Places We Go when We are Hurting

Each one of us are being pulled in many different directions, even within a single moment, let alone a single day. You could say you feel fragmented… which could easily be interpreted as different pieces of you are getting asked to take care of different things.

Another way of looking at being fragmented is from a protection stand point. For example, we start life with our true selves and at 4, 7, 9… we move through a trauma, say our parent’s divorce, that while we experience it, our nervous system and our minds have no idea how to process it. This becomes a part of us, but it hasn’t been looked at, worked through or made sense of. It is pure emotion and often time, painful.

So what our bodies and subconscious do is create a coping mechanism to protect us. It splits a part of us off to create that voice that will take care of us. Meanwhile, the emotion gets stuffed down and we take our next steps. (This type of thing can happen at any age, although many times this begins in our childhood.) It was out of sight, therefore, out of mind! And while this helps in the moment, it doesn’t mean it disappeared. It actually stays there until we process it and integrate it.

It remains stored in our nervous system and comes out in different ways. When we are scared or hurting, this ‘Protector’ comes out and takes over using the coping mechanism of our childhood and uses it to ‘protect’ us. This might look like your mother coming over to see you and wanting to help with the prep of a stressful meal. When she decides to do dishes, but is right in the way, you snap at her because she didn’t ask and you had a flow. But, in reality, you felt that as a child, you “couldn’t do anything right”, and her stepping in triggers that sense of “See! Even though I am a 45 year old woman with a full life of my own, she still sees me as incapable.”

If we can see it for what it is, that’s amazing!! But, often, we cannot. So it shows up as anger, frustration, sadness, grief, hopelessness, anguish or despair, just to name a few. 

Therefore, it remains stored in the body, at the nervous system level; because we just didn’t know how at the time to feel it, work with it and release it. And along with the stuffing of that pain, we likely experience some negative thoughts about ourselves or life. Thoughts like, “I’m not worthy” or “I’m not good enough” or “No one likes me” or “It’s my fault”. If these are regular thoughts, it might be that the nervous system is constantly in a chronic survival mode.

The first step out of this state of being, is to acknowledge what part of you is trying to protect you. What are they telling you, and why is that there? Most likely you can begin a small conversation with this fragmented part. They show up to protect you, and you can gently let them know, I’m able to handle this in a different way now. It is important to begin these conversations and understand them… this is how we can begin to heal with it.

Let’s Keep Talking,

Pamela