Healing trauma is a very real possibility…
With the right understanding and tools trauma doesn’t need to be a lifelong sentence…
And working with Annette & Graeme will change your life, as not only do you get both of us during each session, either phone, Skype or face to face, but you also get the benefit of our extensive and professional life experience in dealing with trauma, relationships and sexuality.
And being part of the Banks Creek Retreat Community is an important step forward by being around positive and supportive people…. (More on Banks Creek Retreat Community at bottom of page…)
Trauma and its long lasting effects are something that many of us are dealing with.
There is greater awareness of trauma, PTSD and other forms of stress making them more prevalent today than ever before, definitely becoming a “modern” problem.
Our trauma may have lasted only a few moments, or for years, yet its impacts can be equally long standing. 
Trauma hijacks your life, leaving you feeling helpless, out of control and hyper alert; or so brain fogged and flat that getting out bed seems like climbing a mountain.
The self-loathing, nightmares, flashbacks and fear keep you from engaging fully in what you’re doing, preventing you from fully opening your heart to another human being.
Trauma for each individual is their own unique experience of overwhelm, varying considerably 
according to age, personality, community, occupation and many other variable factors.
All trauma is stressful, but not all stress is traumatic and one persons’ trauma may even be someone else’s pleasure.
Dealing with trauma is an individual and personal experience, because every single person is different and unique in this space and one size of therapy definitely doesn’t fit all.
What doesn’t change, is that trauma affects all of us to some extent, either directly or in being around someone so affected.
What causes trauma?
Trauma can be caused by experiencing or witnessing violence, rape, abuse, neglect, betrayal, abandonment, car accidents, falls, injuries, invasive medical procedures, war and natural disasters.
Trauma can even be experienced from the way we interpret a situation, whether it is real or not, it becomes real to us.
Trauma can take years to show up, to the extent that the person is not even be aware of what may be happening to them, they just have an underlying sense of overwhelm, fear, numbness, emotional intensity, or physical disease un responsive to treatment.
In short, trauma is about losing connection with one’s self, being disconnected from our body, from those around us and our world in general.
The long term impacts of trauma can very difficult to recognise when they’re happening to us.
Over 
time these unresolved memories and emotions accumulate and are stored in the body.
From here they’re often released in many different ways that are unacceptable both to the person themselves and those around them.
Some of which can even appear quite normal on the outside, such as over working, spending long hours in front of the tv or computer, over eating, drinking too much and smoking, drug use etc, as well as the more hard core behaviours like depression, passive aggression, unfocussed rage, drug abuse, domestic and emotional abuse.
Somewhere inside us we might know that that behaviours are coping mechanisms for the fear, rage, shame and isolation that we live with but we feel helpless to change, and this is where we come in, to support and guide you in self discovery and self empowerment in finding your unique pathway forward
Healing trauma offers surprising benefits, way beyond your imagining.
You can’t change it but…
Nobody can treat past trauma as what happened can’t be undone, but we can definately support you in discovering how you can use it as a springboard of empowerment into the rest of your life…
Trauma is not an incurable disease, you can do better than merely learn to live with it. We’re born with an innate capacity to triumph over trauma, as it’s part of our survival skillset, and our desperation to be free of our suffering is part of what gives us the courage to go there.
At Oztantra, we understand the healing process involves not only your mind, but your body, emotions, soul and spirit, for trauma impacts us on all these levels, and is often a catalyst for profound awakening and spiritual transformation.
This especially applies if you have suffered sexual trauma in any form.
From our own personal experience, as well as with countless others over more than a decade of working in this field, triumphing over trauma creates a whole new world of deeper awareness, self and other connection, meaning and happiness.
How trauma works
Understand that trauma actually rewires your brain, making you interpret otherwise harmless situations as scary, even terrifying, such as a closed door or a touch on the shoulder.
This is because the part of your brain that is activated has you believing you’re reliving your moment of trauma right now, even though it may have occurred many years ago.
It requires a range of gentle but safe approaches to re-train your brain to see what is really there.
Healing Trauma takes a full system rewire
Modern mainstream therapy has chosen to view trauma and its long term effects as an incurable disease, which can, at best be ‘treated’ with drugs and behavioural management.
There are times where medications are important, but the underlying issues, unless treated, will still remain.
Traditional talk therapy, involving only your mind, and medication therapy that blunts what you feel are limited in what they do.
They also give the power to the the therapist and the drug, and what you’re looking for is to take your own power back.
So sadly, modern western therapies are lagging behind in making significant and workable inroads into supporting sufferers and their families.
Treating trauma as a ‘normal’ human emotional issue, means that the impact of trauma can be cured, reversed or removed.
This approach involve learning to take back control of your own body, mind, emotions, heart and soul.
Unfortunately, and all to often, many sufferers are refusing to seek further assistance purely because of the poor quality and inability of “modern” methods to reliably and accurately support these clients and families.
This is particularly applicable to members of the modern services, such as Police, Ambulance, ADF, prison staff, school teachers, hospital staff, Fire Brigade, SES and other associated professions.
These people are intelligent, motivated and dedicated to serve, giving of themselves most often above and beyond the call of duty.
It is their selflessness and dedication that makes them successful at their chosen profession, and we as a community benefit from their skill and devotion.
It is these aspects of their personality that make them perfect for their chosen passion or role in life that also makes them vulnerable in overlooking, or resisting caring for their emotional selves.
This stoicism on one hand, makes them perfect in their choice of profession, but unfortunately it can also work against them in that they would rather “tough it out” than appear weak by sharing with work mates, partners or therapists.
An important part of this task is re-learning how to feel, to feel safe in your body and know that you can have control over what it is that you feel. This an area that we are particularly vigilant with, in being freely available to clients during this time, as their support people.
Believe it or not, listening to your body, in a safe way without re-experiencing your trauma, helps you integrate the experience(s) you’re probably spending an inordinate amount of energy trying to avoid.
You need to be able to know what you know, and feel what you feel, without becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed or collapsed.
To feel calm and able to focus, especially in response to the images, thoughts, sounds or physical sensations that remind you of the past.
It is being honest with, and accepting of yourself, including about the ways you behaved in order to survive your experience, particularly if your incident happened to you as a child…
You will also benefit from re-learning how to feel fully, sensually alive in your everyday world, not just focussing on healing your trauma. The benefits of this process for you are beyond words, life changing and self empowering.
Tools we use for healing trauma include:
Understanding how trauma impacts you- that it is largely emotional, even spiritual, not logical
Mindful body awareness to help you inhabit your body and experience yourself more fully
Breath practices to regulate your arousal states
Mind/body practices to teach you that you have control over what you feel
Learning movement, sound and music practices to reconnect you with your joy
Learning touch practices to help you feel safe in your body, to know its boundaries and receive safe in touch from another
Learning to see your aggression, depression, arrogance, passivity etc as behaviours you took on as coping mechanisms rather than permanent disabilities
Learning to trust and re-open your heart, to yourself and others
Taking the actions that remain incomplete from your trauma eg. saying no, fighting back, running away
Finding a way to speak the unspeakable- through words, feelings, actions, writing, images
Integrating your traumatic memories as an important part, but not the whole of who you are
Giving your traumatized child a voice in a place of honouring and respect
Finding creative ways to rescript your life and fill in the holes born from the things you missed out on- love, acknowledgment, nurturing, respect, connection
Finding more of your authentic self- giving yourself permission to be sometimes scared, sometimes angry or hateful yet equally capable of being loving, caring, compassionate and fun.
See the Self who is in charge of all these different parts of you, the Self that exists underneath your coping mechanisms, that the essence of who you are.
Healing Trauma: If you want to go there we’re here to go with you
True healing of trauma takes time, but with each step you have a sense that you’re getting somewhere.
With Annette & Graeme, when your session or workshop is complete, all follow up contact, either phone or skype is included, and is not limited.
We are available in supporting you when you’re home, chipping away at the coal face.
Because, a few minutes on the phone or skype will make all the difference in integrating your empowering change, especially knowing that our support is ongoing and not limited.
You have a sense of your own empowerment coming through.
You start to reach out to life rather than protect yourself from it.
“Having had our own experiences of trauma, some of it from early childhood, we know intimately the territory of which we speak and we have a passion for assisting others to find their way through the maze into a happier, more comfortable and successful life.”
What we are offering the Banks Creek Community is to see for yourself.
Contact us and talk about what is, or is not happening in your life.
We have a free trial before you start, just to make sure that you’re happy with who we are and what we do.
All enquiries are strictly confidential, free and at a time of your choosing. (between 7am and 9pm)
Weekend enquiries are most welcome.
We can talk either by phone, skype or other internet medium.
We are easy to contact, either email or phone..
Email link
Skype… graeme.sudholz
Call us TOLL FREE (Aust Only) 1800 TANTRA (826 872), international call +61457 966 696
