Healing is a Rhythm
Healing is a rhythm.
And I’ll forever be a student of rhythms.
First, through Birthwork, studying the expansion-contraction spiral of birth, pregnancy and postpartum which led me to teaching about the womb cycles in connection with the seasons and the cyclical nature of Earth. Then, being lucky enough to find Biodynamic Craniosacral which holds space for the fluid systems of our bodies and the vital breath of life within us. And now, through Somatic Experiencing, learning the rhythm which is most close to home for each of us, the rhythm of our nervous systems and our animal bodies, which dance in a beautiful pattern of connection and protection from the very beginning of our time here.
Each of these are a complete path unto themselves. For me (and others on a similar path), they’ve seemed to weave together a way of holding space; A witness of transformation that centers the truth about becoming, which is this: every time we die to ourselves and are reborn, (whether through life events which force us into a new shape or through our inner-knowing that it is time to transform yet again), what is revealed beneath those newly shed layers is something so precious and so resilient, a powerful essence which has been there all along, yet also is so sensitive, raw and vulnerable in its newness.
In its most simple definition, trauma is something that is too-much and too-fast to digest and make sense of within our nervous systems. It seems we will all meet these moments, yet the “too-much, too-fast” is not an objective measurement of impact based on the bigness of the event, but rather the capacity of our nervous systems which, as humans (mammals and pack animals), is largely based on the health of our relationships and connections. We are evolutionarily designed to thrive through togetherness, finding a healthy rhythm between self and other.
But in these times, our rhythms are all thrown off. We don’t have the structures and containers built into our society which make space for the digestion of all that we are experiencing, both on a personal and collective level.
Trauma can be seen as a scratch on a record. The record still plays. It still sounds pretty beautiful. The record isn’t forever broken. It mostly functions. Yet, there’s a skip in the rhythm which distorts the sound emanating from that record.
And, because we are not flat plastic disks but rather humans made of living tissue that respond accordingly, we grow emotional and physical scar tissue around these “scratches” as a way to protect ourselves from experiencing them again. This is often the best option our systems have if there’s nowhere to go to integrate and make sense of the overwhelming things that we are feeling and experiencing.
This scar tissue on a nervous system and behavior level looks like survival strategies, which become biased towards protection rather than connection. This translates into a rhythm of being stuck more in contraction and not enough release of that tension to allow in nourishment, soothing, pleasure and goodness in.
Nervous system healing at its core is a remembering and a returning to an innate blueprint of a healthy, regenerative rhythm which mirrors that of the cyclical-seasonal Earth. In many instances it requires a return to our primal world of sensation, symbol and felt-sense in which we were immersed in the womb and our pre-verbal years. Here we find a language that we are native to but may have forgotten—the language of the body, which speaks in rhythms.
Rhythms of sleep and wake, hunger and digestion, activity and rest, learning and playing, creating and deconstructing, moving towards and moving away from, connecting outward and connecting inward. We each have our own unique rhythms.
Unfortunately, rather than getting the space to discover, embody and nurture our own unique rhythms, many of us got squished into rhythms that were pre-set for us by our culture and the systems around us. We were told when and how to: be hungry, rest, be productive, enjoy fun and leisure, move our bodies, sit still, make noise, be quiet, have sex, reproduce, etc.
In order to fit within these prescribed rhythms we had to bypass and cut-off from our internal rhythms. We learned how to dominate our bodies with our minds.
What would it look like for the brain and the body to be in a reciprocal, consensual relationship where both get respected and honored?
So much healing happens when we make space for our own internal guidance. This can be tricky at first because it’s like tuning to a radio frequency that’s fuzzy or slightly out of range. We are going to make a lot of mistakes. We are going to go a little too fast, a little too slow, a little too big, a little too small, as we return to the practice of tracking and following our natural rhythms.
The thing about a rhythm is that while always changing, it is also constant. It exists within the relationship and the space between each note. Regardless of how much space is between them. Regardless of how close together they may sometimes be. Fast, slow, winding, pounding, jumping, flowing, it’s all still a rhythm. And that rhythm is always there to be connected and engaged with.
You can start right now by placing a hand on your heart and feeling the rhythm of your heartbeat as you notice your breath and the expansion and contraction of your diaphragm.
There will be times where our bodies roar and rumble with sensation and inflammation to get our attention. There will be times where our bodies send a subtle signal of knowing to the gut, a ping of resonance or ache in the heart. There will be times where the body’s communication rolls through and around you, impossible to miss and times where stress makes it impossible to hear anything but our fears, or overwhelm and shut down leads to numbness.
These are all perfectly normal responses to the stressors that we are facing and they all can be worked with somatically for us to become more fluent in the unique language and rhythm through which our animal bodies speak. This can be done through mindful movement with the breath, connecting with and learning from nature and working with a somatic practitioner or body-focused therapist.
