Today, I sent a little prayer up to ask what I should write about. And I immediately heard: you can’t talk your way out of pain.
Isn’t it true?
How many of us have used our brains, our cognition, our logic and reasoning to think and talk our way out of trauma? I know I have. I did it for years. And in many ways, it helped me. But in other ways, it left something important behind: my body and my heart.
You can’t intellectualize trauma.
Telling your story is important, absolutely. But it is only one piece of the very complex puzzle.
I know I’m not alone in the fact that I ca recite my story of abuse without flinching. That’s because I was so used to repeating these facts in therapy that I never really felt them. Details that have made people burst into tears often felt distant and detached to me. That’s shutdown or freeze mode and you can talk until you’re blue in the face but your body is never going to listen. Never going to believe you’re safe.
There’s a second reaction as well, when can’t tell our story without continually being retraumatized and become triggered, devesteted and in-operational.
None of these modes of relating to the self or to the world can be reasoned with or talked through or healed via talk therapy or telling our stories.
The only way to release traumatic stress, access and release suppressed emotions, and move through developmental plateaus is via the body by using some kind of somatic therapy on your own or with a practitioner.
There are many many forms and modes and types of therapy that you can look into – I won’t list them here. But if you want to take your healing to the next level I would recommend this next step. It is brought me to a level of peace and healing that I never thought possible.
B 🤍