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.
Welcome to my October 2022 newsletter. I hope you and your family are well.
Family Constellations Workshop and Facilitator Training
I’m so pleased to announce an upcoming 1 day Family Constellations Workshop Sunday 20 November and Family Constellations Facilitator Training starting in February 2023. The facilitator training will be face-to-face in Meadows, for 12 days, 6 weekends, February-July. I’m really looking forward to sharing the theory and tools to facilitate constellations for yourself, for others and for clients if you want to start a Family Constellations business.
The world is full of so much chaos and beauty depending on where you look. Family Constellations has been powerful in helping me to find solutions, insights and steps to take to resolve the inner and outer conflicts I have faced. It helps me to find peace and to make a difference, to help alter the energy dynamics in my own and others’ family systems.
It helps us to release what no longer serves us, to break patterns of blind love, loyalty and enmeshments. It helps to release the entanglements so we can walk forward holding our heads up high, present in our own lives, rather than caught up in what others are doing or have done in the past. It helps us to come home to our hearts and for that, I am very grateful.
If you are keen to experience a constellation come along to the workshop, book a one-on-one appointment in person or via zoom, or dive into the facilitator training for a 6-month-long self-discovery journey of transformation that will benefit not only you but your whole family system.
In 2024 I will make the facilitator training available online, but for now, it will be in person at Meadows in South Australia. It will be limited to 15 people max. I look forward to creating a beautiful, safe space for the expansion of all who participate.
Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE)
I continue to use Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) personally and teach it to others through individual appointments. Some of the tensions and traumas that have shaken out of my body recently were from dental appointments where a lot of work was done to force my jaw to realign itself. I had teeth pulled, a device that pushed my top jaw outwards and then braces to straighten my teeth. It’s such a weird concept for me to let someone poke around in my mouth. The reflex to bite down and stop it is strong. I hadn’t thought of it as trauma but to my body it definitely was.
And for a lot of us, it certainly is a stressful process where we sit tensely, reluctantly allowing the dentist to do what is needed. In this way, it is a mild freeze reaction in our autonomic nervous system. Our body can feel trapped, and panicky. We may numb out or dissociate from our bodies to cope with not being able to run away or fight back. Our bodies are pumped full of adrenaline and cortisol in such a situation. We are primed to fight or flee, but we have our foot on the brake as well as the gas pedal because we know the dentist is supposedly helping us. This push/pull, go/stay dynamic is stressful for the body, hence the trauma, and the inability to complete the activation to fight or flee.
If we don’t do something to destress and balance up afterwards that stress and tension stay in the body and we get tight muscles, frozen shoulders, sore backs, etc. We get locked up inside as that trauma, that tension gets locked into the cells of our body. We lose some of our freedom to flow and move with ease and grace, as we are locked up tight.
TRE helps to release this tension so that our body and mind relax again. We come out of hypervigilance or anxiousness back into calmness, into knowing we are safe, it’s over, that was then and this is now.
It takes time to release all the charge, the stored tension within, but each time you use TRE you are releasing a little bit more and more and more. It’s like letting the stream out of a pressure cooker. We want to do it bit by bit, so it doesn’t build up and explode.
The impacts of TRE are cumulative over time helping you to heal, let go of defence mechanisms, be more present in your inner world and feel and release what has been keeping you in your life patterns. Your defence structure softens and releases as you clear out the emotional pain, tensions and traumas, so you can relax and enjoy life.
Star Groups – Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (5:02 mins) – explains the fight, flight and freeze mechanism, how stress and tension build in our body, the impacts of this on our health and how TRE helps to reduce this.
If you’d like to learn more about TRE visit my website. There is a free online self-study course by Richmond Heath to learn TRE. If you’d prefer to learn in person you can do so with me in an individual appointment. Three appointments are recommended so you learn how to self-regulate the process. After that, you can use TRE at home whenever you like as part of your self-care process. I’m even happy for you to bring a friend and learn together so that you only pay half the cost each.
TRE is a wonderful gift to learn. It is an innate healing mechanism in the body that we activate and then let the body do the work. Your body will literally shake out the stress, tension and trauma while you rest and witness the process. You are fully present and aware, just allowing your body to do what is needed to release and balance up. Above is a video explaining how it works and another one below which shows examples of people tremoring. There are many more examples of people tremoring using TRE on my website.
Cathrine Scharff Thommessen – TRE (1:06 mins) It shows examples of people tremoring.
I want to thank you for your interaction with me in the past. I look forward to spending time together the next time you feel drawn to have an appointment, attend a workshop or do one of my online courses that I’m preparing. They’re not available yet, but in 2023 I’m hoping to have several that provide an easy way for people to build skills and learn more about how to heal and find greater peace and happiness. I had 1000 views of my website last month which is wonderful. I’m so pleased that the information I have provided is being accessed and is assisting so many people with their healing journeys.
Testimonials
If you haven’t liked or recommended my Facebook page, please consider doing so. Testimonials are so helpful. Your comments may be just what someone else needs to read to find the courage to book an appointment and go deeper on their healing journey. Here are two testimonials.
(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.
Healing from painful beginnings and child abuse: an overview (36:05 mins)
While every individual will go through their own healing experience there are common healing stages. People cycle through these healing stages, moving from one to another and back again until they have released the past and can concentrate on their present and future unhindered.
1. Acknowledging that abuse occurred
Admitting it – no more denial
Acknowledging the impacts on you & your life
Dealing with the emotions & memories
Accepting yourself & your reactions as normal
Learning to trust your self & your intuition
2. Making the decision to heal
Choosing hope over resignation or despair
Making an active commitment to change
Putting aside other demands and allowing time to experience emotions, to think about the issues, and to get the necessary help & support
Allowing the painful emotions to come up and release – dealing with the chaotic nature of this on your day to day life
Finding support – from yourself & others
3. Talking to others about the abuse
Breaking the silence
Reducing shame & guilt by acknowledging out loud that you were abused & it wasn’t your fault
Choosing who to tell, what you want from them & dealing with their reactions
4. Placing responsibility where it belongs
Recognising the abuse was the abuser’s fault, not yours – you are not to blame at all. You were a child
You are not to blame if you went along with it – the abuser had power over you & you didn’t have all the information to decide objectively – you were a child
In the case of sexual abuse, you are not to blame if your body was aroused – it’s a normal bodily response. You’re not to blame if you felt positive feelings of intimacy with the abuser – they may have been nice & loving to you when others weren’t
Any problems that arose within the family as a result of the abuse were not your fault
Identify & understand how you were tricked, bribed, threatened or coerced by the abuser – you were used & abused
You are strong though – you have survived. You can heal & create the life you want!
5. Dealing with the loss and sadness
Feeling grief over – what happened to you, your loss of innocence & childhood, the loss of trust, sadness that the relationships weren’t the way you would have liked them to be, sadness over the impact of the abuse on you throughout your life
If you get depressed, get help to move through it
Feel all these feelings, talk to safe people about them, release the emotion – the intensity will pass
6. Expressing anger
Feeling anger over what happened
Expressing anger towards the abuser & others involved, rather than at yourself (This is done in safe & constructive ways in private, not necessarily with the actual people involved)
Letting go of the need for retaliation
Building self assertion & strength
7. Working through the difficulties caused by the abuse
Working through difficult physical, social, emotional & behavioural problems
Working through unhelpful beliefs about oneself, about abuse or about life in general
8. Building a future
Accepting the abuse happened & it is part of the past
Development of self acceptance & self respect
Acknowledging the wisdom & strengths you’ve gained from surviving the abuse
Overcoming residual feelings of vulnerability & lack of confidence
Dealing with fear & planning ways to take care of yourself in different situations
Setting goals & taking steps to create the life you want
Feeling more in control of your life
Summarised many years ago by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith from: MacDonald K, Lambie I & Simmonds L, 1995, Counselling for sexual abuse. A therapists guide for working with adults, children and families, Oxford University Press, London, pgs 30-43.
In the past rejection meant death, whether it was the witch hunts, the torture chamber or being left to fend for yourself in the wild as your tribe moved on without you. To be isolated and alone meant death, not just sadness and loss, death.
In today’s world rejection is less serious, a loss of a friend, a job, a group. They can easily be replaced. It is not life-threatening. It only feels like it is or like something serious. In reality, it is not.
The intensity of our fear of rejection depends on how much we were hurt when little. If our parents were there for us and we felt accepted, seen, heard, and loved, we will have a sense of secure attachment, love, and safety when interacting with others.
But if our parents weren’t consistently available to us or our interactions with them led us to feel not seen, heard or accepted, we will have pain interacting with others. If we felt rejected by our parents, not good enough for them, that is a deeply painful process to experience. It is this pain of not being loved and accepted fully by our parents, the devastation of that which then taints our interaction with others. We fear feeling that pain again.
But the reality is as an adult we are not dependent on others like we were as a child on our parents. We needed our parents to care for us, to provide for us. As adults, we can give that to ourselves. So rejection is not as serious or life-threatening anymore. It is just the emotional pain of our past experiences with our parents that leads it to feel so serious.
We can do healing work to heal those wounds so that we feel more secure and safe within. We can meet our own needs and reconnect with our body, releasing the stress, tension and trauma, so that we feel safe and secure within and can be more relaxed and open with our interactions with others. When the wounds are healed it no longer feels so dangerous and we can react playfully and joyfully as we meet others, knowing we are safe and can have fun. Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) can help us to release those tensions and complete the old trauma activations freeing us to enjoy life more fully.
The reality is you may be rejected many times throughout your life. It may be lovers, it may be parents ashamed of your choices. It may be misunderstandings between friends or work colleagues. Do not react with anger or hurt, simply move on, accept it for what it is and move on.
While rejection feels like a loss, like a forced change of direction or focus, it is actually occurring for your highest good. That person or situation has served you well. They have shaped the next chapter in your story. They have helped you redirect your efforts to something or someone else.
Not everyone will be in your life forever. People come and go, they grow and evolve, and their vibration shifts. If your vibrations conflict, you will part. It is not actually personal. It is energetic and it is meant to be.
A deep loss, of a loved one or parent or child, for instance, may cripple you emotionally for quite some time. It helps you to release sadness and grief. It helps you question your life and what you are doing with it. This may lead you to listen to your heart more and do something you care more about, instead of just going through the motions, doing things that society tells you to do.
The loss prompts significant change and it serves you. It is a gift, not a tragedy. A gift, remember that look for the good that comes out of all your experience and it is easier to accept.
A minor misunderstanding with someone you barely know, which results in the end of the blossoming friendship, shows you that rejection, while a little hurtful, isn’t the end of the world. Life goes on, your normal life is still intact, just that person will no longer be a part of it. This shows you rejection is okay, there is no need to fear it so much or give your power away to other people so much.
You are actually okay on your own. You don’t need people as much as you think you do. It is not the ancient battlefield or tribal village anymore. There are large numbers of people out there who are willing to be your friend, your partner, your lover, your work colleagues. When the time is right you meet them. You don’t need to search, you don’t need to try and force it or effort it or think too much about it or what you will and won’t say so people will accept you and won’t hurt you, reject you, abandon or abuse you. Just be yourself. That is all you need to do. Those that are meant to join with you will. Those that aren’t, won’t. It is as simple as that. So stop walking on eggshells around other people. Be yourself and be proud.
Rejection is not a death sentence anymore. It is simply one of many events in life that help shift your perspective and help you evolve, as you travel along this journey called life. Blessed BE, Amen.
In this video, Jodi-Anne explores ‘Why do we fear rejection so much?’ 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 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.
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)
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.
