Written by Colleen Robinson, Traditional Chinese Medicine & Integral Medicine Practitioner based in Vancouver, BC.
Fifteen years ago, when I started my clinic, I had no idea how essential an understanding of trauma was going to become to my practice. It is intricately woven into virtually every issue I see and has impacted every single person I work with.
While that might sound over the top, my extensive immersion in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the psychology surrounding trauma, and the science of its physiological and spiritual imprints has made it crystal clear just how much trauma lingers in humans and how big it’s impact are.
What is Trauma?
Trauma (the way I work with it) is simply anything we’re not well-resourced enough to fully process in the moment. TCM says that this is because the things that happen change your Qi and who you are. Epigenetics says it’s because trauma changes genes, and changes which aspects of them get turned on or off. Psychology says it’s because trauma changes how we view, interpret, and approach the world. No matter who is studying it, though, everyone agrees that trauma changes people at the levels of our body chemistry, our thoughts and beliefs and the way our genes, bodies, and minds express those changes. Science is increasingly agreeing with TCM on this: we are changed by what has happened to us.
We understand this for big traumas. We’re not surprised to learn that “shell-shocked” people who were in the First World War would be called PTSD today. We’re not surprised that “shell-shocked” soldiers come home changed, that the children they have become impacted by their parents’ PTSD.
Science is learning, however, that even seemingly ‘small’ incidents can cause the same kinds of chemical, psychological, and genetic changes, and the same kind of long-lasting ‘trauma’ effects.
From this definition, is a break-up a trauma? Quite possibly. How about that job where that person was kind of horrible? Very likely. How about not sleeping well and still having to get up and deal with your kids & your life? Absolutely. All of these can register in the body as trauma.
In one way, this understanding of trauma is freeing, because you don’t have to fight to have your traumas recognized. You don’t have to justify why you’ve never felt the same after Thing X happened or after knowing Person Z. You can simply identify it: that was trauma. Even if you don’t know why it was. Even if you don’t specifically know how it traumatized you.
In another way, this definition might feel overwhelming, because holy wow, there are a lot of possibilities for trauma in our history.
The Role of Energy Medicine aka Integral Medicine in healing Trauma
This is where Energy Medicine – or, as I prefer to call it – Integral Medicine, comes in. Integral aka Energy Medicine as it is currently being used and codified is still young: so young that there is no official definition. Essentially, integral medicine encompasses any energetic or informational interaction with a biological system to bring homeostasis back to the organism. In simple terms: Integral Medicine uses non-invasive methods to allow the body to balance itself. The roots of this are as old as human civilization, as old as prayer and thought – and are always changing, evolving, and developing new aspects.
NAP is a form of Integral Medicine that I created to help people heal their trauma. I developed the NAP technique because I wanted something simple but effective, something anyone could use, something safe, something that didn’t need years of training. I wanted something that was accessible for everyone, at whatever point in their healing they were at; at exactly the right learning curve for them; at exactly the speed that they felt safe moving at.
The New Agreement Process (NAP), A New Way To Address Trauma
NAP (the New Agreement Process) is a gentle way to address trauma. It’s a simple “repeat after me” process that tracks trauma back to its roots. It’s a multifaceted, interdisciplinary healing experience that leads to lasting change and rapid transformation. NAP has changed the way I view trauma recovery.
I don’t even like calling it ‘recovery’ anymore, because recovery implies that you were wrong, hurt, or broken somehow. Even the good old Oxford English Dictionary defines recovery as “a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.”
Instead of seeing you as abnormal during or after those traumatic events, I believe that you were integrating something new and powerful. Although the experience may have been jarring, hard, traumatic, I believe that you were doing your best with the resources you had. I think you are pretty flipping incredible for getting through it like you did. And I genuinely believe that once you build on that and integrate it, you won’t be ‘returned’ to a ‘normal’ state of anything. Instead, you’ll be better, stronger, more complex, more interesting, and more capable. More genuinely YOU.
NAP is one of my versions of Integral Medicine that allows you to start where you are, and gently tug on a relevant trauma thread. You can’t even stand to mention your ex’s name, never mind analyze why that time of your life still feels so embarrassing, hurtful, or painful? That’s ok. Start with that. NAP allows you to begin with the ideas, feelings, and beliefs that are there, where you are. You don’t need to dig for a deeper, more painful issue, you just start with the thing that hurts now, that’s impacting you now, that’s holding you back now.
This way, you can clear a belief like: “I’ll never get over this because I’ll never want to talk about it.” You could choose to work through feelings like: “I hate that I hate thinking about them” or “This terror whenever anyone asks about that thing.” You can even start very gently with a simple phrase like: “This fear” or “My confusion.” It still works.
The way that NAP works is that one thread tugs another thread, and another, and…well, you get the picture. Or rather, you get to unravel the picture. After we run a session of NAP with a client or with a group, it’s not unusual to hear things like: “Weirdly, I don’t care anymore” or “It should still be a 10 out of 10 for anger, but it feels like a zero.”
This happens because your system wants to integrate that trauma. It wants you to be better, stronger, healthier, and wiser. The extra beautiful pieces of this? Not only does your brain sometimes play connect the dots (“Oh! It’s not my boss! It’s that teacher who said I was stupid!”), but you get to clear trauma from your body without having to go through Every. Single. Piece. Of. History. And you are absolutely in charge the entire time.
Your system has just been patiently waiting for you to be well-resourced enough to finish learning. And integrating. And becoming more wholly, beautifully you.
About Colleen Robinson:
Colleen’s background as a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner dovetails with her Integral Medicine techniques, and she is intrigued by the possibilities inherent in combining modalities to allow for easier, faster, more grace-filled healing. These overlapping areas of study allowed her to create NAP (the New Agreement Process): a simple technique that works with the challenges you know you have as well as the traumas you don’t realize your body is carrying. Learn more about Colleen’s work: She has an upcoming free NAP training and a longer six week NAP course that includes 1:1 support from her and her partner, Dana.