Healing from witnessing your parent being abused

Last night I watched ‘The Drover’s Wife’ on Netflix. It broke my heart wide open and then I closed it over to cope with the grief, the anger and the pain from domestic violence and alcohol fueled violence that affects so many women and children, myself included.

It is devastating as a child watching your parent be verbally, emotionally, physically and/or sexually abused. It is infuriating that you are too small to save them, to fight back, to stand up to the abuser and tell them to “STOP. Take responsibility for their pain and their life, to be a caring, mature adult and do the right thing”.

The joy of life gets stripped away as you deal with your anger, your resentment, your fear of when it is going to happen next or if it will get worse. You worry about your parent getting seriously hurt or killed and you being left alone with the perpetrator. You worry about when he/she will turn on you. You feel so helpless and hopeless.

You wonder why none of the other adults in your life step in to help. You wonder why your parent stays and allows themselves to be treated so poorly.

You struggle to lift your head up and live. You wonder “What’s the point of trying if it is always going to be like this”. You don’t ever relax fully just in case the fighting breaks out again.

Fun times, parties, are not fun for you as you know once the perpetrator gets drunk the fighting is likely to start. So, you brace yourself ready for what is to come. You hope and pray it doesn’t occur this time. You pray that maybe just once they will pass out before they attack and abuse.

You wonder whether there is any goodness in them at all and how they can live with themselves afterwards, after being so cruel and destructive.

You wonder why life is so hard and why humans can be so cruel. To survive you harden up, you numb yourself to the pain, you become bitter, cynical and angry. You do what you have to do to survive, even if that means isolating yourself from those you love, never letting anyone close because you don’t want to see their pain, face them being hurt anymore.

You close down and retreat into yourself or you leave, run away physically or energetically, no longer being a part of the family system. But energetically, spiritually we are always a part of our family system. They are in our blood, our DNA, the cells of our body. We live because they lived and passed on life to us. We can’t cut ourselves off, that’s like cutting off our own arm.

If we do cut ourselves off fully we will eventually get drained, exhausted, burnt out as we have cut ourselves off from the goodness, the energy supply, the river of life force that flows through our ancestors to our parents to us.

They are a part of us. We are a part of them. Our job as adults is to find our way back to our hearts, to feel our pain and to humbly stand before our parents and speak our truth.

“It hurt so much to see you suffer. I just wanted you to be safe. I wanted to feel your love and play. I wanted to be seen and listened to, to be heard and cared for. I accept you couldn’t give me that, you didn’t have any more energy, love or joy to give to me with what you were facing.

Thank you for giving me what you could. What you couldn’t give me I’ve had to find from elsewhere. It’s taken a long time to find it Mum, but I have found it. I honour you and all you went through.

I thank you for my life and for the closeness we now have. Thank you for finding your way through too. I’m so glad you won’t let anyone treat you that way ever again. I love you so much and I welcome you back into my heart, my life, my love and I look forward to spending more time together actually enjoying life. Thank you Mum, thank you for my life”.

When we can do this, we set them and ourselves free. We get to have peace in our hearts and calm in our bodies and nervous systems. We get to step out of hypervigilance, scanning for danger and isolating for protection.

We get to rejoin life and to see that there is love and goodness out there. There are lots of people who treat each other with love and respect. We start to let ourselves participate in life more fully and receive the love and goodness we have always longed for.

In time we also see that the perpetrator didn’t know how to behave better, how to cope with their hurts and disappointments from their life. As we heal we eventually find compassion for them and their journey. We see that they had deep pain inside which leads to their lashing out and hurting others.

We see that as an adult we can now walk away from that. We don’t have to stay entangled in their pain. We can hand it back and leave it with them. We can bow, honouring their difficult journey and then turn to face our own life, to walk forward into our future, using what we have learned to create as much goodness, love and joy as we can.

May all children and parents who have suffered from domestic violence find peace. May they heal and come back together to honour the love they have for each other and enjoy the rest of their lives as much as they can. Blessed BE.

Here’s a link to my page with free resources to assist with healing from child abuse.

(The healing process I’ve explained above is just my life’s example. A lot of the deep healing occurred through doing Family Constellations sessions where I could feel my feelings and speak my truth to someone standing in as a representative for my Mum and my Stepdad. I didn’t have those conversations with my actual parents. That would have been too confronting with the level of pain I had and they may not have been able to hear it.

Family Constellations creates a safe space for you to speak your truth and heal. Once you have healed and found more peace you might have a truthful conversation with your parents. When you’ve reached a greater level of peace within you, you are less vulnerable, less likely to be reactive or defensive if they can’t hear you or acknowledge what you have been through. Your parents will have seen what occurred very differently to you. If they have not dealt with their pain they may simply deny it or push you away as it is too hard for them to face it.)

Family Constellations Facilitator Training 2024 (in person, in Meadows, South Australia)

Facilitating this training has been my greatest joy this year. I look forward to sharing it with whoever feels drawn to participate in 2024.

It is such a privilege to walk beside people on a healing journey. This Family Constellations Facilitator Training is a 6-month healing journey where you learn about the hidden dynamics within families that impact our health and wellbeing.

Learn about intergenerational trauma and how it passes down the family line looking for someone to face it, feel it and release it on behalf of all.

Learn how to see your life and your experiences from a systemic perspective, understanding why your parents and their parents may not have been fully available to nurture and nourish their children.

See the repeating patterns and how to shift them.

Feel your emotional hurts and transform them, speaking your truth to representatives of those involved.

Release what no longer serves you so that you can open to receive more love from life, Source, Earth, yourself and your family system.

Connect to the bigger processes unfolding, supporting your growth and healing.

This training is a 6-month journey of stepping into greater peace and love. It will involve some challenging moments as you face and feel the inner depths of your pain, your truth of how you feel and what you need, but you will come out of it empowered to create more of what you do want in your life.

And as a bonus you will have also learned how to and practiced facilitating constellations for yourself, others, and small groups. You will have the skills and knowledge to become a Family Constellations practitioner if you wish to do so.

There is no pressure to do this. You can simply do the training with the intention of focusing on your own healing and that of your family system. It is up to you.

With Family Constellations there is no right and wrong. We hold a space for what the field wants to reveal to us. We honour what we are shown and those involved.

We give thanks for the realisations and the freedom that comes from understanding the wider system and hidden dynamics shaping our families behaviour.

We honour all involved and give thanks for our lives. We face the truth and acknowledge what is.

We turn from that which has held us back and walk forward into the new feeling the support of our family system walking with us.

We feel the presence of our ancestors and foster a deeper sense of belonging, of being held, loved and supported by those who came before us and passed on life to us.

We honour life and the difficult journeys we have as humans with tender hearts in a world that can be deeply painful and cruel, as those around us act out their wounds and slowly return to their natural state of innocence.

Learn how to rest in the stillness, peace and love of the field, which holds you in pure light enabling you to rebalance, renew and refocus into living from a state of love.

If this feels interesting to you, if you are willing to go within and face what is, then you are welcome to do this training.

You don’t need to have any qualifications or existing skills.

I will provide you with a detailed manual explaining life from the Family Constellations perspective.

We will have one weekend a month together to do constellations, to share and heal deeply.

In between you read the manual and practice what you have learned.

We can stay in touch through a private Facebook Group and of course I am available for 1 on 1 sessions (but these are at an additional cost, discounted for training participants).

There are more details on my website including a list of Frequently Asked Questions.

Blessed BE,

Jodi-Anne

How do we reset our moral compass after abuse?

Recently I’ve been having more memories of sexual abuse arise. As I comfort my younger selves and release the buried trauma and emotion I found myself asking this question and channelling this answer. I hope it is useful to those who have experienced abuse and are finding their way through it. Many blessings to all, Jodi-Anne

When you have been sexually abused your body becomes numb, armoured, and protected so that you don’t feel the full impact of the abuse or what happened afterwards. As you heal you start to soften the defences and open back up to love, touch, closeness, and intimacy. For some this is too scary, so they stay celibate, not able to trust another to treat them right.

Some stay in the pain and continue to let themselves be touched in ways that are not beneficial. They let themselves be used by others for the momentary feeling of being wanted, loved, and special, only to find that once the act is over the other leaves them feeling even more alone, abandoned, used and discarded.

It is a hard path to navigate. It is hard on your body that gets armoured with each impact, each indiscretion, and each choice. It is not empowering to sleep around thinking you have the choice and freedom to do as you please. Seducing others so you feel powerful just leads you to despise them and yourself. For at a later stage you will regret your choices and your naivete. You will feel the emptiness and neediness that was underneath your actions. Even though you were voluntarily engaging with others sexually, it is still a form of self-neglect and self-abuse.

The healing comes when you start to honour yourself more fully. When you start to say “No, I am going to look after myself. I don’t need anyone else to give me false affection. I am going to meet my needs. I am going to honour my body and all it has been through. I am going to treat myself like the precious being that I am. I am going to hold my own hand and look after myself. I will love, cherish and honour the innocence inside me, which is still there, still pure, no matter what I’ve been through. I am still a beautiful bright light. I’ve just been covered in dust. I am going to cleanse my lens and shine.”

you are worthy of love signage on brown wooden post taken
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

No need for shame, guilt, punishment, rejection or further loss. You are worthy of great love, kindness, care and joy. When children are exposed to sexuality too early they don’t realise their bodies are sacred. They don’t realise they are precious and only to be touched by loving hands at the right time when they are older. They simply don’t have the information or adult reasoning capacity to make wise choices.

The physical sensation of pleasure is tempting. The choice to have closeness and feel special is attractive. It draws them in, especially if they are not receiving healthy levels of love and affection from their parents, leaving them needy, hungry, longing for connection, susceptible and vulnerable to abuse.

Children are so innocent, so pure. Even those that appear a little naughty or rebellious. They are just learning what it is like to be human, how to deal with all the emotions that arise in their bodies and little brains.

They need healthy adults to guide them and protect them from inappropriate activities. If these adults are not around or not paying enough attention then the child may find itself in less-than-ideal situations. It is not the child’s fault. The child is still innocent, even if their curiosity led them down a destructive path. They just needed more guidance and protection from the adults around them.

Parents need more support, guidance and help. Parenting is a hard job. It is a job, a full-time job, and now that it is common in society for both parents to be working, and for children to be put into daycare more often, the children are made susceptible to inappropriate tactics of other immature, wounded adults.

Children’s emotional needs for safety, feeling loved, seen and heard do not get met if parents are always rushing, tired and exhausted. Their needs don’t get met if parents aren’t available to play and be with them, to sit and hold them in nurturing and healthy ways. If they don’t get their needs met then they are put at risk, as they will be looking for that love, that closeness and connection from others who they encounter.

Our society is not set up for parents to be successful. It is set up now for parents to be drained, stressed, exhausted and depressed or angry, as they know life can be easier and more enjoyable.

Many parents struggle with putting their children in care for long hours each work day, but they feel they have no choice when they need the income to provide a home and a lifestyle of success and wealth.

Children do not care about wealth. They care about you and their connection with you, with how close they feel to you, of whether they feel wanted or not, or a burden to you. They sense your disappointment with life if that is your situation. They sense your emotional pain and distress. They try to help fix it so you can be available to love them more. They want you to feel good so you can give to them. So they sacrifice their needs and start asking for less, expecting less from you. They may help out around the house more or just play on their own.

They may disconnect from you and connect with others whose time and attention they can get. This leads to unhealthy patterns where a child may start seeing the most popular kids at childcare or school as their role models, their leaders or pseudo-parents. They start to copy them and take their lead as to how to dress, behave and what to do. They become followers of others in the hope to belong and be accepted, to receive praise and love from others.

They no longer look to their parents for that role modelling. They no longer care as much about winning their parents’ approval, so they don’t care so much when you tell them off or discipline them. They feel “You don’t care about what I wanted so why should I care about what you want or need”. They rebel from younger and younger ages. This is documented in Gabor Mate’s book ‘Hold onto your kids: why parents need to matter more than peers. It is a brilliant book for parents to read and it includes guidance about how to win back your children’s hearts and minds so that they do feel close to you, listen to you, and see you as their role model for life guidance.

The focus of society on wealth at all costs has serious consequences for all of us. Our children suffer. Our health suffers. Our joy suffers.

If you are an adult survivor of child abuse, know that your parents did for you what they could with the awareness, emotional pain and life challenges they had. You can heal and break free from the pain of the past. You can reclaim your innocence, your purity, your light and your joy. It just takes time. Time to heal, to feel what has been buried inside, to mourn what was, to feel and release anger, disappointment, resentment, despair and rage, to move through depression and numbness, to open back up to lightness, to feeling sensation in your body and dropping back inside of it, to inhabit it instead of being dissociated or stuck mostly in your mind or your base instincts/survival mode.

It’s a big journey to come home to your heart and honour the beautiful child that you were, to love, honour and protect that child so it feels safe inside you and relaxes to play again, to enjoy life again, freeing you to move forward now from a place of wholeness, not emptiness. Honouring yourself, and being there for yourself and your children. This is how we reset the moral compass. We choose love and safety, fullness and flow as our guiding lights, instead of fear, emptiness and neediness. Meet your own needs so you can venture forth with excitement, joy and passion for life.

May you find your way through any darkness and rough terrain as easily as possible, so you can enjoy the sunshine and the rain, all of life’s phases and challenges. They all become easier when we are facing them from a full cup, from a nurtured and satisfied place of self-love and self-acceptance. You are important. You do belong. And you are wanted. Welcome home to your heart. Blessed BE.

P.S. There is a range of free resources on my website that may be of assistance to you with your healing journey.

Healing trauma

Here’s a great article explaining how trauma that isn’t resolved results in changes to the DNA that are then passed on to future generations. There are many ways to heal trauma – to allow yourself to feel and release the emotional pain, to accept what was and turn to face your future instead of being entangled with the past.

For me, the most powerful approach was Family Constellations, which is why I went on to be trained as a facilitator of it. Through constellations, you can help heal the trauma in your family line so love and peace flow to the present and future generations, not past pain and trauma.

I also use Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) to clear out the stored stress, tension and trauma in my body. TRE helps to gently release these stuck energies so that it diffuses the pressure in our body bit by bit, making it easier to then look at what it is that challenges us. It is no longer so overwhelming as some of the energetic charges have been released. It is a bit like letting steam out of a pressure cooker bit by bit so it doesn’t build up and explode.

Letting go of outdated coping mechanisms

Letting go of outdated coping mechanisms can be challenging. Sometimes we have done them for so long it seems like who we are. It can feel weird, and unsettling to choose to behave differently.

For instance, I have been a people pleaser for a long time, trying to win love and approval because I felt so alone, so sad and scared at times when I was young. My Dad worked away from home for weeks on end, and my Mum wasn’t very happy or child-focused. Her Mum wasn’t a cuddly Mum either so it was normal for her to tell me to just go away, go play, and leave her alone. This taught me to be able to hide, not take up too much space, be somewhat invisible and repress my needs for contact, affection, and togetherness.

The positive of this was I became more connected and attuned with nature, wandering the farm on my own. I became focused on studying and later work/career as a way to occupy myself and distract myself from my loneliness and sadness. I too was a lot like my Mum telling my needs to go away, leave me alone. And as I got older I treated my friend’s kids as a bit of a nuisance too. I’d be polite and friendly, but get bored quickly and wish they would go play so I could spend time with my friend. What occurs to us when little stays with us until we heal it.

I wanted to have kids but never did. They’d take up so much time and energy. I had so many fears of them getting hurt, of not being able to protect them, and of not wanting to hurt them myself. I had so much family baggage and entanglements with my ancestors that the fear was overpowering.

I’ve had to work through layer after layer of conditioning and entanglements to release them and be more open to caring for my inner child, meeting my needs, accepting what occurred in my childhood and understanding why my parents behaved the way they did, and that it actually wasn’t about me.

Their moods, their sadness and confusing behaviour weren’t about me. It was a consequence of an unhappy marriage that wasn’t working out and was heading towards separation. My parents, like a lot of us adults, were caught up in their own pain and life challenges and didn’t notice my needs.

This is very common and kids are very adaptable. They find ways to get by, to cope, to avoid or distract themselves from their painful emotions. They change the way they behave trying to win or earn love, attention, and approval.

I was the queen of that! Do a PhD, try and save the world, and help improve the sustainability of the planet. Added bonus I’m so busy working and studying I can ignore how sad I am or how lonely I feel because I’m doing important work. I’m being useful and good, earning my place in society, and hopefully getting seen, loved and accepted.

This pattern of overwork and study, helping others and helping the planet and society have continued through all I do, but I try to be more balanced with it now and to do it because I love it and enjoy it, not because I have to or am trying to win love, attention, acceptance or thinking that others need me to save, rescue or fix them. That’s classic codependence and not healthy.

So now I focus more on what I want to do and what I need. I meet my own needs and take care of the younger selves within me who were hurting. I look at life with more adult eyes, instead of wounded child eyes, and I realise my life is good. I have what I need, a home, a good job, a loving partner and family, friends, hobbies and more. My life is actually really good. It was just all the old hurt, old story that made it feel less than, not okay, lacking.

As I settle into this ‘enoughness’ I start to question “What do I want to do? How much of it do I want to do? What do I value most and where will I put my time and energy?” It’s a recalibration of the old coping mechanisms into a newer, freer, more flexible way of being, able to say no, to rest, to be quiet, still and receptive, reconnecting with body and heart, not just mind and feelings.

It’s a big journey coming back home to feel safe and okay in your body, letting go of the old story and accepting what has been and is, and choosing how you want to live your life.

Our pasts may have been painful and filled with challenges. We don’t have to like that, but fighting against it, and complaining about it just keeps us stuck. When we do the work to heal we can break free of the patterns and open to the new. It is worth the effort.

Many blessings to all,

Jodi-Anne

P.S. There is a range of free resources on my website that may be of assistance to you with your healing journey.

Another self

The Netflix series ‘Another Self’ is a Turkish 8-part series that follows the life of 3 women and their families as they work through their challenges with the help of Family Constellations. I’ve watched 3 episodes so far and each has shown a Family Constellations session explaining how illnesses, relationship problems, career issues, finance blocks and repeating patterns are often related to our unprocessed trauma or that of our ancestors passed on for us to heal and bring peace to the family system.

It is wonderful how Family Constellations is becoming more mainstream and how TV shows like this demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach as it reaches the core cause underneath our challenges and helps to alter our defence mechanisms and conditioning to free us to choose differently and experience a more joyful life.

I thoroughly recommend this show to anyone who is curious about understanding the deeper reasons why we experience the challenges we do. It’s an engaging and clever series beautifully presenting Family Constellations concepts and theory while demonstrating its application with real-life examples. Well worth watching. Enjoy!

https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81380432

Coming home to my heart…

When we have been wounded in life we develop strong defence mechanisms to keep ourselves safe, to survive the best way we know how. My defence mechanisms were to isolate, hide, and try to fix the pain of myself and others so love could flow. I felt alone, sad, isolated and at times angry and resentful. I slipped in and out of depression, exhaustion, and collapse. When I’d find enough strength I’d try to climb out of the hole I’d created for myself and I’d try to be special so that I might get loved, accepted, be wanted and belong.

What I didn’t realise for decades was I was already loved, accepted and I belonged. I had just shut off to my family system out of fear, wounding and disappointment of what occurred in my early life. This disappointment was a key feeling throughout my life. No matter how much I achieved it never felt enough. No matter how much I learned it didn’t seem to be all I needed.

The truth is I was looking in the wrong places. I was needy and desperate and trying to be the best I could be because then I’d be special and get seen and loved.I tried to save and rescue Mother Earth with my sustainability career. I tried to save and rescue others in my early counselling and healing work. I tried to save and rescue myself and to appear strong and capable and like I had all the answers, but really I was still feeling like that wounded, scared child inside.

It was only when I turned within to work with my inner child, my defence mechanisms, my emotions and my nervous system which was locked in states of fight, flight, freeze, and collapse, that I started to receive relief. And amazingly I realised I already had all I needed. I didn’t need to be big and special to be seen, I could relax and be me, and share from the heart. I could slow down, take care of myself and live my life for me.

a person sitting on wooden planks across the lake scenery
Photo by S Migaj on Pexels.com

I could serve from a place of empowerment, helping others to unravel their own defences and patterning, helping them to see how they could feel and release their emotions and how they could calm and rebalance their nervous system. I could plant seeds that clients watered so they could grow into beautiful gardens and joyous lives.

I didn’t need to be special to be loved. I just had to heal my wounds enough that I could open the door and let love in. It had always been knocking but I’d been too scared to let it in, to trust it would stay and that I wouldn’t be devastated when it left me. For that was my fear, parental divorce and separation from parents when young had led me to a fear of loving and losing. I’d shut down internally and was focused on self-reliance.

When we shut our internal doors to love we can’t feel the goodness of life that is available to us. We end up stagnating, getting lonely and sad. We see the pain all around us instead of the love and light. It is so important to heal those patterns so you can open the curtains and let the light in. We are all doing the best we can with the life experiences we have faced. It is a challenging journey coming home to our hearts, our beauty, and our innocence to realise we are enough as we are. No need to fight and struggle with life. No need to impress and earn love or to hide and reject all that is given to you.

It’s okay to let the defences down, drop from the mind and enter your heart, to reestablish feeling and connection with your body, to become re-embodied and come home to all of who you really are. It’s a joyous journey when you can be comfortable in your own skin, your life, your essence.

I’m so grateful I no longer feel a need to be big or special, and I can just do what I love sharing insights and tools that others may find useful on their journey, helping people to go within and unlock their defences, so they too can find that inner peace and safety that most of us have been searching for our whole lives.

If you would like to find out more about what I do or the tools I use please visit my website – https://www.jodiannemsmith.com/

With love and appreciation for all our journeys and the challenges we face. Many blessings, Jodi-Anne

How to move through your deepest wounds and fears from childhood patterning?

girl in white long sleeve shirt and black skirt sitting on swing during day time
Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

(I asked this question and received the below answer via automatic writing 26 Nov 2021. Some of it is specific to me, but the guidance on the healing process is relevant to all so I thought I’d share it. I hope you find it useful.)

Your deepest wounds are those core hurts that you experienced as a child, those events and feelings that cut you like a knife and have been bleeding ever since. When wounded this deeply it affects your whole life. Part of you is frozen in pain, terror, rage, and fear. Part of you is stuck, trapped, hidden away and you spend a lot of your life force energy keeping it buried and building self-defence mechanisms to protect yourself from ever being hurt like that again. You live in fear of what could occur and pain from what did occur and there is little room left for joy, fun, friendship, love, trust, surrender and growth.

It takes a lot of courage to dismantle these defences, to open up to love, to live life with an open and unguarded heart, to return to your original state of innocence and joy. The vulnerability involved in risking exposure, connection, the possibility of more hurt, rejection, or loss can feel too much to give in to, to surrender and step into. This is why many people stay stuck their whole lives. They stay frozen internally, numbing their pain and the disconnection from their true self and heart with addictions and other distractions, such as keeping busy, fighting for some cause, working too much or being of service helping others while continuing to neglect their own needs. Sound familiar???

To move past this, to heal and relax and enjoy life there is no magic wand to cure it all. You have to shift it bit by bit, layer by layer, to release out the stuck, stagnant energy, to feel and release the emotions, to comfort and rescue the younger selves who went through it, to show them you have survived, you made it through and you’re doing okay. You have to start taking care of yourself, honouring your needs for rest, play, pleasure, connection with self, others and Earth. You need to make yourself your top priority, to eat well, exercise, have fun, rest and recreate.

You see healing occurs at the rate your body can process and integrate it. If you are pushing yourself too hard, if you are exhausted, empty, collapsing in overwhelm and despair or angry and rageful at feeling so bad despite all you do, if you are in one of these overactivated, exhausted scenarios then your body is not capable of processing and healing your deepest traumas. You simply don’t have the energy or internal strength to face, feel and release it.

So to heal your deepest wounds you really have to stop your overactive, distraction-filled lifestyle and create space and time for going within, connecting to your body, listening to its messages, feeling and breathing through the emotions, connecting with, supporting and nurturing your younger selves.

You know the techniques needed. You know how to guide yourself and others to do this release work. You just have to be patient and take it day by day, week by week, step by step. Your body lets up the residue it feels you are ready to process. It only lets it up when it feels you are capable of handling it. Otherwise, it stays locked in your cells, buried in your body, waiting for when you are ready. If you want to move through your deepest patterns you need to help your body to feel safe, to trust you are ready to handle it, to face it.

Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) helps greatly here as it calms your nervous system out of fight, flight, and freeze back into calm, social engagement. It helps to release the stress, tension and trauma in a gentle way, shaking it out, releasing it so your body can relax, your mind can calm and your breathing can deepen. As you start to feel safer within it is easier to feel the emotions and clear them out as they no longer seem so big or intense.

Yes, it is challenging as deeper layers of conditioning surface and you reach your core wound, the one that hurt the most. Of course, it was this one that was buried the deepest and will be the last to surface before you breakthrough to a more peaceful life no longer affected so much by the past. Of course, it gets harder in some ways the more you heal. But even though the issue arising is harder you have the tools, the knowledge and skills to process it, to breathe through it and to integrate the shifts and changes.

So have faith it will shift. Keep tremoring, using your TRE and doing your embodiment practices, yoga, meditation, time in nature, time with friends, etc. Keep comforting your heart, body and younger selves when triggered. Keep doing what you are doing and face whatever arises knowing it is shifting out, that more and more of your body is clear from the pain, that there is less frozen energy inside, that your body is getting healthier each day as you drop out of fight, flight, freeze (sympathetic) survival mode and into rest, digest, repair (ventral vagal parasympathetic mode).

You are doing what needs to be done. You just need to be patient, to nurture yourself and rest, so your body can integrate the shifts. Stillness, rest is key, connecting with your body, feeling and releasing it all is key. You know what to do, it just takes longer than you would like, that’s all. Trust your process. You had a severe amount of childhood trauma to clear and it does take time and energy to move through it. This is your work for yourself and to assist others. You had to experience it fully, deeply to be able to understand what others go through to be able to help them process their hurts and come back to their authentic selves, their pure hearts, and a state of joy, with connection to self, others and Earth. It is all okay, all happening as it needs to. Trust your body and its wisdom. Keep doing what you are doing and celebrate the freedom and liberation you feel more of the time now. Celebrate the progress rather than be annoyed at the residue. You will clear it out. You will live your life more fully.

If you have suffered extreme wounding as a child healing becomes the major task of your life. It doesn’t matter what you had hoped to do in life. You have to surrender that and work with what is. You have to honour your body and meet its needs. You have to give to yourself what you missed out on so you do feel loved, heard, seen, accepted and cared for. That’s your job. That’s your purpose, to come back to wholeness and peace. The rest of life is superficial by comparison.

So don’t compare yourself to others. You have no choice in the sense that pain from childhood persists. It won’t stay buried. You have to feel and release it. You have to face it eventually. Most do they just need to learn the skills of how to heal, how to process it and shift it out of their bodies. This is where you excel and it is what you will do, teaching others for the rest of your life. You will love it and find it very rewarding. Blessed BE.

Doing Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) helps you to clean your internal house.

yellow concrete house

Inside of us, we have all the emotional residue, the stress, tension, trauma and unfelt emotions that we’ve bottled up inside. If we use the analogy of a home it’s like we have filled up our spare rooms and it has overflowed into our living areas making them cluttered and less enjoyable to be in.

This residue, this clutter shows up as physical pain, sore muscles, even tight shoulders, necks and backs. In its more severe forms, it shows up as frozen shoulders, shallow breathing, lowered immune systems, digestive disorders, and if left to worsen this can lead to a range of diseases. This is because when our body is in the fight, flight or freeze, survival mode, it doesn’t focus on restoration and recovery. It’s preoccupied with scanning for danger, being hypervigilant and on edge, ready to flee, fight, freeze at any hint of danger, real or imagined. Over time this takes an adverse toll on our bodies.

When there is deep emotional pain or trauma locked into our bodies it is like a mould in the bathroom. If we don’t deal with it then it spreads and it affects our ability to breathe deeply. It lowers our health. Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) can help us to shift out these blocked emotions, traumas, stresses and tensions. But you want to do it gently, bit by bit, befriending your nervous system, helping your body to feel safe, held, looked after and cared for. You want to be kind to yourself as you shake out all this old residue.

Just like when we spring clean, we need to open the curtains, look inside those unused spaces and sort through what’s been hidden away in there. We have to acknowledge it and let some of it go. In the body’s case, this involves feeling some of the emotions as they shift out, allowing parts of our body that have been numb, disconnected, to come back online. We need to reinhabit them. If it becomes intense or overwhelming then we slow down. We use other tools and processes to support our body and mind to integrate the shifts and changes.

Just like mould in a house we have to use special care to get rid of it, to clean it out. We have to open the windows and let air through. We have to reduce any moisture and fix any leaks so that the room can dry out. We have to use mould cleaner, bleach or vinegar to wipe away the stains and once cleaned thoroughly, then and only then can we repaint over it. Because if we do it too soon the mould will come back.

Our traumas and emotional pains are similar. We can’t keep them locked away, pretending they are not there. We have to learn how to feel them, breathe through them, support the younger versions of us who feel them and set them free of the pain. We need to reclaim all the spaces within our body, so our energy and vitality can flow freely, joyously, fully and our body can drop out of survival mode back into rest and digest mode, where it can focus on living more fully again. Where we enjoy interacting with others and feel safe, playful and joyful.

TRE can be your partner in this journey back to wholeness, back to living within your body, not escaping out of it with dissociation or numbing it with addictions, busyness and distraction. It’s time to come home to you, to spring clean, redecorate and enjoy life more fully being comfortable in your own skin.

If you don’t have the tools to clean your own house or the mould is too big a job for you to face, then you always have the option to pay a professional to clean it for you, to partner with you on your journey. With our analogy this is the difference between doing TRE on your own and doing it with a TRE provider, like me, helping you to go within, feel and heal. If you’d like a safe space, a comforting support person to cheer you on and make sure you’re on the right track then having TRE sessions with a TRE provider is a good idea. It can make a huge difference to how fast you heal as your body may need that support person to feel safe enough to release and you may need it to find the courage to go within and look at some of those darker corners, those unused spaces within where the hardest emotions and traumas have been hidden away.

Over 5 million people have learnt TRE. It is taught in over 60 countries worldwide. TRE can be learned via an appointment in person or online. A minimum of 3 sessions is recommended to ensure that you have learned how to self-regulate your tremoring. You can bring a friend and share the cost! Once you have learnt how to self-regulate you can continue using TRE at home for the rest of your life as part of your self-care routine. You do not have to see a TRE provider regularly. However, you may choose to have occasional or regular sessions with a TRE provider if you want more guidance or support with your tremoring process.

TRE can also be learnt in workshops and through a free TRE online course. Please note the free online course is not suitable for:

  • Anyone with psychological/psychiatric conditions that require strict regulation
  • Anyone with fragile psychological defences
  • Anyone who has a history of complex trauma (near-death experiences, abuse, violence, major accidents, natural disasters, surgeries, severe losses, etc)
  • Anyone with physical conditions that require strict regulation
  • Anyone with physical or medical limitations.

For anyone in the above categories, it is best to consult with a TRE provider, like me, to make sure TRE is suitable for you and to teach you how to use it safely. To learn more about TRE click here.

Many blessings,

Jodi-Anne

Develop a grounded, beneficial connection with your family system.

Hi everyone,

I drew this picture after a guided meditation while camping recently and to me it truly captures the gifts that Family Constellations enables within you.

I used to feel quite alone and weak. I had a very strong abandonment story from childhood. I’ve done lots of work to shift that and Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) has helped enormously to let go of the stress, tension and trauma from my body. The result is I now feel much stronger and connected to my family – past, present and future. Instead of the pain and challenges from the past, I now connect into the blessings, love and support of my ancestors. I feel more strongly grounded, rooted, centred. I feel able to stand tall knowing I have their support and that I’m never truly alone.

It’s no longer all about me. I am one small part of the story of my family. I live because they survived their hurts the best they could with the pain and burdens they carried. I’m grateful for my life, my experiences and the healing that has occurred which enables me now to be present, playful, joyful and to know that the future is good. I’m capable and supported to face whatever comes. I’m anchored into the Earth and her supportive energies. So just like the tree I can bend and be more flexible when storms come.

The storms may come but I know they will pass and the rain will enable the rainbows and blossoming of the flowers and animals that we share Mother Earth with. It’s a time of harvest, of strength, of goodness. And I will be forever grateful that TRE has helped me to clear out the old energies and Family Constellations has helped me to release the old story, to see the strengths of my family system and to receive their love and support. I will use these gifts to help others move forward in their healing journeys.

While I may not be an amazing artist the picture does convey a lot of how I’m now feeling and I’m grateful for all the colour and playfulness in my life.

Many blessings,

Jodi-Anne