Healing from trauma isn’t as much about being able to relax, it’s more about being able to tolerate a wide range of emotional, physical, mental relational and spiritual experiences with increased awareness and your conscious presence.
Use your calming box of tools to create your sustainable platform.
You can use your foundation as a way to experiment and keep creating ways to expand your capacity to go through life with whatever comes up.
Constantly feeling overwhelmed, frozen and fearful is not a nice way to live.
You can keep stretching out your edges by going back and forth between an experience of contraction of your body and the inner expansion of spaciousness. As you enjoy the experience of feelings of expansions, it is it as if space is opening within you;
which can feel quite lovely.
Physiology will unravel itself from the psychological constriction and possibly immobility that is a natural reaction to perceived threat.
Contraction and expansion is a natural body rhythm that makes sense when present trauma isn’t there. As you discover the sense of inner spaciousness, your psychology can shift into an overall experience of reorganization Allowing your body moving toward its natural capacity for wisdom and healing.
It’s possible initially, you may not notice the feelings of expansion. Even when you begin to feel less uncomfortable. However, as your body awareness and sense of safety grows and deepens, you will eventually experience this.
The experience of expansion can be delightful and the experience of contraction restful-renewing. Calming, soft rather than disengaging and disconnecting. The trauma cycle disrupts the intrinsic rhythm of contraction and expansion which gets stuck in the contracted or constricted survival mode. As you initiate the moving back and forth, between pleasant and unpleasant experiences you stimulate your natural rhythm to once again establish itself.
Invite your body to feel safe going back and forth in its natural rhythm.
Sometimes imagining a lion that gets into survival mode and predator mode and runs quickly to catch the antelope but then it calms down again to wait for the next time that it needs to go into predator mode.
Nothing and no one can stay perpetually in one state especially when it comes to their body the body needs to go back and forth expansion contraction.
Here is a simple exercise to practice stimulating your beautiful bodies natural rhythms:
Part 1
- Sit or lie in a position that feels comfortable for you
- Recall a pleasant experience from any time in your life. stay connected to the pleasant memory for a few minutes.
- As you remember this pleasant memory, think about any pleasant changes in your body, perhaps a pleasant image, a smile tugs at your lips, your body feels warm. Just take mental note.
- Do you notice a sense of softening, expansion, or spaciousness in your body?
- If you do not, you can return to this exercise once you have a deeper connection with your body and its sensations. This does not mean that you have failed, it means experimenting, taking some breaths. Perhaps going for a walk. Whatever that looks like for you and your situation to feel connected to your body. Don’t feel any sense of failure or panic. You are in learning mode and that is okay.
Part 2
- Bring into your mind an unpleasant time in your life. Do not go to your worst memory. Instead choose one that creates a little bit of tension, a little bit of contraction. Maybe your jaw is clenching and your hands are tightening. Observe this for a few minutes. Be curious how your body changes, even slightly
- Go back to the pleasant scenario, the one you used previously, to notice the softening. Sit in the pleasant scenario for a few minutes. Anchor the pleasant feelings. Anchoring can be by using a body cue. For example: taking your middle finger and your thumb and pressing them together to anchor your memory of a pleasant scenario in your body.
- Now, return to the unpleasant experience. Then, return to the pleasant experience.
- Go back and forth between these experiences. A few times even if it’s very slight.You will have a direct experience of expansion and contraction and will grow it over time.
There is no rush, there is no way to do it the wrong way. You are in learning mode, you are learning, you are gently shifting on your own terms. Keep going, you are doing amazing. Keep building your sustainable platform. Keep building your calming box.Your pathway to joy and peace one step at a time. Feeling calm today.