Yoga Has My Back

“Yoga is not about self improvement. It’s about self acceptance.” – Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa

I have been practicing daily yoga for about15 months. I was not sure what I was committing to daily yoga practice. I knew that it was worth trying.

I found Yoga with Adriene on You Tube to undertake this 10 to 15 minutes of yoga every day.

Adriene Mishler would often say that Yoga has your back. I did not know what that really meant. I knew that yoga made me feel better overall. I could tell if I missed yoga a day or two. I felt a little off.

What happened when the going gets tough? I noticed that it became imperative that I do some yoga every day to navigate the rough waters.

I started to think what was different this time for me when I had difficulties to work through.

I had this yoga foundation that I had been building for over a year. I noticed during yoga that the energy would shift or transform. I noticed that I could come to yoga practice with pain or rage and transform or release that. I would often find myself crying during the daily yoga through this challenging period.

Recently, I arrived on the mat and knew that I desperately needed the Reveal yoga practice that was part of Adriene’s 30-day Yoga Journey, Dedicate. I came to the mat needing to deal with some anger. I left the mat transformed and feeling better.

In that moment, I understood why Yoga has my back. If I invest in daily yoga and truly in myself, I build up a foundation in my mind, body and soul and I can move through difficulties with more ease. One aspect of Yoga is about being able to be in the discomfort with ease and just let go.

Yoga has my back!

The Magic of Reiki

“The best and most efficient pharmacy is within your own system.” – Robert C. Peale

After years and years of working through the trauma, the EMDR therapist suggested that I try Reiki. The hard truth about trauma is that trauma is everywhere in the body, mind and soul.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) uses bilateral stimulation by stimulating the right and left side of the brain to process fragmented or traumatic memories that are stuck and are not pieced together. This memory processing was so incredible beneficial to me and moved me forward in my healing.

However, I had places with EMDR that I was just stuck. I had memories especially in my body that I was unable to get past.

When I went to Reiki, I had no idea what to expect with Reiki. I had a little Reiki long ago when I saw a sports massage therapist. I knew that in that it felt good.

I was already finding benefit from my once or twice a week yoga practice and Reiki practitioners seemed to be highly connected with yogis. Reiki and yoga are both about moving energy and bringing the mind, body and breath into balance. I asked yogis for recommendations and recommendations are what I got. There was one particular Reiki practitioner that I spoke with that in my gut felt right.

What is Reiki? Reiki is a very specific form of energy healing, in which hands are placed just off the body or lightly touching the body, as in “laying on of hands. In a Reiki session, the practitioner is seeking to transmit Universal Life Energy to the client. The intention is to create deep relaxation, to help speed healing, reduce pain, and decrease other symptoms one may be experiencing.

I went in not knowing what to expect. My energy flow was highly blocked. My trauma caused a lot of negative energy to be trapped in my body. In the beginning, I just cried and cried because there was a lot of negative energy that needed to be released. I did not need to talk or figure anything out. It just happens while I lay there and while this incredible gifted healer worked her magic.

After the first time, I felt a little better. I was exhausted, but felt better.

After the second time, I felt my feet for the first time in my life! I could actually feel the fibers in the carpet and grain on the wood floor. This was a miracle!

Not only did I get Reiki treatment, but she suggested that I practice meditating every day. How could I not try meditating because I was feeling better. I did this every day for three weeks because three weeks creates a habit. Something magical happened, I felt calmer and less anxious.

The Reiki practitioner would give me tips on how to deal with the trauma or other things in my life. Sometimes a different perspective is what you need.

As I trained for a triathlon, she gave me tips for a workout recovery that involved some yoga poses. Those poses greatly aided my post workout recovery. I was less anxious after a very long workout and those yoga poses calmed my nervous system down. I learned that a simple yoga pose can calm the nervous system.

Then, after about a year of so, the Reiki practitioner said that I needed to do yoga every day. I thought that she was right about so many things that I would give it a try for the same three weeks. Of course, she was right about this, too!

Reiki is a magic that heals in such a deep level. There are so many layers that I needed to heal. Now, when I go for Reiki treatment, I can often feel that life force energy that feels warm and comforting.

Trauma sits in the body and needs body work to fully heal. World renowned experts like Dr. Peter Levine and Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk discuss the need of somatic work for trauma survivors. There are many types of somatic healing. Reiki is just one of many.

During my journey, I do need each healing method that I encounter. Each one has a specific purpose in healing.

Reiki was and is magic and a miracle to me. Reiki and my Reiki practitioner forever changed my life!

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Feelings – The Universal Language of the Body

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always, darker, emptier and simpler.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Early when I was in therapy before knowing that I had PTSD from, the therapist asked me questions on where I felt things in my body. I answered this question many, many times and it was always the same. I felt nothing in my body except for inexplicable pains.

She looks at me and says, “You get it all in your head.” I say, “Yes!” I am thinking to myself that I get it all in my head because I am smart. I, also, think that she thinks that I am pretty intelligent.

After this exploration, I would learn from her that feelings are meant to be felt in our bodies. I had no idea that is what feelings meant. Now, I felt very broken because I could not do this basic human function. It was one of many times when I felt shattered as I would slowly uncover the long-term trauma effects.

The only “feeling” that I had was massive amounts of anxiety. I came to learn that anxiety is the result of not dealing with other emotions especially anger. The other place that I lived was numb. I was an expert at numbness. I numbed myself by being very busy all of the time.

I feared that my family may have this terrible “no feeling” thing. I went home and asked my family if they felt in their bodies and they did. I was thankful and grateful that they were not “broken” the way I was.

To feel these feelings, name these feelings and have the feelings match the event in time space would take years and years of work.

The therapist had a poster with different emotions and pictures of what those emotions looked like on a child’s face. I would spend many times in therapy trying to the name those emotions. I called this, the “Wall of Emotions.” At first, it was a guessing game for me. Then, I gradually determined if it was a “good” or “bad” feeling. That was the limit of my emotional vocabulary and range.

Also, I had no idea that one could feel multiple emotions at a time. I thought that they were singular.

Eventually, the emotions came a little at a time. Sometimes, they were very overwhelming and from the past. I would have rage or great pain and sadness at times. I would have to match the sensation in my body to the emotion. I often had to guess at which bodily sensation matched the sensation. I had to learn this language from scratch.

As the emotions slowly revealed themselves to me, the timing of what happened and the emotions were out of sync. It could be days after the event or after some past event discussed before the emotion came up. This made it quite difficult to figure out what event went with that emotion. Over time, the reaction time between event and emotion became closer and was down to about a day or so.

Then, eventually the time between event and emotion was hours. As time went on, I would notice that I could feel multiple emotions at the same time. The “feelings” were very uncomfortable for me. However, sometimes I would do a secret cheer for myself that I could feel and name “anger.” This meant that I was healing and feeling what I was meant to feel.

Then, one day, it happened. The event and the emotions came together at the same time! I finally achieved the “normal.” The “normal” is uncomfortable for me. I will continue to learn this new language. Many people have a lifetime of this language. For me it is new, but yet exciting!

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What is My Diagnosis and How Could I Have That?

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

The triathlon is completed. I am in therapy for anxiety and because I can’t sleep at night.

The therapist is kind and wants to get to know me. We explore different things in my life. I am, also, there because I need to deal with my parents who are not doing well financially and mentally, but I have not communicated with my parents for years out of self-preservation.

So, I was in therapy to figure out how to deal with this difficult situation with my parents.

In therapy, we talk about my childhood. I talk about my mom who never left the house. My mother who took a lot of opioids every day for her bad back. My husband had already concluded that my mother was drug addict. I had not come around to that. I believed that it was her bad back “medicine.”

My mother always had very unkind things to say to me like “no one will ever like me” when I was about to go to college. Life as a child revolved completely around my mother. We talked about that in therapy. Maybe, my mom was mentally ill, but all I could really see that she was very physically sick.

In therapy, I recounted about how as a child that my dad “spanked” me because I did something bad. Those spankings were harsher than I would have liked to admit then, but I could not see that at that time. I thought that there were a few instances where my dad may have crossed the line. Overall, I thought that my father was not physically abusive and I was punished for being bad. Once, I did have a note to not change for gym because of one injury and I knew that injury may have been suspect of physical abuse.

As we discuss these things in therapy, my life is getting worse. I am having more and more difficulty sleeping and any symptoms that I have worsen.

One day, I very nervously ask the therapist what is my diagnosis. She says in kindest way possible that I have General Anxiety Disorder, Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There it just sits… PTSD. What could I even have PTSD from? What trauma?

I am a researcher at heart. There is nothing like researching yourself. In therapy, I entered a long phase of studying myself as well providing my nuggets of information to the therapist. Every once in a while, I would have some new information or insights for her. Let’s be honest, she knew this information.

Anyway, that night, I googled PTSD and I checked many websites over and over. The symptoms were so undeniably me.

I had so many of these symptoms that I could not believe it. I was agitated, irritable, hypervigilant, mistrusted and I had severe anxiety, insomnia….

For reference, people may experience (source Mayo Clinic):

Behavioral: agitation, irritability, hostility, hypervigilance, self-destructive behavior, or social isolation

Psychological: flashback, fear, severe anxiety, or mistrust

Mood: loss of interest or pleasure in activities, guilt, or loneliness

Sleep: insomnia or nightmares

Also common: emotional detachment or unwanted thoughts

It was undeniable that I had PTSD, but from what trauma? It was a shocking and shattering diagnosis. Yet, I still did not know the trauma that caused PTSD. How could that be?

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Trauma 101

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” – Maya Angelou

Before we begin this journey, I am going to give my own lay definition of trauma and the next blog will be about the here and now.

There are many types of trauma. Some are single time events like a car crash. Trauma varies greatly based on the individual and the type of trauma. Some traumas are repeated over and over.

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence and emotional abuse. I sustained trauma over many, many years. One of the most devastating traumas to an individual is rape or sexual abuse. It effects the mind, body and soul on a very profound level.

For me, my definition of trauma is a systemic injury to the mind, body and soul. I prefer to use the word injury because someone injured my entire being. During the trauma, the body and mind do what is necessary to protect the whole person at that moment in time. The whole organism invokes survival techniques. There is a lot of science behind this. Bottom line, in the brain, the hippocampus is taken out of service and the amygdala takes over. The sympathetic nervous system is activated and calming part of the nervous system (parasympathetic) is deactivated.

The hippocampus is responsible for recording memories in context. During the trauma, this record of the event is not stored. The event is fragmented. These memories can be a single visualization, a smell, a color, a body sensation or pain or a sound. How the memory is encoded truly varies from person to person. These memories can be encoded and stored throughout the entire body.

For some, during the trauma, a person can mentally checkout or leave their body. This is called disassociation to survive the trauma, but the record of the memory can still be stored fragmented throughout the mind and the body.

So, the mind and body react this way to traumatic events for basic survival. When you think about it, it is a brilliant design to survive the unimaginable.

However, the trauma is not resolved or processed. It is buried deep inside. Common everyday events can cause reactions that seem odd or unexplainable. For me, the smell of old spice can be problematic. This smell could make me panicky and anxious. I could even want to go and cry. Most importantly, I may need to run away from that smell.

Imagine that a trauma occurred long ago in your past. Your whole being did what it needed to do to survive. You have survival skills that allow you to face each and every day knowing that there is a threat of being hurt at any time.

I somehow blocked what happened at home and went to school. I threw myself into school as a child. That worked for me to survive the unimaginable at that time.

All of these survival skills may get or may not get you other places in life. For me, it did.

However, the injury is still inside you festering away. Everything that you do is to avoid and bury the trauma. The box that you put the trauma away in eventually leaks and you try to do things to keep that box at bay. Those skills worked during the traumatic event(s), but they are not good coping skills for everyday life.

My coping skills were to be busy all of the time. I lived numb because I did not feel my feelings. I needed to be a high achiever. I was always very much on alert because my mind and body lived in the constant state that I could be hurt. Bottom line, my nervous system and whole being were injured and I lived in some state of anxiety and worry. It was very difficult to bring the calming part of my nervous system online.

Eventually, your body and mind determine that it is time to heal and there is a reckoning. Something can happen that is a key to that locked box of ick and it bursts that box wide open. When it bursts open, the whole system becomes flooded with the unresolved past. Your whole being becomes unstable. Imagine bottling up a bad infection in your body for years and the walls are coming down and you are flooded with a massive infection. That is what this is like. It is a ticking time bomb that can happen at any time.

To resolve the trauma, it takes a lot of different techniques and a lot of hard work. This process can be different for each person.

One of the biggest things that I have learned is that I need to do things every day that will calm my nervous system and my mind, body and soul because I have a nervous system that is more likely to be on alert naturally than in a calm state.

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