Revolution of the Soul: Awaken to Love Through Raw Truth, Radical Healing, and Conscious Action

by Seane Corn

Shock trauma

having someone die unexpectedly, being

Because trauma lives in the body — and cannot be reasoned away. “Our issues live in our tissues,” as yogis are fond of saying, and they are kept alive by our obsessive thoughts.

So true

our bodies are busy holding on tightly to the “story,

Its so interesting to see where a random thought goes and grows into story and how I can notice this and re-route my attention

Our bodies keep everything we’ve ever repressed, locked away in our muscles, joints, and cellular tissue. Our bodies remember everything.

You need to see and feel what’s coming up, as it’s happening, and commit to staying present and investigating your narrative, your internal experience — without judgment.

The freeze-or-fold response causes you to either dissociate in any number of ways (freeze) or collapse or capitulate (fold).

The threat passes, and we “shake it off” by crying, trembling, or screaming — anything we can do to discharge the energy and release the tension from the body. Then the parasympathetic nervous

Denying or bypassing negative thoughts and feelings or avoiding situations that remind you of the original trauma will prevent the body from being able to rid itself of the trauma you initially experienced. At that point, those undigested emotions (anger, fear, shame) become entangled in the residue and indistinguishable from the original event.

any new situation you experience that’s even mildly uncomfortable or feels unsafe produces a biochemical reaction akin to the first trauma. Before you’re even aware of what’s happening, your brain has checked out and time traveled back to the original stressor.

Suddenly the mildly uncomfortable situation has become an emotionally heightened one. To feel better, to shift the energy, you may find yourself becoming reactive.

All the undigested emotions and their associated energy — the fear, anger, rage, shame, or helplessness — live on in the body, hidden away, and can manifest as muscular tension. Over time, the tension becomes so familiar, so predictable, that it feels perfectly normal and safe.

Moving the body releases tension. Being physical unties knots. Engaging the mind gives us context and allows us to investigate what’s bubbling up.

It has helped

Where does the tension lie? Where are the areas of contraction? Focusing on the breath, we can see the places in the body that feel stuck, that need physical release and emotional reconciliation.

Breathing into sensation quiets the reactive manomaya kosha — the monkey mind that can’t seem to leave things alone — and engages the heart. The heart center — also called the wisdom mind, or vijnanamaya kosha — invites us to notice our experiences as they are happening without judgment and without the intrusion of painful memories.

monkey mind definitely gets us in trouble and ca...

Think of vrittis as the endless loop of stories you tell yourself, the ones that keep you tethered to a “less-than” or “I’m not worthy” script that plays on repeat in your mind.

We live in our shadow, and we see the world through that lens. By

Yoga’s job is to show you what’s actually happening — not what the mind thinks is happening or wants to happen. Yoga exposes truth; it allows the stories buried deep within the body to emerge out of the tension you’ve released and into the open spaces you’ve created.

life, when we get uncomfortable or big emotions arise, we can turn to food, drugs and alcohol, sex, or even shopping or TV watching to change or alter those feelings.

We have to look at how the mind keeps us distracted or even disempowered. This is essential to our healing because however we deal with discomfort on the mat mirrors how we behave when we’re challenged in life.

don’t get consumed by what you discover. Loosen the grip (vairagya) it has on you, relax the identity it gives you, and simply let it be. Can you observe something as it presents itself and not get caught up in it?

can get unwittingly “addicted” to our tension, limiting beliefs, and disconnected feelings, all of which create a biochemical response that becomes all too familiar, predictable, and oddly comforting.

subconscious defaults to what it knows and encourages the sensation to surface that will keep us on high alert — more tension, defensiveness, numbing out — so we can never be hurt or taken by surprise again.

LA can be superficial and egocentric, a place that raises hopes and shatters dreams. But it’s also a hotbed of alternative health and healing practices.

remember Norman saying that not crying was a part of my dissociation, that I shoved my feelings down deep inside and made myself numb out so I wouldn’t feel anything. Feelings weren’t safe for me. They were chaotic and scary, and so to avoid them, I repressed them. Raging, something I did frequently, especially in the face of injustice, could also make me “feel better,

challenges expand our perspective and open our hearts . .

if we allow them to.

He speaks of vulnerability, of surrender, and of acceptance.

How someone evolves, I remember Billy telling me, was between each being and the God of their understanding. Sometimes it’s messy, always it’s perfect, and each experience, every moment, opens us to love.

“Start with yourself. Forgive yourself for thinking you should have known better.”

I knew I was angry, deeply angry, and that this anger has been with me a long, long time. I also knew that I have avoided this anger, and the grief beneath it, by running away from it in different ways over all these years. In that moment, I realize that by running away from my grief, I have also abandoned the tenderest parts of myself and left her, my little self, behind. I make a silent commitment to

have learned how to cope, but now I want to learn how to heal.

Not quite like the caterpillar becoming the butterfly, more like how it becomes the pupa first. Messy and emulsified, but rich with possibility.

got triggered, tried to dissociate, and at times came close to being re-traumatized — and that can be pretty scary. I was scared, but not so overwhelmed that I felt unsafe or that I lacked the tools I needed to take care of myself.

Although it might not feel true, you have the right to make choices about your body at all times.

make sure you have support, be patient and loving with yourself as you explore the stories that live within your body, and know that getting triggered on the mat is a very normal part of the process.

being re-traumatized and remaining in overwhelm is neither healthy nor useful.

even when our minds wander off on a tangent and we haven’t a clue what’s causing the shitstorm brewing inside, the body continues to alert us through physiological cues, which we can easily misinterpret.

Because it’s the tension in the muscles, and restrictions in the connective tissue that have sealed off emotions we can’t deal with, feelings that we deem “negative” or “inappropriate” or too hot to handle. Once the tension is released, the emotions rush to the surface ready to be acknowledged, dealt with, and set free.

Plantar fascitis

Yoga simply says pay attention to what’s happening, as it’s happening, and notice your reaction to it.

Your reactivity is key. There’s a saying, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical,” which means the release of tension can elicit strong reactions that have nothing to do with what’s going on in the moment; rather, they are rooted in childhood or even ancestral traumas.

Sensations aren’t the emotions themselves; rather,

they’re the body’s way of communicating with you, getting your attention, letting you know something’s bubbling up that you should investigate:

The mind tries to assign meaning to these sensations, labeling them either positive or negative. If they’re more than we can handle, it will revert to its favorite distraction techniques to avoid discomfort. Off the mat, that might mean food, sex, drugs, alcohol,

When

But if we are unable or unwilling to deal with the overwhelming experience — by raging, crying, shaking, yawning, or otherwise discharging the energy — the feelings move into the muscles, which constrict around the pain in the form of muscular tension.

Unlike muscles, connective tissue should never be stretched through repetitive action. It takes stillness and time to regain elasticity, long holds to effect change.

We might think we’re enraged, but if we can stay with the sensations bubbling up, we may discover that the rage, a more familiar and often safer emotion, is actually masking fear, or perhaps even grief.

The way to get energy moving again is to release tension in the muscles, to untie the knots in the fascia that keep your emotions on lock-down.