Understanding Trauma & Triggers

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Trauma ≠ the event. It’s the wound inside us.  Watch Dr. Gabor Maté’s powerful insight on why triggers feel so raw—and how to start healing.  ➡️ Follow this channel for more emotional healing and personal growth content.  ©️ All rights and credit reserved to the respective owner(s).

Transcript

00:00Trauma comes from this Greek word for wounding.

00:02And we can understand a lot about the nature of trauma

00:06if we just understand how a wound behaves.

00:08Now, it's important to say that trauma is not what happens to us.

00:13It's not the event.

00:15It's the wound that we sustain as a result of the event.

00:19So surprising as this may seem,

00:22the trauma is not the sexual abuse.

00:25The trauma is not the death of your parent.

00:27The trauma is not the violence in your family.

00:31The trauma is not the tsunami, the war.

00:35The trauma is what happens inside you

00:36as a result of what happened to you from the outside.

00:40If you take that wound metaphor or reality,

00:43what is the nature of a wound?

00:45Well, one aspect of a wound is that as long as it's open and sore,

00:49it's raw and tender, and every time you touch it, it hurts.

00:52And you don't have to touch it with great force.

00:54You just lightly touch it, and it hurts.

00:56These wounds, these traumatic wounds,

00:58when somebody touches them even lightly,

01:01it's like we're being wounded all over again.

01:05And this is where we get triggered.

01:07So if you look at, again, the meaning of the word trigger

01:09and the context from which this word,

01:12I'm being triggered, arises.

01:15Trigger is obviously a part of a mechanism,

01:17a part of a weapon.

01:18How big a part of the weapon is the trigger?

01:20Tiny.

01:21For the trigger to be able to work,

01:24there has to be a huge weapon there.

01:26There has to be explosive charge.

01:27There has to be ammunition.

01:30When we're triggered, what's actually happening

01:31is that a raw wound is being touched,

01:34and so our reaction is way out of proportion

01:36to the actual touch.

01:39Most of the time,

01:41it actually reflects the rawness of the wound

01:44that we sustained a long time ago.

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