Within my research, I continue to reveal how being trauma-informed is vital for your relationship with yourself but with all your interactions. This wave of information has stirred many ripples through my shared ocean of awareness with all those pertinent in my life. Understanding my trauma has given me the strength to continue my voyage of learning, investigating, and healing trauma not only in my mind and body but to have an awareness of the need to heal trauma in social structures and the world around me.  I hold a vision of a world that breaks free of the cycle of trauma and becomes more open and inclusive.  Yet, I honestly realize it starts with me.

As I have allowed my wounds to teach me about listening, self-love, and compassion towards myself and my past, it has also reminded me of the preciousness of life and those I love.  My truth has opened my heart and, by osmosis, the heart of my husband, Tim.  Together this innate wisdom is starting to shine through both our wounds.  Healing happens in connection.  For the past twenty-four years, our relationship has been a safe space for me to grow, evolve, and authentically express myself.  For that, I thank my good-natured hubs.  I truly believe one of a couple’s goals should be where both people work to heal childhood trauma and feel completely free to express what they think, feel and need.

A form of love language is having empathy towards your partner’s trauma.  Relationships scared me growing up.  I did not trust that those close to me would not hurt me.  This is because those close to me did hurt me growing up.  My father died when I was eleven.  My mother abandoned me shortly after by marrying a man who verbally abused me and physically abused her.  This early trauma inhibited my development and did not promote vulnerability.  I entered survival mode, and my nervous system was always in fight and flight.  This hyperarousal became an ongoing pattern until I accepted how unhealthy it became for my mental and physical well-being.  When I had children in my mid-twenties, I recognized and began healing this transgenerational trauma I had been carrying for years. 

The unconditional love that I was not offered was something I desperately wanted to give my children.  I did not want them to have the unhealthy interior structure I carried into my adult development and form a portion of their identity that I did, emotionally distance myself from those who loved me.  Cue Tim. My kindhearted husband was not there to just make me happy. Instead, he provided a safe space and a relationship opportunity to grow, evolve, and authentically express myself without judgment.  He listened to my plight and related in ways I would learn later that were similar.  He trusted my parenting process despite his broken family system.  We were committed to breaking the trauma cycle.

The more of our past Tim and I carry into the present, the less available we are for connectedness.  We wanted to reciprocate and healthily resonate with our children.  Without empathy and understanding of our pain, we would more likely project our interior conditions onto each other and our children.  Our collective trauma awareness as a couple has been a gift that continues to give not only to ourselves but to future generations.  Therefore, this transgenerational shift has helped us both to reset ourselves back to our innate sense of individual wholeness, despite the myriad of circumstances both of us were born into.  What a great way to make inner harmony and build a perennial healing bridge for our two sons.