Those shaking, quaking, destabilizing, tight, sweaty, racing, dense, hot, hollow, dizzying sensations you are experiencing may be growing pains. Life is asking you to grow and by grow I mean heal your trauma and wake up to the reality of the present moment. There is a reason for your growing pains. Life turns us upside down and shakes out all the falseness. All the pretence. All the false demands you have put on your body, your soul, nature, the earth and others. Life gives passageway to what has been suppressed. It often comes with the deconstruction or devastation of what you took for granted as, “your life”. There really is no such thing as, “your life”. Have you noticed?
Life is more of a mystery than something we can possess.
There are so many of us who are undeveloped in our true nature because of childhood trauma. These undeveloped qualities are latent in the physiology, dormant underneath a complex and layered system of survival. One of the most common complaints I hear from people is, “I can’t set boundaries”. This is an example of an undeveloped part that is essential to our nature. Think about how even a toddler can assert, “no” or at least until they are conditioned in a way that makes saying no bad or wrong.
These undeveloped places inside are where we have compensated through our survival identities. In my experience and from years of working with clients these are also the places where we are most likely to blame, reject and abandon ourselves. The disconnect that happens as a result of trauma is filled with loneliness and longing.
Alienated from the nature of who we truly are, we wander aimlessly, trying to fill the void with anything that will stop the pain.
Trauma generates a forward thrust in our physiology. The survival energies of fight/flight keep us stuck on go and when the system runs out of gas it downshifts into the freeze response. It’s go go go and then stop and then go go go again.
These survival states are often misinterpreted as maladaptive but the reality is that they are adaptive. Like every living thing; human beings adapt to the conditions they develop in. If you grew up in a violent home where there wasn’t much support then your system developed around that. Your physiology developed protections and strategies that helped you survive. A false persona. Those protections and strategies may still be helping you survive.
It takes effort to maintain a false persona. The effort is maintained by a lack of safety; belonging; acceptance; compassion; holding; trust; strength, dignity and personal agency. A system that is seeking to restore what it never got in the first stages of life.
Although this is a very complex and multi-layered system, it is also very fragile. I compare it to a house of cards. Although it is an innocent attempt to hold back a tsunami of buried memories and emotions with somatic posturing and pressure it is never quite successful. We hold our breath; restrict our movements; contract our muscles; shrink our bodies; brace our skeletal system; turn away; shut down; get big; get small; tighten our bellies and our chest; clench our jaw; constrict our vocal chords; narrow our pelvis and harden our hearts. And it hurts.
In an attempt to survive we lose our authenticity; our vibrancy and our connection to ourself and others.
So many of us feel so alone with this problem we call “me”. What I’m talking about is not really understood that well yet. Trauma and nervous system healing is still in it’s infancy. It is changing our way of understanding the human being. Those of us who work in this field rarely talk about the psychology of the human being but focus mainly on the physiology. What is happening below the neck. Below the narrative. Below the defence mechanism of the mind. How can we possibly understand human behaviour when we don’t have a good sense of how this survival system was created and how it’s being maintained.
How can analysis possibly be an antidote for a sensitive system that longs for an embodied sense of safety; belonging; structure; warmth; compassion; dignity and grace. When we approach the traumatized physiology with these new understandings and radical compassion we can begin to turn things around. Instead of looking for answers “out there” we can learn what this physiology that has been oriented towards survival really needs. What was hurt and what wasn’t held?
On Wednesday, Nov. 20th, we begin:
Resting and Releasing the Past: a 3 session online event created by Trauma Therapist, Organic Intelligence Certified Coach and experienced Nervous System Practitioner Candace Kirby.
“Be patient when you sit in the dark. The dawn is coming.”
~ Rumi
Resting and Releasing the Past
I would love to connect with you.
Love,
Candace
All of Candace’s services are Trauma, PTSD, Complex Grief, Chronic Illness and Benzo withdrawal symptom sensitive.