Given the state of the world at this time, fear, stress, and anxiety are at the top of many people's minds.
I am no different, yet fear is not running my life, wisdom has a greater influence than fear.
I am truly grateful at this time my experience at this moment is through wisdom, however, the next moment is not predictable.
Given that, I am working at being in this moment.
I am offering weekly online Guided visualization and some Somatic Experiencing practice. Although Guided Visualization is not new to me, Somatic is. The difference in this training is how quickly it works for me and the few who have been with me in a session.
As it seems to be for many, life has always had a way of pushing me in the direction I most need to go.
Regardless of how life does this, it has never been easy for me. I know many who have only known me a short time, to them, it seems to come easy for me.
It is not to discourage you, it is to remove any judgment on you, it has always taken extensive work to be me.
What others might not know about me is, it is much harder to stay in the places that did not offer me anything other than stress, chaos, and pain.
I have been on my inner healing journey for over 27 years. I have dove, into many different practices available to us via books, audio, courses online and in person. The diversity has educated me in some of what is readily available and that no one way is the best for all. We are all unique and process information differently. I highly recommend trying many out during this time of Physical Isolation.
Our universal connection is strong at this moment in time and if you are an Empath, grounding your energy is the most important skill for you to have.
Take time to release yourself from the resistance to the energies and send the energy to Mother Earth or Creator.
Our human race needs each and every one of us to assist now more than ever.
For over 2 years now I have been immersed in some form of Somatic Experiencing, (SE). This past year I dove deeper.
SE. is a 3-year training program that works with trauma and PTSD.
I was guided by life, to this program over 18 months ago. Anyone who knows me knows I wanted to start right away, and I had to be patient as I waited 8 months for the first module of the Beginner year.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a potent psychobiological method for resolving trauma symptoms and relieving chronic stress. It resets the nervous system, restores inner balance, enhances resilience to stress, and increases people’s vitality, equanimity, and capacity to actively engage in life. Dr. Peter A. Levine
Sharing some of 'my history' will help one understand my reasons for this training, given all the work I have done on me over my life.
I am fortunate to have lived in this world amongst some of the greatest teachers of all time. Teachers who are Artists of their craft. Souls whose life mission is to teach about personal empowerment, rather than the grips of Fear, that Christianity threw my way for many years.
I have the privilege of reading the ‘Works of Art’ from souls who had enough experience to compile it in words for assistance in many other's lives.
Words that have uplifted me.
Words that have educated me.
Words that have assisted in my ability to heal me.
Maya Angelou’s words in “I know why a caged bird sings” assisted me in releasing resistance to my past and assisted me in investigating it from a position of power rather than of a victim.
Caroline Myss’s “Self Esteem” audio work assisted me in finding me amongst a traumatic past. (I believe I listened to it over 100 times)
Fueling the healing desire via Louise Hay’s “You can heal your life.”
Dr. Mario Martinez taught me about my body code in his work: “The Mind Body Code.”
All of these works of art came to me not long after a year’s intensive therapy with Dr. Susana Blackburn, the first Psychologist who actually invested in my healing. I was 26 years old. She was truly the first artist of healing potential I had ever known. Her Art assisted me in sculpting the foundation for the person I am today; I will forever be grateful for all she has done for me.
One of the most profound artists in my life though is the man who taught me to love me.
It was through his eyes, I learned to love me.
My partner in life. Todd.
Todd’s artistic talent is LOVE, and he has been the most committed teacher to date for my journey.
I am a better person as a result of his ability to Love me.
Standing alongside and keeping up with these great teachers for me, are my four children. They were raised by me. I was a young child/woman who did not know how to love, these amazing souls loved anyways, and still do.
There are the teachers over my lifetime who have taught me more than they ever imagined and there have been many times where I did not recognize I was being taught.
I did not recognize anything but trauma, and pain.
My education has been and continues to be so much more than intellectual. These teachers catapulted me to a level unimagined in my early life.
Still, I could not experience love within me.
Love remained mental, an idea only. This idea didn't and could not involve my emotions, I never understood this.
My emotions were riddled and driven by fear.
Yet I thought I was loving…
No matter what I studied and experienced, I could not change this. I functioned from this state for most of my adult life and I maintained a job, and marriage, as we raised our 4 kids.
The importance of this paragraph is: “I thought I was loving.”
I had no idea, I was not, ‘because I had not ever experienced love, I had only thought it.
When I held my babies for the first time there was a deep pulling, was that love?
I was plagued by the “Fake it until you make it!” thing was all over the place’, I truly believed I was loving.
At 33 years of age, I suffered a severe head injury and broke my neck. Limiting my ability to function without help, my emotions took over and I hurt many people. My children most of all, struggled yet they managed to still love me regardless of their wounds, and not liking me very much at the time. My husband stayed by my side despite the emotional roller coaster his wife was on.
At 36 years old, a girlfriend took me to a lecture at the Misericordia Hospital. Due to my physical limitations, I had to worry about crowds and navigating them safely causing an enormous amount of stress, bringing my emotions to the surface, I was not certain I was in the best place at that time.
I had always remembered the trauma of my childhood and my early adult life. We had survived the loss of my income, bankruptcy and a move to a new province and were purchasing a home.
Because of the amount of work, I had done, I figured I had a good life, despite my physical limits. My mind told me, I was loved, I had family and friends, and despite my physical limitations and need to increase my Emotional IQ, I was doing really good.
The moment the speaker began to speak, tears rose up from a depth I was not aware of. Showing me an aspect of me that I had no idea existed.
A waterfall of sorrow and grief erupted from this depth and mixed with a tremendous celebration of being awakened. I had never experienced anything like this.
Two worlds were opened up within me. I would leave there that evening knowing my world would never be the same.
The speaker’s words were claimed by the depth of me sealing into my very being as my own words.
The speaker was Dr. Jane Simington.
My soul rose up from a lost cavern and took over my life, during the very first moments of her speaking.
This was one of those moments where life pushed me in the direction I most needed to go. It was not easy for me.
My soul revealed to me it was so much stronger than my pain, letting me know it would never leave me again. Asking me to trust my soul, this was very different than anything I had ever experienced.
A knowing, in the form of strength, appeared as if out of nowhere.
Dr. Simington’s Dream Interpretation and Grief Workshops, set me on a spiritual path, driven by a pang of hunger, so very different from the interpretation I had of Spirit, from the Christian Religion of my early adult life.
Over the next 8 years, I filled my mind with new teachings, educating myself in many different Spiritual Arts. Taking Dr. Simingtons Grief Certification Training was the first step.
A 7-month Meditation Instructor Training Program shifted my spiritual connection to my divination abilities along with many other experiences. All adding knowledge and understanding to my life.
My Soul called
When my soul calls, I can't help but hear it now.
For it comes from deep within and will no longer be silenced.
As I explored Advanced Spiritual Arts, Meditation, Healing Touch, Reiki, Shamanism, Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Resources began to become integrated into my very being.
This integration became evident to those around me, causing others to come to me for assistance. I was very aware of the potential to cause harm from a lack of knowledge and experience. This kept me very cautious and only taught what I lived.
Teaching Divination, from a place of knowing, rather than my intellect assisted me in further integrating what I had learned. To my surprise,
LOVE began creeping deeper into my cells.
I was witnessing my experience of, a merging of my intellect and soul, and it was infecting my body in so many ways.
These experiences assisted me in developing my version of Shadow Work. Not to compare it with the gifted artist, Teal Swan.
The work I called, ‘The Mind, Body and Soul Connection and integration.’ I taught two nights a week, for a meager donation, and I continued this off and on, for over 5 years as life allowed.
I loved the healing aspect this afforded me, it called me to the task of living the things I teach, and this lifestyle really healed so much of my life history. Assisting me in recognizing the teacher aspect of me. Recognizing that I was born to teach.
This did not mean I was a good teacher; it means I am driven to teach.
Through this work, I began to shift out of old patterns of discord, self-destructiveness, and self-sabotage into self-love, self-trust and personal power. This Self-Healing began to radiate in my world along with the awareness that:
‘I could never step into the role of a healer and teacher if, I claimed to be healing others!’
It also revealed:
‘I could, however, step into the role of healer and teacher if,
I claimed the ability to:
Guide you to your own ability to heal yourself! ‘
This has been my path, and it is a tight rope at times, yet I would not have it any other way. For this awareness came via my 'Souls Voice,' which was leading me forward, creating a purpose, to heal and to be a light for this world. Not to gain status or fame!!!
TO BE A LIGHT!
I became stronger as time continued, becoming more and more present to my reality than I ever had been. Entering what Eckart Tolle called: “The Now”
I was healthier than I had ever been, mentally, physically and spiritually. Looking back, I am so grateful for this, it is what held me as life happened.
At this moment my world crashed down around me.
What is now 5 years and 4 months ago to all who know me, is still just yesterday to me. My 33-year-old daughter died!
Many avenues of support showed up, as I dove headfirst into this nightmare.
It’s important to know that not all support is freely given, some come with agendas and conditions.
To a grieving person who cannot see this, it creates a recipe for disaster.
A disaster that has no idea of the ramifications in the world of a griever with PTSD…
These ‘supporters’ had no clue that I had been diagnosed with C-PTSD, at 22 years old.
When I was 22 there was no real understanding of what that was. I stood a small child, disguised as a woman, an adult, in front of a panel of 4 Medical professionals.
As they told me: “life was hard for me and as a result, the only hope was that I continue breathing, completely medicated to ease this task and raise good kids!”
At 22, just a kid myself, I had no idea what they were saying to me, let alone how to raise good kids. Fortunately, there is a lot of information today on how to do that, back then it was “Children are to be seen and not heard!”
5 years and 4 months ago, just before my 51st birthday, my daughter died.
I had no inner resources to get through this nightmare.
The only thing I had was, 'a Soul' that was stronger than the horror I was in, stronger than the pain that was eating me alive.
My education in Emotional IQ assisted me in not doing horrific things. Yet the trauma kept me from tapping into my brain’s wisdom and knowledge. I could only remember how to breathe.
I quit everything except breathing, and I had moments where I wanted to quit that as well. I made decisions that only took me into consideration for the first time in my life. I am certain that this harmed many, which is evident in the loss of many relationships after my daughters' death.
There are so many false teachings out there, I had come across many, and met many people. regardless of my perception of the teaching that is false, I loved the people I had met.
This love could not stop me from lashing out at people who asked why I didn’t change my daughters' AKASHIC RECORDS before she died.
Today my heart fills with sorrow for those individuals who actually believe they can change another’s future this way.
People wanted me to stop grieving so that they don’t have to think about grief.
I refused to grieve silently, yet I wanted to be left alone in my grief.
I am grateful today that my husband never left me alone.
The grief of a lifetime showed up and I could no longer stand.
Grief is an aspect of Trauma, PTSD & C-PTSD.
What is PTSD?
(taken from the Mayo Inst. -->)
I googled it to give you the most up to date information.
Grief and PTSD – interfered with my coping skills, my ability to take care of myself, let alone others. I lost track of time; days turned into weeks. I could not see any way out.
I had little chance of escaping…
The trauma of my life took over, it threw my grief into a raging fire and burned me from the very core of my being.
C-PTSD is an important factor here as one's ability to resource is hindered in this situation.
While the world is telling many to 'get over it' they are doing it from a place of not truly knowing what hinders this.
As a child, I had little chance of escaping trauma.
As a teen it was no different as I was married to a man, I did not even know at 16.
I escaped barely with my life at 22 years old, which is when I found myself in front of a panel of medical professionals.
All of that history surfaced when my daughter died.
I laid in my bed and cried…
Until one day I could sit in my bed and cry…
Surprised by noticing weeks later,
I could stand beside my bed and cry…
By the six-month marker, I could walk and cry…
'Supporters' called to share 'their opinions' that ultimately cost them and me the relationship, for neither of us knew at the time, the last thing I needed was an opinion. It did not matter what the topic was about, I did not need their opinion, I needed their support. It is so sad that Grief is so misunderstood to so many when it is one of the guarantees in life, right up alongside death.
I refused to allow anyone to put anything on my plate.
I walked my grief.
I lived in my grief.
I had no intention of abandoning it.
This was the catalyst of my life today.
It has rooted deep within me, 'a knowing' that grief is a part of life and a part of all of our journeys.
The mere refusal to escape my grief taught me, the gift of becoming a companion to my grief.
Just beyond the one-year marker, life became more conscious for me, mental faculties began to reappear. Showing me that I did not lose my mind, it had been inaccessible during the earliest aspects of my grief.
The death of my daughter is so very fresh and present in every moment of my life, yet it is shifting from 'a prison' to 'a fluid experience'. She has become one of my closest companions, leading me onward. Assisting in breathing life back into this body.
Guiding me forward.
Driving me to begin re-taking my training in the many Spiritual Arts.
My soul in alignment with the Universe was no longer supportive of my choice to no longer help people, or to spend the balance of my life walking with my grief alone.
My soul joined the teacher in me along with the added support of my daughters' spirit, pushing me forward to re-examine my work. Could I stand strong in my motto; "Do no harm!"?
With this desire, I trained in Hypnotherapy, and I took Grief Certification Training with Dr. Jane Simington for a second time.
During training, I recognized how the skills, Dr. Simington teaches had to lead me through my journey in grief. These skills drove me in and out of support groups, they were the driving force to go to various counselors and kept me from following my daughter into the next world. Many times, I wanted to, despite how much I had in this life to live for. The death of a child drove me deeper into hell than I had ever been. When we are in that hell, we can not see anything but pain and darkness…
I saw that the skills Dr. Simington had taught me, brought me back into the training for the second time. I saw how these skills kept me alive, called me to the task of grieving and supported it as a full-time job until there is space for something more.
If you are grieving right now, seek help, it is a gift you will give to yourself and to your soul.
I was compelled to continue training under Dr. Simington.
Taking 'Suicide Intervention' training, revealed to me, a long-forgotten suicide attempt and assisted me in healing the soul aspect of this trauma.
My healing was beyond anything I had ever experienced. Even though many aspects of my soul had been lost in the trauma of my childhood, were returning to me, there was more I needed.
My Soul moved me forward as I trained in becoming a 'Life Coach'. It led me to advanced hypnotherapy. Each training was offering more healing attributes, missing pieces to being who I am. I entered the "Trauma Recovery Certification Training" under Dr. Jane Simington.
The healing that resulted, can never be expressed in words.
It can only be witnessed in my life.
Those who know me and stayed with me over these past five years despite my traumatic response to the death of my daughter can attest to the dramatic changes taking place in me.
The more I learned about me, about PTSD, and C-PTSD, the more my soul rose up. Pushing me onward, yearning for the aspect of my body that was locked up. Regardless of all the training and education I have had, my body was locked in the physical prison of trauma.
I learned from Dr. Simington the Souls prison as a result of trauma and this was the most liberating experience to date. My body kept speaking to me about something more. I struggled to access it.
22 years ago, my soul was the only aspect of me that had any strength, as my mind and body were severely damaged when I broke my neck. I was broken and extremely traumatized by the brain injury and the physical loss of my left side.
My soul led me, to Dr. Jane Simington in 2000 and in 2019 my Soul led me to Somatic Experiencing.
Given this, I wanted to share “What Somatic has done for me!”
My first experience with Somatic Experiencing was during the Suicide Intervention Training. One of my fellow students used a version of this to assist me in my healing, it was so profound...
Anyone who knows me knows if it works once for me I want to know more about it.
It intrigued me. I booked a session with a local practitioner.
Before this session with the practitioner in October 2018 my mother died and although I had no malice or unforgiveness towards her, there was a part of my body that needed something. I did not know what it needed.
My first session was awkward and not logical, it opened me up to activity in my body.
Activity in my body that runs deeper than intellect, it introduced me to an inner intelligence separate from the mental and emotional aspect of me. It was also separate from my soul...
With this new awareness, my SOUL pushed me forward with the help of my daughter. I began reading more and more about Somatic Experiencing. I had purchased so many books on it, yet what had happened in that session was not in any of the books I had read.
In September 2019, I began the first module in the beginner year of Somatic Experiencing. SE. This training showed me how powerful our body's intelligence is.
It began to open my eyes to how profoundly limited the teaching of Spiritual Gifts are, and to some extent are miss-represented. Miss taught.
I saw many of the teachings I had studied much like the game of: ‘telling someone in a circle, one thing and waiting as it is passed on to see what it is when it arrives back at its source.’
I also saw more information/knowledge, that could not be understood by me due to my PTSD come alive for me.
Over time the intellectuals have taught on the body as separate from the mind and the spirit or soul is separate from them both. The science behind all I had been taught supported this separation except the work of Dr. Jane Simington. She assisted me in merging my mind, emotions, and soul. And assisted me in seeking to merge my body as a whole being, knowing this was no longer about logic and reason.
Due to the many aspects of intergenerational trauma, mixed up with the fear of the family’s religion, I had walked away from my family.
It was so many years before this moment, yet I wept and grieved over this loss daily.
No matter how much I tried, relationships with them would not withstand the test of my daughter’s death.
By the time my mother died, I had been honoring her as one of my greatest teachers for years and I wanted to honor her as one of my greatest teachers at her memorial...
My mother raised her children showing us how she experienced life. How she had been poorly treated, and this came out in her inability to break free from intergenerational trauma. The atrocities I lived through, need not be mentioned here.
I know my mother taught me how not to be in the only way she knew how.
I live each day as evidence of how well she taught me.
The Fear taught from the Christian movement a large majority of my family practices taught me to; stand in my own faith, personal power and strength.
Standing amongst this family as they hosted a memorial for our mother, I saw clearly that I have never been a part of it.
The only thing we have in common is blood.
They have never seen me, never seen the effort I put in every day to be who I am despite PTSD and all that comes from it.
They have never seen my PTSD. I don't think they even comprehend the depth of it.
Standing there being reminded so vividly that I am not a part of them, I knew I could never adjust back into the fears of their faith. I saw so vividly the safety they all have in each other, and the gift of this for them. This is beautiful and I wish it growth and strength.
I also saw I am not wanted there.
This is what my body wanted me to know.
My training and sessions in SE had assisted me in hearing my body for the first time with regards to my family and C-PTSD.
My body had been telling me this for years, my desire to be part of this family caused me to not see as clearly as I did that day.
Their inability to see me, to be with me as I am has nothing to do with me.
I set them free that day, and I set myself free from 56 years of longing for acceptance in a family I will never get.
As I sat and watched with my own eyes, their unity, I knew walking away was in everyone’s best interest.
With the work of SE, I could see this clearly, honor the emotions this event stirred up in me and honor my need to stand and walk away.
Honor my ability to trust myself without them.
Do I want a relationship with them?
Of course!
I am investing in a family that wants me.
In comes C-PTSD.
C-PTSD runs every aspect of one's life if they have had complex trauma as a child. It ran my life, no matter how much I learned or practiced and knew.
If this is your history, the deeper Bodywork is needed.
What that may be for you could be entirely different than what it is for me.
Somatic is the route I was pushed by my soul to pursue and I am so very grateful.
Somatic Experiencing, SE. showed me that my body's intelligence was coded to protect me from my family.
My body was coded by my family's trauma and the intergenerational trauma of their families.
Living separately from my family for so long kept the reality of my C-PTSD invisible.
My body had a different truth than my mind did.
In the skills I had from training under Dr. Simington, I had discovered my soul had a different truth than my mind.
This body code ran deeper than that for me. Yet I would never have known this if not for the training under Dr. Simington.
Sitting at my mother’s memorial I was reminded of my body's code and how to heal this code.
In order for this to be possible, I first had to learn my body's code/program.
I also had to accept that no amount of positive thinking or changing of my behavior was going to eradicate this code.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy, CBT. that has turned into The Positive Mind Movement and Mindfulness Movement, had no capacity to shift this program.
Soul Retrieval afforded me a greater chance at a functioning life and assisted Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
They just did not go deep enough for me.
They were the stepping stones.
This is where my PTSD interfered with so much of my healing, every corner I took, I would fall in confusion. I kept taking steps up and ran into brick walls.
There was another layer needed to completely release me from my childhood and early adult trauma.
I had known aspects of who we are, are needed to fully integrate healing, yet due to the extensive injuries of my life, I could not do yoga, I could not do more physically than to walk.
I needed to combine CBT with Soul Retrieval and Somatic Experiencing to have a chance where my PTSD & C-PTSD were concerned.
It is the training in SE. that assisted me in not being re-traumatized at my mother’s memorial on October 19, 2019.
I am by no means saying it was an easy day, it was painful to learn I am no longer part of that family.
Painful to witness with my husband at my side, who could never have imagined this playing out before his eyes.
I was vividly excluded, the filled room watched video evidence of my exclusion. This experience deflated any opportunity to heal this reality for me. I was excluded from being her daughter, their sister, and his daughter.
Revealing the only commonality is blood. Unfortunately, this is not enough when PTSD & C-PTSD are involved.
My second training in SE. revealed my body's code to create safety and how I am triggered regardless of the image of safety, and evidence of no threat.
When my body does not think it is safe, no amount of intellect or convincing can change this.
In February 2020 I completed the first year in Somatic Experiencing.
It began on a Friday morning in a personal whirlwind session of releasing 11 years of grief around the death of my daughter.
I had stored this death in my shoulders that could not carry the weight of her life for her. The pain of feeling like I had failed her.
I had stored in my arms, the many reminders that my arms ere unable to save her.
I had healed mentally and emotionally. I had retrieved the lost aspects of my soul that went with her death.
I had not released the trapped energy in my body until Feb 14, 2020.
All this trapped energy was stored in my nervous system. As I released this, I saw how profound trapped energy affected my everyday life, my ability to know if I was safe or not. I experienced space inside, for more than I have ever known. I experienced "Now" for me, briefly, but for a moment more than I ever had.
Discovering that when I am working through trauma, I have a resistance to being touched. The very thing humans need to be comforted in trauma sent me deep into anxiety and caused me to run the other direction from healing.
Learning that trapped energy is in charge of my safety gauge and is sitting on top of many other blocks in my autonomic nervous system, moves me forward in pursuit of this training and offering what I do know.
I see how it compliments Dr. Simington's teachings, assisting me in greater faith in myself and my ability to live and assist others in the field of Grief and Trauma.
I have only completed the Beginner year in SE, and I already experience space within that I had never known. I have experienced a strength inside me that had only been a perception for so long.
An inner faith that solidifies my truth and strength in my motto to do no harm.
I am excited to offer this brief knowledge weekly online via Guided Somatic Experiencing that assists us in beginning to learn the language of our bodies.
I am by no means healed, yet I am healthier than I have ever been, acknowledging the language of my body has changed my anxiety and released me from many of my OCD's and welcomed movement without as much pain.
I have space to laugh and enjoy life on a level I have never had, even before my daughter died.
I look forward to the many more opportunities my soul and my daughter direct me to. If they guide me to you and you to me, I look forward to sharing with you all I know and all I live by in hopes that it might introduce you to your personal power. To all that the other side of PTSD can offer.
In love and light
Mj
For more information about PTSD & C-PTSD
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