Sometimes it's really clear that you have childhood trauma. You might have lived through tragedy, abuse or traumas that are undeniable but not all childhood trauma is obvious. In fact, childhood trauma includes a whole array of things you might have lived through and deemed "normal" because of the home you grew up in or the coping skills you developed. It also doesn't mean you had "bad" parents, sometimes life happens and families go through difficult things that leave us with trauma, even when our parents did their absolute best.
Trauma is not just physical pain. It can also be emotional and mental pain.
As Gabor Mate says "it is not what happens to you; it is what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you." If you had support, safety & access to other resources to help you make sense of what you went through, chances are you had a higher likelihood of moving through traumatic situations without them become trauma that is trapped in your body.
But,...
I spent most of my childhood growing up in northern Alabama surrounded by cousins & family. I remember those summer days as kids, picking berries and smushing them into some homemade “soup” we would pretend was food only to then have this make believe “house” situation turn into a game of tag as you tried to smear the smushed berries onto an unsuspecting cousin. It was a great time although chances are high the berries may possibly have been somewhat toxic…
I also grew up under the shadow of my family’s trauma. The story of an uncle’s death a heavy cloak we were all asked to wear and was only spoken about when my grandparents randomly mentioned it once in a blue moon.
There was also the constant chaos & fear of an aunt who had schizophrenia & was unpredictably committed in and out of hospitals every few months because meds never seemed to work and she could become harmful to herself and others.
Then...
Anytime we feel like our heart will break or that we can't get through something... we have the potential to build a Heartwall.
Essentially, the Heartwall is a layer of protection that we build up around our hearts to keep ourselves safe. In those moments where we feel unsafe, unloved or heartbroken, we pull in our unhealed emotions and begin to build this layer of protection around our hearts to keep us from feeling the pain.
A lot of us (especially empaths) build them as children to protect ourselves from our emotions and the overwhelming feelings that come from not knowing how to deal with them.
And then year by year, experience by experience we build this layer of protection thicker and thicker around our hearts, numbing us out to our feelings (along with the good emotions) and putting a barrier up in our relationships making it hard to find authentic connection and feel loved.
There are 5 Major Childhood Experiences that set us up to build a Heartwall.
...As an empath, we are naturally more sensitive to our own feelings & what's happening around us. It doesn't mean we are weak or overly sensitive but as kids, we naturally just feel things more deeply and read into the experiences we have & what other people are doing, more intensely.
Sometimes we get it right and we sense the things not spoken.
And sometimes we get it wrong because after all, we were kids.
But nonetheless, when we as empaths go through traumatic, stressful or painful experiences, the impact can weigh differently on us because we are so emotionally tuned into our experiences. Because we are so tuned in, we can also carry the weight of our Childhood Wounds in different ways, creating coping mechanisms, beliefs about the world & holding onto the emotional pain because we can't seem to understand WHY they happened.
So, I want to share with you the 4 major Childhood Wounds and how they specifically can impact you as an empath and what you...
Childhood wounds can come from many places.
Sometimes they are from the places we usually think of like trauma or abuse but they just as often can come from things like stress in the family as a child, divorce, loss, parents who weren't emotionally mature & even from loving parents who just didn't know how to meet all of our needs.
What's so important about them is that they impact YOU and the way you feel about yourself and your life. They become the thoughts and the feelings that are always rolling around telling us that we aren't enough or no one will love us if we show up as ourselves.
Some of the most common ways they can manifest is...
So if you are working on healing your childhood wounds, let me share a few things I've found to be so helpful in my own healing & also with my clients.
#1 PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR FEELINGS
How you feel when you're triggered is usually a re-enactment of the past. It's your emotions from that original...
There is so much confusion about what it means to be an empath.
Depending on how someone feels about it, it can run the gamut of being a painful life sentence to being the most incredible gift they have.
I know from personal experience that when you aren't aware of how to take care of your energy as an empath, it can be hard to understand why you get so run down, don't enjoy being around certain people or places & how confusing it can be to understand your own emotions.
So, if you are curious about whether you are an empath or not.... let's break it down & get rid of any confusion you may have!
Empaths are people who are more sensitive to the energies around them.
This means you may feel what other people are feeling, notice if the energy of a place is "good" or "bad," feel overwhelmed or over stimulated in certain places or around certain people because of the energy they give off, suddenly know...
Our DNA is a living library of information that is constantly informing us how to live. It tells our body how to heal, it tunes us into our greatest abilities & it helps us connect to the perfect Divine Blueprint we have for our life. When it is balanced and healthy, it guides everything in our Mind, Body & Spirit to its highest potential.
But, as we are born into families & lineages that hold trauma, limiting beliefs & unhealed emotional wounds, we can take on some of those energies in our shared DNA.
This is why energy work can be so powerful.
Imagine that you've spent your whole life noticing how everyone in your family is afraid to take big risks. You might have decided that you won't live under that fear and no matter how afraid you might be you always make that leap. In many ways, this is breaking that cycle BUT what if you could take that leap, never having that fear in the first place? What if instead of always having to move...
Feeling like you need extra support? Book a Session HERE
I had this question asked of me yesterday and I thought
"Wow, this really is such a good question!"
And, one that years ago when I first started on this path of healing, I remember asking too. So, I wanted to share what it means to me and some every day ways that you are probably already "doing the work."
To me, "doing the work" means that I'm no longer going throughout my day letting my old stories, wounds & pain lead me. I'm being more intentional about the thoughts I think, the ways I speak to myself & how I'm feeling.
Instead of pushing through or showing up like a wounded animal who's afraid they won't be loved or taken care of, I show up knowing it's my responsibility and privilege to be in charge of my healing and life.
"Doing the work" is simply that moment where you switch from being unconsciously led by your wounds and limiting thoughts to CHOOSING what you want to see happen in your life, how you want to feel & honoring everything that...
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