Trauma is like sedimentary rock—a mixture of unheld harms, losses, devastations, violence, neglect, disappointments, and aloneness that in the absence of warm loving accompaniment can harden and become the conscious and unconscious foundation for your life.
Healing comes with warm welcome and loving accompaniment that soothe the parts of you who still hurt—whether that hurt lives in you as sorrow, depression, anxiety, numbness, rage, regret, despair, helplessness, or, most often, a bewildering mix of these feelings.
While mainstream therapies often focus on the mind or the body of the individual and possibly their childhood or current family system, often ignoring or denying the impact of other kinds of trauma (which in and of itself can be retraumatizing), my Restorative Empathy approach makes space for the wholeness of your emotional, somatic, energetic, spiritual, sociopolitical, and relational selves.
For instance, how many of these sedimentary layers of trauma can you sense inside you right now?
__ Ecotrauma (living in a time of mass extinction and destruction of our ecosystem)
__ Cultural trauma (intersectional systemic harm from patriarchy, white supremacy culture, capitalism, and colonization, which harm us all in different ways)
__ Community harm (targeted, ostracized, or bullied in school, work, or other communities)
__ Ancestral trauma (heaviness and reactivity from historical harms and disruption of ancestral connection)
__ Intergenerational trauma (trauma from family violence or disconnection, mental illness, addiction, poverty, etc.)
__ Developmental/attachment trauma (early experiences of neglect or harm from caregivers)
__ Relational trauma (unresolved conflict, rupture, loss of connection, or violence in your intimate partnerships and friendships)
__ Intrapersonal trauma (lack of warmth for yourself, harsh or unresolved inner conflicts, neglect and abandonment of the parts of yourself others have not welcomed)
__ Nervous system trauma(survival patterns of fight, flight, freeze, and fawning that take you over in times of distress and may lead you to act in ways you wouldn’t choose)
__ Energetic or somatic trauma (blockages and imbalances that prevent the flow of life energy and emergent emotions, chronic physical illness or pain, etc.)
How does it feel to touch into and acknowledge how much your body is holding? What would your life be like if you had a space to come every week to share the places that still hurt, as well as celebrate your joys, and have your whole self met with warm welcome, genuine love and understanding, and a host of supportive healing approaches? Give yourself the loving gift of scheduling an exploratory session today.
Much love and empathy,
Angela