Healing my body after trauma was and remains a challenge. To address the trauma embedded in the cells, I needed to get in touch with how I was feeling; something that isn’t always easy for victims and survivors as it is very normal to shut down. When I shutdown the negative emotions, I also shut down the ability to access with richness the positive ones. Buried emotions also have a tendency to come to the surface and erupt like a volcano. Therefore gently allowing myself to feel some incredibly hard emotions following the trauma was a big part and continues to be a big part and will always be a big part of the healing journey. The process itself of connecting to feelings can feel very scary but it is not dangerous unless we act on those feelings in dangerous ways and hurt ourselves or others; which is something we don’t want to do. God gave us feelings; we are human.
Access to more difficult emotions means when they come to the surface, I can release them gently rather than them becoming something that ‘overtakes’ me in a destructive way. Reactive emotional responses that hurt me or others isn’t going to help healing. Learning to know when these emotions are coming up for us and gently acknowledging them and knowing how to calm ourselves will help the scary ones not spiral. Breathing to calm down, prayer or any other method that’s helpful will allow us to experience the uncomfortable stuff and get through it without the escalation. The need for me to learn my own rhythms was so important. To know and understand more what was happening within me gave me the ability to not freak out as much but trust that emotions are coming up to be healed and that I can process them in a safe way. If ever I didn’t know what was going on, that was ok to; but I could learn more about my body and the way it was processing to heal and communicate with me.
Repressing emotions, shutting down and/or not acknowledging them, all of which I had done before, could be replaced with letting them flow through me in a safe way. Big emotions come up after rape. Incredibly hard, complex ones come up as well. Having kindness and compassion for ourselves as we process these like any other trauma is key and I personally believe one of the most important things.