Update: In Feb. 2011, I started my Chronic Stress and Trauma Recovery Challenge. Click the link to read about it. If you’ve done them even once, I’d love for you to comment on your experience(s).
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I wrote about them in my earlier post entitled “Another Book Influences Meditation,” about the book The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process by David Berceli.
I’ve been doing David Berceli’s trauma releasing exercises a couple of times a week for over a month now. This morning I did them and changed it up a bit: during the seventh exercise, when I was lying on my back, knees bent, soles on floor, my legs were cycling through bouts of shaking and stillness. During the still periods, I could feel an electric current running through my legs, and then the shaking would begin again.
This time on impulse, I raised my forearms straight up and just gave my hands a little shake. Immediately, involuntary shaking began in my forearms, which lasted some time. Even when my legs cycled into stillness, my forearms kept shaking.
(Note: When I spontaneously released the blockages from an old trauma while reading Waking the Tiger, my forearms as well as my legs shook, and there was a pins-and-needles sensation from the elbows down and the waist down. Haven’t encountered that sensation again.)
Then I raised my entire arms from the shoulders, and man, they just took off with the shaking. Eventually my right shoulder, but not my left, was also shaking.
This without deliberately stressing my arm muscles the way I do my leg muscles to incite shaking.
I shook for 20 minutes, and then I meditated.
Soon I realized that the parts of my body that had been shaking (legs, arms, and right shoulder) felt distinctively different from the parts that didn’t shake. The shaken parts felt lighter and cleaner, as if something heavy and a little murky had cleared out of my body.
Further incentive to keep doing these — I would like to experience all the parts of my body shaking, releasing stress and trauma, and feeling light and clean again.
The Q’ero believe only humans accumulate hucha. They remove it using breathing techniques. The Q’ero probably have never encountered anything like the stressful lives we modern Americans live. (I mentioned hucha and breathing techniques in an earlier post called “Body Scanning Practices.”)
Trauma releasing exercises release vast amounts of hucha.
They also have an effect similar to Carlos Casteneda’s description of recapitulation — you release “other” unclean energy and reclaim “your” clean energy, but without having to dredge up memories one by one and fan your head back and forth with your breathing.
No images, no sounds, no words are required with Berceli’s exercises. They are a purely kinesthetic way of releasing hucha/trauma.
That makes them elegant and accessible.
Aloha love, so glad you are experimenting with TRE; I am finding some amazing body sensations, all sorts and forms of tremors, shakes, shivers, rocking … some I never knew my body was capable of … even spontaneously went into Fire Breath tonight … after doing Ha Prayer with ENLP group; missed you. Hope to share more TRE stories and see you again soon.
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I’m glad to hear about the arm shaking as I started having that too. I have the TRE video and I didn’t see any of that, only leg and pelvis, and sometimes some upper torso movement. I sometimes put my arms together in like a “prayer” position and that gets it going easily. Question…do you ever get a lot of shaking in one or both feet? I have been. Also, I was wondering if it is best to just allow the parts that are shaking the most to do their thing, or to try and get it more balanced, in a sense, or maybe more rhythmic. For example, if I lean on my right side my right leg/pelvis and left ab goes into intense shaking, but if I lean on my left side my left foot goes nuts. Is it “better” to try and balance it out, or just trust that what needs to shake will?
Learnt the TRE technique from a friend. After my 4th session (last night) I got up and my body started swaying at the hips, then shoulders went made, neck went into awesome neck rolls (felt a lot like yoga) and then an intense feeling from the centre of my belly, rolling upwards. Went on for at least an hour before I eventually went to bed to sleep. Just the one hand kept doing a little shake.
This morning on my way to work, my neck started rolling. Once at work I was standing telling my friend about this when my entire body started swaying and all morning (at least the last 4 hours) have been spent with my neck going into involantary neck rolls, shoulder rolls, back stretches,. It has finally stopped, but I am just a bit concerned. What does this mean?
It means you are unfreezing and coming alive, Jen! Do it as much as you can when it feels right. Enjoy and know it will eventually slow and become “more voluntary” when you’ve released more of your stress. Awesome to hear from you!
Wow, thanks for getting back to me so soon – you have put my mind at ease. My friend and I were laughing hysterically this morning as it just wouldn’t stop and then we started getting a little worried that it would NEVER stop. But this afternoon has been fine and when it starts again I will know it is normal and let it out!
Keep well
Jen
Sue, it sounds like you are in deep recovery mode. I haven’t experienced a lot of shaking in my feet, but maybe that’s because they’re on the floor???
I think it’s probably better to just trust that what needs to shake will shake. AND you can also notice what happens if you position yourself differently… As long as you aren’t repressing the shaking, it’s doing its job.