Trauma can distort your perception of people, words, and events to feel worse than they truly are.

Healing trauma is important so that you can experience life more fully and take more inspired action towards your desires. 

I wanted to tackle this point with my own trauma experience, for the sake of picking a specific incident.

Before I dive in, I want to prelude this with the fact I live in a first-world country. I’m blessed to have access to technology, hygiene, etc, so some of what I’m saying about went without would be irrelevant for someone who doesn’t have that lifestyle. I acknowledge that. The trauma is however real in whichever economic situation you are in.

I recently lost power for maybe an hour during a thunderstorm, and it reminded me of how much inner work I have done to be comfortable with power outages, and how healing this isn’t linear.  

Here’s how I feel about power outages at this moment in time: the trigger is about a 6-7, especially with my sense of safety. So much so that I always have plenty of candles, lighters, power banks, offline movies, and stuff to do without electricity. 

The reason why I get slightly nervous and uncomfortable around these situations is because of my experience during the ice storm of 98 in Montreal Canada. 

I was 14 at the time, and Montreal was in the dark for many days. I lost power back then for 9 days.

For a good part of those 9 days:

• I couldn’t take a warm shower
• I was limited by what I could eat 
• I was staying at a relative’s house because my house was too cold 
• I had terrible nightmares about my death (A year before this, I had a terrifying dream where I was fully lucid so that trauma was re-triggered)
• I got burned by candles 
• I couldn’t listen to music or watch my favourite TV shows
• I could smell gasoline and coal in the streets and it triggered past life war trauma 

Afterwards…

• I was not able to sleep in my bedroom. It had become a fear central for me and not a safe space to sleep.
• I was gaslit by my friends who claimed to have an amazing time during the experience—invalidating my experience. 
• I tried to reorganize my bedroom furniture several times
• I tried to change the lighting in my bedroom several times
• I tried to distract myself by being out often.
• It took a year before I could listen to my favorite albums again.
• I kept fully charged devices around at all times for many years, and I still sometimes obsess over the battery life of my devices today.

So while most of my friends were having the time of their lives camping with their families, and enjoying the moments, (not to say I didn’t have a few positive moments myself), I was busy being in survival mode.

It took almost a year for me to come out of trauma mode back then and I healed myself of the original trauma at the age of 15.

I’ve worked with healers on the ripple effects.

I’m able to relax my body for a few minutes and even crack a smile when the power goes out now. 

I can perceive the magical energies around me when a power goes out. 

The trauma layers aren’t fully healed and can still distract me, but I’ve come a long way from the original wounds. 

Let this be a reminder to practice compassion with both others and yourself, for we are on a wild ride <3