Just because you can’t ‘see’ it, doesn’t mean that the evidence of it isn’t… everywhere.
This is the story of trauma in our everyday lives.
If you have survived an intense or overwhelming incident (or series of incidents) such as verbal or physical abuse, surgery, assault, an accident, or ongoing gas-lighting from a significant person in your life…. it’s possible there‘s trauma in your energy body.
Trauma is the imprint of the incomplete survival response: You felt a threat, you instinctively wanted to protect or defend yourself, but you were unable to do so at that time.
The animal that you are IS designed to process intense experiences. You don’t have to be “traumatized” by the tough stuff of life.
But an intense experience becomes a traumatic experience when it was some combination of: too much, too soon, too fast, over a prolonged period of time.
Trauma happens when your nervous system is overwhelmed and maxes out.
The charge of trauma holds your own internal conflict between the way your nature wanted to respond to that scary experience, and what actually went down.
If you were verbally abused as a child, your little survival instinct might have wanted to get up and run to the safety of your tree house. But instead you were made to keep your mouth shut, sit and endure the barrage.
If you had to have a surgery, it’s likely that your animal instinct wanted to tear those tubes out, tell the surgeon to get the hell out of your way, put your street clothes on and stride out of the hospital. But you were under anesthesia and literally could not speak or move your body.
If you experienced an assault of some sort, your instinct might’ve been to bash your assailant’s head in. But you were too frightened to fight, so instead, your curled up and froze.
Furthermore, many people experience pervasive trauma, which means that given your gender identity or the shade of your skin (basically, something about just who you are) in a certain culture, micro-traumas are embedded in your everyday life. Over time, processing these small daily traumas becomes incredibly taxing on the nervous system.
It’s important to acknowledge to yourself that you survived.
YOU ARE ALIVE.
Because one of the questions the body often holds after traumatic incidents is did I survive that?
But even though you did survive, you might still feel the underlying presence of trauma pulsing through you – affecting your words, decisions, and habits in daily life.
When I was younger my unresolved trauma sent me into dangerous, thrill-seeking behavior; climbing to the top of a water tower in high heels, smoking a cigarette on the subway, attempting to cross the border with a sexy convicted criminal I barely knew.
What a relief to no longer have these unsafe urges!
The presence of trauma can also cause you to:
-Not speak up for yourself
-Have trouble making decisions
-Regularly shut down and hide
-Easily become anxious or irritable
-Avoid pursuing a big dream
This can lead to your life feeling incomplete; to YOU feeling incomplete – like you’re only a shell of yourself.
It can also lead to a really scary feeling of having no choice, no control.
Do you recognize what I’m saying here? Do you feel it in your own soma? (Soma is a pretty word for body.)
So what do you do about it?
You turn towards it.
Instead of pretending it’s not there, you choose to acknowledge it IS there, and decide you want to finish those incomplete survival responses.
Because that trauma ain’t going nowhere without your help – it’s timeless… while keeping you trapped in a time long, long ago.
You must let your body be heard. Let yourself finally express the underlying truth that was repressed.
This is the essence of embodiment.
It’s a key.
A key to becoming your whole, unapologetic self.
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