Still

Listen to me

Watch me

We have talked a lot over the last few weeks about PTSD, trauma and being blindsided. Today let’s look at how our mind can work with us instead of against us, to allow us to change and heal from the past. We have been searching for many years for solutions to trauma and over the last few years the US military have been using computer chips to help soldiers with PTSD. Also in a Jerusalem hospital, they have been implanting a computer chip into patient’s minds helping people with acute depression. The electrodes are implanted into the patient’s brain and wired up to a minuscule computer implanted in the chest, the computer sends messages to the electrodes. The electrodes transmit weak electrical currents that paralyses the brain area responsible for the depression and trauma, it’s not always been successful, but for some it has.

One patient had who had deep dark emptiness and tormenting thoughts for years had seen a magical change and it had disappeared, but several months after the operation they reported that the same feelings had returned. Upon inspection, the doctors found the source of the problem. The mini computers battery had run out of power, once the battery was replaced the thoughts and feelings quickly melted away. Of course, this is very hard to research due to the ethic of this, it has only been used in exceptional circumstances and extreme cases.  This is a radical extreme approach in dealing with your issues, but what is does show us is that if we can still our minds and come to terms with the past then we can be free from the torment of the dark thoughts and trauma.

After 25 years of working with people with these types of issues, I am acutely aware that the people suffering from trauma and PTSD can’t relax or still their minds. Even if they can’t define what’s going on exactly in their head, they struggle to relax and let go and feel this anxious agitated feeling.  I know if you haven’t had this, it’s sometimes hard to fully understand what it’s like. If you image a bird has flown into your house and is desperate to get out, they are flapping franticly full of fear and dread. This is how it feels inside, for some people in extreme cases this is a constant feeling day and night, always fighting feelings of fear and desperate to try and escape it. For other people, it’s just in certain situations that these feelings are triggered and then for many people they hate it so much they start avoiding the situations which makes them feel this way. As you know the avoidance then grows and over time more things become filled with these feelings and so in turn the fear grows. This hamster wheel and ever-growing fear cycle can spiral out of control and have a massive negative impact on your life.

What we need to do is to stop and find the peace to be still, going back to the bird scenario if the bird could communicate with us, we could tell the bird it’s ok and we could help them back out through the window to safety. But unfortunately, we can’t, and the same thing is happening in our minds when we’re stuck in trauma and PTSD that we can’t get out of. We can’t find the right language to communicate to our minds that its ok, we are not living in the past and what was happening back then isn’t happening now. As you see from the electrode treatment studies it’s not all of your mind that is broken it’s just a small part of it, but the feeling is so strong and over whelming it takes over your whole mind.

The need to still the mind and body is the key to healing and moving on, we have to stop running from the fear and stop and face it, the more we run the bigger the fear gets.

If your issues are acute then it’s worth finding someone like myself who uses EMDR and can help you work through the trauma and find your own inner peace. Take the time to see this part of you as the terrified bird trapped in the room with no way out, and understand that it’s time to see things in a different way. The window is open and the bird can fly out ,its just doesn’t know it’s there and no one can’t get through to the bird.  See yourself like a modern-day Dr Dolittle and send the messages to your mind that it’s time to escape the fear and be free again.

Every night before you go to bed, see yourself talking to the bird and showing the traumatised, petrified bird the way out of the room. Feel how great it feels to watch the bird fly free from the room and see the stillness it has now as it floats high in the sky supported by the air and free of fear. See yourself having that same feeling when you approach things, that in the past, have held fear and trauma and visualise yourself as the bird free and still. Your minds are amazing they do listen and will change, but we have to get off the hamster wheel and send in new messages or we of course are just on a loop repeating the same thing over and over again.

These exercises might seem small, but harnessing the power of your mind while your dreaming and sleeping you might be very surprised how successfully this will be in helping your fears, and free you from the anxiety. Our minds have always wanted to change, but we have been trapped in the cycle of not changing.

Breaking habits is the way to freedom. Keep doing the same things and expecting a different result is the first sign of madness!

Start tonight, it will only take a few minutes and let your mind continue this while you are dreaming and sleeping. Remember that practice makes perfect, you wouldn’t expect to go to the gym once and pop out afterwards as wonder woman. But after going regularly to the gym you will see and feel the difference, the same is with your mind. Try it every day for a month, set your mind free and still those parts of you once trapped in fear.

Thanks for dropping by Sara x