Trauma occurs when we have experienced a stressful event. This can relate to events that happened to you, or the things that should have happened for you – but didn’t. Often these events take place too quickly, too often or too intensely, stressing our nervous system beyond our coping skills. When this happens, our body’s natural stress cycle (involving the fight or flight response) becomes interrupted and our ability escape or fight back becomes paralyzed. Thus we are unable to – at that exact moment – respond to the stressor. Consequently, our body is left with excess survival energy that locks us into a state of freeze or shutdown as the natural stress cycle has been overwhelmed. This “stuck” energy gets stored into our bodies and can be easily triggered by seemingly random things, such as sounds, smells, places, people, feelings, even tastes.
When this “stuck” energy gets triggered, our body remembers our initial reaction (Freeze or Shutdown) and we can experience the same overwhelming emotions, creating responses that appear “irrational”, “over-the-top”, “unnecessary”, “senseless”, “ridiculous”, or even “unreasonable”. Sometimes, this stuck energy brings images back to our minds of the event before we became overwhelmed, creating what is called flashbacks or snippets of memories. Often these flashbacks don’t make sense and the triggers can be hard to recognize. During these moments, people can look “spaced out” momentarily, or “off in a daydream”. They look awake but are unable to respond to those around them. This is often called disassociation.
So what can be done?
Understanding that the stuck energy needs to be released is the first step. This stuck energy is in your body, so talking about it can actually retraumatize you. Finding outlets that allow you express these huge, overwhelming emotions safely is the key. This can be done through Guided Drawing, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), somatic exercises, EFT Tapping, drumming, dancing and singing (loudly) are all examples of “reconnecting” your body to “flow” with the natural stress cycle it has. Another effective technique to assist with this is massaging the trigger points in and around the ears.
begin your journey now…
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