I just had a thought after going out to have my morning coffee, that often we find it hard to live in the liminal space between two polarities or opposites. People tell those of us with trauma or difficult past all of the time “just let go of it” and there is some wisdom in that because one of things of a painful past is that it tends to petrify us, its something I have been thinking about since posting a quote from Peter Levine the other day about how trauma captures our body in certain parts of the nervous system and ‘freezes’ movement responses. I have just been reading earlier the early part of his book In An Unspoken Voice which speaks about how animals respond on the plains or in nature to the immanence of predator or threat. He talks of how our bodies are wired all the time to ‘read’ other’s bodies. He speaks a lot of how trauma results from a high charge of energy that gets frozen or stuck in place. A lot of how our society tended to relate to trauma meant the freeze response gets stuck. We are not helped to discharge that pent up energy, others see it as a threat to their well being or safety when it may not necessarily be. That is why it is so important for trauma survivors to chose a therapist who doesn’t just work intellectually and is able to really be present to validate the person discharging, holding space and not being threatened themselves.
I remember screaming at the ICU staff when they were overmedicating my sister after her suicide overdose, they had her doped on so much stuff she could not discharge and I could see her body struggling, a similar thing happened when my niece in law had a seizure just before Mum died after a visit to my Mum’s place with his Dad, my older sister’s third boy. That was a visit that Mum didn’t really want to take place but little Lyra had never met her Grandmother and it was important that they did get to connect. The seizure my niece underwent was sparked by being in that unit I was in yesterday where everything was so ‘perfect’ and no mess was ever allowed for long. I have all kinds of ideas of what would have been better to do with Lyra than call an ambulance that day but my nephew was so terrified when she started frothing at the mouth he went into panic. At the ICU they pinned her down and drugged her too. I nearly spun out watching it and not saying anything.. this time my scream was mute but it called to mind me seeing her grandmother so many times writhing in that bed at the home for those with acquired brain injury for years. My sister never got to discharge her pent up trauma and she died.
The anniversary of Judith’s seizure is about a month away so its no wonder that my own head has been burning lately, as my body may remember this times of year. She had that only a month after I got out of hospital in December 1979 and was in a coma for a long time. I thought today of the love my mother and father showed to both of us in hospital. They came up to the hospital every night to sit with me bringing a meal for 101 nights during my recovery in skeletal traction. Dad sat by Judith’s bed as she lay there inert and unresponsive for I do not know how long holding her hand and telling her she would come through even though doctors told him it was hopeless and she was aware of nothing. Now memory pulls me back to April 2014 as I sat with her on the final night before we took her off life support talking to her unresponsive body. ❤
I need to write about this stuff right now, even though it is ‘all in the past.’ It does live on and always will but it need not detract from the present. I just got a lovely comment on a recent blog which spoke about playing within the dance of our trauma and struggles, funny how the higher power works bringing these souls to my blog at the right time to help me. Followers come and go, drawn to me and some later repelled by my views.. its all good really. I am just finding my own way.
Peter Levine encourages us to look for the positive within those moments of trauma where we were pinned down, attacked or lacerated. In his own life he credited a woman who sat with him holding his hand after his near death accident for making all the difference to whether he moved through or got captured by trauma. Empathy in the end may be what saves us as well as engaged presence which will encourage us to discharge, express and release. Some say lately it IS NOT EMPATHY BUT SYMPATHY. I don’t know if you can truly empathise with something you have not experienced but it seems to me that some people are more able to be with traumatised people without being threatened and give love rather than be over run by fear. That said a person in a high charge of terror or fear may activate others by operation of mirror neurons. Levine sites the calming loving presence of such spiritual teachers as the Dalai Lama and Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hahn with having a presence of calm that is communicated to other.
Without at least one person able to contain us while we are helped to discharge and process how will trauma survivors ever come through? We need to know our suffering makes sense and our discharge reactions or protests are necessary expressions of repressed life energy in order to move forward, we must always look to life and movement, rather than remain trapped in the paralysis of negative thinking, ongoing recall of inescapable trauma loops or vortexes or excessive rumination on a painful past. Though traumas do tend to repeat and many traumas we have to revisit time and time again in order to process them and work them through
For trauma survivors I highly recommend Peter Levine’s book In An Unspoken Voice.. it is a deep and involved book but this guy knows his stuff. In one chapter he speaks of how rapists know how to ‘read’ the energy body of victims who will be more susceptible to attack… truly chilling but makes so much sense. Animals instinctively know what to do to shake off trauma and a lot of what Levine uses in his own body centred therapy with trauma survivors concerns what he learned from those animal beings who do not sacrifice the instinctive life of the body for the prison of the mind. The human neo cortex tends to shut down and block of some of our instinctual reactions to wanting to ‘throw’ off trauma. This approach shows us the perfection in things that perfectionists would judge as needing to be controlled, eradicated or airbrushed out of existence so as not to have their boats rocked.
Emerging From The Dark Night 
I agree with you about trauma you cannot just let go, flick if off with a duster. It takes time working with the Divine and your Soul. As to it being frozen that is impossible as everything is energy and it is stored in the weakest parts of the body or spiritual bodies/aura. For those who work with the soul we are shown only the parts we can cope to review and release, it is why we revisit problems or tauma many times until it is completely understood.
Empathy is integral and a gift with a Healers Soul, so unless a person is a healer then there is no point having this attribute as it aids the healing work. New Age confusion that everyone is an Empath obviously not due to the fact not everyone can heal, Everyone can heal themselves it is their right. Like a concert musician this is a gift and not everyone can play the violin or other instruments to such a high standard.
To find your own truth work with the Divine or the Soul. The soul is not about making money but healing the self.
Books the topic works for the writer but not everyone else, I find many clash with my own thinking or the teachings from the Divine. Many are giving work-arounds for God pulling people away from God. I prefer working by myself.
I agree you need a therapist to help you but so many people do not.
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Maybe because trauma sets up a fear of connecting with others and not all healer are helpful? Some healers don’t help us heal because they dont assist you miving towards the soul’s truth. It seems much of our modern conditioning tells us to shut down the soul and inner self because inly a ‘professional’ has the answers, so its a form of giving our power away? If as a child you were taught not to trust yourself you start to look to other avenues, such as books, at least that is what I think I began to do, but as you say not all books speak a truth right for our soul.
Do you mean many are currently identifying as empaths who are not? It bemuses me that so many ’empaths’ only see from a selfish rather than larger soul centered point of view, Nanette. Would you agree or can you expound on that point furher please?
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We have been condtioned to ignore the soul by calling it with unrecognisable names such as Higher Self. We are encourage to be mind centered this does not mean the person is bad but following there conditioned life. Some books take us away from where we need to be headed I have found this in the past. Especially with healing I followed and read books which took me away from my natural healing abilities, I attended groups and courses where nobody including the course leader could understand where I was coming from. “Spiritualists”.
It has become fashionable to be an Empath it has status for some. It is a serious part of being a Natural Healer. You are right many people are self centered whose sense of feeling is always about themselves this is not empathy. Pure selfishness.
Empathy is manifested in the Soul by God when He manifested the Soul some are healers it is their gift not everyone is a healer but everyone should heal themselves it is their right and some are concert musicians not everyone can play the violin etc to such a high standard it is a gift. Everyone has a gift manifested in their soul. They have to pray and search their soul to find it if it is not apparent.
I hope this is a little clearer. Pray on it to the Divine. Open your Soul more to know your own truth.
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I will you are so right I get it now.. yes spiritualists wow I ve seen damaging things in those groups.
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True it is all about power, ego. I just want people to start to walk in the right direction, not looking to lead but it all goes to the Divine or Heavenly Father for the teachings.
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Yes the ego does lead us astray. I get it …. so many ’empaths’ are very self centred.
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They are not Empaths or healers they are selfish and egocentric.
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Sympathy, constructed from the Greek “sym,” meaning together, and “pathos,” referring to feelings or emotion, is used to describe when one person shares the same feelings of another, such as when someone close is experiencing grief or loss. Empathy is a newer word also related to “pathos,” but there is a greater implication of emotional distance. With “empathy” you can imagine or understand to how someone might feel, without necessarily having those feelings yourself.
I just found this differentiation. I get what you mean now. So many just absorb without the necessary emotional distance and then it may become a form of emotional contagion where the ‘self’ gets too absorbed or obliterated so its a non differentiated state that is not at all helpful and may be downright destructive.
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Empathy is not imagination it is real. You have to learn from the Divine.
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Well it feels real.
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It should feel real it should be replicated on your own body, the pain or trauma that comes with healing somebody else.
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It feels like something that just happens not something you make up…
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You cannot make it up nor imagine it. It comes during healing another on every level.
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Of course.
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And thanks for your feedback. I really appreciate it Nanette… we have the wisdom within. I will keep praying and centring within more. Thank you ❤
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You have it all within you everything you require to heal and how to heal yourself your Soul knows what is best for you. I can try and point you in the direction and that will be go to your soul.
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A good healer does that otherwise its coming from a lower place and their ego is involved…
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Very true. Many Spiritualist like to control other people, their lives etc, some like to change the life path of others to be worse or take the gifts or the goodness coming to a person for themselves.
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Going to certainly look up that book.
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