How to tell if you’re holding trauma in the body
By Orit Krug | June 16th, 2020
Our bodies are amazingly accurate at telling us if we’re holding trauma within.
Do you often feel that you have a lot of tension and stress in your body – usually in your shoulders or neck?
Or perhaps you feel stiff all over with a tightness that just doesn’t seem to go away?
This tension or strain is often an early indicator that you might be holding trauma in the body. When you avoid feeling the emotions that are stored in your body, the signals get “louder” and manifest into aches and pains.
There are three other common ways to tell you’re holding trauma in the body:
1. You have unexplained physical pain without a medical diagnosis
If you’ve seen a lot of doctors for certain physical pain and you haven’t experienced any relief from treatments, then this could be a sign that your physical discomfort is stemming from trauma.
This is because your mind is wonderful at telling you that you’re fine, you’re safe, you’re good; there’s nothing to worry about (maybe because your trauma happened a long time ago).
But in fact, your body is holding the trauma and continues to register danger threats in your environment. This releases cortisol which increases your stress levels and weakens your immune system; inevitably making you sick.
2. Your anxiety levels don’t seem to reduce no matter what you try
Another way to tell if you’re holding trauma in the body is if you have anxiety that doesn’t seem to be alleviated no matter how many meditations or affirmations you do, or how much journaling you undertake.
You’re working hard to reduce your anxiety, but you’re still struggling with levels that don’t seem to have reduced at all.
The anxious feelings you’re experiencing are your nervous system trying to signal that something is not right. That there is unresolved trauma being held in your body that needs to be released and healed.
3. You tend to disconnect from your body
If you find that you tend to escape from or disconnect from your body, then this is a strong sign that you are holding trauma and you’re trying to feel safe by numbing yourself.
Because your body stores memories and emotions from traumatic experiences, a common coping response is to dissociate from your body when your nervous system gets triggered.
This is because when the original trauma occurred, your nervous system caused your body to numb or escape the situation in order to prevent you from the most possible pain. This is your body’s way of coping, and your nervous system continues to respond to similar situations today, in the same way. You don’t feel safe to remain present, so you disconnect from your body.
Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.
Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.
Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.
This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.
This is NOT true!
Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing in a way that truly lasts, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.
My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).
You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.
Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:
- Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
- Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
- An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.
