Some Effects Of Stress And Trauma On The Subconscious Mind
Imagine a child sets off for their first day at school. Up till now, they have had a fairly loving and settled life at home with their siblings and guardians. No-one is expecting anything untoward. But unfortunately their reception teacher has unresolved problems of their own and sometimes reacts to challenging situations with anger and emotional violence. Unfortunately, to this reception teacher, a class of 4 and 5 year olds is a challenging situation. So, this child who set off for school, fairly calm and confident, can quickly become a victim of emotional and physical abuse and neglect.
If they are lucky and the abuse comes to light, it might be effectively dealt with, and the child may be given the necessary ego-strengthening to enable them to continue with life, stronger and wiser. But, unfortunately, it is probably more likely that they will be too ashamed to ask for help and that their only defence will be their subconscious mind.
Their subconscious mind will attune itself to anything it regards as a potential threat. This may start with perceived threats which resemble the difficult reception teacher. But, with time, the child’s subconscious mind will draw more and more related situations into its store of potential dangers. As every new perceived threat will include new situations which before were considered neutral, but now, through association, have become threatening.
What Signals Does The Subconscious Mind Send Out To Warn Of Danger?
When the subconscious mind meets with one of its ever-growing list of potential threats, it sends out an alarm signal to the person whose system, stress and trauma has conditioned it to work in this way. And this alarm signal is designed to be loud enough to stop the person in their tracks and persuade them to take evasive action. So, the alarm signal will be something like migraine, IBS, pain, tingling, anxiety, depression, nausea, numbness, tinnitus – anything that the subconscious mind can trigger which will get the person’s attention.
Consequently, as time passes, and the list of threats grows ever longer, this person experiences more and more chronic emotional and physical symptoms, and will avoid more and more situations. In fact, avoiding of situations in this way reinforces the belief that they are dangerous, reinforcing further this cycle of fear and distressing alarm signals.
Retraining the Subconscious Mind
Somehow, the subconscious mind needs retraining to understand that all these perceived threats are not dangerous. Of course, any situation can become dangerous, but the subconscious mind can react to them when they actually have become dangerous rather than reacting all the time as if they already have, causing chronic emotional and physical symptoms.
Some of this training can be cognitive, using the rational, logical mind to calm and reassure the subconscious mind. But some of the training needs to be experiential, so that the subconscious mind can see and experience for itself (as it’s not so great on reasoned logic on its own) that these situations are actually safe.
This experiential training can be known as ‘exposure therapy’. But when the subconscious mind is stressed and traumatised it needs to be done in a gentle, loving, supportive way, little by little.
Finding a way forward in this way can really improve quality of life and open up possibilities which before were closed off as potentially ‘too dangerous’.
The above description shows what can happen in a fairly extreme situation, but these situations are, unfortunately, fairly common. Also, in much less extreme situations, the same negative spirals of physical and emotional distress and avoidance can still be set up. In such situations, the process can be much slower and less obvious, so that it creeps up silently and catches you unawares. So, having the occasional MOT on your subconscious mind can be a really beneficial way of making sure you are contributing the best or getting the best out of life.
Photo by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash
