Mindfulleigh Mental

Trauma and I have been long-term companions throughout my life. Sometimes we think trauma is what has happened from the point of time that we remember, yet much of research shows us that we inherit trauma generationally. Simply put, if our parents carry trauma from their own lives, they are carrying that trauma whilst they are carrying us in the womb. Just as the person who is carrying us in the womb is transferring nutrients through their physical diet, we can infer that they are also transferring us mental and emotional “nutrients” too. Whether you believe God created us or whether you believe in Science and that we evolved from previous forms of mammals, or whether you are similar to me and believe that God and Science are cosmic collaborators of the universe, there’s potential to believe that whatever family system we are born into (potentially our invitation to find out why we were born into the family we were) is impacted by our history as a whole… history of our outer and inner world… history of our environmental and family system. The more we understand the history of the theoretical “trauma twin” in the womb with us, the more we can change the trajectory of our future. I’ve been pondering my past perspectives and experiences with therapy and trauma and have felt it shift a bit. Recently, I moved to Astoria, OR (a place that is completely new to me). Though, there are places adjacent to Astoria, OR which hold a lot of trauma for me. In the midst of a mental breakthrough on my driving route, I was able to practice my therapy strategies I have learned. From the outside looking in, I could imagine someone may think “why would you move closer to a place that holds trauma for you?” To be completely transparent, I have asked myself the same question leading up to this move and in the past two weeks of being here. The truth is, as much as I’ve been in a combination of talk therapy and somatic therapy more than 15 years, it doesn’t compare to what has come up somatically since being back in Oregon as an adult (in the best way). It feels metaphoric to be physically in a space where I’ve experienced no trauma thus far (Astoria, OR) and be adjacent to a space that holds so much traumatic weight. It seems that maybe that is my trajectory of trauma. My perspective on trauma used to be that if I just kept tending to the trauma over and over again, eventually I would come to a space where it no longer tortured me. Though my trauma no longer feels torturous, metaphorically speaking, my trauma is still living near me, adjacent to me, however, it isn’t living right where my feet are. These are my MindfulLEIGH Mental thoughts of the day, is that the healing? When your trauma feels adjacent to you rather than absorbing you? Time After Time will tell.