I am currently studying a year long professional training course in Compassionate Inquiry with Gabor Maté which refers to response flexibility with regard to emotional issues. He shows how historic trauma can mean that we do not respond to current circumstances in the present, but from a past memory state. He refers to it as being a prisoner from the past and I visualise it as being stuck in a set pattern which means we follow a familiar (if unwelcome) groove in the way we interpret our experiences.
For example, if we were belittled in childhood and made to feel unimportant we may continue to see the world through that lens. So, when someone is late to meet us, we immediately feel that we are insignificant and not worth prioritising. This might make us feel irritated, resentful or sorry for ourselves. In reality, it might be their disorganisation, an unforeseen circumstance, their relaxed and spontaneous attitude to life, a miscommunication, a mistake, them not prioritising their own needs or one of many other reasons. But we tend to make a beeline for the explanation we are familiar with. If we were totally at ease with ourselves and someone was late to meet us, we could respond to the situation very differently. We may still have a conversation with them about timekeeping but the emotional charge would not be present.
In neurological terms, trauma in early years disrupts the development of the prefrontal cortex, meaning that our emotional responses, decision making and impulse control are impaired. Our response to stress (or perceived stress) is heightened, faster and tends to follow a set pattern. If we are exposed to a lot of anger as a child, we learn to be hyper-aware of it as a danger and unconsciously escalate our response to it very rapidly by entering into a fight, flight, freeze or appease state. I have begun to think of it in terms of ‘all roads lead to Rome’. We start responding to many external conditions in the same way if we have a fixed subconscious belief.
So, can we have respons-ability for our reactions? I would say yes. Compassionate Inquiry follows a process which enables us to identify our formative experiences and the beliefs we developed about the world (eg: there is never enough, I have to please people, loved ones always leave, water is dangerous). By revisiting the original trauma in a safe, emotionally regulated environment, we can disperse the suppressed feelings around it and find new ways of experiencing the world. We can interrupt established response patterns and allow new ways of being to grow.
There is another reason I would say yes. I never cease to be amazed at how homeopathy can sift through the layers of experiences and trauma in peoples’ lives, uncovering and resolving issues which have been stuck or buried for years. Even since the womb. The concept of implicit memory is widely discussed in trauma work – that is feelings we have that we have no explanation for. Sometimes we have blocked a memory and sometimes it is because the event happened before we had words or understanding. People who have lost a twin in utero can have a feeling of grief or loss and the feeling that ‘something is missing’ even if they were never told that it had happened until much later in life. Whether they had their own experience of it or picked up on the emotions of the adults around them is a hard to say but clearly their bodies and nervous systems have an awareness of absence.
We have many remedies which enable us to go ‘back in time’ to tackle the original cause of an issue.
- Our old friend Arnica can be used to heal physical trauma in the distant past.
- Opium is often indicated where the client is ‘stuck in fear’ after a shock or scary experience. This can be useful in cases of PTSD or other cases where the old trauma keeps resurfacing in thoughts dreams, actions or responses.
- The core of the remedy Umbilical Cord is described as being about ‘finding again the purity of self, the unadulterated self, before the woundings happened’.
- On a more physical level, Sycamore Seed works to release the tension in the intercranial membranes and the locking of the sphenoid bone which can occur after dehydration caused by viruses, fevers and colds.
- Natrum Sulph is one of the main remedies used to resolve permanent mental changes which have occurred following historic head injuries.
- Remedies such as Carcinosin and Natrum Mur, among others, can be used to gently release suppressed emotions such as anger and grief.
As I get further into the Compassionate Inquiry course, I will be offering free sessions to fulfill the requirements for case studies. Watch this space!
