It is like being gaslight as a kid all over again except this time I have the language, credentials, and control to share my feelings while seeking understanding, and yet, professionals aren’t properly trained to listen (We ALL fail at listening at times. All this time I thought it was ignorance, and to some extent it is, but for the most part it is greed and the lack of desire to understand.

One of my saddest moments in my professional and personal career was sitting in a room full of trauma professionals, as a trauma professional, watching clients recount and feel their trauma with a mask on my face that was triggering me. I knew better. I knew it wasn’t right. I got angry.

Here it is, people at the top in their profession going along with it too afraid to speak out. Here I was, one of those professionals.

I wasn’t listening to myself.  I authentically allowed myself to feel my feelings and immerse myself in the retreat trauma training experience.  Even trauma professionals don’t let down their guard, they don’t expose their shadow selves.

Trauma Professionals need to be required to their shadow work!

When they don’t, they repeat the Idnorance wound of The Narcissistically Wounded Family System most of us were raised in. “I only accept and am acceptable when I can eradicate my shadow selves.”

That is the work of imprisonment.

Exposing Shadow Selves is the work of Empowerment!