You don’t know your nervous system is activated until it’s not.
I went into a restaurant a few days ago. I heard the food was great. I was in ocean beach in San Diego, doing my Somatic Experiencing® training on healing trauma.
We walk in, music is BLARING, TV on EVERY wall, LOUD chatting.
I hunt down the hostess who sees me and goes outside, I follow her, thinking she’s getting us menus or seating us. She responds "oh, I’m not ready to seat you, just wait here." with a slightly rushed, irritated voice.
We get sat at a sti...cky table, menus presented.
The menus seem to be printed in double double with the words slightly a
s
k
e
w,
it's blurry and hard to read the writing. We begin to look at the menu and I check in with my nervous system, I notice my heart is beating quickly, my shoulders are tightening, I’m scrunching my eye brows.
I can just block out the noise, the chaos, the sticky table and blurry menu, put on a smile and find a way to have a good time with my colleague, or…
I'm FINE. No, REALLY. I'M FINE.
I’m FINE. No, Really I’M FINE!
I say it, “let’s go”. We stand up, no excuse to the waiter, just “this isn’t going to work out for us, thanks.” ✌🏽
I look up another restaurant, Japanese sushi place right down the street. We walk in, no TV’s on, not too crowded, airy. The host comes with a smile, seats us, saying “sit wherever you’d like.” 🤗
Our waiter comes, presents himself, “Hi, I’m Jake, here’s some fresh water,take all the time you need and let me know if I can answer any questions.” he looks us in the eyes and smiles.
My whole nervous system relaxes. I let out a deep exhale. Ah. What a difference.
I had no idea the amount of energy and activation was held in my nervous system to be able to handle the other restaurant until I felt what it was like to have my nervous system relax.
I am a notorious
life situation juggler
full on adventure consumer,
traveller,
multi-tasker,
go-getter,
and I assume that I am a highly efficient, resilient woman. 💪🏽
I actually pride myself on the amount of emotional intensity and experiences I can pack into one day.
I used to feel very uncomfortable with space in my schedule, stopping and just holding my hands in one spot during a massage, just sitting and not doing anything.
Quickly processing multiple high intensity events seemed to be part of who I was.
I won’t lie, I am extremely resilient, I have multiple tools to calm my nervous system to deal with stressful situations and events but….
During this SE training (Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Healing) we worked with motor vehicle accidents, surgeries, injuries and inescapable attack. (Youpi so fun 🤩)
In one of the exercises,
I did a demo where I was the client and had to go over a car accident I had 10 years ago.
(here is where you sit down and put your seatbelt on, check in with your nervous system for activation while reading.)
9 years ago in August...
Having just returned from a road trip in Italy with my new 19 yr. old lover (I was 36 at the time). Yes, I know... No comment.
My 4 yr. old son was staying with my ex in-laws house in Blois in France. I didn't want to show up with my young lover to pick my son up, so I left him in town nearby with an agreement to pick him up in a few hours.
Of course he had no phone. He had lost it or broken it, (19 remember...) so we agreed to see us at the bottom of the stone stairs at 3PM.
After lunch, I was driving away from try ex in-laws house with my 4 yr. old son in the back seat of the car on the right side.
I passed a blind street a block from their house and didn’t think to slow down for the right of way.
I had done this road many times and I was in a rush to go pick up my lover.
My mind was still filled with Italy adventures. Waterfalls and.... and....
Before I knew it, I felt a thud on the right side of the car and the whole car was flipping.
Time stopped.
It was like an angelic choir singing ahhhh in a slow motion scene in the movies.
Before I knew it, the car did a full flip over the top and landed on its wheels.
My car was packed with wine bottles, olive oil, and all our things. (Doesn't everyone stuff their car with wine and olive oil if you go to Italy!!?)
I opened my car door, stepped out, checked on my son. He was ok.
My stuff was scattered and shattered all over the street.
My car was totaled.
I laid on the ground from relief and shock and hugged my 4 year old son.
He stood up and start handing me items that were strewn all over the street with a confused look saying “Maman” (mom) each time he handed me an item.
All I had was a scratch. He had nothing.
My totaled car after the event.
About 30 minutes later I was driving with the grandfather of my son to go pick up my young lover, waiting for me in town.
Surprisingly my ex in-laws didn't show if they were disturbed by the presence of this young buck in their home.
The next day, I packed up my stuff into another car, sent my car to the dump and drove south 7 hours to our home in France.
WHOA.
That was the story I'd tell about that accident.
I had no idea that just because we were physically fine meant that I was fine.
The way I noticed that this accident still had emotional impact on me was while reading the manual for this SE class how to work with clients and motor vehicle accidents.
As I read, I randomly broke down crying.
Trauma is like a slinky.
Trauma is like a compressed slinky.
It’s a compacted amount of events, emotions, and intensity packed into a small amount of time without completion of a natural cycle.
Too much, too fast.
It may be one big event or multiple small events over longer periods of time.
As I told the story of my accident in the demo, I was told to pause multiple times in the story, whenever there was a small amount of activation in my body.
We started the timeline from way before the beginning of the point of highest impact, the crash.
With each part of the story, I was told to stop and check in with my body.
As I slowed down the sequence of events, my body began to release the stuck energy through waves of emotion passing through my body.
It felt like a cycle completing itself each time, intense but not overwhelming.
There was a new wave of emotion with each section of the story relating to:
The guilt of not being fully present with my son.
Guilt in prioritizing a guy that nearly killed my son.
The immense relief of being ok and that my son was not hurt.
The emotion of fully realizing that the entire passenger door was smashed just inches in front of my son.
The shame of inflicting my ex in-laws with my love stories.
And there was a huge blank.
I didn’t remember what happened after the accident until the next day.
Somehow I went to pick up my friend, somehow I packed the car, I don’t remember the tow truck or even the evening.
All I remembered was the impact of the trauma and I had to slowly piece together the story.
My body was in shock.
I thought I was just fine because I didn’t get hurt.
HA.
Back to the slinky...
Trauma renegotiation is like taking that slinky and stretching it out, in between each coil is compacted energy and emotion related to different elements in the event.
The energy and emotion gets stuck in the body, because it did not have the time or the space to process.
When the body can move the emotion through, it frees up the trauma held within the tissues.
How does trauma reveal itself when an event is in the past?
Sometimes it can be a physical tension in the body, a tick, a certain posture, a repetitive pattern, a random fear, an overwhelming emotion when thinking of the event and more.
It can involve an over coupling of events, cars = danger. In another car scenario it might be dark spaces = danger, tall blond men = danger, new relationships = fear of losing self, etc.
"If I don’t do this then there is an intense subconscious fear that says I’ll die or be in danger or put others in danger, etc."
What repeats itself is incomplete.
In this situation:
I had an acute sense of my right side body every time I pass an intersection.
I had an overly emotional response when I hear about people almost losing their loved ones in accidents.
I have had neck problems on the right side.
As I was renegotiating the event, I let my neck untwist the energy held within the side of the neck, almost like a coil. This was related to where I braced in the accident.
The body holds the score as Bessel Van Der Kolk names.
What I find even more interesting is how traumatic events can design belief systems that govern our lives.
In this example: if I am careless, I can lose everything.
One pattern I have developed thanks to car accidents is:
every time I get in the car, I take one deep breath and become fully present before driving.
Since then I haven’t had another car accident.
I suggest also taking a deep breath now. Notice your nervous system after reading this story.
I’m realizing that I haven’t been that aware of what is actually ok for my nervous system or not.
Just because we can do it, because
we can juggle multiple things at the same time,
we can handle all the things we see on our screens,
move from one impactful event to another without blinking an eye
doesn’t mean that our body has had the time to process the event.
It can show up as fatigue, depression, anxiety, stress, fears, a weird underlying tension, etc.
Slowing down has been a huge process of my personal development this year.
Our society applauds efficiency and rapidity, but our bodies and nervous system pay the price.
Our ability to understand what works and doesn’t work for our nervous system is the best way to support physical, mental and emotional health.
And it all starts by noticing the signals in our body.
Hawaii has been a great lesson for me in slowing down. Just sitting, having a lot of space in my day.
Stillness can be uncomfortable, it brings up our sh*t. It’s not easy to sit with it.
It may start small, but maybe just checking in.
Hey is going out this eve too much?
What would it be like to just stop and take a few deep breaths?
Can I just notice that my heart is beating a little fast and my stomach feels contracted?
These are the first mini tools to becoming responsible for our own health and wellness.
Wishing you well on your journey. If you'd like support to process anything. Please connect and we can discuss the possibility.
Aloha, Carly