Last Tuesday on Oct. 11th at the Campus Center, licensed therapist Dave Seymour talked about healing from past trauma, attended by about 10 people.

“We’re all compelled to repeat our past,” said Seymour, a professional with 25 years of experience in psychology.

He explains that our trauma is reflective of our childhood and what we went through during our formative years. He explained that if you experienced a traumatic event during childhood, you will always go back to the mindset you had then whenever you face adversity. He said this is normal behavior for someone who has trauma they haven’t properly dealt with.

He said that people who discover they have certain mental issues think it’s genetic and that they were just born like that. But, according to Seymour, it has nothing to do with our origins.

He talked about some misconceptions relating to trauma. He outlined that as people we usually interpret it as something terrible happening in our life and we remember it years later and still feel pain from it. But, Seymour explained that the major issue with trauma is that people don’t agree that they’ve gone through trauma.

He continued by saying, “What our brain registers becomes our reality.”

What we feel and think concerning ourselves becomes real to us. He explained that we must learn not to rely solely on our brain because it can lead us down the wrong path and make us perceive things the wrong way.

Continuing, Seymour said that when people try to make progress they stop at a certain point. He simply stated, “We get ahead and then we get back behind.”

He elaborated that at first the person is motivated by guilt to move past their trauma. But, after that motivation is gone, they feel content and stop making progress. As a result of this they go right back to the mindset they were originally in before all the work they did.

Dave Seymour then turned his attention to the physical. He said people need to depend on their bodies to keep them present and in the moment. They cannot get lost in their thoughts or let them be in full control. They must ground themselves in the physical realm to stop themselves from thinking of the past.

Overall, he discussed being aware of yourself and where you are mentally and physically. If you aren’t then you will not know when you’re being pulled away from your “new life.” You won’t be able to move on from the past and truly experience the present.