Do you ever notice that your reactions to daily life events are… ahem… somewhat less mature than you would like them to be?
Does your partner accuse you of being childish because you fly into a rage, sulk, or burst into tears during disputes? (Note to males: it’s a bad idea to say this when your beloved is premenstrual, in case you fall victim to PMT – Possible Murderous Tendencies.)
Have you repeatedly promised yourself that next time, you’ll stop, take a deep breath, and count to ten before you respond – but in the heat of the moment you never remember these worthy strategies, and instead keep falling into your old reactions?
Frustrating, isn’t it! It’s almost as if we forget how to be mature adults during these brain snaps. And as a matter of fact, that’s pretty much what happens.
Certain incidents that may appear relatively minor to adults, are experienced by children as deeply traumatic. During these traumas, we form beliefs that continue to operate – often at an unconscious level – as we grow into adulthood. And we also store a detailed memory of the traumatic incident itself, a process dubbed ECHO formation in Matrix Reimprinting.
If we subsequently encounter situations that remind us, in any way – no matter how remote – of the original traumatic incident, we can find ourselves being psychologically catapulted back to the age at which we experienced that trauma. And at that age, of course, we didn’t have the maturity, knowledge, insight and self-control that we develop as we mature.
So when your boss speaks to you in ‘that tone of voice’ that reminds you of how your father addressed you when you were in trouble, you might find yourself reacting like a hurt, scared, angry 6 year old. Or when your partner is late home and hasn’t called, you might spiral into panic the way you did when your parents separated, and suddenly, with no explanation, Daddy wasn’t there anymore.
Childhood traumas can also shape our view of ourselves and our own worth, in surprising ways. Recently, I did a Matrix Reimprinting session with a man I’ll call Trevor. Trevor is in his 60s, divorced, and has been plagued with chronic health problems for many years. He has, by his own account, suffered from crippling guilt, low self-esteem and a sense of unworthiness for most of his life.
The incident we chose to work on happened when he was about 6 years old. He was at school one day, and – as 6 year olds who are not allowed to use the toilet when they need to sometimes do – he soiled his pants.
The teacher sent him home, and he ran home in a state of dread, hoping against hope that no one would see his soiled pants. When he arrived home his mother was out and he had to go searching through the neighbourhood to find her, desperately needing her help and equally desperately fearing her anger and condemnation. He voiced a particularly strong fear that she would call him “a dirty little boy”.
As I explain in my article Healing the past… changing the future, the aim of the Matrix Reimprinting process is to clear the trauma of the incident, and then rewrite it, in the client’s imagination, according to the wishes of their ECHO – the ‘younger self’ who suffered the trauma.
Trevor’s ECHO needed a lot of tapping to resolve his shame, embarrassment and fear. We then resourced him with a kitten to hold so he would feel safe and loved, and Trevor’s adult self spoke to his mother to explain what young Trevor needed: lots of loving support and no judgment!
We quickly discovered that his mother needed some help before she could help her young son, so Trevor, as his adult self, chose to tap on her, in his imagination, for the difficulty she felt in being a loving mother. As he did so, Trevor experienced amazing insights into his mother and her behaviour toward him, not just at the time of the incident we were working on, but throughout his life.
With those insights came compassion for her and for his younger self, and a sense of deep peace. I asked Trevor to picture, and feel, his mother sending him love all the way down his personal timeline from when he was in her womb, and then forward in time to the age he was during this incident, and then right through his life up until now.
Trevor was overcome with emotion as he finally felt this love, which he knew his mother had wanted to give him, but had been unable to because of her own history.
A couple of days later, Trevor rang me to tell me he slept like a log after our session (highly unusual for him!) and woke up feeling like a little boy, with all the wonder, energy and sense of adventure he’d had in his youth, but had long since lost to the tides of loss, disappointment and despair that had washed over him in adulthood.
Trevor is certainly not done yet with working through his old baggage, but the enormous sense of healing that he felt after working on this one incident is a testament both to the lasting effect of early life trauma, and the dramatic benefit we derive from healing these traumas.
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