Trauma, Addiction and Self-Regulation

Trauma, whether connected to early childhood, an event as an adult or to social oppression, changes our nervous system, our physiological responses to life and impacts our self image, relational capacities, perception and self regulatory abilities. It is, in my view, a core underlying cause for the arising of addiction patterns. Looking through the trauma lense, addiction could be viewed as a means of regulating the underlying pervasive dis-regulation associated with addiction. Therefore “recovery” involves “recovering” or more likely developing self regulatory capacities. What we learn in Meditation is that where we direct or attention has a profound impact on the way we feel. In this session I’ll give an overview of trauma and how it functions and offer a few simple attention based or reflective exercises that support regulation of the nervous system. With trauma, self regulatory capacities are lost or never developed. And it is, in my view one of the core causal factors in addiction Often people with a history of trauma will have extra challenges that require additional tools and a different framework for how to think about what it means to be present without overwhelm.