Understanding Trauma

Welcome to Heal Talk Tuesdays with Liza, where
transformation begins as we evoke, embrace, and evolve.
Greetings, greetings, greetings, and welcome to Heal Talk
Tuesdays. This is Liza. It’s so good to be here with you, isn’t it?
Today, we’re going to be talking about something that it’s
not as bright and happy, and yet it’s all about healing.
As an Armenian who grew up with very much
with my grandparents, especially my grandma,
my grandparents were part of the Armenian genocide,
who during the genocide, what happened in 1915.
And they were taken to Beirut with the American Red
Cross, and they grew up in the orphanage in Beirut.
They got married there and had three children, and years and years later,
in order to go to Homeland, they stopped at Iran, and they stayed there.
So that’s where my mom was born, and thereafter
meeting my father, and yes, I come as the result.
So, the reason I’m talking about this is because
tomorrow is where Armenians all over the world celebrate,
not only celebrate, but remember this day, as a day to
recognize the genocide that happened to the Armenians.
That put aside, it was how my grandmother shared the story with me.
She would sit for hours and talk about it because she lost her entire family, and
accept her brother, and I believe she had an aunt somewhere that she never found.
So, it was her brother and herself, and of course my grandfather,
he lost most of his family, and they never found his part of family.
They didn’t have ancestry then, right?
So, grandma wrote journals and journals about her history
of what happened, the loss, and walking during the time that
the American Red Cross was taking them from Ushwa to Beirut,
and how she lost her mom, during the walk in her month felt.
And they dragged her over her mom’s body, so she would recall that
and get very emotional, and then she would talk about everything else.
But what she would do is play the piano and write,
see what I didn’t understand, she was journaling.
And journaling was one way of releasing the emotions
connected to experiences, and also documenting a lot of stuff.
Unfortunately, my grandmother, a month before
she passed away at age 94, some years ago, in 19.
Actually, she died few months prior to the 9/11, 2021.
She passed away in July, and that’s how I remember it.
So, that’s another traumatic experience.
Today, I want to talk about how we heal trauma, because
she was the person that taught me without realizing that
through music, through speaking, through journaling, and
finding her peers that there was about eight of the women,
her friends that were through the genocide, that
they came together through the orphanage to Beirut,
and they were all together, and then they
immigrated to Tehran, Iran, they were all together.
And most of them came to America at different times,
but they would sit and play the lotto, and then
talk about the old times, and then believe it or
not, they would play cards and lotto and play music.
And sing the songs of the old times, and they would cry, and
they would commiserate together, and they would laugh of the
hard times they had, and say, do you remember how we used to
cook and wouldn’t have anything, and how you would bring it?
So, in effect, is understanding trauma. All trauma is
stressful, but not all stress is traumatic, and where
it matters is to understand trauma, because the origin
of trauma comes from this Greek word that is wound.
And the wound, the trauma is a wound, it’s a psychic wound.
And I want you to understand, as I come to explain to
you that wounds leave a scar, and imprint on us, either
emotional, psychic, or it marks our nervous system, our body.
And yes, in our psyche, and it shows up in multiple ways that
may not be helpful years later, unless you know how to treat it.
Because the nature of a wound is what? If a wound stays
open, and it’s not treated very well, then it infects.
And that infection, no matter if you put a BAND-AID on it, which is very
temporary, the wound will create a pus, and the pus, we have to treat the pus.
So, when it shows up years later, it might not be helpful. So, the nature of wound is
if it stays open and not treated, it will cause infection and hurt you more. Right?
And it will not heal, because it will reoccur over and over and over. On the
other hand, when you just dismiss it, and you constantly put BAND-AIDS on it, and
it’s a temporary healing, because you have not taken, that you have not opened the
wound and treated it, like what I call in my business, as a hip-nail therapist,
when I work with my clients is evoking what was, which is literally acknowledging,
going deep within, and opening that wound
to acknowledge what was, it becomes callous.
It scars over. And when it scars, what does that mean? It
becomes hard, it becomes rigid, and it is not flexible. Right?
So, there are a lot of us who have wounds in a relationship, perhaps from the past it
can be either war, it can be genocide, it can
be relationships, rape, abuse, any of that.
When you come to people and they say, “Just get over it, time will heal, time
will make it easier, but it does not heal until you are ready to heal it.”.
So, trauma literally stops emotional growth and development.
So, it’s not what happened. See, here is the thing.
Trauma is not what happened to you. It is not the war
that abuse or the pain. It is the wound and the emotions.
Sustained during what happened to you. It is the emotions
that you sustained, that you felt during the experience.
Either through war or through the experience of, yes, either rape or
abuse in a relationship or something traumatic that happened 9/11.
So, it’s the emotion connected to the experience that has to be healed.
And that is exactly what I do when I work with my clients, tapping into,
evoking it first, to come to embrace what is the reality right here right now.
What is it that you are healing in order for us to heal that?
It’s the emotion connected to the habit, to the pattern, to the behavior,
to the trauma so that you can heal and evolve to what it is that you want.
So, here are seven ways that I have found that it becomes easier,
individuals are journaling through this healing that there are
seven steps that I believe will help you or the ones that you love
that have gone through traumatic experiences for them to heal.
One is acknowledged, evoking it. It’s acknowledging it. It’s realizing it, right?
Instead of denying it so that it involves recognizing and
experiencing, accepting the experience that happened to you.
Stop dismissing it and denying it.
We pay more attention in healing our body than our emotional wounds.
So, the next one is seek support.
It can be support from peers, support from family members who have gone through it.
Talk to your grandparents. Talk to your parents.
Talk to your siblings, your loved ones, or talk and share what is happening with you.
Get support groups. I’ve created support groups that we
need here at my office to go through and talk about this.
And it helps your healing much easier. It’s
not healing good, but it will make it easier.
The next one is practice self-compassion, truly be kinder and gentler with yourself.
As you navigate through this healing process in recognizing,
self-compassion is recognizing that there is no judgment.
It’s not judging yourself, analyzing or criticizing and
coming up with all kinds of scenarios and saying, “It
was your fault that you were in the wrong place at the
wrong time. You did this wrong. You said that wrong.
It doesn’t matter because it’s already passed. What you
do with what happened and the emotions connected to it.”.
The traumatic experience, the emotions connected to the trauma
is what matters now. That’s the part that needs to be healed.
And yes, challenge negative thought process.
Instead of going into that negative, analyzing,
judging, criticizing, could have should have would
have even blamed or placing guilt on a nation.
On a country, on a person or even yourself. It doesn’t help until you heal the wound.
And practicing self-care and processing the emotions is another one, self-care,
self-compassion and processing the emotions and lastly setting boundaries for yourself.
Setting boundaries for you to realize.
Hi, Minas, John. Thank you so much. I know so many
of us go through and even you with the loss of
your wife, that’s an emotional wound, but remembering
that fantastic years that you spent together,
the years, the experiences, the good ones, the feelings that you had when you
hugged one another, when you kissed your daughter, the offspring of your love.
And that is how we come to heal.
It’s, yes, sometimes is replacing the emotions of
the negative, the pain, with remembering the good.
Because we forget how much goodness there is in this new
generation, in the relationships and within yourself.
So, one of the things that I talk about is this bracelet, because I’ve
had it for so long, I never take mine off. I even shower with this.
Hi, Seda-Jan. How are you, my dearest?
Is remembering that our past experiences in life,
we, numb our children, even for them not to feel it,
but to remember something and talk about something
without not necessarily understanding something.
Because they may not have really understood and they can’t be
compassionate about something that it’s not spoken. So, stop hiding
children and protecting them constantly from having that pain and
understanding what it is to feel pain, to feel angry, to feel emotions.
And, realizing and understanding that there are healthier
ways to express everything, instead of having tantrums,
but speaking, compassionately speaking their anger, what
it is there angry about, because underneath anger is hurt.
So, what is it that it’s hurting you? I hear you,
I see you. You can share it and speak it. And
if you want to be angry, instead of having the
tantrum, you can have the opportunity to share it.
And if it is difficult to express it in words, then write it. Play the
music. Allow your feelings to be expressed. In a healthier, healthier
boundary, healthier way, and if you don’t feel hurt, instead of raising
the voice when we feel we are not hurt, we’ve raised our voice to be heard.
And it’s all knowing. There is a hurt, there is a wound
that has not been healed. So, those were the steps.
And if there is any way I can be of help to you, through hypnotherapy,
we tap into the subconscious mind that truly stores the emotions,
the emotional connection to patterns, habits, behaviors, and the
traumatic experiences to heal the wound, the emotions connected to it.
And with that, I want to honor my ancestry,
my heritage, my grandparents, and to say, I do
remember you, and will always remember, and I am
proud to be of the Armenian Genocide survivor.
And honor this day, and every day, because being present, being alive is
the most important thing. And for that, I am grateful and field blessed.
And for all of you remembering this day, or any day of your
life, I want you to say, I matter. Thank you. God bless you.
See you next week. Bye, Minhaastian. Bye, Sera.