I'm realizing that the goal of trauma therapy, and the necessary accomplishment for the benefits, is NOT just to feel everything you've been disconnected from, not just to feel the stored feelings, but ALSO to get to where you feel that "It is safe to feel."
I'm putting together a "felt sense" that it is ok to feel whatever comes up in my body, between having experiences where I let feelings take over and it was ok, and supportive human connections, and positive feelings (if some of the feelings start to be wonderful, then it makes feeling feelings seem like a better deal).
(I've been having some more amazing physical feelings of bliss and contentment and 'healthiness' than I've had before, it's just amazing. and add that to taking care of myself well from a sensory perspective, using binaural beats, etc. It's possible to feel just far more amazing than I knew.)
This reminds me of that wonderful teacher, Florain Schlosser, who brings the body back into non-duality. Lots of what he says about letting a feeling take over and feeling the nervous system of people around you is very similar to what I'm learning about with trauma and health.
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With trauma therapy, I don't think it's that you need to attack all the repressed feelings and keep probing until every last one is out. It's not that you are done when you have felt every last bad feeling, and in fact, if you do this without building a sense that it is safe to feel in general, then you are certainly not done.
Instead, I think it's that you invest slowly and from many directions in something very wonderful and healthy and valuable, a felt sense and bodily confidence that it is safe to feel.
Many things can contribute to this:
Feeling repressed feelings (shows the body that it is ok to feel these)
Choosing to have people in one's life who will be safe to have feelings around
Not disowning what you know to be real, not hiding from the truth
Learning ways to regulate one's own nervous system, so that if feelings are too much, you can get yourself back to safety
Learning that others have felt and do feel what you feel, you aren't alone with these feelings (reminds me of a great Richard Moss talk on Conscious.tv) - has been a breakthrough for me with trauma therapy
Building a sense that "someone" or "something" is looking out for you or that you are part of something, whether God, "Intelligence," the human community, etc.
Learning how to bounce back and recover after times when you get overwhelmed and block your feeling again or go into familiar patterns of distancing from feelings (just as you learn to recover after arguments in a relationship, when you jump into old protective patterns)
Come to think of it, it's like building a good "relationship" with your body. It takes time to build trust, but having a good relationship can be very healthy and rewarding, whether between you and another person or between you and your body.
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Trauma therapy is not about search and destroy, just as Lyme or cancer treatment is not about getting every last bug or cell; rather it's about building the unity of the organism, the "okayness."
Lyme and cancer treatment seem to be about getting your system to the point where it's ok with having bugs/microorganisms/cancer cells around and it can deal with them.
Trauma therapy seems to be about getting your system to a place where it's ok with negative feelings and it can feel them without getting overwhelmed over over-reacting.
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