Prickly

Have you had times when you felt something just wasn't right? Your mind couldn't find ease, your body didn't feel your own, and prickly described your overall demeanor? This "not right" feeling, it's constant, gnawing and nothing seems to work (so far) in resolving it. Working on trauma, wanting to benefit others through that work, requires confronting it. Or maybe it's just the thought of having to confront it, as Levine is not advising a reliving of our tramas specifically. Getting in touch with the "felt" sense, with the "feeling" body, is a difficult challenge. (particularly when you've spent a great deal of time and effort trying to separate yourself from exactly that, the feeling body) The anticipation is most likely worse than the actual experience will be. This restless, miserable, irritability - made up of shifting hormones, negative self-talk, and some other unknown factor.....I have to remember it will change. As all feelings do, from rapture to heart wrenching grief, feelings are temporary, like clouds in the great blue sky. Waiting it out is miserable, not knowing how long it will last, but it will pass. Prickly, there is beauty in the cactus, the rose, the porcupine. May we find the beauty in our own prickly situations, and states of mind.

Reflecting on shifting priorities

Today was a day to try and recover from the stress of yesterday. The pain steeped in my bones, my cells, an immersion in adrenaline. The policeman was kind, saying he was worried about me because I couldn't stop crying and there wasn't major damage to the car, both my son and I were okay, what could it be? Wondering if agoraphobia might be my next mental destination, but it can't be because there are so many appointments to take the kids too, committments to keep. Headaches may continue to be the outward manifestation. So, I've resolved to work through Peter Levine's book, Waking The Tiger. There is so much trauma, so much need, and seemingly few to meet that need. Writing is everything, the thread that holds it all together and the time it gets in the day is miniscule. Self-care, my therapist keeps insisting on that. No resolution for the New Year, just a resolve. May it's unfolding benefit all sentient beings.

Blogging and trauma

Blogging about trauma, and wanting to use it as a vehicle to help others traversing the difficult path of resolving trauma is a worthwhile goal. It is a high priority for me, and yet as it seems common for people who have been traumatized to continue finding themselves traumatized unless they develop agoraphobia, or some other condition that prevents them from leaving their home. Even then we can be re-traumatized. This leaves little time for other priorities because we are constantly in the fight/flight/freeze state of mind, with no or minimal resolution. There was abuse that occurred over the holidays and it seemed easy to breeze through it, but the first day the holidays ended and the kids were back in school a deep depression set in. In this state of mind I was hypersensitive and felt re-traumatized by things I read hoping they would support my getting over this. It is that state of living with all of your nerve endings external and exposed, which predisposes me to experiencing things as traumatic that normally would not be. In this state of mind, it is difficult to find time to write, to reach out. My hope is that by continuing to work toward resolution, this predisposition will lessen and balance will return. In the meantime, may all be happy, peaceful and safe. This is my heartfelt wish for anyone reading this and those not reading it. Namaste'

New Year's Night

A very personal post as the new year begins. I wish better days for all, more peace and an end to war, equanimity, and trauma resolution so we may reintegrate ourselves and once more feel whole.
I miss my children very much, as they celebrate away from me. I pray that there time will be joy filled, and bring them contentment. Forty-six years on this earth as a human, so much left to learn, so much left to learn..........