The Tonic to Childhood Trauma
There are many tragedies that come with growing up alongside developmental trauma and adverse experiences, but the biggest thing that it threatens to take away from us, is our sense of self.
For many years, I was unable to be present during sex, I struggled to take a deep, full breath, I struggled with constipation, never knowing when I needed to go to the toilet, and I also was unable to feel when I was full or hungry.
I had many things to correct all of the above, different techniques different protocols, different professionals, to no avail.
If you really look at all of the things that I listed, they all have in common is my own ability to place my attention on myself. My ability to be in my body.
The occurrence of one leaving their body within a traumatic experience is not uncommon and it's also not unuseful. The danger lies in what that does to our sense of self. Our sense of self has two meanings;
Our personal awareness of our unique identity, encompassing your distinct thoughts, beliefs, values, personality, and characteristics that differentiate you from others. It's a multifaceted self-concept that includes how you view yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. This all influences our judgments, motivations, behaviours, how you think, what you believe, and what you value. Your sense of our Self meanings having insight into our internal self and a understanding of who you are as a person.
Literally our ability to physically sense ourselves.
Both of these meanings are not complete and cannot be had without the other. They essentially are the same thing.
Trauma intercepts within the second meaning which then cuts off our ability to fulfil the first meaning.
We build our sense of self upon bodily signals.
Without cognition or awareness of what is happening within us, we are incredibly restricted in the way we can authentically contact and navigate the world. We will have trouble emotionally regulating, expressing and articulating ourselves, and making choices that are right for us. This is a major source of destruction for many adults who have had a traumatic childhood.
Personally my life did not get mine until my sense of self was redeveloped and repaired, I was able to know what I needed to take care of myself according to what I was feeling. I was able to know what I liked and what I didn't like. I was able to feel what I valued and what I believed in and my personality also got stronger because I could feel how I was feeling, which helped me find who I am and what I have inside.
This sense has a name, it is called interception. And it is missing in many trauma treatments.
But the field of research around the topic in both neuroscience and psychology is rapidly growing and recognises the importance of this sense as the epicentre of our personal wellbeing.
Antonio Damasio (USC) in the 1990s, proposed that emotional events begin with non-conscious changes in bodily states, called “somatic markers”: Meaning the physiological reaction occurs before you are aware, its only when the brain detects the alteration to the body’s internal state, through the a part of the brain called the insula and interoception, that we actually experience the feeling and allow it to shape our behaviour. Without the back-and-forth between the brain and the body, which is constant, the feelings of happiness, sadness or excitement would simply not exist for us. We would have no pathway to experience them.
There are two components to interception really being the centre for our personal well-being, and to explore them, let's look at the two most common and problematic mental states in our world currently, anxiety and depression.
People experiencing depression show poor interceptive awareness. Theres a lesser ability to feel their bodily signals and this lines up with the common description of depression being emotional numbers and the sense that they can feel nothing at all.
In contrast people, with anxiety are attentive to their introspective skills but they do not read them accurately which can lead to panic and catastrophising.
So we can see that it's important to be able to sense and to be able to interpret what we sent with accuracy.
And if you've been disconnected from your internal signals, both pop these things will take some practice.
But the good news is anyone can strengthen the intercept since our body is made to support us to be able to sense the internal state of ourselves. and arguably it's one of the most important things we can do for making our life meaningful and authentic.
Having a stronger sense of self means that to our conscious awareness, we have clear signals of the experience that we're having and this means our choices and better.
It's a simple sense that our body begs us to have, that allows us to have a life that is autonomous and hand built by us. it's beautiful and nerdy and simple and profound and it helped me to fall in love with life and living it, and I have no doubt that building your sense of self will do the same for you.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032713005247
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921005122
