~ I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious
~ Albert Einstein
12 things you need to know right from the start:
1. Trauma happens in he nervous system, not in the event.
2. Trauma and stress live in the body, not in the mind, as a dysregulation of the Autonomic Nervous System and manifest as difficult sensations and emotions and when they become too much for us to feel we lose our ability to stay present to ourselves and to our environment.
3. Trauma and stress in the nervous system can manifest as difficult thoughts and memories as well, but those thoughts and memories flow from the state of the physiology so cannot be addressed on a cognitive level.
4. The mammalian nervous system doesn't discriminate. The exact same stress response occurs when someone shouts at you, when you fall off your bike, when a bear is chasing you and when you are a baby and your parents don't meet your needs.
5. Symptoms of trauma and chronic stress are a result of trapped survival energies from incomplete fight, flight and freeze states that occurred in the past.
6. These past incomplete stress responses cause a build up of toxic stress and trauma in our nervous system so it has little room to take in new stresses and we become easily triggered and overwhelmed. We call this low nervous system resiliency.
7. These incomplete stress responses from the past signal danger to the nervous system in the present so our nervous system is constantly perceiving things as unsafe and stays on alert, triggering the symptoms we manifest.
8. We can access these old incomplete stress responses and allow them to deactivate freeing the survival energy building more capacity in our nervous system and improving our resilience.
9. We do this by learning to tolerate difficult sensations in the body while anchoring on neutral ones.
10. The nervous system has an organic intelligence of activation and deactivation. When we reconnect to this intelligence, which has been overridden by the constant signals of danger, and create some safety in the system, we heal.
11. Regulation in the nervous system equals resiliency to stress and trauma.
12. No matter where you are now, you have the capacity to regulate your nervous system, build your resilience and heal.
This video is an introduction to Somatic Experiencing and provides some very useful information on how the mammalian nervous system operates under stress, how this modality was developed and how it works.
Reference section: Trauma is Really Strange, Steve Haines Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine Healing Trauma, Peter Levine In an Unspoken Voice, Peter Levine The PolyVagal Theory of Social Engagement, Stephan Porges The Trauma Spectrum, Robert Scaer The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van Der Kolk The Body Bears the Burden, Robert Scaer Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, Robert M. Sapolsky www.traumahealing.org www.somaticpractice.net This page is continually updated. Come and visit again! |
|