Trauma is an experience you’ve framed as negative, something that you avoid.

It becomes debilitating to you and becomes an ongoing dysfunction... until you learn from that experience and frame it as personal progress.

When you frame it as personal progress, fear is replaced by faith. Bitterness dissolves. You become free.

And you can use that progress to make even more progress (this may look like helping someone out who has had a similar negative experience that you did.)

P.S. - This is much easier said than done. It takes lots of practice, especially in the case of emotional or physical abuse. The good news is, over time, you can get better. I, for one, am still hanging on to some trauma, but after practicing turning it into a step forward, it hurts a little less.

Credit: I give credit to this idea to Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy and their book The Gap and the Gain.