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Bye Bye Past Trauma & Hurt! Here Comes The Sun Baby!

by Mastin Kipp on February 29, 2012

If something really gnarly happens in your life and then you go seek help, in Western society many caretakers will tell you that you had some kind of “trauma”. And then boom, once you hear that, most people identify with it and then, in some cases, that trauma becomes their identity, not just an event that happened in their life.

Let us review the definition of trauma from the good ole Merriam Webster’s:

Trauma (N):  A disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury.

A lot of people get so identified with what happened, that they stay there, always identified by what happened and, in many cases using that identification as an excuse not to grow.

Now, I am by NO MEANS diminishing that fact that crazy shit happens in life. Bad things happen to good people. There is all kinds of suffering in the world. But that doesn’t have to be where we LIVE!

You see, there are some key words in Webster’s definition. The first word is “state”. The state you are in changes during the day. Sometimes you are in a sleep state, sometimes you are in a groggy state, sometimes you are in an excited state, and if you are lucky enough to be with a partner you Love and end up getting busy with them, you can be in a pretty excited state, too. <devilish grin>

We humans can be in all kinds of different states. The state that we go into when we experience a trauma is totally normal and natural. But afterwards, because we are co-creators of our life, the state we stay in is up to us. This is why I love it when Tony Robbins said that there are no such thing as victims, because once the event happens it’s up to us to choose to stay in a victim identity or choose an empowered story and become stronger.

I can hear some of you right now screaming, “YES MASTIN BUT I WAS ________” and then fill in the blank. I’m not saying that these things didn’t happen and that in that moment you aren’t a victim. Of course you are. But after that moment happens, how you live your life, where you choose to live emotionally is up to you and the meaning you give the events of your life! Moments of victimhood happen, a life of being a victim is chosen and we become a victim of our choice to identify with that moment, instead of growing past it.

The goal is not to avoid pain or to deny what happened to us; the goal is to learn that we have the power within us to change and that starts by not letting an event define us. Instead, we know that painful events happen and when they do, we give them an empowering meaning and choose not to relive and make our identity the trauma that we felt.

Who you are is infinite; you are a child of The Uni-verse and you have been sent here with a specific gift that is only yours to express. The events that happen, happen to shape us, to mold us and to help us step into who we are supposed to be. You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed. You are eternal and a part of a living Uni-verse that supports you. Give us your gift and don’t stay stuck in a moment and let your whole life be defined by one event. You are so much more than that!

Leave a comment or send me an email and let me know how you can let go of being stuck! My email is WhatImGoingThru@TheDailyLove.com

Love and unstuckness,

Mastin

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Mastin Kipp is the CEO and Founder of The Daily Love. Follow him on Twitter here.

Take what resonates with you in this blog and leave the rest.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/DMFGR5R73JACVFUQ7WLPGEDQNM Kimberly Rex, MS Resonance Rep

    It really is about moving from the Newtonian perspective to the New Physics perspective, and how you approach/perceive what is happening. A problem is an opportunity for choice. For more on this: 
    http://windowstotheheart.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/problem-or-opportunity-it%E2%80%99s-a-choice/

  • Lala06mpla

    Thanks.

  • Getting there

    This sounds great, I really do pray that I am able to shift into that kind of freedom.  Right now I am in therapy and finally admitting that the reason all my relationships were a bit messed up was that I have been lying to myself about my codependence which originated in my childhood.  I have come to understand that sleeping in my parent’s bedroom and being used as a buffer by my mother in her relationship with my father was not right.  Anger and sadness pops up sometimes misplaced.  I spoke with my mother today and she was being very domineering and giving me advice about work and it triggered me in all sorts of ways.  I had to stop myself from reacting like a teenager and felt relieved the conversation finished early.  I really pray for freedom from this but it ain’t as easy as waking up one day Eckhart Tolle style and saying, OK I now choose to be free.  The pain is trapped there somewhere and I simply hope that my therapy is doing something to get rid of it and that every adult choice I make will reinforce my self worth. 

    • Olopez1290

      I agree it’s not that simple , and the writing has litte insight into the emotion set – needs a broad base view , which it lacks, not the intellectualizing of much more complicated subject than what it represented . Thanks for the post you make my point, and good luck with your therapy !

  • Kimpresley

    Desiderata…

  • Charles West

    Beautiful truth…there are no victims. I am, we are, and it is.

  • Authenticity

    “Who you are is infinite; you are a child of The Uni-verse and you have been sent here with a specific gift that is only yours to express. The events that happen, happen to shape us, to mold us and to help us step into who we are supposed to be. You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed. You are eternal and a part of a living Uni-verse that supports you. Give us your gift and don’t stay stuck in a moment and let your whole life be defined by one event. You are so much more than that!”
    :O) ……………….. <3                                                                                                                       "** ……………………….. :O)

  • Authenticity

    “The goal is not to avoid pain or to deny what happened to us; the goal is to learn that we have the power within us to change and that starts by not letting an event define us. Instead, we know that painful events happen and when they do, we give them an empowering meaning and choose not to relive and make our identity the trauma that we felt.”<3………………………………………………………………   :o )

  • Authenticity

    “I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.”

    – Carl Jung

  • Nikki Di Virgilio

    Mastin, have you had a traumatic event in your life? 

    • Nikki Di Virgilio

      We are too quick to move on. Too quick to use all the positive, new-agey mumbo jumbo to move on. Life, for me is more substantial when we reflect and bring consciousness and honesty to our experiences,  and although this post has some resonance, it does not sound like it comes from someone who has experienced trauma. You know that event, which happens that you have no context for. I was in a motor vehicle accident. My car flipped and turned all over the freeway, and my daughter was thrown from the car, leaving her on the side of the freeway. I don’t look at myself as a victim. I don’t need sympathy. I don’t need to stay stuck on the story or make the story more than what it is. The story itself, the event itself is more than enough. But—It’s been five months, and a part of me still sits on the side of that freeway. It’s a life altering event- deep and profound enough that no cliche or positive thinking could solve. It is worthy of my attention. My reflection and it is a process. Does it define me—no, but it is a part of me and always will be. To write and share from a place where you’ve not experienced trauma is not truly useful for those that have. It’s a different space, and anyone there can tell you that. 

      • Thank you for this

        Thank you Nikki.  I woke up this morning thinking that equally as dangerous as western society notions of identifying wholly as a victim is believing that there is the quick fix spiritual practice of detaching from your story and seeing your full potential and thus healing your trauma. 

        Recovering from trauma is a process.  It takes time.  Like you say, it takes reflection, bringing consciousness to it and owning your experience not using tools to separate from it artificially. When I first read that recovery can take years I felt annoyed.  I tried all the spiritual tools available.  Now I realise I just need to sink into this and allow the process to unfold. 

        I think a lot of people have experienced trauma in many ways.  And in my mind we have several choices, allow it to sink from our unconsciousness into our consciousness as you say with time and patience, supress it and allow our unconsciousness to repeat it over and over again, or in a sense momentarily acknowledge it and try and detatch from it because the feelings are just too yucky by applying feel good techniques.  I can tell you , I tried the latter, it keeps coming back up.  Better just to sit with it and allow it to unfold.  Healing is not 20 minutes, its not a shift in mind set, its time.  It can be years.  And I do think its not responsible to claim otherwise.