Trauma creates a disconnection from our body. Sometimes it shows in numbness for physical sensations and needs. We don’t feel hunger, cold or pain. It makes taking care of ourselves difficult and we might neglect our body. A lot of trauma survivors think of the body as their enemy. Something that needs to be avoided or controlled. The fact that the body does involuntary things is considered a reason for deep shame.
Early stages
During the stabilization phase we practice self-care, and to avoid overwhelm, this is often done in a strictly practical fashion. We need the body as a kind of ‘vehicle’ for our self to move around in this world, so we can learn to take care of it like we would do it for say, a car. This level of self-care is not marked by any warm feelings. It just guarantees that the body can function and that we don’t sabotage ourselves or end up in a hospital. It reduces the impact of self-neglect. We control the body because we feel safe when we use control, not because the body needs this kind of control. Doing these things with way too much control is better than not doing them at all and if control is what it takes to get us there, we use it. It is important to reach this level for crisis prevention and this level is not meant to be the end-goal of our process. This is how we can treat the body during the early stabilization phase.
As we move into a more normal way of functioning, we will have to learn how to sense the body and its needs. Moving out of chronic dissociation will give us a chance to notice the hints that the body is giving us on how to take care of it. In this stage, it is wise to move away from the mechanical treatment and include the body into the inner team, almost as if it was a part itself. When we discuss topics, we can also ask our body how it feels about plans. Just like we ask other parts about their needs, we also ask the body what it needs. A lot of people in this stage experience the body as a separate entity that the parts somehow live in. It comes with its own needs and quirks and needs to be included but when it is talked about, it is usually ‘the’ body and nobody takes ownership.
The body in trauma processing
During trauma processing we will be confronted with the body sensations of the past and realize that these things are not happening anymore. The body becomes the hurt body and the helpless body in our awareness of the past. One natural impulse is to make it go away by avoiding it or by making ourselves superior to it through self-harm. Another natural impulse could be to find compassion for its brokenness inside of us and take care of it like a hurt or sick child. In the past, it got no help and no care and today we are here to take gentle care. It is not alone anymore. This kind of compassion is not focused on overcoming the separation from our body but it does it anyway. It is usually too much to demand ‘love’ for the body. But in recognizing the injustice and opening our heart for the very simple needs of the situation, we re-connect. With every time we rescue our younger self from a trauma situation we also rescue the body, a bit at a time. It is one of the reasons why I prefer rescripting techniques. We adopt the abandoned and mistreated body that we found in the trauma scene and bring it home with us to recover in safety.
This step allows for a softer and more caring inner posture. Without the overwhelm of the trauma sensations we don’t have to move away from the pain. Our body does not just get voting rights in a team. We take it in to care for it because we are moved by the pain it endured. The way we look at it changes. Doing involuntary things becomes a reason for compassion instead of scorn. We move from treating it like an object (the vehicle) to treating it like a subject, a living thing that needs care and protection. And yes, love. This ‘adoption’ is the first step to overcoming the structural separation from our body. Instead of ‘the body’ it becomes ‘my’ or ‘our’ body.
Integration
It might not be an immediate effect of trauma processing, it might actually need quite a bit of it to accumulate, but eventually we start to notice that how our body feels inside is actually how we are doing right now. Our internal sensations say something about us and by doing something for our body to meet these sensations we are doing something for our own well-being. Our feeling of hunger belongs to us and is part of us. Taking care of it means taking care of all the things that are connected to it as well, like a bad mood or a lack of concentration. When we do things that are good for our body it has a positive effect on our whole being. Who we are can actually not be separated from our body. We are our body. Things are so mixed with each other that it is impossible to tell them apart. Even our smart thoughts are actually produced by a brain, that is part of our body. This becomes a felt sense instead of just a philosophical thought.
It only becomes real(ized) when we are safe from harm and don’t expect overwhelm from sensing ourselves. Thinking about ourselves will naturally start to include thinking about our body and it gets harder to think of it as a thing we live in instead of a body that we embody. We learn to respect the signals of our body as communication on eye level with us. Our body has its own wisdom and it is not the hurting child anymore. Over time, we can develop a partnership were we rely on our body and we also know when it is ok to push ourselves a bit more. Our body as our partner will eventually blend with our sense of self. It will never become identical with out sense of self because humans are more than just a body.
A special step in this process is to gain a sense of our skin as a personal boundary. It separates who we are inside and who we are as a being with a body from the outside world. Our senses and our skin (which also includes the sense of touch) are what connects us to the world. Our skin keeps quite a lot of things out while it is keeping us inside and safe from falling apart. Our senses and our skin have been the areas of access for abuse in the past. It is how we felt it happening. These areas will always be vulnerable because of their role of connecting us to the world. They are also a lot safer than they used to be and we can become fiercely protective to keep them from actual harm today. This might get us to a point where we are sorrowful when we accidently get a bloody scratch, even when our skin is full of old scars that we never wept over. This one matters now. This one is terrible and we are so sorry it happened.
The process of re-connecting to our full senses and our full embodiment takes time and doesn’t just happen overnight. Being more present with ourselves can slowly turn into a sense of being comfortably within ourselves/our body. Learning to be calm and relaxed in our interactions with the world happens at the same time as learning to be at ease with our embodiment because it depends on our felt sense of relative safety with our vulnerabilities. The hurting body is part of our history and we remember that but we are also present in a body that does not hurt right now (or at least differently than it used to). We know that we can get hurt but we don’t expect it to happen in our daily interactions. When we do something like wellness or self-care now, it feels like we are truly doing it for ourselves as a way of showing that we care for ourselves and protect ourselves from harm. We gently support our vulnerable areas instead of disowning them. Eventually, we will be able to allow others to protect our vulnerabilities and care for us too.
Meaning for therapy
It often confuses me when therapists ask traumatized people to show self-love for their bodies. Almost like they are unaware of how long and deep this process of re-connecting and integrating a body is. We can’t just go into self-love mode without meeting the body in the trauma, adopting it and taking it home with us to experience a better life. Deeply connecting with the body is a task for later phases in therapy. It is ok to treat our body according to the phase we are currently in and attempt no more than the next level.
Trauma processing will change our relationship to our body in significant ways and it is needed to overcome the separation. It is not something that affirmations on our mirror can do. Abusers treated our body like an object that they can dominate, hurt and destroy. Unless we meet it right there and restore its identity as a subject that deserves safety, care and compassion, we might not realize that it is more than an object ourselves. Internalized dehumanization like that can be hard to notice because it feels normal now. This is what we were taught and it needs a new lesson to learn a better truth. Therapists can support us by paying attention to physical needs, modeling compassion and not demanding too much from us when we are not ready. Changing our superficial behavior will not bridge the gap between us and our body. There is a structural dissociation that needs to be addressed. Our body, too, needs integration.