Early Emotional Trauma

Written by Beth Ann Mergens

Just today, I received an unexpected email from an old online portal—a fertility clinic I visited years ago in Denver. As I opened it, I felt a tightness in my chest and a wave of nausea. I paused for a moment to sit with those sensations, and to my surprise, I felt the sting of salty tears rising to my eyes.

It’s been 9 years since my last miscarriage, but my body still knows the memory. So much so, that a simple notification from the fertility clinic portal felt like it transported my body back in time. For me, this is a healthy place. Years of processing, trauma therapy, and just the passing of time, have helped me to heal. Yet my body will always remember.

What does unprocessed trauma look like?

Bessel van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score (2014), explains that trauma is not just an event but the residual imprint left on the body and brain. The symptoms are not just cognitive or emotional (memory issues, depression, anxiety), but also physical and behavioral (racing heart, substance use).

What are the signs of unhealed childhood trauma?

There is plenty of neurobiological evidence that early relational wounds remain with us our entire lives, especially if untended to. Signs include: difficulty trusting others, fear of abandonment, people pleasing, chronic shame or guilt, trouble identifying or expressing emotions.

How do I get unstuck from emotional trauma? 

The human experience is both embodied (living in our nervous system) and relational (shaped by interactions with others). Another way to say it is, our early relationship experiences shape if and when our brain communicates our heart’s pains, longings, and hopes. 

To recover from emotional trauma requires a multilayered approach. The goal is to create re-integration in the brain. At The Voice of the Heart Center, we have specialized training in The Spiritual Root System© which addresses emotional and spiritual recovery so our hearts can return gradually to their God-given capacity for feeling, needing, desiring, longing, and hoping. This can include increasing our window of tolerance, as well as learning mindfulness and self-reflection skills. Therapy like EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) and IFS (Internal Family Systems) are wonderful ways to tend to the brain dis-integration that occurs during emotional trauma.

Our bodies may remember, but with time, care, and the guidance of trained professionals, those memories don’t have to drive our current and future. 

Citations: 

Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.

Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books.

Siegel, D. J. (2012). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. Guilford Press.