Traumatic or Transformational DNA. Which are you growing?

All of us have had a stomach-churning event where things went badly. We can usually recall it vividly. In fact, just thinking about it has us sweating or shaking.  Think about one such experience of your own.

It probably felt traumatic, and chances are it made you more cautious. Maybe you told yourself you weren’t good enough, smart enough, fast enough. Perhaps it even taught you a lesson.  If so, did it teach you a good one?  One you could learn from and flip into a strength?

The things you tell yourself or feel about that event, did they grow you in a way that makes you happy? Were you traumatized or transformed?  And how has that affected your life?

I often ask clients who share a traumatic event what was happening in their lives at the time. We explore how they felt, what they told themselves about the event, and what they made it mean about themselves and others.

I also ask if something similar ever happened to someone else in their family. Did they inherit some of those same beliefs and thoughts from a prior generation? Did that incident perhaps illuminate a repeating cycle or pattern in their family or organizational system? Could they use this event to think differently and move beyond current limitations? Sometimes superpowers emerge from what was once a limiting pattern.

For example, two people have a car accident that alters their physical capability. One is devastated, the other is inspired to use the event as a springboard to a greater life. Each focused differently. One built traumatic pathways that debilitated them and the other embraced transformational pathways that elevated them. Same event two different outcomes.

We often avoid exploring these pivotal moments.  We sweep them under the rug or push them away as fast as we can.  Perhaps we even feel destroyed and give up. We see them as catastrophes instead of portals to possibility.

Often what keeps us from looking at the gift in these events is the activation of our Emotional DNA, the patterns of thoughts feelings and actions that we inherit from prior generations. What we are thinking and feeling in the moment may actually be inherited. We unconsciously repeat history and think it’s our present, when in fact it may not even belong to us. 

Once we can identify our limiting view of what has happened, we can then pivot to a more expansive view of what is possible.  Now we are no longer trapped in a cycle.

When we key into those moments and fully take them in, we often find a sense of purpose, courage, or depth we never knew we had. They take us from a fate to a destiny. 

The most important thing to recognize is that whatever you tell yourself and believe will take you in the direction of trauma or transformation.

You are the genie in your own lamp. What you tell yourself and believe will create your heartache or your wings.  When that next significant event occurs, and it will, ask yourself which you will choose.