Tag Archives: David Berceli

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!)

An open invitation to join an experiment in well-being

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A reader, Martie in South Africa, commented on an older post, Holotropic breathwork compared to trauma releasing exercises, and said:

I first heard about TRE last year Sept. Since then I have bought the book “The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times” by David Berceli; spend hours and weeks on the internet reading up as much as I can (actually the info is few and far between and quite hard to find!). I have met up with other people who have done the course, and we have swapped some stories and experiences. I would like to learn as much as I can about this process ;-) . Sadly I think the course prices are way over priced (for my budget anyway), so I am going the DIY route.

I invited Martie to participate in the Chronic Stress and Trauma Recovery Challenge that starts Feb. 2, which I announced yesterday on this blog.

And now I’m inviting you. Here are the criteria for participating:

  • you want to enhance your well-being
  • you’ve been under prolonged stress at some point in your life
  • you’ve experienced trauma at some point in your life
  • you like discovering what really works
  • you’d like to contribute to the body of knowledge about a technique designed to help people recover from trauma by releasing it from their bodies
  • you’re interested in finding out if this technique works for releasing chronic stress

If any of those criteria inspire you, please consider participating for any or all of this challenge. You can’t do it wrong! I’m doing it a certain way, but anyone who does these exercises even once is welcome to participate and comment on your experience.

I’m trying to build a body of knowledge here, because as Martie and many others and I have found, there’s not a lot of anecdotal information available in one place about using this technique to release trauma and stress and improve well-being. It holds great promise, if you can imagine a world where no one is overly or chronically stressed or traumatized.

All it costs is the price of the book or video, you doing the exercises at least once (but hopefully several times or even as often as I do) in February and March, and reporting on your experience in the comments on this blog.

When it’s over, I’ll compile all our experiences into one long, organized blog post (or maybe a page) that anyone can find when they google “trauma releasing exercises”.

Announcing the Chronic Stress and Trauma Recovery Challenge

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On February 2, after completing the 21-day gratitude challenge, I am starting a new challenge, the Chronic Stress and Trauma Recovery Challenge.

One topic that consistently draws people to this blog is David Berceli’s trauma releasing exercises, as described in his book, The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times, and seen in his video, Trauma Releasing Exercises Step by Step Video Instruction and Demonstration.

I’ve posted about them several times and done them at least a dozen times.They aren’t hard to learn or do — you just have to be able-bodied.

Although I have experienced trauma in my distant past, my take on these exercises is that they are very helpful for releasing chronic stress, which is much more common than trauma in today’s world.

It’s been estimated that as many as 90 percent of doctor’s visits are for problems related to stress. So let’s do something to decrease stress!

Besides, I need to do these exercises consistently, and I want to make it fun and useful for others, so I’m inviting you to join me in creating an online resource of anecdotal reports about the effects of doing these exercises. I would love to have your input!

  • Ever had a job you disliked or got burned out on and couldn’t just leave because of your mortgage/insurance/retirement? That’s chronic stress.
  • Ever had a difficult colleague/customer/boss/partner who seemingly loved to make your life miserable, whom you couldn’t just tell off because you’d get fired/dumped? That’s chronic stress.
  • Ever tried to work and take care of your spouse, kids, and aging parents, putting yourself last? And throw in a difficult commute or special-needs family member? That’s chronic stress.
  • Ever been consumed with worry, so that your health suffered? That’s chronic stress.

Ask yourself this:

How relaxed am I?

Is relaxation a distant memory?

Is relaxation something I only experience with alcohol or an expensive vacation or pharmaceuticals?

What can I do to release tension from my body in a healthy way?

Do I do this often enough to experience life for most of every day in a relaxed state?

If any of these questions hit home, please consider participating in this challenge. Your participation doesn’t have to exactly match mine. Do what you can, and I’d love to hear about your experience.

Trauma recovery experimenters are welcome to take part and report too. That is what this process is designed for.

Here’s how the challenge works (and if I am the only one, I will happily be the lone nut curious enough to do this and learn something useful to share):

  1. If you don’t have the book or video, order them now. The links above will take you to Amazon.com.
  2. On February 2, do the exercises. They take 20-30 minutes. I’ll be doing them and reporting here, and you can share your experience in the comments.
  3. For the rest of February, do the exercises on even-numbered days. Report as needed.
  4. In March, do them twice a week on your own schedule. Report significant changes in the comments.
  5. At the end of March, notice what has changed in your body, attitude, sense of well-being, emotions, vices, and other aspects of your life that may be attributable to doing these exercises and letting go of stress. Share in the comments!
  6. Learn to recognize what your unstressed body feels like and what the signals are that you need to do the exercises. This is a skill.

That’s it! This is qualitative research, health and well-being improvement, and community service, folks. I’d love to receive and share your contributions. Maybe we can make the world a better place while benefitting ourselves!

Any questions before we start? Feel free to email me at mareynolds27 at gmail dot com.

Holotropic breathwork compared to trauma releasing exercises

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I finally did holotropic breathwork yesterday evening with Patrice. It’s also known as rebirthing, since if you do it enough times, apparently you get back to, and release the trauma from, your birth experience.

I had no sense of time, memory, or when I acquired the energies I released. But release I most certainly did.

Patrice was a great coach. I didn’t know what to expect as she had me start exhaling through my mouth, then after a bit, adding inhalations through my mouth. (Both of these are such a no-no in yoga!)

She told me what I might expect (shouting, shaking, crying, coughing, all forms of physical/emotional release) and made it all sound perfectly okay to experience whatever came up for me. She helped me feel that it was safe to surrender.

She warned me not to fall asleep — that some people do that as a way to escape their emotions.

She did not have to worry about that!

Patrice had put a few needles in key points, including LI4 (associated with the ego and being grounded), and at various times, she moved her hands on my body to support the energy flow. She may have also done some medical qi gong (like reiki) on me. I wasn’t paying that much attention to her after a while…

Then we sped up the breathing. And nothing happened. The exhales were supposed to have a “ha!” sound to them, and after about 5 minutes of this, I started laughing. My ha! ha! ha!s became hahahahahaha’s. She laughed with me.

‘Cause, you know, it was totally ridiculous to be doing this! Ridiculously funny and silly and wonderful!

Then I coughed a little and that felt good so I coughed some more. Patrice helped me sit up on the table. Then I started roaring… It was like some energy was coming up from my stomach out my mouth, and it was fierce and loud, and I got red in the face several times as it just kept coming up and out of me.

And then my eyes started tearing and water gathered in my mouth, and I thought I was going to throw up. Patrice got a wastebasket.

And you know what? I never did, and she  told me later she knew that I wouldn’t. But I didn’t know that. I was vomiting something. It felt real. It just wasn’t food. It was some nasty energy that had been inside of me, now coming out.  Then that urge was over.

I laid back down. More of the ha ha ha. Faster! Sharper!

My legs soon wanted to move. Soon they were shaking involuntarily, much like in David Berceli’s trauma releasing exercises, except that my legs were straight with just a little support under my knees, instead of with my knees bent. My left hand also shook, but not my right — just like when I do the trauma releasing exercises.

I went through cycle after cycle of leg shaking. I even repeatedly kicked something out of my body (which I never do with TRE), then went back to leg shaking. The kicking seemed to be removing something energetic from my sacrum, which (if you know me or have been reading this blog regularly) is where some ancient issues have been residing in my body.

After awhile, I slowed down on the ha’s, drawing them out, making them long, and at the beginning of each exhalation, my legs would start quivering, and by the end of the exhalation, they were nearly still.

Winding down… At the end, Patrice was just rubbing my belly gently. I laid there, getting more and more still, feeling the surge of electrical energy in my body, just like after TRE.

Patrice said later that I was putting out so much heat, she had to open the door and let some cool air in. I was totally unaware of that.

I feel so grateful that I had the core strength and the stamina to stay with the process all the way through. Thank you, yoga!

So… to compare holotropic breathwork to David Berceli’s trauma releasing exercises from his book The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process…

The holotropic breathwork overuses the diaphragm, the breathing muscle. The trauma releasing exercises overuse the leg and hip muscles. With both, you deliberately create a state of overload or stress in the body, and the release brings up deeper stuff.

The trauma releasing exercises don’t include noise. I liked being noisy. But you can do the TREs in a hotel room and/or alone, so there you have it. Make noise if it works for you! There’s a place for them both.

The holotropic breathwork should definitely be done with a guide present, because you could get so wild, you might hurt yourself. (Apparently people do this in groups. That must be quite an experience!)

You can do the trauma releasing exercises alone, without a guide. At least, I’m guessing most of us can. For someone who’s recently been traumatized, it is probably best to have a guide present.

So, having heard of holotropic breathwork but not knowing what it is before doing it, this was my experience. And afterwards, Patrice gave me a compliment — that I went through a nice range of emotions.

I liked it. I want to do it again.

Another book influences meditation

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I recently read the book Trauma Releasing Exercises by David Berceli, kindly lent to me by John Daniewicz, a member of my sangha, after we had a wide-ranging discussion that included healing from trauma.

Berceli came up with a set of seven physical exercises based on bioenergetics whose purpose is to tire the leg and hip muscles so that they tremble, quiver, and shake. He did this after spending time in war zones in Africa and the Middle East, wanting to find a way to help victims, witnesses, and caregivers release trauma energy from their bodies without psychotherapy. Some cultures don’t include psychotherapy, and some circumstances make it impossible.

The trembling releases the energy frozen in the body from trauma or prolonged stress (which in my view and some others’ has the same effect on the body as a true trauma).

I’ve been doing the exercises a couple of times a week. They take 20-30 minutes to do. At the end, I lie on the floor, knees up, with my legs going through cycles of fine tremors, visible quivering, and gross muscle shaking.

When I feel done, I just straighten my legs and the trembling stops.  I feel more present.

Berceli has a newer, more sophisticated version of the book, The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process. Both are available on amazon.com.

The exercises are pretty much the same in both books. (By the way, the latter book got 5 stars from all 21 reviewers on Amazon, pretty remarkable in itself.)

There’s a video too, which I haven’t seen.

I think everyone should at least know about the exercises, and if you’ve ever had trauma in your life or been a caregiver to traumatized people or been under prolonged stress, please consider actually doing them, no matter how long ago it was.

This is definitely remedial work, but the more we can let go of the past, even as it resides in our bodies, the more capacity we have for being present, in my opinion.

And that’s how I tie this topic into my meditation blog. It’s about cultivating presence, and this helps.