14/08/2023
Hello everyone,
It has been a while since I’ve dropped an update here and a rollercoaster ride since I last posted. It has been really tough for me after the cyclone in February devasted the area I was living in with my son & Sarah. We had front row seats as it passed right through Dartmoor. The damage to people and places was sobering. However, what I am becoming more aware of is the long-term effects on myself and the larger community. I have noticed that when talking with clients or friends, even those people not physically affected by the cyclone, people seem to be feeling the collective anxiety, loss, uncertainty and sometimes survivor guilt. I start to understand, like I never could before, how a natural disaster has an effect on the mind/body. For a lot of people, myself included, the trauma can sink into the body as stress and leave us feeling vulnerable and less resilient to the challenges ahead.
Yet while this period has been one the hardest times of my life, it has also given me some insight. In situations like these, we can feel overwhelmed by the need (or lack of ability) to fix things, create change or do something to help the situation. But very often we cannot affect things outside of ourselves. We can’t control the weather, when the bridges will be built, how our jobs and livelihoods are affected or sometimes whether we can any longer live in our houses.
The only thing we can control is how we are in ourselves, how we choose to feel and respond to the world around us. My antidote to the overwhelm is to be present in the moment, allowing everything to be just as it is. To find the peace and positivity that is available from within us and to show kindness to ourselves for the difficulties in our experience. Dealing with stress and anxiety can take a great deal of energy. Healing trauma is about reconnecting parts of ourselves that had being disconnected or overridden, whether that be a part of the body or an unacknowledged feeling.
I bring this approach now to my massage therapy. It is well understood that stress can be a leading cause of disease as it affects every body system. So, it follows... (continued in comments)...
