Brain Scans Show that Poverty Trauma Changes Children’s Gray Matter
Trauma lives in the body and impacts the nervous system and changes the neural synapses of the brain, which can be seen on brain scans. This means that the way we think and process actually changes due to trauma, especially prolonged trauma or childhood trauma. This is why people behave in ways we see as "unreasonable."
Trauma has also been linked to changes in the brain's gray matter - the brain's gray matter is reduced due to trauma.
Studies have shown that children who have experienced poverty trauma or childhood abuse, have decreased gray matter compared to other children.
This is why it is almost impossible to rationalize trauma because it affects the body and our reasoning ability.
It is also why most people get stuck in trauma (a trauma loop/cycle), no matter how much a person wishes to move on or how many motivational speeches people give them.
The nervous system/body actually senses everything before the mind.
This is why to heal trauma, you must heal at a nervous system level.
Sometimes mindset work can actually retraumatize a person, its why so many people who will themselves to be positive thinkers, can find themselves feeling even more stuck, angry, numb or completely dissociated as they keep forcing themselves to be more positive.
Trust me I have been there and I thought there was something wrong with me.
They will preach positivity but find it very hard to embody it. So then what they teach is an intellectual thing vs embodiment (think: priests).
Trauma is not about mindset or inspiration and needs to be healed at a physical level. Motivating someone who is dealing with complex trauma will not work, their entire system, including the brain, is wired for survival and to keep them alive.
And most times the brain and nervous system are not responding to the information in the present, but to information in the past and making decisions based on past experiences, because…survival.
This also explains why some people struggle to change their finances, no matter how hard they try and why they can never seem to break through a particular savings or income set point.
Side note: trauma is not the big things that happen to us, trauma is simply something that happened that is too overwhelming for us to process or something that leaves us feeling lost or powerless. It is also important to note that what is a trauma for me, may not be a trauma for another person, because trauma is intergenerational and also passes on across lifetimes.
