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As someone who loves a good self-help book, The Body Keeps The Score has been on my radar for quite some time. You'd think that I'd be more comfortable with learning about the effects of trauma on the body, but I just wasn't ready. I was afraid to acknowledge the biological damage I might have caused myself. After years of healing intense emotions, persistent stress, and always feeling on edge, I decided to conquer my fears and finally read this book.
Distress can be defined as the discrepancy between the body and the mind. When your body and mind are at war with each other, it can lead to the fragmentation of the self. When you aren't completely present and in alignment with yourself, it can make you feel as if you've disassociated from reality. Even though your mind is trying to forget, your body is doing everything that it can to get you to remember. I vividly recall experiencing some of my worst panic attacks towards the end of high school. My body felt like it was locked in a state of perpetual tension, and I was always on edge. Whether it was walking in the halls between classes, sitting at my desk, or driving to school, my body was always in panic mode. Perhaps years of suppressed emotions wanted to make them themselves known; they couldn't go on any longer living in denial and disassociation. My body was desperate for my attention, and it did everything in its power for me to see that something wasn't right. It didn't ask for my attention, it demanded it. It's kind of poetic to think that our body calls for us in that way. Our body can't speak to us, so it uses the only form of communication that it knows, which is through sensation - a good headache, panic attack, or shiver should get our attention, but how many of us would (consciously) choose to live in such eternal discomfort? The book brings up how some of us choose to live in our suffering as an attempt to regain control. If I recreate my trauma, then maybe I can fix it this time. All this emotional time traveling is exhausting. Rumination and obsession don't really solve anything, they just keep you stuck in your pain longer, which for some people might actually feel safer than not having any pain at all. So many of us identify with our trauma that it becomes a part of us, and letting it go can be scary, especially when it means having to re-tell the story of ourselves. Maybe, in a strange way, I felt comfort in my panic attacks and identifying with them because they gave me a story that I could keep telling myself. It gave me an excuse for why I was the way that I was, and why I went through all the challenges that I did. One of the ways in which we can move past our trauma is to ground ourselves in the moment. The past is all the way back there, and it needs to stay there. We need to separate ourselves from our trauma, and then be able to hold it in our hands and look at it as if it were a separate entity. If we allow it to consume us, then we're not really living in or for the present moment - we are living in a non-existent realm, stuck and afraid as we keep replaying our own suffering. When trauma is resolved, does it rise to the top of our heads and float away? Does it simply disappear? Or does it become dormant inside of us as it loses its grip? Whatever the case may be, unresolved trauma shouldn't be trapped inside of our bodies. It should be set free, allowing each and every one of us the chance to be our greatest and fullest selves. Some quotes that deeply resonated with me:
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It wasn't until he came into my life that I could fully grasp what it meant to love something purely and unconditionally. His presence breathes color into my life, and he has been my greatest teacher. To care for a being that completely depends on me has been one of the most grounding experiences I have ever had, and I don't take caring for him lightly. Maybe it's because I wish I was brought up differently, and I get to finally give him the love that I felt I had missed out on. He's given me a second chance at experiencing childhood. I get to frolic in the grass, play, and freely express the quirky and silly parts of myself. It's hard to be serious when I'm holding him in my arms, and in a lot of ways he anchors me back down to Earth. When you love something so much, you want nothing more than to be as present with them as possible, and he's taught me the valuable lesson of savoring time. Time is the most precious currency, and all of us are running in circles trying to get more of it. What if instead of pursuing, we surrendered? Pursuit will never satiate our hunger, it will only make our stomachs grow bigger. When will it be enough? I ask myself that question all the time. I dreamed of being the person that I am now, but it still doesn't feel like enough sometimes. What is it then? Does the absence of desire allow for greater abundance? Does silence allow for the universe to communicate with us? I'm starting to realize that none of us actually want the things that we want, rather we find comfort in the wanting. If I don't want anything, then am I really here, am I really alive? To be alive means to yearn, to react, to want things - right? But what if you separate yourself from all of it, what are you left with? What if I became absolutely nothing? 
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"You can only be afraid of what you think you know.”
― J. Krishnamurti
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