#LONERWOLF SHADOW WORK JOURNAL PDF FULL#

To be trauma-sensitive, it’s crucial to build up a felt sense of safety in your body before seriously engaging in any form of somatic bodywork. When it comes to any form of somatic bodywork, it’s crucial to engage with it in a trauma-sensitive way because you never know what will be stirred up within you.Īs our bodies literally hold onto and store our unprocessed trauma, a seemingly simple and “benign” practice might send a cascade of stress hormones running through our bodies, sending our nervous system into overdrive. And because I made myself sit through that, I went into a freeze state of dissociation that totally dysregulated my nervous system for many hours afterward.

#LONERWOLF SHADOW WORK JOURNAL PDF FULL#

Due to my own trauma, being in an enclosed space full of people (yes, even gentle people!) triggered feelings of immense fear that jolted me into a state of fight-or-flight. Sounds nice, right? Except for me, this practice immediately stirred a sense of panic and paranoia.

Here’s a personal example of engaging in a form of somatic spiritual practice (focusing on the breath), and how it impacted me negatively:Ī few months back I went to a Buddhist meditation center where they were hosting a guided eyes-closed breathing meditation. One thing I’ve learned from first-hand experience is that somatic forms of bodywork can be immensely triggering if not done carefully. To be human is to experience trauma of some kind, so when engaging with any kind of somatic bodywork, please go slowly, practice self-love, and be gentle. The Need to Be Trauma-Sensitive and Gentle With Yourself

Completes and releases the fight-flight energy that was prematurely stopped (due to various reasons like being held down, trapped, shamed into “being quiet” or a “good boy/girl” etc.) and suppressed into the freeze response through various forms of mindful movement and inward awareness.Brings out any sensory information that is trapped, blocked, or frozen by trauma stored in the body.Empowers people to befriend the feelings in their body, which enables them to relax and release stored survival stress.One way we can summarize most somatic bodywork “bottom-up” methods is as follows: Examples of this approach include EMDR, Hakomi, Somatic Experiencing, and so on. The bottom-up method centers around connecting with the body and its various feelings and sensations to then create change in the brain. The “bottom-up,” on the other hand, is far less commonly used, and yet is gaining more popularity in recent years (thanks social media!), and has been proven to be equally as effective (and in some cases more suitable) than top-down methods. We see this approach in a lot of prescribed methods of talking therapy, positive thinking, affirmations, and so on. “Top-down” approaches center around using the thinking brain (neocortex) to access deeper physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual healing. In the West, most of us are used to “top-down” healing methods. Somatic Bodywork is a “Bottom-Up” Approach vs. Somatic bodywork empowers us to create a more mindful relationship with our bodies, release frozen emotions, and experience greater psychospiritual healing. Empowers us to find freedom from psychological, emotional, and physical distress through various body-based practices such as breathwork, yoga, and massage.Examines how stress and trauma are trapped within and impact the body, and.Explores the connection between the body and mind,.

Lonerwolf shadow work journal pdf