That is correct!
What you’re seeing here is a toolbox, yes? Or if I showed you a collection of kettlebells, and rollers, and ab devices, and resistance bands. More tools right? Here’s the challenge…imagine all those tools inside of you.
When it comes to trauma, we don’t need external tools, although some are good at relief. The primary tools are part of the autonomic stress response cycle that evolved in your body. Those two primary tools are breathing, and tremoring.
The autonomic stress cycle
We are discussing the “deactivation” process
As the cycle works, in ideal acute situations, our mind perceives a threat, the amygdala signals the brainstem and the autonomic stress response kick us into fight/flight. All things being equal, once the threat is over, the body moves into this deactivation stage and we return to social engagement. Notice the descriptions in the green zone. That’s where I want to hang out. That’s how life evolved to happen before modern man developed chronic stress we moved out of social engagement into fight/flight, and then back into social engagement (safety) via the deactivation process. All automatically.
The blue squiggly line and circle represent various trauma states we can exist in because we get stuck there - the chronicness of stress. We never enter into the deactivation process, the tremoring and resetting of the diaphragm. If we did, we would never get traumatized. Yes, you read that correctly.
if we did, we would never get traumatized.
Our bodies though, did evolve with this process, and as is currently noted broadly in the trauma healing field, “the body keeps the score.” Which means the body can also turn that around and not just even the score, but win the game. That is the good news. Your body is already equipped to complete and discharge these accumulated stress cycles from your body, and that restore it to health and growth. We don’t heal to handle the trauma, right? We are very familiar with it! We heal to handle the joy.
Stay tuned. Although the body is equipped to handle this work, it isn’t a microwave you’re walking around with.