(I feel so sorry to talk about this again but I need to write it down, and this is part of the solo expedition now...)
Namibia has been so intense psychologically, I was feeling broken. I lost appetite, I didn’t have the energy to exercise anymore, I barely talked to the rest of my family -and some friends-, I couldn’t drive, I slept way too much, etc.
These three events had a traumatic impact on my body and mind. And will trauma ever go away? It was time to keep searching for that therapist. I couldn’t stay this way any longer. And do you know what? I finally found my post-trauma therapist here, in Namibia. We got to meet for a few sessions and a total of four hours the past week. We did a TRE exercise process (Trauma Release Exercises) which is a revolutionary technique to release trauma(s) from the body.
The objective: to keep the stories but not the pain as well as the intense emotions associated to it, already stored in my body.
The TRE exercises have been painful; I had to go through each traumatic event and to feel the authentic emotions, to face the feelings; such as pain, fear, sadness, and helplessness. I cried 90% of the time, my body was shaking, my hands were sweating, and my heartbeats experiencing a marathon. Such emotions can also remind you other pains generated in the past. But it was time for me to heal from many scars.
And once the TRE exercises are over, it takes minimum 24 hours for the brain to process and to get rid of these emotions, hopefully. That night I was exhausted, drained, and feeling dehydrated.
But guess what? The process worked! The therapist set me free. It worked. I could tell the events without being overwhelmed with intense emotions or without being hard and unfair with myself. I obviously need to work on it, as much as I can, as regularly as I can.
What happened in Namibia will always be part of my story, of this solo expedition across Africa, but it was time to release the emotions and to start to heal from it.
Today, she has set me free from fear.
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