How To Know If Your Past Trauma Has Been Resolved

Trauma resolution is the basis for your happiness (and also to an extent your health!).  This is why it's so critical to know if you've actually resolved yours or not. 

I get clients all the time who have already done talk therapy/CBT, EMDR, psychedelics, somatic experiencing, shamanic work, etc. to resolve their trauma, and it hasn't worked.   Many of these people thought their trauma was resolved because they had "worked on it", but when we really checked it, they were still in its shackles.   I even see practitioners who tout and use these processes all the time tear up or get very anxious when they talk about their own trauma even though they have used their own process to try to heal. That's not resolution.

Now I'm not saying those approaches are completely ineffective.  A smaller percentage of the time, I meet someone for whom one of those approaches truly resolved their trauma. There is also data to support many of these approaches being helpful with trauma.  That being said, they don't ALWAYS induce their intended result.  I tried almost all of these, and they certainly didn't resolve my own traumas.  

So my suggestion is to use these tips to really FIND OUT if your traumas have been resolved, and I don't just mean big T traumas like rape, physical abuse, and war experiences.   Check your little t traumas too like losses, childhood neglect, childhood bullying, emotional mistreatment, break ups, etc.  The list could go on and on, but my point is, that trauma (from the perspective of how your brain and nervous system work) is anything that induces a long lasting change in your feeling of safety in the world in general or just in certain situations.  These types of experiences, unless they are rewired, WILL dysregulate you in the present when your brain recognizes anything even remotely similar going on.

Case in point: I was once in an emotionally abusive relationship where there was a lot of manipulation, rage,  some threats of physical violence, unpredictability, substance abuse, and the like.  I was left with classic PTSD symptoms for 2 years.  Towards the end of that 2 year period, I started dating my now husband.  Until I rewired that trauma from the abusive relationship, I would get dysregulated to the EXTREME when my new partner would get angry or seemed to be saying anything that could even be remotely manipulative.  At that time, I couldn't even talk about the abusive relationship without shaking and crying.   Now that I've rewired the trauma, I can think about the trauma, talk about it, and be in situations that seem similar, and remain so much calmer.  It's a huge relief, and I want that for you.

I hope the information you find here helps you on your healing journey! If so, please like, comment, and share with others you think it might help!