Shake it up! — Healing Trauma by Allowing Yourself to Shake

Mindbody Wellness Clarity Tips

Dear Awesome Woman,

Ever find yourself shaking or trembling after a particularly stressful experience? Maybe you just had a conflict with someone or a near accident and your body starts to shake. Rather than getting embarrassed and trying to calm it down to stop the shaking, just allow it. Your body is releasing excess stress hormones and bringing itself back to a state of equilibrium.

The incident could have been anything that was emotionally or physically disturbing to you. In the midst of the event, you may have argued, walked away or stood silent. You were primed up and using your fight, flight or freeze response.Terrific! This is exactly how your body is programmed—this is a healthy mindbody system.

But what you do afterwards is also important. Your body has just been in the sympathetic nervous system and a whole bunch of adrenaline has raced through you. That adrenaline may need a release and that is through shaking.Your only job is to allow your body to do its thing. In other words, shake it up!

Ever watch an animal after it’s been scared and has run off or fought or even played “dead”? Notice that it shakes. As mammals, humans also need to do this to prevent stress hormones from getting stuck in our cells. These hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are here to help—to give the body the energy to respond to a potentially dangerous situation.  But we don’t want the body to stay stuck in that state of being. One could remain “frozen” to a degree around particular situations and this makes it hard to move forward in a more empowered way. This is trauma. So, as uncomfortable as it may feel, when we allow our bodies to discharge the excess adrenaline by shaking, we are decreasing the chances of remaining emotionally and physically frozen in time.

The first time I heard of this, I was at a trauma release workshop at a coach summit. I attended the class because I was interested in body work, but was mesmerized by the instructor’s painful story of the physical and emotional problems that she experienced after a car accident. She was well enough to walk away from the collision, but as she stood on the sidewalk staring at her wrecked car, she recalls hugging herself tightly. Hugging ourselves gives us a sense of comfort after a traumatic experience, but if our body is shaking and we are trying to prevent it from doing so, this can lead to problems. The shaking is the body’s way of releasing adrenaline and bringing balance back to our system. The instructor told us that she had stopped her body’s natural tremoring response because she was embarrassed and was just trying to “be okay” in public.

Unfortunately, she suffered emotionally and physically for many years after the accident and she attributes it to the suppression of this release response.  Her healing came when she got treated by Dr. David Bercelli, author of The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process. His work  teaches people how to allow shaking in the body to help heal from being stuck in the fight, flight or freeze response.

Anytime you find yourself or anyone for that matter shaking after an intense experience, no matter how big or how small—allow that response. You can hug them or yourself loosely so comfort and nurturing is experienced, but encourage the tremoring and shaking. This is the body following its innate wisdom.

Need a helping hand? Schedule your Free Clarity Call today! As a Somatic Healer, Relationship Expert & Clarity Coach, I help empower women to trust themselves through the wisdom of their bodies and intuition. Marriage tune-up, toxic narcissist relationship detox, dating help, career decisions, goal setting, emotional and physical pain relief, and trauma processing can all be accomplished through an integrated somatic process. It’s not just talk therapy!

All Mindbody Soul sessions are by phone. Through learning to trust the wisdom of your body, emotions and intuition, you can discover a clear path to empowerment, vitality and joy. Download your free gift eguide: “3 Secrets to Solve Burnout and Get Energized the Mindbody Wellness Way” (also gives access to your free download of “Escape from the Borderline/Narcissist’s Web” ). 

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“Miriam helped me access my own strength. She teaches practical techniques in a balanced way that helped me zoom into my own inner wisdom. Her work is focused, orderly, and most important, she didn’t try to do the work for me, but helped me tune into to my own inner strength and voice. And from there build healthy relationships with myself and with others.” 

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