Releasing Emotional Pain and Trauma

[Michelle]

I have a hard time letting go of pain and trauma from the childhood. It is like my body is hanging on to it, and will not allow it to arise into my consciousness for release. This frustrates me, as I would really looove to move on and feel more peaceful.

In recent years, I have been rather successful in releasing through psychotherapy. The process is very slow though.

Any suggestions on how to let the pain come up and then deal with it?

[Brendon Colby]

I've really had to work through a lot of pain and trauma from my childhood as well. I've been working with a therapist for about five years. I've only had about 3-4 sessions this year so that's definitely tapered off for me. I think I've felt better this year than any other. I don't think I've experienced any episodes of depression either, at least none lasting more than a day or two (used to be months at a time). Hopefully I can give at least a few suggestions that may prove useful to you.

I think the main thing that accelerated lasting change for me was learning that I had a choice as to where I could focus my attention. Steve's post on overcoming depression talks about this at length (as does many of his other posts). I switched from constantly focusing on my past life situation, current negative situations, etc. to focusing on what I want in the present. I began putting my intentions toward feeling good, not sometime in the future but right now. I stopped putting myself in a negative emotional loop by constantly thinking about my "bad" past or present situations. I just accepted what happened...and what is.

This is definitely a work in progress. I still get "triggered" which tends to wake up my "pain body" (as Eckhart Tolle puts it), which may be like what you're talking about in that your body hangs on to this past truama - it's your "pain body". I have really been working on bringing my attention to my breath and my body at this time and not going "unconscious" (or on "automatic pilot" as my therapist would say). I've found that staying very conscious and focusing on my breath or on my body really helps. I guess you could call this meditation. By doing this I stop my mind and pop out of "psychological time" (i.e. ghosts of the past or future fears) and into the present (which in doing so is the only time I've ever felt peace).

This doesn't really seem to take long. Last night, for example, I started feeling anxious and began searching for something to medicate myself with (the start of my usual "autopilot" procedure). I even began walking to the store to grab some goodies! On the way there, I decided I'd just focus on the present during my walk, as I've described above - sort of a walking meditation. Something just seemed to nag at me to do so. Minutes later I felt fine. This may not sound like much but is huge for me! I was able to sit with my pain consciously and not medicate myself. Within minutes this pain was "transmuted" and I went to bed feeling perfectly at peace. It wasn't medicated and stuffed back down to multiply and come back worse at a later time!

I'm sure a lot of the anxiety and other negative emotions I feel during these times could be traced back to a past event, but I have found doing this is just not effective. Doing this in the past has never really brought me lasting change. I don't think we need to uncover every single trangression and feel every single negative emotion attached to those transgressions to be able to be at peace. I think you could be in therapy doing so for a lifetime. Perhaps this is why the process of psychotherapy seems so slow! This doesn't appear to be necessary to me. I think we can be at peace right now.

I think what's really worked for me then has two basic parts. I focus on what I want and I work to maintain a conscious awareness on my breath and/or body, especially when I'm feeling pain. This may seem overly simplistist but out of everything else I've tried, these two actions have helped me the most.

This is the first time I've ever elaborated on this so I hope it makes sense!

[dsmoke]

Michelle, I second Eckhart Tolle's techniques. Also, have you ever dialogued with your childhood self? If you don't know how to do it, I can explain.

[Alvin]

If you feel it's in your body you might want to look at The Feldenkrais Method.

I've had success in using Timeline therapy and NLP with some of my clients, but to be honest, it doesn't work with everybody.

[MSC2471]

Michelle: You may want to look into a form of therapy called EMDR. My oldest daughter has been able to use this therapy with wonderful results in terms of processing and moving forward from abusive events that occurred with a former foster mother as well as her own birth mother. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. If you truly believe you are ready to move on from these past traumatic experiences, finding a licensed therapist trained in EMDR may be worth a try. Their website is: EMDR Institute, Inc.

Matt

[Michelle]

Thank you all for your thoughts. I appreciate them greatly.

Brendon, you are right about the power of thought and focusing attention. I just think there is something below the conscious level which needs to be released, then it won't be necessary to "force" the positive thinking.

As a singer, I am already very body aware. These awareness techniques unfortunately don't do much for releasing the pain. I feel this must happen at the emotional level.

I have spoken to my inner child probably just as a result of psychotherapy. I would be interested in hearing about Eckhart Tolle's method.

I will take a look-see at the EMDR site.

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

Hi Michelle,

Without wishing to trivialise your problems, EFT practitioners see the physical symptoms of emotional trauma all the time. It's treated quite simply with EFT. You can go to the main EFT page (EFT Provides Impressive Physical and Emotional Freedom--New Discovery Often Works Where Nothing Else Will) and download the free manual or my web page (EFT - Really Good Ideas) has a quick guide, all free.

Good luck Michelle, I know you'll get there!

Hazel

[tgl]

I've done something that's called Network Chiropractic here in the US. It was pretty good.

First off, it's not the traditional chiropractic. If you take your thumb and gently brush it on the table, that's the most pressure NC uses.

As the NC practitioner explained to me, when our bodies store bad memories, the body processes what it can, then sends the rest down the spinal cord to the nervous system which files it away somewhere until we're ready to deal with it. By using very light pressure on a patient's back, the practitioner is bringing the patient's awareness to whatever memory is being stored in that area the touch is being applied. And the body, in this awareness, takes from that area what it can process.

For me it was like talk therapy, without the talking. My body just dealt with stuff without me having to dig it out through talking and exploring. It was amazing. Sometimes therapy can be a lot of work. This wasn't as much work. Sometimes mind exploring physical stuff can get so wrapped up in thinking rather than feeling. NC sort of cut out the middle man. I could feel it and let it go. Marvelous stuff.

[Alvin]

I've read about the body storing repressed memories from Feldenkrais's work. It's pretty amazing. He noted that sometimes when he helped his clients relax particularly tense areas of their bodies, they'd spontaneously blurt out memories they hadn't thought of in years, or burst out crying.

I had my own experience of that working with a client who had a close to 50 year trauma. When he finally let go of it (with many tears, including my own), he said he felt a great tension/weight lifted from his chest, that he had grown so used to he'd forgotten it was there.

There is really more stuff going on out there and in here than we can dream of in our normal philosophies.

[Karma Police]

Hi Michelle,

Over the past couple of years, I've made a lot of progress letting go of old pain and emotional patterns, using practices taught by Eckhart Tolle. Here are some tips when you notice yourself feeling "pain" in your body:

1. Notice or observe the feeling you're currently labeling "pain," without labeling it or judging it as a "bad" feeling. I've found it very helpful to simply see the feeling as "energy" that is either being resisted, and therefore trapped, or being accepted, and therefore flowing through my body.

2. Note the physical location of the feeling and allow the feeling to be. It may be helpful to think about "accepting" the feeling or "surrendering" your resistance to the feeling. When you're sitting with the feeling, ask yourself, "What am I resisting?" If you feel pain or stress, you're resisting something, even if you're only resisting a feeling that you don't want to accept.

3. As you practice observing and accepting the feeling, notice or observe the space that surrounds you and notice objects within the space, again without labeling, judging or analyzing.

4. As you observe the location of the feeling or energy, imagine you're smiling and greeting it with compassion. It's like you're saying, "Okay, there's a feeling of tightness in my neck. Hello, nice to see you. It's okay you're here with me right now."

You can find some other helpful pointers at http://www.bliss-music.com/enlightenment.htm and subsequent posts on that site (I have no connection with the site, but have purchased a CD there and found some of the writings helpful).

Hope this helps.

[RandomJohn]

Or, if you want something akin to Tolle's process but more structured, you can try Dialectical Behavior Therapy (think cognitive behavior therapy + Zen Buddhism).