My First Blog!
It feels hard to believe that I’ve made it this far into my career without ever creating a blog! But I’m going to give it a try! As I expand outward from Perinatal Trauma into the world of Embodiment Coaching it feels important to share what I’m doing. There are so many buzzwords flying around - Trauma, Embodiment, Mindfulness, and so many more. So what do these things mean? To keep is super simple, Trauma is not in the event, but in the way in which the event becomes integrated in our system. So as we move forward from a difficult event and find that we are not returning to feeling “normal” it may be a sign that the event has become stuck in a place of activation or dis-regulation in our nervous system. Often at this point, our body has told us that it is not a safe place to be - it may tell us that by waking us up in the night with nightmares, shortness of breath, feeling dis-engaged or apathetic, feeling a heightened sense of fear/danger, trouble communicating, digestive issues and a wealth of other signs. As long as our body is not feeling safe, then our mind is not on board. You can’t think your way out of trauma because it doesn’t live in the mind. It lives in the body!
So what now? As we unravel these buzzwords and start to make sense of what it feels like to be dis-engaged from the body, we can begin to notice that it doesn’t feel good to be “in” a body that is unsafe or dis-regulated. We work to find any way that we can to feel better. That often comes in the form of external forces - substance abuse, shopping compulsions, food cravings, etc. These things make us feel momentarily better but leave us needing more and more in order to re-capture that feeling. It is all a band aid, and none of it sticks! What we need to do is repair the relationship with ourselves.
Some sort of rift has happened within us. The work of Embodiment Coaching helps us to learn that the body is a safe place to reside. By using Somatic Techniques to learn more about what the rifts are, how our system gets stuck in a loop of thinking it needs to protect us, employing coping techniques that usually are not appropriate for the current situation, and therefore causing anxiety, we begin to help the body understand that these activations are not necessary. We begin to release the activation so that we can work through the thoughts and feelings that call it to action. We begin to repair the relationship with the self and float ever so gently back into the body. This is embodiment - landing safely in ourselves and reconnecting with the thinking mind!
Are you in your body right now? Is it a safe place to be? Take a moment and concentrate on your feet on the ground. Can you feel them? Can you distinguish each toe from the others? What happens as you notice your feet? Food for thought!