There are many interpretations of what the gifts are of trauma. It’s difficult at first to see the gifts in some of what we have had to go through, but there is always a gift in it we just have to search much harder to find it.
From my own personal experience, I would have to say some of the gifts (or you can even call them lessons) I had to learn because of being put into traumatic experiences are things like, I learned how to say NO. No is a complete sentence that requires no further explanation on your part or because someone else doesn’t like your complete sentence.
-I learned how to be independent, I learned about the things I did want because of the things I experienced that I didn’t want.
-I learned how to do differently than what I was taught, because what was done to me was painful and I didn’t want another to feel that kind of pain.
-I learned how to have more gratitude in my life and to start seeing myself as a person who responded appropriately to an inappropriate or difficult event (or many as the case may be).
Gabor Mate, is a well known trauma specialist, recently released a new documentary called “The Wisdom of Trauma”.
I decided to explore and research more on what he said, took some more of his courses and in them, he stated that the “wisdom” of trauma is the loss of your connection to yourself and experiencing trauma leads us back to ourselves. Why do you think you disconnected from yourself? Your mind/body disconnected to protect you in the past and although it might have worked at that time, it’s now screaming at you to pay attention and work through it.
This is where doing inner child work and re-parenting is extremely beneficial.
Every time you are upset in the present, it isn’t because of the present, it’s because of the trauma that occurred in your past. Think of your trauma like it is a wound. This wound re-opens when something triggers that trauma within you, it’s like something picking at your wound and the pain resurfaces. If you don’t take the proper steps to protect the wound and actually heal it, it will get worse over time causing more and more damage until you finally pay attention instead of ignore or avoid it.
