Re: Full Recovery Is Not A Gradual Process Years Into The Future

Natway seems like he is heading in the right direction with his advice.

Here are my thoughts:

It seems you and I don't have emotionally charged traumas. This means our bodies probably think are minds are ready to process the trauma so this is why we aren't so suppressed and can feel our symptoms.

For people that are more suppressed, I would tell them to close their eyes and get into their bodies. Then to put their awareness on wherever they can feel constriction. Just relax and move your attention around to tight areas until it starts to surface.

For people that do have more severe/emotionally charged traumas. I think they probably first need to lower that charge through exposure. I think this is probably what a lot of therapists do. Once that is done, then they can work on doing what I previously mentioned.

Now, at this point I have tried 3 different things: pushing on the tightness until it starts shaking and releases, keeping my attention on the tightness for long periods of time, and thirdly, keeping my attention outside of my body and just being nonreactive.

This may be more of an art than a Science but right now I am doing the 3rd option and I think it is best. What makes it so difficult is that there is constantly tightening, loosening, shifting going on that it can be hard to pinpoint cause and effect. However, I have been doing this for a while now and I feel confident in my approach. With the 2nd option, I actually made myself worse and could feel my muscles clenching even harder. Of course, it took a couple of weeks to realize this. I believe it was because I was sending a message to my amygdala (by focusing on the symptoms) that I was in danger and so therefore I tightened up more.

So to reiterate, getting out of the way and being nonreactive to feeling uncomfortable is the best approach. Make sure your exhale is not short which is easy to do when you are feeling tightness in your chest.

Eventually, you'll start loosening up releasing the energy in small amounts and then out of nowhere you'll get this rush of energy. You'll feel anxious and vision will start flashing darkness sort of. It almost feels like you're about to have a panic attack. Several times I have gotten to this point and felt like I messed up and was starting over again but one day it hit me that this is not the beginning but the end. This is the release that you see in the video. My plan for this is to try to stay relaxed (don't brace against it!) and inhibit my body. I would say just try to be present and stay out of the way.

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