That’s the energy that is inside of each of us that has not been allowed to move through to completion of talking (and by talking I mean shouting at the top of its lungs and even sometimes making you shake uncontrollably from head to toe). It’s trapped inside of our bodies and it wants out and it wants out now. 

We are trained by society and often those who raised us to suppress these natural feelings and energies and hold them deep down inside of us so that we don’t disturb others. The result? Well, it slowly but surely kills us in one way or another. Why? Because it isn’t meant to be stored inside our bodies forever – it needs to be released (I know what you’re thinking, “Great Nicole. You just told us the energy inside of us is going to kill us if we don’t release it but how exactly do we do that?” This is a fair question, but you’ll have to keep reading to get all the juicy tips to be less likely to spontaneously combust). 

I know some people aren’t going to want to hear this, even though we’ve all been taught it to be true since grade school, but we are all actually animals. It’s true. We try to deny it, make fruitless attempts at being perfect, and try to ignore how similar we are to the monkeys in the zoo (irony because many of us are trapped in invisible cages). 

Well, now that we all begrudgingly agree that we are in fact all animals, let’s keep moving. Have you ever seen those videos of animals in the wild that were almost attacked? Go to YouTube and look it up, it’s fascinating to watch. In each video, after almost being killed these animals will get up and viscerally shake from head to toe. Here, let me save you a trip to YouTube so you don’t get lost in the abyss that is there and forget to come back and read the rest of this chapter because you are watching funny cat videos. 

Animal Reactions to Trauma

Imagine a deer is out minding its own business and doing things that deer do (like eating grass? I don’t know what the hell deer do but basically in the videos they are just eating grass. Or maybe they have super deer vision and are counting the water droplets on each blade of grass. Hey, I don’t know. When was the last time you talked to a deer? I digress). Then, a pack of wolves (I know so little about deer I had to Google what preys on deer. Thank you Google. Maybe I should have used another animal. We’re too far in now to turn back.) pop into the screen.

The deer sees the three wolves and freezes. It manages to quickly lie down and play dead and somehow the wolves (who are clearly not very smart in these videos) walk away leaving the deer. After this near-death experience, the deer will get up, shake head to toe (Hoof? Foot? Paw? Whatever the things at the bottom of their legs are called), and gallop off. I imagine in my mind that the deer then goes and tells its deer friends about the asshole wolves who tried to kill it. 

That is how animals respond to trauma. Well, unless you are human. Then you suppress the shake, keep all that pent-up energy inside of you, and wonder why you have chronic heart disease at age 40. 

How We Suppress Trauma

At some point in our evolution (uh o, I said the e-word) we stopped allowing energy and emotions to move through us and instead became really freaking preoccupied with what others think, believe, and say about what we should and shouldn’t do. Plus, we hear a ton of opinions from others on how a “normal” person responds to trauma. (Just in case it’s hard for you to read between the lines today, I want to directly say “fuck that.” Everyone is different and however you respond to trauma and what you need can be unique to you. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s continue.) 

As a result, we walk around thinking that everyone around us is thinking about us, critiquing our outfit, or some other self-fascinated fantasy (and by fantasy I mean nightmare) where our every move, word, and thought is being monitored under a microscope. Therefore, when something traumatic happens to us it tends to go something like this. 

In the middle of the traumatic event we may freeze (like the deer playing dead) and then after the traumatic event, we ignore (innocently) what our body needs (sometimes literally shaking head to toe) and instead we do something else or nothing at all. Why? It’s how we were trained. It’s what we’ve seen in movies. It’s what our parents taught us. And it’s incredibly wrong and harmful to us to continue to live that way. 

Let me give you an example from my personal story. 

How Did That Eyepatch Get On My Butt? 

When I was growing up, we had a group of family friends that we spent a lot of time with. To keep their identities protected, I am going to use limited details. Well, one day this group of friends was over at our house, and being that this was the very early ’90s we were left alone for many hours at a time playing in each other’s bedrooms with the doors shut. On this occasion, we were at my house and playing in my bedroom. 

I was four or five years old and the only reason I remember that is because I had to wear a flesh-colored eye patch (they didn’t have cool colors yet, unfortunately, because I would rather have been sporting a Ninja Turtles eye patch I’m sure) on my right eye for a certain number of hours each day to help “strengthen” my left eye. So basically imagine a big-ass bandaid on the eye of a 4-year-old. 

(Side note, if your parents try to put the eye patches on your eye after daycare while you’re watching tv and therefore you decide to go to sleep because you can’t see shit, then your parents will eventually make you wear it to the daycare where you can’t fall asleep. The end result of this is going up to kids on the playground and once they are so close to you that they can touch you (and therefore you can finally see them), you ask them where your other friend is only to have them look at you very confused and point about 15 feet away saying “over there?” in complete bewilderment. Summary: I hated the damn eye patch.) 

At some point during our time together this evening, our parents were likely playing Taboo (holy freaking crap! The irony. Of course the game they were playing is called Taboo. Well, can’t make that stuff up.), I found my 4 to 5-year-old self lying beside my bed between the bed and the wall while two of the older boys (my close friends) “played.” I don’t remember many details besides looking under my bed and seeing the door on the other side of it and wanting to get under my bed. In essence, I froze (so similar to the deer freezing to save its life). 

The only other thing I really remember is that the next morning I woke up in my bed and found the eye patch on my butt and I thought it was hilarious (as an innocent 4-year-old would). There are a lot of ways this could have gone that would have allowed the energy to move through me; however, none of them happened. Without going into specifics, let’s just say that when sharing this hilarious finding of an eye patch on my butt it was very clear to me that I needed to stop talking and say no more because the adults in the room couldn’t handle it if the truth came out of my mouth. So I shared that of course, I placed the eye patch on my butt. (I have since stepped into that scene and took little me into my own loving, caring arms to comfort her and protect her in the way she needed at the time but didn’t receive. We will talk more about reparenting our little parts later on.) 

This experience happened when I was very young, and here I was at 35 still experiencing the effects of the energy not moving through me to completion. It was part of why I would get on a massage table and freeze head to toe or start shaking. Or an OBGYN table. Or you know pretty much any situation in which I was supposed to lie still and let others touch my body. 

My Introduction to Myofascial Release

Then I met someone dear to me who I will call Aimee and was introduced to myofascial release. I am not even going to try to explain to you what that is because I still don’t quite know myself; however, I do know it was a game-changer for me. Aimee explained how we keep energy stored up inside of us from traumatic events and part of that results in pain in our bodies because we didn’t actually take the action we needed to take in the moment of the actual traumatic event.

I would come in for a session, she would start doing her massage technique, I’d shake head to toe, I’d then apologize for shaking head to toe and reassure her that I trust her (see the caretaking?), and then as she would work on me memories would come up in my head. She’d have me explain what I was experiencing, then she’d encourage me to move in the direction I needed to move to complete the action. 

We did this with several traumatic memories over time; however, the one above she wisely knew I needed to complete by myself at home. So later that night I went home as a grown-ass adult, lied on my back beside my bed, allowed myself to go back into that memory, and then I completed the action. What did that look like? I army rolled onto my side and climbed my 35-year-old body under the safety of my bed. Safe from the boys beside my bed and safe from the people outside the door of my bedroom. Somewhere nobody else could access. I did it. I was safe. 

Realizing I had completed the movement needed and understanding that little me was ready to come out from under the bed, I found myself in a bit of a predicament as I was definitely stuck. So here I lie, under my bed, without my phone, stuck, and with nobody else in the house (part of me was thankful because then there wasn’t a witness, but the other part of me thought I might die under that bed before someone found me). Thankfully after a few minutes, I was able to slither my way out from under my bed and then giggle a bit at what in the world I had just done, while also feeling a bit crazy (how could that actually help me). 

All I can tell you is that it did help and far more than talk therapy alone. Although I did walk through that trauma experience in other ways over the years, I can tell you that the energy did move through me. Now when I get a massage, I can relax and be at peace, there’s no more shivering nonstop. It didn’t go away immediately, but it did over time and the releasing of the energy significantly reduced the intensity, which allowed me to use other tools to continue to heal that part of me. 

What Is Your Body Telling You? 

We all have experiences that are trapped inside of us where we did not get the release that we needed. The action we need to take may be to run away, but we couldn’t or didn’t. Then our body can start aching in ways that literally mimics us stopping our body from running in a specific direction. 

I am beyond convinced we simply have to allow energy to move to completion. When we don’t we suffer – and often physically. And it starts with slowing down and intentionally noticing what is truly going on inside of your body. Many times we will have symptoms (for me shaking head to toe on a massage table) but not know the source consciously. However, when we get still and tap into what’s going on inside of our body, it will tell us. It often shows us in pictures in our minds (if you’re a visual person like me) or you could hear the answer in your head. If you listen, it will tell you many things that can help you heal. It’s been trying to talk to you for a very long time and the pain you experience or the anxiety is often your body doing just that – trying to get you to listen to what it has to tell you. 

Disclaimers and Warnings

I feel the need to say that if you feel like you need support as you walk through the experiences and allow the movement to come to completion then please do reach out to a trained trauma practitioner. I would also highly recommend you be well-equipped with emotional regulation exercises and are comfortable with holding space for your own emotions before entering back into those traumatic experiences. 

Once you’re ready, you have support in place, and you have the tools and resources you need to help get you back to the center if needed, then I think you will find it incredibly beneficial to your entire body and system to finally let that energy release by allowing the movement your body is craving, whatever that looks like for you and your story.