That time I tried to force healing

There’s a part in me that feels like it’s in charge of my movement forward.

It needs to stay on top of my healing process. It gets worried if it feels I’m losing sight of the work.

When I hit rock bottom and experience unbearable feelings because of my unhealed trauma, it’s like it simply doesn’t want me to feel that bad ever again.

This part actually ends up hindering my capacity to heal.

In Somatic Therapy we go through peaks and valleys. We feel the pain and we experience moments of reprieve.

This rhythm is called pendulation and it’s the natural rhythm of healing when adequately supported.

We want to be aware enough to spend time to be in the reprieve, because is as healing as being with the experience of pain. But it can be hard to remember that sometimes.

Being in the reprieve means noticing that while maybe it’s true that yesterday I felt like I was totally losing it, right now, at this moment, I’m OK.

Part of my job as a therapist is to bring your attention to the fact that right here, right now, you may not be experiencing the pain.

This usually comes after the pendulum has swung towards experiencing the pain. There’s a tendency to stay focused there, rather than take in the reprieve that is happening on its own.

I even take it a step further and help you notice how it actually feels in your body not to feel the pain.

You might notice calm, peace, groundedness etc.

I help you absorb this experience.

It’s not meant to distract or to take away from the importance or seriousness of the pain.

It’s meant to provide more resources so you can deal with the pain from a place of support, while noticing that pain is not the entire experience.

In Somatic Experiencing there’s the idea of Trauma Vortex.

That’s the momentum of energy that pulls us to be in the trauma as opposed to the Counter Vortex.

The Counter Vortex is your natural tendency, one that’s inherent in every human psyche, to pull through - even in the hardest of circumstances.

The key to healing is the ability to have one foot in the trauma and the other in the counter vortex.