Emotional Trauma is Like a Lego Car!

Imagine. It's childhood. You've just built a Lego car.

It's assembled perfectly, all done according to the instructions, ideas, creative imagination and plan of its creator.

The creator is your Higher Self and the car is your physical Self, built according to a Divine Plan or Blueprint, which was devised by your Higher Self.

I want you to also imagine, that this fairly pristine and perfect lego car, is travelling down an actual, physical road known as Life.

As your Lego car traverses down this road called Life, you encounter many obstacles on your way.

Some of these obstacles are natural and unavoidable, simply a part of the makeup of the road. These are things like metaphorical potholes, speed bumps, fallen branches, traffic that keeps you from getting you to where you want to be.

Now if you know anything about Lego creations, you would know that they tend to be quite fragile. If you were to pick it up poorly, it most likely would have something break off under its own weight. So travelling down this road, for this perfectly innocent little lego car can be quite the challenge.

In a literal sense, you could liken a pothole to falling over for the first time and injuring yourself, knowing for the first time that you can be harmed and are somewhat mortal.

A speed bump could be your school or parents placing rules upon you in order to curtail your excitement, and fit into the social rules of our culture.

These obstacles can be foreseen mostly. And could be considered a part of that road called Life.

And with these kinds of obstacles, there may be procedures in place to help you recover and get back to as you were before.

Or perhaps, and this could be one of the most profound metaphors yet, the loss of pieces is considered "normal" and a part of socialisation. That you are not allowed to be fully whole. This would make it okay for most, however, as there is a still a collective validation for the loss.

However, some obstacles are unforeseen. These could be rogue arsonists or thieves, who are jealous of your new car. They want some of your pieces for their own car, as they have already lost their own and feel bitter and resentful. So there may be a confrontation or exchange which leaves you less than you were before.

Imagine that each time you encounter an obstacle, a piece of the Lego car comes off, and if it’s a hard enough impact, or if you don’t prepare for the impact and secure those pieces in place, it can leave you wrecked and broken, barely able to move forward.

We can equate this to what is known as "trauma", where a piece of you has been fallen on the road and has been left behind. You are now scared and injured from the experience and your perfect Lego car is falling apart with every twist and turn. This is what ultimately leads to death.

As previously described, there are systems in place for the "natural" foreseen obstacles of our Lego car. There are mechanics who can put you back together. These are doctors, job opportunities, welfare etc. All established systems that can be validated as "normal".

But what about the unforeseen obstacles? These are not only traumatic due to it being unforeseen, but further traumatic in the sense of it being invalidated and denied.

This is what happens with emotional abuse and neglect. The pieces are taken from your little Lego car and there is no way to account for how to resolve this by your family structure, culture or society at large.

They tell you to "get over it", "move on" and continue to make your way down the road even though your Lego car is struggling and falling apart. With each hit you take, the performance of your body and vehicle gets worse and worse.

There is good news though!

Along that road, which is your Lifetime, you can go back to the moment that the obstacle and bump occurred. And that moment in time is still there! It lies within your memory, both episodic and procedural.

You can go back to those moments on the road (the process of shadow work) and pick up those pieces and reattach them to you (known as integration).

This is the process of healing your Shadow and integrating the subconscious suppressed parts of you that have been ignored. You may not even notice the fact that the bumper of your Lego car has been hanging off for the past god knows how many miles!

But it is also be good to note, that as we travel along this road, we may pick up new pieces and spare pieces that we know longer need.

We may pick up Lego passengers that are great companions for a while that provide us with joy, fun and shared experiences. But over time they and their baggage begins to weigh us down, adding things that take up too much room. These added pieces and parts of our life vehicle may serve us for some time, but may need to be let go of naturally, so you can move faster. These are the people, beliefs, habits, circumstances that no longer serve you.

Once there is more room, you are free again, with added knowledge and experience that there may be more times of letting go, but also more companions and experiences to collect and journey with together.

So in conclusion, I thought I would share with you this metaphor to help you understand the nature of your being.

That there is a Divine Blueprint to who you are, and you can go back and reclaim the parts of you that once were left behind. It all can be done by facing the moments of chaos and reattaching them to our body, mind and Self, as summed up by the little Lego car analogy.

And if we can remind ourselves of the innocence and play that was at hand when our Higher Self created this road, this car, this Life in our human experience, I find that the context provided may make the journey feel a lot easier.