My Soft Rebellion

I started asking myself, how can I love this vessel that has done so much for me, and stopped asking, what can I do to this vessel to bring me more love.

When I first moved out from my abusive childhood home my body started going through a series of problems. I was running on fumes, dizzy, brain fogged-out and really hypervigilant. You know when you first wake up after sleeping for 12 hours and you need to reorient yourself – I was like that for almost a year.

What kickstarted getting out of this trauma-induced fever was somatic release.

I started meditating consistently and pairing it with good old fashioned devils lettuce (indica always). Doing this let me access tense parts of my body that I couldn’t access sober, and when I started to release these tense parts, my body started finding its way back home. 

Snap, crackle, pop

Sometimes it was just a *pop*, this sensation of something releasing that was holding on for a very long time, like taking off tight socks you didn’t know were leaving blood marks (minus the itch). It’s very satisfying, dare I say, even addictive, to go into your body and find every part of you that’s clenching onto the past and begin to let it go.

But other times it would cause a really intense physical reaction.

I would start to shake violently (if people saw me, they would likely think I was getting possessed). My head would spin side to side really fast, as if all of the times I wanted to shake my head no were coming up in the span of 3 minutes.

When my muscles were releasing, the connected areas would loosen as well. Next thing I knew, I would be contorting myself like Emily from the Exorcist as the bones and fibres of my body recalibrated and shifted back into their original positions. Sometimes this felt nice, other times I just wanted it to end so I could stop doing the bridge on my bed.

Some sensations would come with a wave of emotions. Most often it was a really heavy grief that lived nauseatingly in my tummy, but as I let myself sob vehemently and let out all of that backed-up emotion, I would feel lighter until I began to giggle or chuckle, like oh, lol, that was silly and life is a movie. 

Sometimes the sadness was really intense but other times it was this spiritual acceptance-sadness, where I was crying because it all just was and I was perfectly okay with it. Those moments were very beautiful and when I felt closest to God.

In plain sight, but hidden 

Every release was almost always associated with a memory. Some were traumatic memories that I buried and had no clue even happened. Things like violent memories with my parents, teachers who humiliated me, classmates that stabbed me in the back or men who took advantage of me. Other memories were just random moments, mundane things that left me puzzled when I questioned their importance.

After all of this, the sobbing, the body reorienting, the remembering, the accepting, the shaking and more crying, I would need warm soup and a nap. I was essentially uprooting the entirety of my trauma and shifting into a completely new person. After all of that, I couldn’t be caught hustling or talking to people that sucked.

With that being said, a lot of this was done on my weekends to avoid being an absolute zombie at work throughout the week. But I did start doing daily body scans so I could relax my muscles. Mentally rehearsing my body parts (forehead, eyes, cheeks, mouth, neck, shoulders, hips, legs, knees, feet, etc.) allowed me to release some of the tension that would gather throughout the day, hence lessening some of the stress I was releasing on weekends.

I did all of this for about a year and continue to make time to do this work – I just didn’t feel like going out much until I worked through the pain inside of my body. 

At the time, I hated how hypervigilant I was, how I couldn’t connect to other people because I was so scared of them, how I couldn’t immerse myself into this human experience because my body was always trying to find safety instead of adventure.

My body was also in pain, the stress in the back of my head was making me dizzy and my vision blurry to the point of passing out. Which, funnily enough, the back of the head is associated with repressed memories and the subconscious self. The area near the brainstem, where your head and neck meet, is also in charge of a lot of survival responses, an area that my acupuncturist said was so tense it was imbalancing my entire body.

Acupuncture – an unsung hero

Speaking of acupuncture – that’s something that increased my somatic release tenfold. Doing the work on myself was one thing, but having someone else come in and help me uproot my pain was life-changing. It promoted a level of deep bodily healing that I couldn’t have accessed on my own and I am so grateful for it.

The sessions themselves (make sure you get someone you feel comfortable with) is a very interesting experience.

When I first went in, I told her my problems (pain in my neck, terrible PMS) and she checked my pulse and tongue and a few other things to decide where she wanted to treat me. The beginning of the session is a little spooky, your body is still tense and so the sensation of the needles in your muscles can be very off-putting. Deep, calming breaths are your best friend during this time, it’s a bit of a mental game.

My acupuncturist uses electric stimulation and once I am hooked up, it’s like magic. I can feel the energy in my body melt and shift in ways that feel right to it. Like a little dance is going on in me and singingoh, oh, oh, we get to go here and here and here how fun, before we were trapped in that one little spot and now we are free!

Post-acupuncture is intense, similar to my own somatic release sessions, I need a nice nap and then a warm meal. I’m pretty checked out the rest of the day after acupuncture, but by day three the effects are incredible. I have such a clear head and the same obsessive thoughts and tense muscles are nowhere to be found. It’s like they’ve disappeared from my psyche because it literally made no sense for them to be in my body anymore.

I do find I’ll get random bursts of old memories the days following my appointment. The associated nostalgia is hard to digest, it’s very peculiar remembering the past from such an apathetic but still emotionally invested stance. I wish to grieve but I also wish for this to simply, just leave, I already suffered enough.

I am kind, I am lovely, I am brave and I am strong 

These experiences have given me a sense of compassion for myself that I carry like a warm hug. When you don’t remember repressed memories it’s easy to be hard on yourself when you “fail.” 

But when you remember and feel all of the agony, the loneliness and suffering you had to endure, you start to think you’re a superhero that holds immense powers. And you literally are – the level of transmutation going on here is magical. 

You ask instead, how can I love this vessel that has done so much for me, as opposed to, what can I do to this vessel to bring me more love. You are so tender with yourself, you are never hasty or aggressive and how could you be? U’re just a lil baby girl. 

Your brain, body and spirit have been fighting a long battle. One that extends past your lifetime and into your ancestry. None of it is easy which is why I shut myself out from it for so long. But diving deep into the vulgar and raw is sacred, beautiful work that this earth longs for.

Do it in bits and pieces, with a support system, with unconditional love from yourself, with nourishment, fun, whimsy, adventure, grace and only if you’re living in a consistent safe environment.

Sending love, luck, my prayers and good vibes always always always ❤