The *Kissing Cousins* theory of trauma recovery.

How the brain works in healing for effective relief of pain and anxiety.

There are a lot of ways to explain how things work. When I am trying to explain how trauma recovery works to one of my clients, I like to use visualizations and worksheets because the scientific explanation can be very confusing and oftentimes is unnecessary.

Too many words and too many concepts just make it hard.

My own therapist has a beautiful visual using a spiderweb to explain this concept. While I like it and it is definitely more professional, I find using humor does the job in a way that makes it seem doable and like a task my clients want to take on.

Working in the realm of trauma and abuse is hard enough. Injecting some levity can go a long way in a tough time.

I’m from the southern US. With the name Cecilia and the way I look, most people expect to hear me speak Spanish in some form. BUT, I have a big country accent full of Y’alls and extra syllables and vowels. Ask me to say the words COW or GUM and it will sound like a full sentence. (Just imagine the way the children in Forrest Gump sounded on that school bus ride. Ya can’t seeyut heeyyuh)

When I relate my childhood experiences to people I get asked if I was a full on redneck. I spent the day digging dirt, splashing in the creek, throwing rocks at trees and running from rattlesnakes after I poked them. (I even once ‘helped” a family of scorpions by tossing them into our above ground pool because I thought they were Tennessee Valley lobsters)

I came from deep country, then moved even deeper when my father relocated us to a town bordering West Virginia in the mountains of the Appalachian Trail. After leaving for the military in my teens, I was doomed to be razzed with inbreeding and holler livin jokes. I have to admit, they were pretty funny.

This is the life I know, so when I think of trauma and recovery and how the brain and body works, I often think of the redneck family.

Your Brain is a Redneck Family

We’ve all heard the term Everything Is Connected.

This is very true when it comes to the way we function on a daily basis. All of our systems work to get us through the day. When one thing is off balance, the other systems have to pick up the slack to compensate for it.

They affect each other.

This happens for good or for bad. When we have gone through a trauma, all the parts of us are affected by it. It doesn’t matter what type of trauma it is, we go through it in some form in every aspect of us. Our psyche, hormones, brain structures, digestion, cardiac, electrical…. Everything goes through it.

They are all related = Like cousins.

The same family. The same history. The same genetics. The same background. Similar but not the exact same.

When one gets touched by trauma, it reaches out and plants a kiss on the next part, and then it turns and kisses the next one down the line. So on and so on, etc… Like Kissin Kuzzins. Pretty soon everyone has made out and the whole family system is full of dysfunction.

This is what is happening in us when we are traumatized. Our whole family system has been affected.

This Is Good News For Us

It works in both directions!

If something good happens to us then it goes the same way. This is why delving into each and every bad thing that ever happened is not necessary for trauma healing work.

First, there is no time for that. Time, income and energy are finite, and getting to every single one is not plausible.

Second, some memories are too traumatic to focus on. As a life coach, I am not going to ask someone to re-hash their trauma if I have other avenues available to get the same end result. No pain no gain is not my motto. I like no pain no pain better. That doesn’t mean no uncomfortable. Discomfort is part of the plan, but outright pain isn’t.

I like to use Brainspotting to hyperfocus on the pain points or traumatic feelings the client wants to focus on. It can also be done for comfort points to relieve the trauma around a specific topic or experience.

When relief has been accomplished in one area it then spreads to other areas the same way the trauma did. There’s no need for me or the client to touch everything, the body will do the spreading automatically.

It begins the healing process. Our bodies want to heal.

Once the process has begun, we keep up the momentum with continued work.

If you need someone to talk to about trauma and healing work, reach out to me at [email protected].