Journaling for Healing: Uncover Hidden Trauma

Stories Weave Our Reality

We are all natural storytellers. It is in our DNA. Our personal realities are constructed from the stories and beliefs we hold to be true for us. The stories within us shape the lens through which we view the world. Our experiences define life for us, and it becomes the structure of who we are and how we live our lives. Many of us experience trauma in our lives in some way, and it can root in and begin to define our lives through the lens of that wound.

Wounded Stories that Bind Us

When I was 14 years old, my mother left our family, and a few months later, my Dad passed away suddenly in his sleep. That trauma left a huge hole inside of me and began to fill with the emotions of abandonment, grief, and deep insecurity. Trauma can keep us in a place of constant fight or flight, causing anxiety to become a part of everyday life. My life began to define itself around this trauma. I became insecure about who I was. I felt that I wasn’t good enough and that everyone would eventually abandon me. I felt that I couldn’t trust anyone, which would fuel the feelings of not belonging and feeling utterly alone. My life began to create itself around this trauma, and I started to form beliefs about who I was through the eyes of those deep wounds. No matter who would show me love, I would not trust it fully. I would feel alone and like I did not belong, even with people around. It was like reality was mirroring my inner world back to me, which seemed to validate and harden these beliefs about who I was in life. I realized how to change and shift the stories I held about who I am, and my life began to change along my healing journey. Most of the time, the things I was working on within myself, like healthy body image and confidence, seemed to be completely unrelated to my past…but the roots were holding on for dear life inside of my deepest trauma.

Re-Write Your Story and Heal

Writing is a powerful way to create deep and transformative healing in your life. Journaling can become a sacred solace for you, a place to explore your inner otherworld. When you become aware of the stories you hold deep within yourself and explore the path that guides you to the roots of the trauma, you can begin to re-write your stories and beliefs by taking in the wisdom and teachings from your wounded origin story. This will begin to transform you, mind, body, and soul.

Hidden trauma is usually something you know about, but you are entirely unaware of how deeply it affects you. It can go completely overlooked. The areas of your life that you reject or have a hard time looking at because it triggers you in some way is usually where a wounded story has rooted within you. Just past the uncomfortable feeling and through the trigger is where you will find your soul’s medicine that will bring you deep healing. Walking through the definitions and uncomfortable feelings with a higher perspective will awaken deep wisdom so you can move on without being bound to your trauma and wounded stories.

Guided Healing Journaling Practice

Let’s look at something in your life that you feel stuck with. For these healing journaling prompts, write more than keywords for each question and allow yourself to surrender into a flow state. Take enough time with each question and let this be a naturally intuitive process. Begin this practice in a comfortable space where you won’t be interrupted. Write the story that comes from answering each of these questions. Write down all the angles, everything you feel, and everything you experience with each query. Let each question be a pathway that guides you deeper within.

Write the first question down in your journal, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine sinking into your heart. Then begin…

1. What is your biggest block? The thing that is affecting your life and holding you back the most.

2. In what way is this holding you back?

3. How does it feel emotionally?

4. When does this get triggered for you? What sets it off?

5. What do you feel in the moment of being triggered?

6. When do you remember experiencing this feeling for the first time?

After allowing yourself to pour your story out over the pages, notice what you learned that you weren’t conscious of before picking up the pen. What do you see differently?

Now, imagine going back to the first time you experienced this feeling, as you are now, so you are face to face with you from the past. Talk to yourself as if you are talking to a beloved friend or partner. Ask yourself, “What do you need right now?” Listen to what they are feeling in that moment and what they need to feel more secure in that situation. Then imagine looking in your eyes or feel yourself connecting directly into the heart of yourself from that time, and write down exactly what you needed to hear in that moment. Give yourself a loving pep talk and compassionate support with every word you write. Talk sweetly with your past self and let them know they aren’t alone. Focus on what this part of you needs to hear the most. Let your writing flow.

As you are writing this powerful inner dialogue that is happening within you, you are actually re-writing your own story. You are dissolving trauma and pain, the block, by showing up and reminding yourself of your wholeness and bringing higher perspective and deep security to this vulnerable part of yourself. You can finally bring healing to the piece of you that was stuck in a past time. You claim more of your soul back, and then you can finally move forward simply through your awareness and your ability to flow your inner story onto the pages. The more you allow yourself to let go and sink into your heart, the more you will get out of this practice. That is how it is with all writing; the more you surrender, the more your soul speaks through you.

Writing is transformational and can bring so much healing into your life. When you show up for yourself as a safe space and allow yourself to be vulnerable on the pages, you may begin to fall in love with the real magic of weaving words and stories, inside and out.

About the Author:

Harmony Nixon is a Spiritual Teacher, Shamanic Healer, Writer, and Artist. Her passion is guiding highly sensitive empaths through the landscapes of their inner otherworld, to heal and deepen their relationship to their soul. She sees our deepest wounds as sacred gateways into our unique soul medicine. “It is in the shadows that we can see the wild beauty of our true inner light.” 

 To connect with Harmony go to: www.seekingwildbeauty.com