Is there a connection? Are you a trauma survivor and have noticed a profound uptick in your intuition? Do you worry that you are hypervigilant and not intuitive? Let’s learn a little about the Theory of Post-Traumatic Growth, how to distinguish between anxiety and intuition and how a Reiki practice can channel your intuition into a helpful and positive direction.
Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is a theory developed by psychologists Richard Tedeschi, PhD, and Lawrence Calhoun, PhD, in the mid-1990s, and proposes that people who survive psychological struggle following adversity can often see positive growth afterward, including enhanced spiritual connection. In her research, Sara Dyann Stanton noted that clinicians with complex trauma histories were more intuitive than clinicians without such histories.
Bessel van der Kolk in his book The Body Keeps the Score describes children who are raised in abusive environments often develop a keen ability to read cues from non verbal behavior and micro expressions as a survival tactic. Left untreated, the trauma these children experience leads to an adulthood where hypervigilance and interpreting every interaction as a threat can dominate. It is a lonely and scary place to be, and is a threat to mental health.
But in the presence of healing and resilience, I believe these skills can blossom in to full blown intuitive abilities with time and intention.
When the traumas were fresh and unhealed, I would have scoffed at the idea that they would somehow change me for the better. At 25, I experienced a profound and unexpected post-traumatic growth event: I had a precognition or vision so clear and specific, that it uprooted my entire understanding of reality, the world around me and human awareness. I simply could no longer deny that there was more to existence than what I had been taught. It did not heal me, and I sometimes think that gift came a bit early.
I’ll tell that story soon, but it started me on a journey of discovery and understanding that has not always been easy or safe. But I would not trade it. I now understand that one of the gifts of trauma is enhanced intuition and spiritual connection.
My gift came with a hefty price, that I would not wish on anyone: I suffered greatly and still bear the scars of early childhood trauma and years spent feeling scared and isolated. But even so, I would not trade my intuitive gift away for a more mundane level of awareness and a life untouched by wonder. My experience of loss and pain and subsequent growth is the reason that I became a Reiki teacher and practitioner.
Reiki and energy work give that intuitive gift a positive purpose – it can help others who are on a similar journey. I can’t promise to any other trauma survivor that you’ll develop enhanced intuition and nearly psychic ability.
But I can promise that if you show up, do the work to heal, and accept the task of healing off and on for the rest of your life, you will see rewards. Gratitude, purpose, a sense of personal strength and even intuitive gifts are all possible.
To begin developing your intuition over your hypervigilance, I suggest three practices:
- Learn to calm your mind and body. The first level of Reiki attunement teaches a powerful daily self-healing routine. Combining a wellness practice with mindfulness, many Reiki practitioners report wonderful benefits like improved sleep, overall calmness and a shift in demeanor. You can’t perceive clearly if you are in a state of activation. Also, I am a huge advocate of therapy and medication if needed. Take care of yourself.
- Play with your imagination. I had a great energy work/body work teacher who used to encourage us to work with intuition by pretending that we were intuitive already. The fact is, we were intuitive, but our conscious brain was interfering by trying to hard. Efforting is the antithesis of intuitive sensing.
- Learn to discern between anxious thoughts and intuitive thoughts. The big tell is the “charge”. Is it tinged with fear, or is it neutral and calm? My massive vision all those years ago was a series of pictures and then a knowing. The fear came later, but the actual intuition was clear and straightforward.