Hello Wellness Warriors
Today I am going to spend a few minutes talking about PTSD. This could be considered sensitive material so please do not watch this video if you do not want to hear about PTSD.
Please excuse the two minor melt downs and the stumbling for words. I left those parts in the video by design to show you that when I am triggered how my mind fumbles.
I am going to talk about information I have learned in the last few years. I will let you know a little about myself and what PTSD looks like versus how living with it feels. I will cover a few different ways to actually heal and address the root cause of your PTSD. I have created four videos and two different blog posts and had a week of being triggered to be able to create and deliver this video to you. Finally after creating the video I had a full solid night of sleep. Creating this video has been on my to-do list for over a year now. Every time I tried my brain would not work correctly. This video is a labor of love and I hope it is helpful on your personal journey.
I live and practice wellness daily not because it’s fun (which it is) but because without it I tend to self-destruct. I have a mind that is hard wired to work against me. I have learned and practice many wellness tools to heal myself and rewire my brain. Because of the way I was designed and my personal experiences with struggle, personal responsibility and triumph I am diligent in how I live. That includes living mindfully and aware. This allows me to offer the best of the best to my clients. I am dedicated to healing body, mind and spirit and I practice what I teach daily. I have spent twelve years of my life learning many different practices for wellbeing and will continue to learn as I go.
I did not give as much credit as I would have liked in the video to God. God was and is a huge part of how I live well. Having a power greater than myself that I can trust and lean on each day provides me the strength to go on and live courageously. It’s this faith that has allowed me to live my purpose fully and serve others.
A few things I forgot to mention in the video are:
When attending the White Raven Center in Anchorage Alaska we participated in what they referred to as “processing” and I talk about what that looked like in the video. I did forget to mention that when I processed my body would experience EXTREME and intense pain in a few different areas. The pain was so bad that I would scream and try to cradle the area in my hands. This cemented what I had learned about PTSD and how it manifest in the body from reading the book, The Body Keeps the Score. It was literally pulling up an old memory that made put my body in intense pain. After process the memory the pain was no longer there. The facilitators assured me after processing that I carry all of my trauma in my body. The coolest thing about this is that there is a solution and I can assume responsibility for myself, the pain and my healing.
A couple of symptoms I forgot to mention that I experience when I am triggered:
Short, shallow rapid breathing.
My body will tremble
I have a hard time holding still
I don’t like to be touched
And I experience muscle spasm off and on in my arms and legs.
Something occurred after my first surgery.
I am not entirely sure what; however, I have narrowed it down to three possibilities.
- The actual surgery was traumatizing for me
- The surgery released old trauma back into my body
- The immense amount of down time and self-reflecting after my surgery brought a greater awareness about myself and I learned how PTSD was affecting me all along
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to get real on this subject with you. I know that it is not my past that defines me. What defines me is what I choose to do with it in my present and future. Let me know if this video was helpful by leaving a comment below. Please know that you can reach out to me if you have any personal questions you would like to ask or if you need support in creating change in your life.
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