Intense survival energy meant for action is generated in your body during an overwhelming, inescapable experience. You can also view this survival energy as “emotionally intense energy preparing your body for intense action”. Without the ability to escape the danger, to scream for help, to complete a protective or defensive action – in addition to having a lack of compassionate support, or a mind that’s unable to articulate and make sense of what happened – that emotional energy remains stuck in our bodies, tormenting us and locking some of the best parts of us away for safe-keeping. Believe it or not, Trauma energy’s intentions are honorable. Its only goals are to keep you safe & and keep you alive. The problem is trauma still thinks the thing that brought it to life in the first place is still happening or could again at any moment. Trauma can’t tell time, so it remains braced and ready. Unspent survival energy becomes a constant firestorm inside you, making you sick over time, despite its originally good intentions.
- Hypervigilance or a deadened feeling becomes our normal state of being.
- Trauma impacts how our immune system operates, and how we respond to others. Trauma tells us we’re safer alone, or that we need distractions and substances to avoid our feelings and find some physical relief.
- Trauma tells us we’re just better off without friends or relationships.
- Trauma teaches us to catastrophize, because the world is dangerous and we better be ready for the worst.
- Trauma tells us that our body is dangerous and can’t be trusted, so it begins to attack itself.
IS THIS FOREVER?!
No. It does not have to be forever. The saddest thing about trauma is the eviction of the most precious parts of ourselves from our awareness, and the disconnection from our true nature and the world around us. The ability to comprehend (with our minds) why we feel the way we feel is a wonderful start, and I wish it was enough. Until we are ready to identify, name and honor the specific emotions that have been waiting all these years to be liberated and witnessed by you, and bring supportive body movement into the process of healing, we can’t fully reconnect with ourselves or others.