ACOA = Adult Child of an Alcoholic PTSD = Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

ACOA = Adult Child of an Alcoholic PTSD = Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

August 6th, 2014

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was unfortunately influenced by the effects of having a parent who was subject to being under the influence of alcohol. This child and this parent were truly just regular folks who felt pain. Be it the pain of overwhelm, fear of death, loss, lack, feelings of inadequacy, and depression. The child was subject to many mini-traumas and sometimes large traumas.

Children feel way more than we understand. The sense of fear that would be elicited in the girl’s body made her heart jump and her breath stop. The fear of saying or doing the wrong thing made her become very careful and reserved, for an accidental burst of joy or smart talk could affect the whole family when the bear awoke and showed its ugly teeth. One could not jeopardize the entire group through bad words or behavior. Thus slowly and sometimes instantly, the shutdown begins and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is born within another innocent heart.

Gradually numbing and disconnect occur in the heart of the girl who loved to be free and spontaneous was gone and buried deep within where no one could see her. She was hidden away. Her trust in her family was shifted to disappointment. Was it possible to trust anyone in this world? Doesn’t every parent betray, abandon and neglect their child? How does one figure all this out? I know… be really good in school where expectations are more predictable.

Sometimes her fear turned into rage. How can anyone for so long hold their precious feelings ever so tightly with no room for passion and hopefulness, creativity, empowerment and enthusiasm. All of these wonderful growth feelings every child deserves to engage with were limited and diminished by the alcoholic parent. The feelings that were allowed were despair, discouragement, insecurity, numbing, unworthiness and powerlessness. She had acquired those in abundance. Those feelings she lived with every day until her ability to feel the others was nearly gone or only showed up on rare occasions.

Now as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACOA), she has the clear choice to not engage with the alcoholic or the behavior patterns. She slowly uncovers the joyful feelings and creates space to give them new light and air to breath and expand. The process can be challenging, but the outcome is always blissfully better. More time spent with appreciation, love, knowledge and freedom, is worth the dark journey to it. She found her way out of the tunnel of fear and into the tunnel of Love. The Good news is she didn’t do it alone. She found many allies who assisted in loving her while she recovered her lost heart. Her Brennan Healing Science healer was at the core.

It is important to find the support you need with fellow travelers who have endured the rigorous training and imprinting living in a family of alcoholics brings to us. Get yourself to an Al-Anon meeting that feels good to you. There you will find a fellowship of travelers. Try some psychotherapy to work out the details of the pain and events that caused the mini-traumas leading to the varying levels of PTSD which may affect you in adulthood.

Brennan Healing Energy combined with Reiki can help you re-pattern your bio-energetic neuro-network that was imprinted with the alcoholic training. Reiki Energy Healing can also help you and re-parent yourself to a new place of emotional response to the triggers of life. Once you learn how to do it you can use it on yourself.

Always remember to have compassions for yourself and the alcoholic who was most likely a little child with some scary bear in the house as well. Love and forgiveness heal all wounds. It just takes time and support to recover. If you would like to talk about this disease some more schedule a free consult to see if Brennan Energy Healing is right for you. Email me today.

Blessings for your recovery.

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Releasing Trapped Emotions

July 5th, 2012

The physical body is an amazing vehicle for transformation. The month of June was spent accessing and releasing hidden and trapped emotions within my physical body. Since I broke my leg in a long mountain tumble last winter I have had a surgery and ongoing physical therapy. What follows is how it all went once the Physical Therapists took me as far as it could go on the physical level. The emotional level was about to be unleashed.

Yesterday I met with one of my physical therapists. He hasn’t seen me for a while, as I have two women and a man. The women kept me on an exercise routine and regularly maneuvered my right knee and hamstring muscles to aid in my full restoration of my injury. I am wanting to review my home exercises with Scott to see how to continue to make progress. I appear to be at a standstill not gaining any extension in my gait. Scott looks at the program and says you cant’ be doing exercises all day. He proceeded to ask about the pain and I told him it hurts in my upper thigh (IT band), below my knee and sometimes down to my foot.

Next he went to my right hip and began poking and prodding, finding all the key places which caused me to writhe and groan with pain. He holds the point of pressure releasing the trauma of the fall. As I lay there with the pain, breathing deeply, releasing with screams and shaking out of my system the accumulation of trauma my body took in on that cold winter morning. I tumbled some 200 yards of steep terrain in terror down a long double black diamond trail called Avalanche. I tried to go past that trail, but the ice took me down anyway.

Now I was the avalanche…all the terrible feelings of not knowing if I could stop myself… imminent death looming. The memories of yelling when no one could hear. Finally I commanded myself… STOP ! STOP ! STOP! Remembering what I did to stop the avalanche from getting to the bottom of the mountain. It all came to the front of my mind and vibrated itself with movement, breathing and loud screeching out of my hip, my muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments, nerves, blood and bone. I am shaking, vibrating, breathing deep in order to let it all go. I want to pass through it again with a witness to my terror. That is who this man is. My witness to my releasing, relieving for a few minutes my terror of the tumble.

At first it sounds kind of easy maybe even fun to roll down a hill like when you were a kid. The truth is, until now I didn’t realize I held so much trauma in my right hip, since it was me knee that broke. Each time my body turned over my hip led the way toward the earth and the frozen impact. I too, had been frozen until now. All is connected. I visualized those moments where my body was parallel to the mountain turning over and over with my right hip taking the brunt of the impact and force. I managed to hold my head up enough not to be slamming it on the hard pack snow and ice. My hip saved me and here it was releasing and me and my pt helper witnessing the trauma return and becoming consciously visible and known to us. A gift to me to have my hip be the holder of it all.

Thank you hip for saving me from increased death or destruction of my precious body. Thank you. I love my hip and how it holds me upright and safe.

I also began to remember an earlier impact when I was 12 years old. I fell/jumped off my horse twice while running full tilt and hit the earth with great force….more releasing creating a space for healing… freeing the trapped emotions of terror from an earlier time in my life…creating a space for healing. Room for something new to come in. Interesting how injuries have a way o repeating themselves.

It is all good, the releasing. Like giving birth we breath deeply with sound. Loud, powerful, sound through the pain and trauma. We come out the other side feeling brand new and free from the pain, free from the trauma imprint placed on the physical being. As we open it receive and allow the flow of trauma energy out and the influx of new energy in we are restored and healed.

We need our loving witnesses and therapy helpers to access the pressure points of pain we are not always willing to access on our own. They open us up t o our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies, to become truly free and present to our selves.

Thank you Scott, Laurie and Nancy for your healing hands and open hearts holding a space for me to be all I am in fear, terror and trauma. I am now free.