Trauma makes it impossible to be present.

When somebody endures a shock from a disturbing event that is greater than his/her emotional capacity to synthesize, it becomes a trauma. Have you ever considered what happens to the charge that moved through the system that couldn’t be metabolized?

Often the charge is suppressed and/or part of the person’s energy splits off from the rest of the psyche. It’s as though we becomes frozen in time at the moment of the trauma. Life goes on, we adapt but when part of us is frozen so it’s hard to be fully present. .
After trauma we learn to work around the suppressed or segregated parts of ourselves. We employ many layers of adaption to work around the frozen part and continue functioning.

Eventually, when we want more out of life, we might start exploring our trauma. There are a lot of differences of opinion in the therapeutic community about how best to work with trauma. I’m not sure there is any one right answer. The best approach depends on the degree of trauma, the state of physical health and resilience, the amount of support in life, the willingness and capacity to engage in therapy etc.

From my perspective, we need to re-integrate our frozen parts in order to live life to the fullest. It’s a slow and gradual process that can be intense but I believe it’s worth it.