The irony does not escape me that one of my favourite songs, albeit tragically cheesy, has provided a secret clue to the most powerful healing modality that I have come across in decades. You are going to have to stick with me a while before I reveal that classified secret!
I see myself as a bit of a spiritual thrill seeker. I have had my fair share of reiki, readings and healings. I have had somebody burp out my negative energy (even hard for me to keep a straight face in that one) and another play the didgeridoo in my aura to rid me of my toxic stress. Breathwork, primal screaming and beating out my frustration with a baseball bat (safely) have all been quite exhilarating. Gentler practices such as Vipassana, dance therapy and shamanic rituals have allowed me to deepen my connection with myself and the world. Yet while these somewhat amusing and liberating experiences have been beneficial in their own unique ways they are not practices that I would participate in on a daily basis for a variety of reasons.
I have been on a search for many years to find a technique that addresses both physical, emotional and psychological tension. Something that is approachable, easy to use and can be integrated into a daily or even weekly practice for ongoing well being. I wanted to be able to use it for my own personal benefit as well as being able to share it with others to enhance their overall wellness. In my work it is my eternal intention to empower people with information and useful techniques so that they can be the conductor of their own healing experience and so it needed to be easily transferable.
Thankfully I discovered the incredible power of TRE
TRE stands for Tension and/or Trauma Releasing Exercises. It was developed by David Bercelli who is both a social worker and a body worker. He was able to observe through his work with traumatized communities how the body naturally releases chronic tension, stress and even trauma through neurogenic tremors. He created a simple set of activation and release exercises that deliberately activates this tremoring mechanism that lies within all of us.
Say for example you have had a phenomenally rough day, perhaps week or even month. The stress builds, you feel yourself almost vibrating with tension.
In our modernized world we consider this shaking as problematic. A sign of vulnerability, weakness and an inability to cope. So we lock it in, lock it down and tough it out. We get on with our daily responsibilities because that is what we consider coping and resilience to be.
To be invincible.
But we are not and sometimes life is downright difficult…
Working life is demanding, family dynamics can be challenging, people get sick or worse. Babies are born too early or not at all. Autoimmune conditions dominate daily tasks that we take for granted. People lose their jobs or struggle to find work. Car accidents happen and so do surgeries which can be nerve wracking even when all goes to plan. Our bodies break down or we burn out. I hear in my office everyday about bad things happening to good people, things that should never happen but do.
Things happen that are overwhelming and out of our control and we hang in there and hang on, and on, and on. Stress has become an acceptable part of life however with the rate of anxiety and depression rising to epidemic levels we are clearly overlooking crucial elements of healthy functioning.
In fact stress, tension and trauma are just as much a part of life as happiness, freedom and creativity. Much of our evolution is due to triumphing over tragedy and has even been given the title of post traumatic growth. In simple terms it means advancing to a higher level of functioning, resilience and capacity as a direct result of learning gained from crisis.
It makes sense that just as we have an inbuilt immune system to respond to disease and illness that we have an inbuilt system to deal with the challenges of daily life. In today’s society we value intellect over emotion and so our response to emotional, psychological or even physiological pain is to shut it out and shut it down.
But in doing this we have shut ourselves in
In the wild mammals are frequently observed to shake off their stress after traumatic events. Likewise we see people who are in shock shake and tremor after the event. We associate this tremoring with a person who is out of control when in fact the body is simply coming out of a state of tension and even trauma and returning to our natural state of equilibrium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGHR0xdCIjs
When we experience traumatic events it literally blows our conscious mind offline. Instead of neatly packing our experiences away in the corners of our minds the sensory fragments of the event lay unprocessed in our body. Disorganised. Chaotic. Confusing.
So when we have had that day/week/year from hell and we get to a moment where we can get in contact with what we have experienced it can be difficult to access our visceral experience in order to release it. In the difficulty of it we have become disconnected from it. Or the pain is sitting so close to the surface that we will do anything to diminish it. We run, we drink, we watch TV, we work, we spend hours on technology, we avoid, we distract, we delay and attempt to escape but it’s still there. Our constant companion.
Splinters of painful sensations sitting in our hearts, bodies and minds. Showing up as headaches, back pain, unexplained pain, anxiety, angina… you get the picture.
This is where the profound process of TRE comes in.
In facilitating the deliberate release of neurogenic tremors we allow ourselves to experience the fragments of these unprocessed sensations. We don’t need to re-traumatize ourselves with the story of the original experience. They simply arise, re-organise and settle. Arise, re-organise and settle again.
A symphony of sensations to soothe the soul.
Another notable benefit is that you are the conductor of your own experience.
You choose how much or little, fast or slow you go. Whether to have an accompanist or whether going solo is best for your soul-o!
We learn to come safely into contact with the stored sensations, we take it at our own pace and in doing this through the TRE process we somehow start to find that we are more equipped to find what is controllable in seemingly uncontrollable situations. My TRE mentor, Richmond Heath, often refers to this as finding freedom and flow.
Finally TRE is not a 1 hit wonder!
Just like we don’t eat all our food for a week in one sitting we cannot process all of our stored up tension in one go. If we did we would get a pain in our tummy or somewhere else!
Finding freedom with TRE takes time and there is good reason for this. We simply don’t want to blow ourselves out of the water letting go of our overwhelm. When we have experienced significant challenge throughout life we can become highly sensitized to trauma and triggers and so if you want to go fast and progress quickly you have to learn to go slow and go with the flow.
So if you are feeling stuck, swamped or sunk my suggestion to you is to…
Shake it till you make it!
And if you need just a little more inspiration click here to hear one of my favourite all time songs Be warned it may inspire you to get up and boogie when nobody is watching!
Sending blessings till we meet again
…….. Emiline
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Whether you are wanting to find greater ease in life, let go of the past or find your way through a difficult time I am here to support you. Call me for a free 15 minute consultation to discuss the ways in which I can help. Finding greater ease than ever before is often simpler than we think. So give me a call on 0419 101 665 or send me at email emiline@thenurturefoundation.com
** SPECIAL OFFER TILL JUNE 2017**
3 x Individual TRE sessions
** Normally $300 Now $250 **
Limited offer and Conditions Apply