You won’t forget the terror, yet you regularly forget that you are whole and perfect the way you are.

Each year on the anniversary of something tragic, like 9/11, masses of people recount where they were and how they were impacted.

The thing is, we end up re-living that trauma when we do that.

Research shows that our incredible brains cannot differentiate between events that are real or imagined (which is what we do when we recount them and experience the emotions we had at that time).  We put our bodies into the same physiological state as we experienced at the time of the incident. So if you felt panic, terror or fear, your body will send out adrenaline and other stress hormones to react to what it is perceiving as a threat. The threat that is created by you re-living the experience.

If we only did this once in a while, our bodies would easily cope with the uptake of the stress hormones and settle back into the relaxation response in short order on its own.  The problem is that we are shown traumatic events multiple times a day.  And for some, it is multiple times per hour. We are barely returning to the relaxation state when we are hit with the next stress inducing a bit of news or situation.

Over time, this constant stimulation of the stress hormones can lead to serious side effects, as your body is not only over producing chemicals like adrenaline it is also starved of the vital recovery time needed to heal when we are able to relax.  Our bodies also shut down digestive function when we are in the stress response, which means that we could end up starving our body of vital nutrients leading to more stress.

There are natural and practical tools for you to take charge and turn all of this around, and before we go deeper, I invite you to take a couple of deep breaths to encourage your body to drop back into a relaxation state.

BREATHE

3 Easy Ways to Take Charge and Stay in Relaxation More Often

1. Consider what you share on social media – when you tell a story about the hurt or pain of something make sure you include how you got through it as well. You are reading the words that you write so when you can wrap it up with how this helped you, how you overcame. Your brain will recognize the resolution and allow you to relax.

As a bonus, your readers will also be taken on the same journey to resolution as well and be moved from stressed to resolution/relaxation. This is a kindness to the world, and we desperately could use more compassion.

2. Re-write the story and create the outcome you wish had happened.  It may seem ridiculous to play this fantasy game with yourself; however, it is incredibly therapeutic. Remember, the brain is not too bright at knowing what is real and what is pretend, so use it to your advantage as you experience a new outcome.

If you are re-living something traumatic, keep playing out a better ending. That with some deep breathing in time will make a significant difference to how you respond to the memory.

3. Trade the story for some deep breathing. This one may challenge you more than most. You are going to want to be heard, to talk about the story, have people be passionate with you, however, if you are ready to commit to creating more ease and less stress in your life, resist the urge and do some deep breathing instead.

In fact, studies show that making your exhale twice as long as your inhale can quickly put you into a relaxation state, decreasing your heart rate and blood pressure and reducing the anxious feeling you are likely living with daily.

The more we resist re-telling our trauma, the more we can focus our energy on what is awesome about ourselves. Bringing our gifts and our light to the world.

I love taking people through more in-depth tools that disconnect the energetic imprints that we are often left with when we survive big T traumas or little T traumas. Making it easier for them to show up fully, feel alive and take action in their business that leads to results.

If you have been through trauma, please make use of this gift from me to you: a program to get your going with the tools and processes to untangle your body and your energy system from the effects it has had on you up until now.