Trauma & addiction ! Blog

If you’ve come to this particular blog you’re probably feeling as though trauma has played a part in your journey thus far.

And you’re probably right.

Trauma is one of those things. It’s subtle quite often, like sunburn. It most certainly doesn’t have to be super dramatic, and it gets most people.

It’s evident that trauma is a nervous system condition with the effects felt in many aspects of the body.

For something to register as traumatic it’s about volume - enough to overwhelm in the moment or over time.

These parameters are different for everyone for example a five year old will process things differently than an average twenty five year old, as our conditioning and filtering system is further developed.

Becoming trauma informed allows us a window of understanding to what ‘resistance to our nervous system’ actually looks and feels like.

When we examine our own traumas, considering where and when we were overwhelmed is a very good place to start.

Certain therapies hopefully can help us find a way home towards our natural inner balance within our nervous system, that’s what we aim for at The Energy Therapy Clinic.

My main aim is to help the body let go of the energies involved or integrate them.

Truly understanding the nature of trauma ( nervous system overwhelm ) is imperative to gain any traction against its effects.

If your only relationship to concepts of trauma are severe forms such as PTSD or continued Mental illness, then you might have misunderstood or been misinformed of the true unilateral dynamics involved. Trauma is both more subtle and hidden in plain sight than these narratives and versions.

Trauma is a universal human experience as it is simply an event where our nervous system has not been able to integrate and harmonise the energies that were generated - resulting in overwhelm.

When tides of emotions meet limited or overwhelmed mental solutions the nervous system takes up the slack.

We sort and stack the psychological pressures into strange corners of our psyche.

An example can look simply like not wanting to go to work on Monday mornings as the emotional tension in that environment is overwhelming.

You’ve tried thinking about the dynamics, but your maybe economically bound, and have little power to shift the dynamics, and it feels overwhelming.

The degree that circumstance leaves you disempowered and the duration is the measure of the trauma.

These tensions are symptomatic of nervous system overwhelm.

The key with effective therapies are building capacity to hold these emotions, and to release or integrate the energies.

Sure you might psychologically desperately want to change the persons involved in your trauma drama , but you will use so much less energy and resources expanding your own capacity and releasing held patterns - its more efficient as it integrates the resistance.

As a species we literally dare to stand in our individual ‘islands of order’ - bodies and minds, against the tides of entropy and chaos that is nature, so enduring the shocks of the journey kind of go with the territory.

Have faith, we know much about the collective traumas of history, but he we stand collectively and we are still evolving.

In day to day practice the more mundane and subtle ways that our nervous systems can be challenged are endless really depending on our capabilities, capacities and robustness.

It could be like the moment you realise that you can’t completely trust a parent, or a death or loss that can alter your world view of safety and stability and imprint you toward a more protective adaption.

It’s often where trust is challenged in people and circumstances and long term exposure exists that traumatise, things need to be understood in context.

Trauma is also inextricably connected to awareness and capacity on a personal and collective level, as it is driven by survival instincts as a species.

Our nervous system and psyche connect via the subconscious mind, and that exists on a personal level and a collective level (within the human herd ).

And within all of this is our individual spiritual being.

Collective trauma 🧨

One of my favourite subtle examples of subconscious herd nervous system connection is yawning, do that on a bus and see the herd nervous system attunement at work. Trying to resist it is not easy.

Our collective nervous system is like an vibrational intranet. Think of a room fully of Crystal glasses and you rub the ring of one purposefully - the resonance will travel through the glasses to the degree of proximity and the quality of the medium.

It is the same for us with emotions and beliefs, thoughts and behaviours - they resonate and attune - a great fun place to witness and participate in this dynamic is a sports ground or evangelical church - where beliefs and thoughts and feelings blend into ENERGIES.

Underneath these layers of energies lie a primary ( primal ) resonance that our nervous system attunes to, it’s called fear, because our nervous systems oldest running program is survival.

And like Rumple Stiltskin when we name it, it loses some of its power and we can unpack it.

We live sadly in systematic trauma inducing societies, so it’s natural that their inhabitants receive their fair share to cope with.

We all get a dose, and it’s evident that those with more robust nervous systems are more resilient and less inhibited in their responses.

Some peoples capacity to absorb and contain traumatic events is astonishing.

I’m amazed how much personal philosophies play a part in this.

I’m going to resist the urge to fill the next 5 - 6 pages with examples of trauma inducing behaviours in our societies, but i’ll give you one obvious downright disgustingly insidious one … “ the mainstream media “….news channels especially highlight the events that overwhelm most of us - on systematic rotation ( for profit ).

If anything should force you to renew your library membership it is commercial television, with its highly damaging programming and imaging for the human nervous system.

No wonder we’re not sleeping well.

Our collective failure to be conscious enough to recognise our high themed and commercially sponsored media imaging/messaging traits and habits as abusive and traumatising, plays out detrimentally in the lives of billions - generationally.

Every media platform on earth ( including social ) understands this and benefits commercially from this dynamic - intentionally.

Personal trauma 🧨

The wholly personal experiences of each individual can vary in their responses to life’s problems and brutalities remarkably.

Again the nervous system response is vital - those with greater capacity to hold the energies can function to a higher level - SAS soldiers are an apex example, until they crack of course.

I say this in my sessions often “ three people of similar age and characteristics can experience a near identical set of circumstances, but process and contain them completely differently. This is mainly to do with nervous system resilience, adaptability, or VOLUME.

We often try and resolve these anxieties, depressions and feelings of apparent dysfunction ( not being able to align properly with a highly traumatising and dysfunctional society ) with talk therapies or medication.

Neither are ideal long term solutions.

Psychology has made millions with this charade, and pharmaceutical companies have made billions in medicating most of humanity out of the capacity to feel and increase capacity to integrate their internal energies and emotions.

Where does hope reside ? 🧨🚿

The truth is that we are an incredible resourceful species, who has always stood against the tides of nature and devolution. That fact alone continues to give us faith that each generation may be able to improve our lot.

We certainly need to be mindful of what habitats we create, both as societies and in personal homes. And also what civilities we apply to people, animals and plants.

And we have found an ally in dealing with our current dysfunctional nervous system overloads and that is our bodies themselves.

Historical Eastern sciences like Yoga, Tai chi, Acupuncture and Kung Fu are but a few of the disciplines that have vital information in understanding how to live, which helps us heal.

Through effective somatic therapies - we have begun to realise that we can approach trauma differently. For decades we have tried to block it out, forget and move on, drug the brain and soul - but finally we have evolved to a new plateau of understanding.

We need to get back into our bodies where we belong and build capacity and resilience and grow - with typical human resourcefulness.

We understand now that there is no running away from brutality, we need to outvolume its affects. Through somatic therapies we can expand our capacities.

One of the great gifts of the Science of Buddhism is that of negating the mind and its attachments ( meditation ) and allowing the PolyVagal Nervous system to relax and restore to its primary rhythms which allow us feelings of safety.
Meditation is a great gift, but it’s not the answer to many of the severe traumatic experiences that befall many, however it is a truly great day to day moderator.

Appreciate this… “ if you don’t feel very safe on various levels, including financial, then you are holding a version of nervous system overwhelm” and the body is both the litmus test and tool to assist us.

We are hardwired for survival - not happiness or popularity, appreciate this, it will serve you well in your own journey with trauma.

The psycho-physical abnormalities that subconsciously feeling unsafe induces can be summarised in most psychiatric conditions and many physical conditions - anxiety, depression, manic behaviours, inflammation conditions, exhaustion, sleep disturbances, phlegm conditions and many more imbalances.

These conditions lead to our adaptations, including addictive behaviours.

My kind of work brings these energies into conscious focus and we can then build a relationship to them. Instead of feeling that you're constantly anxious we can shift the perspectives toward “ i’m experiencing these circumstances and my capacity to hold the energies of them is not ideal - this has left me in a state of anxiety”, but it will improve with application..

As we expand capacity in volume, the space and need for the state of anxiety to fill it is reduced.

Mindfulness does this well, advanced somatic body therapies like Embodied Processing do it better.

There are many more advanced somatic therapies within my practice that can help you hold and integrate these energies, including Energy Therapy, Reframing Therapy, Incontinence Therapy etc.

Resonance with the hands has been my tools for decades, and targeted correspondence with the hands has allowed me to release disorganised energies from bodies.
Cysts have been unwound in minutes, years of emotional stagnant energy, beliefs and attitudes have been released in minutes as well.

The key here I think is that the body is very open to releasing these held patterns of emotion that are experienced as electromagnetic fields. Fields that disturb normal voltage in the body and get lodged in joints especially.

Resonance is an extraordinary tools for this.

The body wants to resolve pain and illness, so understanding this equation is paramount.

E-motion is energy ( electromagnetic field ) which is created in our body, if this is not absorbed, processed or released then it resides within us as unresolved energy. This energy disrupts our natural bioelectrical circuits that include our battery packs ( bones, fascia, muscles, membranes, cells ).

These disturbances in VOLTAGE lead to all chronic disease.

Not everyone has instant success in my clinic but in saying that very many do, often shifts in cognition and awareness are needed by the client ( growth) until the body will release emotion.

A new perspective and absorption of new ways of viewing the energies involved might be required.

This is why understanding the person is so profoundly important.

It’s a step by step process, like learning to play the violin, bit by bit we master the disciplines and soon a new song is emerging.

The very human personality traits that work against healing and building capacity are seriousness, arrogance, resentment, hate and judgement ( opinions ) - these are energies like anything else that can be transmuted … with growth of awareness.

These emotions all have stored patterns of energy within them that we can use productively with the help of a competent therapist.

We are designed to use our emotions to vibrationally attune to unrevealed universal energies that surround us at all times.

These energies are both organised and contain super intelligence or consciousness. They hold vast information that is not available to be stored in a smaller vessel such as a human body.

These creative matrix like structures bring our reality into being. They include the primordial soup of our collective psyche as a species, or collective unconscious.

This naturally occurs in alignment with our emotional status.

Addictions are our efforts at shortcutting this process and creating an instant pseudo emotional state, generally with the aim of creating a continuous state of bliss or hyper excitement.

The unforeseen problem is the mental state, which ironically drives our emotional constructs.

The mentality of addiction is highly unstable, as is the resulting emotional states. These both cause significant damage to our inner vibrational state - or Chi, and set the vibrational platform for more of the same.

Lots of ‘more of the same’ equals addiction.

The harmony in internal psychic Chi energy is essential for manifesting external harmony. Without this stability the addict continues to attract vibrational matches in the universal matrix.

These unstable attractions fuel further addictions as the mental and emotional lock-in becomes unbearable and the external circumstances support the malaise and desire to shift it asap with a substance.

We have skilled therapists that all offer different options in the spectrum of wholeness - Michael attends to the energetic work and trauma, Kasandra the spiritual recognition and assimilation within experiences.

When things are assimilated these moments are like a dam being unleashed in a positive way, this is a harmonisation of energy.

I am generally in awe of people who come to see me, as I recognise their courage to grow. It is not an easy path often ( sometimes it is 👍) , but I can promise you one thing, it’s easier than sitting on your current side of the fence in a state of non-action or disease. 🙏

So remember what the banner below says beautifully, fear is indeed a liar and I can prove it to you.

Michael and Kasandra

No truer words have been spoken…