions. The feeling that something is wrong is then translated into "something is wrong with me," and generates a sense of a deficient self with a whole host of judgments and new emotions and feelings. The judgements and devalued self-images that colour our experience when trauma is activated, therefore, say nothing about who we really are, but are only a reflection of the erroneous conclusions we drew from these moments of adversity.

Once this distance is established, by feeling what form the trauma takes on an organic and kinaesthetic level, by opening ourselves to the content of the emotions and feelings it generates, by feeling the energy charges and contractions present, and then by affirming the choice to let the experience unfold, we will free the body from the tension that is at work when we refuse to feel.

In the space thus created, the blocked energies will be able to get back into motion at their own pace, and the emotions will be able to unfold to move towards their resolution. Getting out of a frozen position will allow the amygdala to leave its activation state, which also triggers integration at the nervous system level.

When the nervous system begins to self-regulate, it can integrate the experience with its emotional and energetic content. The sympathetic nervous system, responsible for activating the entire system in stress and survival mode, will then calm down. The parasympathetic nervous system, in charge of restoring balance and recharging the batteries, then takes over and works towards a return to calm.

Neuronal connections will then gradually break down. The rational left hemisphere will lose its preeminence. This will also be accompanied by a dissolution of the personality structures linked to the trauma that had been built around strategies to restore a higher level of security.

Contact with the Being and our profound qualities can be re-established since dissociation is no longer necessary. Thus, we realise that trauma can be perceived not as a curse but as a tool or a gateway that opens our access to deeper and more authentic parts of our experience and allows us to reconnect with our profound nature.

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." - The Gospel of Thomas

Unmet trauma has the potential for dysregulation and is destructive. On the other hand, if met, it can bring us back to our original Self's experience, reconnect us with our qualities of peace, silence, freedom, unity, compassion, and love, and free us from suffering.

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