This piece is my journaling and self-processing through a fairly intense activation. The content is real time content as I recorded it, edited a bit for my privacy.
Yesterday I was quiet – reclusive – difficulty with interacting – ended up hiding in puzzles for hours – also ate chocolate. Day before was a good day – I felt safe – I went to bed feeling less wired than has happened in a long time. My story was that I dropped down to a different level of settling and have gotten in touch with a new layer of stuff.
Today right now I feel really activated. I ran into a bit of a conflict and I feel like I have no resources to manage a conflict – or any other challenge. I feel stripped raw. That’s a post-traumatic activated feeling. So here is an opportunity – I’m right there in the soup. So I can try things and see what works. But I don’t want to try anything. I just want to curl up in a corner.
What are the sensations that I’m noticing that tell me that I want to curl up in a corner? Pressure on the right side of my forehead, the sense as if there is something or someone who might appear at any moment and strike me, vague images or memories of young children running around and yelling inside a house.
And the chill. I feel chilled after shoveling snow for an hour or so. It took me awhile to realize my clothes were damp and to change out of them. And I’m strongly feeling the conflict and my sense of frustration and upset.
So – what is going on now? Any change in the sensations? I feel tension in my shoulders and the impulse to push, to barge, feels like anger, frustration and determination. I still feel sensations of chill – a tingling on my skin on my thighs, face and arms. The sense that I am about to be struck has diminished. My whole head feels tingly, possibly from chill. I’m noticing that my breathing is shallow, though occasionally I take a deep breath.
How about the urge to curl up? How is that? There is more of a frustration, restlessness, anger, desire to move, to change things. I have the sense that my arms would like to pound in protest. There’s a sense of being trapped, confined or limited, and I don’t seem to have any context, pictures or story to specifically explain it. But I feel the energy of tantrum – my forehead feels hot, my core feels hot, I feel energy rising from my belly to my head. My arms feel hot now too.
Thoughts running around a bit. Fleeting images that don’t immediately make sense.
There is a fierce energy that says “I matter.” I feel a band around my head. I feel the heat in my shoulders now. I’m taking deeper breaths – I can’t tell if that was a decision or if I just started to organically breathe more deeply. I’m interpreting the energy and heat in my body as power and will, power and will that were stymied and likely punished at earlier points in my life. Noticing, allowing the deeper breath. Noticing that there are no persons or forces here in the present that are punishing me for exerting my power and will. Noticing the breath while I feel the sense of warmth and energy in the center of my chest. Noticing my shoulders drop. The sense that there is more room for my neck to move – maybe some small muscles eased up?
Something has shifted, stuff opened up. I still feel somewhat raw but warmer and more solid