Do we really understand what trauma is and how healing works?
How do we heal from trauma? We are sensitive multilayered and multifaceted beings; one of the significant factors within personal healing involves identifying parts of us which no longer resonate and allowing them to leave. Through different healing techniques, we can feel and sense more fully the presence of ourselves and access deeper healing. Listening carefully to our body, connecting with our spirituality and drawing our awareness to what we feel through art and colour. This process allows us to recognise blockages or things which don’t belong to us within our energy system and release them to find their own space, enabling a deeper connection to our innate self-healing ability.
Identifying what’s happening with people
We live in a fast-paced world and lead incredibly busy lives, interacting with many different people, groups and communities each day. When you finally get time to relax and reflect on the day’s events, have you ever looked back and noticed how certain words or phrases in some conversations landed differently? How some interactions carry a charge that seems disproportionately intense compared to the words used and their meaning?
Some people have a very strong reaction to certain situations and conversations. After careful thought on this topic, an insight arrived in my mind; The words are meant for us, but the energy attached is often connected to something deeper, trauma that is unresolved.
The words are for us, the energy is connected to historic trauma
To look at this clearly, the superficial meaning within the conversation is meant for you. On the surface, you’ve annoyed me, and this is me telling you. “Can you please do this?” or “Can you please stop doing this!” Why do some people have a far stronger reaction than just “OK, no problem”? I believe it’s down to the energy attached, the loaded charge that can sometimes accompany the words, which is not for you. Don’t take it personally. This energy comes from a deep-rooted memory or pain that needed to be shared and needed power and energy, but now, we have the opportunity to resolve it.
This energy often becomes more present when people are irritated, or something trivial is made into a big deal. Again, it is not for you. Don’t take it personally.
How do we heal from trauma?
What is the trauma or pain looking for? Simply, it is looking for energy.
When something surfaces within us, a trauma or old belief system, it simply wants to make itself known to our conscious mind. We feel a frustration; it is not us, but something within us that is seeking power. The frustration manifests and we lash out, looking for energy in the form of a reaction from others which becomes the fuel. Someone bites back with anger, giving their energy. Someone shows compassion, giving their energy. By doing this, we have fed the old trauma.
When we unpick many of these old belief systems, there is often nothing there. They are ideas planted in our mind, usually many years before, ideas we have attached emotion to. When something triggers the belief system again, we don’t recognise the original idea, we just have an emotional reaction and mistake it as part of who we are. The emotion gives power and energy to the trauma.
When we remove the emotional charge and simply see the idea, we realise it doesn’t have a self, it has been a paradigm of belief, it is nothing but a thought that no longer feels right or belongs to us. It’s not us, more than likely it was never us. This realisation allows the idea to dissolve and be processed. It no longer holds significance.
Finding these outdated systems
Trauma lives in our bodies and only reveals itself to our conscious mind when the time is right. Emotion is not just stored in memory or our energetic field, but in the nervous system, manifesting through pleasure, pain, actions, and breath. A comment or situation in the present might trigger a full-body reaction and bring forth past trauma. Why? Because the energy of what’s said is tangled in the emotional resonance of past experiences.
When we hold space for someone’s healing (or our own) we are not just listening to words. We are witnessing energy in motion, shown through the body. This is the foundation of somatic healing. Listening to and observing the body with the understanding that to process trauma, we must go beyond mental narrative and back into the body. Words may trigger, but it is the energetic space where the deeper trauma resides, and that’s what we feel attached to the words.
How can we work with this?
Somatic healing is widely practised today. Holding space with this awareness allows someone to go deeper into their own feelings without our reaction fuelling the trauma. Our role is to engage fully and hold space without projection or judgement, simply offering space, healing and not offence.
Physically, we stay grounded.
Emotionally, we stay in our own space.
Mentally, we take responsibility for the words directed towards us, but nothing more.
Spiritually, we honour the energy of the unseen world.
The less we do, and the less we engage, the more we allow the other person to feel themselves, process their emotion and observe their own experience.
Spiritual or energy healing is another form of healing based on holding space and allowing the flow of energy through the energy system. The practitioner becomes aware of this flow and helps the client connect to their own purity. This helps the client discern more clearly what belongs to them and what no longer serves. Their awareness may come more on a mental or spiritual level primarily, rather than a physical one.
What can art do?
Creating an authentic methodology, my work with “creative healing”. In my work as an artist, medium, healer and facilitator, I’ve studied spiritual healing at the Harry Edwards Foundation and somatic healing to deepen my understanding of the body. I am a tutor at the Arthur Findlay College working with energy and mediumship. With these insights and modalities, I have developed my own methodology, adding the dimension of art and creative healing.
Healing doesn’t come from reacting to the superficial. It comes from feeling deeply what arises, with self-awareness.
Working 1:1 with clients, I combine somatic and energetic healing while integrating art and colour to highlight visually on paper blockages and sensations which can be felt in a person’s energy field. This makes them more tangible to the conscious mind. Seeing something visually while feeling the sensation adds a powerful dimension to the experience.
It’s been a profound evolution of my work. Understanding energy and somatic healing and finding my own path by bringing art, spirituality and intuition together to offer what’s needed in the moment. The artwork is then given to the client to support their ongoing creative healing journey.
For more information about healing and transformation, please visit: https://www.richardstuttle.com/healing/
The opportunity for healing and release
So, when something feels disproportionate in conversation, when words or phrases hit harder than expected, pause. The words are for you, but the energy behind them is trauma coming to the surface, looking for fuel or release. Look at this from both sides, what’s coming up within your system and what’s coming up for the person speaking.
Consider this moment an opportunity. Your job is not to fuel the trauma, but to hold space for its release. It is their inner world speaking, their body projecting and processing, asking to be heard by their conscious mind.
For the practitioner, it is an opportunity to help and be of service. For a partner or loved one, it can open space for deep healing on both sides. Hold space, nothing more. Allow them to meet their own feelings and discomfort from years past.
For the individual, welcome what arises with curiosity and compassion. Honour the intelligence of your body as it seeks to resolve what became entangled years ago. By holding space for yourself, you become a witness to your own transformation.
This is the work of healing and self-healing. In stillness, we become aware of paradigms shifting. Allow them to dissolve and be fully processed by your emotions, your body and find the release within Mother Earth.
Written by Richard Stuttle