Category Archives: video

Neurogenic tremors

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I did the trauma releasing exercises tonight. I forgot to do them last night. : ( Lots going on.

I tried a shortcut and did the first exercise, standing on the right edges of my feet, for 30 seconds on each side. I didn’t repeat that 5 times, and it didn’t seem to make much difference. My body is programmed to release now.

I noticed tonight that I had longer pauses between bouts of releasing than I’ve experienced before. I would come completely to a stop, not knowing if they would start again. Sometimes I’d be still for 10 or 15 seconds before they started again.

I had waves of leg shaking, not just quivering.

I did some mild rocking at the same time my legs were quivering. That’s different.

I had one bout of wild releasing from my left shoulder and arm.

After 20 minutes, I straightened my legs, and then they started shaking again! My left arm had one last bout of shaking.

Then I laid on the floor, feeling the energy buzz. It was definitely stronger where I’d been shaking the most.

~~~

I found a video by David Berceli about neurogenic tremors. This video is copyrighted 2005 and posted in 2007, before the book.

Berceli doesn’t talk about the tremors in relation to trauma, but about how they assist in relaxation, pain relief, physiological changes, increased agility, and increased mobility in the pelvic and lower back areas.

You can watch it here. What do you think? Kind of sexy?

Today’s TRE experience

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I’ve got to load my yoga props in my car, scoot out the door, and head off to NLP master practitioner training, where I’m assisting, and then go directly to teach my restorative yoga class. So today, Feb. 6, my report will be short.

What I noticed this morning, sometime after I started doing the TRE exercises, is that my breathing had changed into quick inhalations through my nose and long, slow exhalations through my mouth. Like sighs. Sighs of relief, sighs of release. Ahhh.

Today I experienced more leg trembling and noticed a variety in the rhythms, from fast, hard shaking, which would slowly lessen, then come to a stop, and then repeat.

At times my knees were slamming into each other — good thing I’ve got a little padding there, or I might have bruises.

Only toward the end did I begin to do the pelvic rocking that rocks me all the way up my spine and head.

I stopped after 10 minutes because of time constraints. (Also, I confess, I only did Exercise 1 three times on each side.)

Here’s a video of Dr. David Berceli talking about how strange it looks and feels when you first do the TRE exercises. Basically he says it’s the ego that keeps us traumatized. In TRE, the body takes over from the ego. After the first minute or two, it feels relaxing.

Welcome to the Chronic Stress and Trauma Recovery Challenge!

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Good morning! It’s a lovely 18 degrees F. here in Austin, TX, with rolling blackouts occurring around the state as I write this due to the extreme demand for electricity. My old house is chill, and I’m lucky to be bi-powered, with gas and electricity.

If you don’t have the book, The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times, or the video, or if you’re completely lost about this work,check out these videos on YouTube:

  • Trauma & Tension Releasing Exercises, 1:37. This silent video first shows a captured polar bear trembling to release shock and stress from its body, and then it shows several people doing the same in a deliberately induced process (because we humans have mostly forgotten how to do this). You can get a sense from seeing the variety of ways that people tremble, shake, and rock that there’s not a “right way” to do it. Your body finds its own way to release stress and trauma, and that can look a bit different from person to person. If your body does something else, just surrender (but please keep yourself safe.)
  • Trauma Releasing Exercises, 3:58. This video shows a group of women at a workshop testifying about their experience, as well as some bits showing them doing the exercises. If you haven’t done them before, check out what the trembling can look like. Really clears out energy blocks in the lower chakras!
  • There are also a series of six videos, interviews with David Berceli, author of the book above, who developed these exercises. I haven’t seen them all yet.

I’m getting out my book and turning to page 144. Here goes!

Ahh. I stopped after 30 minutes so I could finish this post before my chiropractor appointment. Had a sense I could have gone for 5 more minutes.

Noticings:

  • I have been holding off on doing these, noticing stress in my body and wanting to really be ready to do these exercises for this challenge!
  • The floor was cold, even on a yoga mat, so I spread yoga blankets on it.
  • I do Version B of Exercises 2 and 3. What do you do?
  • I have to do Exercise 2 longer to feel stress in my calf. But then I can squat with flat feet, so my calves are pretty stretched out. Do you find that you need to do more of any exercise to feel the stress in your muscles?
  • I believe that Exercise 6 is really the tough core of the process. Today the trembling started just before I went into the third minute. I hung in there for five minutes! (I wonder if you were in a hurry and just did this one exercise, would your legs begin trembling? I will probably check that out at some point!)
  • Exercise 7 is the release! Whee! Today, mostly my legs trembled, but my hands shook at times as well, and when the trembling stopped, my body began to rock. I alternated, trembling and rocking, for 15 minutes.
  • My cat Mango curled up next to my side while I was on the floor trembling. Cats are very sensitive to good energy! Thank you, Mango!

All in all, today was a good start.

If anyone reading this in Austin, TX, is interested in doing these with me, please get in touch. I’d love to teach you or do these with you. If enough people are interested, I will look for a place to teach these for free or very low cost.

Meanwhile, until Feb. 26, there’s my house!

Since I’m doing these on even-numbered days in February, until Friday! (It may be an everything-closed-because-of-snow-and-ice day here in Austin, Texas!)

Day 14: Being a mad scientist, having a wise realtor, leaving home

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We’re two-thirds of the way through the 21-day gratitude challenge!

I’m grateful for the “mad scientist” aspect of my personality.

I’m happily dreaming up and promoting the next challenge, a two-month experiment in doing the trauma releasing exercises.

I’m an Aquarius, born Feb. 7. That sign suits me. (If the “new astrology” is real, I’d be a Capricorn, which doesn’t suit me.) I like experimenting and learning!

I have no idea if anyone will follow me, but I’m willing to be the “lone nut”. (Most Aquarians are.)

That lone nut reference is to a video about leadership lessons from dancing, which you can view here. Are you willing to be a first follower?

I’m grateful for the wise advice of my realtor, who told me not to meet with the buyer of my house until closing. Yesterday I did meet him, but we didn’t converse. His realtor, his inspector, a foundation repairman, and he all came by yesterday to move ahead with his plans for buying and remodeling the house.

I wondered about that advice, and then I realized how emotional it is to sell my home in which I’ve lived 10 years of my life.

It’s the end of an era, not just of the house, but in my life.

The buyer and I will close and I hope we’ll spend some time hanging out. I can tell him about the plants and what I would have done if I had remodeled.

I’m grateful for the 10 years in which this house has provided me a home. So much has happened in those 10 years: The jobs I’ve had that paid the mortgage and bills, the times I’ve been unemployed, the people who have lived or stayed here with me at various times, the work I’ve done and have had others do, the heartbreaks and disappointments, the fun, the moments of joy, the moments of incredible stillness and peace and bliss…

The me of 10 years ago didn’t know herself (or like herself) nearly as much as I do now.

This house is where I recovered from my major childhood trauma, and where I got present in my life and truly acknowledged from the depths of my being how lucky I am to have a community of friends and family.

The guests I’ve had!!!

The yoga I’ve done!!!

The meals I’ve cooked!!!

I’ll be blogging more about my gratitude for this house and the past 10 years over the next week.

A contract on house, relationship woes, and 1950s housewife takes LSD

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I’m up very early today, which is going to be a long one full of NLP training for master practitioners. It’s metaphor weekend!

Yesterday I gratefully signed a contract on my house! It feels really, really good, seven and a half weeks after listing it. It looks like the couple who saw it Thursday night for the first time and came back Friday to see it in the daytime are offering a backup contract, if the first one falls through.

Also yesterday, several people I care about were experiencing relationship difficulties. Feelings of disappointment, betrayal, anger, hurt, sadness, disrespect; expressing feelings, finding support, creating distance, moving on in some way. (Don’t try to make sense of this — I’m talking about several conflicts and people here. I’m sure you have experienced something similar — a loved one’s pain.)

I’m especially grateful to my Facebook friend Fran who asked this key question:

What is the lesson? Therein lies the silver lining!

Great question! Thank you, Fran!

I thought about it for a while. I got how my energy had gone out into each person’s hurting heart, feeling their pain. I got clear that these difficulties belonged to them (even if some were of their own making — like, “Man, what did you expect would happen? Snap to! You’re hurting someone!”), and that I could just simply extend my heart to them.

The pain is in discovering that the world is not as we believe it to be, that people are not who we believe they are. It is as it is, they behave as they behave.

if you can’t trust ’em, move on with those you can trust. if you betrayed someone’s trust, know it will probably never be the same. forgiveness, compassion, good boundaries solve a lot of problems. i hold them in the light.

And finally, today I am grateful for the wonderful finds on the internet. Here’s an old film from the 1950s where a normal housewife is given LSD and interviewed by a scientist on camera. Back when Technicolor was new. ; ) Enjoy!