I was screaming and screaming. My husband was trying to restrain me, hold me, comfort me in some way. It was almost no use. My body was thrashing with white-hot agony that threatened to rip me down the middle and kill me kill me kill me

It could be anything that triggered it. Anything at all. A tiny whisper of an idea that I was not worth loving would set it off and I would feel it rise in me like a creature waking. A large violent creature. And I would begin to shake and I would start backing away, running away from my husband, the one who implied I was unlovable by saying that thing

I couldn’t reach you today, why do you always lose your phone?

…You have disappointed me

Wow the house is a mess today.

…You are incapable of functioning properly

Dinner still isn’t ready yet?

…You are a failure. You are unlovable. You are worthless.

These simple innocent things he said translated wrong in my soul. I heard something else entirely. I heard I had no value.

And sometimes this thing would inflate so great inside of me, rise up and awaken so terribly, I would begin to cry as I backed away, trying to get far away from the retranslated accusation that I was not good, and then I would be screaming. Not like screaming in horror. Not like screaming in defiance or anger. This was the mournful banshee sound of a soul ripped in two. Of a mother holding a dead child.

I would try to elude him but he would get hold of me. He would wrap his large strong arms around me and try to hold me tight. And I would welcome it, like a tourniquet. As I bled and bled from the inside of a soul so damaged, so filled with grief it simply had to come out. It had to.

Afterward I was a zombie. The exhaustion was what follows in the wake of a terrible trauma. The kind you see in people as they wander stoically out of a hospital waiting room after spending the night in a vinyl chair drinking ditchwater coffee while someone they loved slowly slipped away.

This went on for years.

What was happening to me is what I call soul detox. I had known so much trauma. So much loss. So much pain. And it was trapped. Lodged inside of my soul. It had collected in there. Hundreds of nights waiting for a wandering drunken husband to return. The first boy I loved who simply disappeared one day and never came back. A baby boy ripped from my arms. Many many months of the complete and total ostracizing that followed. My husband saying I want a divorce. So much trauma. So much loss. And my soul had learned one horrible idea by bearing it all…

You

simply 

aren’t

good

This grief has to come out. If it does not detox from the soul you will become very ill. Very ill indeed. And I was very ill. It manifests differently in everyone. For me it was depression. Social anxiety. Digestion issues and food sensitivities. Sudden unexplained infertility. And then there was the screaming. The outbursts of a soul on fire.

For others it is back pain.

Headaches.

Insomnia.

Skin problems.

Anxiety.

Addiction.

Anger.

Agression.

Fear.

One way or another grief with no outlet will take over the human body and soul and wreak havoc.

It took years and years of detoxing for me, there was so much grief lodged inside. Years of letting myself scream it out. Cry. Sit and shake. Write. Journal. Paint. Talk. Pray.

A couple years ago a friend was telling me about a type of therapy called TRE (Trauma Releasing Exercises) in which you allow your body to shake and it releases trapped trauma. He said that it was noticed that animals in the wild who experience fear or trauma run until they are safe and then stop and shake. After a period of shaking is complete, they move on as if nothing had happened. They started using this concept on PTSD victims with great success.

I found it very interesting because for years I had gone through this instinctively. Many times when I was detoxing trauma from my soul my body would shake and I could feel the toxin leave my body. One time I was doing yoga at home with a DVD instructor and I was in a supported bridge position and the instructor said, now give your hips a little shake to remove anything trapped in there. As I did so, I felt something dislodge in my soul, and tears sprang to my eyes and I silently wept for no particular reason at all for a few moments. Then it was gone. I never knew what I had detoxed at that moment but it was some small bit of trauma or grief. When my friend told me about the therapy years later and I saw it in action, I was very interested to see that this exact position is one of the main ones used.

Here is a link to a short video about this type of therapy:

I do not scream anymore.

The bulk of the grief is gone now.

After twelve years of screaming, finally one day it just stopped. That was about four years ago now.

Sometimes I feel the sting. Sometimes I still get angry and slam a door. But I do not scream. And that is a huge huge thing. Cleaning out my soul was a very long very arduous process. It was a very dirty place. But it is one of my greatest victories. One of my most life changing accomplishments. I would do it all again. It was worth every moment of effort and pain.

Now when he says

I couldn’t reach you today, why do you always lose your phone? That is all I hear. I laugh and see that he finds my lack of interest in technology cute and endearing.

Wow the house is a mess today. I look around and say, you’re right. I was writing all day. And then he smiles and kisses my cheek and adores me because I am a quirky bohemian that scrubs the entire house with a toothbrush one day and then gets swept into a writing world the next and forgets to eat.

Dinner still isn’t ready yet? I say, No I got home late. Or I say, Just give me thirty minutes. And he happily goes to tinker in the garage.

There is no more pain. Just peace. Our lives are transformed. And happy.

If you want to heal, it is vital that you start digging around in there. Start uncovering your grief. Start facing it. Start poking at it, let it rise up in you and then let yourself express it in whatever way you need to (but hopefully in a way that is safe for you and others around you). Like a giant tree stump, it may take a lot of twisting and pushing. It may take many years to dislodge completely, but you cannot leave it in there or you will always be under the weight of it in some way. It is toxic. It will make your body and mind very sick.

One thing that is absolutely vital, you have to stop medicating it to sleep. This is what we are taught to do in this terribly unwise and misguided society. We are told to keep it quiet, keep it asleep. With drugs and food and TV and busyness and pills and drink. But if we do this then we will never be free. Never.

Step 1: We must first stop sedating it.

Step 2: We must get into a quiet place. Perhaps alone, perhaps with a trusted person or counselor.

Step 3: And then we must begin to dig around. And start unearthing this dark malevolent toxin.

Step 4: We must make it a life mission to clean house. And never give up until every breath we take is filled with peace and freedom.

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