SLRC QUARTER 1, MODULE 4

LECTURE GUIDE

Recognizing and healing trauma Trauma is caused by the experience of fear of death and not knowing you’ll

survive. It is trapped stress inside the body that was interrupted before it could

resolve.

Trauma can be caused by an event or long-term exposure to a stressor (mental,

emotional or physical) that remains in the system.

Felt sense and trauma Trauma gets stuck in the primal part of the brain and the limbic system and

cortex later develop thoughts and mechanisms to justify and protect the

trauma.

Working with felt sense means you’re working on the primal brain level, which

is accessed through the sensations in the body.

You will learn to recognize that trauma shows up as the freeze mechanism,

which is often covering the fight or flight mechanism.

The freeze mechanism shows up as:

• Numbness

• Disassociation

• Lethargy

A lot of depression, inability to change and “stuckness” have a root in a frozen

trauma mechanism in the body.

Releasing the freeze mechanism Many of the tools we work with in the program thaw this freeze in the body:

• Breath work

• Embodiment work

• Sexuality work

• Connecting to the felt sense

Let the body react

When you work with the practices and you experience the desire to run away or

flee or the desire to kick and punch - let your body do it! This lets your body

return to life, and it empowers you to feel you can act instead of freezing and

resigning to death.

Trauma Healing

Focus on and connect to your body, and you will know when it wants to express

or complete the cycle. This means you are letting your body do what it wants in

an impulsive way.

Follow the impulses of your body - this is the core to restoring your nervous

system and releasing the frozen stress.

Tension and disconnection Tension and disconnection are a physiological barrier to cut you off from

feelings that your body has learned are “dangerous,” “disgusting” or “wrong.”

Lust or desire, for example.

A shock or trauma to the nervous system creates a corresponding emotional

charge that your cortex doesn’t want you to feel, so the body compensates by

putting a covering mechanism over it.

This changes the physiological functioning of your body and sexuality.

Examples of body parts often affected by this are:

• The clitoris

• The opening of the vagina

• The G-spot

• The cervix

But also the belly, breasts, nipples and throat, and any other part of the body.

It is especially the most sensitive areas of our sexuality that are affected by this.

De-armoring De-armoring allows you to restore and remove the mechanism that is numbing

and blocking you from feeling and being sensitive.

It is a process that involves:

• Releasing tension by completing the stress cycle from the original event

• Feeling emotions and letting them move up and out of the nervous system

• Getting back to the felt sense and letting the body return to a deeper state of

wholeness

• Putting pressure into points inside of the body to access and release stored

trauma, stress and emotions

In this process, you don’t have to revisit the story. It can be healing and

meaningful to go into the story and understand it, but it is not necessary for

healing to take place.

Be mindful that you can get addicted to the story and perpetuate that cycle. If

that is the case, offer yourself compassion for that, as it can be hard to let go of

the story!

Resourcing Resourcing means finding a place of goodness within, and in trauma healing,

this is essential for having a place of refuge, safety or pleasure available inside

the body.

Feeling good is twice as important as experiencing the suffering or the pain. It

strengthens your system to move back into wholeness and health.

Find your resource by scanning your body and finding what’s good. It can be

anywhere on your body, but look for a place that feels safe and comfortable.

For example:

• Your hips

• Your heart

• Your scalp

At any time, if you start to feel that you are re-traumatizing or overwhelming

your nervous system, then move into resourcing. Find the place of goodness in

your body and rest your focus there.

Leaders in this Field The specific sexual healing practice you will do in the module was developed

by Layla as a synthesis of her personal and professional understanding of sexual

trauma release.

However, she worked on the foundation of the theories of trauma release, the

felt-sense mechanism and de-armoring. This work has been developed by:

• Peter Levine

• Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk

• Dr. Wilhelm Reich