Finding Safety in Your Body after Trauma
At the end of this blog post, you'll find a guided grounding meditation for cultivating peace and presence in your body. This practice with the earth element is supportive of feeling safe and at home in your body.
When I first began my journey of building a relationship with my body, I wondered why I found simple practices like meditation and nutrition so challenging. I knew, logically, what I needed to do to support myself. However, maintaining consistency in anything that I learned was a sincere challenge.
With time, I was able to get deeper into the core of where my tendency to disembody was coming from. In my younger years, I experienced an abusive situation that I buried deep within. The memory was hard to grasp, but I could see the pain I held in experiences that kept manifesting in my life.
Various people entered my life over the years, and I experienced more abuse until I learned how to say no and protect myself. It was a long journey after having that imprint of being powerless and unprotected as a child to find the strength. This healing process for me is one of my core pillars as to why I believe being embodied is so important and therefore why I teach about it.
I knew I had to learn how to be fully present in my body to stop the toxic patterns of abuse from repeating in my life. There was not a single step that changed everything. It was a series of shifts that I made and skills that I learned. For those who have experienced trauma in the body, it is a unique journey that we walk to build a healthy relationship with our one true home.
It is like trying to feel safe in a house after it has been broken into and vandalised. There are flashbacks and fears. Sometimes the triggers are obvious, and in other moments, they can arise out of the blue. The first step is acknowledging that something happened. Being present with the recognition that painful things unfolded within your body.
Some ways that the body can experience trauma are from ailments, physical abuse, giving birth, miscarriage, and stressful psychological experiences. Initially, it may not be clear that something was a traumatic experience. I experienced this often when working in a maternity hospital. As long as the mother and baby were healthy, it was considered a great birth.
In these types of situations, the experience becomes like a hidden trauma. The body knows that something has been traumatic, but the mind is believing what everyone else is saying. This can manifest in a variety of situations, not just in birthing. If we do not become aware of the trauma, the energy gets stuck in the body.
That stuck energy then attracts more traumatic situations because it stops us from being fully present in the body. Naturally, this leaves us vulnerable to more dangerous situations. For example, when drunk, this is another way of saying disembodied, many more sexual assaults and abuse happen. Being present in the body is the number one way to fully protect oneself.
Defining the Meaning of Trauma
When working with clients, at times, the acknowledgment step can take some time. This is often due to the narratives that have taken root, which minimise the difficulty that was experienced. These stories can sound like, well, what I experienced is nothing compared to what this person went through, or explaining that it could have been much worse.
These comparisons to alternative ways the situation could have unfolded, or how this experience may be perceived by others, disconnect us from the body. It negates the importance of how you felt about what happened. The truth is, every situation is relative. By tuning into how the body feels, we can determine if something was traumatising.
Listening to the body supports us in coming away from the stories of the mind that attempt to intellectualise and judge if something is worth our attention. Trauma is defined as something that happens that is deeply distressing or disturbing. When we sit with a memory while connecting with the body, it becomes clear to determine if something was experienced in that way.
Recognition of the pain can be challenging when we did not get that validation from the person or people who hurt us. If it was self-inflicted, then the recognition would come from oneself. This can create a pattern of invalidating the experience. It takes strength to confirm that what happened was not okay.
This is quite often the case that those who inflict the pain do not validate what they have done in any way. Quite the contrary, they are more likely to outwardly deny it. Possibly insinuating that the person who has been harmed is crazy or delusional. Fortunately, it is possible to heal and feel safe within the body again, even without their recognition or apologies.
Walking Yourself Home with Earth Medicine
The earth element resonates strongly with the root chakra, the base of the body, and also with the bones and muscles. Connecting with this element supports us in feeling fully present in the body. When there is a trauma in the body that is left unattended, this stagnant energy creates a significant imbalance within the root chakra.
We can notice signs in the world around us that this is happening by looking at how the earth element expresses itself in life. Root chakra imbalances show as financial issues, struggling to keep a job for very long, instability in your home, and difficulty with your physical health. If you are noticing these signs arising and persisting in your life, it could be time to work with this element.
There are these surface-level signs that are being created by the deeper disturbance that occurred during a traumatic experience or period in life. As you connect with the element of earth, this will stimulate your body to switch from protection to healing mode. When you spend time with this element, your nervous system instinctively relaxes and starts to offload any stress.
Trauma is complex, and sometimes that can lead us to believe that we need a highly intelligent solution to heal. Of course, there are layers, and things take time to realign. However, I believe that the simpler the practice, the better. It may seem like, because it is so simple, it will not make a difference, but as you prioritise daily connection with the earth element, you will notice a shift.
No need to take my word for it! Try out some of the ways to connect with this medicine below over the coming week and notice how you feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Connecting with the earth element can be done in a variety of ways:
Walking barefoot on the earth
Eating plenty of healthy fats
Working with plants
Spending time with close friends and family
Contributing something to your community
Organising your finances
Being with animals
Focusing on these areas of your life that connect with the earth element will let your body know that it is safe now. Once that becomes clear, which can take some time, then it is easier to start offloading internal stress accumulated in the past. The earth element also supports that stage of the process.
No matter how much you cry, the earth can take it. No matter how angry you become, the earth can take it. The earth element embodies a powerful mother archetype. Your birth mother or carer in life may not have been able to handle your big emotions or honest expressions of the pain held within. However, this element will always support you.
It is a steady structure to rely on in the most tumultuous of storms. It is common to hold back with allowing energy to move through the body once it feels safe because there is an instinct that says my birth mother or carer could not handle me being like this. Connecting with earth medicine welcomes complete expression of all that you are, and that can result in profound liberation.
You are not meant to carry your trauma for life. Animals are a wonderful example of this. After an animal experiences a stressful situation like being chased on a hunt and then getting away, its body begins to intensely shake. The animal instinctively releases the intensity of the experience after the immediate threat has subsided and they are safe again.
As humans, many of us were conditioned at a young age to hold everything in. Silence it, bury it, don’t let the neighbours find out, or even worse, the church. The silence then creates a casing of shame that surrounds the buried trauma as it festers. No matter how far down it is buried, it will always find a way to express itself.
Additionally, it creates a persistent feeling of never being truly safe within the body. It is like sleeping in a house where the trauma that terrified you is locked in the room down the hall. Earth medicine is a powerful guide to support you in feeling safe, relaxing, and releasing any stress from the body. Supporting you in creating a beautiful place to live.
Guided Meditation
Grounding Meditation for Peace and Presence in Your Body
€3.33
This meditation supports you to relax fully, letting go of any accumulated stress. I include energy clearing of the auric field and grounding affirmations in this transmission. To fully benefit from this experience, it is recommended to find a quiet, undisturbed space. If you feel called, you can do this meditation lying on the earth or walk barefoot before and after this practice to enrich your experience.
