What’s Blocking You?
Understanding Emotional Barriers and Trauma Based Survival Strategies
“On the surface, we may appear confident, successful, even thriving in specialised areas of our lives, but beneath this exterior lies an inner tension. This tension often stems from emotional blockages formed as a response to previous life trauma, creating barriers to emotional flow and self-expression.”
The Hidden Barriers: How Trauma-Based Survival Strategies Block Your Authentic Self
Many of us go through life feeling as though something is holding us back, unable to fully express ourselves or live the life we truly desire. This sense of being blocked often manifests as a disconnection from our authentic self, where we function on autopilot, driven by old survival strategies rooted in past trauma.
These leftover trauma survival strategies often go unnoticed but can be the cause of our most poignant behavioural patterns. It’s sometimes as if they are keeping us in a tunnel, limiting how we act, connect, and thrive.
While these strategies were once necessary for survival, they no longer serve us and instead keep us stuck. We may feel detached, shut down, or afraid of living life to the fullest, avoiding risks for fear of failure. In trying to maintain control, we may overcompensate or dissociate from our feelings, leaving us unable to shine our light or embrace the vulnerability needed to connect with others inn a truly meaningful way.
Understanding these emotional blockages is the first step to overcoming them. By bringing awareness to how trauma-based strategies have shaped their lives, people can begin to address the root causes behind them and unlock their full potential. This is why I find the work I do so rewarding. It’s my role to guide and support people as they walk this path.
Symptoms of Emotional Blockages
Emotional blockages in a persons life can take lots of forms. In many cases these behaviours are often linked to unresolved trauma, and PTSD, which are now impeding their capacity to engage authentically with life. The following symptoms can signal the kinds of blockages which often limit a person’s ability to live their life to the fullest.
Difficulty with Relationships:
Emotional blockages can hinder your ability to connect deeply with other people in your interpersonal relationships. You may feel disconnected, as if you cannot relate to or trust others. This emotional distance often causes feelings of alienation and isolation. It may be that, on the surface and to those around you, you appear to engage well with others but deep down you don’t truly feel your connections as you’d like to be able to.
Disconnection from Emotions
People with emotional blockages often find it hard to fully feel or express their emotions. This can manifest itself as numbness or difficulty experiencing joy, even in situations which would commonly evoke happiness. This is often a result of a natural response to an earlier trauma, where dissociation can play a key role. Dissociation from your emotional self can, subconsciously, become a survival strategy which, when left unresolved, can reduce your ability to connect fully with your feelings, body, or surroundings.
Avoidance Behaviours
Avoidance is a coping mechanism a person may use to steer clear of specific thoughts, conversations, or experiences that could trigger the resurfacing of unresolved emotional trauma. While this avoidance can provide temporary relief from uncomfortable feelings, it often leads to an underlying feeling of being stuck in survival mode and it can limit your ability to grow as a person.
Intrusive Memories or Flashbacks
Traumatic life incidents can often cause recurrent and intrusive memories of the traumatic events which took place. These can manifest in the mind as either fragmented or vividly overwhelming flashbacks. Although the physical danger associated with the original trauma is no longer there, the emotional and sensory experiences can often feel as real as when the trauma first occurred.
Hypervigilance and Reactivity
Emotional blockages can cause you to experience alterations in arousal and feel as if you’re constantly on edge. You might react defensively or aggressively to situations which would otherwise seem benign. This is often a result of a trauma coping strategy in which the body’s system remains in fight-or-flight mode, even when no immediate threat is present.
Equally you might feel so overwhelmed that your system goes into a shut-down or freeze response. This leads to emotional numbing, withdrawal and difficulties mobilising yourself to deal effectively with life situations. Often others can’t tell that this is what you are experiencing inside.
Chronic Self-Blame or Guilt
Feelings of distorted blame are a common symptom of unresolved traumatic life events. You may hold yourself responsible for events even if you they were beyond your control, and you may find you perpetuate negative beliefs about yourself. This can reflect an ingrained trauma response, blocking you from releasing deep-seated shame or guilt. The hidden causes of these emotions can affect your confidence and stand in the way of true acceptance of past events.
Inability to Fully Engage with Life
Persistent emotional blockages can make it difficult to participate in significant life activities or to maintain interest in things that once mattered. You might feel detached from your passions which can lead to a diminished sense of purpose. It can feel like you’re living life in a tunnel, where you feel restricted and unable to express yourself fully or live life to the fullest.
The “Apparently Normal Self” vs. True Self
When people have lived through major traumatic life events, a striking gap often exists between the “Apparently Normal Self” (ANS) and their authentic or true self. The ANS can be understood as the adaptive, high-functioning persona individuals adopt to navigate daily life, especially in the aftermath of trauma. While this self is often proficient in professional or social environments, it can be emotionally numb, distanced from inner desires, and disconnected from a person’s true essence.
The Apparently Normal Self (ANS)
The ANS is a survival mechanism which arises when the psyche separates everyday functioning from the emotional burden of trauma. Through this process you might be able to maintain external success while your internal world remains blocked or fragmented.
Key characteristics of the ANS
- High-functioning but hollow: Many people with emotional blockages display outward competence but feel a persistent void within. This dissociation involves a part of the self remaining emotionally detached and a person focuses instead on maintaining control and predictability.
- Focus on safety: The ANS is driven to avoid further emotional pain, which can result in people keeping their distance from vulnerability and emotional intimacy. This self is often reactive and avoids challenging situations, preferring to stay in a state of “safe” detachment.
The True Self
The True Self represents who we are when we are fully connected to our emotions, values, and purpose in life. This self is not concerned with external validation or avoidance but is guided by internal alignment and authenticity.
Key characteristics of the True Self
- Authenticity: In this state, a person can freely express their thoughts, emotions, and creativity without the fear of rejection or re-traumatisation.
- Emotional connectedness: The True Self is fully engaged in both positive and negative emotions, allowing a person to process and integrate their experiences rather than avoid them. They are not bound by past survival strategies but are driven by a deeper sense of purpose and meaning.
The Conflict between the ANS and True Self
The conflict between the ANS and True Self often prevents people from experiencing joy, fulfilment, and balance. While the ANS may help someone survive and succeed in the short term, it leaves them feeling emotionally isolated and unable to connect to their authentic self and those around them on a deeper level. This is because the emotional and bodily responses to previous traumatic life events remain unprocessed and dissociated.
The journey of healing from trauma involves recognising and bridging the gap between the ANS and the True Self. This entails working through the emotional and sensory blockages by discovering, understanding and re-uniting those aspects and experiences that had to be exiled by the ANS in order to ensure survival. As people begin to integrate their trauma, they can transition from functioning merely in survival mode to living the full expression of their authentic self.
Moving Beyond Trauma: How my Approach to healing can help you
My approach to therapy is designed to help individuals transcend the survival identities created by trauma and rediscover the fullness of their True Self.
Dr Claudia Herbert
Finding Your Truth
realigning the past
My approach to therapy acknowledges all of the ways in which trauma can manifest itself in a person’s behaviour and shape the way they go on to live their lives. My truest life work rests in helping people to step outside established patterns which are hindering their authentic potential.
I focus on helping people like you to reconnect with your True Self and support you as we address deep emotional blockages caused by past trauma.
Drawing on a lifetime dedicated to holistic and compassionate therapeutic practice, I am able to safely guide my clients to gently integrate their trauma memories and help them re-discover and reunite with previously exiled aspects of themselves. The freedom and release this process can bring to a person’s life can be very profound.
Do You Feel Like You Need Help With Your Emotional Blockages or Trauma?
If you feel like you need help moving past your emotional blockages or trauma, you can get in touch with me to discover discover how I might be able to support you with this.
I have a lifetime of experience, helping people to develop a compassionate, non-judgmental relationship with themselves and learning to understanding their trauma responses with kindness rather than criticism.
Through trauma integration and self-compassion, my clients begin to lead lives with more emotional balance, deeper relationships, a stronger sense of purpose, and a greater connection to their authentic calling in life.