“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” – Khalil Gibran
The Healing Journey
Two years ago, I began learning Reiki after a few months of getting Network Spinal chiropractic adjustments and psychotherapy for childhood trauma. Reiki bolstered the work I was already doing to heal. Helping to facilitate healing in what felt like a more in depth and swift manner. Furthermore, I began doing Kundalini yoga and Tai Chi Chen to feel more in my body. Being able to feel more in my body helped me feel safe. When I felt safe, healing seemed to occur in a more integrated manner.
Looking back over the past two plus years as I healed, I had uncomfortable symptoms and bodily sensations, felt strong emotions and had intense realizations. Now, I welcome these healing signs. I know that just beyond them is clarity and calm. The path of healing is difficult. Often I did not feel good. I remember saying, how much more do I have to do to feel better?. Often I wanted to quit.
I now know that healing is ongoing. Many compare healing trauma to peeling an onion, as one layer heals another layer arises to heal. What I learned is that with each layer of healing the onion changes hence you change. My life is increasingly better and more rich as I heal. I face each new challenge as a more integrated and strong person. This allows me to heal quicker with more wisdom than before.
Further more, while healing, I was frustrated and confused. The more I was healing the more I experienced what I consider to be unexpected signs of healing. Identifying that healing was truly taking place, even in what seemed like strange ways, gave me the courage to continue. Thus, I began to recognized and honor the following five startling signs of healing trauma.
1. Anger
The kind of anger that accompanied my healing was explosive. I often screamed into pillows. If I was swimming, I would scream under the water. The more I healed, I could identify where my anger came from. I can now identify where in my body I am holding anger to release it more easily.
In the initial stages of healing anger, it seemed to arise spontaneously. I would be angry for an entire day and not seem to shake it. In fact, early on, I was unable to identify that what I was feeling was actually anger. A bodily example of this, was that I would cough a lot. However, the cough did not seem linked to an illness. I later learned that coughing is a way that the body releases anger.
My jaw was often tight. In fact, my jaw line looked much larger than it does now. Anger was being held in my jaw. I might overreact in a angry way to a small situation and not realize I was expressing anger for a past hurt. When anger begins to arise in these ways, or for no obvious reason, I recognize that something new is coming into my awareness to be healed.
2. Crying
I remember beginning to cry more readily and often. I cried at moments that seemed to make no sense to me. Heart-warming and sad stories alike made me cry. There was a marked difference between this kind of crying and the crying I did before I began healing.
During healing the crying felt like I was crying for others or the whole world; this might be akin to intense empathy or compassion. However, it felt more like a deep grief I was releasing. Through healing I grieved the way I thought my life should have been. Or, the childhood I wished I had.
I grieved who I might have been had the trauma not occurred. I cried about the time I had lived so shut down from fun and joy. The better choices I might have made if I was more aware of how to heal made me cry. I remember crying non stop for hours even while walking down the street. It felt as though the tears were pouring out and I could not stop them. I learned that crying was a sign of healing denial. Each tear was releasing sadness I had carried for many years.
3. Vomiting
When I started to remember more about being raped as a teenager, I began to vomit. I did not vomit all the time. Usually following a dream about the incident I would vomit. When more memories came to my awareness I might vomit for a few days.
In the beginning, I did not correlate vomiting with my memories of what happened. Later I learned that when our bodies and minds begin to remember a trauma, especially one that we can not digest at the time, we might vomit. The vomiting was not connected to an illness and lasted for several months on and off. The vomiting began to decrease as I progressed with EMDR sessions, which helped me better digest what happened.
Now, if I feel food start to come up into my throat, similar to indigestion, I pay attention to what is happening in my life. I ask, what I do I not want to digest?. In conclusion, vomiting is not a beautiful sign of healing, but a powerful sign that the body is purging what it no longer needs so it can heal beyond it.
4. Pain
I had neck pain for many years. A pattern began to emerge and it was clear that the neck pain related to remembering being raped. I was holding my body in tension as though the rape was taking place. I was able to correlate this through EMDR and Network Spinal Chiropractic sessions, which safely brought back memories of the trauma.
Healing needed to happen so I felt safe enough to release the pain in my neck. My neck was carrying itself in a fear mode for many years. This pain occurred even before I remembered what happened because as I learned, our body remembers trauma. My body reacted to trauma triggers in my environment with neck pain before I was consciously aware of these triggers.
The neck pain I had for years would increase or flare up almost as if to avoid looking at trauma. Many other pains were present in my body. I did not listen when my body told me to slow down or rest. I felt more comfortable disconnected from my body where I could hide from the truth of my trauma. From my experience, pain increased as I began to heal. Pain also showed up in new places on my body as more memories surfaced. The more healing I needed the more the pain arrived to be resolved.
5. Nightmares
For me an increase in dreams and the intensity during them signals healing. I learned that dreaming about trauma means that I am processing it in order to heal. In fact, any dreams that I had meant I was subconsciously healing. At first this did not make sense to me, especially if I had a nightmare.
The very fact I was dreaming and remembering them was a great sign of healing. I now understand that healing is occurring continuously, awake or asleep. Awareness is ever present. Increasingly, I could face fearful moments in my dream and look at it. I would have healing insights as I remembered dreams upon waking. If a dream woke me from my sleep it always carried a healing message.
I share these here because when I experienced the above unexpected signs of healing, I had no reference to the fact that they meant I was healing. During this time, I thought I was sick. I thought something was medically wrong with me. Mentally, I didn’t think I could handle healing anymore. Furthermore, I wondered how could this be healing? I thought healing only felt good. In retrospect, the intensity of the above signs was showing me just how much healing needed to happen. These things still occur for me, but in a more gentle way.
To sum up,
If you are on a healing path and you are experiencing any of the above signs or if they increase in intensity, take heart. You are healing. You are healing at a tremendous rate despite how it might feel or present itself in your life. Pay attention and listen to what these signs have to share with you. From my experience, the more you notice them, the more they will ease. And, the more you will be encouraged to continue seeking professional help to heal.