There are moments in our lives that change us. Not just our thoughts or our philosophies but our body – the very tissue of our being – is deeply, profoundly and instantly transformed into something that we had no previous knowledge of and no desire for. The subsequent and seemingly permanent effect of this tissue transformation is that our lives are no longer our own. Something inside takes over and becomes the new measure of how we live.
What might once have been a moment of being startled by a passing car or the honking of a horn, now takes on proportions and impact that far outmeasure the triggering incident. What might once have been the simple passage of an image on television now becomes the gateway to a different world… a world in which we find ourselves propelled into, without invitation or warning. It is simply there!
Post traumatic stress disorder : the dictionary defines it as:
a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant vivid recall of the experience, with dulled responses to others and to the outside world.
As much as we might tend to associate PTSD with the outcome of major and catastrophic events (like war and genocide, for example), it is far more common than we may want to consider.
When faced with trauma to body, mind and spirit – whatever its source – I believe we are offered the most powerful, effective and elegant mechanism to regain stability and that is, the human body. The paradox has become that the very device that we feel so trapped in and betrayed by is – in my experience of my own life and in working with so many over these last 20 years – the pathway to our own reclamation.
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The following closing thoughts can be found at the end of:
Episode 21 of ‘Reclaiming Your Self: Women Unedited and Engaged!’ on the topic of ‘PTSD: Getting Your Life Back!’ =========================================
Your body is NOT the enemy! As much as we might think that our bodies are betraying us in not allowing our intellects to be in command, the journey back to a stable life is through the body. Take the time to discover more about what science now tells us about the body; about its function; and about its miraculous ability to transform our experience of ourselves, our world and our ability to move effectively through that world. Visit Amazon.com and explore my own books; as well as those of people like Bruce Lipton in The Biology of Belief; or Deepak Chopra’s work on the impact of the quantum sciences on our understanding of the human body and its potential
If you, or someone you care about, is experiencing the lingering effects of their histories, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Don’t leave the quality of your life up to someone else! Make the time to become informed and then – combining new information with the truth of your own experience – choose meaningfully for yourself.
- Explore the fundamentals of NLP – or Neuro Linguistic Programming – and discover its potential as an owner’s manual for the body. Come to know how your body makes pictures and sounds and from there, how you can mindfully and with intention and simple technique, change the structure of the experience that you carry – inside you, where you live. These techniques are not rocket-science and can easily be embraced by reading a book or listening to an audio product. Be willing to allow yourself to know more than what you believe to be the ‘truth’ that you carry. Without a willingness to acquire new information, we are stuck in the box of limitation that our existing information has shaped.
- And finally, look around you and reach out to someone you trust… someone you hold as both willing and able…. and allow them to enter the world of your inner landscapes. We don’t have to do it alone! In our willingness to come to trust the truth of our own experience – as frightening as it may be in the moment – we come to know the power of our own unique, internal compass to guide us back to ourselves. There is no internal truth that cannot be known – and when brought into the light of day, we discover how else we might choose to live.
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