What is Developmental Trauma?
Unresolved trauma tends to be the ball and chain that imprisons us in a world of self-sabotage, self-defeating behavior, impulsiveness, fear-based decision making, inability to follow through and hideous self-talk.
Much like our shadow, which resides hidden in our unconscious, developmental, childhood trauma has a way of following us everywhere you go. Hence, Jung’s reasoning behind coining of the term “shadow” and more recently Peter Michaelson’s term the “human flaw”. They both represent the hidden unconscious “Prima Materia”, constantly pulling the strings behind the conscious veil.
Michaelson stated,
“The paradox of this deadly flaw is that it compels us to recycle our old hurts from our past, as it tricks us through our defenses into covering up our collusion in our suffering”. These hurts consist of unresolved negative emotions from our past involving deprivation, refusal, helplessness, criticism, rejection, betrayal, abandonment, and an overwhelming sense of unworthiness”.
I will add several additional deadly flaws to Michaelson’s list; unworthiness, unlovable, shame, guilt, powerlessness, victimhood, lack of trust, controlling behavior, disconnection to self and others, withdrawal, isolation, disassociation, soul loss and power loss.
The conscious ego desperately needs to validate our skewed internal core-self-belief system, which makes us feel like we are not good enough, worthy enough or loveable enough. Trauma wounding incurred or realized during our developmental years is typically at the root of why we don’t feel like we deserve love, more importantly what can’t receive or feel love. To wake up each morning feeling less than, not good enough, or hopeless, is not how most individuals envision their life would be like.
Unresolved developmental trauma adversely affects the core of our identity, our thoughts, actions, and behavior, and in effect our relationship with self, others, and the world at large.
To resolve or heal, unresolved early childhood developmental trauma wounds, we must go into the wound for the healing. We don’t heal the wound; the wound heals us. We must go back in time and revisit previous events, experiences, stories, and limiting belief patterns to resolve them. These core wounds where infused into our psychic programming by our parents, family members, teachers, peers etc…
As much as we don’t want to rehash the past it is a necessary aspect of the healing process to be able to let go, move through, and release the past. We need to move into the uncomfortableness instead of running away from these past experiences to become comfortable in our own skin again.
