Through a full, multidimensionally integrative meditative and expressive practice which can be greatly enhanced through accompanying journaling we go higher, become greater, and experience corresponding ease and the desired release of trauma. We confront trauma at its emotional source and create ease from dis-ease.
What About Trauma and Its Outcome?
It has sure been awhile since I've blogged. Getting through the holidays, the profound instability, divisiveness and peaking anxiety of this time, this world, our lives . . . carrying on through it all beyond denial, beyond dysfunction, beyond dis-ease, I continue to be most pressed to create beyond what I know and have experienced to be able to be present, embrace the new -accept the unknown . . . and stay afloat.
And you? I agree that in unusual, crisis-ridden times we are also stimulated to, as Michelle Obama says, "go higher". . . And how?
What About Research and Its Advice?
"Epigenetics: the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself."
Epigenetics research tells us not only do we carry in our DNA the effects of our own experienced trauma but the trauma of our ancestors up to four generations back. We as a nation have been quite traumatized, and by any estimation this will continue, perhaps increase as we experience this new, very differently challenging year.
Epigenetics research also well confirms the ongoing practice of holistic tools to promote wellness will not only improve how we cope with trauma, but erase its "coding". I am, of course, talking about meditation, journaling, exercise, insight-oriented processing, nutritious intake, generous water intake, 8 hours restful sleep a night, comfortably balanced lifestyle . . . easier said than done . . . regarding any/all???
Why Its Realistic to Hope to Heal Trauma
Now I want to focus on the title of this article, which is about resurrecting what used to be called alchemy. Alchemy is the art of turning lead into gold, endlessly and, as far as anyone knows, unsuccessfully tried by those who called themselves alchemists beginning in the Dark Ages through after the Renaissance.
The meaning of this metaphor to change this "lead into gold" is being able to change any/all symptoms of the dis-ease which happens through experiencing trauma into ease. The key technique I continue to refine to accomplish what we may understandably think is also impossible is what, as I describe it to my clients, I call "diving".
How to Turn the "Lead" Effects of Trauma Into the "Gold" of Higher Resolution
By that I mean "diving" into the depth of your feelings, especially your traumatic ones, in a deeper reflective state – actually surrendering to them and allowing them to carry you where they will. Despite the fact that we have been hugely conditioned for countless millenia (which anthropological research has long associated with the takeover in the world of patriarchal culture) to fear, and therefore constantly judge, our feelings – insisting on managing/fixing what we judge to be the threatening, intolerable ones – feelings are just . . . feelings . . . and they just want to be heard, at which point they disappear through the completion of the emotional processing that then naturally occurs.
This happens, per my previous paragraph, providing we don't attempt to mess with them by judging, managing, fixing. When we rehabituate ourselves to, in response to being traumatized and in a state of dis-ease, settle back into a comfortable, open, supported, aligned physical state, close our eyes, and allow our breath to quite easily and naturally deepen and more greatly regulate itself . . . we profoundly clear and open our body, mind and spirit to much more easily "go deeper in order to go higher".
The Real Truth to Act Upon – And What is Essential to Never Do
I'm talking about going deeper emotionally to best confront our associated feelings and, in effect, surrender to them, with full intent to unconditionally hear what they've got to say.
Notice I'm not talking about analyzing feelings, primarily telling our mind it has to "figure it all out". That's just another sneaky version of judging, managing and fixing.
When feelings are allowed to fully express themselves, we get to experience what we didn't know before – and guess what? We become greater in that expanded understanding and move beyond the feelings, which then are free to release themselves because they are no longer attached to us.
The Miraculous Result – and Release
All the energy that created and sustained the pattern of trauma, then, changes into the new pattern of resolution through greater understanding and corresponding release, including of tension, stress, trauma. Through a full, multidimensional integrative meditative and expressive practice which can be greatly enhanced through accompanying journaling we go higher, become greater, and experience corresponding ease and the desired release of trauma.
We confront trauma at its emotional source and create ease from dis-ease. As my mother would say, go figure!
Let me know how your experimental "diving" works for you and your emotional flow – and what transformation occurs! I wish you all this and your dearest actualization of your heart's dreams in this breaking new year – in love and light – Marjorie
Related resources and products
- Browse local mental health professionals specializing in PTSD and trauma recovery via Psychology Today
Check out Psychguides.com overview of the signs and symptoms, and some typical causes of significant traumas