When we are hurting, scared, and touched by emotional pain, there is a deep longing wired within us to be companioned, for a safe soothed nervous system to resonate and co-regulate with.
So much of our wounding – our grief, rage, trauma, heartbreak – is relational and is also embodied. That which we’re unable to integrate will drop into our bodies and held in an open, sensitive, holy limbic system… where it remains until conditions are ripe for re-emergence and healing.
While understanding by way of left-brain processing can be helpful and supportive, it is right-brain immersion in safety which fosters reorganization. The body will reorganize when it feels safe.
It is a corrective emotional experience, or we could say a reparative neural experience that brings that sacred soothing, where the orphaned emotions, sensations, and impulses are able to be held within a shared field of resource.
It is as if the little one, left behind at the moment of traumatic impact, is peeking his or her sweet little heart and head out into the interactive field and wondering, “Is it safe yet?” “Can I return home?” “Can I play again?”
They come surging into the relational field, not to harm or take us down, but for reunion, to receive what was needed at the time, but for whatever reason was not available. They will never give up and, like love, are relentless in that way.
While we are wired to co-regulate with another, let us be open to the nature of this “other,” which is oriented in the mystery and may nearer than we have come to imagine – hidden inside the colors, forests, and unexpected pathways.
As the veil parts just a bit, we may discover that it’s more creative, more intelligent, more (bitter)sweet and achy and majestic than we ever expected.
Photo by Sasin Tipchai
My previous book - The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You
My online community - Befriending Yourself: Finding Safety and Rest in Difficult Times
Listen to two recent podcasts where I was interviewed:
