So some stuff popping up in my own experience using these subs has me questioning what is really the best approach to moving forward.
First off I define trauma as anything that causes a psychological disruption strong enough in your mind to cause longstanding negative habits, beliefs, or behaviors. So it doesn’t matter what the trauma is, just how you were impacted by it. I’m not a psychologist however, this is just my definition.
That being said can we truly “clear” trauma? Is that how it works? Or is it our association with it? This makes me think of the difference between rebirth and regeneration subs. Two difference approaches. One reframes, the other seeks to heal. There’s all sorts of assumptions that the mind is like a container and “stores” stuff. This negative stuff can be removed or released. But what if the mind is closer to a computer? Even when you delete something on a computer it isn’t truly erased, it’s overwritten.
If trauma is more like a reaction to events that unfold and our minds accessing what it’s “supposed” to execute, then it makes sense that new execution patterns would be faster vs trying to go in and rewrite a highly emotional charged pattern. I’ve learned in a heightened state of “fight or flight” all rationality and logic goes out the window. So diving back in to old wounds, emotional pain, etc. it’s not exactly all that great for reframing if you basically re-experience it. And I think trauma is stored as snapshots in time, they say when PTSD sufferers are triggered it’s not merely a memory of what happened but it feels like they are re-experiencing it in the moment. Obviously trauma exists on a spectrum and those re-experienced feelings are going to vary in strength. But they would still clearly have some impact in all people.
I have in the past made the poor connection that the more emotional pain you’re in, the more you’re healing. But that isn’t the case. In fact it can cause the opposite reaction as you further reinforce the patterns that caused you issues in the first place. So it just had me wondering if “healing” was truly a thing or if that’s a concept that has been made up by people and the true mechanism operates in an entirely different way.