In this episode of the series Trauma: The Silent Scream, TSBU clinical psychologists Linda Mthenjane and Gugu Gigaba stir our curiosity by exploring where we carry pain and discomfort in our bodies. These are the places our bodies have closed around psychological trauma … and ultimately, it’s where the healing begins.
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In starting an important conversation about trans-generational trauma and looking at what it would take for us to truly heal the trauma of the past, clinical psychologist Linda Mthenjane details how our bodies hold trauma by sharing a story from psychologist Tara Brach.
It’s a story about how a woman goes back to her traumatised childhood self and a “good fairy” helps her body hold her feelings in different places until she is ready for her body to start unwinding its secrets and she can let go.
“Your body reminds you” says Mthenjane. “Your body doesn’t forget. It reminds you … you’ve been here before.” And awareness of that pain and discomfort is “the first level of prescription that we know as talk therapists.”
Clinical psychologist Gugu Gigaba agreed and spoke about trauma as the silent scream. “It speaks to the significant despair, the significant experience of walking around in despair but not being able to express it or externalise it in ways that actually relieve you.”
And so, Gigaba invites us all to walk on this journey with them. “Allow yourself to sit with whatever it is that you’re feeling and let’s try and see what the gift in that is … and how it helps us progress in our journey towards understanding this trauma.”
She guides us through an exercise that helps us locate the pain in our bodies and to listen to our bodies until we feel a sense of calm.
It’s a beautiful way to end this episode that can only be described as a psychological balm for our hidden wounds.
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