Stress, Trauma and Tension
The problem with Stress is that we are in it again and again.
The problem with Trauma is that it plays over and over again.
As your brain runs the background tension levels of your stress and trauma
the holding normalizes, the system creates a hidden habit of tension activation.
That practice and rehearsal leaves us frozen in
the reaction patterns of the emotional past.
On my intake form, almost every client checks one or both of these boxes.
Life can be difficult. At times it can be challenge to survive. You adapt, and get through life.
This method allows you to teach your brain directly release you from the suspended animation of stress and trauma reaction patterns.
It the tension persists, the system thinks you are still in stress.
Part of the result of traumatic events is the loss of being at ease in your body. This is a chance for you to safely and gently learn to be in your body, in the present.
This method does not require that you relive or re-experience the difficulties. Teach your system out of the echoes of the stress or your past.
Has life been stressful?
Is your body tense?
It really does fit together.
The reactions to the insults of life are learned by your nervous system. The internal reactions to the difficulties of life later become the constant patterns of tension in your body. This learning has survival value. Are you stuck in that learning? It’s a habit. Does that tension patterns habit continue to serve you now?
The two meanings of the word Trauma
The word trauma refers to both physical injuries, and also deeply distressing experiences. This process, called somatic education addresses both definitions of trauma. We react to distressing experiences and physical injury with muscle tension activations.
Physical Trauma
What is the bodily experience, the somatic experience of physical injury?
It’s: OOOOWWW! That hurts!
The nervous system’s strategy is to tighten the places that hurt to keep them from moving, in an effort to diminish the pain. That holding pattern is quickly learned, it becomes habituated, an involuntary tension habit. That tightening spreads like wildfire. In a couple of days that holding becomes sore. Then, there is bracing for that pain. In a way, pain creates more pain.
Injury echoes from the past as tension patterns you still hold in the present.
Without understanding the Injury reflex* of the Somatic Nervous System (SNS), there is no way to make sense of the cascade of tension through the body. Release the unconscious holding with this process. Free yourself from the habit.
Hallmarks of the injury holding pattern are typically asymmetrical expressions of pain, scoliotic postures (off to the side, crooked), rotation/twist in the torso, uneven gait, one difficult shoulder, one painful hip. The pattern is an active holding. Teach your brain to stop holding you in the pattern.
Emotional Trauma and Tension
Life can be tough.
You become frozen in your familiar emotional past.
You reactions to the difficulties of life become the constant patterns of tension in your body. The reactions to the insults of life are learned by your nervous system. This learning has survival value. Are you stuck in that learning? Do those tensions patterns continue to serve you now?
Each of us has had our experiences of emotional trauma. There are difficult parts of life. Even small traumas can sting. Muscles have no will of their own. It’s the nervous system that remembers.
As brain rehearses the event, it rehearses the reaction to the event.
You become frozen in the reaction pattern, a suspended animation.
When life gets very intense and difficult, the nervous system can activate all the stress reaction patterns at once. It uses everything it’s got. Survival is the top priority. One reaction, a withdrawal response (the red pattern of contraction) is that the front contracts to make you feel small, it hunches you over as if to disappear from the situation, a freeze/fear response. The Habituated Red Pattern contraction is Depression.
The urge to jump into action in the stress, to run, to flee, is the green pattern of contraction. The Habituated Green Pattern contraction is Anger.
We condition our bodies into a state of fear, or anger, or both.
When events are intense enough, your nervous system can activates all of its stress response patterns. We can become trapped in both patterns, the Red Pattern (freeze response) and the Green Pattern (fight/flight response). The co-contraction, the inward crushing tug of war between front and back becomes a habit. It’s a lot of tension, and you feel like you’re under pressure.
Like a skipping record player needle, the learning that your nervous system gets from the difficulties of life can become a well practiced groove. Lift the needle and free yourself!
Become whole again.
“I feel like this is an answer to prayer that I have longed for for years. I feel more embodied and connected and grounded, and it is very pleasurable, I look forward to the time on the floor or the bed to sink in [to the movement practice]. It feels empowering, practical, easy, and helpful.”-D., going through a difficult divorce.
Your brain has you in the suspended animation. This is how to change the loop that has you re-living the reaction sensations of the trauma. Un-freeze your musculature from the holding pattern of the reaction loop.
This process has helped me directly. I have had a stressful life. My body had hardened in reaction to the trials of my life. I’ve been there. I’ve found something that deeply helped me. This process can help you help you free yourself from long ago trauma…without having to re-live it. You too can feel more comfortable, and at ease.
-Eric Cooper
Is this psychotherapy?
Is this psychotherapy?
No, this is not psychotherapy. I am not a psychotherapist.
In this process we are in the present. The more effectively we can be in the present, the better this process works to allow us to regain control of the muscle tensions that have been out of control. The reason we have the habits of tension, are in the past. The nervous system’s tension control learns the reactions and carries them forward into the present.
Some of the sensations the muscles create are richly sensationful. They feel like emotions.
When you sense emotions, a large part of that is sensing the tension signals from certain muscle patterns.
When we create an easy daily practice, the muscles that have been persistently creating emotion sensations get a chance to relax and recover. We feel less trapped in the emotional intensity that has been echoing through out system.
Is this psychotherapy?
Is this psychotherapy?
No, this is not psychotherapy. I am not a psychotherapist.
In this process we are in the present. The more effectively we can be in the present, the better this process works to allow us to regain control of the muscle tensions that have been out of control. The reason we have the habits of tension, are in the past. The nervous system’s tension control learns the reactions and carries them forward into the present.
Some of the sensations the muscles create are richly sensationful. They feel like emotions.
When you sense emotions, a large part of that is sensing the tension signals from certain muscle patterns.
When we create an easy daily practice, the muscles that have been persistently creating emotion sensations get a chance to relax and recover. We feel less trapped in the emotional intensity that has been echoing through out system.
When you feel ready, come for a session.
It is an easy process to be more fully in your body, again.
It’s much more difficult to be stuck in the tensions of stress.
I can help you feel safe in the process. the process involves making small movement in a special way that your system is happy to allow.
This is not a process of ‘crashing through the gate. We want your nervous system to be happy to surrender the tension.
The process with little to no touch, if required.
You can have a blanket over you, if that helps you feel more comfortable.
If you are unsure, please contact me.
You are worth taking care of.
*Clarification of the word reflex. I am using the word reflex to refer to somatic reflexes. Somatic reflexes are part of the somatic nervous system, the SNS. This system controls parts of the body that the nervous system can contract voluntarily and involuntarily. How you flinch when you’re startled is a somatic reflex pattern. those muscles can be in our control, or they can seem very automatic. Somatic reflexes are a different type of reflex than the hard wired stretch reflexes the doctor checks with a mallet below your knee.