Stories are created to spare us from facing our pain. When we experience trauma, we rarely process it in real-time, so to protect ourselves, a story (or belief) is created as a means of survival to make sense of a situation. This allows us to accept a painful event in real time, shut down the pain and gloss over what happened.
Stories are the opposite of feeling and keep us trapped
Whatever reassurance we may give ourselves as we undergo a traumatic episode, the story we tell ourselves compounds a false belief we carry from the core wound. Our core wound positively impacts us until we heal it, so wounds become self-fulfilling when they are reinforced by the distorted behaviours we utilise to hide them.
Humans carry shame around their wounding, so they seek to hide it from others, and instead, present a false version of self that overwrites the wound. A distorted layer manifests as a quirk to our personality, or as a mask or false persona to bury our deepest pain, which over time can become very complex to pick apart.
For example; A baby won’t go down to sleep. Night after night, Mum and Dad go through a prolonged bedtime routine that is met with frustration on all sides as the baby refuses to settle down. Mum and Dad decide to let the baby cry out and hope they’ll settle eventually. Baby cries out and this time, no one comes to nurture him. Baby cries louder, he is feeling very anxious but no one is answering his cries or coming to comfort him. The baby becomes hysterical, and for the first time, fear kicks in by creating a story in his mind around the devastating feelings he is experiencing in the present moment that no one is coming, he is all alone in the world and has been abandoned.
This simple scenario explains how a core abandonment wound is created.
Sometime later, the little boy is at a busy shopping mall with Mum and temporarily becomes separated from her. In his moment of distress, his amygdala recalls the original wounding, his senses reactivate, along with imprints of fear and distress as the abandonment wound replays.
This is also how trauma looping works; Every time another layer is added to the core wound story it strengthens it. This will continue to replay whenever his senses are triggered or until the neural link is broken or healed.
A few years later, the boy is about to start school but becomes anxious when he is separated from his mother. The boy panics and wants his mother, but no one can console him. He pushes everyone away and hides away as he relives the fear replay from his abandonment wound, alienating himself from his peers, and creating more abandonment and trauma for himself in the process.
A core wound will always seek to be reaffirmed. The stories the boy tells himself to hide this wounding will seal his fate. His story will constantly reaffirm abandonment, creating awkwardness which compounds his shyness and anxiety whenever he is around other people. He will constantly project this story onto others, through labels and behaviours or new stories around abandonment.
Later in life as a young adult, he finds an affinity with the label of introversion. He reaffirms introversion subtly, through jokes that he feels like an alien, is a loner, or does not like being around people. Through his abandonment wound, he is unconsciously affirming his wound by self-abandoning and holding himself back, constantly sabotaging himself, all because his abandonment story is running the show and he is constantly reaffirming his wound through his stories!
Wounds drive us in subtle ways. There is an inflated version of our wounding that wants to be seen and a deflated version that wants to hide away. The wound will develop all sorts of strategies and stories as a personality protection mechanism. Example: An inflation of an abandonment wound can manifest as a mask of superiority to hide feelings of awkwardness, but the mask alienates others and reaffirms self-abandonment. A deflation could manifest as introversion and create separation from others, again creating more abandonment and separation of self.
We spend much of our lives hiding this aspect about ourselves, disproving it, creating defences and false narratives, yet most of the decisions we make stem from our core wounding. But those same wounds are also a superpower that helps shape us as individuals. If life was easy we'd be uninspired to learn anything, so our wounds work for us by providing us with invaluable survival training and link to our overall purpose and shape our lives.
The stories we create are an unconscious reflex action to conceal our pain but they take us out of alignment and the present moment. Stories create more pain by reaffirming our wounding. Over time the core wound becomes deeply embedded through beliefs and stories, and can end up running the show until we find the courage to collapse the story and heal.
Journal Exercise:
Create a list of key life events where you may have received trauma or disappointment, and look to where you may have created a story or belief that was detrimental or untrue.
Run questions past each event to gain a better understanding of your wounding, you’ll be surprised how your stories have created the person you are today. If the story brings an ‘aha’ for you, or no longer resonates, collapse it, or create a better, more empowering story for yourself.
What stories have you created about yourself?
What gets under your skin?
What do you believe about yourself that isn't true?
What do you say about yourself around your wounding?
Where do you lack courage?
What makes you give your power away?
What subtle ways do you sabotage yourself?
Can you create a different story?
Does your story make sense? I
s your story your highest potential?
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