Knowing you survived emotional trauma leaves a residue of unprocessed feelings locked in your neuromuscular system, taking up space and requiring energy and effort to keep them submerged.

As you unlock those blocks, the feelings will come to consciousness and give you a chance to complete the experiential processing that was interrupted by the trauma.

At the time they initially occurred, you blocked those feelings from conscious because they were too painful or scary to experience. When they come back in again, they will still feel painful or scary however…you can soften that pain and fear somewhat by strengthening your sense of safety and support, and by dismantling your defenses at a slow and controlled rate rather than all at once.

But the feelings may still seem scary and hard to experience now just as they were then. You have one big edge now that not have at the time of the original trauma, though – the knowledge that you survived!

When the trauma was occurring you did not know that you would survive! There was an actual threat to your survival.

So when you re-experience feelings now, they may seem just as scary as they did then, because they are still the same feelings. But you know now what you did not know then- that you survived and made it through, that you are here in a physically safe and supportive environment, choosing to re-experience the feelings in order to neutralize the hold they have had on you.