How to move out of survival and live?

Many of you who have had deep pain and hurt in your younger lives have learned to survive by doing whatever is necessary to get through your day. You work, you smile, you help, you laugh and you hide away at home when you can because that feels safe. In essence you are still expecting attack and you work hard to avoid it. Your focus is on getting through each day without attack, with minimal dnager, conflict and abuse. You collapse at the end of the day exhausted, satisfied to have survived and to have gotten through relatively unscathed.

In doing this you are simply surviving each day, you are not enjoying your life very much or creating what you really want. You are not living your authentic self, you are using a range of cover ups and defense mechanisms to protect your vulnerable, scared child. That feels more important than having fun, socialising. This is true for many of you.

There are others who are also just surviving, but they focus on pleasure and not much else. They have given up trying to achieve anything or to be successful in their chosen path. They have given up on their dreams believing it isn’t worth the effort to pursue them. They settle for comfort food, alcohol, drugs, sex and a simplistic, hedonistic life, without contributing very much to society.

There are many survival patterns, underneath them all is pain, pain waiting to be felt and released, so you can step up and show your true self to the world, so you can enjoy life and contribute to the welfare of all by shining your light brightly.

You do not need to stay hidden, small to be safe. You don’t need to keep yourself small, stuck to feel like you have no control, no choice, no option. You do have options. Every day, every hour, every minute you are making choices affecting your health and wellbeing. You choose to do nothing or to sulk or pout or be angry or disappointed or to feel hopeless, like there’s no point trying. You choose to repeat the same mundane day over and over – go to work, eat, sleep, wake up, repeat over and over. You choose to numb out and watch TV or to eat or drink or whatever method you use to escape your dissatisfaction with your life. You are choosing to be stuck, to be a survivor or victim of life and your experiences.

You could be choosing to do something new, to try a new hobby, to connect with people and do activities, to have fun and socialise. You can choose to do study to work towards a career change or to volunteer at a nursing home or food shelter or other act of service, which not only helps others but results in you feeling better about yourself and your life. There is so much you could choose to do, but you have to choose it. You have to action it, take the risk for things to change.

Don’t let your life slip away. Take charge and live it. Flow with what life brings you, the ups and the downs, and make the most of it. When you get triggered or you get insight into your defense mechanisms, your pain, work through them to heal them and free yourself up. You don’t have to stay stuck in the old patterns and pain – free yourself and live.

One way to do this is using Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE). It can help you to calm your nervous system and body, so it drops out of fight, flight or freeze. TRE is a simple set of exercises to activate the body’s own tremoring mechanism which uses up the stress chemicals, cortisol and andrenaline, which get created when we are triggered and stored in our body if we don’t actually fight or run away.

TRE can be learned in an individual appointment online or an appointment in person. Then you can use it at home whenever you want to as a part of your self care routine.

When your nervous system calms, your body relaxes and it’s easier to make new choices and changes to behaviour, as your neocortex comes back online, the rational decision making part of the brain. When we’re in fear the amygdala and emotional part of the brain, the hind brain take over and focus on survival only. This is why it can be hard to think or make decisions when you are scared. The rational part of the brain has shut down so you can respond instinctively, quickly to increase your chance of survival.

You don’t have time to contemplate your choices when a lion is chasing you. You need to act fast and run or hide/freeze hoping not to be discovered. If you’re going to be brave and fight you need those extra stress hormones to give you the energy and drive to charge in. Your body will also fill you with opioids so you don’t feel pain as much, just in case you do get hurt or worst case scenario killed. The opioids numb the pain. They also are part of the dissociation process, helping you to feel less connected to your body, so you don’t feel what is happening to it.

TRE can help you to unwind all of these patterns and stored energies in your body, so you can be relaxed and at ease, more able to make choices from a calm state and to enjoy your life.

It is time to have fun, to be free, to shine your light, to do what you missed out on, to experiment and discover what you enjoy in life. It is time to LIVE, choose it and the Universe will help you do it. CONNECT with nature, with yourself, with others. Let yourself be seen, heard, supported and loved. Let the goodness in, it is all around you, waiting for you to open your arms to receive it. It is time, it is overdue, it is banging on the door hoping you will hear it. Step up, speak up, live your life and let go of the old ways. It’s time to live more fully, not just survive. Blessed BE, Amen.

By Jodi-Anne M Smith (23October 2017).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

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Stop carrying responsibility for Mum and Dad’s issues – healing family trauma

Are the emotions you struggle with yours? Science has now shown how unfinished trauma is passed on genetically to future generations. We carry the wounds of our ancestors in an attempt to heal it. This process and ways to help release what you carry is explained in the attached article.

For example: Did your mom or dad reject their sadness and grief? Are you, or your kids, depressed or always grieving?

Did they hide or bury their anger? Are you or your children unusually angry, or did you choose an angry partner? Or perhaps you can’t access your anger at all, while feeling depressed and broken?

Did they disown their need for love and intimacy? Do you hunger for love and yet cannot find it?

Family systems seek wholeness by re-creating what was disowned by previous generations. These later generations (ours and our children’s) try to bring this wholeness by acting out rejected family aspects.

Family Constellation work shows us when these patterns run our lives and how to disentangle from them.

Intergenerational trauma

In this video, Mark Wolynn, author of the book ‘It didn’t start with you: how inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle’ explains intergenerational trauma, how and why it happens and how to stop the trauma being passed on to future generations. I loved this book and got many useful insights from it for myself, for the courses I teach and the clients I serve.

How to let go of disappointment and expect the best?

When a person has suffered many disappointments in life, they learn to switch off from life, from expecting good things or even believing it is possible for their life to work out okay. This is a self defense mechanism aimed to limit the pain received and protect from further disappointments.

But switching off from life, hope, faith is a disasterous thing to do, it is a giving up of life force energy, of joy, of hope, of happiness. It will inevitably lead to judgement, ridicule, low self-esteem, depression and feelings of unworthiness.

If the major traumas occurred when a young child, 0-7 years old, it is highly likely that a pattern of learned helplessness was embedded in the child’s unconscious and as an adult plays out constantly in all aspects of life, leaving the person feeling a victim, feeling unable to change anything and accepting life is always going to be this way.

With such pessimism life becomes drudgery, one boring or scary or threatening and dangerous day after another. It is easy to see why people may self medicate through addictions to avoid the emotional pain and sense of helplessness and hopelessness.

It is a cruel way to exist, it is a numbing out of life, a walking dead scenario, feeling as if there is no point in staying alive or trying to change anything, because it feels like it never works or changes, it never gets better.

This is a very painful place to be in internally, to feel this hurt and broken that you don’t know how to go on, how to survive, how to live. You give up trying and just survive one day at a time. Life is monotonous, bland, boring and suffocating. Sadly this is a common state of being for many people. Gladly, you don’t have to stay stuck in it.

You only feel so helpless because it is younger parts of you that got hurt and disappointed, whose pain is so high, that it is over ruling everything else. If you heal these wounds and help free your inner child or younger selves then that pain will not be your primary emotion or experience of life.

You the adult has every opportunity to make different choices, to have fun, to be positive and enjoy life. It is just hard to do when your vitality, your life force is stuck in the past, playing out a repetitive loop of negativity.

So how do you free yourself of the wounds? There are many ways that help. At this stage it is just important to know you can break free, that you can heal and that life can become better. To let a glimmer of hope exist.

Just because people in your past hurt you or disappointed you, doesn’t mean it has to reoccur over and over. If you heal the wounds you can flourish. You will no longer attract in that treatment as you will no longer be a vibrational match to it. Once you have released the pain, your body can relax, come out of fight or flight and shut down zombie mode. Life force energy can flow freely through your veins again, revitalising you to live life fully, embracing possibility and taking action to live your dreams, your greatest potential while here on Earth.

To achieve this the wounds must be healed, the emotional pain must be released / transmuted and your heart opened back up to allow love in, to trust and take action, to risk changing / trying something new and letting people close.

When people are closed down out of disappointment, it is like they have bolted the door, put up a security fence, have guard dogs snarling, attempting to keep out anything good from occurring, so that they will not be disappointed or hurt further.

People with good intentions attempt to come close and they are faced with snarling dogs, electric fences and machine guns aimed at them, as if they are the enemy, when all they want to do is love you. It takes a strong and determined person to persevere in this situation and say “Let me in, it is okay, you can trust me”.

Many just walk away, they see the wounding in the other, the closed door, so they turn away. Hence the hurt person ends up alone, isolated, desperate for attention, for love, but not allowing it. No wonder they feel so hopeless.

There is a war going on inside, keeping the goodness away. When someone does come close they can over react with anger, feeling like “How dare they expect me to let them in, how dare they expect me to take a risk”. You push the person away so hard.

Depending on how deep the wound will depend on how automatic this rejection process is. It can be so strong that rage is triggered and a feeling that you could set the person on fire because they have threatened you and your safety by daring to enter into your closed kingdom, and it literally feels like a threat to your existence. So sad when really the other is saying “Hello, do you want a friend? Do you want to play?”.

toddler-sulkingIt is like two young children meeting in a playground and the first person has planted their feet, crossed their arms, stomped on the spot and said “NO”, shouted “NO, you will not play with me, go away, leave me alone”. They are totally closed off in their tantrum about how they feel and what has occurred to them in life. Then they sulk, pout, kick and scream about how unfair it all is. Most of us can see this behaviour in toddlers, young children quite easily, but we fail to see that as wounded adults we are doing the same thing.

Life can’t change dramatically for the better unless you uncross your arms, suck in your bottom lip, and you open up to connection, to playing, to having fun. While you are shouting NO nothing much can change. So you have to be willing to lower the defenses, to open up to another way of being and to feeling and releasing the emotional pain underneath the wounds, then it dissolves, then you walk free of it and you can see the blue sky and sunshine and let it in, you can see the beauty in life and let yourself be replenished by it and experience good things and have your life work out more enjoyably.

It is clear that it is up to you to take action to heal the wounds. Noone else can do it for you. Even those brave souls who wear suits of armour and non-flammable overalls who come close wanting to help you move forward. Their efforts can only help if you let them in. If you keep shouting NO energetically or actually saying it through your words and actions, then their efforts can’t help.

It is up to you to take the risk to let life be different. You can do it and it is worth it, so worth it, to walk free from misery and enjoy life, to be pleasantly surprised by the mystery of life and finally see the goodness in all things. You can achieve this, simply by healing the past so it doesn’t cloud your future. It can be done and I and many others can help you do it, if you let us, if you open up and say “YES to life, YES I am willing to move forward and to risk being happy. YES I can do this, I will do this, I choose this”.

Then life will lead you forth to the right people, places, books, courses and whatever else you need that best suits you to help you heal and break free from the pain. It will be different for each person based on their current state of awareness, willingness, and ability to feel and release their pain. Some will need to do self-study at first, before they would be willing to risk seeing a therapist and trusting someone to help them move forward. Some may prefer talk therapy as they don’t yet feel safe enough to go into their bodies and feel what is there. Some may prefer to start with body work modalities to help the body relax and let go, preferring this as they are too scared to voice their concerns or speak the truth that they have tried to hide from their whole lives.

Inside your body are all the trapped emotions and memories from the traumas you’ve experienced. It results in muscular tension and holding patterns that are so common in our society. It results in tight, sore shoulders, necks and backs. It is literally like the body has clenched, locked down, armoured up in order to protect itself.
A large part of healing is releasing this tension, melting the armour and the hypervigilance that comes from being in fight, flight, freeze so much.

This has to be done slowly, gently. You can’t take the top off the volcano and have all the pressure escape at once. It’s too volatile, too dangerous, too overwhelming. You need to let out the pressure and steam slowly, gently, so you don’t explode emotionally, but also so your body can integrate the shifts and changes.

There are many ways to reduce the internal stress and pressure, soy ou can cope more easily with whatever life brings you. When you’re already stressed up to your eyeballs internally it makes it so hard to cope. It’s like you’re exhausted with nothing else to give or any capacity to take on more – whether that be a challenge at work, a family member wanting your support or asking you to do something.

When you’re already at your limit, when your plate is full, any additional stressors can result in strong, undesirable reactions. You might react in anger or rage, or just be irritable and cold pushing people away or ignoring their needs. Not because you don’t care. You do care. You just don’t have any more capacity to cope with another stressor.

Thankfully you can use a range of methods to diffuse your internal bomb. Most people turn to addictions to try and numb it, escape it, avoid it, distract from it. They get busy or drink or shop or play video games or any other distraction that stops them from feeling what is occurring inside.

Clearly, this is not a healthy or long term solution. Your nervous system still has all the charge in it, all the pent up energy and emotion, so addictions just form a temporary fix that is bound to fail as the internal pressure continues to grow and the person eventually implodes or explodes.

A much healthier way to reduce the pressure, to let out the steam is spending time in nature, going for walks or swims at the beach. Anything that helps you to slow down, to have greater relaxation and ease in your body.

I have found Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) particularly useful, as it lets out that tension from the body bit by bit, calming your nervous system and giving you more capacity to cope with day to day life. As you release the pressure, it is like you’re taking some of the burdens and pressures from your plate, so there’s room, capacity, to handle life events with a bit more grace and ease. You don’t get shoved into overwhelm as quickly.

TRE is a set of simple exercises designed to help the body access its innate stress, tension and trauma release mechanism. This is an inbuilt tremoring process that uses up the stagnant energy, melts the armour and helps you shift out of fight, flight, freeze into relaxation and ease within. When this occurs it is easier to interact with others as you feel safer in your body, less threatened and defensive. It’s a powerful process for calming the body back down to it’s natural peaceful, playful state.

Excitingly TRE can be learned quickly and once learned you can use it for free for the rest of your life. You can do the exercises and tremoring releases in your own home, whenever you want.
If you want to go deeper, learn more or have some support as you go along, you can see a TRE practitioner like me, but you don’t have to do that regularly. You can just do it when you want to or if you need some extra support.

TRE gives you back your freedom to engage in your healing journey and to heal at a rate your body is comfortable with, listening to and honouring your body. It is well worth learning TRE to empower yourself and move forward with your life. You don’t need to stay stuck, defensive or hidden. You can be free.

pathThere are many roads home, to healing, to your heart and wholeness. It doesn’t matter which road you take, what matters is your willingness to take a step forward into the unknown, into life being different. If you are willing, the Universe will meet you and guide you forth.

May you learn to run joyously along your path, knowing you are taken care of, and see the beauty of life and love all around you. For it is there just waiting for you to open your arms and embrace it. Life really is good once you heal your pain and can see more clearly. May you obtain inner peace as quickly and as easily as you can. With love, Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (08 October 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How to enjoy life?

You can enjoy life more fully once you stop fighting against it. Many of you are so caught up in judgement and drama. You don’t see the bigger picture or trust the evolution occurring. You try to control it, predict it, struggle against it. Yet it will take you exactly where you need to go.

Surrender and allow, don’t fight against it. Feeling the pain that you are avoiding at all costs is what liberates you. Feeling and releasing the pain sets you free to enjoy life more, to be unrestricted, to flow gently and joyously along your path.

feel inner emotionsYou humans judge pain so much, you avoid it, you fear it, you think it is wrong. And in all that focus you keep it active and alive. Even when you are trying to ignore it, pretend it isn’t there or magic it away, all of this is putting energy into its existence. Whereas if you just surrender and feel it, it can dissolve, it can leave.

Yes, you will feel vulnerable and raw going to the core wound, the core pain in your heart. It will feel challenging to allow that, but if you drop into it, through it, you will find peace on the other side. Your body can then relax, no longer needing to be locked in armour, in fight or flight or senseless defense mechanisms.

Your body does what it needs to in order to protect you and keep you safe. If you couldn’t fight back or flee from danger then your body will move into freeze, into numbing you from the pain so it doesn’t feel so bad.

Inside you are all these frozen parcels of energy from all the times that you didn’t speak up, stand up for what you wanted or defended your honour when people were being unkind or inappropriate. Whether it was a bully at school, a sibling, a teacher or parent who treated you poorly, all these hurts, resentments and disappointments get locked inside you and weigh you down.

Thankfully you can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help yourself. You can shake out all these old frozen dense energies. You can release the buried stresss, tension and trauma, so that you can feel more fully the goodness inside you. You can regain access to your innocent self, your childlike playful nature who trusts in life and enjoys connecting with others. That purity is still there inside you. It’s just buried under layers of density that have accumulated throughout your life, weighing you down and making it harder for you to enjoy life.

By releasing the stress, tension and trauma your body can finally relax and BE. You can be more present as more of your energy is available now, instead of locked into all those protective mechanisms. And when you can be in the now without all those distractions, you will feel joy, simply because you feel more whole, you feel the war is over inside and you can do what ever you want.

The controller and guard are gone, or at least sidelined, they no longer control the show. You are free to breathe more deeply, to rest, to just BE, to enjoy nature and life more fully. You feel joyous because you are finally being you and not pretending to be okay, you actually are okay and you know it.

You know that life is on your side and the Universe is helping you evolve and live more fully, more freely, so you can be your true self, your destined self and make a positive contribution to this world. You are finally being who you truly are. You let love in and you surrender to the majesty of life on Earth, knowing whatever comes it will be glorious. Your greater freedom within enables greater freedom outside, in life, in what you do.

Your life circumstances will improve as your inner life comes to life, is empowered, freed and born anew. You are literally being reborn with a clean slate, without your childhood conditioning or your past life influences. Instead of the old baggage which you have felt and transformed, now your gifts can awaken. Your joyous abilities, your light filled gifts can awaken and arise enabling you to serve more fully and be yourself in all you do.

You obtain freedom from 9am-5pm standard life, you see a much richer picture of life and live it. You will attract what you need to step up and be you more fully serving the whole in your own unique way and this will feel so good, so joyous because you will know inside that it is who you truly are and what you came here to do. Blessed BE, Amen.

You really can enjoy life fully and you will. So be it. Amen. Blessings to your hearts and the awakened being within you, who waits patiently until you are ready to embrace it. You have all you need. It is already within you. It is growing and blooming at the perfect rate for your journey, just as nature’s plants grow and flower, so do you, your soul, you are part of nature and it all happens perfectly.

jacaIt is all programmed into the seed. You will grow into who you truly are, it is inevitable. You can’t become anything else, just as an acorn seed can not grow into a Jacaranda tree. It must grow into an acorn tree. It will become that, it is nature’s will and it wins out over everything else. So relax, trust, breathe through the feelings that arise and settle into your true nature, that which lies beneath the surface, at your core, deep within your heart. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (4 July 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How to know when to rest and when to push?

A lot of you who are focused on healing push yourself way too hard, seminar after seminar, therapist after therapist, session after session. You push yourself in the hope that you will feel better, escape the pain, sadness, anger, depression, grief, etc, but you can’t escape it. You have to feel it in order to release it. You can’t just exorcise it from your system.

hurting againEach time you push forward with yet another healing modality or technique, your body has to try and adjust to the changes you are forcing upon it. It is already coping with the baggage and emotional density inside. It is already juggling the defense patterns, the compulsive energies rising to the surface for release and now you are forcing a change in the vibration of your body by doing healing or release work. It is a fine line between helping yourself and pushing yourself over the edge into exhaustion, depletion, fatigue and consequential depression.

When you push too hard, too fast and get exhausted, you often feel depressed, because no matter what you do, you feel like it hasn’t helped, worked or fixed you. But the truth is you are not broken and you don’t need fixing. You just need to accept yourself, your life and the process. Trust the evolutionary impulse inside you to lead you forward, to guide you to what serves you, to tell you when it is time to push a little and see a therapist, do a course or have a healing session, and when it is time to rest – time to let your body integrate all the changes and adjust to your new vibration.

The body needs time to sift through the density inside and decide what it is now ready to let go of, what it believes you can cope facing and processing, and what needs to be kept within till a later time when you are feeling stronger and your body has the resources to process it gently, safely and as quickly as possible.

Emotional release, while intense, can be quite quickly done, enabling you to balance backup quickly and relatively effortlessly. If you just breathe through what arises and let it flow out of your system, it will leave. It is only when you resist it, try to ignore or deny it, or go into the story of it and feed it with your thinking, your judgement, your ‘Why me’ victim thinking or your ‘F*ck them’ retaliation mentality, that you prolong the pain and keep it going.

If you just breathe through it, witness it, welcome it up, be grateful for it leaving, then it can flow out smoothly as there is no resistance and a clear path out of your body, mind and field. There is an art to emotional release and consciously balancing back up to feel connected to Source and Self and Earth, here in the NOW. It is an art, a skill, a practice to Master which takes time.

You can’t try and rip the emotional density out, carve chunks of your body off and expect to feel good. It needs to be done delicately and with reverence, with respect for your inner child and younger selves that lived through the pain. You need to comfort them during the process and ensure that they feel safe and supported. You need to be there for them as the Adult that you now are, holding their hands and reassuring them that they are okay, that you can handle it and you are in control now, in the sense that you are connected to Source, to your body and you will listen to it for clues of what it needs. You won’t just go rushing off on a whim to another course, another therapist, another modality. You will stay grounded, check in regularly with your inner world, with your inner child and younger selves and see what they need, see how they feel. You will give yourself time to rest and play and have fun. You will make the effort to exercise and eat well, to show yourself love and kindness and compassion.

heart wateringWhen you do all of this your body trusts that you are capable of processing and releasing your burdens safely and it will start allowing it up with more ease and grace. You don’t have to hunt for what haunts you, just be in a state of calm and peace and allow the process to occur naturally.

If you listen within your body will tell you what it needs. If you pay attention to what is occurring in your outside world, you will see what past events / traumas / incidents are being triggered by those you connect with during the day. Your dreams also give you clues.

Your body is your ally, not your enemy. It releases what needs to be released at a rate that it believes you can handle. If you learn the skills to handle it well, then you can release your pain and emotional density relatively quickly, so that you can be in peace and happiness most of the time. Stuff will still come up, but it will release quite quickly and you return to a state of peace and balance almost immediately. Gratitude then comes as it feels so good to have glided through it, rather than been tormented, caught up in it, resisted or fought against it as you may have done in the past.

So listen to your body. It will tell you when it is time for a session with a therapist, when energy work would be beneficial or time alone in nature. Your body will tell you all you need to know. Don’t exhaust yourself by doing too much too quickly. Know that even when you feel bad, you are moving forward. Those feelings, be it sadness, anger, loss, betrayal, loneliness, etc are only temporary and they will leave and you will feel better again. Just breathe through it and in time you will feel better.

Treat yourself with the tenderness you would show to a young child or animal. You are just as precious and just as deserving of love and kindness, and that is what you are longing for and what you truly need. Give it to yourself and you will flourish. Each day your heart will open more and more, until it overflows with joy and happiness, that is a beautiful day and you will see it, reach it, feel it, if you treat yourself with love and kindness no matter what arises and what you are going through.

Give to yourself and you give to the world. For the world craves more love and kindness in all ways. Serve yourself and you serve the world. Your vibration goes out and touches many – those in your ancestral line, those in your physical vicinity, and all of those you interact with on a day to day basis. As you heal your higher vibration makes it easier for others to do so too.

If you feel a discomfort, a racing inside, an urge to run or fight or freeze sit with it. This is your nervous system activated in fear. It is this unease that leads you to want to do something, to search for a solution, to look outwards for answers.

Know that inner unease can only be healed by turning within, by listening to and soothing your body. One of the most effective ways I have found to soothe and calm my nervous system and that inner unrest is Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE).

TRE is the body’s natural way to release tension, stress and trauma. Your body has its own internal mechanism for releasing tension by shaking it out. We call it tremoring. It uses up the adrenaline and cortisol released during moments of stress and trauma. It completes those activations so the body can relax. It realises there is no need to run, fight or freeze now. It’s safe, so it can relax and BE.

TRE is a simple process that you can use at home any time you want as part of your self-care routine. Once learned you can use it for free for the rest of your life. TRE lets your body lead the way with your healing journey. It leads the way. You don’t need to exhaust yourself searching any more. You can relax and allow your body to heal the wounds within so you can have greater peace and relaxation.

By Jodi-Anne (19 June 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How bad experiences in childhood lead to adult illlness

Yet another article with the science showing what survivors of child abuse have always known. Abuse in childhood leads to significant physical, emotional and mental difficulties in adulthood. The good news is that more and more people are recognising this and that we can’t simply “get over it”.  Abuse changes the way a child reacts to stress and constant exposure leads to changes in the child’s DNA resulting in the ‘fight or flight’ system being always turned on. The ongoing, chronic stress unfortunately leads to inflammatory and immune responses that damage health as adults.

Joan Kaufman, director of the Child and Adolescent Research and Education (CARE) programme at the Yale School of Medicine, recently analysed DNA in the saliva of happy, healthy children, and of children who had been taken from abusive or neglectful parents. The children who’d experienced chronic childhood stress showed epigenetic changes in almost 3,000 sites on their DNA, and on all 23 chromosomes – altering how appropriately they would be able to respond to and rebound from future stressors.

Likewise, Seth Pollak, professor of psychology and director of the Child Emotion Research Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, uncovered startling genetic changes in children with a history of adversity and trauma. Pollak identified damage to a gene responsible for calming the stress response. This particular gene wasn’t working properly; the kids’ bodies weren’t able to reign in their heightened stress response. ‘A crucial set of brakes are off,’ says Pollak.

It is great that science is catching up. They are also recognising that there are many ways to heal which can help survivor’s bodies relax and not be in ‘fight or flight’ all the time.

Science tells us that biology does not have to be destiny. ACEs can last a lifetime, but they don’t have to. Just as physical wounds and bruises heal, just as we can regain our muscle tone, we can recover function in underconnected areas of the brain. If anything, that’s the most important take-away from ACE research: the brain and body are never static; they are always in the process of becoming and changing.

Even if we have been set on high-reactive mode for decades or a lifetime, we can still dial it down. We can respond to life’s inevitable stressors more appropriately and shift away from an overactive inflammatory response. We can become neurobiologically resilient. We can turn bad epigenetics into good epigenetics and rescue ourselves. We have the capacity, within ourselves, to create better health. We might call this brave undertaking ‘the neurobiology of awakening’.

Today, scientists recognise a range of promising approaches to help create new neurons (known as neurogenesis), make new synaptic connections between those neurons (known as synaptogenesis), promote new patterns of thoughts and reactions, bring underconnected areas of the brain back online – and reset our stress response so that we decrease the inflammation that makes us ill.

In the article they specifically mention ‘Meditation, mindfulness, neurofeedback, cognitive therapy, EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) therapy’ as some of the tools that can help survivor’s to calm their bodies and reprogram their minds.

I have found a wide range of techniques helpful including:

  • Energy and body work, such as crystal bed sessions or reiki, to help the body unlock and relax;
  • Psych-K or Lifeline Technique to release trauma and reprogram the subconscious mind so you can change negative beliefs about life and the world into positive ones e.g. so you are not always expecting the worst and you can start to feel safe, so you believe that you do deserve good things and that people can treat you well;
  • Mindfulness and meditation techniques to still the mind and create space to witness what is occurring instead of reacting automatically;
  • Skill development including thought stopping, boundary setting, inner child, and self love skills, so that you no longer allow yourself to be abused by others or by yourself;
  • Family Constellations to heal the trauma in the family system and reconnect with love, thereby allowing greater lifeforce and harmony within.

There is lots that can be done. While adverse childhood trauma does have a massive impact on your life, it can be healed.

Article - bad experiences in childhood lead to adult illness

Why is it useful to spend time in nature?

nature-scenes-04Nature vibrates at the rate of Source energy. It helps us slow down and our vibration rise. It is calming and soothing to our nervous systems that are over stimulated from modern living and rushing around.

Nature shows us life’s pace – things grow, bloom, wither and die. There is no fanfare or drama linked to these events, it is simply part of life. There are times when life seems bountiful – good weather, nutrients, enough water and plants thrive. There are times when life seems poor, harsh and cruel – no water, drought, blistering heat. Yet the plants and animals simply adjust, changing their behaviour to suit the circumstances. Some may perish. This is not a personal vendetta or attack. It is simply life in the bigger picture.

All species need some form of control to limit numbers and destruction of the ecosystem from over population. Different species eat each other. Pests and disease come to wipe out some populations. It is all part of the cycle of life.

Trees don’t take it personally when the wind blows, pushing them around. They just bend as much as they can and let the wind blow. They don’t go into ‘Why me, it’s so unfair, i’m a good tree, I haven’t hurt anyone, etc’. They just bend and adjust. They just keep growing. And life can be much simpler and more enjoyable for us if we learn to do the same.

It is our emotional reactions to events in our life that create the suffering. If we just flow with life, accepting what occurs and adjusting to it as need be, we wouldn’t suffer as much.

The loss of that job or partner is not a tragedy, it is a step in your evolutionary process, it is leading you forward to something far greater.

When we are comfortable in our lives, we just sit and be still through much of it. This is beneficial, a time of rest, restrengthening. The bud is beginning to reach out, absorb the sun and is readying itself to burst forth in bloom when the time is right.

Most of us will not step out of our nice, comfy place without a push, a life event catapaulting us forward to face whatever needs to be faced for our growth and evolution. We need the storms in order to grow. The floods and fires shake things up so that new life can spring forth once the tidal wave of change recedes.

Big events in our lives, unexpected massive changes to our lives are like these storms. They unhook us from our stable foundations and force us to adapt, to find a way to evolve and grow.

Human beings are part of nature and are also exposed to similar cycles and patterns of growth. Nature itself shows us the most useful way to respond. Nature adapts and moves on. The deer run when the lion is around and rest when it is not. The bear hibernates in winter. He doesn’t push through, trying to force things to be different than they are. He just does the wisest thing he can to conserve his energy and stay strong. He rests, sleeps deeply and awakens when the time is right and the harvest is present. We do the same.

Spending time in nature helps us in so many ways. The green colour which is so prevalent in natural scenes soothes our heart and helps the heart chakra open. The blue of water soothes our throat making it easier for us to calmly speak our truth. The beauty of nature leaves us in awe of life and to creation, helping us consider that there may be a creator who produced all of this magnificence.

Nature soothes us, replenishes us and helps us ground within our bodies, to come out of the head or mind chatter and be present in the moment. Walking bare foot on grass helps us heal. It allows the energy of the Earth to travel up our legs and calm the body. It is a good cure for jet lag too, helping us adjust to the new location / new energy that you are in.

Nature truly is our friend, of great benefit to us and when we destroy it, we are harming ourselves literally. Without nature in abundance the air we breathe would not get cleansed or purified, the water cycle would not work as well and pollution would stagnate in our water instead of being filtered out. The soil would erode without tree roots holding it in place and the land would become barren, making it more difficult to grow our food.

When we disturb the balance of nature we suffer as well. So plant some trees, support your local environmental groups and give thanks to this wonderful planet who supports us, nourishes us and heals us, all without asking for recognition, compensation or reward. Thank you Mother Nature. Thank you. Blessed BE, Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (04 November 2015).

Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

Crystal light bed treatments

John of God Crystal Healing Beds

A crystal light bed is a device enabling deep cellular healing that enables the release of buried emotions and issues that block a person from awakening to all they can become.

Through raising the vibration of the person, the detritus can fall away. That which no longer serves them falls off of them, like bark being shed by a tree. It falls off easily when the time is right.

crystal bed triangleThe person then integrates the shift, releases the emotions and gains freedom from past patterns and beliefs that were locked in their DNA at that lower vibrational frequency.

Freedom comes from accessing the truth of your heart and being. The truth which has just been locked away under layers and layers of conditioning, beliefs and emotional pain.

The crystal bed helps you shift the layers and unfold the pain and the past, so insights surface and freedom from the past occurs. It is a true gift from God and the entities of light who work through it to assist each individual to receive whatever it is that they need at that moment.

The crystal bed frees a person from the emotional, spiritual and physical density that is held within their bodies. It enables this weight to drop off and light to take its place.

Each colour is a different frequency of light that balances the chakras and meridians in the body. The light enters the cells providing the energy required for the body to heal itselfthe resources needed for the body’s own healing mechanism to kick in and come back to life. The body will heal itself when given the resources to do so.

Often emotional and spiritual healing has to be done first to enable the shifts in the physical body. This will all occur naturally in the days following a crystal bed treatment as the entities of light continue to work with the person at the pace the person is ready for.

The process is gentle, however, the emotional residue to resolve can be harsh. This is up to each person to process. Emotional pain can not be magic-ked away. It has to be felt and released, so that the energy leaves the body. In time forgiveness and peace will descend onto the person, but there may be a dark night of the soul experience first as the emotional pain, blockages, repressed memories and experiences long forgotten surface to be healed.

You don’t need to know or understand everything. Just trust what occurs is what is needed to clear out your system to enable it to hold a greater frequency of light.

As you stabilise in the new vibrational level you will notice shifts in your outer life as like attracts like. Heavy painful experiences will not come in the same way, as vibrationally you are no longer a match to them. You are lighter and you attract lighter experiences.

Tragedies will still occur, but you will no longer experience them as such. You will see the light in all things. It will be easier to move through situations and to see the healing that comes from all you experience. For it all truly happens for a reason. There are no coincidences or mistakes. All happens to awaken you to the now and the higher consciousness of life and your purpose while here on Earth.

Your life is not for you to gain egoic wealth and happiness. It is for you to grow spiritually rich and self aware, to come into a state of self love and acceptance, from which true riches will then flow—to be authentically yourself, knowing that is enough. No need to please anyone else or impress them. Just relax and be. Be content and happy knowing you are awakening to God’s love and the God within you.

Casa Dom Inacio, abadiania, Brazil
Casa Dom Inacio, abadiania, Brazil

The crystal bed helps a person to achieve this through dropping away the false layers, the egoic myth. Insights will come, glimpses of the bigger picture of why we are here on Earth. It is a portal to the higher realms and higher consciousness, subtle but profound, fun and easy to do.

When you are ready to face your past, release your feelings and move forward, the crystal bed can help. Lie on it fully clothed and receive the light, open to the healing and surrender to God’s will and purpose for your life. Welcome home. We await you with open arms!

Accessing your inner heart – meditation

Connecting to your heart is the greatest gift you can give yourself and the greatest challenge, for to feel the joy of the heart you first have to feel all its pain and burden buried from the past. Peeling these layers off leads you back to joy, happiness, peace and love – eternal love, feelings of aliveness and contentment – the ability to just BE.

Accessing the heart is easy when we feel courageous enough to go there. Just tune in to it, set your focus, your intention on your heart, close your eyes and imagine entering inside your heart space. Here you will be met by whatever you most need to feel and release. It may be sadness, grief, anger or rage. It may be a feeling of numbness, loneliness and isolation. It may be fear or terror. Breathe through it all.

Your heart space may appear dark – turn on a light, open the curtains, strike a match – whatever feels right to you and see what you can see. Set about cleaning the space, removing clutter, dust and cobwebs and decorating it into a cosy, warm, inviting space. This is how you start to re-enliven your heart space. It tells your heart you are willing to listen, to see and feel what needs to be felt. You are willing to connect and come home to your true self.

Often when I do this exercise, I find younger versions of myself hidden away in caves or corners, in the dark, cold and wet. These parts split off when I was younger due to their being too much emotional pain, fear or loss. When I find these parts I automatically start crying tears of relief. I scoop the younger me up and bring them into my heart space. I hug them, tell them they are loved and safe now, that they never have to be alone again. I become the loving parent to that part of myself. After they have been bathed, fed and clothed we sit in my heart space and talk and play, then they rest knowing they are finally home. It is a beautiful feeling.

While this appears symbolic to the mind, it is real to the body. The body stored the pain, the terror and loss. It is locked away in our cells as cellular memory and it needs to be released for us to be fully healthy and vital. So each time you do this process and you free another part of your self you truly are healing and coming back to a state of fullness, innocence and peace. Well worth the effort!

Let your imagination guide you and take you where you need to go. You may see bats fly out of a hidden space or ice melting symbolically showing frozen emotions are thawing. It all has meaning! If you are strongly mind-oriented you may find this difficult to do. Keep doing it and you will open up more and more. Even if all you see / feel is darkness and silence sit with it, breathe and see what happens, what you feel. If your mind comes in saying this is pointless or stupid, just thank it for trying to protect you. Your mind has helped you avoid the pain for many years, it becomes automatic and so it will feel uncomfortable changing that pattern and choosing to feel. Persevere and one day you may find rainbows and treasure in your heart space, joy and celebration as you settle in to your true home.

Blessed BE, Jodi-Anne