How trauma is impacting your life? - Nutrition and Yog...

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How trauma is impacting your life?

WhollyAligned profile image
WhollyAlignedAdministrator
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We might not be taught this.

But you can learn

2020 is the big year of shake down. Ain't it so.

The mass dismantling of the old paradigms that have lead us to exponential rises in the past decade in anxiety. In poverty. In exclusion. In obesity. In abuse of people on the fringes. In a belief that only data can hold all the answers. Apps to measure our sleep when sleep is the one universal need all living things have. Things don't improve just because we are measuring it.

It improves because we care enough about ourselves to rest. To heal. To get underneath the root cause. We look within.

An increasing gap continues between rich and poor. As my sister said recently, 'What is the cost of wealth?' There's so much to unpick in that, isn't there?

We forgot our hearts. We turned away from Mother Nature. True wealth is a richness of experience. It's not a financial measure. Yes money helps of course but it's just one component of true health. The pursuit of power at all costs, has pushed trauma deeper.

2020 is also the year of the heart. And living from the heart takes enormous courage to be unashamedly you. To recognise each soul that shares this earth, has a right to dream. To be loved. To feel hope in their very bones.

So the question here is how is unresolved trauma impacting your life? That we cannot be whimsical in this endeavour. We need to be honest and bear witness to the things that are holding us back. With generous amounts of compassion for our inner enquiry.

Trauma means an event took place, that at that time, you did not have the tools to understand it. We all experience this is some way. Mostly the event occurs in younger life and sets the emotional stage. The unconscious holds it. Yet when we turn away and bury the wound, the wound festers. And comes out in our actions and behaviours and indeed in manifestations of physical pain and illness.

And of course impacts how we experience life. Tension, stress and anxiety are major drivers of illness.

Trauma will create shadow emotions. Like shame, guilt, anger, grief. We must turn towards these shadow emotions. Otherwise the shadow will run the experience.

As the youngsters would say today - 'hey why you throwin' shade?' or 'why you bein' shady?'

A trauma informed approach to yoga, as an example, begins to shift our perception. It allows us to feel and attend to the inner state. To see how the unconscious is holding us back. This is effectively yoga psychology. Partnering neuroscience and somatic healing into movement and breath. There are no limits to this exploration.

Our world is in a heightened state of excavation. Unhealed trauma is bubbling up. Whilst it might feel very uncomfortable, be assured that it is an invitation to address it. To feel it. To allow solutions to arise.

The reactive impulse to all this change might be to lash out. To go hurtling towards those injustices with anger. To power over. This is shadow.

Bullying, divorce, abandonment, emotional and physical abuse - all can create trauma. And many of this has been amplified in our fellow humans this year. It has either been a rich and wild and fertile soil for deeper reflection and change or at the other extreme, deeply, deeply unsettling, tragic in some cases and utterly overwhelming in others. Only you can know your context.

Physical movement creates a discharge from our nervous system. This is why singing, dancing, yoga asana, walking in nature - all become valuable and indeed profound tools in your toolkit. What movement are you allowing yourself to take to discharge held trauma in your body? Are you stuck? Please know that you can get unstuck.

Start by standing up and having a little shake. Or a stretch. Yes it counts. It's an action. It's an empowering step.

How can you look at your unconscious to identify what's holding you back. It doesn't need to be so complex. You can simply allow yourself to consider a couple of things:

1. How is my body currently communicating to me? For example through pain, sensation, fatigue, nervous tics, anxiety and how am I responding? This is a great step in getting present with reality. You're allowed to be kind and tender towards yourself.

2. What small action can you take now to consciously respond to your needs? This can be painful in itself as we might then need to look to where we did not have our needs met in childhood. You are allowed to have your needs met. And maybe in this moment, the answer is, 'I'm going to have a glass of water because I think I have a dehydration headache.' Or it might be, 'I am going to vocalise how I'm feeling to my partner because I cannot keep it in any longer.' Have a strategy.

Allow for the vulnerability. Confront it. Feel it. Integrate it. So as to not create more conflict. When we are filled with inner conflict, it will emerge in our behaviours.

September energies are infused with the Virgo season. An earth sign. Stand in bare feet on the belly of Mother Earth. Drink in her heartbeat. Sing to the stars. Raise your arms up and ask for help. Dream a new vision for yourself. And then take the actions that are in resonance for the unique human you are.

I'm here. I care. I love you. Who whispers that to you on the wind? Are you listening?

I share a beautiful greeting in a card from a friend recently. It expands on the salutation of Namaste:

'My soul honours your soul,

I honour the place in you where

the entire universe resides,

I honour the light, love, truth,

beauty and peace within you,

because it is also within me.

In sharing these things

we are united, we are the same.

we are one'

You can write that out. Say it out loud. Feel it.

Remember. You're stronger than you know.

Because you are the universe.

With love,

Ciara

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