[Greek Dog]

This is such a welcome discovery. Being able to name an experience and then find therapies or resolutions is so encouraging.

The graph at this website describes so clearly what I have been experiencing. This makes a real connection and gives me even greater hope for the healing.
http://www.traumahealing.com/images/pptSlide01.gif

I'm just posting away as though this world is not about to end. but the posting helps me create order in my chaotic life and that is therapeutic for me. All the better is something I share has value for anyone else. That would be my greatest hope.

This slide describes what healing would be like for me. this is what I long for in my life:
http://www.traumahealing.com/images/pptSlide03.gif

Whew - this is a description of what i have been experiencing. How remarkable to find someone's words which truly get what I have been experiencing. It is like having been found after years of wandering in a desert.
[quote]At the moment of contact (or just before), the young impala falls to the ground, surrendering to its impending death. Yet, it may be uninjured. The now limp animal is not pretending to be dead. It has instinctively entered an altered state of consciousness shared by all mammals when death appears imminent. Many indigenous peoples view this phenomenon as a surrender of the spirit of the prey to the predator, which, in a manner of speaking, it is.

Physiologists call this altered state the 'immobility' or 'freezing' response. It is one of the three primary responses available to reptiles and mammals when faced with an overwhelming threat. The other two, fight and flight, are much more familiar to most of us. Less is known about the 'immobility response.' However, my work over the last twenty-five years has led me to believe that it is the single most important factor in uncovering the mystery of human trauma. [quote]

Here is what Levine writes about how the healing works:

I believe that the key to healing traumatic symptoms in humans lies in our being able to mirror the fluid adaptation of wild animals as they 'shake out' and pass through the immobility response and become fully mobile and functional.

I hope to find the trick of how to move from "immobility" to being fully mobile and functional. To see these words which describe exactly what I have been experiencing is so remarkable. I have been trying to figure out how to move past this for 5 or more years and suddenly, as I put this into "intention" the very understanding that I need falls into my hands. Butterfly Woman - is this how intention helped you get the healing that transformed your life?

Here is a clear description of how one gets "stuck" in reliving a trauma. My name is written all over this.

Animals in the wild instinctively discharge all their compressed energy and seldom develop adverse symptoms. We humans are not as adept in this arena. When we are unable liberate these powerful forces, we become victims of trauma. In our often unsuccessful attempts to discharge these energies, we may become fixated on them. Like a moth drawn to a flame, we may unknowingly and repeatedly create situations in which the possibility to release ourselves from the trauma trap exists, but without the proper tools and resources most of us fail. The result, sadly, is that many of us become riddled with fear and anxiety and are never fully able to feel at home with ourselves or our world.

Wow! Is is as though Levine knew me from the inside out.