Portfolio Piece: ACE

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)

Patterns of Trauma

ACES are experiences we encounter as a child: Any experience that left us emotionally, psychologically, and/or physically overwhelmed resulting in a fight, flight or freeze response in the body which affects the nervous system.

It is important to understand that what is experienced as trauma to a child’s immature system is drastically different than what an adult can manage and process.

Traumatic experiences get activated every time we encounter a present experience that reminds our energy system of the early experience.

It colors our perception and our reactions and triggers the nervous system into stressful physiological reactions thereby reducing the ability of the immune system and the body's natural tendency to function in homeostasis.

Too much stress – toxic stress — causes a child’s brain and body to produce an overload of stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline. This overload harms the function and structure of the brain.

This can be particularly devastating in children, whose brains are developing at a rapid pace from before birth to age three.

Brain Development • Electrical, Chemical Cellular Mass

Adaptation • Hard-Wired Into Our Biology

LIFESPAN IMPACTS of ACE EVENTS Brain & Life Developments Are Affected: Critical and Sensitive Developmental Periods

Genetics and Epigenetics – Experiences trigger Gene Expression

Psychiatr ic

Alcohol &

Work, Disorders Attenda nce More School

Categorie s include Sexual and Physical Abuse

Drug Abuse

Risky Sex

Impaired Cognition

Poverty

Obesity

Crime

and Eating Disorders

• Memories, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and opinions are forms of energy that significantly influence how we view ourselves and the world around us.

• After many years of our systems trying to compensate for this distortion we can and often do begin to experience many symptoms- physical, mental, or emotional or likely some combination of all three.

• When our fight, flight or freeze response gets activated through hypo - or hyper-arousal states triggered by the recall of an event through present circumstance, it is vital to find the experience that underlies it in order to unravel all the ways it is likely wreaking havoc on your system.

What Did the CDC Measure?

There are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the ACE Study Conducted by Center of Disease Control (CDC).

Five are personal:

• Verbal abuse • Physical abuse • Physical neglect • Sexual abuse • Emotional abuse

What Did the CDC Measure?

Five are related to other family members: • Parent who’s an alcoholic • Family member in jail • Mother who’s a victim of domestic violence • Family member diagnosed with a mental illness • Disappearance of a parent through divorce, death, or abandonment

THINGS TO CONSIDER: • Working with eyes open • What are you picking up intuitively?

• HARA line — is it intact?

• Earth Star- where is it located?

•

Where are you noticing things in the field?

Acknowledgments All work builds on the efforts, gifts, and contributions of others. The following people have made the journey easier for so many, including myself.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nadine Burke Harris

Thank you, Caroline Myss

Thank you, Dan Siegel The Brain in the Hand

https://www.drdansiegel.com/

Thank you, Barbara Brennan Hands of Light

Thank you Karla McLaren The Language of Emotions

Thank you, Sue Kagel HARA line repair (used with permission)

Thank you, Eileen Day McKusick Tuning the Human Biofield

Thank you, Bessel van der Kolk Many books and YouTube Videos

https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/

Thank you, Becky Blanton the first person to validate and teach me about energy.