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"AFTER THE CRASH": SELF-HEALING IN ACTION
Adele Cox, MA
January 2007
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Each year I send you a newsletter to update you on my holistic health practice, but this
year I wanted to share a personal story that I believe exemplifies the principles of my work.
The mission of my business, Youniversoul Health & Wellness, is “Teaching Self-Healing”; my goal is
to help people have an integrated experience of themselves in their Physical, Emotional, Spiritual,
Energetic, and Mental aspects. In this story, I had the opportunity to become one of my own clients,
to experience what “Self-Healing” looks like in real life.
June 2, 2006, 3:30pm. It was a lovely day – I felt the warmth of the sun streaming through
the open sun roof of my car. As I waited for the signal light to turn green, I watched pedestrians
crossing the street in front of me, I heard an airplane passing overhead, and I felt a deep sense of
peace and calm. But suddenly I was jerked out of my quiet bliss – I heard a “boom/crash!” sound,
and I felt my body jolt forward then back. After a moment, my mind slowly interpreted the information
it had received from my body’s senses: I had just been rear-ended.
Even with all of my training and experience in psychology and body-based trauma healing, I
watched myself respond to the accident with exactly the same shock and disbelief as many of my clients
have described. For instance, the first thing I noticed was that my mind immediately wanted to dismiss
the accident as “minor”, “no big deal”, “nothing to get upset about”. But it was amazing for me to
notice that, while I was saying it was “no big deal”, my entire body was visibly trembling. My “somatic
system” knew something had happened that was a big deal, even while my mind seemed to be working very
hard to deny that reality.
So once I got home, I decided to let my body have its say. I allowed my whole body to shake to near
convulsion. As I’ve told my clients, because the body knows what it needs to heal, I had to trust that my
body would know when the shaking was complete and the best I could do was to support its efforts to heal
itself. As the shaking subsided, I next noticed an overwhelming urge to cry. Not so much shedding tears,
but more like my whole body was sobbing. It was as if the intense shaking had moved from my physical
(external) body to my emotional/energetic/spiritual (internal) self, as if something was trying to shake
itself free from the inside out.
I then noticed my mind fervently questioning this seemingly irrational behavior: “Why am I shaking
and crying!? I’m not hurt – am I scared, am I angry, am I going crazy!? It doesn’t make sense!” It was
remarkable to watch my mind trying so hard to curtail and degrade the whole experience, telling me that I
should “just get over it and get back to work!” I really had to practice holding compassion and understanding
for that part of myself. It helped tremendously to remember that the mind’s main job is to make sense of
things – getting rear-ended and the subsequent actions of my body indeed did not “make sense”, so my mind
was really doing its best to put non-sense back into order. I noticed too how easy it would be to allow
my attention to focus on the questions, thus completely distracting me from the experience. So again I
had to trust that my Self knew what it was doing, even if my smart-brain couldn’t figure it out. After
another few minutes, I noticed a feeling I best describe as depletion, as if the physical, emotional,
spiritual, and energetic parts of my Self breathed a huge collective sigh of relief, and had finally
reached a place of rest.
In the end, by allowing myself to really experience everything I was feeling in those moments,
it seemed I’d had that integrated experience of my Self that I’m always telling my clients about. I
admit that it was uncomfortable and scary and weird at times to stay present with my experience and trust
my Self to find its way to healing. But so much more importantly, I gave myself the chance to honor and
experience that all the parts of my Full Self are real and valid and true. Now months later when I drive
past the scene of the accident, I am able to remember the incident without reliving the overwhelm, shock
and fright; I believe letting my Self process in those first moments integrated the incident into my
conscious memory and helped complete the healing cycle. I was and continue to be very grateful for the
opportunity to “walk my own talk” and to see that “this stuff really works!”
I welcome your comments. Feel free to contact me directly at
AdeleCox@Youniversoul.com. Until next time, stay well.
Note: Click here to see all my blog postings at "Youniversoul Thoughts",
www.youniversoul.blogspot.com.
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