This was a note sent to me by my grandfather's sister, Ana Teresa, while I was looking at the blank screen trying to write my first article, and putting into writing so many things I wanted to communicate to you about Healing Yourself. The note was written by Ira Byok, an American physician, author, and advocate for palliative care. The note said:

*"Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to a river to drink, or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety, and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said."*

Through pages and pages of questions, you ask about how to heal yourself from dementia, heartbroken, abuse, trauma, divorce; it made me come here today, first as a trauma survivor and second as an Energy Healer Therapist, and talk to you about 5 ways how You are leaving yourself behind in your healing process.

5 Ways to Leave Yourself Behind

1. Leaving unhealed trauma hidden

Going back to the text I mentioned before, we only see the broken bone that we want to heal. Now, from an energy healing perspective, we understand this broken bone comes along with a series of reactions and coping mechanisms that this individual developed after the incident. Why? Because that's how we work! Our body is prepared to get you ready for the next situation so you don't get hurt again.

When a traumatic event happens our body, mind, and energy go directly to survival mode. When did these broken bones happen in our subtle body after an abusive parent, the effects of a divorce, a rape, or a death, who looks for ways to help you heal? Who makes sure you get the attention you need? Who gives you time to process what happened? Who stays with you until you are ready to go back to your life and see that you can take care of yourself, the moment triggers to bring you back to that same moment?

> Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., who has treated and researched trauma for over 45 years, says,

> "The effects of unresolved trauma can be devastating. It can affect our habits and outlook on life, leading to addictions and poor decision-making. It can take a toll on our family life and interpersonal relationships. It can trigger real physical pain, symptoms, and disease. And it can lead to a range of self-destructive behaviors."

Discovering the when, how, who, connecting with the emotion resulted from these, honoring it, voicing it in different modalities, help us integrate it and then decide in what new ways we will be taking care of it next.

2. Shying away from your triggers

If that broken bone remains unhealed, the body will find ways to fix it. It will create a compensatory way to help you move forward. It will hurt and will make you uncomfortable when you move the next steps, so most likely you will start avoiding these needs in some way. Now, let´s think about anyone who had an abusive parent, and over and over again was told how worthless was to focus on them, how useless was when doing things, how ugly, how stupid, how fat. When your main caregivers tell you those things, they must be right, aren't they? Then moving forward in life, that emotional broken bone will move to seek new caregivers who can provide you the same or worse amount of abuse to feel safe.

> "Our political and social systems don't support fundamental human needs", says Gabor Mate—" which affects our ability to deal with traumatic events"

Moving in life with unhealed emotional broken bones means suffering, and creating compensatory ways to make sure we keep ourselves from hurting means, keeping inside the same rules that we were born under, to make sure we are not uncomfortable or weird. Mainly because we need to learn to survive. It can also go the opposite way, and instead of accepting abusive people to feel comfortable, we adopt their ways, to make sure we are never hurt again.

3. Leaving shadow work behind when you feel goooooood!

Let's supposed that the broken bone process is still recovering, and the individual decides to run free like a hare, most likely the bone will get hurt and repair again. The same happens with us and our trauma recovery process. Will your anxiety ever go away for good, or your panic attacks will never happen again? I won't say yes or no, I will say, it depends on how your daily energy self-care and shadow work goes. Any alcoholic is exposed to relapse, the same way any anxiety attacks can happen if you let your guard down. And even if you do your daily work, life happens and maybe you need some extra work today.

Even though the brain is remarkably plastic, meaning that it changes in response to social and environmental experiences and changes in the brain that happen after trauma can improve over time, this is particularly likely to happen when people experience safe, stable, and supportive environments after trauma and continue to use the new skills and habits.

Daily energetic self-care can include many things, maybe some other things less, but is a day-to-day scenario that only YOU can assess. If you feel that today your daily meditation won´t be necessary, and just some time journaling and earthing are enough, you'll be the one choosing, is just a matter of how serious you take your healing journey and how ready you want to be to take your day, that day. BUT, the work needs to be done for sure.

4. Leaving it all to the modality and your healer

Let´s say the person with the broken bone is not feeling at 100%, there have been days and weeks probably years still feeling the bone not working properly. Suddenly, the table turns into the person who helped to assist the injured. You were not expert enough, your knot was not tight enough, you didn't do enough to make sure I was healed. How many times we feel so bad, we just want someone to take us out of our misery. And we jump from one thing to another, from allopathic medicine to oriental medicine, to ayahuasca, to psychedelics, to EFT, yet the day-to-day says a lot of how you will recover.

After years of neglect and abuse, growing up thinking there was something wrong with you, ashamed and guilty because you were hurting people along the way, and your pain just became deeper and deeper and unmanageable. How much compassion are you giving to yourself?

> In the recent movie: "Wisdom of Trauma" with Gabor Maté, they explained how body-based modalities are considered more effective than cognitive therapy. They do not focus on the past, but on present experience. They tap into trapped trauma energy and help process and integrate it. Our nervous system becomes better regulated and we no longer are not at the mercy of old reactive patterns.

The creating of a daily routine that makes you feel great takes time, self-love, and compassion. It all comes to you, who you want to be in life and how you want to feel in this lifetime, not the modality, not the healer, but you and your commitment to yourself.

5. Thinking all of this work can be done 100% all by yourself

Yes, the main character of the story is you! Yes, the person in charge to make this work is you! BUT, understanding the many ways you can provide yourself of ways to take care of yourself takes a crafty person to be by your side. Help contain yourself through the hard times and join you to celebrate the great times. would it take forever? How much should a healing process last? Well, only time will tell. I do know, that having a program to help you learn how to heal, with an experienced and multi-modality healer, can make the roadway easier. I have my healer, who I see once every three months. I also use my system, my modalities, because this way I know what I am giving my clients is going to help them heal forward, plan and have a great new future, created by them in their everyday.

We are in an era of information and misinformation. taking care of yourself as the most beautiful thing you will ever have to take care of throughout the rest of your life, is being grateful enough to make the best choices. A trauma-informed society is the first step towards breaking the cycles of trauma and reclaiming our authentic selves.

Remember that you accept the best, to give the best.

Florencia Mena - Flow with Flo - Energy Problem Solver