For many of my clients with significant childhood trauma, hypervigilance dominates their everyday experience. This is a state of constant arousal, as all senses are trained on potential threat and in a very real sense, defined by it. As they scan their environment, they often fail to see that which is pleasant or neutral, for… Continue Reading Hypervigilence and the Present moment
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Hypervigilance and the Present Moment
Hyper-vigilance is narrow, focused, worried, constricted like a flashlight beam nervously and constantly flickering around the darkness, alert for danger, for what is wrong, incessantly scanning for what needs to be done, to be fixed. Exhausting. Attentiveness is open, expansive, relaxed, receptive and allowing. Shining like the sun wherever it looks and wherever it looks seeing the beauty, the miracle that is always available in the present moment. Renewing, rejuvenating. Now for those of us that developed hyper-vigilance as a tool for dealing with trauma, that may sound discouraging, yet another way to beat ourselves up for not being the ‘right person’. I invite you to lay down the beatings for ever if you can, for right now at any rate. The next time you suspect you may be hyper-vigilating choose to investigate it, as an explorer. Choose to notice, maybe even write down the sensations. Track them like the expert you are. What does your body do? Continue Reading Hypervigilance and the Present Moment