Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Is it hard for you to give or receive a hug?
[00:00:05] Or do you wonder why someone you love can never hug you back?
[00:00:11] That tension in your body, the stiffness when you're about to receive a hug, awkwardness when you're about to give a hug, that urge to pull away, it's not random.
[00:00:24] It's your trauma body remembering that it's better to shut down around the touch. Today we will talk about why hug something so simple can feel uncomfortable.
[00:00:40] And how is that connected with your capacities to feel nourished, to feel loved, to feel protected, and also to feel intimacy and something so ordinary as a Hugging is a profound window into trauma recovery and healing and feeling your intimacy.
[00:01:11] And for many, feeling the intimacy for the first time in their lives.
[00:01:18] Welcome to the Excellent Rising. I am Anna Mail, somatic experiencing therapist for PTSD and trauma recovery. I am a founder of Somatic Trauma Recovery Center. If you want to go straight to the experiential lesson, please check the links in the show notes.
[00:01:38] So let's explore why so awkward and difficult to hug someone and to receive a hug.
[00:01:48] There is this tension and awkwardness when you need to hug, when you want to reach right with your hands. It's almost like your hands are disconnected from your body. Like you don't know what to do with your hands and you want to pull back or move away from the hug as soon as possible.
[00:02:14] And also, uh, if you wonder why someone you love and care, deeply love and care is never able to hug you.
[00:02:25] So this is why we will explore this.
[00:02:28] If you're looking into the sama, into the body, the body and its movement, okay.
[00:02:36] The body needs when it comes to the hug, okay? So I'm explaining this as a somatic therapist for PTSD and trauma recovery.
[00:02:46] The body needs to open up first, right? To receive a hug, you're not moving straight into embracing, but you need to open up and this is embracing reflex, also known as a Moro reflex. So what is Moro reflex?
[00:03:09] The moro reflex, also called the startle reflex, is one of the primitive reflexes present in the newborns, right? It's a survival mechanism hard wired into your nervous system. It's very important to have right babies. They, they do get the score right the moment when they are born.
[00:03:31] So how it works, when baby feels like it's falling or hears loud sound or experience sudden movement, the body automatically reflect, reacts. So it's in us in inborn reflex.
[00:03:51] And the chest and arms fling open wide, right? The head tilts back. We can see almost this look of surprise, right?
[00:04:02] And then, then so babies and toddlers, right?
[00:04:08] Then the arms close in often as a reaching for comfort and protection.
[00:04:20] Okay? Very important.
[00:04:23] So purpose in infants, right?
[00:04:26] Toddlers. This reflex ensures that a baby signals distress and sends the cue to the parent.
[00:04:39] And six for the parents embrace.
[00:04:42] And it's meant to complete with a soothing disclosure, right? The parent pick ups the baby and the baby, right, returns to this safety and the nervous system resets.
[00:04:59] So we can see that with small kids, right?
[00:05:03] If let's say baby falls down, it's uh, big look of surprise, hands go up, right?
[00:05:11] And it's like ah, uh, screaming for help or crying.
[00:05:17] And there's this reach right?
[00:05:21] For a parent and parent picks up the baby and then baby cries, cries, cries.
[00:05:28] And then we can just notice in the nervous system this who comfort, safety, nourishment just happened.
[00:05:40] There is a nice completion.
[00:05:43] And then next thing you know there is this curiosity again, uh, someone is ready to explore, right?
[00:05:54] Very important because in the context of trauma, okay, when trauma happens, that cycle I am open, receive protection and close safely.
[00:06:14] Doesn't happen.
[00:06:16] It's not complete, okay?
[00:06:19] That cycles is inborn cycle.
[00:06:24] In us, inborn reflex is interrupted.
[00:06:30] And what your body learns, the memory in your body is opening is dangerous because no one will catch me, no one will protect me, no one will come to lift me up. There is no one I can lean on to.
[00:06:56] That's the memory in your body.
[00:06:59] And adults who experience neglect, shock, trauma or abandonment may carry this as stiffness, difficulty to receive, love to feel nourished.
[00:07:23] And it's very simple is by avoiding the hugs. So this is one so simple but deep, deep, deep cue of how you enter into your own discovery of your own trauma history and healing.
[00:07:45] Okay?
[00:07:48] So instead of open and close nervous system gets stuck in open without safety.
[00:08:01] Okay?
[00:08:03] So think about this. I'm open, open. Something just happened and there is no uh, safety around me.
[00:08:11] So I work with clients, survivors of war, genocide, gun violence, veterans, rcmps.
[00:08:19] That's. I am open. I'm open M and I'm about to get killed. There is no one to protect me. Okay, on personal level, right? This can be not on a personal level in a uh, day to day living can be.
[00:08:41] I just said something in public, right?
[00:08:48] And I got ashamed, embarrassed or I was just picked upon by bully.
[00:09:00] I am open.
[00:09:02] My vulnerability, my being is so open now, right?
[00:09:10] And there is no one to come to me, to protect me, to stand up for me.
[00:09:17] So being open, okay? Not only physically open, but open in your vulnerability in your authenticity, in your expression, right?
[00:09:31] When something unpleasant happens, it can be abuse or just something unpleasant. And when we don't receive this closing cycle, being open, out there is a place you will never visit again.
[00:09:50] Okay?
[00:09:51] So that leads to shutdown.
[00:09:55] Very common in body. We can see this, this stiffness because it's stuck. Think about trauma is a place of stuckness. So we get almost encapsulated in this state, in the body state. So even look me. So now if you're looking at me, I'm quite stiff in my neck, in my face.
[00:10:21] And when movement happens, it. It's almost like this. It's robotic movement. And you can observe that with people who are quite here, there is no fluidity.
[00:10:40] Very common.
[00:10:42] Everything what's happening from here, from your neck up, migraines, a tight chest, um, eye pressure, right?
[00:10:56] Tmj.
[00:10:59] And very common inability to surrender in intimacy, right?
[00:11:08] Because for the intimacy, we need to be able to open and to close, to surrender to someone else, right?
[00:11:21] So what that means opening up. Your chest is opening, your arms are opening.
[00:11:32] So we have a wide open space, right?
[00:11:37] In intimacy, this is a, uh, wide open space.
[00:11:42] A space of visibility for people who have been bullied, abused.
[00:11:50] Space of visibility is the most dangerous place to be.
[00:11:54] Okay, well, this is then a place of no protection because it's wide open.
[00:12:03] And we are expanding here, right? Opening the front and front body is open for nourishment to receive, right? The front body. Think about your front body, okay? So this is somatic teaching, right now, the front body is your nourishment, right?
[00:12:25] It is where we receive warmth, love, food, how we literally nourish yourself from the front.
[00:12:35] In trauma, that moment, that m. Moment is never complete, right?
[00:12:44] Because we got stuck here.
[00:12:46] We stay in this shock state of opening up, but never closing, never condensing, right?
[00:12:58] Never coming back into embrace because no one was there to embrace you.
[00:13:09] So when the body is moved into more reflex, right?
[00:13:14] It was never allowed in trauma to complete the clause, to complete the cycle.
[00:13:23] And the memory in our primal brain, survival brain, it's stick in our cellular memory is that opening is never safe because there will be no one to come back to.
[00:13:40] No safe haven, no embrace.
[00:13:45] Completion does not happen.
[00:13:50] And then we shut down.
[00:13:53] We shut down the ability to open and to receive.
[00:14:02] We shut down our capacities for intimacy.
[00:14:07] And in order to hug, I need to expand.
[00:14:12] And expansion is not safe. The memory says it's not safe. Don't go there.
[00:14:19] And the movement that needs to happen is to open and to close and that closing, okay? Condensing. I'm condensing into my nourishment, into protection. And love was not there in the moment of shock or fear, or if you have been left to cry out for hours as a small child, as a baby.
[00:14:50] So when there is no one to embrace us, we stay shut down, we stay stuck, okay?
[00:15:02] So in trauma, that cycle never completes.
[00:15:06] The body opens, but there is no embrace.
[00:15:11] No one is arriving, okay?
[00:15:18] The primal brain wires the lesson.
[00:15:22] If I open right in my body, if I open my heart, if I open my emotions to you, if I open my authenticity, if I open with my all, what's happening inside of me, no one will be there to close me back into the safety.
[00:15:50] If I start to feel unsafe.
[00:15:54] And we shut down, okay?
[00:15:58] The chest, the arms are tight, the body is stiff, and we do walk like a robot, right?
[00:16:09] Because now we cannot open and we cannot embrace either, right?
[00:16:17] So it's very common. Observe, many men, they do have this, even the big muscles, right?
[00:16:25] But there is stiffness, stiffness because it wasn't safe to open.
[00:16:38] And the body says the better stiff than abandoned.
[00:16:45] So let me repeat, this body says better stiff than abandoned here.
[00:16:59] So what would be healthy, right, is building this postural tone that can expand and condense the right, it can open, it can close.
[00:17:13] Opening from the chest.
[00:17:15] And I'm condensing from my back, right?
[00:17:21] So look at this. If. If I moving into this state of surrender, this is a big state of surrender, and that is a state of trust.
[00:17:36] That is the state we want to embody, right?
[00:17:40] When I open up, I can also trust, if needed, I will be embraced.
[00:17:51] I will be embraced in a hug.
[00:17:54] I can surrender right, with that someone.
[00:17:59] And it's a space between you and that someone.
[00:18:04] It's a space of mutual nourishment.
[00:18:08] It's a deep space of love and grace.
[00:18:15] Also, right? If I open, I need to open to hug.
[00:18:21] If I hug you, that also means protection. It's coming from my back. This condensing is coming from my back.
[00:18:30] And back is your protection. Your front is nourishment, back is your protection.
[00:18:35] That means I got you and you got me, right?
[00:18:45] It's a place of rest, It's a place of safety.
[00:18:52] It's a place of intimacy.
[00:18:55] Many couples, they cannot reach out place of intimacy because of this.
[00:19:05] So what they need to work on is, who left me here in the open space and how can I come and complete my reflex of embracing?
[00:19:23] It's a survival reflex, people, right?
[00:19:27] Many women, they cannot reach orgasm, right?
[00:19:34] So many people truly struggle in this to receive that nourishment of humanness with someone else.
[00:19:48] And many people are deprived of their own intimacy capacities to be intimate.
[00:19:57] And this is the somatic truth of hugging.
[00:20:00] So hug is not just a social gesture.
[00:20:05] It is this space of mutual nourishment and protection.
[00:20:11] And it's a space of I got you and you got me.
[00:20:15] Right again. Place of rest, place of intimacy, place of trust, place of safety, right?
[00:20:29] This is also the somatic foundation of intimacy, right?
[00:20:41] Many people are locked in this space because they are not able to surrender into nourishment because the completion cycle was interrupted in trauma beside intimacy, when it comes to food, people who struggle to eat, right to receive this nourishment, cycle was interrupted.
[00:21:20] Cycle was interrupted.
[00:21:23] How we implement this on an embodied experiential level is in the lesson below. Please check the links in the show notes where I teach one condensed somatic experiential lesson.
[00:21:36] Okay, so remember this.
[00:21:41] The front is nourishment, the back is protection.
[00:21:46] And we need to open to embrace. And you cannot hug if you're not open first.
[00:21:56] You cannot receive love if you don't open first.
[00:22:03] Surrender and then allow the completion of being embraced, right?
[00:22:11] So the back provides protection as it comes into embrace.
[00:22:18] Hugging someone means also taking hold, extending protection toward that person. It means I got you, I got you.
[00:22:33] And at the same moment, someone else is meeting us to feel that protection and nourishment.
[00:22:44] It's beautiful space. It's so needed, right?
[00:22:55] And you can start experimenting just by allowing yourself to be hugged, right?
[00:23:03] That's the mother you never had, that's the father you never had.
[00:23:09] But you can be start by being that for someone else, right?
[00:23:19] I can protect you.
[00:23:21] And then also it will be awkward. It will be awkward.
[00:23:28] You can take that protection as your own nourishment from your friend, from your partner, from your maybe your parent. Nowadays, right?
[00:23:44] Many parents feel very awkward, especially baby boomers, very awkward in hugging their kids or grandkids.
[00:23:55] And everyone is deprived in that relationship and they're craving for each other, right?
[00:24:05] And if people are not safe for you, the best place to start is if you have with your dog, with your cat, with your person, animal person, right?
[00:24:23] If you don't have a dog, a pillow, that's more than enough. If people are not safe for you, okay? You respect that?
[00:24:34] Okay, so basically here, right, when you have those two, I am above to hug or I will be hugged.
[00:24:46] It's a place where protection, right, Meets protection.
[00:24:55] And this is very Common. We can see this in sports, right? When they hug each other, who it's like, I got you, I got you, right? We can see it in crisis, right?
[00:25:11] All the time.
[00:25:13] We need that hug. That's protection. It's unspoken, but it's so important.
[00:25:19] This is what makes us humans. I got you.
[00:25:24] And you feel that the sound got your back.
[00:25:27] It's important.
[00:25:29] It's a place where trust meets trust.
[00:25:35] And nowadays, what's happening on our planet, we need this people. We need to feel each other, humanity. And then we can lean on each other and how we feel that we need that hug, right?
[00:25:57] This is also the place where this protection meets nourishment.
[00:26:03] As I'm protecting you, I'm also nourished.
[00:26:08] Also where nourishment meets nourishment.
[00:26:13] Oh, it's beautiful place, right? We are taking in as you're offering in the same moment. And that's true love.
[00:26:27] This is what we want to experience in intimacy, right?
[00:26:33] Couples who are so fluid in their intimacy, they know this, right? It's taking and receiving. It's protection and nourishment. It's nourishment and protection. It's nourishment and nourishment, right? It's taking and taking, serving and serving.
[00:26:52] So we are not just in this hug collapsing, stiffening, or pretending.
[00:27:01] And you can feel when the hug is off, right? You can just feel it's not genuine.
[00:27:08] And it is imprint of trauma because no one was there to embrace you back then. You were left open in your shock, in your pain, in your own embarrassment.
[00:27:27] And that, uh, opening turned into stiffness and awkwardness.
[00:27:32] And your intimacy, your capacities for intimacy was robbed. Not that you don't have it. You absolutely have it.
[00:27:43] You absolutely have it.
[00:27:46] So the practice is learning how to open up again and allow yourself to be hugged, to receive that protection, nourishment, right? Intimacy, love.
[00:28:03] So if hugging feels awkward, stiff, or even impossible, it's not because you're broken.
[00:28:14] It's not because you're broken.
[00:28:18] It's not because you don't know how to do it.
[00:28:22] It's because your body never got to complete the movement of opening and being embraced in the space where trust meets surrender.
[00:28:42] And this is a space of deep safety in this space where I have enough capacities to surrender with deep trust into someone else.
[00:29:05] It's a space of profound intimacy.
[00:29:10] And that, uh, intimacy can be between you and you.
[00:29:18] It can be between you and God.
[00:29:23] Trust and surrender.
[00:29:27] It can be with your partner. If you find that your person can be with Your dog, right?
[00:29:40] With your child, with your grandparent, with your creation.
[00:29:49] People in creative expressive art, we know that space. It's a space. I surrender and I trust you open yourself completely and then, you know, you surrender into that creative flow.
[00:30:11] God divine a safe person.
[00:30:17] Safe person.
[00:30:19] You will find that safe person.
[00:30:22] And you can practice with your hugging body.
[00:30:27] Yeah, people do that. We do that all the time, right?
[00:30:33] We do this all the time, right? In a therapy sessions, right? Where couples practice and couples can be two friends, right?
[00:30:49] Allowing yourself to be hugged.
[00:30:55] So the next, uh, time you feel that awkwardness in a hug, know this, okay?
[00:31:03] It's not weakness, it's your body remembering. It keeps that memory. It can keep that memory all the way when you were a baby, right?
[00:31:16] All the way to that memory. Or it can keep the memory of the deep shock, what happened to you, the trauma, right? Deep unsafety, Sudden unsafety. Sudden unsafety.
[00:31:31] And yes, you can practice this.
[00:31:34] You can relearn how to open and how to safely close with trust and surrender.
[00:31:44] You can practice being held and holding another, holding another without awkwardness.
[00:31:53] Because healing happens when this protection meets nourishment and trust meets trust.
[00:32:03] And in that space where surrender meets trust, we birth the most genuine, genuine intimacy.
[00:32:17] And the trauma healing is learning again to expand and then safely to condense into this love and trust where you don't want to run away.
[00:32:34] You can really capitalize on those sensations. That's a gift.
[00:32:42] Why do we live?
[00:32:44] Right? To feel that as well, right?
[00:32:49] And this is the purest form of intimacy, purest form of the intimacy between you and someone else, between you and you, between you and your child, between you and your spirit, your God, your creation.
[00:33:13] And it starts with a hug.
[00:33:16] So simple, but so profound.
[00:33:19] So if you want to go deeper into this, check the links below for the distilled somatic lesson I teach.
[00:33:27] I am Anna Mael. I am Somatic Experiencing therapist for PTSD and trauma recovery.
[00:33:33] This is excellent. Rising. Please share, follow, support.
[00:33:39] And as always, be gentle with yourself.
[00:33:44] Be gentle with yourself.
[00:33:47] Much care, much career.
