Trauma can beget trauma and traumatised people can go on to traumatise

Jan Normanton • February 9, 2025

Read on or tune in as this may not be as it seems and know it is possible to heal from trauma and lead a beautiful life

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If you are stressed, consider somatic massage or somatic coaching and know that your body has a whole set of inbuilt ways to help you manage your inner states.

You may have heard the expression trauma begets trauma and that traumatised people go on to traumatise.


While to my knowledge, I’ve never traumatised anybody else, on purpose or inadvertently, I certainly know that I’ve re traumatised myself…. through the very coping strategies that I employed when I didn’t know any better, back in my 20s and 30s, to support myself with my original childhood traumas. I hasten to add that this was inadvertent -  I didn’t know any better.


So my strategies to support myself included being a functional alcoholic, taking drugs, practising dangerous behaviours, overeating, any opportunity to avoid myself, to self abandon, to leave my body, to move into my head - that was another really good coping strategy of being a workaholic as well.


I employed these because I didn’t know any better  and in the last 20 years I’ve learned better. I’ve learned how to manage my own traumas, to support myself in healthier ways and to move away from that strategy of self abandonment. 


I’ve come home to myself and learned that over many years with many practices.


I share this message twofold – one, to let you know that our coping strategies can sometimes not be the best for us and that’s through no fault of our own. Until we know differently, then we can then do differently and we do the same until we do know differently;  however to know that sometimes the strategies we employ to protect ourselves from traumas can create more trauma.


And secondly, to let you know that it is fully possible to recover totally from trauma. I’m still on my healing journey (our healing journey lasts a lifetime);  however I’m in a fantastic place these days!  I’m helping myself, I’ve helped myself monumentally, and I help others.


I help so many people with my somatic massage and with my somatic coaching practices. So if this resonates at all, if you’d like to have a conversation as to how I can help you with your traumas and support you to become the best version of yourself that you feel you may not be right now, then drop me a line and we can have a chat. I hope this has been helpful.

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