Release Stress and Trauma through Inherent Body Shaking

I have recently discovered an amazing resource, that I am sure one day I will be trained in as well:) It is called TRE; short for Trauma Releasing Exercises. This is a technique that is designed to induce fatigue in the body through controlled exercises to elicit a natural tremor response from deep inside the nervous system. Once this tremor response kicks in, a person will experience various levels of shaking intensity. This shaking happens from alone, the conscious mind has nothing to do with it, (people can even carry on conversations while letting this process unfold).

This shaking response literally starts to unravel deeply buried stress and trauma stored in our tissues.  When we look to nature to start to understand our human bodies a bit better, we see that this shaking response happens in the wild. For example, in the wild, say a lion chases a gazelle, and the gazelle freezes (so much so the lion thinks it is dead). The lion runs off for a second to get his lion buddies to help with the feast, meanwhile the gazelle hops up suddenly and starts running away. The gazelle then shakes instinctively to release all of that pent up sympathetic nervous system energy (trauma-energy).

In humans we also have this fight, flight, or freeze response.  We are wired naturally to react in stressful situations- whether we are in a life or death situation like a car accident, or we get yelled at from our boss- our body responds in a similar manner. The sympathetic nervous system kicks in, and our hearts beat faster- muscles tense up- pupils constrict, and breathing gets tense. Because we have removed our species from the natural, primitive world (at least those of us in the West), the types of "danger" and "stress" we perceive has drastically changed. It used to be that every once in a while we would be on "high-alert" for that big animal predator, fight or run, then let the danger pass, shake it off, return to normalcy. Now-a-days, that predator never necessarily leaves. We can experience stress while driving, having an argument, hearing the kids screaming, hearing sirens, having a bad day, etc... and more often then not our sympathetic nervous system never gets a chance to shut off.  Our inherent stress-response system designed to activate for short periods of time, is now on constant over-drive. It is no wonder with most of us living extremely fast-paced, stressful, high intensity, highly stimulating life-styles that our bodies are screaming out. Long-term effects of constant stress have been linked to diabetes, obesity, depression, head-aches, infertility, lowered immune system, loss of sex-drive, and anxiety (among many other symptoms).

The good news is that the body already (just like the gazelle) has a built in stress-relief device, these are the neurogenic tremors that occur deep within the body in response to an extremely stressful situation. Most of us ( because "it is not socially acceptable") have turned off our body's natural stress-relieving mechanism and instead suffer from the consequences. Through learning Trauma Releasing Exercises, one has simple and effective tools to help the body naturally unwind stress and tension built up from the day (or from serious traumatic incidents).

The other day after watching a series of TRE videos, observing other people shaking, I ended up lying down with my legs up 90 degrees at the foot of the bed. I could start to feel a gentle tremor coming from my cervical spine, I allowed this tremor to grow on its own accord, and next thing you know my body was naturally unwinding and shaking totally on its own! I was amazed, this was the first time this had actually happened to me. Funny enough, earlier that day I had stated to my freeance' how I wanted to experience this particular form of release because I knew about it and wanted to know what it felt like. ( Ask and you shall receive :) That evening I allowed my body to fully unwind, move, twitch, shake, and twist into odd shapes. It felt so good and natural. I am definitely very curious about the long term effects of practicing TRE regularly, as I know it has helped many, many, many people recover from PTSD, trauma, and stress of all sorts.

The incredible importance of this technique will probably be discovered in years to come, when as a society we learn to take care of these bodies of ours. But in the mean time, just know that if you feel a natural shaking response coming on in response to a stressful or traumatic situation- LET IT HAPPEN... let it be. The body inherently knows how to take care of itself.

Stay tuned as I dive deeper into the science of stress and trauma, and learn more about TRE- perhaps even becoming a Certified TRE Teacher myself :)

(I can just see this easy method being employed by all the veterans, rape victims, and other groups of highly traumatized individuals).

 When our bodies function optimally, we are able to fully live the life we were born to live. We feel healthy, strong, and rooted in our divine purpose. When we each live up to our fullest potential, the world becomes a better place- body by body, mind by mind, and healthy action by action.

Healing through Somatic Bodywork

Somatics bodywork is one of the best ways I have found to treat neuro-muscular pain. The field of Somatics deals with the whole being: the mind, body, and spirit, through teaching the student how to gain awareness of those three aspects through slow precise movements. It is through the re-learning happening in the body, that the student learns where his/her muscular/emotional holding patterns are, and once bringing awareness to those points, can balance and reset their energies. This creates a much longer lasting effect then massage, for instance, because in Somatic bodywork the session gets programmed into the nervous system so to speak. The student is actively engaged within the session because he/she is consciously following the movements done to the body, because of this, the session as a whole, becomes more integrated into the consciousness of that individual, thus having a much longer lasting and deep effect then other traditional forms of therapy.

I have found that for me personally in my own experience, through witnessing clients of mine transform severe acute pain, or chronic pain in one single somatic bodywork session, I am made a believer of the power that lies behind this gentle art form. The first time I was introduced to Somatic Bodywork, I was doing a training through East West Somatics in St. George, Utah. After the 3rd day of having somatic bodywork done to me just for about an hour or so a day, I ended up purging all night long. I have had medicine journeys that reminded me of this particular purging experience, it was not pretty. The next morning I woke up still feeling off like I had caught a strange 24 hour bug, but more so it felt like a deep emotional clearing experience. Later that afternoon after class, I still felt off, and had to call my boyfriend basically to just cry for 2 minutes. Literally right after crying for less then 3 minutes, I felt a million times better and actually had the energy to attend the party being held that evening. IT was a crazy experience to feel shitty one minute, cry, then the next minute feel better. I would have shaken that experience off as perhaps being coincidental with the Somatic Bodywork I was doing, but I had a similar experience months later in Louisiana. There was about a group of 8 of us learning from our teacher together! We were moving through somatic processes on the movement floor, and on the table. After about 5 days of working together as a group, all of a sudden on the 5th night all of us felt ill. Some of us threw up that night, some of us threw up that morning, some (like myself) just felt weak and off. I would have written this experience off as being a weird bug that we all caught at the same time. The only thing preventing me from saying this out of my own experience, is because I felt in an altered state the whole day. It is a hard thing to describe, but basically it felt more to me like a shamanic journey experience instead of your usual common virus/sickness.

In my personal experience I see Somatic Bodywork as being a deep, profound cleansing/rewriting experience. I have seen a wide variety of reactions to this type of therapy. I have worked on a woman who slept for 24 hours straight after I worked on her. I have had people cry and have breakthroughs on the table. I have had a young woman come in with severe low back pain that had come on quick and hard, and within an hour she was totally pain free standing up off my table in complete shock. I have seen a man with chronic low back pain get off the table and remark that his back was better, after checking in on him later, his pain was still gone after weeks of that initial session. I have seen a wide variety of reactions to somatic bodywork. Most report significant pain decrease after the first session.

With ongoing treatment people have the opportunity to rewire their entire nervous system, thus creating a new multitude of possible outcomes for personal expression. If you are not held down in your mind and body by past traumas/poor posture/or stored emotional energies of any kind, imagine how free your mind and body would be to create the most epic version of you!!!  You can literally use somatic bodywork as a tool to free yourself of musculo-skeletal/neuro-muscular/ trauma pain. Once freed of this burden, you're free to have a vessel to do the highest biding of your soul. The body becomes a much more clear channel for the soul, without the burden of pain weighing you down.