From the point of view of reincarnation, a trauma would then appear to be as a consequence of the entity’s past actions in other lives that can be transformed through karmic inheritance in a single incarnation. While trauma is how the individual reacts to what happens to her in a difficult situation, karma is what she does with what happens to her to evolve spiritually. Trauma would then be the physical and emotional manifestation of karma. Thus, the current experience and the way the individual feels as a consequence of past events can completely be the result of a trauma and karma at the same time.

As Sri Aurobindo (1983) explains it, karma is essentially “the will of the Spirit in action, the consequence is only the creation of the will. That which is in the will of the being is expressed in karma and consequence” (p. 103). Aurobindo uses the word “will” to mean that the individual is responsible for everything that happens to her. Cayce’s Source also weighed in on this issue in Reading 341-27, given on August 26, 1928: “WILL is that influence, that condition, that THING, that is compatible with or against the will of the All Creative Energy! Call it nature, God, or what! It is either with or against! Developing to or from! The SPIRIT remaining one and the same.”

According to De Rosnay (2018), “family interactions have been shown to leave a clear epigenetic signature” (p. 13). As epigenetics suggest, we can act upon genetics and heredity through our own actions; so, karma encourages us to do the same. Consequently, connecting personal, intergenerational, and/or transgenerational traumas and karma together is important because they refer to the continuity of the soul’s purpose and evolution. This then can help the individual address trauma differently. She can then recognize it as an entanglement between personal traumas, intergenerational traumas, and reincarnational traumas. It allows her to better understand that her actions in her previous life or lives have generated the conditions of her current life. She can then accept her own responsibility in the way it has manifested.

Therefore, I assert that any individual, with the awareness of how actions have consequences, can transmute trauma and karma at any time by no longer reacting negatively and seeing in it the opportunity to improve herself and evolve. The individual’s set of amplified emotional reactions is then used to allow her to feel the same sensation again and again. Then she can eventually resist the habit of repeating the same actions with the same negative consequences and help her to recover from trauma and karma—to heal both of them. Indeed, her symptoms arising from traumatic events in her present life, she thus recognizes as part of a process of karmic maturation. By accepting of and becoming more responsible for the challenges of life as information about where she is at the present moment, she can grow in her soul.

My research has showed me that from the moment the individual becomes aware of the connection between the desires of her ego, which have generated her actions and their consequences, and of this pattern of action-reaction that is inherent in karma, she can decide to change them by not reacting first to the external events and then to her emotional response. Thus, she can avoid the repetitions that were initially necessary to help her become conscious of her soul and its evolution, until her “life becomes a meaningful ascension, not a repetitive mechanism” (Aurobindo, 1983, p. 58).

Healing from the karma of previous lives and from trauma depends mainly on the recognition of the traumas’ and karma’s symptoms and their connection with events in the current life. If the symptoms are recognized, disclosure of traumatic experiences in the current life related to the previous life, and reactivated by the transgenerational inheritances, can allow transformation of the individual and her soul evolution. Indeed, as the author and founder of the Somatic Experiencing^® (SE^®) Peter A. Levine (2010) notes, “Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence” (p. 37). He goes on, “every trauma provides an opportunity for authentic transformation. Trauma amplifies and evokes the expansion and contraction of psyche, body, and soul” (p. 195).

References

Aurobindo, S. (1983). Renaissance et karma. Paris: Livre de Poche (Translation)
De Rosnay, J. et al. (2018). La Révolution Epigénétique. Votre mode de vie compte plus que votre hérédité. Albin Michel. (translation)
Levine, P. A. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. North Atlantic Books.