Trauma Releasing Exercises

1. Trauma Recovery Needs a New Paradigm: Innate Self-Healing

If trauma can occur to every human being, then the trauma healing process must be inherent in every human being.

Rethinking healing. Traditional trauma recovery often relies on individual psychotherapy and Western psychological principles, but observations in war-torn regions reveal a different truth. Many cultures naturally integrate trauma recovery into family and community traditions, demonstrating that healing doesn't always require professional therapists or ego-centric approaches. This suggests a need for a new paradigm that acknowledges inherent human resilience.

Bodymind continuum. Humans possess an innate, genetically encoded capacity to heal from traumatic experiences, a survival mechanism honed through evolution. This healing is deeply rooted in the "bodymind continuum," recognizing that what affects the body affects the mind, and vice versa. Trauma reactions are an exquisite interplay of psychological, neurological, physiological, and psychobiological systems, all working as survival mechanisms.

Empowering self-recovery. The Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE)™ are designed to empower individuals to take trauma recovery into their own hands, complementing or, in some cases, serving as an alternative to professional counseling. This method is particularly valuable for self-help groups, families, and professions exposed to trauma, offering a lifelong tool to maintain psychophysical balance and navigate difficult experiences.

2. Trauma is a Bodily, Instinctual Response Requiring Physical Release

Essentially, this shaking is the body’s natural method of discharging the high levels of tension and chemicals that overcharge the body at the time of an incident.

Instinctual protection. Trauma is primarily an autonomic, unconscious, and instinctual bodily reaction, not a conscious decision. When danger strikes, skeletal muscles, especially the psoas muscles (the body's fight/flight muscles), contract to protect vital organs. This deep muscular tension, if not released, can lead to chronic pain, particularly in the lower back, and contribute to the persistent symptoms of PTSD.

The natural release mechanism. All mammals, including humans, possess a natural mechanism to discharge excess energy generated during trauma: involuntary shaking or trembling. Animals in the wild instinctively shake off the tension after a threat, returning to a relaxed state. However, human socialization often inhibits this natural response, leading us to suppress shaking to avoid appearing weak or afraid.

Reactivating the body's wisdom. When this natural discharge is suppressed, the excess energy remains trapped, creating a chronic state of tension and a "bio-neural-physical loop" that perpetuates post-traumatic reactions. TRE is specifically designed to artificially evoke this neurogenic tremor mechanism, starting from the body's center of gravity in the pelvis. This shaking reverberates throughout the body, dissolving deep, chronic muscle contractions and signaling the brain that danger has subsided, restoring the body to a state of rest and recuperation.

3. Trauma Rewires the Brain and Body's Chemistry

Their neurological, biological and anatomical changes have caused a dramatic change in their personalities.

Chemical imbalances. Prolonged or repeated trauma significantly alters the body's chemical landscape, leading to elevated levels of adrenaline and cortisol, and reduced serotonin. This "adrenaline rush" can become a new baseline, making individuals "addicted" to their own stress chemicals and causing exaggerated reactions to everyday stressors. The decrease in serotonin, the "feel good drug," further contributes to impulsivity and aggression.

Opioid's dissociative effect. Beyond adrenaline, the body can also produce opioids during trauma, creating a "slow motion," "surreal," or "out-of-body" sensation. This numbing or dissociative response is the body's primitive way of coping with overwhelming pain or inescapable abuse, prioritizing survival over feeling. It allows the body to endure what it cannot fight, leading to passive defenses.

Bi-phasic reactions and personality shifts. Traumatized individuals often experience a bi-phasic or bi-modal state, swinging rapidly between hyperarousal (high adrenaline) and dissociation/depression (opioid-induced numbness). This chemical imbalance manifests as unpredictable personality changes:

• Over-responsive to negative comments, under-responsive to positive ones.
• Explosive emotions followed by emotional numbness.
• Hyperactive behaviors alternating with tiredness or insomnia.
  These shifts can be mistaken for mood disorders, but are, in fact, post-trauma reactions embedded in the person's physiology.

4. Intuition: The Abdominal-Pelvic Brain's Primal Warning System

The abdominal-pelvic brain is a plexus or bundle of nerves located in the lower abdomen and pelvis. They are directly connected to the autonomic nervous system.

Beyond the cranial brain. While the cranial brain governs logic and reasoning, humans possess a less-studied "Abdominal-Pelvic brain"—a dense network of nerves in the lower abdomen and pelvis, rich in sympathetic (fight/flight) nerves. This "gut feeling" system is fully formed and functional long before the cranial brain, and in times of trauma, the body prioritizes its signals for immediate survival.

The conflict of intuition and logic. This abdominal-pelvic brain often senses danger intuitively, sending alerts to the cranial brain before any logical evidence appears. Our culture, however, often diminishes intuition in favor of logic, leading to internal conflict when there's no "logical" reason for a sensation of danger. This override can be detrimental, as the body's primal warning is often more accurate in life-threatening situations.

Reclaiming sensory wisdom. Soldiers in war zones are often encouraged to trust their gut feelings, even without concrete evidence, highlighting the survival advantage of heeding this primal intelligence. Trauma, by forcing us to confront raw survival, can help us reconnect with this vital sensory experience. Recognizing and respecting the abdominal-pelvic brain's role is crucial for holistic trauma recovery, allowing us to integrate intuition with logic for a more complete understanding of our environment and ourselves.

5. Childhood Trauma's Lasting Impact and Societal Denial Have Lasting, Damaging Effects

It is an ultimate irony that at the time when the human is most vulnerable to the effects of trauma—during infancy and childhood—adults generally presume the most resilient.

Permanent neural imprints. Children are profoundly vulnerable to trauma, yet often presumed resilient. When trauma occurs during critical developmental stages, the temporary traumatic thought patterns needed for survival become permanently embedded in the developing brain. This means traumatized children process all unfamiliar or overwhelming events as potentially dangerous, leading to chronic hyperarousal or dissociative behaviors that persist into adulthood.

The cost of denial. Despite overwhelming statistics—over four million children exposed to trauma annually in the U.S.—society lacks a comprehensive national awareness and recovery plan for PTSD. This denial stems from "positive illusions" like "good things happen to good people," which shatter when tragedy strikes. These illusions leave individuals and institutions unprepared, perpetuating a cycle of unaddressed suffering.

Breaking the silence. The societal cost of unaddressed PTSD, including billions in lost productivity and widespread suffering, far outweighs the financial cost of healing. Acknowledging trauma's pervasive effects requires confronting our collective discomfort with human fragility and the "terrible knowledge" that positive illusions are false. Proactive education and recovery programs in schools, hospitals, and emergency services are essential to support traumatized individuals and prevent the long-term societal consequences.

6. Trauma Distorts Perception, Fosters Enemy Images, and Impairs Judgment

This discrimanating mechanism is still useful and still continues to protect us when we are in real danger, such as in times of war, but it can be equally as damaging and harmful when the danger is only imagined and/or ego based.

Selective enemy imaging. Trauma activates a primitive, animal-based instinct for self-preservation, leading to "selective enemy imaging." The brain generalizes fear from a specific threat (e.g., a male attacker) to an entire group (e.g., "all men"), creating prejudice. While useful in the jungle for identifying real predators, this mechanism, when unchecked in modern society, fuels discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or religion, turning imagined threats into real societal divisions.

Imagination's dangerous power. Those who only imagine another's suffering can become more bitter, vengeful, and less accepting than those who actually endured the trauma. This is because imagination, when divorced from the body's reality of survival, generates horrifying illusions that lack the tempering effect of physical sensations of aliveness and resilience. The body's experience of surviving helps temper the mind's narrative, allowing for greater acceptance and forgiveness.

Traumatized leadership and impaired objectivity. Prolonged exposure to danger can impair judgment, as the logical neocortex is hijacked by the instinctual limbic system. Individuals living in traumatic environments may become accustomed to extreme danger, losing their capacity for objective assessment of their own safety. Leaders, too, can suffer from impaired objectivity, making decisions based on a trauma-altered state of consciousness rather than rational thought, highlighting the need for external intervention in high-stress situations.

7. Organizational Trauma Undermines Trust and Requires Proactive Solutions

To overlook or misunderstand this fundamental issue of large scale traumatization is to trivialize the psycho-emotional complexities facing many international corporations today.

The invisible epidemic in the workplace. Trauma, often unrecognized, is a "new epidemic" in the corporate world, leading to "organizational trauma." When companies offer inadequate support post-crisis, employees with persistent PTSD symptoms feel isolated, leading to withdrawal, decreased commitment, and a breakdown of trust. This insidious erosion affects the institutional, structural, and relational fabric of organizations.

Traditional methods fall short. Conventional crisis management techniques, relying on logical and cognitive processing, are ineffective against trauma-induced behaviors, which are instinctual and unconscious. Traumatized teams exhibit dysfunctions like a "lack of trust" and "fear of conflict," rooted in a neurological impediment to openness and an inability to process fear in gradations. Simple fear can escalate to terror, causing defensive outbursts or withdrawal.

A comprehensive, proactive approach. Corporations need a three-component strategy:

• Pre-assignment seminars: Educate staff on trauma awareness and provide techniques to reduce its effects before exposure.
• On-site visitation: Professional assessment and support during assignments in trauma environments.
• Post-assignment debriefing: Thorough evaluation and recovery plans for employees returning from trauma zones.
  This proactive investment in employee well-being is cost-effective, enhances team cohesion, and mitigates legal risks, as neurological changes from trauma are increasingly recognized as physical injuries.

8. Trauma as a Catalyst for Wisdom, Compassion, and Expanded Worldviews

People who have healed successfully from trauma discover that their life is richer, fuller and more caring than they had ever experienced before.

Shattering and rebuilding belief systems. Trauma, an experience outside our normal worldview, forces a profound re-evaluation of self, life, and belief systems. It's not just a test of faith but a neurological process that stimulates the reflective neocortex to restructure one's understanding. Trying to force trauma into an existing belief system often leads to rigidity or abandonment of faith; true healing demands an expansion of one's worldview to incorporate the tragic event.

The path to deeper wisdom. The recovery process, though painful and often leading through helplessness, unveils the fragility of humanity. This shattering effect compels new ways of thinking, deeper emotional engagement, and increased compassion for others. Successfully renegotiating trauma transforms individuals, fostering a richer appreciation for life, gratitude, and a profound sense of connectedness to humanity and the universe.

Evolutionary imperative. Trauma is an integral part of human evolution, forcing adaptation that makes the species stronger and wiser. On a global scale, the widespread trauma of our era, though devastating, holds the potential to catalyze humanity's development into a more ethical, moral, and compassionate species. It may be the universe's way of helping us develop the wisdom necessary to responsibly handle our technological advancements.

9. Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE): A Self-Empowering Path to Healing

The uniquely created Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE)™ at the end of this book are specifically designed to artificially evoke this shaking mechanism.

A natural, body-based approach. Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) are a revolutionary method based on the body's inherent capacity for self-healing. These simple, painless techniques are designed to artificially evoke the neurogenic tremors—the body's natural shaking mechanism—to release deep, chronic muscle contractions caused by severe shock or trauma. They draw from the wisdom of traditions like Bioenergetics, Tai Chi, and Yoga, but the tremors themselves are a natural human response.

Targeting deep tension. Unlike most exercise routines that release surface-level tension, TRE specifically targets the deep chronic tension held in muscles, particularly the psoas, which are often contracted during traumatic experiences. By evoking shaking from the body's center of gravity in the pelvis, TRE reverberates throughout the entire body, dissolving tension and restoring a sense of safety and relaxation. This process can be exhausting or invigorating, and the shaking patterns may vary.

Self-application and caution. TRE can be easily learned and integrated into a daily routine for prevention and recovery, offering a self-applied and self-diagnostic tool. While generally safe, individuals with a history of physical limitations or psychological stress should consult a healthcare professional, as the exercises can have immediate and deep effects, including strong trembling and emotional release. The key is to respect one's body, stopping if needed, and returning when feeling calm and safe, allowing for a profound, accumulative effect of relaxation and integration.

Last updated: August 24, 2025