Our experiences, good and bad, shape us and make up a large part of how we see the world, ourselves, others and even God. When people experience a lot of difficult emotions when they are young that go unprocessed, a common coping mechanism they use is to shut down the right brain and overdevelop the left brain, the side that focuses on logic, reason and the present. This allows the painful past experiences to fade from memory so that they no longer feel the pain. Even still, the memories continue to affect their unconscious beliefs and end up being “colored glasses” by which they see the world.

This month’s tool, the Trauma Egg, developed by Marilyn Murray as part of The Murray Method to treat emotional trauma, is useful for helping clients connect the dots between the memories they avoid and how it impacts their unconscious current beliefs. By drawing the trauma egg with colored utensils, and given the proper time and space to devote to the exercise, clients will begin accessing their right-brained processes allowing past traumas, whether big or small, to bubble up to the surface.