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Gerry Pyves

The difference between stress and trauma


It is easy to over-use the word “trauma” when what we are talking about is the kind of everyday “stress” that happens in normal life. Some days are good days and others can be, well, pretty damn stressful.

So what distinguishes “trauma” from “stress”?

When we are suffering from trauma, we react in an extreme way whilst the other people around us are just getting on with life. For example, if a bus is late, and we “lose it” and stomp off in a highly distressed state of rage and fury, we probably would not see the other people in the bus queue standing there, looking at us strangely…

They might feel “stressed” by the inconvenience, they might be tut-tutting at the bus company and they might even start muttering out loud. But they remain in control. They are still able to interact with others. They are reacting in a similar way to most of the other people around them.

But if you find yourself stomping off in rage or disappearing into a dark hole of frozen despair and lose connection with the people around you or where you are, then you are carrying trauma triggers that just got “fired up”.

THIS is how we know we are carrying trauma triggers: our reactions are extreme and very different from the people around us.

And no, you are not mentally ill. You are just carrying large amounts of Ambient Trauma in your nervous system. You have been triggered into this extreme nervous system state by trauma. The trauma triggers are not outside of you - they are within your nervous system. The really good news is most of these trauma triggers can be released effortlessly and gently - without any drama at all.

Through Primal Touch.

What is so great about Primal Touch is that it will help both stress and trauma… The simple and safe touch of another human (touch you have agreed upon and can happily receive) soothes stress and discharges trauma simultaneously.

This is why it is the answer to how we can all survive in this highly stressful and highly traumatic “modern world” of ours.

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