What does trauma informed mean?
It’s a buzz word at the moment, but what does Trauma Informed mean? Since I offer trauma informed sessions I think this is really important! I’ve trained in Compassionate Inquiry a psychotherapeutic approach by Dr Gabor Mate and now a mentee of his.
Trauma informed means we look at the point where coping mechanisms were developed to deal with specific life situations.
In this sense ‘trauma’ is defined as the response WITHIN us, rather than the external event.
So if something happened, and I developed a coping mechanism that changed me, that kept me not in my true authenticity - then that is what we are calling trauma in this sense.
“The word, “trauma” is an inner injury, a lasting rupture or split within the self due to difficult or hurtful events. By this definition, trauma is primarily what happens within someone as a result of the difficult or hurtful events that befall them; it is not the events themselves. “Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you””
One client is very knowledgable, well trained and quite eloquent in her speaking. However she crumbled in self doubt anytime someone invited her to give a workshop or talk.
When we explored this more deeply, it turns out that there was a moment when she was about 7 years old and contributing to a conversation at the family dinner table, and her father said, “well what do you know about that?”. This happened on more than one occasion. The client had believed her parent, over her authentic truth (which we all do as children, as we want to believe our caregivers are right). There is then a part of my client, stuck at age 7, thinking she doesn’t know anything, and who is she to share a workshop to talk.
Rather than ONLY working on her confidence, we took the trauma informed way to get to the root of where this behaviour stemmed from.
From here, there is then a process of working with that 7 year old part, acknowledging it’s role. It served her well as a child, but is now holding her back as an adult. So we can begin to rehabilitate and reintegrate this part, so that it wouldn’t hold my client back so much.
I find meditation and yoga nidra very helpful, as they help us to identity with our authentic self, rather than identify with our wounded parts.
This is what I call Trauma Informed Spiritual Mentoring - I’ve trained in Commpassionate Inquiry with Dr Gabor Mate, and now a mentee of his, I’ve over a decade of experience in Spiritual Pschology and Meditation and Mindfulness, together it’s a powerful combination.
If you’d like to find out more about my mentoring style and working with me, please get in touch.