TRE is based on the body’s natural, inborn ability to release repressed and stored energy via ‘neurogenic tremors’.

While it is especially effective in reducing stress related symptoms, people from all over the world and diverse circumstances have reported and testified that tremoring has restored theirunique individual range of problems and symptoms.

If you have experienced emotional or physical trauma or both and you know that your life would be easier and more balanced without this experience, you have found a way to get well again.

If you have tried to talk about your trauma and found that it aggravates your symptoms, you have now found a way to get well again.

If you know that you suffer from chronic stress, anxiety, worry, looped thinking, if you struggle to be quiet and relaxed and wish you could stop the treadmill of thoughts, you have found a way to get well again.

If you suffer from pain related to old injuries, lower back pain or stress related headaches you have found a way to get well again.

If you want to strengthen your mind-body connection, learn to feel your emotions without judging, practice inner body awareness and become more grounded you have found a way to do that.

Browse through the testmonies of people from all over the world (follow the links below) to read and hear what TRE has done for them.

TRE has been found effective for the following conditions:

• Hypertension (Allison)
  
• Recovery from Trauma after natural disaster/loss (China)
  
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (War Veteran)
  
• Depression in young people at risk (My Life)
  
• Helps recover and strengthen creativity and gounding in artistic people
  
• Depression – releasing old traumatic experiences
  
• Insomnia, sleeping problems,general stress and tension
  
• Bi-Polar, anxiety and panic attacks (Jim)
  
• Fibromyalgia (Dan)
• Healing Dissociation – reconnecting mind and body (Stacey)
  
• Helping victims who experienced trauma through war and devastation (Sudan)
  
• Lower back pain (very effective with this ! )
• Pain related to past injuries and operations
• Pain and depression /PTSD as a result of physical and emotional trauma (Sedja)
• Headache and cramps related to chronic tension/ stress

Listen to an interview with David Berceli on ‘Conscious Media Network’

Listen and watch a group of people giving feedback after tremoring at one of the TRE Workshops

Listen to an interview with David Berceli on South Africa’s ‘Carte Blance’ where he explains TRE in detail.

Through many years of living with and observing traumatized people in war and desaster areas Dr. David Berceli Ph.D. noticed that ‘Neurogenic Tremors’, a shivering sensation that originates in the Psoas muscle is a natural physical response to trauma. Nearly everyone has experienced those tremors in some way as a temporary uncontrollable shaking. It is relatively easy to stop, depending on the severity of the situation and the cultural etiquette. Dr Berceli noticed the tremors in children and adults alike, with the adults often trying and suceeding to supress them. He recognized, that those who went with the tremoring recovered much quicker – physically and mentally. Through his research and collaboration with Neurologists he found a way to trigger these natural neurogenic tremors via a set of six simple exercises. Everyone who is able to stand upright can do them and tremoring is triggered in everyone alike, children and grandfathers, black, brown, yellow or white, no matter what culture and language.

After going through the set of exercises that are designed to evoke the neurogenic tremors everyone will have a first experience of tremoring. The tremors start in the legs and then move into the Psoas area of our body which is the lower back and pelvis.

A healthy Psoas muscle is essential to our wellbeing and healthy means that these two mighty  muscles needs to be flexible and strong at the same time. We cannot consciously tighten or relax our Psoas, it is under control of our Sympathetic Nervous System and there are reasons for this. A contraction of this muscle is triggered in traumatic/stressful situations.  The Psoas Mayor is the most important muscular connection between the upper body and the legs thus ensuring our ability to walk and run, to keep balance. In moments of danger and fear it contracts to bring our extremities together so we curl up to protect our vulnerable body parts. This muscle bears the brunt of our physical trauma response. If tensions in this muscle remain unreleased over a period of time it can become chronically stiff, inflexible or even shortened. In this unrelaxed state it will permanently send ‘danger signals’ through the Vagus Nerve which is part of our Sympathetic Nervous System into our brain and cause chemical imbalances that affect our emotional wellbeing.
Although the tremoring starts in the middle of our body it gradually spreads. Depending on our ability to ‘let go’ of control all areas of our body can shake. Session for session more muscles are being relaxed and joints realigned. The body regains strength because muscles that have – unbeknown to the conscious mind – been used for support and stability throughout the body are now free to move again and become flexible. Through the neurological connection between the Psoas and the Vagus Nerve comes a relief that is felt mentally. The relaxed and flexible muscles ‘signal’ the brain the absence of ‘danger’ and the brain gradually stops the release of substances that were triggered, sometimes a long time ago.

David Berceli Ph.D.

During our four day workshop with David Berceli we heard numerous testimonies from participants who were astounded by the fact that their body clearly and unmistakably ‘remembered’ traumatic experiences: After an accident involving the knee, tremoring will be most strongy felt in this area, an fall from the bicyle years ago that affected the shoulder will trigger tremors there. David Berceli added to this from his own experience of working with PTSD disgnosed war veterans, a soldier who was severely traumatized in a fighting situation with his fingers on the trigger experienced a long period of tremoring in his hands. People who were traumatized by abuse and experienced freezing and/or curling up in self-protection have had waves of tremors throughhout their body that caused the extremities to stretch and open up.

David Berceli describes tremoring as a discharge of stored energy that is felt as tension. TRE effects a return to more flexibility, balance and grounding in the body with an increased mental sense of safety and energy.

While he has decided to bring his Trauma Release Exercises personally to those who need it most ( in war and desaster zones) he also trains TRE Practitioners all over the world. Every TRE Practitioner has to go though the process of experiencing the effect of tremoring regularly – in their own body and mind. I am greatful for this requirement and can testify to profound changes.

Traumatic experience is common and natural, it cannot be avoided. It is a physiological experience that has repercussions on our mental state. Trauma is defined as a state of high arousal – being overwhelmed by sense perceptions, often combined with intense fear.

Traumatic experience is often divided into emotional and physical trauma. I step beyond this distinction and state that :

The separation between MIND and BODY is an illusion – in reality it is THE CONNECTION between mind and body, that makes us who we are.

The connection is facilitated by our EMOTIONS.  Emotions are physical sensations. Only with the learning of language and reasoning they become mental ‘states’ that are categorized, judged, wished for or suppressed. EMOTIONS are the language of our body and the mind learns to ‘translates’ and ‘understand’ this language. How we react to the sense perceptions called emotions is highly individual, our capacity to memorize and reason opens a myriad of possibilities.

If EMOTIONS are the CONNECTION between MIND and BODY – where is the line between normal emotions and trauma ?

The diagram shows a hierarchy of natural responses to challenges and stressors. You will note that fighting and fleeing are not traumatic in itself – these responses are within our natural capability to save our life

Only if we can neither reconnect, fight or flee we enter the state of  TRAUMA. Traumatic responses are generated through an energy – overload in our nervous system in connection with the automatic release of chemicals into the body. Three distinct reactions are known but it is possible to experience one, two or all of them by drifting from one state into another.

1) Freezing – ranging from a sensation of ‘stiffness’, ‘being unable to move’ to feeling ‘invisible’ and/or ‘immovable’.
2) Flooding – ranging from crying and sobbing to shouting, hitting and blind rage.
3) Dissociation – ranging from consciously rejecting/ignoring the emotions to literally disconnecting from the body as if in a trance.

What happens AFTER the traumatic event ?

These reactions are supposed to be temporary and the body should be allowed to return to its natural relaxed state. That is what we expect and what seems to happen, anger calms down, fear is diminished, the broken bone is healed but still – something is not right. The mind, meaning our constant stream of thoughts and inner dialogue, compulsively goes back to the traumatic event again and again. Fragments of the situation pop out of nowhere and we don’t know how to deal with this and how to stop it. If we constantly try to exert control we are at war with ourselves, in conflict. If we let the mind go back we have to re-live the trauma again. It seems like a Catch 22 situation.

BUT – There is a good reason for the mind wanting to ‘resolve’ the trauma. During a traumatic experience our sense perceptions are fragmented, we are overwhelmed, what is happening does not ‘make sense’. Often our ‘belief system’ is shattered because we ‘never thought it can happen to us’.  The facts cannot be integrated into our internal, rational compartments but our mind HAS TO organize sense perceptions, it’s her main occupation to label them and put them into context. Hence the fragments of trauma need to be integrated, lest we become mentally ill.

Here too, a lot of methods are subconsciously employed to do that:  We might find ourselves in similar situations again and again – even bring them about by repeating the very same behaviour that traumatised us. Every time we re-live a similar situation we have a chance to put the pieces into context and expand our belief system to integrate them. But this can take many years and until then we can feel constant stress and guilt and reject ourselves for self defeating behaviour. This is where rules and regulations appeal to us as a safety net, but in the end they restrict us further and increase the stress. Talking about remembered trauma, especially sharing it with people who have had similar experiences helps. It can be resolved by sharing and discovering the other side of it – acknowledging the wonderful survival protection we had and honouring the learning that results from the process of integration. Trauma can becomes an important part of personal history -  without the pain that used to be triggered. Many people have drawn wisdom and grace, health and a renewed appreciation of life from resolved trauma, it is possible and we know it.

But what about the deep seated, subconscious things that our mind cannot reach?

The fear and anger that is often out of proportion to the reality of a situation? What about the lingering pain in the arm that was hurt a long time ago? It comes and goes but never stays away for good. We come to accept it as being part of ‘who we are’. Not only this, we might actually become fond of it, embrace it as a token of bravery or a medal we won in the war of life. If it was gone altogether we would feel as if we had lost a part of ourselves. We use it to excuse our moods and our inability to change. It is as convenient as it is unhealthy.

Many approaches have been tried and people have found their own way out of this dilemma – often without knowing how it happened. Some give up and become victims for life, some develop depression or live with constant stress, anger and resentment.

Here is the catch:

The mind alone cannot resolve it because the memory of the trauma also resides in the body.

Our body has its own memory – every cell and membrane, nerve and muscle. The neurological system detects and transmits all of this to our subconscious mind in a constant stream of signals.  Chronically clenched and unrelaxed muscles send a constant signal of ‘danger’ to the brain and trigger the release of chemicals. An unbalanced hip or a weak knee might just seem a nuisance but where the skeletal body and the joints are out of balance, muscles have to add to stability – they become rigid and finally too short to do the work they were designed to do – enable a flow of energy – through flexibility and movement – throughout the body. Only of the emotion reaches a certain – indiviudally different – threshhold the conscious mind becomes aware of it and begins to interpret, judge, dismiss or react  And the conscious mind  is sometimes not helping but hindering the body in his self-healing capacity – it all depends on the quality of the mind-body connection – how both communicate their needs and ‘understand’ each other.

Instead of ‘subduing’ the body with the help of our mind we need to re-learn to listen to the feeling sensations in a new way. Instead of judging those feelings immediately and suppressing them we need to let them be what they are in the first place – physical sensations. The mind must be taught to listen to the body and reach a better, deeper, new interpretation. Only then we can act on what we feel and be sure to serve our real needs. Listening INTO our body is essential, and knowing that there is an abundant resource of renewal and healing available from within.

I researched several ways of engaging the body and restoring the mind-body connection. It is true that exercise and fitness play a great role. All forms of exercise, Yoga, Aerobic and Martial Arts are valuable and healthy in itself. But trauma is a different thing altogether. In TRE I found a scientific yet easy and truly holistic method. TRE does not require you to learn another set of rules or embrace certain spiritual beliefs. It is a  proven and effective method that ‘works’ for everyone, regardless of culture, language and belief system.

Please visit THE BERCELI FOUNDATION , a Non-Profit Organisation helping people all over the world to recover from trauma.