Welcome.
This meditation exercise is designed to help you overcome the disempowering effects of traumatic memories by cultivating a stronger sense of self-agency so that you can imagine new power and new strength coming into your body,
Mind and heart whenever traumatic memories from the past arise.
And as you listen to this meditation,
Please remember that you are in control of your experience and you can do as much of this meditation or as little of this meditation as you wish.
And you can turn this meditation off any time you feel overwhelmed.
You can take a break,
Breathe,
And come back to listen at a later time.
And no matter what kind of trauma you have gone through,
Large or small,
Big T or little t trauma,
Physical,
Sexual,
Mental,
Emotional or spiritual trauma,
Trauma always involves feeling powerless to stop a terrible thing from happening to you.
And these feelings of powerlessness translate into memories that over the years can wear down your body and your mind.
So if you are just beginning your trauma healing journey,
It would be very helpful to do this kind of work that I'm offering in this meditation with a trauma-informed therapist so that you can have someone who will be able to help you hold your painful memories until you can do so for yourself.
And on your trauma healing journey,
At some point after you have learned to feel safe enough and regulated enough in your body,
Most likely with a therapist or through daily meditation or yoga,
You will begin to long for power to be expressed through your body instead of the helplessness that commonly arises from repetitive traumatic memories.
And so you can tell your body and your mind and your precious heart how powerful you are.
Because the inner power that you can imagine greatly affects how your body heals.
And your mind and your heart and your nervous system heals from trauma.
And it's important to know that the feelings of entrapment,
Immobilization,
And helplessness,
The feeling of being incapable of making something powerful happen on your own behalf during a trauma just happens because your body and mind naturally went into states of freeze or fawn.
And so often people who suffer with post-traumatic stress need to learn how to regulate their nervous system enough so that they can eventually start to envision bringing power and self-agency back into the body.
Because imagining your power helps your subconscious mind to feel safer,
More protected,
Wisely boundaried,
And more faithful that you could protect yourself in the future.
And so if you are reliving an old or recent trauma over and over in your mind,
You might want to consider using your imagination to envision having strong personal agency and personal power.
You might want to imagine powerfully exercising your voice or your body or your spiritual powers to do what you wish you could have done to make yourself safe at the time when you were traumatized.
And you can build upon your self-agency,
Your personal power,
And your inner spiritual strength one building block at a time.
And so whenever your body or your mind remembers feeling overpowered or overwhelmed,
You can start to regularly envision yourself doing something different.
Because if you were not able to exercise your power,
Your strength,
And your self-agency in the past,
Your body needs to know that looking back in hindsight,
There could have been certain empowering things that you wish you would have said,
That you wish you could have done,
Or that you wish human or spiritual support would have arrived.
So consider that every time a traumatizing memory comes up,
You could call upon your own power or a higher power,
And you could use the mechanism of your imagination to add power and self-agency and spiritual strength to your traumatic memory so that it does not get restored and reinstalled back into your body and your mind in a harmful way.
And it does not matter if the powerful action you wish you could have taken did not happen.
You can just imagine that it did so that your body can have an experience of power,
Of agency,
And of strength.
And you could just give that to yourself now,
And every time a traumatic memory rises up for healing.
Remembering that whenever a traumatic memory comes up,
It has a need to no longer feel so helpless,
To no longer feel so hopeless.
And traumatic memories do not have to be restored or reinstalled in your body.
Exactly the way that they originally happened.
For you can choose to change your memories bit by bit in a way that calms your body,
And brings your body back to a feeling of safety,
Power,
And love.
Because memories of trauma bring up the great fear of being overwhelmed or overpowered.
What does your body need to say with assertiveness?
Perhaps your body needs to say no,
Back off.
Go away.
Get out.
I do not accept what you are saying or doing.
You are not welcome here.
I do not consent.
So I invite you to just meditate for a few moments on what your body needs to say right now.
What does your body need to say in order to protect you then,
Now,
And in the future?
And feel the power in your body and your voice as you imagine saying what your body needs to say.
And as you become clearer on what your body needs to say today,
I also invite you to consider who you would be if you were fully standing in your power.
Fully expressing your strength as a human being.
Imagining that you have much greater confidence,
Self-respect,
And fierce qualities of self-honoring protection than you were able to have in the past.
Also drawing upon any kind of spiritual support that you need in order to feel stronger and stronger.
Imagining yourself much bigger than anything that has happened to you.
Perhaps seeing a larger,
More powerful spiritual you overseeing the past trauma.
Knowing that in your soul you are not your trauma.
You are not your trauma.
You do not have to spend your entire life feeling small,
Diminished,
Less than,
Humiliated or disrespected.
Now,
Imagining the hugeness of your strong spirit.
Your big,
Powerful soul.
Filling you with light,
Courage,
And unconditional self-love.
Shaping your future into one that is bright,
Healthy,
Powerful,
And safe.
And so whenever you feel powerless,
Helpless,
Trapped,
Immobilized,
Defeated,
Or despairing,
Then this practice of agency,
Of strengthening yourself through your imagination,
Can turn you into a superhero of spiritual strength in your inner world.
And it can help you turn the tide of feeling weak and helpless,
To reawakening the feeling of what it's like to make things happen with power,
Confidence,
And strength.
So with that in mind,
Rather than being fearful of whatever might come next,
You can practice feeling a sense of self-agency,
Power,
And strength in your body,
Mind,
And spirit now.
And I will be silent for a few moments so that you can practice.
And if you happen to feel any resistance to this sense of power,
Self-agency,
Or self-worth right now,
That's okay.
Just gather as much spiritual power and strength as you can in your body,
Mind,
And spirit.
And perhaps you could start by feeling one of your fingers with power and courage,
And just build up the power and courage in your body,
Day by day,
More and more.
Just building and extending these feelings of power and strength and agency a little bit more every day until your entire body is filled with strength.
And if there is a sense of fragility somewhere in your consciousness,
It can be useful to imagine a nurturing person or perhaps even an angel holding you as a child or a younger person,
Reassuring you that you are safe,
You are powerful,
And you have courage.
When you remember who you really are,
A powerful soul having a human experience,
Knowing that you can always bring power into any traumatic memory.
Memories do not have to remain stored in your body exactly as they happened.
You can interrupt them.
You can change them.
You can imagine having the power you needed to escape,
Fight back,
Stand up,
Speak up,
Say no,
Or do any other empowering act that you were unable to execute at the time because your nervous system was just doing its best to help you cope with the time with such overwhelm.
So once you have gone through the first stage of healing trauma,
Which is to regulate your nervous system,
You can then start to bring power back into your body,
Mind,
And heart.
Whenever traumatic memories arise,
You have the power to modify,
Strengthen,
Change,
Or even erase traumatic memories by bringing new power into that memory through your imagination.
You can give your body a new experience of power by creating a new emotional experience within an old traumatic memory.
And so just remember that whenever a traumatic memory arises,
You can choose to juxtapose new emotions,
Mental states,
And spiritual power onto that memory and just repeat this empowering,
Imaginative process with every painful memory until its emotional charge is gone.
Warm blessings for your trauma healing journey.
