From my May 11 Newsletter:

After a beautiful weekend of being spoiled by my daughter who planned out and created an amazing cake and meal for Mother’s Day, and spending time the morning of Mother’s Day walking a labyrinth, meditating, journaling and reflecting on today’s new moon, I know that I and so many others are dancing with the ebb and flow of grief, hope, sadness, hope, anger, fear, hope, and (hopefully) sometimes joy.

Addiction, tragedy, and the traumatic effects of unexpected events on humans have been coming up around me this week, as has the hope and trust in healing trauma.

This week, I’m noticing that I feel a sense of heart brokenness related to the effects of unhealed and denied childhood trauma and the ways that it often shows up as addiction. As I sit with this, what comes up for me is:

  • How addiction can ruin or take lives, in both the obvious ways (divorce, abuse, dysfunctional families and even death) and the not always obvious way that codependency (not a bad word) can consume and take away an individual’s or family’s life.
  • How hard it is to break away from its grip. Jon O’Donohue expresses this beautifully in the excerpt of his poem below. For anyone who has watched someone gripped by the energy of addiction, and who have tried (and failed) to help, it can be the most chaotic and hard to comprehend phenomenon to observe.

 

From John O’Donohue’s book, Bless the Space Between Us, an excerpt from the poem
For the Addict…

On its way through the innocent night,
The moth is ambushed by the light,
Becomes glued to a window
Where a candle burns; its whole self,
Its dreams of flight and all desire
Trapped in one glazed gaze;
Now nothing else can satisfy
But the deadly beauty of flame.

I’ve felt hopeful that recovery is possible for addiction and that there are amazing programs and resources for healing.

I have hope that trauma can be healed, that the body does remember. I know that the body holds energy that can be released. I have hope that people will find this kind of release when they are ready and that they will be able to courageously step into unknown territory.

I have hope and hear validation for how I teach and hold space, when I hear interviews with trauma experts who say that community and support of others is so crucial to our human condition for healing trauma. Brene Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast- an interview with Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry about their new book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. They define trauma and talk about why big and small traumas activate our stress response systems and create emotional, physical, and social consequences, and how we can find the path to healing. If you don’t have time to listen to the whole podcast skip to minute 44!

The trust of knowing that our brains can be rewired, that daily practices, language, and energy awareness can change your world.

Practicing Reiki helps me in my dancing with this ebb and flow and staying in truth. I’ve seen some new clients recently who have reminded me of the power of energy work and how it helps to keep releasing and moving energy and emotions, even in places where we have spent years working with practitioners. Reiki is so helpful in the release of trauma that feels stuck. I am hopeful as I witness clients releasing trauma and stories that they will “always be stuck”. Do you have something like this that you’d like to work on with me? I’d love to support you in your healing.