Trauma Release

Trauma Release

People often think that to heal they must address all their traumas, do all the work and release all that needs to be released.

Although this can sometimes be helpful most of the time it is not.

Firstly, our body needs to feel safe to release trauma and tension.  If you are anxious/stressed/triggered or challenged in general and/or because of the trauma release exercise you are about to do then your body will not release and will in fact probably double-down to protect you from the potential ‘threat’ you are feeling is coming.

Secondly, it’s not up to you to decide when you are going to release trauma, that’s up to your body, in fact more specifically your nervous system.  When you feel ready, safe, well fuelled, in the right environment, with the right people, then it might decide to release.

Lastly, most of the time you don’t need to do trauma release exercise at all to release trauma.  Most of the time once you are more connected to your body, listening to your nervous system and prioritising safety and health in general your body will start to let go.  It will start to release tension, come out of protection, and recover, with out any kind of weird and wonderful ‘technique’.

I have trained in and taught many different trauma release approaches over the years and in doing this I have spent hundreds & hundreds of hours doing them myself.  I can tell you that some retraumatise people, some are addictions in themselves (trust me I’ve been there), some deepen the fight, flight, freeze response people are stuck in and some move us further away from listening to and working with our body, as we are pushing our will on it and against it.

My recommendation to anyone wishing you ‘release trauma’ is focus on creating safety, nourishment, nurturing and soothing practices (and in fact lifestyles), where you really connect and listen to your body, your nature, and the nature around us.  This is how we recover our true self, not by forcing practices on ourselves in our need to feel better already.  It took us sometime to get into the pickle we find ourselves in and it may take some time to get out of it.  It cannot be forced.

Once you feel safer in your body and environment again, maybe then some trauma release approaches could be helpful.  BUT, more often than not they are simply no longer needed by then.