Gratitude is the Doorway to Divine Intervention…
According to Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, “The Body Keeps the Score”, “it takes tremendous energy to keep functioning while carrying the memory of terror, and the shame of utter weakness and vulnerability.”
So, for here, for today, in this space, you are not alone.
“As the science has demonstrated childhood abuse can have long lasting biological consequences to the brain and the body including an increased risk for and more virulent course of many mental health disorders including bipolar disorder, major depression, PTSD, eating disorders, substance use disorders and the worst outcome of these disorders, suicide.”
Charles B. Nemeroff MD, PhD.
So, friends, I have worked very hard on my mental health for close to fifty years. I have tried just about every modality and every medication available; and yet, the voices that play the most devastating role in my mental constitution continue to rule. But they do not always win.
When I walk into my day in a state of emotional disequilibrium, I am grateful for the research now being done by medical doctors, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, behavioral health professionals, public health specialists and more. Their delving where no one had known to look for years has provided me with a new awareness and an understanding of the path I have traveled. I am so grateful for their work and pray we can be bold enough to keep searching for deeper understanding of the workings of our brains and the wounds we live with due to childhood abuse in all and any of its forms.
Today, friends, was a trial and a victory. Today I left my house in a calm and focused state of mind when suddenly I felt this overwhelming dread and desire not to be alive. The weight of whatever was being triggered was leaving me feeling afraid, lost and hopeless. I felt the shift in my body. I went from being light to being very heavy. My posture shifted from upright to hunched. I noticed my breathing became shallow and my chest was tight. I did not feel capable of being in community. I truly felt that utter weakness and vulnerability Van der Kolk talked about. I went to a dark place in the darkness of the morning.
What was the trigger? Was it the dark? The dark and I have never had a loving relationship. Was it the sound of that car backfiring as it went by that startled me into a sense of fear? Was my perspective shifted when left in the silence and alone?
According to Van der Kolk again,
“The sensory fragments of memory intrude into the present, where they are literally relived. As long as the trauma is not resolved, the stress hormones that the body secretes to protect itself keep circulating, and the defensive movements and emotional responses keep getting replayed. People may not be aware of the connection between their “crazy” feelings and reactions and the traumatic events that are being replayed.”
Dr. Alane Daugherty in her book Unstressed explains that “we have two primary physiological drives that compete to dominate your system at any given point in time, your fear response drive and your calm-and-connection response drive. Each drive carries its own corresponding physiological imprint, and you can’t be grounded in both at once; one or the other is dominant.”
Alone in the dark with my heart racing and my mind consumed with dread, I was in fear response drive. Deep in fear response drive.
Here is the victory, friends. Thanks to the work I have being doing with my counselor of late, I began to focus on my breath. I began to ground myself through my senses asking what I can touch? What can I hear? What can I feel? What can I smell? Slowly and full of gratitude, I began to be drawn into the present moment and I became still. I took a true inventory of everything around me. In these moments, it can be hard to distinguish what is real and what is not due to the chemical imbalance in my brain as a result of the childhood abuse; but gratitude was begging me to feel self-empathy. To feel compassion and to feel hope. Something was begging me not to give in and give up.
Somatic therapy goes well beyond just treating the mind. It also treats the body and the nervous system. Chronic tension and painful emotions are healed at a cellular level. These therapies work by addressing the feedback loop that continually runs between the mind and the body; because, as we know, trauma gets trapped in our bodies.
Sometimes I cannot even get out of this spiral. Thankfully, I did today. I got in my car. I felt my hands on the steering wheel. I felt my back against the driver’s seat. I felt the breath filling my chest and relaxing it. I turned the car on. I asked God to watch over me. I asked Him to get me to the swim center so I could move and rebalance the dysregulated hormones in my brain. I found myself breathing more rhythmically; and I made it, friends. I made it!
It is said by the sages that a person cannot exist in a place of fear and true gratitude at the same time and gratitude is the doorway to divine intervention, which allows us to be guided by our connection with the Creator. Gratitude moves stagnant energy when we are feeling stuck in life. The simple act of practicing gratitude disrupts negative thoughts and changes our mindset to see the world in a positive way.
I have so much to be grateful for. I am grateful for you. I am grateful for the love you show me each week. I am grateful for the Love that binds us all together each and every moment of every day. I will hold onto that. Yes. I will hold onto that. Please join me in doing the same.
Have you ever experienced something like this? Please share your story in the comments below so others know they are not alone. Thank you for your bravery.
Until next time, friends.