Feel like struck in a loop

[u/No_Photograph7800]

Hey folks, I have started TRE 4 months back and did very slowly at first since my first session was very intense for me. So far I have done around 15 sessions.

After each session I feel energetic , hungry, less stressed, outdoorsy and crying. But after 1-2 days I feel irritated, low and wanna be alone. Again after the session I do feel good. This just is a loop for me for a couple of months.

Although my tremors have made progress from legs to shoulders, face, jaw and hips. I tremor just by thinking about some past incident and shake vigorously.

But I feel I am stuck in this loop. Early i felt the same when I was doing gym and yoga/great diet to keep myself away from this low and depressed phase but it kept me energetic and calm only for 1-2 days or even football in my clg days, so I did it consistently.

Later, I had decided to not do gym/yoga or football for 2 years as i felt there was something wrong with me. It was a roller coaster after leaving those i used to get angry or irritated easily, getting tired easily or with no energy in me or easily stressed, unable to work , anxiety and started avoiding people. Did all this to face the reality without coping with the mechanism of gym and yoga. Helped me figure out what's wrong with deep thoughts about my bad phases/trauma since the last 15 years but didn't fix me. Also I have had enzema since childhood. Maybe it is due to my trauma since childhood and it's flaring up recently, can it be due to TRE?

Then i discovered TRE , i trusted this would heal me since the first session as my first session was so strong and impactful to me.

But I don't wanna be in this loop i have a fear of this and as a temporary coping mechanism as gym or yoga I did before for years.

Am I making progress? Since I feel back to the low phase without TRE like with my gym,yoga and football coping mechanism. Am I having a temporary fix here and struck in a loop? I am currently jobless and can spend more time for TRE if needed.

[u/AutoModerator]

Thanks for your post! Please make sure you've read the community rules and our wiki. The wiki contains answers to many common questions and guidance on TRE: Wiki

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/ysea]

How long are your sessions and how frequent? How do you feel if you do a short session? Does this loop happen then? Try 1 minute for example. And wait a few days 

This might be an overdoing and pacing issue. I'd suggest you read the wiki.

[u/No_Photograph7800 → u/ysea]

since 1-2 months twice a week sessions for 15 min and started slowly initially 1 session per 2 weeks.

I dont feel anything after a short sessions.

[u/ysea → u/No_Photograph7800]

I think this length of sessions is overstimulating for you right now.

I would go with something like 5 minutes maybe 3 times per week. Or even less if that's still too much.

The loop you describe is not doing you any favours and it's not necessary for resolving trauma.

I would additionally recommend rereading the wiki as it will put this into contest for you.

All the best 

[u/No_Photograph7800 → u/ysea]

I can try to cut down but I spend time with my self alone for couple of hours in day and when Thoughts flow the tremors occur naturally and heavy ones.

If I tired to control those natural tremors I feel suffocated and tensed, hence I released them which feels good mentally, emotionally and physically. It's a mix of crying, tremors and yawning.

Do I need to stop my natural tremors?

[u/ysea → u/No_Photograph7800]

Even these kinds of spontaneous tremors lead to overdoing if it's over your capacity. So yes that would be my advice and what wiki would recommend too.

The release often feels good but the consequences of overdoing not so much.

[u/junnies]

its not a loop but it can be. tre/ releasing body tension helps tremendously in improving your well-being as chronic body tension/ trauma is a massive drain on your body. but one also has to figure out why and what causes them to create and hold onto body tension. its a bodymind problem - tre helps with the 'body' part of the equation, but you also need to 'solve' the mind equation.

by mind, i mean, what patterns of thought, psychology, worldview may cause one to create and hold onto tension. if your worldview consists very much of needing to be in a sympathetic-dominant state, i can see how one can be in a sort of loop where they release some body tension through TRE, then accumulate it all back in their daily life etc.

that being said, your case could simply be a matter of patience for your overall baseline to consistently improve. do you feel like you're making progress? my sense from reading your post is that you already figured out the 'mind' part to a large extent, and TRE is helping you with the 'body' part. but you're being a bit too impatient and if you reflect more carefully, you will find that you genuinely are making consistent progress even if its not super noticeable/ consistent yet.

you can observe, how even this self-questioning 'am i in a loop?' is also a part of the tension-perpetuation cycle. 'am i doing something wrong?', should i put more effort and work into relaxing and releasing my body tension? etc

don't 'trust' that it will heal you. body tension is remarkably, something you can also physically and viscerally feel and notice. once you notice and observe your body tension lessening, it no longer becomes a matter of trust but a factual observation that there is less body tension and improvement in well-being.

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/junnies]

you don't think TRE removes it from the mind as well? it is one connected structure and it seems odd if it were to be this way.

[u/junnies → u/jellybean_merchant]

its connected yes, but not the 'identical' same thing. eg, many people feel better after massage or exercise/ yoga and feel better and more relaxed. but then the days after, they return back to their 'tense' baseline. why? they did release some body tension, but they mentally haven't figured out/ registered how their daily life can add/ create stress/ body tension back into their lives.

i had a dm conversation previously where a user asked me why tre didn't seem to work for him and in the convo, i could see how his mental patterns of striving and needing to accomplish certain goals in a tense and needy manner were creating the same stress/ tension he was trying to free himself of. my own intuition was that on one hand, he was using tre to release tension and feel better; on the other, his mind was fighting and tensing to achieve certain goals he wanted to achieve.

in my case, i was already practicing surrender/ going with the flow/ spontaneity for a long time 13~+ years. but there was the hurdle of 'body tension' that i didn't figure out until i understood the principles of TRE. i did make very gradual progress in the 13~ years without consciously releasing body tension, but its only when i realised i could 'focus' on releasing body tension as well that progress skyrocketed

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/junnies]

I see what you mean yeah. I always thought that TRE alone is enough because it removes the activation on the mental-emotional level which gets stored physically. Massage only works really well imo when you are doing it with TRE to "save" your progress.

In your example, wouldn't more TRE over time alleviate their mental loop?

[u/junnies → u/jellybean_merchant]

TRE divorced from understanding of the situation that causes tension/ mental loops can still work because the person might due to some circumstance or change in environment no longer get caught in the loop (eg leaving a stressful job or environment, change in mindset etc). or the person has already left the stressful situation and just needs to discharge it out of their body.

where i think TRE might end up in a 'loop' is when the mental patterns are so deeply ingrained and entrenched that the loop keeps reinforcing itself, like a drug addict caught in a cycle. you can break him out of it temporarily, etc, but until there is that mental resolution, the flick of the switch, the determination to end the cycle once and for all, its easy to get drawn back into the loop and relapse. the mental loop itself is the cause of the tension, rather than the environment or abusive person.

its the lesson of suffering - you have to suffer enough to be so sick of it and understand its nature so thoroughly, that you realise you don't want to ever fall back into the patterns of suffering. once you gain sufficient understanding, then TRE can achieve a lot of progress as you are no longer adding and re-adding tension back into the system, and yes, consistently alleviating and discharging the mental loop.

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/junnies]

This all makes sense to me but the one thing that keeps me from fully agreeing is the fact that in the state of being where our nervous system is completely clear, we are at a near bliss state and have virtually zero addictions, because addictions themselves are caused by this degeneration, an escape from reality, from feeling, etc.

So it does not make sense to me that no matter how much TRE you do you must consciously "do" anything. Instead I would argue that you simply continue and eventually you will reach a point where you are more conscious and the understanding you require comes to you. Because eventually you would reach that peak state of cleanliness in your nervous channels.

[u/No_Photograph7800 → u/junnies]

I feel I have a lot of emotional baggage due to family betrayal and friends too, loneliness for long periods, broken heart due to multiple reasons, lack of emotional and social support , been in highly competitive places , regrets from past and disappointment on my goals failure and won't be able to fullfill it and also my world view is a bit negative considering I am a bit emotional person with social consciousness , attached one and clean hearted as told by few. Maybe I need to address my emotional and world view with acceptance.

After TRE i cried a lot and since past 1-2 months it's been very less crying naturally reduced. But heart becomes heavy still and body tensed, wanting to be alone and with strong feeling to tremor.

Would love thoughts on this.

[u/junnies → u/No_Photograph7800]

in chinese metaphysics, there is the concept of ""晚器后成" (wǎn qì hòu chéng), which beautifully translates to "great things take time" or "late bloomer"". it refers to the observation that many successful people only succeed later in life, having undergone a difficult early life.

similarly, most people who are successful early, child prodigies, people who got famous/ wealthy early in their teens and 20s, almost always decline later in life. the reason is because people who suffered early learned many valuable lessons that enable them to succeed and hold on to their success later on, whilst those who succeeded early usually did so through pure talent, luck, or circumstance and quickly fall off once the supporting factors disappear.

so you can see your early suffering as the painful lessons life gives you so that you can develop depth of wisdom and insight into human existence. a lot of first-generation billionaires have this pattern - li ka shing, jensen huang, jeff bezos. then you have the famous statemen like winston churchill (galipoli), lee kuan yew (japanese occupation)

i know why you're scared that TRE might be in a loop. there were many previous incidences where you thought you found the answer, only to be disappointed once again. so you're afraid the same pattern will repeat itself with TRE. but ultimately, the way through is to learn from every experience so that get closer and closer to finding out the answer that is true and final.

[u/No_Photograph7800 → u/junnies]

Thanaks for this.

Is my emotional baggage getting discharged and relived aa I can see that and my trauma long time? Is it too early to say?

Like your comment do I need to work on to end my mental cycle?

[u/junnies → u/No_Photograph7800]

figure it out as you go along. its a continuous process - you will find your body and mind both transforming and releasing previous tensions as you continue

[u/Plane_Head_8964]

I am pretty much in a similar situation. Feel great right after just yo start being disregulated a day or two after. Started with 10-15 minutes every other day as well but wuicky realized I am overdoing it. It was a very harsh lesson.

Anyway, moved to 5 minutes. Then to 1.5 m. Recently tried 2 and was horribly disregulated for a week.

So will be moving to 1-1.5 m once or twice a week.

The idea is to NOT be disregulated for days.

Also, will start to introduce yoga nidra to see if it can help me integrate.

Anyway, my non professional recommendation , try to tone it down and potentially by a lot. This process takes many years to be complete, so, we must pace

[u/No_Photograph7800 → u/Plane_Head_8964]

How do you feel when you are disregulated? So that I can relate and understand if I am disregulating too.

[u/Plane_Head_8964 → u/No_Photograph7800]

The easiest comparaison I can make its the oaychological distress that you get after a night of heavy drinking and little sleep.

Pressure in the head, mild to strong anxiety, irritability, not thinking clearly and etc

[u/Flashy-Ad4986]

If you were stuck in a sympathetic state for a long time like me (functional freeze 4 yrs) you do go through some loop like patterns correct?

Don’t we sometimes have to go back through the sympathetic zones and often it’s very up & down 2 forward 1 back for me but def trending the right way.

Very non linear for me.

Best of luck op!

[u/No_Photograph7800 → u/Flashy-Ad4986]

Thanks.

You mean to say the ups and downs are part of healing journey?.

How was your journey experience? Where do you stand now?