Post-Yolanda trauma/tension releasing exercise

Hurricanes destroy earthquakes shatter, war rips apart, economies collapse, businesses go bankrupt, people die. This is the way of the world. Human suffering is based on wanting to change the things that have happened and wanting to change people. When we understand that the only thing we can change is our response to people and the ways of the world, we can begin to find peace, we can be powerful people even in the midst of chaos and adversity.

This can sum up the desiderata of Chris Balsley, an American corporate coach and Tension/Trauma Releasing Exercise (TRE) expert who, with his team of trainers, is in the Philippines for a month to help survivors of Supertyphoon Yolanda. The team is giving free training to Filipinos so that TRE can reach more people whose trauma needs to be addressed. The training lasts for three days, followed by one to two days of practicum for those who will be dispatched to the field.

TRE was brought to the country by Human Capital Development.

I participated in the last of the three days of Batch 1. I got to experience the entire menu and was with those who already had two shaking days. I, too, had my own shaking experience. More on this later.

I read up on TRE before interviewing Balsley (www.stress-proof.com). I wanted to be a participant, not just an observing journalist. Having a psychology background, I am not a stranger to body and mind exercises, meditation, awareness and wellness seminars, even altered state of consciousness (ASC) experiences.

TRE is quite different in that it focuses mainly on the physical. Begun by Dr. David Berceli, TRE has been widely used to treat war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and survivors of the Haiti earthquake and the Japan tsunami.

Although not physically present at our session, Berceli was on video to explain to us how TRE developed.

Berceli, who once volunteered as Mother Teresas driver in Calcutta, was in Beirut years ago when he found himself among individuals of different nationalities and races in the midst of bombings. Almost all of them had the same reaction to the danger: crouching and shaking. To make a long story short, Berceli later did studies and experiments that showed how human beings and animals reacted to and released tension.

A TRE video shows a polar bear shaking in the snow after recovering from a tranquilizing shot from wildlife workers.

Explains Berceli: TRE exercises elicit shaking in a controlled and sustained manner. When evoked, this shaking, also called neurogenic tremors, begins to release deep chronic muscular tension held within the body. They come from the center of gravity of the body which is protected by the psoas muscles. When shaking is evoked at this powerful center of the body, it reverberates through the entire body, traveling along the spine, releasing deep chronic tensions from the sacrum to the cranium.

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Post-Yolanda trauma/tension releasing exercise