The 10 Elements of Transformational Healing: How to Rebuild Your Life After Trauma

By Eugene Pizzolato

Literary Titan book review

The 10 Elements of Transformational Healing: How to Rebuild Your Life After Trauma by Eugene Pizzolato is a book about generational trauma and human development, or rather a lack of providing for a child's development

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eugene Pizzolato Pty Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645600810

Book preview

Foreword by rita barbagallo

Mr Pizzolato’s book is an exceptionally well written story of how he became the resilient man that he is today. It identifies the obstacles, trauma, and abuse that he faced while growing up through childhood.

He executes it so wonderfully, that it’s hard to imagine the story being told any other way. It would have been a difficult task for anyone that experienced this in their life. Every recollection would have been so painful and confronting and would have forced him to relive his experiences over and over, while writing this story. He did not just survive; he thrived.

I have been blessed to know Eugene Pizzolato for two years now, and have seen him shine on stage, and transform a whole room with his positive manner and skills, after having dealt with and endured such trauma.

The 10 Elements of Transformational Healing is a must read, and I recommend that this book should be in every library, globally. I further recommend that this book should be compulsory reading for any psychology student. It would help them to understand development traits of many young children experiencing difficulties in their formative years.

Mr Pizzolato has identified each step of the healing process and has thereby created a pathway through the maze of obstacles within such confused minds. This book should be a guideline for therapists to handle their difficult cases.

Rita Barbagallo, The Red Peacock: - author, hypnotherapist, and mindset coach.

Acknowledgements

My mum and my childhood experiences inspired me to author this book. It was not until I understood the power of generational trauma and how human conditioning had impacted my life so profoundly that I was able to transform and heal.

I wish to acknowledge Rachel May Brine from Rosewhite, Victoria, for her one act of kindness when I was five years old. Her gesture was the compass that kept me believing there was some good in this world.

I want to acknowledge Joshua and Luke for their support when I started putting this book together, for helping me film on the foreshores of Phillip Island and for their belief and support in me when I was trying to find my way home to myself.

I want to acknowledge Lachlan for standing beside me when others wouldn’t and for his unwavering support.

I would like to acknowledge Nicholas for saving my life and allowing me to step up and take responsibility for my behaviour, and for allowing me to be human.

I want to acknowledge Amy, a reminder that our words hurt deeply and leave profound wounds, which I will work on healing for as long as it takes.

I would like to thank and acknowledge the following people who have meant a lot to me, through a very lonely journey, for their support, guidance and friendship:

To Mariella Joyce, for being my first friend.

To Travis Cartwright, for being my best friend and always being there for me over the past thirty years.

Gayle and Graeme O’Brien, for helping me on my healing journey, and the Bunge Bakery Group for the best twelve years of my corporate career.

For their support, guidance and friendship, I would like to acknowledge John Kimber, Simon McDowell, Sarah Wheatley, Ray Tanti, Gordon Gemmel, Gavin Russell, Poppy Eugenio and Owen Nelson.

I would like to acknowledge Charlotte Harris for holding space for me to identify the breaking moment when I tried to take my own life, allowing me to explore what and why this happened.

I am grateful to Lachlan, Joshua and Luke for allowing me to be me and supporting me when I broke. What I have with these three fine young men is what I had dreamt of having when I first became a father but without the knowledge of how to do this. Now I do… they say it’s never too late.

I am grateful to my mum and dad, Sueanne, Sonia, Daniel, John, Amy and Nicholas for not accepting my inability to respond to life and for showing me that reacting was not ok. This allowed me to go deeper inside my hell so that I could learn, heal and rebuild my life. Without their courage to stand up, I would not have had the courage to go where I needed to find my inner peace and self-respect. Thank you.

Introduction

To find freedom, inner peace, clarity and confidence, you need the courage to take radical ownership of your story and your life.

If your emotional needs were not met, your development was not provided for, and you had some challenging experiences in the early developmental stages of your life, there are no quick fixes as many would like you to think.

Your development includes communication skills, asking for what you want, saying no with confidence and having healthy personal boundaries. Your emotional needs include being held, being allowed to have and express your feelings, and having time made for you.

If you want to organise your thoughts, you must look at where those thoughts came from. You must learn and understand the patterns of behaviour you experienced and then look at how that has played out in your life.

I have authored this book to inspire you to believe that no matter where you have been and no matter your experiences, you too can find inner peace, self-respect, clarity and confidence to live your life with freedom, peace, love and joy.

I share my story with you in the hope that it may support you to find just that.

My story is traumatic—maybe yours is, too.

If you don’t heal your childhood trauma, it will repeatedly present itself. The more that you ignore it, the bigger it becomes, and if you don’t deal with it, it will deal with you, sadly hurting those you love along the way.

I have supported people in the Transformational Healing Space for over twenty years. I’m fortunate to have experienced many healing and personal development modalities, including psychiatry, psychology, counselling, inner child workshops, emotional release, Gestalt therapy, bodywork, cranial sacral therapy, tantra, reiki, communication skills, conflict resolution, anger management, shamanic sexual healing, leadership coaching, train the trainer, time management and coaching for performance.

What I have come to understand is that healing trauma alone is not enough. We need to explore the whole human experience and rebuild what we never received in our early developmental stages.

Transformational Healing means learning to love ourselves first, rebuilding our missing development, healing our Source Fracture Experiences and learning what our triggers are so that we can neutralise them. Only when one looks at our whole experience as a human can we transformationally heal and rebuild our life.

My hope is that "The 10 Elements of Transformational Healing: How to Rebuild Your Life After Trauma" can guide you to your inner peace and self-respect.

Please note that some names in this book have been changed to protect people’s privacy.

Human Development

According to psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, there are eight stages of human development: infancy, early childhood, preschool age, school age, adolescence, early adulthood and late adulthood. These stages are also known as our psychosocial development, as social and emotional experiences during these stages determine our personality.

Building upon the work of Sigmund Freud, Erikson states that each developmental stage is defined why using opposing psychological behaviours, one positive and one negative. Each stage is a foundation for later stages, so if a person is negatively impacted during one stage, each subsequent stage will be affected.

The healing work you will discover in this book focuses on the early stages of development: infancy through to school age and adolescence. What’s crucial to my own experience is that these early years were hugely traumatic. So, was it any surprise that my adulthood was messy?

Your childhood life is likely filled with what I term Source Fracture Experiences. These are events or experiences that profoundly affect the way you view the world and the way you relate to other people. It’s a trauma that happened to you, and you attributed a meaning to it in order to understand the world around you.

For example, you might have been consistently ignored when choosing teams at school. The Source Fracture Experience is that you weren’t selected. The meaning you may have attributed to it is that you aren’t worthy of being part of the group, or perhaps you told yourself that you’re not good enough or that you’re invisible.

The trauma itself doesn’t matter so much as the meaning you derive from it. The meaning you give the Source Fracture Experience then affects all areas of your life in the future.

There is a lot of literature available on Erikson’s developmental theory. As a summary, so that you understand the basis of this work, here are the key themes that are critical to healthy psychosocial development.

Infancy

In order to build trust, infants must be given a secure environment with reliable access to food and love. Babies who are left to cry, for instance, learn at this stage that they are unsafe in the world.

Early Childhood

Young children need to learn autonomy and independence within a safe environment. Children whose development was affected during infancy will tend to be clingy and self-doubtful, while children who were shown safety and affection will display more confidence and self-assurance.

Preschool Age

At this age, children need support and encouragement in their learning and interests. If their infancy and early childhood were negatively impacted, they may be hesitant to try new things or will rely heavily on others due to a lack of confidence. Children who were positively supported during infancy and early childhood are able to plan and accomplish tasks with independence.

School Age

Self-confidence and socialisation are the main themes for this stage of development. Successful development up to now will ensure that children play well with others, take pride in their abilities and have a sense of competence. This usually leads to positive reinforcement from teachers and parents.

Children who haven’t developed in earlier stages will feel inadequate, inferior and lack confidence. This is often followed by criticism or punishment from authority figures.

Adolescence

This stage centres around relationships. While insecurity and self-identity are likely to be in question for all adolescents, a positively developed person will be able to relate to others more easily and will have a sense of fitting into their community. A negatively developed person will feel out of place and as if they don’t belong anywhere. These people will struggle with making commitments to others.

Their mental and physical health will be subpar, and they’ll lack confidence.

Early Adulthood

Early adulthood addresses intimacy, both sexual and in other contexts. Healthy development up to this point means an individual is able to form close friendships or long-term partnerships, either romantic or platonic.

Adults who haven’t had their emotional needs and development met will struggle to form these relationships. They will have poor self-esteem and will be cautious about forming close relationships with others. These people may experience unhealthy relationships and lack supportin their networks.

Adulthood

Development during adulthood means engaging with the next generation through parenting, coaching, or teaching. This stage looks at community participation, responsibilities, and learning new skills.

Successful development looks like commitments to family, friends, and community. Unsuccessful development looks like self-centredness and a lack of desire to get involved with other people or improve themselves. Unsurprisingly, adults who struggle with development at this stage show a lower satisfaction with life.

Late Adulthood

At this stage of life, people are likely to be contemplating their past—their personal life and achievements. People who have developed good relationships and taken pride in their work have more of a sense that they’ve contributed to the world. They display an acceptance about their stage of life and may feel at peace with themselves.

People who have struggled with their earlier development may feel bitter and regretful over past mistakes and actions. It is common for these people to display a sense of despair.

Part 1:

My Childhood Experiences and the Meaning