Catharsis
When the body revolts; repressed instinct emerges
The past few weeks have been interesting for me. And by interesting, I mean, deeply challenging and illuminating — but, the kind of challenging that lives in the body and rears itself as anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, with very little awareness of the actual causation of what’s happening.
Ever since Uranus finished it’s final cycle in Taurus and moved into Gemini, my body has been going into states of morphic shock — tremor, anxiety, restlessness, sleeplessness.
Normally when this happens, I drink some skullcap tea, have some milky oats — I really amp up my nervous system care. And I have been doing that. But, nothing has really been “working” which tells me… it’s something deeper.
During a somatic experiencing session, a couple of weeks ago, I descended into the feeling and I located it — it lived in my womb, my pelvis, my deep belly and my root.
It didn’t have much to say, per se; but a vision did arise when I allowed myself to be with the sensations. A snake arose through my spine and came and looked at me right in the eyes. It’s eyes were yellow. And when it looked at me, the tremoring stopped. My body rested.
I looked up the meaning of yellow eyed snakes — instinct. When a yellow eyed snake arises, your body is likely sensing something instinctual, that you don’t yet have language for. And that felt… right.
Four days after the sleeplessness, I got a phone call. It was from the man I had been seeing for some months— he called, telling me he had not slept for a few nights (the same amount of nights I had not slept for) and needed to talk.
He told me he could no longer have an intimate relationship with me — that feelings were developing (both sides) and it wasn’t fair to continute if we were not holding the vision of long term relationship. I agreed.
After the call, something in me sank and relaxed. My body eased a little. But part of me was still unsettled, unrested. I let myself integrate.
We were meant to catch up to say goodbye before I left (I leave in two days), but he never answered my call.
Yesterday, I had the instinct to drive past a certain shop, to get lunch. I dropped my sister off there — I had to duck home to give my mum the keys to get in the house.
My sister messaged me “ahhh, he’s here — but with another girl”
My belly sank. Rage started surging through my body. Every story imaginable ran through my mind.
As I drove back to pick my sister up, I messaged him “can you just be honest with me — if you’re seeing someone else, please let me know”.
He had told me he had no capacity to see anyone else… and didn’t want to.
Interestingly, a month beforehand, I had a flash of another woman in my vision, and I dismissed it.
But my instinctual animal body was showing me not to ignore it.
And with no message response from him, it is clear that I have the information now.
After a full night of body catharsis — shaking, rage, grief — soothed with some homeopathic remedies to allow me to stay centred within it all, I now feel like I’ve returned back to myself… my body rested.
Our instincts are not just “trauma responses” — they are our deepest knowing, beyond the minds interpretation of reality. My body knew, my reality just had to catch up.
Sigourney x
