The word 'trauma' is widely misunderstood. This misunderstanding is not merely semantic; it actually limits human potential, by limiting human understanding.
Trauma can be physical or emotional. It can have subtle or overt origins. Some children experience years of physical abuse, and that is obviously traumatic. However, that limits some peoples' idea of trauma. Sometimes, a harsh word anchors in a lifelong trauma. It all depends on the psychological constellation that is occurring at the time.
One client had thrown a football a thousand times. But once, when he was trying to impress a girl, he threw a football horribly, and 'lost the girl', so the story goes. After exploring the equation through touch, he'd separated from his own arm; it had disappointed him. This manifested as arm and shoulder pain for years. So, the 1001th throw of the football could be the root of a lifetime of challenges, if left unresolved.
Strategies for Living More Fully, Awakening, And Breaking Free of the Past
Everything we do revolves around one premise: how to orchestrate the most dramatic breakthroughs within the shortest timeframes possible. We are obsessed with it.
At a glance, I can tell where you are abound up in your body and mind, and we set to work within minutes. I'm sometimes guilty of flying through the formalities to get down to the deep work. I hope that is ok with you... time is precious.
I've gathered much of my understanding of life and consciousness through an awakening experience that occurred a decade ago, and that has been nourished by other experiences that followed. I don't go about to convince anyone of my worldview conceptually, as that has severe limitations. We can't live by concepts. We live by experiences. And so I set about to develop a system in order to demonstrate the experiences that have enriched my life by a thousand times.
Bloom Foundational Principles
You are a constellation of stories, nothing more or less. What you believe is what you see. On some level, we've all experienced this. We manifest our reality. What we believe about our physiology, or organs, our cells, our blood, can dramatically impact our world. A belief that is erroneous, as in the case of accepting a diagnosis of diseases, can be fatal.
I wanted to give a little overview of some of the considerations that I feel are pertinent, so you can test them out in their own lives. It's imperative to test every concept against life experience, so that you don't wind up lead astray by blindly following leaders.
Physical Trauma as Emotional Healing. Case study of a 'broken heart' manifesting as a bruised sternum.
Seeing the World Through New Eyes
After I witnessed her whole body clench and vibrate (the signs of trauma releasing from the tissues), her face went through every season. It darkened, it clenched, it lightened, there were tears, gasps, a smirk. In the aftermath, the familiar peace descended. The loop had been resolved.
As she opened her eyes, they were shades lighter. She was gazing out into the backyard, blinking and rubbing her eyes.
What is it, I asked? What do you notice?
The leaves on that maple are extraordinarily red, she whispered. I thought I was hallucinating. They almost seem too red. I think I just wasn’t seeing them before.
Case Study: Healing Feminine Wounds: Reclaiming Trust in the Masculine
As an intellectual practice, forgiveness is a slippery concept.
The mouth lies constantly. The mind convinces itself of outrageous fictions. It doesn't matter how scandalous or absurd the story is when mind is the judge, jury, and executioner. It's a rigged game.
The body never lies. A skilled practitioner can see and touch issues that the client isn’t even aware of, and guide them into that awareness. It’s like holding up a mirror to the vast, ineffable ‘self.’
Our goal isn’t to merely reconnect the leg. Reconnecting the leg awakens the pelvis and all of the digestive and sexual organs. Our goal is awakening; enhancing aliveness. Our goal is expanding intimacy, and deepening love.
Later that night, she goes home and makes love to her partner in an embodied way, for the first time in her life. As she relays it to me, her eyes are ablaze. She hadn’t known what was possible before. Now she’s opened a whole new frontier… the waning art of rising to the touch with a fullness, and touching in the same way.
In a world full of vacant stares, empty promises, and detached bodies, the final frontier isn’t the bottom of the ocean or the depths of space… it’s the body, and the consciousness trickling or surging through us all in this and every moment.
Most people don't actually want to heal.
You know, most people don’t actually want to heal. They are enamored of their wounds, hold them tenderly and gaze down at them lovingly.
It can be a startling but liberating realization. Because allowing someone to cradle their wounds, for as long as they choose to, is loving unconditionally. It doesn’t mean you have to associate with them, necessarily, when they launch into a familiar song. It just means, we can now look at them knowing that their wound has become like their child. We can’t separate them from a bond that strong until the time is right. As of now, they wouldn’t even know how to conceive of life without it. It’s like a magical totem. It offers protection from falling in love, and all of the perils that might accompany that, or it offers a reason to stay in a relationship, without needing to brave the unknown. It becomes evidence that supports a fear based worldview. It’s a shapeshifter, this wound… it becomes anything it needs to be.
Releasing past 'trauma'; by accessing the layer of consciousness where it is stored
It’s common for people to underestimate their traumas. Some even shy away from using the word trauma. I simply use it to mean ‘something that the body is still holding on to.’ It could have come from something as extreme as years of ritual physical abuse, or something as seemingly innocuous a harsh word from a trusted parent. It doesn’t really matter how it compares to the lives of others. All that matters is that we discover and honor our own experience; acknowledge where we’re stuck so we can move forward as gracefully as possible.
This requires feeling the emotions fully. This sounds simple… it isn’t for most.
How your use of language can keep you from healing, and the transformational anatomy of bones
On the healing journey, be careful about the language you use about your ailment, because that is a clue about how the mind is functioning.
‘My back is killing me.’ Your back is not killing you. It has been supporting you for a lifetime. It is sending out signals so you change your life path. If you don’t listen, it will send out stronger signals, like small waves before the tidal wave. Let it know that you’re listening. Find out what it needs.
Can a bone ‘need’? Bones are consciousness. As alive as any other part of you. The plastic skeleton we grow up learning from is not anywhere near reality. Since ancient times, bones have been infused with divine meanings, and many of these have been corroborated by more radical osteopaths.