Why Should We Treat Psycho-emotional Trauma Differently from Physical Injury?

Before I dive into today’s topic, let me ask you this…?

Have you, a family member, or coworker, ever suffered from an injury that didn’t heal properly?

Maybe it was a sprained ankle, whiplash, or a broken bone.

Do you feel fine now or are there ongoing issues?

I’ve learned from over 25 years as a doctor that your body has an inborn mechanism to heal itself, even if it’s not in the way you’d like.

For example, a client recently broke a bone that wasn’t identified initially. By the time it was caught, new bone had already formed even though the bone pieces weren’t aligned.??

My client had to have the bone re-broken so that it could be properly set. Ouch!

So, whether it’s a sprain, strain, or fracture, your body will fill in the broken bits with new bone or scar tissue.

The challenge is that this scar tissue will make your body less efficient because of faulty mechanics. You may experience:

• pain and inflammation that limit your activities
• re-injury
• using that area will take much more energy than before
• your function and comfort to deteriorate over time because of the wear and tear?
• fear of reinjury, causing you to be extra vigilant
• frustration that you can’t have your old life back and feel betrayed by your body

You can’t just get over it by ignoring it and pretending it doesn’t exist.?

It doesn’t have to be this way. The answer is simple… get help.

Now, what if this is psychoemotional trauma?

It too will “heal” and leave scars.?

You may be:

• prone to more stress and trauma?
• Chronically exhausted because it drains your energy faster
• Feeling low or even high-grade psycho-emotional “pain” that leaves you drained, fearful, and hypervigilant of reoccurrence.?
• frustrated that you can’t have your old life back and feeling betrayed by the trauma
• Suffering physical health issues, like insomnia, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disease, infections, and even cancer.

It is so powerful, it can even modify the expression of your DNA to hurt your descendants’ health.

The answer here is also simple… Get help.?

The challenge is that it’s not necessarily easy, whether it’s because of poor access to effective help, or because of the shame and stigma surrounding trauma and asking for help since it’s “all in your head.”

It’s time for us to accord the same respect to mental and emotional trauma that we give to physical trauma and injury.

It’s just a different part of the body, and the impacts are similar.??

My heart breaks for everyone who has experienced any kind of trauma or PTSD, especially knowing that they don’t have to keep suffering.?

We can stop the suffering of trauma. In fact, it’s imperative that we do so before we can shift from stress into true success.?

This requires that you first identify the source of your trauma.?

Now, you may already think you know of any trauma you’ve suffered.

And did you know there are three types of trauma??#trauma

You might be very surprised to find out that you may be suffering the consequences of traumas you weren’t even aware of.

1. Personal Trauma: This is the one we most commonly think of — the significant events you suffer or witness. It can also be cumulative microtrauma.?

For instance, the medical community has stated that COVID and the events of the past year and a half have been so traumatic that many are now suffering from PTSD due to the constant fear and threat to our lives, finances, relationships, and health.?

How has COVID impacted you, your family, or coworkers?

2. Intergenerational Trauma: This is where children have been exposed to their parents’ and grandparents’ post-traumatic stress responses, so that they are unconsciously taught to fear and react to the same things their parents did.?

This has been well documented in grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. It can also occur in other instances, as with family violence.

3. Epigenetic Trauma: Now, research is showing that PTSD can be inherited without any contact with the traumatized individuals.?#PTSD

I’ve termed this “Epigenetic PTSD”.?

“Epigenetic” means that your genes are actually modified so that the next generations are scarred by the same trauma.?

This has even had physical effects like increased disease and mortality in descendants of prisoners of war from the American Civil War, and from the Dutch “Hunger Winter” or famine at the end of WWII.?

While it is not yet clear just how many generations may be affected because the research is still ongoing, we do know that it can impact at least three generations.?

And any contact with the same individuals (e.g. your parent or grandparent) would reinforce the impact.

The ramifications of this are huge, from whole cultures suffering form the Holocaust, slavery, tyranny, famines, wars, and the Great Depression, just in the past 100 years.?

Even if you don’t belong to one of those cultures, you may still be impacted.?

For instance, my grandfather was sold into indentured slavery at the age of 9 years old and torn away from his older brother by the British government when they decided to clear out their orphanages to save money.?

They were known as Home Kids.

My father suffered immense PTSD from atrocities he experienced and witnessed as a U.N. peacekeeper in the Congo.

Do you know your family history?

Was there suicide, violence, or other trauma?

Now, add in your own personal traumas and you have a swirling Molotov cocktail just waiting to explode inside of you that you may not have even been aware of.?

So, isn’t it time to release this trauma that’s been dragging you down, mentally, emotionally, and even physically?

To support you in this, check out the video here for a how-to exercise based on the Trauma Tapping Technique.?

The power of this simple exercise is that you can do it on your own, as often as you want and need.?

And tapping on these powerful acupuncture points can reverse the epigenetic PTSD by turning off undesirable genes like those involved in stress, cancer, and inflammation. They can also turn on desirable genes like those involved in a strong immune system.?

To help with the tapping exercise that we’re going to do today, here is a tapping diagram:

If you feel worse after tapping, reach out for help. It may mean that you have stirred up a hornet’s nest of trauma and need support in clearing it.?#selfheal

And if you do this exercise every day for 10-15 minutes, you will feel a shift in your physical, psycho-emotional, and energetic wellbeing.

Let us know in the comments how you feel afterward!

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Dr. Irene Cop, CEO & Founder of the Stress to Success S.H.I.F.T. Institute