How shall we respond to trauma?

If your usual tools for dealing with challenging life circumstances are not providing the support you need, let's talk about whether somatic practice might help bolster your care for yourself, unwind trauma, or relieve stress. 

​Traumatic experiences betray our sense of trust, safety and openness in our lives and in the world around us. Whether these traumas are ones we experience alone or as a part of a community, or they are historical events experienced by our ancestors, we deserve support in understanding and healing the after-effects that can hold us in the past. As survivors, we can collaborate with the resilience and aliveness contained in our bodies that are tools for our healing. Trauma can alienate us from what we care about -- we might have difficulty feeling open, belonging or capable. Somatic practices can help us map the ways we have survived a trauma and the way back to ourselves. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is a collective experiences of trauma that is continuing in our world, even as some of us in the United States may be returning to some of the activities we did on a daily basis before 2020. We might hear the message that we're supposed to "feel normal again" and yet, have experiences in which we don't feel like ourselves. We might feel quick to agitate, more anxious and depressed, judgmental of ourselves or others we care about, or, perhaps, we're hyper in one moment but lethargic in the next. While there's overwhelming collective sadness and grief over who and what has been lost during the major phases of the pandemic, maybe what sets you off is not what you expected or you are feeling more tension or unsettled in your muscles or stomach

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