Have you ever felt like you are doing all the “right” things to heal, but you’re still stuck in the same emotional loop? You’ve spent hours in therapy, you’ve analyzed your childhood, and you understand exactly why you feel the way you do—but when a trigger happens, you’re right back in that familiar place of overwhelm.
It’s exhausting. It’s like trying to patch a hole in a boat by staring at the leak.
We recently spoke with our friend and expert teacher Lauren Walker, creator of Energy Medicine Yoga, about why so many of us feel this “plateau” in our healing journey. What she shared—and what we emphasize in the ReThink system I developed is a fundamental truth about human biology: Trauma isn’t just a story you tell; it’s an energetic charge you carry.
The “Energy in Motion” Reality
Lauren shared a concept that is simple but revolutionary: emotions are literally “energy in motion”. When things are flowing correctly, energy moves through us like a wave. But when we experience trauma, fear, or profound sadness, that energy hits an obstacle. It stops moving. It gets “stuck” in our tissues.
As Lauren explains, if you are only using talk therapy to process trauma, you might accidentally be keeping yourself in a “trauma loop”. You talk about the event, which brings the memory back to the surface. But if you don’t have a way to release the physical, energetic charge that accompanied that memory, your brain just cycles through the same painful information over and over.
In the ReThink system, we know that trauma is often managed by specific energy systems in the body, like the “triple warmer,” which holds onto these experiences as a way to keep you “safe”. When you ignore the energetic side of healing, you are essentially trying to heal around the stick that’s still in your eye. You can’t fully heal the injury until you address the energy that’s keeping the wound open.
The Nervous System Gap: Why “Knowing” Isn’t Releasing
You might intellectually understand that your parents did the best they could, or that the event you experienced isn’t happening to you right now. But your nervous system is a time-traveler.
The Nervous System Gap is that space between your rational brain (which knows you are safe) and your body (which remembers the danger). Logic cannot talk a nervous system out of a survival response. You can be the most self-aware person in the room, but if your body is trapped in a “fight, flight, or freeze” pattern, your physiology will override your psychology every single time.
To truly clear the loop, you have to move from “recounting” to “releasing.” That is where the Somatic ReThink comes in.
The Somatic ReThink: A Guided Walkthrough
The following two-part process is designed to help you release trapped energy and update your inner “contract.”
Part 1: The Somatic Exercise (Releasing the Charge)
This practice is designed to work with the body’s natural ability to discharge energy.
- Identify the “Stuck” Point: Tune into your body. Where do you feel the residual charge of a recent stressor or old memory? Is it a tightness in your lungs (often associated with grief) or a knot in your kidneys (often associated with fear)?
- The “Shake-Off”: Lauren suggests that energy must move. Stand up and start by gently bouncing on your heels. Allow your arms to hang loose. Let your shoulders soften.
- Breath Discharge: Take a deep breath in through your nose, and as you exhale through your mouth, make a gentle “haaa” sound. As you do, imagine you are shaking the tension off your hands, feet, and torso. Do this for 60 seconds. You are literally signaling to your nervous system that the “threat” is passing and the energy is now permitted to leave your system.
Part 2: The ReThink Exercise (Updating Your “Contract”)
Now that you have lowered the physical charge, we can address the cognitive loop using my ReThink process.
- The Old Thought: Write down the loop that keeps repeating. (Example: “If I show my true self, I will be rejected, so I have to keep my emotions boxed up on a shelf.”)
- The New Reality: Now, look at that Old Thought through the lens of your adult self. Write the New Reality: (“That old survival contract kept me safe when I was younger, but it is no longer serving my wholeness. I now give myself permission to feel my emotions as energy in motion and let them flow through me, rather than storing them in my body.”)
Ready to Go Deeper?
You don’t have to carry your past in a bag over your shoulder anymore. It is time to take that “box” down from the shelf, recycle it, and emerge into the freedom you were meant for.
If you are ready to learn more ways to resolve trauma and reclaim your energy, click here to join us for our free Energy Healing & Somatic Resilience Series. We provide the roadmap for turning your deepest struggles into your greatest sources of wisdom.
You are more than your past. Let’s start moving that energy.
To your wholeness,
Ike Allen
Founder, AVAIYA