Mind, Body & Soul

True Inner Peace is worth everything. It is the pearl of great price. When you find it you will do anything and everything to keep it. Seek peace and pursue it. You where created to know peace

Thursday 22 January 2015

Owning the Experience - Yes it happened to me


It has been said that hurting people always hurt others. This is because they are responding to situations through the lens of their pain which has lead to them developing the victim mentality and the why me? mindset. 
Our diverse abilities to handle stress and our tendencies to be more or less sensitive makes each of our experiences valid. Because someone was joking does not mean their words did not hurt. Simply dismissing other peoples issues as having no solid foundation for offence does not mean it is not an offence to them. For you, carrying a mountain the size of Kilimanjaro on your back is an issue but to another carrying a small pebble on their back is an equally great issue to them.My point here is when we begin to accept that something is an issue for some body we begin to learn patience, endurance and kindness. We begin to empathise and stop criticizing. 
Most importantly is the issue bearer, the pain feeler the hurt carrier. Sometimes we go through life carrying mountains on our backs and never acknowledging them. We go through the crowd of daily living bumping into everyone and never saying sorry for the mountain that just keep hitting everyone we encounter. Most often we do not even realise we are carrying them or we carry them as a symbol of victimisation. Let everyone know we have been done some misdeed and we deserve to hit everyone with the pain we are carrying. We walk tall with our issue as a trophy or bend down low with the "oh me oh my" attitude. It does not matter how we choose to bear it it is still a burden to us and very unpleasant at that. No one wants to carry such burdens on their backs and most importantly no one asked to carry them. 
No one wants to experience trauma of any form and if they do there is a problem. When you meet people who are living with trauma, sometimes the evidence is glaring and someone might say to them in anger "you have a problem man!".
This is because their attitude is showing them up but they are blinded by their hurt and pain.
God does not want us to hurt so much that we are hurting everything we come in contact with. He loves us and wants us to be whole persons. 
We live in a world where pain and suffering are inevitable and are useful to make us grow. For example If you had to abort a child because you were afraid of what people will say if they realised that you had gotten pregnant at a very inappropriate age or time or for some inappropriate person you will hurt for that unborn child even though you have convinced yourself that it is your body and your right to do as you please. I am not here judging anybody for their experiences but simply pointing out the fact that you will still hurt.
It it important to acknowledge the experience. Tell yourself the truth. Don't push it deep inside as it will eat you up. If you own up to the experience and how you feel about it you have just switched on the light in a very dark room. Sometimes the problem is finding the switch. the room is dark with the pain and bitterness and anger and we have to grope around it searching for the light. Jesus said "Come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, you will find rest for your souls"
Sometimes in saying the word "Help" in your mind if you cannot speak out is still a good beginning. Tears streaming from your eyes and swallowing deeply you have just acknowledged that you don't want this darkness and pain any more. Its time to seek help.
Start from yourself. Its time to revisit the actual situation and see it just as it is. Just as it happened; the before, during and after and observe without judgement all the different emotions that you went though. 
Yes it happened. It happened. It happened. There is no need here blaming yourself by thinking if you had just done this or that it would not have happened. It happened and there was nothing you could have done about it and there is nothing you could do about it now to stop the occurrence. Asking the question why it happened to you has not helped you got over the pain. It has just intensified it. I know that there are things I have experienced that I do not wish on my worst enemy so if it did not happen to you would you have wished it to happen to another? No. Life happens and sometimes it looks and feels ugly and cruel and painful and confusing and down right evil. But wow there is the other side of life and it is beautiful and peaceful and calm and that you were born to experience. It is a place of growth and knowledge and self love and respect and self acceptance and deep forgiveness of self and others. A place of standing on top of the mountain and refusing to ever carry it on your back again. Of seeing the horizon from its peak and gaining new perspectives. A place of new possibilities and achievements. A place of great potential for greatness. Its time to face the Goliath of your emotion and deal with this once and for all. You are now the David and all you have with you are a few stones and a sling and a changeless and loving God who is ready to bring you to a place of complete healing and rest. Victory is guaranteed if you are willing to use the resources you have been provided with. Are you ready?



Wednesday 21 January 2015

Identifying trauma causing insidents


How trauma is caused. How Issues arise!

In our last discussion we began to identify the origins of trauma. As promised we will be identifying some causes that lead to the effect of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Depending on how an individual handles a situation will result in whether it becomes viewed as a traumatic experience. There are many traumatic situations by the general definition of the shock to the system but the capability of the individual to cope with it will determine whether it results into an issue or not.
Here are common situations that can lead to a traumatic or can't cope situations. Bear in mind that sometimes all it takes is a straw to break the camel's back. So even though someone is very good at coping with stress  the situation, timing and weight of one more event may tip them over and cause them to loose their strength.
Take a look at all these examples and if you have experienced any, begin to examine how you have coped with each of them. If whilst you are reading them you begin to feel like you are panicking, or you feel hurt, resentful, bitter or afraid or shameful then you have issues. Welcome to the club of issue bearing individuals. We are here to help you put them down and experience inner healing and  peace.
Things that can cause a traumatic experience are 
  1. Betrayal
  2. Abuse - sexual, physical, mental and emotional
  3. Motor Accident
  4. Plane crash
  5. Divorce
  6. Loss of a loved one
  7. Bullying
  8. Fear
  9. Disappointment
  10. War
  11. Rejection
  12. Discrimination
  13. Financial ruin
  14. Violence
Although the list is not exhaustive many people can relate to some of the above. All of these cause a shock to our system and release stress hormones which are unhealthy for the body and we literally start breaking down. Our cells become worn out and we feel tired, frustrated and in unimaginable physical and emotional pain. If anyone tells you that you can find peace  again they will sound like they are talking nonsense. Our bodies release pain and fatigue as it tries to return us back to the former status quo. Sometimes it succeeds. Our bodies and mind are very cleverly designed. When we have experienced something that  it cannot bring us back to our original state as before, it creates a pseudo persona to cope with the situation. We are kind of put into this self hypnotism where we kind of forget for some time the experience and seem to return back to the status quo. But do we really ever return to that?
No. the experience is buried in our subconscious mind and it pretends to forget it until a trigger happens. A trigger is anything that forces us to remember that incident or relieve it in full. We get into a tailspin. We become irritable. Some people cry and behave like children others get aggressive or angry and others simply run away. All of this is our attempt at resolving the trauma. 
Here are a list of things we all do to deal with bad experiences.
  1.  Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Grief
  4. Obsession 
  5. Manipulation
  6. controlling
  7. Seductive
  8. Flirting
  9. Sadness
  10. Depression
  11. Eating disorders
  12. Violence
  13. Mood swings
  14. Silence
  15. Talkative
  16. Excessive Shopping
  17. Abuse of drug and alcohol
  18. Suicide
  19. Murder
  20. Self harm
  21. Over niceness
  22. Push Boundaries
  23. Rebel
  24. Paranoia
  25. Create Invisible friends and situations to which we react as if they are normal
When we begin to display any of the above, we have developed PTSD. This can start from a very mild situation that is almost normal to the extreme situation that we become psychologically and emotionally imbalanced and need medical help. We may function as normal individuals but become completely different when we sense a trigger coming on. We are not happy and definitely have no peace. We use the above to cope. Our life becomes one of coping and enjoying the everyday life is a distant wish which we do not think can ever happy to us.
We carry our issues into adulthood, marriage, employment, business and every activity we are involved in. People learn to cope with us or walk away. We remember the event as if it was yesterday and we either want to keep this state of being or we want to erase it completely from our memory.







Trauma and PTSD



Trauma happens when the body including its organs try to make sense of an event that has taken place in the person that has resulted in a shift in its paradigm. Basically the person has suffered an assault to itself mentally, emotionally, or physically. All or some of this may lead to a psychological stress in coping with the assault and if the body cannot cope with it, may lead to PTSD. This is a delayed reaction to the assault.
Our bodies act as our servant and security against the outside environment and function effectively in protecting us from any kind of stress. How we deal with stress depends on our age,background and training. 
A normal civilian may deal with stress differently, from a trained soldier and a person of faith may deal with stress differently than a one with non. Dealing with stress depends on the person's willingness to learn and overcome every situation that they can possibly face, but nothing can prepare one for the different levels of atrocities that one may be exposed to during the course of existence in this world.
Our body, mind and spirit have been created to cope with stress to some degree and if we train each area, it increases its capacity to deal with stresses of varying degrees. There are countless therapies and training offered around the world to discipline our body, soul and spirit  to avoid them breaking down under tremendous stress. These are all admirable. However no one knows their limit or as the saying goes "which straw will break the camel's back"and what it might take to break us. It could be a simple thing or a great atrocity but break down happens and that is what is termed as a traumatic event.
So my definition of a traumatic event is anything that happens to you that causes you to never be able to function in the same way again before it happened to you. A personality changing event. A life transforming situation for the worse. So a really loving young man may go to war and have to kill people and he is blown up by a bomb and looses his limbs. He comes back home with no job and hates his family and becomes aggressive and angry. Or a beautiful happy go lucky girl is raped by a family member and she becomes withdrawn with occasional outbursts of anger or completely rebellious. Or a wonderful boy is constantly bullied in school and he develops a personality disorder. Or a woman who is constantly criticised when young becomes a controlling wife and mother.Or a girl who is teased about her weight becomes anorexic.
These things just don't happen. Usually the body will try to figure things out and when it does not succeed in the conventional reasoning, it will develop a coping mechanism or personality change to deal with the stress. A grown woman may act like a child to blank out a sexual assault. A grown man may become a socio-path to blank out the hurt of bullying. 
Anyone and everyone experiences a traumatic situation but cope differently. Some coping mechanisms are so hidden that the person does not exhibit any abnormal behaviour until another similar incident threatens to happen and then they loose it.
Our body, mind and spirit were created to be at peace at all times to promote excellent health and well-being. We live in a world were we are being assaulted by social media, religious bigotry and extremism and all many of human rights and ideologies. We are not protected as we think we should and how we cope in this jungle is down to our psychological, physical and emotional health.
Our perception of everything will affect these three factors. We can change our mindset but it takes willingness and effort form our part.
Peace is our original default state just like a calm lake. When you throw a stone in it it ripples . It will hit anything it comes across as it does so. Similarly when we are traumatised knowingly or not we affect everything around us. We colour everything we see by our trauma and behave likewise. 
People can sense sometimes when some one is dealing with something.
We call it issues.
Everyone has issues and some people love having issues and drama in their lives but the majority of people wish that their issues will go away and that they can experience true inner peace.
Jesus said, "My peace I give to you let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid" Why? Because no matter who you are in this world, there is a bit of troubling of heart and fear going on beneath the surface.
There is one thing someone giving you peace there is totally another thing receiving that peace. It will take more than a verbal acknowledgement of receiving of that peace to deal with a serious traumatic situation. You need healing, so does your mind, body and soul and it will take every inch of bravery, effort and determination to gain it. It is written "seek peace and pursue it". Well it takes seeking and pursuing. It means that peace is not readily visible and can be fleeting so you must seek and pursue. 
I feel dead without peace so I seek and pursue daily. Without peace I feel like I have lost the centre of my being so I am not myself. So I need to do some soul searching to get it back. Sometimes when the trauma is physical such as head trauma or loss of a body part not only is there physical therapy but emotional, occupational and psychological therapy essential to get back to your peace. Traumas change us but we can choose whether it is for the better or for the worse. Next time we will look at some situations that can lead to a need for inner healing and getting our mojo back.