Part 3: FINDING SELF

The Long Road to Love 

Long ago, in a city in the desert, after the death of a boyfriend, I started therapy. And so I entered into a long period of being terrified to sit across from someone. After about eight years of individual and group therapy, I went to an endocrinologist and found out my body had stopped making estrogen—which I now know is a stress response from compound trauma.

A few years later, after getting married and having two babies, in line with my profession of being a licensed Massage Therapist, I started studying Neurovascular Integration with Dr. Cathy Holway. This is a gentle, hands-on way of ‘listening’ to the inner communication systems of our bodies — and it was the beginning of my meeting the inner flows, rhythms and energies that we all have inside us.

But 15 years later, in a polyvagal class, I realized I was still terrified in group settings, even when learning about the autonomic nervous system, trauma, and Adverse Childhood Experiences.

Soon after, I joined a two-year pre- and perinatal study group. In this safe, slow, connected setting, in which we often broke out into smaller groups, my fear of being seen could be met with safety and support; it could be metabolized and changed. It was here we met, named and re-patterned our preverbal imprints.

Along with a daily breathing and meditation practice, my experiences in this group shifted and healed more for me than 10 years of therapy.  

For the first time in my life, I learned to feel safe in my body in the presence of other people. I began to feel my emotions instead of being terrified and trapped by them. 

Three months later, I was in grad school trying to make sense of everything that happened. Through research, I am beginning to understand the complexities of the world we live in. Systems of oppression, racism, coloniality, neoliberal capitalism, patriarchy and imperialism have been around for millenia. Their influence has been imprinting our nervous systems for generations. 

Ownership of humans, dehumanization, us versus them, gender inequity, individual comfort justifying excessive resource extraction and justified violence are happening everyday. 

Many of these seem invisible to those of us with white privilege, but generational trauma, environmental chemicals, medications, beliefs, and inequitable traditions and systems all imprint our nervous systems. They survive, hidden in the silence of our cultural norms and our unconscious psyches always undergirded by oppressive social constructions, systems and structures.

So in the midst of all of that, why does it really matter how we come into the world?

Because how we come into the world is THE first imprint on every person’s undeveloped nervous system.

It wasn’t until I understood that what had happened to my undeveloped nervous system directly affected my ability to be authentically aware, present, and relational, that my healing was able to begin.

But even more important than my knowing what happened, was my being able to name how meeting what happened started my healing. 

Being in a small group of three almost-strangers, I was able to meet the discomfort of confusion, pain, sadness, disconnect and fear within myself. In an intentionally feminine space, slowly and quietly, in relational love, my nervous system was able to find regulation. 

This meant I was able — for the first time — to start feeling sensations in my belly, to perceive what was real inside of me, and to begin finding an authentic sense of self.

These days, I’m finding the ability to know if I’m safe wherever I go — mostly. From my own sensations and awareness. I am starting to be able to own my feelings of overwhelm instead of projecting them onto others (which is a subject for another day).

My combination of pre- and perinatal birth imprints, having a high ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) score, 2 surgeries under the age of 5, and a history of childhood sexual abuse, would now be called complex PTSD. Only recently am I able to understand this is not ‘normal’. This foundational background also helps me to understand a little more about why other people become violent. 

The effects of my birth experiences and adverse upbringing left me without a sense of self for most of my life. I didn’t know what ‘I’ wanted or needed. Anesthesia, medication imprints left me feeling like I was separated from those around me. The compounding of traumatic events stopped my ability to perceive myself and others, and kept in me background hypervigilance and fear, influencing all my behavior and decisions. I wanted to connect, to feel love, and to understand others, and I couldn’t.

Situations such as my own, precipitate dehumanizing processes. Othering, ownership and the justification of violence are easy when we cannot connect to ourselves and others. While in this nervous system state, I have said and done things that harmed others, even while having a life of privilege. 

With a 30-70% chance of being born with medications and c-sections, and a 67% chance of at least one adverse childhood experience, there is a strong chance that having a clear sense of self and inner-knowing will be compromised for many, many people. 

I would now like to help others become aware of negative imprints, and to heal.