- It is estimated that 70% of adults experience
at least one traumatic event in their lifetime.
20% of people who experienced a traumatic event
will develop PTSD.
(upbeat inspirational music)
So let's just be honest, that chances are
all of us are dealing with trauma in some form.
This channel is all about healing from trauma.
So you can feel safe, whole and worthy of love.
Please join us and remember to subscribe
and click the bell
to be sure (bell dinging)
you don't miss a thing.
If you wanna understand more about trauma and the body,
check out our other videos,
what is the body's natural reaction to trauma
and can trauma be stored in the body?
So how do we release trauma that is trapped in the body?
There are many great modalities to aid in healing
such as yoga, massage, EMDR, and EFT.
There is a correlation between breathing, mindfulness
and moving your body, truly trapped emotion.
If you are dealing with trapped emotion,
I would challenge you to pick one of these modalities
we are talking about today or another one
that you are aware of and make it part of your daily
or weekly self care.
For yoga, look for a trauma informed
or trauma sensitive yoga class.
There are many wonderful free resources online.
If you have watched a previous video
where I talk about can trauma be trapped in the body,
I shared with you my experience about back pain.
Because of my lifelong challenge with back pain,
I've done yoga for over 20 years,
primarily for relief from physical pain.
I'd like to share an enlightening moment I had with yoga.
I was in my thirties at a weekend getaway
for a friend's birthday.
Another friend was leading us in a morning yoga class.
This class wasn't about all the cool ways
you could twist or turn and crazy poses you could hold.
It was about loving and accepting yourself and your body.
Now I'm not someone who has struggled
with body image issues, disliking or rejecting
the way that I looked, so I thought that's a nice intention.
It doesn't really apply to me,
but I'm sure it'll be a nice experience, anyway.
As we did different movements with breathing
and the occasional affirmation by the teacher,
all of a sudden it hit me.
I had always disparaged my body and particularly my back
for all the physical challenges that I have had in my life,
all the physical pain that I had experienced
on a daily basis.
I remembered crying at seven years old
trying to practice the violin or piano
and not being able to make it through 15 minutes of practice
because of the pain.
I remember after going through hours and hours a day
of physical therapy exercises
to be able to walk again after a car accident
and how it took me two years before I could run again.
I remembered lying in bed, not knowing
if I was going to have the mental fortitude
to get out of bed and take care of my kids that day
because of the pain.
In all those experiences, I saw my body
and the fact that it felt pain as the problem.
I even thought it was the cause of the pain
that I was experiencing.
In that moment, I realized that I had always,
to some extent, rejected and disliked my body
for inconveniencing my life
instead of appreciating it for its fortitude and resilience.
I mean, it was my choice to jump off cliffs,
ride motorcycles and drive my car too fast.
Those accidents were probably born
out of other traumatic experiences and emotions
that were happening at the time,
but we don't need to go into that right now.
In that moment, I had a huge aha
that this entire time my body was trying to tell me
that something was wrong,
that I was out of alignment,
that bearing my pain and traumatic experiences
was not going to help me.
It was only going to hurt.
I spent the rest of that yoga class, mindfully sending love
and appreciation to each area of my body,
telling it what I loved and appreciated about it.
Believe me.
It is perfectly okay to send love
and appreciation to your ankles.
Ankles need love just like the back and neck does.
Now your experience
probably has different details than mine.
But the question I want you to ask yourself
is what part of yourself do you believe is unlovable,
unwanted or unworthy?
This is what I want you to focus on.
As we do this next exercise.
We are going to do EFT tapping
or the emotional freedom technique.
EFT is an incredibly easy, helpful and simple way
to address emotions or feelings in the body.
It's an easy process.
It involves tapping different locations
on your face, collarbone, underarm and the top of your head.
And it is so easy, you can even do it with small children.
I've done it with my kids as young
as three and four years old.
And sometimes when they're coming from a place of emotion
and they don't even really cognitively know
what's going on for them, but they're saying things
about themselves, like I don't love myself,
I don't like myself.
They're often speaking the words
to let you know how they're feeling.
I do this activity with them.
And so I'm going to ask you now to do this with me.
And we're just gonna do three simple affirmations.
Typically when I do this, I always start and end with
I am loved because at every,
at the root of every deep seated emotion or trauma
is a belief that we are unlovable or unworthy
or unworthy of love and finding that understanding
and that belonging in our life, even if it's not something
that we've had before, which is often the case,
if one has experienced childhood trauma
or trauma at a young age.
So this is gonna be fun.
Do it along with me.
I'm gonna move my hair. (laughs)
So if you don't remember exactly what points to tap
in the future, but you're wanting to do this,
an easy Google search of EFT and going to images
will pull up some great PDFs.
So take your two fingers, left or right-hand,
whatever works best for you
and we're going to tap just above the eyebrow.
And we're gonna say the affirmations while we're tapping.
And I usually you can do whatever speed you like,
but I usually just do a few seconds per spot.
So we're gonna start out and we're gonna say I am loved.
I am cared for.
I am supported.
I am appreciated.
I am wanted.
I am loved.
I am cared for.
And that is one full set when we do the top of the head
and we're going to go back and do it again.
And usually I do a total of three,
three cycles through the face,
starting with above the eyebrow,
side of the eye, below the nose, under the chin,
under the arm, and then top of the head
and you're repeating the affirmations that entire time.
So I'm gonna start with affirmations again.
I am loved,
I am cared for,
I am supported,
I am appreciated
and I am loved.
That is an easy, simple way that you can do at any time
even in the bathroom at work
to release the emotions that you're feeling,
whether it's that you were unloved,
unsupported, uncared for,
whatever that painful emotion that is coming up
in that moment where you've been triggered,
what you want to put into an affirmation
is the opposite of that.
And so you can start with that one.
You can Google some other affirmations
or you can come up with your own.
I know it's challenging to do new things
and to try new things
especially when you're in that moment of being triggered.
But I believe you, and I know you can do this
or you can always pull up the video and do it along with me.
If this video has been helpful
will you do me a favor, please share this
with a loved one who needs support in their healing journey.
Also remember to subscribe,
click the bell and watch
the next video. (bell dinging)
Until next time, keep shining.
We need your light.
(upbeat inspirational music)