Hello, my friends, and welcome to this new episode of Root and Rise, the space where we slow down and drop in to the deeper and vaster rhythms that govern life. I'm Rohini Walker, and I'm so happy you're tuning in today.
If you've listened to previous episodes of this podcast, you'll know that my own trauma healing journey eventually led me to start facilitating trauma repair and integration for others, especially for the sensitive and creative and neurodivergent people who, like me, don't process the world in quote normal ways.
People who are interested in embracing what makes them different in composting their wounds and in transmuting those wounds into creativity.
I truly believe that these people are the world builders at this time, the stewards of what's emerging as we spin cycle our way towards a whole new paradigm, people who can cognize the world in radically new and different and generative ways, and build systems that enable collective thriving and ecological integrity, people who know and feel that this is not too idealistic or unrealistic, but the natural order of things, like I said, these are my people, and because of their sensitivity, they tend to feel the world very deeply in their bones, and this sensitivity is not a curse, it's a gift, and it's a necessary gift for world building.
It's the sensitivity that tunes you into the felt sense truth that you're a bridge between old patterns and new emergent possibilities, that you're here to embody a different way of being and doing in the world, and one of the most important things to remember, if you're one of these people, and if you're ready to start wielding your sensitivity as the gift and the superpower that it is, one of the most important things to remember is that you are not your wounds, we are not our wounds, very often when we've experienced severe trauma for prolonged periods of time, and especially from a young age, we don't know who we are and who we would be without these wounds. We have no sense of self without our wounds, and this is what can keep us stuck in post traumatic stress disorder, rather than slowly moving into post traumatic stress growth, and I want to say that that growth can only be genuine growth when it's not being compared to other people and to their journeys post traumatic stress growth can only really happen in a sustainable and a sustained way when we're paying attention to our capacity.
This is actually what creates resilience and lasting change for us in a holistic way.
My own story through my journey of post-traumatic stress growth was facilitated not only by human teachers and guides, but in very large part by the wilderness of the Mojave High Desert, where I've been living and listening and learning and unlearning for over a decade, supported by this land, I've been tending to wounds from the dominant culture, from generations, from my ancestry, and after a couple of intense and transformative journeys into the underworld to retrieve and restore fragmented parts of my soul. The embodied understanding that I am not these wounds receded in my nervous system one spring, and I remember it so clearly, and I can tend to these wounds, I can be the space for them to heal and transmute and transform in their own time, as a regenerative farmer would tend to soil and air that has been degraded and exploited by aggressive monocropping and industrial farming.
When previously degraded soil is tended to skillfully, when it's given the space and time to heal, it naturally regenerates the soil's native microbiome begins to thrive, and pollinators start to return, and healthy new growth organically happens, and so too with our souls and our bodies, the legacy of trauma that this dying dominant culture would have us believe is all that we are is not at all what we are.
Nature knows that she is not the wounds that we inflict upon her. She is the medicine in which they are given the space and time to resolve back into the wholeness of her, and as I will never tire of reminding us we're inseparable from nature, tending our soul's soil organically without forcing or fixing inevitably makes way for new growth, for new aligned and generative stories to emerge.
Let's zoom in for a moment at what's happening when we become identified with our wounds and with our traumas from the lens of somatic experiencing, which is essentially somatic psychology.
Unresolved trauma in our systems are contractions and constrictions in our psyche and our soma, and as such they're operating from limited and contracted states of consciousness, because of their very nature of contraction and of tightness, they don't have access to the larger context that they exist in and are a part of. They feel separate from the whole.
So, what do I mean by that.
Let's do a quick practice stroke experiment to get a clearer felt sense of what I mean, and there's no right or wrong with this practice. We're just noticing whatever we notice. This is all about the high and humble art of noticing, which in itself can be the most revelatory and transformative act.
So take a breath and drop into your body if you can, if you have the capacity to in this moment, and if you don't, that is totally fine. No need to force it. Just listen along.
Eyes can be closed or open, whatever feels right for you. Definitely open if you're driving, obviously.
and notice a part of you that feels constricted or tight, like closed off, contracted, maybe even numb,
just notice, and if you don't have any constrictions or numbness right now, that's great. Again, just listen along,
so we don't need to fix or judge this tight numb or constricted part of us, we're just noticing it, allowing it, it's here, this constriction.
See if you can relate to it as a being that's here in your system, notice it, feel it, bring awareness
to it, and now allow your awareness to become it, to become identified with it to become identified with its consciousness state and its capacities for sensing or feeling,
so we do this all the time, this identification with the contractions in our system when we say things like I am angry rather than I feel anger here in my chest, I feel tightness and heat.
So right now I'm inviting you to become whatever it is that feels constricted and contracted in your system become whatever emotional and sensational experience it is I am dot dot dot
and as this contraction, what is your experience of existing, of belonging, of relating?
Do you feel one with the whole system that you're a part of, or do you feel separate and alienated?
Do you feel open to life or closed off from
it? Are you operating from a place of feeling resourced and supported, or from a place of feeling lack and scarcity
again. Notice whatever you notice without judgment,
and now take another deep breath or two,
and see if you can find a part of you that has some space, some capacity that feels open and spacious, or even neutral, and again allow your awareness to become this sensation, this experience, this emotion.
What is the consciousness state of this somatic experience,
we're not judging this as better than the constriction, we're just feeling and noticing the difference.
Both exist, both are allowed to be here, and we're feeling into each one, because really we're not either of them.
We're the space that witnesses both.
We're the space in which these opposite and opposing experiences can rise and shift and change.
I feel tightness and anger.
I feel spaciousness and calm, or whatever the different experiences happen to be for you.
so going back to what I was saying about the contractions and constrictions in our psyche and soma operating from a very limited consciousness state and capacity, hopefully you have a bit more of a practical, embodied sense of what I mean from doing that quick practice, that quick experiment, and
when these contractions are unresolved wounds and traumas in our system, and we've become unconsciously identified with them. We are also operating from and sensing and feeling from that limited capacity and consciousness state, which means that that's what we are creating and experiencing our lives from and from that place of being identified with our wounds, we're also setting in motion biochemical and physiological responses in the form of chronic inflammation and stress hormones, and perhaps most importantly, from the perspective of healing and evolving, we're unable to tend to these wounds because we're completely identified with them. Just like a parent can't be a resource for co-regulation and repair for their child's emotional upset if they become enmeshed with the child's experience in the same way, coming to an embodied somatic understanding that we are not our wounds starts to make space for tending to them, allowing them the space to repair and resolve, which they naturally do, given the space and time.
This is how the wounds begin to release and integrate, and what emerges is energy and creative life force that had become bound up or compressed within the contraction, when this is done within our capacity, within our nervous system's window of tolerance, so that we don't overwhelm or re-traumatize ourselves. It's a beautiful example of slowing down to go faster.
It's very similar to the way that regenerative farming rehabilitates soil with no aggressive pushing and forcing methods, certainly no chemical interference, because regenerative agriculture, which is just a modern term for indigenous land tending practices, is also a holistic or whole systems approach, and as we're not separate from nature, taking this regenerative holistic approach towards tending to our inner terrain benefits the larger ecosystems and communities that we're a part of when the architects and stewards of the emerging paradigm can tend to their own wounds instead of becoming identified with them, their world building sensitivity can be wielded as the creative gift and the superpower that it is, and by Goddess, this planet is ready for sensitive, creative world builders.
If that's you, you're invited to join my online membership space, also called Root and Rise, because that is the essence of the process I facilitate, and summer enrollment is now open until midnight Pacific time on june 30, and the link to find out more and to join is in the show notes.
So, to close, no matter how intense and all consuming, they feel.
Remember, we are not our wounds, we are the space for them to resolve, being held in a supportive community, so that your identity can become established and rooted in the ground of your being in who you truly are is our journey in Root and Rise this summer and beyond, and until next time, remember that your sensitivity, your neurodivergence are exactly the world building gifts that are required at this time
