Thankfully, when I find myself in a trauma response state, I now have tools to help me process.

But I remember a time when getting a voice message from my mom would send me into a spiral of thoughts, emotions and “I don’t even know what is happening in my body right now” sensations that just made me feel crazy and out of control.

I would want to say all sorts of things….

And then I’d let myself think or say out loud to myself - or to others - all the things I wished I could say….

And soon I’d spiral into all sorts of rage, and hurt, then sadness and fear…..then rage again with disgust and loathing for myself or others, which led to Overwhelm.

And so I’d go back to my thoughts…

And then I’d be resigned to this place of, “well, I could never actually say any of that,” and spiral to feeling despair or hopeless.

Then to get myself out of that spiral, I’d focus on how I just needed to put some boundaries in place….

And then I’d spiral into how my mom would have such a hard time if I had boundaries…..

And what would she say and then I’d go through the list of all the things she, and everybody else I cared about, would say….And what if I can’t hold onto myself or my boundaries and I give in…..

And I have to help them feel better…..

And what if I don’t help them feel better, or worse yet, what if I do and then even after all the work I’ve done to stop managing people, I’m back where I started….

And then fear and anxiety would take over. And if I didn’t freeze here and completely shut down all thought, emotion and sensation….

I’d spiraling into yet another topic…which would help me get away from (or flee) the previous spiral but only to find myself in another overwhelming spiral.

All this would happen over and over again. Coming back to the same topics multiple times a day. Until I was in complete shut down and numb to myself, my family and all connection.

Sometimes, I’d have somewhere to be or something to do that would interrupt the flee cycle or pull me out of shut down a little bit. And then I’d usually go into a fawn response because I’d put on a happy face and then have lots of these spirals still playing as unwanted background noise in my mind, heart and body. Then when I was alone or less distracted it would all come back up again, spiraling and swirling within me.

Do any of my spirals sound familiar to you?

(I would like to honor real quick that boundaries have been a good idea for me. But deciding what those would be and how to uphold them doesn't work when totally dysregulated like I was in these moments).

When we are in a more regulated state we have much better clarity on what we actually want, what boundaries would align with our wisdom and true self, and how we (not the other person) will uphold our boundary.

Today, I’m not going to go into boundaries (we can do that another time).

Instead I want to use the

tool of embodiment and the imagery of a wave

as a way to process some of these different spirals.

When we process the spirals, we offer a way for that stuck energy to leave our body. And we can move forward into clarity, growth and healing.

1- I invite you to let your hand swirl in a spiral as if it is the spiraling and churning of a wave that hasn’t yet made it to shore.

2- On a big inhale, let your hand move as fast as it needs…

Keep the spiral going on the inhale…

3- And then on the exhale and when your hand is at the “top of the wave”,

4- Let it crash onto the sand as you exhale and your hand moves out of the spiral.

You can do the exhale with your hand moving slowly, quickly or somewhere in between, as you "let the wave crash onto the sand." I invite you to let your hand follow the crash of the wave.

​Here is a 10 sec. video of me demonstrating this.

(*Simply doing the movements and letting our body learn what it feels like to let spiraling energy go can be all we need from this practice. *Maybe we want to add one or more thoughts into the spiral and let them go. *Maybe we put an emotion on the wave and let it spiral and then go. *I invite you to do what your body feels best doing).

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This is an example of a Bottom Up tool that I use and offer to my clients to help release trauma.

Breath and Movement can help us release trauma from our body and in doing so we help our nervous system get to a calm, regulated state after it has just been activated by trauma.

I invite you to give it a try and let me know how it goes.

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Remember, ❤️

You Matter. Your Healing Matters. You Are Worth It!

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