Most of us look at trauma as something that comes after a big traumatic incident. However, trauma in its original form can come from anything. You do not need to lose a loved one or be in the trenches of war to be traumatized.

Most people do not even realize that they have been traumatized just because they didn’t experience something “big”. A traumatic event can be something as simple as being lost in a grocery store when you were young, or not being given enough attention from your parents when they came back from work.

Any event that is overwhelming for your nervous system can be traumatic. The cause of trauma is your nervous system not being able to process the overflow of information and energy, so it freezes and sticks this energy within. This stuck energy within our nervous system is the trauma.

It is this stuck energy that hijacks most of our decisions as we grow older, what get’s triggered and make us react in unreasonable ways. That’s why it is crucial to remove the dogma around trauma, so we can have better understanding of what it is and maintain regular emotional hygiene to cleanse our nervous systems from such stuck energy that we carry with us unknowingly. This stuck energy can come from anything that is overwhelming.

We are all imperfect, meaning that we are all born into families that are imperfect and raised by parents that are imperfect. It is more than normal to experience some form of trauma in such circumstances. It is safe to assume that if you are born into this world you’ve been traumatized.

One good way to locate this stuck energy within you is to look out for things that trigger you. Whenever you get triggered, instead of reacting, use the trigger as a signal that there is traumatic energy stuck within your nervous system. Triggers are a great way to discover these stuck energies and emotional wounds so you can release them and heal.

How To Heal Past Emotional Wounds In 5 Steps:

1. Watch out for triggers.

As you go by your day watch out for triggers.

We react for many different things in many different ways, you can find a good read about reactivity psychology here.

But there are certain reactions that are disproportionate to reality. These are the situations we call “Triggers” because they trigger something painful within us.

Whenever you get triggered train yourself to count to 5 and give yourself this room for rational thought.

When you have this room between you being triggered and your reaction, use it to question your trigger.

2. Follow the trail of questions.

When you are triggered ask yourself, ‘what is so triggering about this?’, or ‘why is this so upsetting to me?’

Immediately after these questions ask yourself ‘why is that so bad?’

When you have an answer ask this question again.

And again.

Answer until you get to an answer that reveals a feeling for you, for example ‘because I feel like my opinion doesn’t matter to other people.’

Or something similar.

Revealing the underlying feeling is the important part in this step.

3. Discover the underlying stuck feeling.

When you revealed the feeling you should ask yourself two more questions, ‘When was the last time I felt like this?’, and ‘When was the first time I felt like this?’

Ask these questions and let your subconscious answer.

It might reveal to you the answer through a thought, a memory, an image. Your subconsciousness communicates with you in subtle ways, but it communicates in ways that you will understand, so give it time and listen.

Every memory is stored within your subconsciousness, so trust in the process.

It will reveal to you the underlying stuck feeling and the exact moment you stuck this emotion within your nervous system.

This technique above is one of the main techniques people use when they practice Shadow Work because it’s really effective. When we get triggered it’s actually this stuck emotion that gets poked at. That’s why we react disproportionate with reality.

4. Embrace the feeling.

As you become conscious of this memory, image, emotion, do not be surprised if you get emotional and feel vulnerable.

But that’s when you find the treasure you’ve been looking for.

That’s when you need to do the most important work.

All this time you’ve been avoiding this emotion, now it’s time to surrender to it and embrace it fully. That’s how you release it and let go of it.

Take a deep breath allowing this emotion to take over you fully, thank it, and as you exhale release it from your nervous system.

5. Let the stuck energy go.

Repeat this couple of times until you feel the lightness that comes from releasing stuck trauma energy.

You might smile uncontrollably, or cry, or your body might shake.

Do not get scared, it’s normal, your nervous system is cleansing and refreshing.

Take some time for self care after this process.

Nurture yourself because you have been vulnerable during this process, you need self love and healing energy.