Transcriber: Martina Esposito
Reviewer: Walaa Mohammed Have you ever, in your whole life,
been able to dance like nobody was watching you? I can remember as a little girl
when a good old song would come on. My mom would stop whatever she
was doing, turn up the music, grab my hands and start spinning
me around the kitchen. She was teaching me how to jitterbug
and how to do the banana split. Honestly, she’s a better lead
than any man I’ve danced with. Still to this day it brings me so
much joy, I get her to jitterbug. I ask her to jitterbug with me
any chance that I get. Somewhere between now and then, I lost that unbridled joy in dancing
that I had as a little girl. And at dancing events, as an adult, this
extreme anxiety would come over. I would physically freeze
and be unable to dance. I realized this familiar freeze response
had a lot to do with an event that happened whenever
I was nine years old. I was too young to have seen
the story on the news. But being so connected to my
mother, as children are, I could sense something
terrible had happened. I learned later that, as an adult that my mother was driving one night
following my dad to his mistress’s house. She parked the car. Walked in. To confirm all of her suspicions. The mistress holds a 22 gun at my
mother and pulls the trigger. Somehow the bullet missed
every vital organ. It was as if it was a God guided bullet. Which is why my mom is alive and well
and able to dance with me today. How this trauma played out for me
as an adult was extremely dramatic. At any perceived threat of another woman
in my marriage this extreme anxiety
would come over. I would become overwhelmed
and feel as if catastrophe was coming. I would go into this deep freeze response, which for me looked like
being in a fetal position, unable to move or speak with anxiety
and terror flooding my system. With unresolved trauma we play out these
old patterns to resolve them. And we choose what's familiar
because it feels safe. I did this exact thing in my 30s, living with a man with no trust
or feelings of safety. Which kept me in survival mode. When we moved to Hawaii, I felt
like I had 0% energy. I was highly anxious, bloated all
the time, sleeping 12 hours a night. This was the start of a three and a half
year gut healing journey for me. I took all the tests. I had severe
adrenal dysfunction, my gut and my hormones were a wreck. I had intense bouts of lower back pain
and during this time, my hip flexor, my hip flexor strained over 30 times. Despite a daily yoga and
meditation practice, I was still highly anxious and tense. I was always trying to relax and calm
down more. It was not working. I knew I was missing
a huge piece of the puzzle. You see, I was a physical
therapist at the time. Always getting to the root
of people’s pain. But I couldn’t seem to fix myself. I realized I had underestimated the impact
unresolved trauma has on the nervous system and
on the physical body. Our nervous system acts like
a 24/7 surveillance system. And it signals us with cues
of safety or threat. It communicates to us through
physical sensation. Controls our heart and our breath rate,
our muscle tension, our pain tolerance. Even our willingness to connect
with other people. Essentially, I became obsessed with learning how to unfreeze
my nervous system. And even though I’d studied
neuroscience in my doctorate program, I still needed even more training. And I got very excited to study with
neuroscientist doctor Stephen Porges, whose research shows us how the nervous
system works on a practical level. Through his Polyvagal theory, he speaks
to two pathways of the vagus nerve, which is the longest cranial
nerve in the body and is in charge of our relaxation
or parasympathetic response. Now stay with me here. The dorsal branch of the vagus nerve, which is in charge of everything below our
diaphragm, is our freeze response. It acts like our brakes.
It immobilizes us. It feels like collapse. It feels like collapse, having little to
no energy in the body, and shows up as this pelvic rigidity. The ventral vagal branch, in charge of
everything above the diaphragm, is known as our social engagement system. It's responsible for that relaxed and
present state we all really want, which is called regulation. To unwind a chronic freeze response, we often will have a lot of activation
in the sympathetic nervous system. This is the side that acts like our
accelerator and mobilizes our energy. When we feel safe,
it feels like having great energy, being playful and being active. When we feel unsafe, you may know this very well
as the fight or flight response. Can feel like anger, anxiety.
Racing thoughts. Like you have so much energy in the body,
you just don't know what to do with it. And you might find it surprising that we often have to develop
this healthy relationship with our sympathetic nervous
system, meaning our fight response. This means a healthy relationship
with our anger and our power. For me, this looked like waking up with
ten out of ten energy during my divorce, taking myself to the ocean and just
letting it all out under the water. As you might know, anger can
be incredibly intense. And if we can stay connected to something
that feels pleasurable in the body. At the same time, it builds capacity
for us to move through that pain and that intensity. We know that that dorsal branch of the
vagus nerve goes from the brain all the way to the pelvic bowl. Our body’s pleasure center. So to unwind this pelvic rigidity, we have to learn to move the
body in new nonlinear ways, which looks like waves and spirals
and circular movements. As my nervous system became
more and more regulated, my low back pain went away. My digestion and my pelvic mobility
improved. My hip flexor. My hip flexor
finally stopped straining. The CDC says 1 in 6 adults experience
four or more childhood experiences or significant traumas. If we consider that 20% of adults
experience chronic pain, and that in Western medicine, the nervous system goes
largely unaddressed. There are likely a lot of people who
deserve the revelations I've had. Recently, I had a client with
a history of sexual trauma. Every symptom in the book brain
fog and chronic fatigue and debilitating migraines, all of which are gone now
since doing this work at the level of her nervous system. And she describes movement as an
essential part of her recovery, even though she had to start
very slow and simple because the chronic pain was so intense. Now, with intentional movement, she can prevent the migraines from coming
on, continue caring for her four kids, and is actively sharing her
gifts in the world. Trauma expert Peter Levine describes
trauma as a disconnection from the body, from our self, and from others. Like myself and my clients, so many humans experience chronic
dysregulation in the nervous system and don't even know it because
it's so familiar. We see this childhood trauma play out in
our adult relationships, don't we? And there is a way to rewire ourselves. The way out is in and through the body. If you've experienced trauma, it does
not have to stay stuck within you. If you've hit a plateau with talk therapy,
you can still change this. You have to learn how to do more
than just relax and calm down. Healing is not about never
being triggered again. It’s about developing
a responsive nervous system that can go effectively in and out
of these states. So here's my invitation for you. Play one song a day, one song a day
that matches your emotions. One song a day that allows you to express
what would normally go unexpressed. Put on music. Move your body authentically
how it wants to move. And then hunt for pleasure. After working for 20 plus years, one on one with clients,
I’ve learned that there are three things that most effectively unfreeze
the nervous system. And they are: emotional release, movement and connection. The first is emotional release. The state of our nervous system determines
our feelings and our behaviors. Repressed emotion is energy
that gets stuck in and needs to move through the body. I’m reminded of this client, couldn’t move her
shoulder past about here. As she worked through her old anger
and then her grief, we watched her shoulder gain
full mobility. I’d never seen anything like it. You can learn to self-regulate. Using your movements and your
sounds and your breath. To express outwardly what
you feel on the inside. This might look like screaming
under the ocean like me. Maybe it’s in the car,
can look like shaking. Can even look really playful. The second is movement. It’s part of emotional release. Step one. But we need to intentionally move
on a daily basis to regulate the nervous system. We, we can unwind that pelvic rigidity by moving in these waves and circles
and spirals. We can find pleasure through movement
and build confidence in the body again. One thing is certain. On the other side of your anger,
it will be your power, will be your power. You have to use your body to get there. Now, the third and most important
step is connection. Look at how many people experienced
anxiety and depression because of so much isolation during
the 2020 pandemic. This can help us understand how vital
connecting with others is to regulating the nervous system. Through these social nervous systems, we all need eye contact and physical
touch and connection. Our capacity to express our full emotional range
as humans is directly connected
to a healthy nervous system. Our ability to expand pleasure in the body increases our capacity to
move through pain and intensity. When you learn to regularly release
emotions through movement and intentionally connect with others,
your energy will inevitably free up. This is all so that you can access joy, and confidence and creativity to do the
thing you’re here for on the planet. I'll leave you with a quote from
a song my mom dedicates to me. Promise me you'll give faith
a fighting chance. And when you get the choice to sit it
out or dance. I hope you dance.
