 When situations appear to knock us for six, including ones that may seem quite trivial to others, they can be reminders of how personally we’re taking things, especially when the fear triggers such a painful, visceral response in the body.
My old, lovely friend of a car xx needs to be scrapped now after failing its MOT (v badly) and this has brought up so many fears around money, survival as a single mum for me and my son over many years, being able to work, to travel, independence in a bad marriage, freedom & autonomy, letting go… so much! …and the intense pain that has been in my body since hearing it has almost stopped me in my tracks. It does seem excessive when, on the surface, it’s about a car … but really it’s about so much more... It’s so true that ‘the body keeps the score’! The energetics of triggers, traumas and the deep-down cellular fears that are restimulated… sometimes in surprising ways. And situations can be so relative… to some this might be nothing more than an inconvenience, but to others it can have a huge impact practically, bodily and emotionally. Have you experienced situations like this? I’m so grateful for being able to remember my own practices, to self comfort, to release somatically through the body with EFT and quanta healing and to feel open and at peace again …and so to work everything out calmly There was a time when I couldn't do this and the suffering was so much more. Mostly, I am thankful, despite the pain, that this happens as it shows me areas that still need to be healed and released … and I know through experience that automatic reactions and fears are then transformed and they lose their tight grip. They are significantly less painful the next time, too! I am also grateful for remembering and knowing that these old pains resurfacing in our bodies are not who we truly are, and as they are seen and ‘held’ they are ‘combed out’ and disperse as the illusions they ultimately are. Mention: 'The Body Keeps the Score' by Bessel van der Kolk #triggers #somatic #healing #hsp #fears
0 Comments
How triggers can be your greatest allies…. In the shock of a sudden unexpected situation, you can feel a pulling into unconsciousness, that is, into a forgetting that you are not your emotions, not your mind, not any part of the scenario you are experiencing. This can relate to any situation, or a certain thing someone says or does, and is usually one that resonates with a fear, trauma or emotional pain or wound suffered in the past, a fear that hasn’t been truly met, acknowledged and released...even though you might have thought it had been! The trigger brings back to life the old accumulated emotion. This happened for me this Christmas. Initially the pain can take over, flooding the body in an immediate reaction, heart pounding. You might feel desperately hurt, angry and fearful and so instantly reach out to a friend, a family member, as you identify yourself through the filter of the ‘story’ of what has happened, when the emotional pain verbalises into thoughts about it and creates a frightened drama. Sometimes telling others whilst still in reactive mode might not be the best thing as it perpetuates the drama...and a good friend might even tell you this, or listen, be kind, reminding you of your strength, but not engage with details. In this way, you also see more clearly and can disengage more quickly. The beautiful thing is, if you can accept what is happening in the moment, be present with it, acknowledge the intense pain in the body, the emotions, the thoughts, be with all of this… you create space around it all, remaining as the witness, not identifying with it as who you are. You do not have to ‘do’ anything, only see if you can allow those feelings to be there, after all they are already there! So if you can acknowledge them and be present with them as they are, you can see what happens, without adding extra layers, such as feeling unhappy about the feelings etc. As Eckhart Tolle enquires, ‘If you don’t mind being unhappy, what happens to the unhappiness?’ You see that it starts to dissolve when there is an inner acceptance of the present moment. The turmoil cannot tolerate the light of Presence. When triggers happen they are opportunities to look inwards, be self-loving and compassionate. You can find out what these emotions and pains are expressing when you listen without judgement and be your own unconditionally loving parent. In this way you hear them, give recognition and kindness and then you can lovingly release them, seeing the light of awareness and consciousness flooding and washing into the space that has opened within. A few days before Christmas, in unconsciousness, I panicked, reacting to a surprise and unwelcome situation, and I contacted a friend and another person, heart pounding... but then, after sitting alone calmly and listening in, I realised quite quickly what was happening. In this instance for me it was about boundaries being ignored, disrespected, emotional and physical, an unexpected trigger reawakening intense past hurts that still hadn’t been healed and released, even after many years of No Contact. This was an opportunity to release even more around this pain. (It is a practice also that stops ‘feeding’ energy to the other person, which is what they want and need, if they are a Narcissist, whether positive or negative ‘drama’, they thrive on it.) When you can remain in and as presence, the fears are met with love and silence and the emotions dissolve, and you stop reliving the past again and again. When inner peace becomes your priority in unsettling situations, peace becomes your reality, so within, so without as Melanie Tonia Evans teaches in her Quantum healing practices. It’s just so true! You know deeply too that trauma energy is not who you are…you might feel intense reaction, anguish, agony, even that you are going to die…yet this is illusion, even though it might rage as so ‘real’ at the time that we mistake ourselves as being it. A great way to stop identifying with any pain is also not to state, for instance, ‘I am unhappy’ but that ‘unhappiness is here with me’. The difference is the space that opens up between you and it - the space of truth! And such relief and release is felt immediately. All passes, it is not You. When I was 18 I stayed in a beautiful community that celebrated the light within – a light I had always known and felt since a child. The community embraced all religions and spiritual paths, expressing that which is within and beyond all human-made constructed approaches in understanding. Silent sitting and stepping back, inwardly, onto ‘the observer platform’ was a wonderful early meditation, seeing the space between our essential nature (shared by all of us) and our human mind/body/emotions… years later I realised how familiar this was with Advaita Buddhism and the pointings of Mooji, Eckhart Tolle and many Eastern approaches. Ultimately there is a dissolving of the ego ‘I’ into this essential nature, that it already is! And the experiential knowing that we do not ‘have’ a life, we Are life itself!! This oneness, so beautiful and true can be felt to be disrupted in our everyday lives, as we live as ‘Rowena’ or any other person, as a surface, ego reality (ego as the idea we have of who we are, the ‘mask’ of the Being). Of course, our true nature can never be ‘disrupted’ and experiences such as mine this Christmas can have such a ‘Whoosh!’ painful effect …and, wonderfully, we can learn from them and remember again that in truth we are not this, they help to wake us up, put things into perspective and remember again. We still need self-compassion and kindness when we forget in our everyday lives, as we often do! and to put into place measures and boundaries that protect us and help us to live our authentic truth. So here’s to triggers that may appear to be deeply upsetting shocks on the surface, but are actually angels in disguise! as opportunities to reveal our true nature in ever more clarity.  A trigger in intuitive painting form! Painting for me is also a wonderful listening in, acceptance, releasing and healing process ...and I've found that I see these feelings so visually - they call to me to be expressed x |