Why do you feel lost in life? The real cause of trauma - Marianna Gierszewska

Marianna explains that in trauma therapy, the patient is given the opportunity to physically stop the parent, say 'stop', and even hit. These impulses were frozen for years. This is not acting out aggression, but unblocking a healthy defensive reaction. After such completion, the patient often feels relief and the end of internal helplessness.

Marianna advises that before a possible conversation with a parent about the past, first take care of your own traumatic material. Otherwise, at the first moment of misunderstanding, the patient explodes and blames. After years of work, many people are able to look at the parent as a human being, not just an abuser. For Marianna, truly saying 'I love you' to her mother took many years of therapy.

Marianna shares that she herself for many years did not feel safety at all, and the only glimpses appeared when she was hanging onto another person. That was not true internal safety. In work with clients, she encourages them to look for moments of calm in the body, so-called 'glimmers', and strengthen them. This builds capacity.

Marianna explains that intellectualization involves using the prefrontal cortex (understanding, analyzing) to keep at a distance the hyperreactive limbic system, especially the amygdala, which is sounding the alarm. In childhood in non-secure homes, this becomes a survival strategy: the child tries to understand why they suffer in order to bear it. In adulthood, this habit causes the person to circle around their pain but not pass through it somatically. Neurobiologically: when the limbic system is on fire, the prefrontal cortex is offline and has no influence on stress reactions. That is why just 'getting a grip' on trauma with thoughts does not bring relief in the body. Only reaching the language of trauma – sensations, movement, unfinished impulses – enables true working through. The expert gives the example of people with PTSD who perfectly analyze their trauma but still have panic attacks and dysregulation.

Marianna quotes her clients' statements: 'that my dad left, it was created especially for me, for my soul'. Although from a karmic perspective this may make sense, from the point of view of trauma neurobiology such an explanation can be a protective form – a way not to feel helplessness and horror. In PTSD there is so-called 'post-traumatic growth', but when a person immediately sees a higher purpose in every pain, they may bypass confrontation with the reality of senseless cruelty. The expert emphasizes that some events are simply terrible and devoid of meaning, and accepting this truth is a condition for healing.

Levine created the concept of renegotiation of trauma: instead of recalling the story, you work with the somatic sensations that are recorded in the autonomic nervous system. Marianna gives the example of the wound of abandonment by the father: if you go through the process related to the main figure of abandonment (dad left, didn't call on birthdays), then all later situations in which the patient felt the taste of abandonment (breakups, rejection at work) also undergo healing, because they were connected to the same neural pattern. That is why complex trauma therapy, though painful, does not last decades – by renegotiating the core, the network is released.

Marianna precisely describes: the hippocampus, a part of the cortex (cortical structure), creates a narrative – a story with a beginning, middle, and end. When the organism is in a state of threat, flooded with cortisol, the hippocampus shuts down, and memory becomes fragmented or does not form at all. An example is her husband Miłosz, who despite long therapy did not recover a complete picture of his childhood. The amygdala (subcortical structure) does not shut down under the influence of cortisol, and even increases its sensitivity. It records emotions and somatic sensations (tightness in the chest, accelerated heartbeat) without linking them to a specific event. That is why people with preverbal trauma or childhood amnesia have 'triggering' reactions in relationships, but cannot rationalize them. This knowledge emphasizes the necessity of working with the body and sensations, not just with narrative memory.

Marianna describes how during her first therapeutic meeting, when she told her whole story, she left the office with a panic attack. She emphasizes that building capacity is based on creating in the body and nervous system the ability to be with intense affect, without letting oneself be sucked into the vortex of trauma. In trauma therapy, experiences are renegotiated gradually (by the spoonful or pipette, as she says), and the therapist is an empathic witness who helps regulate. The moment when a person feels ready is not when they want to tell everything, but when they can be with a small part of the pain and return to regulation.

Marianna lists a set of indicators: the ability to be goofy, laugh, spontaneously go to a gallery, interest in art; cognitive curiosity and towards oneself; reacting less automatically with old survival strategies; moving away from black-and-white thinking towards shades of gray; greater compassion for oneself and others; deeper, real relationships, not those on screen; experiencing 'glimmers' – moments of marvel at the sun, the street, a colleague's figurine. All this results from the nervous system ceasing to be in chronic mobilization or disconnection and returning to the state of the ventral vagal nerve, where contact, creativity and safety are possible.