Trauma Responses Come in Many Different Guises: Difficulty Putting Down Roots...

16 May 2022

Themes: Grounding; Roots; Trauma; Flight mode; nervous system; moving home; relocating; fleeing.

Being afraid to plant roots is one example of undischarged trauma in the body.

Being unable to ground; keep still; settle; plant your feet on the earth; tend to your home and garden; stay in one place for a good period of time, and feeling the urge to constantly move home, are all physical symptoms of the flight response where our nervous system remains in a heightened, always ready-to-flee state.

For me this shows up during periods when I find myself yet again thinking about moving somewhere else instead of working on my present home to make it a more nourishing place where I want to stay; feeling unwilling to literally plant flowers in my garden, and feeling generally reluctant to engage with my local community and land. Then I know that I’m in flight mode, albeit in a continuous, low-level background form, which is harder to detect and realise what’s going on.

I can testify that constantly moving house rarely creates the rootedness that I crave. In fact, moving home and relocating are tremendously UPROOTING and so increase levels of stress, tension and a feeling of temporariness, which is another indication that trauma is driving the urge to move again.

There is also a kind of 'high' or elation that comes from landing in a new home and place. But then of course, the cycle has to start all over again as we try to put down roots once more.

For some it can become a habitual lifestyle all stemming from the flight urge.

One of the most grounding things for me is to be around horses on a daily basis. Having my feet on the earth each day for prolonged periods and my hands in muck, hay and the like. The powerfully, potent groundedness of these wonderful four-legged beings and their calmness and earthy smells, all fill my senses and triggers a relaxation response in my nervous system from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state, and subsequently my mind then also slows down.

* Is getting grounded and rooted something that’s challenging for you also?

* How does this manifest in your body and life?

* What works best for you?

^©Angela Dunning, 16th May 2022