Champion Challenge “Are We Still Dealing With Past Trauma?”

Hey Friends! For those of you that are new to my blog Welcome. I hope this post finds you all with Peace upon you, around you and within you.

We started our day as usual. You guy’s already know the drill. We woke up gave our Thanks and gave Elvis his morning love followed by his breakfast.

We started off with some coffee and the beet juice smoothie. Still think its like drinking a smoothie made of dirt but it’s fine. We did it and that’s what matters.

We got ready for our day and gave each other a kiss before we went our separate ways to get started on our Champion Stuff.

Elvis was out doing his Champion stuff as well, his usual rounds checking his territory. Making sure no one entered his realm during the night.

We have been blessed with the sun gracing us with it’s presence. We know what this means…when the sun is out Elvis is out.

He loves to lay in the hot sun until he has been slowly roasted like a rotisserie chicken. We are constantly having to keep an eye on him because he always gets sun burn on his nose.

When the evening comes and the sun starts to go down you can usually find him sitting someplace where he can see the beautiful sunset.

On this particular evening what looks sweet an innocent was almost a double homicide. He was stalking two birds as they were innocently eating. If you look between the two trees in the background you can see two of them.

Let me tell you something, those are two lucky birds right there. Elvis just sat and thought about murdering them he didn’t actually do it. This means he has changed his murderous ways and is now focused on inner peace and healing. 🙂 We are so proud!

As for my morning I began with stretching and then jumped on the stationary bike for one hour. Followed up by Pilates and a stretch afterwards.

Last week I had some rather intense dental work done and all I could do was give myself some time to heal. I tried to work out too soon and my face started throbbing.

I am just happy to get back to working out again even if it wasn’t a full work out. It’s ok to take care of our selves.

We have been very busy this past week with starting our garden as well. Look how precious our little plant babies are.

So we are going to have two or three of these situations for our garden the first one is almost complete. All the plants look happy and I can’t wait to watch them grow.

So far we planted strawberries, lettuce, fennel, lavender and basil in the pots on the side. Also we have some cat grass for Elvis with flowers to keep the bees and birds happy.

One flower in particular called Arabian Night is going to be super beautiful when she blooms. We still have watermelons, corn and eggplant to put in the ground.

There is something so calming and meditative with gardening. It has me thinking all kinds of things.

Such as how everything truly is connected from the soil fungi called Mycelium, to us, to the trees, the air we breathe, the water we drink and feed our plants.

The birds, lady bugs, bees, flowers, how we talk to ourselves, how we talk to others, even how we talk to our plants. It all matters and is connected. Which leads me to today’s food for thought.

Are we still dealing with past trauma?

Today’s food for thought is raising the question if we are still dealing with unresolved past trauma’s. How do we know if we are still dealing with past trauma you ask?

Here are a few ways you can tell and at the end we will discuss the ways to help heal ourselves.

Being Burdened with Guilt

When we experience traumatic experiences they have a way of shaping us. If you are someone who has experienced physical or sexual abuse, neglect or violence it can warp our judgement if left unchecked and unhealed.

A lot of times especially if we were young when this trauma began we tend to blame ourselves and feel guilty for something we had no control over.

Have you guys ever watched the t.v show “My 600 Pound Life?” This series is full of people who have experienced some type of abuse or neglect.

They talk about how someone in their life or childhood has traumatized them. With out healing themselves they turn it into self hate, guilt, shame and unhealthy bad habits.

This leads to them over eating to fill a void or comfort them or whatever their reasons are. This is an extreme example but an example none the less.

The truth is that they don’t want to feel like that either but they are hurting just like the rest of us. This was how they chose to keep from feeling the pain.

The truth is also none of us can truly judge them or anyone else because we all have or had our own vices and way’s to not feel the pain from the trauma.

In the end unresolved trauma can manifest itself into unexplained, unreasonable feelings of intense guilt,shame, self loathing and regret. The feelings of guilt in particular is a strong force to be reckoned with.

Even though the abuse is never a survivors fault or with in their control to stop it, trauma related guilt is said to stem from a feeling that the survivor could have done more to prevent what happened to them, stopped it, or fought back.

Feeling Anxious For No Reason

Do we find that we are feeling anxious all the time with out any real cause? Experiencing an elevated heart beat, profuse sweating, muscle tension or shakiness?

Do we find that even though the trauma happened years ago there are certain smells,music, movies and even foods that can bring on the anxiety?

If so the anxiety is probably stemming from the trauma that some of us may or may not have been suppressing for a long time now.

Trauma is a major predisposing factor in forming anxiety symptoms and disorders. These can range from increased generalizes worries to full blown panic attacks.

This anxiety can have us in our feelings thinking that we have never been loved how could we be loved now and so on. This my friends is a thought process that we need to throw out the door right now!

Just because this trauma happened to us and just because we maybe never really felt protected or loved before by the people who were in theory supposed to love and protect us.

Does not mean that we were ever unworthy of it. Guy’s it’s time to do the work heal, forgive, love ourselves, be grateful and thrive. This is what I wish for all of us.

Struggling To Be Happy

Sometimes when we experience past traumas it can be hard for us to see the good things in life. Maybe it’s been hard moving forward because of this traumatic experience.

Being resistant to positive change, stuck in denial, negativity and self sabotage. It all seems so counter productive for us to achieve happiness and it is.

However the reason some of us get stuck in this loop of denial, negativity and self sabotage is because happiness has been an illusion in life.

It is unfamiliar and scary to someone who has had so much suffering. How can one imagine to be happy when they have never experienced it to know just how unhappy they are now.

Believe it or not if someone is dealing with past trauma allowing themselves to be happy is no small feat. This involves healing, learning self love and inner work

Examining the feelings we have from the trauma, feeling safe enough to feel these feelings and then the healing work begins.

Struggling With Self Loathing

For lot’s of us learning self love and compassion is a process but it can be especially hard for those who have experienced trauma.

There is a tendency to blame ourselves for not only our past trauma but also everything that goes wrong in our lives and the lives of those around us. Why? Well because we were always the ones to be blamed.

Past experiences taught us that we were indeed at fault whether it truly was or not, we are a burden, we don’t deserve happiness or love.

Our internal dialogue is full of these self-defeating self sabotaging thoughts and ideas about ourselves.

Even after the verbal abuse or abuse in general has stopped these negative things we have been told replay over and over again like a broken record.

We can end this madness if we just allow ourselves to stop pretending that we don’t need to heal. Yes healing is hard and yes it is a long sometimes painful process but in the end it’s going to be worth it.

A few ways to help with this healing process look something like this.

• Acknowledge the trauma
• Allow yourself to feel and observe the emotions that come up.
• Reclaim control
• Work on healing and self love.
• Replace bad habits with good ones
• Be patient with yourself

Let me know what daily rituals you guys have to help you deal with anxiety. If you are healing some past trauma big hugs to you!

If you feel comfortable I would love to hear about how much you have grown as a person.