The Joy of Healing from Trauma

The joy of healing from trauma. 

Most of my 2021 was taken up with healing from trauma.

Like most of the world, my life turned completely upside down in 2020 on top of the pandemic and the fear that brought, I also moved country a few times, got engaged, became an entrepreneur and changed my friendship and community circles. 

And all of this change was beyond what my nervous system could handle, even though it was mostly positive

What I ended up experiencing, but what I couldn’t articulate at the time was that my nervous system went into a state of freeze.

Another way of describing it would be depression.

At the time what I felt was an absence of joy and turn on in my life. I felt my spark was gone. My whole body had various pains and my pelvis and vulva were especially uncomfortable  (These areas are my barometers for joy and stress. When I’m stressed, my pelvis tightens and my when I’m joyful and turned on it opens)

My thoughts were 90% negative and focused on how terrible a person I was.

In my desperation I went to a pelvic floor healer. She was new to me, but the person I trusted was no longer in the UK and this new woman had great credentials.

My body was a no to her but I overrode that because I really wanted to heal my pelvis and get my turn on back.

In the session when she had her hand in me, she said somethings that were critical about my vagina.

I went into shock and I left that session feeling like I had just experienced an assault.

My whole body couldn’t stop shaking and I felt like I was surrounded by broken glass.

Anything of any intensity sent my whole body shaking and I was swept with a feeling of terror.

Fortunately, I had a session booked the next week with a Somatic Experiencing therapist, called Susan.

Somatic experiencing is a practice developed by Peter Levine that’s focused on the resolution of trauma from the body.

In that first session I was so shaken from my previous experience that I couldn’t even sit opposite Susan

I couldn’t look her directly in the eyes.

I can’t remember much of what we spoke about, I just left with a knowing that I was in the right place and that I would receive the deep healing I was so craving.

The months since that session have been some of the hardest of my life

Bringing my body out of freeze has meant feeling lots of old trapped emotions

I’ve felt utterly lost and out of control with the emotions surging through me

Periods of time when my consciousness was hovering above my body and I needed hours of practice to get me back into it and grounded again

In all of this, Susan has been incredible, holding me with deep love and acceptance

She’s taught me about my nervous system and how to heal it

 How to find the health and how to ground into the moment

Always reminding me that it’s in going slowly that I heal

And there’s been gorgeous moments with the return of the light

Feeling the return of my belly laughs from joy with Matt

The moments in meditation when I’ve felt freeze in my body shift into heat again and expansion

The realisation that I’m far more grounded and rooted in my body than I was before this all kicked off

The blooming of life and turn on in my clit and vulva as my nervous system has healed

So even though this period was ROUGH

I’m deeply grateful 

Grateful to myself for my hope and belief in my inevitable healing throughout the process

Grateful to myself for my dedication to my practices and the hours I spent each day in them

Grateful to Matt for being such a loving, dedicated, steady partner through it all

And profoundly grateful to Susan, I would have been lost without her guidance through the dark and nurturing holding of me

I’m also grateful to the practice of Somatic experiencing because it works

It’s the real deal at resolving trauma in the body and I can’t recommend it more highly 

So I’ve left this year with profound hope for humanity

Because I’ve experienced first hand that healing from trauma is possible

And I can see green shoots everywhere of this knowledge becoming more widespread in my networks

People all across my social media feeds are engaging with and sharing content about nervous system regulation,

Trauma resolution, the power of holding boundaries and the importance of s/exual sovereignty and pleasure for healing

My hope for 2022 for myself is that I integrate this healing more fully into my body 

And my hope for others is that those who are ready, turn towards healing this year and that they receive the gift of lightness and joy that it brings