Is This Present Like the Past?

When we say “resolve trauma,” it is not to forget past events and the lessons that came from them, but to help the pre-thinking, body-based systems of perception more accurately ask, “is this present like the past?”

Often in the wake of painful stressors, the nervous system begins to generalize features of the experience; reacting defensively against anything that even remotely looks/feels like the past experience. This is a good survival strategy and necessary for growth and learning.

But not all survival strategies are good life strategies. Survival-based perceptions are quick and powerful but also frequently inaccurate. It is also extremely energy expensive to keep the body constantly primed for defense, and this is because it has lost the ability to accurately assess the level of safety moment-to-moment.

“Resolving trauma” means to connect the conscious thinking mind and sensing body to re-learn how to safely evaluate our environment. We unwind the defenses and let the compressed survival energy vibrate out of the system. As it’s happening, we use the conscious mind to stay present and recognize that it is no longer then but now, and now is different from then.

With that connection, the body and mind experience, in a felt way, that the present is different enough from the past to establish a new relationship to defense.