The link between Trauma and Awakening (and what’s possible beyond survival)

A beautiful intersection where all that is not you, falls away to reveal all that is true.

Beneath the survival patterns, the striving, the over-giving, the people-pleasing… beneath the anxiety, self-doubt and shutdown… there is a quiet, radiant presence.

This is you.

Some might say that this is your authentic self.. but it is in fact a little deeper than that.

We often hear the call, to be authentic. To live, speak and act from our truth. Authenticity has, in fact, become quite the buzz word. But authenticity is not the destination, it is actually a result of something, arising from, and the expression of, something much deeper.

The essence of who you are. Your True Self.

This True Self, is your direct experience of Being. Existing independently of any layers of conditioning or adaptations taken on to survive. Undefined by roles, trauma, conditioning or identity.

The unchanging, innate part of you.

The authentic self is how you embody and express that truth.

It is how the True Self moves through you, through your choices, your voice, relationships, work, creativity and life itself.

Your True Self is the flame, and your authentic self is the light and warmth that radiates from that flame.

The True Self is what you are. Your authentic self is how you live what you are.

To live authentically is simply to live in alignment with the True Self. With the innate qualities or facets of your deeper nature that exist within you, and the natural expression of those. (We will go into those in depth in this month’s newsletters)

It is important to understand this because without this deeper ground, authenticity can become yet another mask. Another identity, a thing to work towards, or way to get it right.

So often authenticity can be reduced to speaking your truth, being yourself.. but without the deeper inner work, this truth can still be rooted in trauma, conditioning or adaptations.

I want to invite you a little deeper.

Into the knowing that you don’t become your true self, it is a sacred remembering.

A stripping away of all that is not you. The false self, the identifications, the internalised ‘should’s’ and adaptations.

A landing in the deep stillness underneath the waves of experience.

When we root into the true self, authenticity becomes inevitable. Your essence flows through your personality and truth becomes embodied.

This is where trauma and awakening intersect. In the dismantling of all that is not true, to reveal the truth within.

In our quest to heal, aiming for connection to the True Self is, by far, the worthiest goal. A guidepost to see us through the inevitable and arduous times that every healing journey delivers. Everything else is impermanent. Roles and circumstances change, opinions and perspectives shift, relationships change. Life is largely, unpredictable.

But the True Self never changes.

The more we know and are connected with the unchanging nature of this truth within, the more resilient, grounded and free we can be to flow with all that life brings, and be OK, even when things are not.

This is our work.

Trauma, conditioning and the obscuration of the True Self.

When we are born, we arrive as pure presence. Essence.

True nature is evident in a newborn child. We are fully connected to our Being. Living fully in the body. We don’t question our worth or hide parts of ourselves for approval, we simply exist in all of our radiance. Undivided, embodied and whole.

And yet life, with all of its beauty, also brings rupture.

In moments of fear, loss, shame, abandonment or betrayal, especially when these occur in our early formative years, our body and psyche does what it needs to survive. We fragment and split off from parts of ourselves that weren’t safe to express. Shape-shifting to gain love, safety and belonging.

We disconnect from the body as our nervous system responds to threat or stress, emotions get held in, sensations go unfelt. To protect ourselves, we numb, we brace, we deny, we repress and suppress; our body holding the memory of all that we could not feel, for sometimes a lifetime.

Over time, we become estranged not only from our essence, from the parts of ourselves that weren’t safe to feel or express, but also from our felt sense of aliveness.

And in doing so we lose touch with that flame within.

This is why so many people feel ‘disconnected’.

This splitting that we experience is a very intelligent adaptation. A survival strategy. It is the child who learned to be quiet to stay out of trouble, the teen who became the overachiever to feel seen, the adult who keeps everything together to avoid being too much.

Each of these adaptations create what we know to be our identity, and though they may feel authentic, the reality is that they are veils, created as a protective strategy; existing in false beliefs, emotional contractions and defensive patterns; affecting our psychological, emotional, spiritual and relational health, ultimately obscuring the true self.

Like clouds obscuring the sun.

The more painful or prolonged the trauma or stress, the thicker the veils become, and the more they obscure the flame. We disconnect and forget who we truly are, behaving in ways that feel familiar but not aligned with truth, severing ourselves from the part of us that remembers and gives us access to our essence.

Yet the True Self is never lost.

It waits, calling us through a feeling of emptiness inside, through longing, through breakdowns, through illness, through the desire or pull towards something deeper, something that feels more real. It calls to us to connect with our body, sensations and emotions, and every time we listen, every time we soften, every time we feel our body, feel the truth of our pain without abandoning ourselves, turn our attention inward and stay… the veil thins.

Often on the spiritual path we seek to transcend the ordinary, to transcend the body, the mind, emotions etc. But this can be a bypass. The pathway is through the body.

This is the work of healing trauma. This is the work of awakening.

Not just about resolving the past. But also about reclaiming presence. Presence is the absence of trauma.

A beautiful intersection.

We were always meant to return.

To find our way back to the ground of our Being.

To remember that what was buried beneath layers of adaptation was never broken, only hidden.

Returning to the body, to the breath, to the sensations we once had to turn away from… and to the light that has quietly burned beneath it all.

The journey may be long. Far from linear. It may ask everything of you. But it is also the most worthy of paths. Because as the veils fall away, what remains is the deepest truth of who you are; whole, radiant and free.

And from this place, authenticity is no longer a performance or a goal, it’s a natural, effortless expression of the truth within you.

You don’t have to force it.
You don’t have to strive.

You just have to keep coming home.

Warmly,
Maraya x

In this month’s newsletters we will be diving deep into foundational education to help you understand why and how this pathway of ‘healing trauma and awakening’ can guide you home. Exploring the innate qualities of the True Self, (what we are wanting to reconnect with) and going deeper into how trauma, early conditioning, the brain and the nervous system, wire us into living our lives through a false or conditioned self.

If you’d like to know more about how I work, connect with me for a 30 minute complimentary casual chat here. I’d love to hear from you.

If you’d like to make an appointment click here.