OM DENNE EPISODE
A talk positioned as the sequel to Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score. That book named where trauma is stored — in the body, not just in memory. This talk teaches HOW IT MOVES OUT. Because your body is not just a filing cabinet for old fear. It is a system that knows how to complete, discharge, and let go. It has been trying to, this whole time. It just got interrupted.
The mechanism is the animal one Peter Levine spent decades studying. When a gazelle escapes a cheetah, it stops, shakes for a minute or two, and returns calmly to grazing. No trauma. No PTSD. No gazelle awake that night. The trembling discharged the enormous survival energy the body had mobilised. The cycle completed. Nothing stored.
Humans have the same mechanism. We just override it — because trembling in front of people feels undignified, and we are a species that would rather be traumatised than undignified. So the survival charge stays. Held. Waiting, decades later, to do the thing it never got to do. Guided by Abi Beri — Integrative Therapist, Family Constellation Facilitator and Nervous System Specialist based in Dublin, Ireland. In-person across Dublin, Naas, Newbridge and Kildare; online globally. Drawing on Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing (Waking the Tiger, In an Unspoken Voice), Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, David Berceli’s TRE (Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises), Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory, Pat Ogden’s sensorimotor psychotherapy, and Robert Sapolsky’s animal-stress research.
Topics: the gazelle insight; the unfinished survival response; why we override the shaking; the SE principle of safety with sensation in small doses; a carefully titrated somatic practice; why healing is slow, layered, and hopeful.
IMPORTANT — big trauma charges are safest with a trained somatic practitioner. Do not force release. Practice safety and titration.
If what surfaces feels overwhelming: Samaritans Ireland & UK 116 123 (24/7, free). Work more deeply: integrative somatic therapy in Dublin, Naas, Newbridge and Kildare, or online globally. Free 20-minute intro at somatictherapyireland.com.
