It’s one of those double whammy things that can happen out of the blue. You’re driving along, maybe even singin’ a song and Wham! You get hit. Your car is totalled, you feel shaken but OK and other than the hassle of finding another car, life returns to normal. You go to work, tell everyone the story of the crazy driver that hit you and sit down at your desk.
We are creatures of comfort or habit. Did you know that most people put the seat of their car at the same orientation as their seat at work? This would normally be fine. To a certain extent, it is much healthier for your spine to be supported in different configurations… However, that’s beside the point. The point here is that if you are in a car accident and your office chair mirrors your car seat then you have a trauma trigger. Your body subconsciously believes that danger is lurking right around the corner of your desk in the form of a car that is about to hit you… You tense and prepare for flight or fight. You develop headaches, backaches, sleep issues, digestion problems… People are different, so you could experience any one or more of these symptoms.
When trauma gets stuck, there are so many ways to get going again. You could change the configuration of your chair at work – make sure that it is supporting you ergonomically AND in a different position from the seat in your car. You could introduce movement from another physical dimension, such as breath. A common response to trauma is to hold your breath or take short, rapid breaths. Bringing awareness to your breath and inviting a deep, meditative breath may start to ease the freeze. You can check out this meditation if you’d like to see how breath may help.
However, what happens when breath is a trigger? When you focus on your breathing, you become even more stressed. You need a different approach. Trauma results in an energetic stuckness, so you could work with energy. There have been as many as 10 energy centers identified by different cultures around the world. If you tune into one of them, you can also help to heal the trauma. If you’re not sure of the choices, check out this article.
Today let’s focus on one of the energy centers: the creative center. It is located just below your belly button – the lower part of your pelvis. It can be advantageous to widen your perspective and by bringing your awareness to a place in your body that is further from the pain – head, neck, whiplash, or trauma of short breath – you are doing just that…. With your awareness on your lower pelvis area, remember a time that you were creative. It may have been expressed through song, dance, painting, writing… or another way. Consider how you could be creative with the energy that is stuck in you. It’s fear or pain that is holding you captive. It can be difficult if you’re held so tight that you can’t find a way to be creative. If that’s the case, then consider one of your favourite characters and imagine what they would do. Put your hands on your lower belly, bring your mind’s eye there and notice what you feel, right now. Invite that energy (with your imagination) to move down, through your legs and feet and into the ground. Don’t judge what you feel! Awareness itself brings great shifts.
This can be subtle work, so take a baseline of where you’re at before you start and experiment with doing this, once/day for a week. Let me know the differences you notice. They may be emotional, physical, cognitive…. This is the way you can tune into another dimension to reclaim your life and love the life you live.
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