Our bodies remember. 

Our bodies are miraculous vessels. They contain powerful minds, gut instincts, a sacred heart center. They are meant to be free, lucid, nimble, creative, expressive. And they are. But when a human endures a significant trauma to the body/mind/soul complex, it begins to erode and mask and tarnish this perfection, and must be addressed.

I like to think of my body as this amazing partner for my soul in this lifetime. We are one. It's my vehicle. It's like a Maserati, this body, and I need to treat it like that. It takes me places I could never go without it. It shows me the miracles of feelings, emotions, pain, joy, happiness, sensuality, and so much more. But for 50 years, my body held on to trauma so deeply, so tightly, so discreetly, that I didn't even know it was there. In that sense, it was my best friend...holding the horrific memories FOR me, until the time came for my body, mind, and spirit to set me free. And here I am today, on the other side of rape recovery, to talk about it.

I talk about it a lot because the story is so complex and the dimensions of mind-altering realizations I lived and worked through in therapy and healing sessions is mind-boggling. And I talk about it because of the strikingly large number of women, men, girls, and boys on this planet who have endured trauma--and especially the trauma of being sexually abused. Rape. Incest. Manipulation. It's far too prevalent on this planet, and my survival and recovery has released in me a way to share so that you, dear reader, if you are struggling from the holdings of something so painful you dare not address it....well maybe this will give you the courage to look to your Higher Power and decide conclusively that you, too, would like to be free.

What I have learned over the past 3 years of recovery from childhood rape trauma is that the body stores every single memory we have. It's inescapable. It's how we are wired. It's how we remember anything from what we ate yesterday to that time a bee stung us when we were 3.

My story is unique, but I am not alone in the release of memory after decades. Memories of childhood rape were suppressed in my body, mind, and spirit until at the age of 50 when I began to have various memories come to the forefront of my consciousness during therapy sessions with a very trusted guide. It began with single memories. A time when he was naked in my bedroom during the day. (Nudity was made to be extremely 'natural' in my home, which I realized was one of his grooming tactics--to make us not at all shocked at seeing his naked body on the regular, or the pornography that always lay open at his bedside.) A time when I felt a strange fear while taking a shower with him (yes---showers with his pedophile were frequent and while I had always remembered that I had showered with my father....I had repressed the feelings and memories of his arousal looming behind my head.) A time when I had become extremely and painfully sunburned while swimming at a beautiful river near my grandmother's house, and him staying back with me while everyone else went out, so that he could have his way with me in broad daylight, in his mother's home.

In the end, I had to re-live and release hundreds of complicated memories and their associated emotional charge, each one needing to pass through as if to be seen, bowed to, understood, and then let go, from a place somewhere deep within my cellular memory, like a miniature lockbox within individual and various cells. Memories are energy, and they are quantum. They *can* go away, when we release them with a blessing. But if left unchecked, unacknowledged, unattended...they will destroy even the strongest of us. I've no doubt that the holding of pain and trauma is responsible for a great deal of this world's anger, misunderstanding, and dysfunction, and it must be addressed and healed, one willing soul at a time.

There are many tools available now to help us release and heal trauma. I've used and taught many of them ranging from Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), therapy, Reiki, and many others.

I specialize in guiding my clients through powerful energy releases with my own unique set of tools as an energy healer. I guide clients to see the onset of the trauma and where it is stored within the body, and then, to release it. This is how I have healed, and been liberated from decades of anxiety and Trauma-Related Dissociation.

At a very early age, I learned to leave my body at night so that I did not have to truly be present when the pedophile would enter my room and my sacred body temple. This is astonishingly common as a coping mechanism for many kinds of traumas, and especially rape. A striking number of the women victims interviewed in the documentary, "Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich" reported that when he would take them into his rooms, "I would leave my body. I didn't really know what was happening." 

It's how we survive the unspeakable. It's how we walk away and go on with our lives after such incredible violation. It's often the only way to deal, in a world that still wants to turn a blind eye on rape, as if we're still almost as judgmental about this issue as people where when "The Scarlet Letter" was written about the shaming of Hester Prynne.

I have spent years learning to stay IN my body, but before my big reveal, I had no idea that this trauma was the cause. I would awaken every single morning with extreme anxiety. For decades. This is what caused me to search long and hard until I finally found Reiki, which began to give me the most natural relief I had been able to find. I also found help in Xanax, Zoloft, and other medicines and am grateful that we have choices for this assistance as well, today, for I may not be here without them.

To those of you, dear readers, who suffer from physical pain, anxiety, unexplainable symptoms, who have also endured trauma or the unspeakable invasion of rape, there is hope. There are many resources today, and trained experts in therapy, healing, and the art of reprogramming the mind and body to become free.

Please join my mailing list in the form below if you would like to learn more about my services and healing packages.

Namaste. And remember: You are Sovereign. You are Loved. You are meant to be free. Let's make that happen for you, beloved soul. You deserve to be free, at last.

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Suzanne Alexandria is a healer and life coach specializing in recovery and thriving from childhood rape trauma. If you're a survivor -- and want to learn how to thrive, learn more about working with her and let's get you started. From Fear to Recovery. You're a blessing in this world and you deserve to be happy.