Shock is a cushioning of the system. A big energetic and emotional bubble wrap around us. It’s the body defending from a blow.
It’s a built in warning system, protection, and gift that occurs when something is too overwhelming. It generally means we can’t process the thing with our current resources and we don’t have the internal and external infrastructure to tend to what’s happening at this moment. Often because those systems are overwhelmed as well.
Shock informs us that we need more resources in order to integrate. And shock also allows us to stay in the adrenalized state to deal with the external emergency until we can get somewhere safe to unpack the experience.
The body can do this for a time. But it is NOT meant to do this indefinitely. It’s not wired for that.
When we push it beyond it’s natural limits by delaying the unwinding, the shock may go underground and calcify into disassociative patterns. That lives in us as unprocessed trauma.
If we are already well familiar with these fight/flight/freeze patterns through nervous system dysregulation, it may deepen them. And compound them. This is what happens with flashbacks and triggers of earlier traumas.
If we’ve been working on our own regulation and have found some new resilience in the system, then getting hit with a shock still requires attention. Especially if we have a long and strong history of trauma (and who doesn’t??).
In either case we may likely need support. This community is coming forward in a profound way to offer free peer-to-peer and professional support for folks to unwind trauma, to help folks find their own internal and yes EXTERNAL resources to develop an embodied sense of resilience.
Please find avenues of support… There are so many folks wanting to help!
Let’s move towards resilience together folks. ~ Lee Warren