Understanding the relationship between the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and anxiety is essential to treatment. The SNS is a part of the autonomic nervous system that activates our body’s "fight or flight" response. For those with trauma histories, this response can become overactivated, even in non-threatening situations, leading to heightened and persistent anxiety.
Trauma leaves a profound impact, often shaping the way people perceive the world, relate to others, and even experience themselves. The good news is that trauma doesn't have to define you, and through therapies like EMDR, there is a way to find relief, process the pain, and move forward into a healthier and more empowered life.
Trauma is the physiological and psychological response to deeply disturbing or distressing events that overwhelm our ability to cope, leading to profound feelings of helplessness and hopelessness protecting ourselves (or others we care about like parents or siblings) when faced with real (or perceived) threats.
When left untreated, patterns of disturbance which are experienced for more than 1 month after a traumatic event has occurred, and cause significant disruption in social and occupational areas of one’s life often become what is known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
To say the least, 2020 was a strange and chaotic year for us all. With the COVID-19 pandemic at the forefront of great challenges and change in our social, political, and economic systems, many of us were forced into an unfamiliar and unpredictable world wrought with fear of what’s to come, grief at what was lost, and uncertainty about how to navigate it all.
There are three existential questions all of us have asked or will ask at some point in our lives:
1) Who am I?
2) Where did I come from?
3) What is the meaning and purpose of my life?
These questions are extraordinarily complex and intricate, as they are unique to the individual person and are exceedingly difficult to answer by one’s self. The reason these questions are more challenging to answer is because we cannot answer them by mere thought alone.
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
What is the attitude you take towards challenges and conflict in your life? What are those loud, annoying voices in our heads saying to us about how should we live our lives? Raise our children? How we should view ourselves and place in this world?
“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing”. - Eckhart Tolle
Have you ever felt so stuck in life that there seemed to be no way out? Finding yourself repeating similar cycles in your life, career, or relationships which continue to leave you feeling stagnant and unfulfilled?
There have been several times in my life where I too have been stuck in these seemingly endless cycles; always feeling hopeless, anxious, depressed, and confused about how to get unstuck. Like a truck spinning its’ tires in the mud, I was going absolutely nowhere fast. Too often in these situations we beat ourselves up, thinking with enough self-criticism and anger that somehow we will get out.
Yet, not only do we continue to dig our own proverbial graves, but too often our situations drastically worsen, sending us into a self-defeating tailspin.
