We are invited and even told to "call your power back" from the situation. Many invest their power in chaos. Leaving many with the sensation of failure.
What if we can't call our power all the way back? Why can't we?
The experience of going to a family member's hockey game for me, a person whose life was only about survival felt more uncomfortable than my perceived perception of the person playing that crashes against the side walls.
Why.
I was systematically denied the opportunity to develop like a normal functional person. I was too busy surviving.
Did my family do this to me?
Did my culture?
Did I, do it?
It doesn't matter who did this to me; what matters is it was done, and I can do something about it.
What gets in the way of doing something about it?
Overriding, gaslighting myself, putting others before me, and feeling guilty if my healing journey harms others. Not setting boundaries because of not know what boundaries I needed.
Believing everything I read, see, and hear on the many influencer platforms available today. Not stopping and getting to know me in a way no one has ever stopped to do. Waiting for the quick fix. Looking outside of myself for validation.
All of these are responses in my system, and they are patterns I am familiar with, so I continue in them, completely unaware of why.
Our Nervous Systems only job is to keep us alive, and it will do whatever it takes to do so. When something different arrives, and we have no history or experience with this new thing, we experience discomfort. This increases adrenalin and cortisol; Cortisol will shut down the way the hippocampus functions – the ability to rationalize what is going on is diminished.
The amygdala is the smoke detector, alerting us to danger. Adrenalin will increase the way the amygdala functions. Increasing the implanting of memories that have no language to them.
Our Nervous System will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar anything.
My familiar hell was to survive anything that arrived, leaving me able to be with and observe others but not learn from them, not experience them.
I was systematically homed in on what I needed to learn to survive, not to have a good time, not to play, not to learn normal things like putting on make-up and enjoying social events.
I was not able to take in experiences that were not traumatic.
My history taught me to ensure I wasn't all in because my feet were taken out from under me whenever I was all in.
I could never fully be present for 28 years of marriage to an amazing man who is a member of an amazing family. I could never fully take in each experience; my history would not let me.
This is not a conscious choice. No matter how hard I tried, I could not take in the love, the acceptance of the wonderful humans who aren't perfect and who choose to love me regardless of the distance I would have kept that they had to have been aware of.
I remained in a position in-between what my history called me to do and what was in front of me. I couldn't fully be present, fully see what I intuitively knew was safe.
The ingrained pattern of hypervigilance for safety overrides the option to relax and enjoy.
The experience of observing family members getting along is so hard for someone who lives in a state of hypervigilance to survive.
They want to include you. You want to be included.
The pattern in your system freezes, it is confused, and this doesn't feel safe.
Even though years of evidence has shown that the environment is safe.
This is not optional.
This is the pattern.
Acceptance of our patterns is part of the way through.
When we are in the trap of Hypertension and Hypervigilance, we are not fully able to see the pattern or recognize the pattern.
Resourcing is what we need. Noticing our breath, not changing it. Just noticing it with curiosity. Inquiring, am I breathing with all my lungs or just part ? And in the just noticing with curiosity see what sensation, image, behaviour, affect and or meaning-making arrives. And letting this be enough of a resource.
This is resourcing, this is giving my nervous system a chance to step out of hypervigilance and eases my hypertension.
Giving me the space I needed to have a conversation with my nervous system, saying repeatedly:
I am watching adult family members getting along, socializing, and playing together.
Waiting, with curiosity, and like waves in the ocean, a new wave will arrive. And I experience a shift inside.
I did not ask the shift to arrive, I respected my nervous system, my physiology and did not ask it to change, I honoured it. This shift was internal, creating the space for something new.
My new was knowing I can play, yet I didn't jump in right away, overriding the shift. I began saying. I can play, slowly in my mind, listening and noticing my nervous system as I did so.
And a shift arrived.
Again, I didn't force this shift I respected my nervous system, my physiology and did not ask it to change, I honoured it. This shift was internal, creating the space for something new.
It is then when I joined in the game, and said to myself, "I am socializing and playing with adult family members as you join in repeatedly until another shift happens." I did this slowly and gently in my mind, listening and noticing my nervous system as I did so.
This is how I am healing myself.
How did I learn this?
Somatic Experiencing.
Somatic Experiencing works with the physiology of your system. It has a story that is not always language. The sensations may not have explanations. It is communicating with you in many different ways all the time. Many of us have learned to override this communication so it begins to cause health issues. The doctors struggle to find what the cause of those issues are.
I encourage you to try working with a Somatic Experiencing practitioner. It doesn't have to be me.
Your challenges won't change in one or two sessions. But you will gain in those sessions some information and some access to your nervous system resources that you may not have had before.
Being a client, then a student and a client, then practicing while being a student and being a client weekly for over 3.5 years is what shifted me out of the lock down.
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