FAQ #4: Emotional Trauma

Here I am again; it’s the Real Charles Browne. We’re counting down frequently asked question number 4, which happens to be Emotional Trauma.

The Hidden Impact: Emotional Trauma and Self-Discovery

So this is another one of those weird topics where people don’t necessarily come right out and ask the question, but I have found that it is typically a root cause of what’s blocking a person from discovering their true selves to living their best life. 60% of adults have some form of neglect, abuse, or trauma in their background, reaching as far back as infancy.

The Alarming Prevalence of Emotional Trauma in Society

One out of four kids will experience significant emotional or physical trauma or witness substantial emotional or physical trauma before age four, which is insane to me. Additionally, at least 50% of women will experience some traumatic emotional or physical trauma in their lives, which is heartbreaking.

So we have a couple of different issues and a couple of other problems going on. First and foremost it’s that we, we have to deal with our trauma, and then the second part of that is we have to stop. We must stop the cycles of emotional and physical abuse and trauma within our society.

Breaking the Cycle: Confronting Emotional and Physical Abuse

The reason that I bring this up, though, is that for you to live your, you know, discover your identity and live your life of purpose, you have to make sure that everything that’s preventing you, anything that’s stopping you from being that authentic person is dealt with.

And I have found, unfortunately, that most of our emotional or physical trauma gets suppressed, ignored, or somehow avoided. You can do a little test for yourself and think about an aspect of your life where you have a recurring issue repeatedly.

Overcoming Obstacles: Healing Emotional Trauma for Authentic Living

Maybe you’re dating the same type of people or getting to the same place in your career before you have to switch jobs, move to a new state, find a different place…change, change, change. There’s always something in your life that you feel is limiting you and blocking you, and if you change your circumstances, if you move to a new place, start a new job, have a new boss, have a new mate, or spouse, whatever, that that problem would go away. And you’ll get it right this time. This business venture wasn’t right, but next time it will be.

Well, those are the manifestations, the expressions of you having blockage inside you.

The Lingering Effects: Unresolved Emotional Trauma in Daily Life

So, what happens when we experience that kind of trauma in our lives is that, especially at young, young ages is we figure that somehow we caused it. We caused it; we invited it; we allowed it; we enabled it. And because of that, there’s a whole bunch of toxic shame we put on ourselves that makes us feel like we deserve it.

Unveiling Toxic Shame: Addressing the False Belief of Deserving Abuse

Well, it’s a rare individual who deserves to be abused or traumatized (i.e., None). So, a big part of the work you need to do to live your best life is, like it or not, to stop avoiding that shit.

You have to do the work to sit down and think about what happened. What happened, what was it, and you have to work through it.

Taking Responsibility: Acknowledging and Processing Emotional Trauma

Now disclaimer #7005 I am not a licensed therapist, psychiatrist, or psychologist. Therefore, if you have a significant trauma that requires psychiatric help, I encourage you to get that; you won’t get that from me. What you’ll get from me is a kick in the ass to at least deal with it.

Trauma Types: Acute vs. Chronic Emotional Trauma

So I believe, though, that regardless of the type of the trauma, whether it was chronic or acute, and the difference between those: acute is a single violent act, I won’t get into details, but a single traumatic act or event that happened in your life one time that’s an acute form of trauma. Chronic is for those of us who grew up in damaged homes or broken homes, were around alcoholics and drug addicts, and that behavior was chronic; it was repeating over and over.

That can have the same impact obviously in different ways.

Anyway, the point is regardless of whether you have suffered acute or chronic emotional trauma in your past, what I believe you can do; what I believe is in our control is that we have a choice.

Empowering Choices: Taking Control of the Healing Journey

I’m not saying that you have a choice just to turn that trauma off; in fact, it’s probably what you’ve been trying to do for most of your life is to pretend it didn’t happen and ignore it and hope it goes away. It does not go away.

Painting over Rust: Temporary Relief versus Dealing with Emotional Trauma

Emotional trauma is like rust, and when you try these little tactics like meditations or daily affirmations or going for walks or listening to music or reading whatever Oprah told you to read, that’s like trying to paint over that rust. It looks nice for a minute, and it feels good for a minute, but eventually, that stuff will come back to the surface.

Late-stage Manifestations: Dealing with Past Trauma in Later Life

Especially when we get to the later stages of our life, we think it’s gone, we think it’s over, we think we don’t have to deal with it anymore, but the truth is those later stages of life where those traumas (and unhealthy coping mechanisms) manifest into bad behaviors, let’s just put it that way.

So, as I’ve stated in earlier videos, I believe the root of all evil is fear, and traumatic emotional or physical, or other events like this, cause fear. Absolutely without question, I don’t care what kind of a badass you are, especially if you were young or a child; if you were in a traumatic event like that, you felt powerless, and powerlessness makes us feel fear.

That also turns into our coping mechanism. We withdraw, we separate from others, and it develops deep-seated anxieties. Suppose you’ve ever had a panic attack or anxiety attack because you were in a certain place or situation. In that case, you may not have registered consciously, but subconsciously you felt very uneasy and very anxious in a space, so much so that you had to leave or get out of that situation; it’s very likely that something in that environment triggered you and was reminiscent of some event from your past.

A Generational Responsibility: Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Abuse

So later in life, dealing with those things and putting them away is more important than ever. As I stated, number one is for ourselves and our benefit. But number two, so you don’t pass that shit on and learn how to change your behavior so you don’t pass that on to the next generation. One in four children, ONE IN FOUR CHILDREN, suffers emotional abuse before age four. That’s insane and unnecessary.

So, again emotional trauma is a root cause. Anything else you’re trying to do with your life if you are trying to ignore some trauma from your past? You’re just going to get through it by building some multi-million dollar business, or you’re going to marry prince or princess charming, or you’re going to move to the mountains or the beach, and you think that’s going to resolve your trauma, that’s not it.

External Solutions vs. Internal Healing: The Necessity of Confronting Trauma

Those things are external; they will not make you happy (or heal the trauma) or make that pain disappear. You have to deal with that emotional trauma.

There’re lots of ways to do that, and it depends on you, your preferences, your state of mind, and your belief in your ability to make choices in your own life.

But before you try to do anything, this is why this ratchets up on the list as one of the most significant topics. It’s a little deceptive of me to call it a frequently asked question, but it’s a frequently uncovered question. It’s a frequently uncovered issue for most people that there’s some trauma that they need to deal with.

Okay,  I’ve babbled on long enough for this. I appreciate you reading and continuing to read.

You can comment or reach out to me directly at therealcharlesbrowne.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Take care.