Thank you for taking the time to comment, Dena!

Thanks so much for reading and for your kind comment, Corinne!

I hope it’s been helpful for you, L.C.! Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Hi, Lena. Thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful, considerate comment. This is such an important note for anyone who has dealt with trauma and I really appreciate you sharing it. Our journeys all vary, and if meditation and breathing exercises don’t feel right at the moment, that’s okay.

Again, thank you. Take care and be well!

For many, many years I thought I was “failing” at meditation and mindfulness and somehow fundamentally flawed because it brought me MORE discomfort and outright agony. It’s taken over 15 years of various therapies to finally see it it was unresolved childhood and compounded, adult trauma.

Meditation and grounding is different for us. We have an added hurdle of overcoming the deeply ingrained belief that we are not safe in our bodies. Anywhere. Ever. EVER. (Again, especially if the trauma happened at an age before cognitive/reasoning functions of the brain were fully developed. i.e. early childhood.) Our bodies do not feel like home and we learn to survive, and somehow outwardly appear to function, while living in a space separated from our bodies we created out of survival.

Often, our initial attempts to reclaim our body as a safe vessel to exist in are met with increased anxiety to literal terror as our conscious mind comes face to face with our bodies experiencing the same emotional/physical sensations as at the time of trauma. Typically with no accompanying memory to explain what the hell is happening because certain areas of your brain go “offline” during a traumatic event. Rarely can this be overcome without the guidance of a TRAUMA-TRAINED mental health professional and a group of people in your life that can support you through the healing process.

As I said I’ve been on this journey for over 15 years and have wanted to quit so many times but it does get better. I encourage anyone reading this who has experienced trauma to be gentle and patient with yourself. You deserve to feel good for no other reason than being alive, and if being fully mindful and grounded in your body is too painful right now, THAT’S OK. There are a MYRIAD of ways to feel good and safe. You will find them if you keep looking. You will. ♥️