The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) you experienced matter and get to be acknowledged. These are the various types of maltreatment and traumatic experiences children may endure or witness while growing up, including sexual, physical, or emotional abuse; physical or emotional neglect; parental mental illness, substance dependence, incarceration; parental separation or divorce; or domestic violence. 

AND at the same time, what DID NOT happen to you that NEEDED to happen to you (i.e. getting your primary emotional needs met) matters a great deal. 

Because in the first few years of your life, you needed to be loved like your life depended on it - because it did.

Survival of the nurtured.

Because if you were ever sexually, physically, or emotionally abused or neglected, it's likely that you were not nurtured, comforted, or cared for by your primary attachment figures (your parents or caregivers). It's more than likely that they were not attuned or responsive to your emotional needs.

👉🏻 This is the ultimate paradox that children experience: they need to attach to their primary caregivers in order to survive, yet attaching makes them feel like they may die. In other words, they need to go to their primary caregivers for soothing, but it is these same caregivers that are causing their fear and distress in the first place.

Attachment injuries, traumas, and disruptions in childhood become insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, and disorganized) when these children grow into adulthood. 

The detrimental effects of not forming secure attachments early in life can manifest as chronic illness, such as adrenal fatigue. Living in a constant state of fear, stress, and anxiety when we are young not only impairs healthy brain development, but also causes Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis dysregulation.

During this process, the adrenal glands (an organ sitting on top of our kidneys) produce the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Our heart rate increases, blood pressure goes up, and we enter into a state of high alert survival mode. Studies show that chronic toxic stress and trauma weaken the immune system and even switch the expression of genes.

We often think of trauma as sexual or physical abuse, war, or major natural disasters, but there's a whole range of life experiences that can be traumatizing. Furthermore, research is showing that generational trauma is actually biologically passed down generation to generation.

Our nervous systems cannot differentiate between a small "t" trauma versus a big "T" trauma. All it knows is that it needs to protect you in that moment. An accumulation of smaller or less pronounced events can still be traumatic.

It can be traumatizing to not be nurtured, comforted, or cared for when you were an infant or child; it can be traumatizing to be told you are too sensitive; it can be traumatizing to live with a loved one who's addicted to substances; it can be traumatizing to have parents who were incarcerated, separated, or divorced; it can be traumatizing to not be validated; it can be traumatizing to come out to your loved ones as LGBTQ+; it can be traumatizing to step into the parent role when you are a child; it can be traumatizing to care for a sick and dying grandparent; it can be traumatizing to watch your parents age and decline; it can be traumatizing to lose friends; it can be traumatizing to have to give up a pet.

An estimated 70% of us have had a traumatic experience in our life. 20% of those who have go on to experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or other trauma and stressor-related disorders. 

1 in 5 Americans were sexually molested as a child. 

1 in 4 were beaten by a parent to the point of leaving a mark. 

1 in 3 couples engage in physical violence. 

That's a lot of suffering and traumatized people.

Please believe that you can heal from whatever trauma you've endured, because you can. 💗

This post was inspired by @morganptherapy As a young clinician, I really look up to my more experienced peers and am grateful for what I learn from them.

🪷 This is the key question we Comprehensive Resource Model™ practitioners ask our clients. The reason is because all of us had moments in our childhood when our emotional needs were unmet by our parents or caregivers. Many of us experienced attachment traumas and disruptions that have become insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, & disorganized) in our adulthood. As a result, we missed out on the opportunity to form secure attachments with our primary attachment figures in our childhood. 

This is the magic of CRM™. This trauma treatment therapy establishes a secure attachment with our wounded child part. There was an age when we decided that it wasn't safe to have feelings or be ourselves. We couldn't get our needs met when we were a child so we decided it was our fault and blamed ourselves (locus of control shift). We began to perform for love. When did it become safe to not have those feelings? What did our inner child experience that made them shut themselves down? Did that little one inside of us need love, protection, nurturing? Our wounded parts hold this fear, pain, guilt, and shame in our bodies. 

To cover over and numb this emotional pain, many of us become addicted to substances, etc. to get that dopamine rush as we try to fill up a need from outside that we can't fill ourselves. We develop a deep longing. Yet this is more than our addictions or our maladaptive coping mechanisms. We can access the origin of this pain, and it is usually about what didn't happen that needed to happen for us.

This pain that is young and that we've been carrying for decades is the reason for all of this. So the day we can feel this pain is the day we can finish it. The processing of this emotional pain leads us closer to our authentic, compassionate, Core Higher Self. Everyone has one inside of them. CRM™ therapists like myself help you find and reconnect with your Core Higher Self. We help clients reparent themselves and become that compassionate witness, competent protector, and loving adult for their inner child - that protective loving adult who they never had growing up.

🪷 The above is wisdom I learned from my supervisor Dr. Avis Attaway

🇮🇹 The last time I set foot in my ancestral homeland was when I studied abroad in Siena, Italy in 2010. It has been 13 years. Since then, my grandmother (“Nonna”) had passed away and so had all of her siblings. A generation gone, but still in my heart here in spirit.

Reconnecting with my famiglia after all this time was exactly what my heart and soul needed. I sat sandwiched in between my cousins in a little Fiat, their hands waving in the air speaking Italian frantically. Every day I ate much more than I needed to, and yet there was no guilt attached to this. The days moved much slower with more pleasure, joy, and love. I learned to laugh at and trust myself as I spoke my broken Italian with my cousins. It was almost as if time stood still and everyone was so focused on living in the present moment: Italian kids playing soccer or huddled in a group talking, families strolling on the cobblestone streets savoring their gelato, and even the stray cats seemed at peace with where they found themselves. Looking at all of the ancient ruins everywhere, I was reminded that ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation. And how despite all of the wars, kingdoms that reigned, or political upheaval, the remains are still there to stand the test of time. Permanent, yet impermanent. Old reminders of what once was, and how far we’ve come.

If you have a home, go there. Visit. Embrace your people. If you don’t have a home, find one within yourself and within others. Find one among the outcasts, the marginalized, those without a home. Family is blood, yes, but it’s also a bond and who you choose. So if you don’t have a home or family, whatever the reason, find your home and family within your community. Your friends. Your allies. Yourself.

I acknowledge and honor the Tongva peoples, for it is their stolen land I reside on today. I may be Italian, but I'm also a 🌎 global citizen who has millions of brothers and sisters around the world. I care deeply about them, and I care about you. So go see the world and travel. We as humans are all connected, sharing this human experience on Mother Earth. 💖

This post was inspired by my recent trip to Lecce, Italy and the unbelievable true story told in the Netflix film The Swimmers.