This is a brilliant video summarising how childhood trauma can lead to addictive tendencies, and what is needed to heal it. I love Gabor Mate’s work and his way of explaining things. Below is a summary of some of the key points:
Trauma is not what happens to you. It’s what happens inside you as a result of traumatic experiences.
Trauma is the disconnection from your self, your emotions, your body and your gut sense or intuition. You lose connection to yourself and how you authentically feel.
This disconnection results in difficulty being in the present moment and in the development of negative views of your world and of yourself. It results in a defensive view of other people.
Addiction is not the primary problem. It’s an attempt to solve a problem, which it does temporarily, but it creates even more problems in the long term.
Recovery is rediscovering, finding your self again, reconnecting to your self, your body, your emotions, your gut sense and intuition. You reconnect to who you authentically are and how you authentically feel.
Recovery and healing are about reconnection.
There are many ways to release trauma and reconnect with your body. One of the main methods I use is Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE). I am qualified to teach TRE to individuals and within a few months will be qualified to teach it to groups. If you’d like to learn more about TRE and how it can help you to reconnect with your body please visit my TRE page.
Gabor Mate – How childhood trauma leads to addiction (9:09 mins)
It can be hard to forgive when you have been hurt deeply. This video explains some deeper aspects of forgiveness and how Family Constellations can help you to say what you need to say to those involved and hand back anything you’ve carried or been burdened with. Connecting with the energy of those involved in a constellation helps you to feel into their side of the story, to clear some of the emotional pain and to find peace. It’s well worth doing so you can focus on living and enjoying your NOW, not being stuck, entangled in the past.
Here is a video exploring common pitfalls and problems that people who offer healing services sometimes experience. They are potential traps that stop you from fully expressing yourself and being of service.
I’ve experienced them all over the years and thought it might be helpful to share them so others can avoid these traps or if you’re already experiencing them at least you will know you are not alone!
Many others could be listed but when I channelled this information it was these 4 that I was guided to share. I hope you find it useful.
Dissociation is a natural mechanism designed to protect you from feeling overwhelming pain and terror. When a person is in a life-threatening situation and there is no escape they may dissociate, jump out of their body so they don’t have to feel the trauma of what happens next to their body.
To help soothe you during intense moments the body gets pumped full of opioids to numb you so you don’t feel what occurs. That is what dissociation is. It is a splitting off of consciousness so you don’t have to feel the pain during life-threatening moments. It is the out of body experience that people have during Near-Death Experiences.
For some, dissociation can become a very common experience. The body can get into the habit of being in a highly stressed and activated state so that the slightest thing can result in jumping out. This occurs when a person doesn’t feel safe to be in their body.
The body holds all the past traumas, pains and emotional residue from our early life experiences and even past life experiences. Those traumas affect how we feel and our ability to relax, be calm, grounded and present.
If we are dissociating regularly its showing there is trauma to be released from the body so that the person can stay in their body.
There are many ways to calm the nervous system, release tension, stress and trauma. For some meditation and mindfulness helps but for others this leads to more dissociation as witnessing and feeling into the body and what’s stored in it can be overwhelming.
I like to use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) which activates the body’s natural mechanism for releasing stress, tension and trauma so that your body can come out of the freeze, fight and flight back into a state of calm relaxation. The body will literally stretch, shake, twist and move as it lets go of the built-up energy that has been locked inside of it.
Every time we didn’t get to speak up, run away, fight off an invader, etc. the uncompleted trauma reaction gets stored in our body. We were primed to flee or fight but couldn’t so the adrenaline and cortisol remains in our body creating tension, soreness, and tight, aching muscles.
TRE allows the body to release this trapped energy slowly, at a pace that the body can handle. It is an automatic unwinding of the tension patterns in your body. When your body feels more relaxed and peaceful you will feel safer to be in it.
As your nervous system calms you won’t startle so easily as your body won’t be so wound up and tense. You won’t react automatically with dissociation. You’ll have more space and choice.
Some people can become addicted to dissociation as a coping mechanism, as a way to numb out and feel the bliss of being connected to Source, Spirit, All That Is. The expansiveness of being out of your body is an amazing experience, the freedom, the flow, the sense of all-pervading love and acceptance. This peacefulness can result in some people not wanting to return to their bodies, especially if the body has lots of emotional pain, trauma or injuries to it.
In time you can learn to maintain a connection with your body while still feeling connected to Source, to that expanded state of being. It comes as you clear out the old traumas and lightness can take their place.
Being in nature, somatic experiencing, inner child recovery work and TRE are all ways to help heal the trauma and calm your nervous system so that you feel safer to be in your body. There is a lot that you can do so you feel at home, safe and sound within your body.
Even simple visualisations can help you centre within. Close your eyes and breathe in gold light. See your body being filled with soothing golden light, like the rays of the sun warming you. See tree roots start to grow from your feet down into Mother Earth. See the Earth’s healing energy coming up these roots filling your body from below.
The Earth’s energy and the golden energy merge in your heart centre which opens more to receive this light, this goodness. Feel the fullness, the love, the peace of this high vibrating energy. Feel your feet on the ground. Feel the tree roots anchoring you to the Earth calling you to come more fully into your body. Do so. Climb down the silver cord which tethers the dissociated parts of you to your body. Call these parts back. Tell them it’s safe for them to come home now.
Know you are supported by the light to come together into a greater fullness. Welcome these parts of you back, hug them, talk to them, and listen to what they have to say. Tell them you’re sorry it has taken you so long to call them back but you’re here now, willing to connect to them, to support them and help them heal and find peace.
You, the Adult part of you, is capable and strong. It’s just the wounding that has led you to feel weak, stuck or helpless. But that can all drain out of your feet back down into Mother Earth. See any gunk or goo leaving out your feet, anything that no longer serves you, see it dropping away as the light continues to fil you and raise your vibration.
It’s up to you to become your own best friend, your own supportive, healing source so that you become stronger, and feel safer to be in your body more of the time. This is how we anchor into our body and dissociate less.
We need to clear out the trauma, heal our wounds and become the carer of all the parts of ourselves that were hurt and have been waiting patiently for us to rescue them and welcome them home into our body.
Just as we spring clean our physical homes, we need to do the same with our bodies, keeping them as a nice, welcoming, comforting space to spend time in, and a place where we do feel at home and can relax.
That’s our goal, our birthright and TRE and the other modalities that help you to release trauma, calm the nervous system and relax are all powerful tools to assist you with the process.
Dissociation occurs as a coping mechanism. You jump out, disconnect because it doesn’t feel safe to be in your body. This is a subconscious, automatic process. Your body dissociates automatically in response to the threat and danger signals it perceives from the sensations in your body. As you heal those sensations and unwind the tension, your body will calm and relax. It won’t perceive so much threat or need to escape. Then it will be easier to stay in your body.
Be gentle with yourself as you go through the healing process and reach out for help when you need it. Many people will need to work with a therapist that they trust so that they feel safe enough to go within and face what is stored in their body. There are many people who can help you as you embark on the quest to feel safe within. Blessed BE.
If you found this blog useful you may wish to consider purchasing a copy of Jodi-Anne’s book ‘Advice from a higher Source’ which contains 85 answers to questions about life. The paperback book or ebook can be purchased online at – http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/JMS2011. (Once you have clicked into view the description of the book, go to the top of the page and choose the flag symbol for your country, this will show you the price in your currency and enable you to purchase it in that currency)
You come to Earth with a plan in place that unfolds in a set way so that you can experience the events you chose to learn from. If you wanted to learn how to overcome sadness, loss, grief then you need to experience events that create those emotions, so these events, these catalysts and triggers are set prior to you incarnating.
Where free will comes in, is in how you respond to those events. How you react to them determines how long you struggle and suffer and how long it takes you to heal.
The major events in your life to prompt you to feel your pain, that guide you to overcome it are all set on your path so you have access to the help and support you need along the way. But you have free will as to whether you accept that help, with how deep you’re prepared to feel and how quickly you work through your layers of emotion and defences to reach back to your core wound, to free your heart and open it back up.
You can choose to take a lifetime or more to resolve a grudge, to forgive and let go or you could do it much more quickly. It is these types of choices where you have free will.
But it’s not as serious as you worry it to be, because in parallel lifetimes you are living out the other options, so you get to learn from all the possibilities to grow and evolve. So really you do achieve all the growth that’s possible. You experience all that is. That’s why you incarnate, to feel, learn and grow.
When you’re on the other side there is only wholeness. There’s no separation, no pain, no uniqueness as such as you merge back into Universal Consciousness, oneness. There’s no up and down, good or bad, etc. There’s just oneness, the all that is. You incarnate to experience the duality.
So yes there is free will to push that emotional pain down, but it will just come back again later. Likewise, you can’t hide from relationships forever. Someone will come to trigger you, no matter how much you try to avoid it.
If you need the trigger to help you feel, to progress, to kick start the next phase of your life then the trigger will come, be it in a movie, a book, a partner, a friend, a relative or a stranger in the street. Whatever is needed to trigger you so you can feel and heal will occur. You can’t hide from it forever. You come to Earth to grow so events happen to get that to occur.
The free will, the choice of how to respond, to embrace it, resist it, resent it, fight it, run away from it, all of that are just choices you can make in the short term, but ultimately life will guide you to a place where you have to feel, something will happen to force you to stop and pay attention, be it an accident, an illness, the loss of a loved one.
Many tragedies in life occur as part of the healing process. They are the catalysts for change. No one can escape these forever. We will all eventually lose those we love as they transition back to the other side, to watch us and cheer us on as we continue our process of growth and learning here on Earth.
Your free will determines how much you suffer, how long it takes to get back on your feet, to heal and find peace and faith in the evolutionary process leading you forth.
It’s not an easy journey here on Earth, but through your choices you can make it as easy as possible by going with what is rather than resisting it, resenting it or fighting against it.
Ask us your Guides, the Angels and Archangels for help and support. We are always with you when you ask. Your job is to ask, to listen, to hear our messages and to choose whether or not you wish to heed our advice.
You have free will to say “No, I want to do it my way or try my way first”. Go ahead, by all means, try. That’s why you’re here to experiment and explore, to open your heart and to become your higher self in a body spreading love and light to all. You are here to become, to reawaken to all of who you are and to help others to also awaken and when you all do you create Heaven on Earth. It’s possible and it’s happening with each healing, each step forward, each choice to embrace the light, to feel and heal and move forward.
The human race is evolving quite quickly. The chaos and calamity is just the old making space for the new to enter. The old foundations have to crumble for the new structure to be created. It is all happening as it needs to for the evolution of all. Blessed BE.
Yes, some of you go through extremely horrible events, you do, it’s not easy. The challenge is to let these tragedies lead you to be a better, healthier, happier person than you were before, to work through it and heal, to open up rather than close down out of resentment, anger and overwhelm.
There’s always help available. You just need to use your free will to choose it, to accept it, embrace it and move forward. Blessed BE.
If you found this blog useful you may wish to consider purchasing a copy of Jodi-Anne’s book ‘Advice from a higher Source’ which contains 85 answers to questions about life. The paperback book or ebook can be purchased online at – http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/JMS2011. (Once you have clicked into view the description of the book, go to the top of the page and choose the flag symbol for your country, this will show you the price in your currency and enable you to purchase it in that currency)
It’s easy to get caught up focusing on what’s not how you’d like it to be. When we do this we forget to notice what is working in our life. This video explores that tendency and ways to focus on and see the goodness in your life.
You can use a wide range of tools and techniques to help shift your vibration, release the old energies, enabling your energy and mood to elevate. Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) is one process you can use at home for free once you have learned how to do it.
TRE is the body’s natural, built-in mechanism for shaking out tension, stress and trauma. Just as your body will subconsciously react in fight, flight or freeze, it also has a subconscious process to help the nervous system to unwind those reactions and to calm back down into a socially engaged state, where you feel safe to play and interact with others.
TRE enables the body to release its contractions, its tightness, its buried tension and emotions bit by bit. Like letting steam out of a pressure cooker so that it doesn’t explode.
TRE supports your body and your health. When you are caught in defensive patterns your body feels like it is fighting to survive, so it focuses its energy on that. Blood flow goes to your arms and legs to enable you to fight or run away. Your digestive system, immune system, reproductive system and much more gets less focus as the body considers these less important than escaping the tiger or threat you’re facing.
The body assumes if you get away from the danger then when you are safe it can return its focus to the health-promoting and maintenance activities. Unfortunately, many people stay in fight or flight or freeze, in high-stress defensive patterns for long periods of time. The body doesn’t get the message that you’re safe now and it should focus its energy back into your health-promoting activities. It really is important to do that inner work so your body can function more fully. TRE can help with this.
As you shake out that built-up tension, stress and trauma your inner child is willing to talk to you more. They like it as you start to relax and can be more playful. They like to see you are taking care of yourself. Even though your outer world may not have changed that much, it becomes easier to appreciate all you have, to be grateful and enjoy your now more.
You feel better inside and this radiates out enabling your outer world to improve too. This is how you can change your life bit by bit for free at home, by shaking off your tension, stress and trauma. It’s worth doing so you can enjoy life more and stop complaining.
In this video, Jodi-Anne explores ‘How do we focus on the goodness in our life and stop complaining?’ It is one of over 100 questions she has asked about life and channelled an answer through automatic writing. All of these answers to questions about life, how to live peacefully and happily are available for free on the ‘Life Insights‘ page of her website.
This week I’m sharing a video on healing from child abuse, on the difficulties involved and the ways forward. It helps to know you’re not alone, to see your reactions and challenges are not abnormal, but a consequence of what you’ve experienced. All of your defence mechanisms and conditioning can be healed so you can enjoy life more, feel safe and live life happily and peacefully. It takes a lot of work but you can do it. I hope this video gives you insights into the process and the next best steps for you. Many blessings, Jodi-Anne
If you would prefer to read the blog the video is based on you can do so here.
Tension and Trauma Release Exercises helps hugely with this release of blocked, trapped energy within the body. TRE is a process that activates the body’s natural mechanism for releasing stress, tension and trauma. The body will systematically shake out the contractions and release the stiffness enabling the body to come back to life more, to move through the emotional residue and open back up to love, laughter and play.
As the buried tension and emotions are released the body starts to feel safer, no longer under threat as the old trauma activations are completed. The past is known as the past. It no longer feels like it could happen again at any moment. The hyper-vigilant defensiveness softens and the person is able to be in the now more fully, not distracted by the past or worrying about the future.
The safer the body feels, the more space there is to focus on what you actually want to do and be in life, instead of automatically reacting to triggers from the buried trauma and pain.
It is worth the effort to heal the trauma so you gain that freedom to be you, to enjoy your life and have fun. TRE is a great tool to help with this. With consistent use of TRE your body will slowly unwind the tension and trauma patterns so you can move forward.
In this video, Jodi-Anne explores ‘How do we heal from child abuse?’ It is one of over 100 questions she has asked about life and channelled an answer through automatic writing. All of these answers to questions about life, how to live peacefully and happily are available for free on the ‘Life Insights‘ page of her website.
It can be hard to know when to let go and when to hold on. In this video, I discuss some signs to watch out for to help you get clarity.
Relationships occur to support your growth and expand your understanding of life. Through conflict and challenges in relationships, you learn to see your conditioning, your patterning and what it is you need to heal.
Simply leaving one partner and moving to the next one will result in repeating the lesson and confrontation which will surface once again hoping you will heal it and resolve the issue. Once you heal the issue inside you, you no longer need to manifest it in the outside world.
So how to tell if the conflict you face in a relationship is leading to beneficial growth and therefore is still a useful, supportive relationship or if it is time to leave? That is the million-dollar question.
If your relationship is generally happy, filled with love and supportive of you and your growth, then it is beneficial. If your partner accepts you as you are, cares for you and wants the best for you then it is clear that this is a beneficial relationship in which you can continue to grow.
Life will never be completely easy and relationships will always have their ups and downs. The challenge is not to run away too early or throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.
It is a time of tumultuous growth on Earth. Much is being asked of you all and you are clearing out dense emotions and energy at a rapid rate. There are going to be times when you or your partner are bogged down in their stuff, where they are not able to see the light of day, where they appear stuck and hopeless. Will you love them at this point or leave them? Love stays. Love heals. Love reconnects the wounds within to the light of love and freedom.
Love and support each other through these challenges. See the good in each other, not the weaknesses. See the growth and changes occurring in all beings you interact with.
While there is love and support a relationship is worthwhile. When the love is gone or there is meanness, harshness and selfishness, then perhaps it is time to part. But not beforehand and don’t go too soon, as it may just be a healing crisis that can be worked through resulting in elevated energy/vibration for all.
Trust life to guide you forth. If you are meant to leave you will get a clear message. If you are confused then it is not time to go. Look at your own stuff to heal, focus there and keep healing your own stuff, raising your vibration and welcoming greater love and light into your heart, body and mind.
You are a being of love. It is only the wounds that stop you from seeing it and feeling it. Don’t reject yourself or others. Love them. Love them all. It is love that heals and reunites us.
If you are being abused by a partner by all means leave. But if there is love there, support and encouragement – see it, value it, appreciate it.
If you can talk heart to heart and connect deeply that is a gift, a powerful healing opportunity guiding you both to wholeness. Don’t turn away from such love because it is not your version of perfection.
All relationships will have challenges, that is what they are designed for. They help you clear out your conditioning and patterning. Will you love or reject the other when they are less than perfect? You too are less than perfect. Do they accept you? Are you being less loving than them?
It can be very complicated to see through all the projections and wounded aspects to see into the heart of the other. But try to do so. In their heart they are still pure, innocent souls. Each just needs love and acceptance to help them unlock the door to their heart and let their light shine.
That is why we bond in a relationship. We are looking for someone to love us as we are, which gives us permission to consider that we are worthy of love and are okay even with our wounds. When we feel this, we can let our guard down, the defences and walls dissolve and we can be vulnerable, authentic and intimate.
Without that acceptance, we don’t feel safe to expose our tender hearts and heal our deepest wounds. It is the love and safety that comes with intimacy – seeing into another’s true essence, that heals us both, all who participate in it. Be that loving. Be that supportive of each other and your relationship will continue to grow and evolve.
That is the goal of life – to evolve into conscious and loving light beings while living here on Earth. If you can still your mind and go deep within to the still place of your heart, you will hear the truth about your relationship and you will know what to do. The answers are within you, you just have to have the courage to hear them and the sense to patiently wade through all the static-like noise that comes from your projections and mind chatter.
Never take action rashly. Never leave or attack the other when you are feeling threatened/defensive/rageful. Breathe through those emotions and work through your stuff, so you come to a place of balance before talking to your partner or friend about the situation. In this way, you respond with honesty and love for both of you, as opposed to reacting full of initial emotion, which does not necessarily represent how you really feel.
You can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help you to release your frustration, stress and tension. It will help you to complete unfinished trauma activations from the past, so that you can relax, be more present and see how you feel based on today’s information, rather than being driven by past pain and disappointments.
TRE can help you to balance your nervous system, body and mind. It helps you to reach a place of greater peace and calm where you can enjoy socially interacting with others, not seeing threats or dangers where none is present.
Trust life to lead you forth. Let go of needing to control it all or figure it out. If you are confused it is not time to leave. It is time to look within and heal the buttons being pushed and the wounds beneath them.
Relationships are not meant to be warm and fuzzy all the time. They are tools for growth and learning how to love fully, accepting another as they are – not directing them to be your ideal man or woman.
They are who they are, accept them. Don’t try to change them or control them. That will only result in resentment and frustration on both sides. No one likes to be told they are not okay or not good enough. No one deserves to be treated that way.
Love everyone you come in contact with. That is what we all need, to open our hearts and become our true, authentic selves. So choose peace and happiness. Don’t take things personally and accept each other as you grow and evolve in love. That is how it should be. Blessed BE. Amen.
In this video, Jodi-Anne explores ‘How do you recognise when a relationship no longer serves you?’ It is one of over 100 questions she has asked about life and channelled an answer through automatic writing. All of these answers to questions about life, how to live peacefully and happily are available for free on the ‘Life Insights‘ page of her website.
Stress has a negative impact on our health and wellbeing. I love how this 5 min video explains why so many of us are stuck in survival mode with bodies constantly activated with fight, flight, freeze energies stored in our bodies. Thankfully Trauma and Tension Release Exercises (TRE) can be used to help release these energies from our bodies so that we can be more relaxed and peaceful. If you’d like to learn more about TRE or experience it please visit the TRE page of my website.
This video contains an overview of what is involved in healing and finding peace within. It discusses the different levels of attention needed for deep healing to occur. Traditional counselling, psychology and psychiatry have largely focused on our thinking patterns and emotional reactions, but there is a lot more that needs to be done to heal and calm the body so you can enjoy life.
Jodi-Anne summarises these issues and explains why each level of attention is required, including reprogramming our subconscious beliefs, calming our body and nervous system and doing inner child recovery work to help complete trauma and let it finally be a thing of the past, rather than feeling like it could occur again at any moment.
Jodi-Anne is putting together everything she has learned into an online, self-study course for people to use to help themselves to heal and find peace. She expects the course to be available mid-2021. For now, there are lots of free videos and resources on her ‘Life Insights‘ and ‘Healing from child abuse‘ webpages. She is also available for individual appointments in person or online via zoom or phone.
