I was home recently, and a family friend and I started discussing how she gets tired quickly in situations that are stressful. She starts to get overwhelmed and then very, very sleepy.

While we’re both introverts in the sense that we need time alone to feel whole and resourced, her tiredness is beyond that. It’s very linked to stress, and it comes fast. It’s a trauma response, in that her existing emotional overwhelm is being triggered by the stressful situation. This pattern is very uncomfortable for her, and sometimes she gets so uncomfortable that it affects the entire group of people around her.

We were sitting in the living room, reflecting on it. “When you notice it’s happening and you feel the fear,” I said. She sighed, chiming in, completing my sentence with the obvious cultural trope, “…do it anyway.”

In her voice I heard her resignation and understood that she’s tried exactly that many times over the years. Somehow, in this moment, this cultural dogma didn’t feel right.
It didn’t feel healthy, or supportive, or useful.
And without time to think about it, I heard myself saying, “No, hold the fear and let it know it’s safe.”

I paused. We looked at each other.
“Oh.” she said. That sunk in for us both.
I don’t know where that came from. And thank you whomever sent that one, because it was so obvious. It was a much better way for her to respond in this situation. It actually had the potential to help her heal.
Dots connected.

Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway Hold It In Your Arms

There are times to push.
And times to hold.

Sometimes, we need to “feel the fear, and do it anyway.” It’s true. Sometimes we need to go for it if we’re ever going to get past our limited beliefs and evolve. Pushing our comfort zone is healthy when we’re resourced.

And this was clearly not a time to push.

This was a time to hold.
This was a time to establish safety, comfort, and care.
This was a time to allow the overwhelm to settle,
to allow her system to feel safe enough to relax, to open, to express, to release.
She wasn’t resourced enough in these moments.
She was hitting overwhelm, so pushing through was only making to worse…

Trauma is like a frightened child. Pushing harder only frightens it more, and eventually it will shut down. In her case, she was getting sleepy. Classic freeze response. If she wanted to help the child not be frightened, she had to start by getting it out of the frightening situation.

Then the work could begin.

First, she needed to help it feel safe again, preferably by holding it in the safety of her loving arms until it calmed down and relaxed. Starting by holding it in her embrace, and letting it continue to cry. Letting it release all of the fear it’s feeling. Not distract it from what it’s feeling.
Help it know that it’s safe to feel the fear.
That fear won’t hurt it.
That fear feels scary, but isn’t actually dangerous.
Fear is information.
Not harm.

How To Be The Container

This is something she can do at home, something she can take time to do for herself in the comfort and safety of a protected space. Inviting the parts that feel unsafe to rest in her ‘arms.’ She can begin by grounding deeply in her own larger sense of safety: her larger sense of self that is safe and contains these smaller, frightened parts. She can then invite these frightened parts to be ‘held’ in this safe space. Staying grounded in, and present to, her larger sense of self, she can be ready for and welcome their fear -from this larger place of containership.
Being this container is the loving embrace.
This is a place of knowing that she’s bigger than these smaller parts and their fears.
Of knowing that she contains them, that they’re a part of her, versus letting them overwhelm her.

This starts the healing.

If indeed she does feel safe enough, if she does feel that she’s bigger than these parts, that she can contain them; they will relax in the safe arms of her container.
They will relax in the safety she’s offering.
They will open up and express the fear that they’re holding.
They will release the overwhelming emotions.
They will let go of the emotional charge, and all of this will get better.

But can she do it?
And first of all, does she even want to?
These are important things to feel through.

Start Small And Work Your Way Up

Generally, if you do find that you want to do this work, you’ll be able to release most small traumas by yourself. If the fear feels too big to contain by yourself, too overwhelming, that’s a good sign that you’ll want help containing it. There are several options to play with for these bigger fears.

First, you can do small, bite size pieces at a time, by only sitting for very short periods.

A. Get in a safe place, set a timer for 1 to 3 minutes and start with a resourcing tool (grounding, breathing, etc.). Use this tool to settle into your own sense of safety, becoming aware of yourself as the safe Being that you are so that you can provide this safety to the parts of you that don’t feel safe.

B. Staying present to yourself as this larger, safe container, invite whatever you’re working with to be here, inside of this space, here in your ‘arms.’

C. Breathe. And wait. Let whatever wants to come, come.
Trauma usually has lots of layers, and a lot of them don’t feel anything like fear. A lot of them are layers you sagely put there over the fear to direct you away from it so that you don’t end up in full blown terror by accident… oops!! A lot of trauma layers feel like distractions – because they are! (Boredom, misdirection, thinking about ANYTHING but the trauma, sleepiness (right?!), numbness…). Once you get through those it can get more intense and emotions will come like frustration, anger, shame, guilt… Distraction layers will still pop up.
Let ALL of it be here.
And know that just because you spent the whole 3 minutes thinking about lunch, you’re still healing. You have to get through the distraction layers first. They’re kind of like levels in a video game. You have to get past the first ones before you get into the more advanced levels of the game. And also know that some of the more advanced layers can be more advanced distractions. You’re still healing.

D. At the end of the few minutes, no matter what happened, resource yourself again with the same tool you used at the beginning, re-settling yourself and clearly ending the practice. This helps you integrate whatever happened (consciously and unconsciously), and reinforces safe, healthy boundaries.

Finally, go slow. Do this no more than one or two times a day, giving yourself lots of time to calibrate between sessions, and let it take months, even years, if it needs to. You’ve got time. And it will get faster and easier as you practice it.

Second, If you do want the help of someone else, you can simply enlist a trusted friend to be in the room with you, while you do, you’re 1 to 3 minutes. No need to talk, just having this friend in the same space with you will help your nervous system relax. This friend could equally be a person, an animal, a plant, a tree, a rock, a river, etc. Any being, thing, or space that increases your felt sense of safety. You will notice a palpable difference being in the presence of someone or something that helps you feel safe, and you will heal faster and deeper in their presence.

Third, for things that are really big, like my friend’s, lifelong stress challenge, I suggest finding a seasoned healer that you feel safe with. There are many healers who do this work, including myself, and the most important thing is that you feel safe with whomever you choose to work with.
You need to trust them.
You should feel safe with them.
If not, choose someone else.
The depth of this trust and safety is the depth at which you’ll be able to relax and open and release.

Of course, these kinds of things, these traumas usually come with trust issues, so you’ll be navigating those along the way. In fact, starting this work with little traumas by yourself, or with your dog, or your favorite tree, is a great way to begin understanding what this work is like for you and what issues you’re bringing to the table. Experiencing what your issues feel like in your being and how they manifest even when no one else is involved can be really helpful.
It helps you get clear that they’re your issues you’re dealing with, and that’s even more clear when no one else is involved. When no one else is there but you.
Except for your wonderful dog who, I can imagine you aren’t blaming for all that pain you feel.
Nor your favorite tree.

And then, if you do find a friend or healer to work with, you’ll be more clear about your issues, how they feel inside of you, and somewhat how they work. And then it’s even easier to own them as you go through the healing process… of holding them, of accepting them, of letting them be here in safety.

Pushing Through or Holding Safe

However you do it, and however you have done it, I hope that whenever you’re asking yourself to push through, to ‘do it anyway,’ that you take a moment to feel if you’re resourced enough… and if not, that you give yourself a safe space, and a loving embrace, to heal in.

I hope that, like my friend, when it’s time to hold, to take care, and to love, that you’re ready, willing and able. I hope she is, too.

Blessings,
Elena