Watch
Listen
Read
I’m sorry, I just don’t get it. I am depressed and I feel terrible about myself and my life in general due to my husband’s betrayal D-Day 2 years ago. And I’m definitely traumatized, and I feel pain and heaviness in my chest, clenching my jaw and shoulder, and other physical symptoms much of the time. But I really don’t understand what this lesson was about. Aren’t these physical feelings just a normal part of all these emotions and stress? How does trauma get trapped in the physical body?
In the book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’, the author talks about how our trauma gets stuck in our body, muscle tension, muscle tightens, you described a heaviness in the chest. The trauma is in the anxiety, the cortisol, the adrenaline running through the body. The tension, the trauma, is stuck in the body.
We have found that we don’t talk out trauma, the body releases the tension. The body releases this is what we would call coherence. The body learns to relax again, rather than feel like it’s in a constant fight or flight response. So we know that the body, as it releases that inner tension, it will feel more sense of calm and an internal sense of peace. But not that we’re going to take a piece away from what they’ve done, but peace with myself. I’m okay. I’m breathing. I’m listening to this body. I’m learning to let it go as it flows through my body.