Sometimes it's really clear that you have childhood trauma. You might have lived through tragedy, abuse or traumas that are undeniable but not all childhood trauma is obvious. In fact, childhood trauma includes a whole array of things you might have lived through and deemed "normal" because of the home you grew up in or the coping skills you developed. It also doesn't mean you had "bad" parents, sometimes life happens and families go through difficult things that leave us with trauma, even when our parents did their absolute best.

Trauma is not just physical pain. It can also be emotional and mental pain.

As Gabor Mate says "it is not what happens to you; it is what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you." If you had support, safety & access to other resources to help you make sense of what you went through, chances are you had a higher likelihood of moving through traumatic situations without them become trauma that is trapped in your body. 

But,...

Anytime we feel like our heart will break or that we can't get through something... we have the potential to build a Heartwall.

Essentially, the Heartwall is a layer of protection that we build up around our hearts to keep ourselves safe. In those moments where we feel unsafe, unloved or heartbroken, we pull in our unhealed emotions and begin to build this layer of protection around our hearts to keep us from feeling the pain. 

A lot of us (especially empaths) build them as children to protect ourselves from our emotions and the overwhelming feelings that come from not knowing how to deal with them. 

And then year by year, experience by experience we build this layer of protection thicker and thicker around our hearts, numbing us out to our feelings (along with the good emotions) and putting a barrier up in our relationships making it hard to find authentic connection and feel loved. 

There are 5 Major Childhood Experiences that set us up to build a Heartwall.