“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” ~ Rumi

Many of us have experienced difficult events in our life, such as abuse or emotional neglect in childhood, divorce of parents, accidents, illness and medical procedures, loss of a loved one or a dear pet, social injustice, poverty to name just a few. 

Events like these can feel overwhelming and leave us with feelings of anxiety, sadness, depression, anger, shame, loss of aliveness, a sense of being cut-off from ourselves, or a need to control what is around us.

These feelings can show up in many different situations in our lives. They can get in the way of living our lives the way we want, feeling confident and good about ourselves, establishing satisfying relationships, and feeling joy and pleasure.

Symptoms of early trauma might surface much later in our life, trigged by current events. We might think that it’s really not such a big deal yet why can’t we just get over it?

“I worked with Bibiana for over two years now and she has been a beacon of light to me. I am amazed how much my life has changed for the better since I started working with Bibiana. Initially more gradually but now in leaps and bounds my life became unstuck as she guided me gently and with certainty to what I felt was a very chaotic and painful past. Her intuition is always right on, and I highly recommend her to anyone ready to let the past stop pulling you back and ready to live life to the fullest in present time.”

~Christina H.

The work of Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Porges and other researchers has shown that trauma is not just in the mind, it also affects the body.

Tension held in various parts of the body – a sense of bracing against fear or a feeling of collapse in shame or helplessness – all can be consequences of previous overwhelming events.

Because these body responses are usually uncomfortable and often include negative emotions such as fear, anger or helplessness, we shy away from them and remove them from our awareness.

We might only have a vague sense of a tension in the shoulders that’s always there, or a slight clenching feeling in the gut that’s familiar, or a sense that our mind goes blank when we have an argument with someone.

Likely, we are not aware that these familiar feelings or sensations have anything to do with something difficult we experienced.