Trauma occurs when your nervous system has been overwhelmed and you don’t have the resources, either internally or externally, to protect yourself from harm. In this process you shut down and close off a part of yourself to protect yourself from future harm. Your nervous system can become stuck in this hyper-vigilant state: you may feel you can’t easily relax and calm down, or you may feel numb and disinterested in life. You may relive the traumatic event, or worry about your future.
There are many categories of trauma; shock trauma, medical trauma, developmental, intergenerational, racial, spiritual. Trauma is highly subjective, meaning that what may be traumatic to one person will not be to another. How trauma shows up in your physiology will be unique.
Let’s get curious and ask the big questions about life and its meaning and the implications of that in your daily living.
When we heal trauma we reconnect to life in the present moment. We build capacity for rest and activation to navigate life with resilience. We renegotiate incomplete self-protection responses, establishing new ways for the nervous system to respond. We build intimacy and nurturing relationships, and our body moves toward coherence and wholeness.
Changing what happens in our bodies at a fundamental physiological level also affects what is happening emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. There is no separation between mind and body: they are simply different experiences of the whole.
We will explore boundaries, relationship, deactivation of charge, education. Coherence in a person, system, family, relationship, and community grows our capacity for choice, freeing us from past wounds so we can forge new futures.
Erica was recommended to me by a friend, after I experienced one of the most significant traumas of my life. My first visit was life changing. My whole life was redirected from that session, though I didn’t know it at the time. Each subsequent visit allowed me to feel empowered more and more, and as I healed my wounds and traumas I came more and more into myself. I’ll always be grateful for her skills and the recommendation to see her.
– Amanda Rekynuk