Coming Home - My Journey From Trauma to Homeostasis
Coming home, what does that mean to you? Is home a place, a person or a thing? Maybe it’s a song, a painting or a piece of writing that makes you feel at home.
Whatever it is, home should be a sanctuary, a comfort zone. Somewhere to truly be yourself, let go, make memories, shut the world out and build a stable future. As we all know, this doesn’t always apply to the house you live in, some homes are not a safe space.
As a Taurean, home is important to me, yet as someone who is constantly living in different rooms, cities and countries, I’ve had to really investigate this notion of home and what it means.
I’ve been called to explore how I can nurture the desire to be grounded, safe and comfortable, whilst recognising that for me this doesn’t necessarily mean being in one place for any length of time. It’s one of my big life lessons I’m sure of that, something I’m here to learn. And probably a helpful lesson for us all.
Nurture the Home Within
I am learning to build a strong and stable foundation within myself. Everything else around me changes, all the time. In the past, my appetite for travel and inability to stay in one place for more than five minutes actually really affected my mental health. At times I would find myself very emotional and unsettled. I loved change so much but also hated it! This posed real conflict within.
But as you know, where there’s conflict or resistance, there’s growth. So I’ve made it my main mission in life to find peace within me wherever I choose to go, whoever with, and whatever comes my way.
And what I’ve learnt along the way is how important it is for all living beings to feel safe. The world feels more and more unpredictable, our generation have grown up with a very uncertain future looming over us.
Whilst we continue to comply with the social rules that may well no longer apply; with pensions and mortgages, car finance and long-term loans, there’s an underlying lack of trust that these things will actually support us as the system seems to crumble between our fingers.
People Are Struggling - You’re Not Alone
So what does this instability mean on an individual level? And how can you build a solid foundation within? Here I share a snippet of my story in case it’s a helpful perspective.
I’m doing much training about the effects of trauma and external life circumstances on the body and mind. Fascinating research is unfolding regarding the growing levels of anxiety experienced by individuals worldwide. Millions of people function day to day in a low-level anxiety state. This is deemed normal, however, it’s draining for the body and means deeper healing can’t happen. No one is running off a full tank at the moment, the world is weird, news is negative and people are hurting. We all feel the instability in the air.
Dr. Aimie Apigian explains how anxiety is a normal neurobiological response to trauma, it is an internal function that occurs to ultimately keep you safe. The body goes into a high metabolic state to ensure it’s ready to fight or run. The heart rate increases, breath becomes shorter and shallower, the stomach churns, palms get clammy, you may feel fidgety and irritable. These are symptoms experienced by many on a daily basis.
This state consumes large levels of energy which drains the system of essential nutrients, including magnesium, vitamin b6 and zinc. These vitamins are crucial for the normal functioning of the immune system and autonomic nervous system.
Eventually, this state can lead to fatigue and collapse associated with the body’s freeze response. Dr. Aimie Apigian states trauma sufferers will often get stuck in one of these states, or move between fight, flight and freeze. It becomes a vicious cycle.
I don’t mean to dilute people’s experience of acute and chronic trauma and lump it together with anxiety and stress as the same thing. It’s absolutely not the same thing, there are many different levels of trauma and no single experience is the same.
What I’m saying is that anxiety, a physical response that tells us we’re unsafe, is experienced as a norm by many people, and it’s a central part of the trauma response.
Daily stress, anxiety and tension, if left to build and fester and not managed healthily, can be a cause of bigger trauma. A key aspect of dealing with anxiety or trauma is safety - to feel safe and secure in the present. Whether that’s acute, chronic, complex, or more regular stressful scenarios that can lead us to hold tension in the body, a notion of safety is paramount for anyone trying to heal.
Which is why I speak about this concept of coming home - to a place within myself that’s safe enough for my nervous system to regulate.
Surviving
My own recent journey of coming home was triggered by a family suicide under toxic circumstances. Coupled by the huge life changes caused by the pandemic, the recent Ukraine-Russia war and if you’re from the UK or surrounding nations, Brexit. These meta-changes have an impact on a personal level.
I can only explain this feeling of coming home as a remembering of what it’s like to feel safe. I now realise that over the last year or so my nervous system and immune system were seriously out of wack.
Physically and energetically I was functioning from a place of fear, fight, flight and arousal. I was surviving. It’s crazy how relatively normal that felt; how normalised this is in our culture. Because the more I learn about trauma, anxiety, somatics, and the interconnection between body, mind and spirit, the more I realise how common it is to function this way.
Through this learning, I’m also able to make sense of what I experienced. The increased heart rate, the chronic exhaustion, the insomnia, the disassociation, the physical imbalances and ailments.
These were all part of a trauma response. These were my body telling me in no uncertain terms: Something’s wrong. Something’s misaligned.
Recent research indicates that trauma, anxiety and stress must be approached through the body, because what happens externally becomes a very physical and real internal experience. We can tell our story over and over again, but anxiety needs to be healed physiologically - a holistic approach is necessary.
Dr Aimie Apigian says the way to healing is through the body, at a cellular level. This includes feeling grounded, safe and secure in the present to allow the nervous system to reprogram and the body to return to homeostasis. There is much work and individual complexity in healing trauma and anxiety, the work does not stop at feeling safe, but from what I’ve learnt, it starts there. And in my experience, feeling safe was absolutely imperative to my healing journey.
I finally feel I'm coming back home to myself, to a place of safety, where my nervous system can be at peace and regulated. This coming home has involved:
a period of focused and intentional healing
surrounding myself with supportive people and practices
connecting back with my roots, my friends, family and loved ones
having a grounded base
regular sessions with a yoga mentor
journaling and creative writing
yoga, restorative yoga, breathwork, reiki, massage
daily meditation and moving through wobbly bits
taking supplements including magnesium, vitamin b6 and zinc
inspiring conversations with people I trust
making difficult yet freeing decisions
breaking ties with toxic or unsupportive relationships
being present through discomfort
reclaiming my power
most importantly being compassionate when I don't do any of these things, and trusting that I'm exactly where I need to be, no matter what state I find myself in.
And let me mention that the main event that triggered the chronic trauma happened 18 months ago. Processing of grief, trauma or stressful stimuli doesn’t happen overnight, it is a long and oscillating journey. In and out and round and round, revisiting and distancing, loving and learning.
There were plenty of times when I dismissed my experience and didn’t think that this new feeling of continual low-level anxiety was a response to something that happened a year ago. There were times when I thought it was just me being rubbish. I blamed myself. I didn’t understand why I was so exhausted and had no energy, why for a year I couldn’t sleep, why my heartbeat was fast and I couldn’t catch my breath, why my body was hurting. I blamed my own lack of zest rather than realising that these are all physical responses to my body not feeling secure; life had shown me nothing was definite anymore and bad things are happening. My body put up its defences against this.
Come Home To Yourself
There is such a sweetness in learning to love the whole of me. That includes holding myself compassionately when life is really hard.
When I feel low I make sure I love myself as I would wish for another to love me. I look in the mirror and if I don't like what I see, I say I love you exactly as you are, you're beautiful. When I feel like I'm failing and everything I do feels clumsy or in vain, I hold myself, remind myself that I'm doing my best, and that success doesn't come without the courage to fail. When I'm angry inside, I shake my body in all directions, every part of my body and especially the parts that are screaming inside, I shake it out until the world shudders then slowly come back to myself.
Humans are supposed to feel, all ranges of emotion. It's what we do with those emotions that's important. Emotion often gets internalised and packed up in the body to fester, or alternatively projected out, hurting other people through subconscious outbursts. It's important to feel the spectrum of emotions we're blessed to experience, and then to let them go. Attachment is what causes most suffering.
Learn to experience yourself as home. As a loving space, a comfort blanket, a sanctuary and a place to grow and invest in yourself as your future. You can’t control the weather, but you can nurture the ship.
I’m fortunate to have the tools and access to information to heal myself through this time, but I’m aware that many don’t. This is why a regular practice of yoga, meditation or journaling is such a helpful anchor - through life’s daily stressors and when the metaphorical shit hits the fan. If you’re reading this and recognise that you’re struggling from trauma, seek professional guidance, reach out to a trauma professional who can support you in your journey back home.
January Online Retreat
I’m running an online retreat in January to encourage you to make your home into a sanctuary and nurture peace within you. It is becoming more widely acknowledged that we need rest and nourishment to prepare for a new growth cycle in Spring. In this way we can use nature's natural cycles as a template for our own rhythms and honour that regenerative process in ourselves.
This course invites you to create a nurturing sanctuary in your home in the quiet depths of January and tune into the beat of your own drum before life starts to speed up again.
You will receive:
🕊 daily meditations 🕊 chakra work
🕊 pre-recorded yoga classes 🕊 mantra, affirmations & journaling
🕊 2 x live yoga sessions with me 🕊 seasonal poetry
🕊 daily self-care 🕊 January nurture activity suggestions
🕊 nourishing recipe ideas
4th - 18th January 2023, £30 (£25 concessions)
To book your place, just tap here
