Hi Love,

Trauma here

I've noticed that the most significant indicator that there are clouds forming is emotion. The heavier the emotion, the more its effects seem to linger. Affecting our relationship like persistent, nagging thunderstorm. So, if we want less stormy and cloudy conditions, we have to do a better job processing emotions.

I'm confident that effort starts with gaining an understanding of emotional triggers. Those sneaky little traps buried deep in our psyche that seem to bite us over and over again. Bites that are impossible to detect unless we understand how to look for them. Trust me- I've been looking. Actually, I think that's probably one of the most helpful strengths I bring to the table in our relationship-- the ability to identify emotional triggers that are impacting us.

After years of spotting buried emotional triggers and watching them tear us apart, I've noticed some patterns. Most importantly is the pattern of subconscious injection. In other words, there are times when our subconscious is particularly vulnerable to a (near) permanent imprint that's prone to impact us for years to come. And when ranking by potential impact, the most prominent is the period of childhood through early adolescence is when our psyche is a malleable lump of clay. Next, in terms of impact are periods of extreme negative emotion. So when you pair the negative emotional events with the sponge of a developing subconscious, you find the most profound impacts.

Through mid-adolescence, our parents are the primary providers of emotional events-- both good and bad. Naturally, it's the darkest parts of our parents that are going to rear their ugly heads and create negative emotional impact. For example, consider a parent whose darkest attributes are anger and selfishness. Traits that may, for example, manifest in the parent enrolling the child in a sport that they personally enjoy, despite the child showing participatory distaste. Then, whenever outcomes in the sport conflict with the parent's desires, they yell at the child, due mostly to their own anger issues. Not knowing any better, the child internalizes the negative emotion from being yelled at as their own fault.

Since children lack the context to empathize, they assume almost everything as their own fault. Sadly, then, emotions that are clearly induced by a parent end up creating inadequacy in the child's developing mind. More concretely, any emotional damage inflicted on the child gets cemented as a wound in their self image. And as with any wound we receive, our brain starts coordinating repair work as soon as it realizes there's a problem.

Unfortunately, healing emotional wounds isn't nearly as straightforward as healing physical ones, which is probably why I'm so focused on emotional fixes. They're exceedingly complex, and often times need help healing properly. To extend the comparison, imagine you breaking your arm and not resetting the bones properly with a well-placed cast. Well, the body is going to fuse the bones regardless of whether or not they're placed properly. But if they're not placed properly, then there's likely to be more pain and breaks.

Unlike physical healing, where we can clearly feel the repair process with aptly placed physical pain, the evidence of our emotional healing is far more subtle. Triggers are the best place to start looking. So whenever you feel aggravation or emotion triggered by an action from someone else that really shouldn't be that big of a deal, the existence of the trigger is your psyche alerting you of a wound in your self image that needs healing. So if you find yourself getting angry at the mere fact that someone else is angry (not even at you), then it tells you that you've been hurt by anger.

Ironically, your subconscious will subliminally but proactively seek to thrust you into situations that give the wounds of your self image a chance to heal. In this way, we add more metaphorical bone to the fractured part of our inner self. Unfortunately, it's not as convenient as the brain releasing proteins and minerals to do the repair work. Instead, emotional healing is done with emotional experiences. Knowing this fact, it's no wonder that relationships are the most common venue for emotional healing, since relationships, especially romantic ones, are the most emotionally rich constructs humans engage in.

So until we heal our self image, our subconscious is busy attracting people that will give us the most opportunity to heal. This notion explains 'relationship patterns' in a nutshell. So when we realize that every emotional fracture is looking to someone (or more rarely, something) else as a way to encounter the cause of the fracture, we can put ourselves in a position to ensure that the additional emotional material actually contributes to proper healing. Otherwise, the additional emotions will make things worse, especially in a relationship.

To facilitate proper healing, it helps to first draw awareness to the types of emotions we're prone to experience and why. Again, this ability comes from studying our triggers and their causes. Then, when we're triggered, we're still likely to have the emotion, but with an enlightened perspective that allows us to both keep the emotion under control, as well as learn from it after it subsides. Truly learning and internalizing emotional lessons are what guide proper healing.

So hopefully now you have a better understanding of why I pay so much attention to emotions and always want to talk about our feelings. It's not like I enjoy the exercise in and of itself, but getting to the root cause of our emotions is the only path to healing. And while the healing process is never finished, the further down that path we get together, the more peace we'll have.

To more peace, less clouds, and more sun,

Trauma