This will be a short post and it won't resolve the cliffhanger.
Sorry. Next time.
I am going camping tomorrow and will be off the grid and unable to post during my regular writing time, so Braced For Impact, Part II will have to wait.
But I wanted to check in with you now to report that Something appears to be Happening.
A few hours ago, I realized that I was... freaking out. "Freaking out," for me, looks, to the casual observer, pretty much exactly the same as "not freaking out." Except that I have a knot in my stomach and an overwhelming sense of anxiety and can't focus or relax or or figure out what the hell is going on.
There is usually an obvious cause when I'm freaking out, and my anxiety revolves around whatever that is until the situation has passed, like a miserable little satellite. Today, there is no such clarity of origin.
That's new.
I also became aware of the freak out, realized what was happening, how it was affecting me, and where I felt it in my body, and then I talked about it with my husband-- while it was still happening, which made me feel quite a bit better.
All of that is also new. (Progress! Go me!)
But the weirdest thing, the reason I'm telling you about this, is that about an hour ago, I noticed that I was shaking.
Just sitting here, trembling like a leaf.
I feel it mostly in my arms and hands and abdomen. And I can't explain it. Just ate, so it's not low blood sugar. Not on any new medication. Not cold. WTF?
But I keep thinking: shaking, according to Peter Levine, is an indicator of energy release. Trauma energy is naturally dissipated this way in animals, and also in people when it's discharged properly.
I wonder if this is... that? Am I discharging some trauma energy right now? I'm not having an emotional experience with this, other than the really powerful anxiety I've felt all day. As usual, most of this seems to be happening subconsciously and I haven't been invited to the party.
All I know is that Something is Happening. And now that I've named it, that knot in my stomach is starting to feel more like anticipation than anxiety, and instead of feeling like I need to keep a lid on whatever is going on in here, I'm feeling a little excited that the lid might finally be getting knocked loose.
I don't know where this is going or what will happen next, and I hope it doesn't involve anything too crazy. My lifestyle doesn't really allow for that. But if it wants to bubble up like this, a little at a time, and burn itself out this way, I can get behind that.
Anyway, I just wanted to keep you in the loop. All this work I've been doing is beginning to pay off in ways large and small. I don't know yet which end of the spectrum this shaking thing will be on.
I'll let you know.
PS: As I am finishing this post, the numb, "off-gassing" feeling has started in my calves and thighs. Something is definitely Happening. This is crazy. I wish I could include something more visceral for you-- feel-o-vision, the new version of smell-o-vision!- but you'll just have to take my word for it, I guess.
I'll let you know how it goes the next time I get a few minutes to write.
Oh, jeez. Hope this settles down for you. Give a heads-up when you can, and enjoy the camping trip...
ReplyDeleteThere are many in the alternative community who believe everything going on in one's physical body is a manifestation of something going on much deeper - in your energetic body. Louise Hay's writing connects physical symptoms to emotional and psychological energy. I think your current physical experiences are evidence that you are finally beginning to explore why your physical body drew the experience of this trauma to you. This does NOT suggest you "caused" the accident but that you drew the experience because of something which was either stuck in your energetic self at that time, or because you needed to have this experience in order to move forward to release something. This 'something' may be of this life or past - your soul has been collecting experiences and energy for much longer than you are aware. Stop thinking about the accident. When you understand how the accident fit into the path your were already on when you were hit, you will really begin to understand.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what you're saying, teacher. If this experience has taught me anything, it's that my physical body has manifested a bunch of stuff that was going on much deeper.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it's definitely not just the accident alone that is causing me all this trouble. There is stuff beyond the accident, before the accident and after, that is part of whatever this burden is that I carry.
I think our difference of opinion is more in flavor than in effect. I think that other stuff-- things from my childhood, my personality, my self-image, all of it-- had everything to do with how and why the accident affected me the way it did.
I experienced it in ways that induced shame because I am shame-prone.
I experienced it ways that made me shut down my emotions and avoid bad feelings because my perfectionism, poor confrontation skills, natural reticence, avoidant personality, and strong identification as a role model made me want to push the whole thing under the surface, be "the strong one," and appear fine to others, to everyone, to myself.
Likewise, a lot of the things I did in the first 10 years after the accident fit right into those pigeonholes, because by then it had become clear that I was dealing with a pretty precarious house of cards and one false move would bring it all tumbling down.
I don't mind the idea that I "drew" the accident to myself-- in your view AND in mine, even if I didn't draw that car around that blind corner and all up in my grill like some insanely masochistic cosmic magnet, I did, in my own way, draw my EXPERIENCE of this whole thing to myself.
I have trouble with the metaphysical aspects of your suggestion, just because they don't quite work for me and my worldview-- as much as I'd like to, sometimes, I just don't *believe* in any useful way. That's why, when you are looking for a spiritual foundation for all of this-- my soul collecting experiences and energy for longer than I've been aware (a truly lovely idea that I hope to discover is true, some day), I am driven, right now, to discover physical, nameable, chewable stuff that I can feel and touch and bat around.
And it's working. It's working for me, more than anything ever has. So I'm sticking with it for now.
I do really appreciate your restating of this whole crazy thing I'm doing, because I think it is exactly that: a look at it from a perspective that is only slightly different from my own, and different in a way that brings something to the table for me to consider that I am not able to bring myself.
I would never have thought of it that way. I like thinking of it that way. Especially in the sense that I can think of all of this, regardless of how or why the past has been what it's been, as the life I have NOW, and whatever else it's done, it has brought me here, and given me what I have; and what I do with it, all of it, no matter how I got it, is the point.
It always has been.
xoxo
I know EXACTLY what you're talking about with the off-gassing. And I love this term for it. I am not a PTSR sufferer (to my knowledge... although to be honest your blog is making me question that. Can people have PTSR without a single, identifying traumatic event?), but I do hold lots of tension in my body.
ReplyDeleteI first noticed off-gassing when I took a sort of energy-healing meditation class. We would breath deeply and relax, and visualize certain energies flowing in and out of our bodies. At first, it was REALLY difficult for me to do even this visualization, but eventually, as I learned to "relax into it," I would feel these strange tingling sensations that felt like waves of low-grade electricity vibrating through me and then sort of evaporating out of my skin. Now, whenever I practice meditation (even just the normal, focus-on-your-breath type) I get these tingly waves coming out of the soles of my feet. It's so, so weird, but also feels really good. It feels kind of post-orgasmic, which I can be cool with.
Anyway, just wanted to comment that I completely relate to the sensation you are describing, and it's awesome to know that someone else out there has this, too.
One more thing-- it's interesting that this happens to you without you trying to make it happen. I need to "get mindful" before the off-gassing starts, and then the minute I stop the mindfulness, it goes away (I assume... but I could just be unmindful of it, I suppose). For me, if I can remember to "discharge" this way everyday, I feel better and calmer in general, and if I forget for a few days I definitely get more agitated. It's cool to me that your body kind of jumps in and reminds you to do it...