Whispering Wyrd

The body remembers things even when the mind forgets. Every trauma specialist knows this. I think addiction specialists know it too, because trauma and addiction go hand in hand. I’ve never met an addict who didn’t carry some form of trauma, and addiction itself becomes its own kind of trauma. But here’s a cool story that happened to me that really drives home the fact of just how powerfully the body remembers stuff.

I really appreciate Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It’s helped me through some difficult stuff. Acupuncture, especially, has been really effective for me. I’m careful with any herbs or remedies because of my heart medication, but everything else like Tai Chi, Qigong, and acupuncture I’m definitely open to. So, I went in for another session.

She began by checking what she called my “energy.” I don’t claim to understand how it works. She had me sit and stand in different positions, checked my pulse in different places, and even waved a small vial of something over parts of my body. I know how that sounds. I know it can sound like “woo”, but please bear with me here, it gets interesting.

After a few minutes of this she told me I wasn’t releasing some old trauma. That comment stopped me cold, it really kinda hit me hard. She asked if something had been bothering me more than usual. I said, “Not really,” just because I didn’t want to go there. But she wasn’t giving up that easy and said she was seeing signs of what she called Qi stagnation. Basically, emotional energy that isn’t moving, that gets “stuck” in the body.

And she was right. Something had been bothering me. A lot. I just didn’t want to talk about it, not there, and not then because I knew it would break open my guard and I’d start crying. So instead of moving straight to acupuncture, she said she wanted to start with cupping. I’d never had it done before, but she wasn’t charging extra, so I agreed.

She put a small flame inside each glass cup before putting them on my body. Then she stepped out of the room for a few minutes. It didn’t take long until a strong wave of uneasiness came over me. That unease turned into a full-blown panic attack. And with it came a flood of memories. The ones I used to use alcohol and benzo to keep buried.

By the time she came back in, I was a mess. She saw I was having a panic attack and she started tapping really hard on the middle of my upper lip. Hard enough that I turned my head away because it hurt and I said, “Just give me a minute.”

I focused my mind and adjusted my breathing and chanted “Namo Amituofo” over and over. I was able to get myself under control that way pretty fast. She looked at me and asked, “How did you do that?” “With my mind,” I said. She smiled and said, “That’s impressive! If you can do that, you can do anything.”

What she meant was stopping a panic attack in the middle of it. But what struck me more was how suddenly the panic attack had come on in the first place. She explained that the cupping may have released “blockages,” letting the stagnant Qi to start moving again, not in a bad way, but in a releasing way. I don’t make any claim to understand that. I just know what I felt and what happened.

After that, we continued with acupuncture. It turned into a long session, and she gave me some practices to help with the emotional side of things. To keep Qi flowing naturally.

When I got home, I was exhausted, but lighter. A lot lighter. The whole thing reminded me of something my primary care doctor said not long ago. He said,  “I don’t know what it is about trauma at a young age, but it really does cause problems in the body years later.”

So the body definitely remembers. That part isn’t “woo” at all. Trauma specialists know it. Doctors know it. People who live with it definitely know it. We may not completely understand how it works or why certain experiences seem to get “stored” in the body, but the effects are definitely real.

You don’t have to have deep trauma to see it. Think about stress. Ever notice how it settles into your shoulders, neck, and your head? That tightness and the tension headache. That’s the same thing just on a smaller scale.

There’s clearly more going on in the relationship between body, mind, and spirit than we fully understand. Whether you put it in terms of nervous system responses, or Qi, or something else… there’s something there.

Because sometimes, when something finally shifts or releases, it really shifts. I still don’t fully understand what happened in that session, but I know this… my body remembered something I had tried to bury and forget. And in that office during that session, my body made me feel it.

Have you ever experienced anything like that?

Amituofo
~Buck