Trauma - Unconscious Armour.
If we are present enough to what happens within our body in the moment a distressing event or trigger occurs we will notice our system go into protective mode. We may feel our belly tense up, our heart protect itself, our shoulders freeze, our legs wanting to flee. We may feel constrictions all over.
These are layers of armour and it is a natural response our body has in order to protect itself from an experience.
Trauma occurs when these layers of protective armour never really let go again. They become frozen, stuck on as a looping pattern. Long after the event or period of distress occurs we can remain protected, cut off from all experience and loose all ability to connect to the moment. It is as if our body is unconsciously protecting itself from it happening again.
Trauma is a surval mechanism and we unconsciously build these layers in order to survive.
Trauma builds layers of protective armour between "me" and "experience". Everyone has this armour. It differs only in degree. How isolated and separate we feel runs parallel to the amount of unconscious armour we wear.
If trauma is to be resolved it must be done so on this somatic level.
- Matt Nettleton