Trauma Release Exercises (TRE®)

What Is TRE®?

TRE® - Trauma and Tension Release Exercises, are a set of exercises developed by David Berceli, that facilitate a natural shaking mechanism in the body. The activation of this tremoring reflex deep in the brain helps to release, or more aptly, to sequence unresolved stored trauma, stress and tension.

We are human animals, and as such we can get stuck in primitive survival strategies, stress and tension responses, and patterns of dysregulation, storing the energy of fight/flight/freeze/fawn in our bodies.

Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises (or TRE®) is based on the fundamental idea, backed by research, that stress, tension and trauma is both psychological and physical. TRE®’s reflexive muscle vibrations generally feel pleasant and soothing, and after TRE® sessions, many people report feelings of peace, well-being, playfulness and restfulness. TRE® can facilitate a deep resting and relaxation in the body and mind, and can support adaptive nervous system regulation.

Shaking is a novel stimulus to the central nervous system. New stimuli, approached with safety and curiosity, can support learning and growth. The psychology of trauma is complex, the physiology is relatively simple. In trauma, old parts of the brain are fixed in defence cascades of ‘fight-or-flight’ or ‘freeze’. TRE® is a safe, natural process to re-boot overprotective reflexes.

— Steve Haines

We Shake To Release…

In trauma healing, there can be an emphasis on ‘release, deconditioning and deamouring work’, but I would like to also invite you into TRE® and shaking as a holistic somatic practice that can support connection, presence, and a sense of embodied open curiosity and wonder.

In truth, when we work with the nervous system in this way, we are not really ‘discharging’ threat energy. We are discovering how to connect, re-engage and genuinely process, integrate and recalibrate our experiences in the present moment. Shaking is a powerful way to remember our essence as always whole, sacred and wildly alive.

We Shake To Connect…

TRE® is a practice that you can learn to hold and integrate for yourself (once you have learned the exercises and how to support your body to tremor). However, being guided in TRE® is much more than how to awaken the natural tremor response.

In guided TRE® sessions, you are supported to discover meaningful ways to slow down and support adaptive nervous system regulation, through body mapping, grounding, resourcing and orienting. In-person TRE® can also be of benefit as a touch-based therapy. The compassion of relational touch can be a profound part of the healing experience. A TRE® practitioner can support you to explore containment and activation in safe enough space. You discover how to work within the capacity of your window of tolerance, how to slow down, stretch, savour, titrate and pendulate in order to work with your present moment emotions, sensations and experiences with a sense of love, safety and belonging.

Shaking can be a liberatory experience. It can be a joyful and playful way to creatively come into communion with your wild earth as you negotiate trauma recovery.

TRE® as Trauma Informed Bodywork

Our pelvis and our womb can often be experienced as our ‘centre of gravity’. We experience our sexuality, our cyclical nature, from our pelvis. We experience rights of passage and transitions from deep within the well of our pelvis. It is the space from which life-projects, dreams, authentic leadership, and sacred lineage medicine can live.

But it is also more often a space of deep wounding, a place where we have stored our sexual trauma, shame, anger, lack of self-worth, contracting and constricting over and over again, until patterns of shame and doubt have become a habitual repetition that keeps us stuck and misshapen, separated from our artful pelvic and energetic womb presence.

TRE® is a trauma informed bodywork.

Trauma is not in the event, it exists in the body.

— Peter Levine

TRE® & The Imprint of Trauma

Trauma remains in the body when we are unable to discharge, or more aptly, sequence, threat energy and orient to our safety. This residual undischarged energy can affect our entire organism, often in strange and mysterious ways.

TRE® can work with the imprint of stored trauma that is left in the body, and support meaningful ways that you can work with nervous system regulation techniques to somatically release, integrate and restore the temple of your sacred pelvis, and the remembrance of your original essence as always whole, sacred and wildly alive.

TRE® guides you to cultivate a sense of loving compassionate pelvic presence. You discover how to deeply honour your bowl medicine as a sacred wisdom keeper. Working with touch, focused breathing and visualisations, the song of your soma is supported to bring the body into adaptive nervous system regulation. When the nervous system is regulated in this way, new neural pathways and muscle memories can be created, tissue health can be restored and old memories and trauma can be integrated.

Who Can Benefit From TRE®

TRE® has been scientifically proven to support a wide range of conditions, trauma recovery issues. Some reported benefits include:

Benefits

  • Supporting those healing with PTSD, complex PTSD, and vicarious trauma

  • Decreases anxiety and worry

  • Supports those with anxiety around serious illness

  • Reduces muscle pain, soothes tension and supports myofascial release

  • Increases flexibility

  • Improves deep restful sleep and relaxation

  • Facilitates relief from chronic medical conditions

  • Supports healing of old injuries

  • Supports those with neurological conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinsons Disease, Myasthenia Gravis

  • Improves circulation of blood supply and lymphatics and can improve digestive health

  • Benefits emotional regulation, boundary keeping, and increases trauma recovery resilience

  • Supports adaptive nervous system regulation and somatic healing. Improving proprioceptive and interoceptive awareness

  • Awakens shutdown dissociative parts of self, and supports the ability to enliven and energise

  • Cultivates a deep sense of inner loving compassion, promoting self-regulation and the ability to navigate present moment sensations and emotions with love, safety and belonging

  • Supports creativity, pleasure, focus and playfulness

  • Supports release, connection and social engagement. This can improve relational dynamics with self and others

What To Expect

TRE® sessions can be experienced online via Zoom in the comfort of your own home, or in-person at my therapy home, Suffolk Yoga, in Ipswich.

It is essential in TRE® that we work with your specific needs and desires, so each session is lovingly and compassionately tailored to your individual needs. So please note that the following 3 steps are to be taken as a guide as to what to expect when you book your TRE® Package, and what you may expect during sessions.

Whether your sessions are online or in-person, we follow a similar process.

ONLINE SESSIONS

One of the many benefits of online TRE® sessions is that they can be taken in the comfort of your own home. When TRE® is practiced in an environment that feels safe, it can support a deep sense of rest, relaxation and ease.

IN-PERSON SESSIONS

In-person sessions are held at my therapy and bodywork home, Suffolk Yoga. I have a beautiful and welcoming private space. In-person TRE® can be of significant benefit as relational touch can support co-regulation, relaxation and ease.

Step 1…

Intake Form

Firstly, once you book your TRE® Package, you will receive a TRE® Intake Form straight to your inbox. The Intake Form is a space for you to share with me your primary concerns, needs and desires. It is helpful for me to understand some of your sexual and pelvic history and experience, as well as where you are currently at in your pelvic health, and your desires for working together. I understand that the nature of the Intake Form can address some sensitive areas. Please know that I witness anything that you share with loving compassion and confidentiality. As standard practice, I comply with privacy requirements to protect your personal data and information.

Please only share what you are comfortable with, and we can navigate with care from there. Once I receive your completed Intake Form, you will be notified to schedule your Online Intake Form Review appointment.

Step 2…

Online Intake Form Review Call

Welcome to the Zoom-womb! I find that it is really important to begin to co-create the healing field together, by collaboratively connecting. The Online Intake Form Review Call is a way that we can begin to connect and get practical, discussing your Intake Form, which allows space for us to clarify anything necessary. There is time for your questions, and everything that you forgot when you filled in your Intake Form (don't worry, it happens!) It is also a way that we get to co-regulate and begin to enter into creating a compassionate healing field together. It is a way that we can begin to cultivate presence, and establish safe enough space for compassionate bodywork.

Guided by your body always, we will also discuss scheduling and spacing your TRE® sessions in a way that meets your needs and desires. This may look different for each individual. However, for most people, the sessions will be spaced bi-weekly. We will always discuss and keep in conversation with your body, and what best supports you.

Step 3…

The Five TRE® Sessions

THE INITIAL CHECK-IN

Each session begins with an initial check-in. We practice present moment attunement and your Felt Sense. This supports you to connect and engage with your present moment sensations, your present moment body/mind experiences, and anything that you may be coping with.

The Five TRE® Sessions

THE 5 NERVOUS SYSTEM HONEYPOT PRACTICES

Over the course of the five sessions, you are guided through five simple and effective somatic nervous system regulation techniques and practices that you can implement into your own TRE® home-practice, to support you to ground, resource and orient.

Somatic nervous system techniques can support you to cultivate a sense of open curiosity and loving compassion, guiding you to release and connect and orient to a sense of embodied safety. These tools are highly effective in both soothing and down-regulating an activated nervous system that is stuck in sympathetic states of fight-or-flight, and can also support up-regulation for those experiencing shutdown or dissociation, helping to reboot and encourage energy mobilisation. Unresolved trauma, stress and tension can disrupt brain-body signalling. These disturbances are thought to contribute to physical symptoms and emotional dysregulation.

The Honeypot practices are rooted in somatic healing techniques that support you to shift from the momentum of trauma to the momentum of healthfulness. You discover how to shift from pain to vitality, improving your proprioceptive skills (your body's ability to sense itself in space) with fluidity and confidence. The Honeypot practices also provide powerful strategies for interoceptive functioning and sensory awareness techniques that support your inner self-awareness.

The Five TRE® Sessions

THE TRE® EXERCISES AND SHAKING EXPERIENCE

After a simple Honeypot practice, we move into the TRE® exercises. The TRE® exercises are a set of seven exercises that are designed to build and fatigue the muscles from the feet to the pelvis. Six of the exercises are practiced in upright positions, and the 7th exercise moves us to the floor, initially in a butterfly position. As the exercises are designed to lightly exhaust the muscles, they can awaken the body's natural tremor response.

During sessions, we may progress through some, all or none of the exercises. We will be guided at all times by your body and your needs. Once you have welcomed the shake in your body, it is not necessary to always complete the seven exercises. However, they can be of great benefit if you get stuck in a shaking pattern, and desire to offer some change and curiosity to your shaking experience.

During your shaking experience, you discover how to stop and start the tremors for yourself. Every shaking experience is different. Some people shake on their first session, others may need more time. Most people experience the shake initially in their lower limbs, but it is possible to shake anywhere in the body, which can be a beautiful experience. Once you have an active tremor in the body, you can also explore a wide range of shaking positions. We shake not only to release or process, but to connect.

Whilst shaking is one of the body's natural ways to release threat and stress energy, it can initially be unfamiliar. You discover how to befriend and welcome your tremor with curiosity, playfulness and ease. We welcome your shake and allow the tremors to build and move around your body at their own pace.

The Five TRE® Sessions

CONTAINMENT AND ACTIVATION INTERVENTIONS

Guided 1-1 sessions have the additional benefit of working with containment and activation interventions.

Containment in TRE® refers to your ability to internally turn down the amount of emotional stimulation you experience when you are dealing with anxiety, provoking situations, or traumatic experiences. During your shake I may offer you suggestions that can support your expression of images, sensations, feelings, memories, and other side effects of trauma in manageable amounts, so that you do not become overwhelmed by these experiences. Containment skills typically help you to come back to your present moment and translate what is happening inside to the outside world, with a sense of embodied present moment clarity.

Activation interventions can be helpful if the tremors are not developing in the body, and further support with freeze, flooding and dissociation is necessary.

The Five TRE® Sessions

INTEGRATION

As a practitioner working primarily in sexual and pelvic healing, I have come to understand the importance of the art of slowing down. Most often, true and sustainable somatic healing transformation is available when we slow down and practice the art of the sacred pause. Integration is an essential part of your shaking experience during guided sessions and your own home-practice. We will offer personal integration after every shaking experience, throughout the session. We will also close sessions with a shared integration of your experience.

What To Wear & Online Setup

You will need to wear something that you are comfortable to move in through the exercises and your shaking experience.

For in-person sessions, I will provide everything that you need.

For online sessions, you will need something comfortable, such as a yoga mat, to lay down on, and it is essential for me to be able to see all four corners of your mat on the screen, so that we can stay in connection with your shaking experience. You may also desire a cushion, bolster, and blanket for your comfort. It can be helpful to position yourself near to a wall for any support that you may need in the standing exercises. Please ensure that you have water to hand for hydration.

Aftercare Guidance

Following completion of your TRE® Package, you will receive an Aftercare TRE® Guide, which details all of the seven exercises, and the five Honeypot nervous system regulation practices for your reference, supporting you to ground, resource, and orient. The guide shares some information on what to look out for and recognise in terms of trauma responses. You are welcome to purchase single follow-up sessions at a reduced price, and/or join my online or in-person group shaking sessions.

PAY IN FULL

£400

  • 1X 1-hour Online Intake Form Review
  • 5X 75-Minute TRE Sessions
  • 1X Aftercare TRE Guide

3-MONTH PLAN

£400

  • 1X 1-hour Online Intake Form Review
  • 5X 75-Minute TRE Sessions
  • 1X Aftercare TRE Guide

FOLLOW-UP

£60

  • 1X 75-Minute TRE Session
  • Only available following purchase of initial
  • TRE package within previous 12 months

Group TRE Sessions

I offer various online and in-person group shaking sessions. The best way to keep informed as to when these shaking sessions happen, and who they are for, is to sign up to my email list. All group sessions are run via sliding scale and heart contribution options. I understand how vital it can be to access this support.

Did you know that if you are one of my current coaching clients, you are warmly invited to my monthly TRE® shaking sessions for clients as a part of your bonus coaching programme support?!

As a part of my sexual and pelvic healing journey, I am also someone healing from the long-term effects of unresolved trauma and auto-immune dis-ease. TRE® has been an incredible gift into my own medicine bag, and I offer a FREE monthly shaking session for anyone navigating their own auto-immune healing journey. Come along and shake with me!

About Aurora

Hey Wild Love! My name is Aurora, and I am your Pelvic Priestess. I offer Coaching and Therapies in Somatic Sexology, Holistic Pelvic Care, and Fertility and Reproductive Health.

I work with a wide range of sexual and pelvic health issues, however, I specialise in working with those that have experienced sexual trauma and subsequent pelvic pain and dysfunction. I believe that healing sexual trauma, shame and pelvic pain is blood, breath and bone work. To come home to your body, sexuality, and pelvic temple is a mythic, poetic and somatic journey. It is the slow, compassionate and full sensory remembrance of your original essence as always whole, sacred, and wildly alive.

Connect with me and discover which somatic sexuality, holistic pelvic care or bodywork therapy is best suited to your needs.

Your sacred remembrance awaits you…

With Love and Artful Devotion,

Aurora

F.A.Q.

Yes! All of my trainings have a deep grounding in trauma informed care, practice and methodology. I also continue to deepen my understanding and widen my trauma education and am constantly expanding my capacity to hold safe enough space in a wide variety of ways. I am also in the process of transitioning from trauma informed to trauma qualified as I continue some extensive trauma trainings to hold my work and offerings, which I will be sharing more about soon!

Absolutely! At the heart of my work is the premise that your sexuality is sacred, and that with loving compassionate presence, you can come into connection, belonging and aliveness with your body, sexuality and pelvis. I believe that is truly every being’s birthright. Ultimately, as your Pelvic Priestess, I am devoted to your embodied-mystery!

Yes! TRE® can be safe to practice during pregnancy. There may be some necessary adjustments required for your comfort. If you have deeply unresolved trauma, and have no prior TRE® experience, I would recommend working with some nervous system regulation tools before introducing shaking in pregnancy.

Unfortunately, and quite unbelievably, trauma is woefully neglected in sexual and pelvic health. It is unlikely that any specialist has actually asked you about your trauma history sensitively. Our medical professionals are expertly trained and have valuable skills, however more often than not, trauma is a very minimal part of medical training. There is also a lack of whole-body, whole-person perspective in Western medicine, and we are paying the price for the overly medicalised interventions of medication and surgery for pelvic health issues, and the outdated reliance on talk therapies as a sole method of trauma healing. This is why trauma informed, somatic and holistic bodywork is truly revolutionary in terms of sexual healing and pelvic health.

TRE® is safe and effective as a trauma release technique. However, individuals who have physical or psychological/psychiatric conditions that require strict regulation, individuals with fragile psychological defenses, a complex history of trauma or restricting physical or medical limitations, should consult their medical practitioner prior to working with TRE®.

It can be exceptionally beneficial to collaborate with other therapists and specialists to provide yourself with a full spectrum of care, which I am happy to support and work with.

As with any type of bodywork there are soft and hard contraindications for working together. It is highly recommended that you inform me on your Intake Form of any of the following so that I can make informed recommendations:

  • Possibility of pregnancy
  • Surgical history and any recent operations
  • Irregular blood pressure (high or low)
  • Physical ailments and current limitations (broken bones, strains, sprains, chronic aches)
  • Hypo- or hyper-glycemias (medications)
  • Epilepsy
  • Severe depression
  • Bi-polar conditions
  • Schizophrenia
  • Psychosis
  • Borderline Personality Disorder

TRE® sessions are available online (via Zoom), or in-person, at my therapy home, Suffolk Yoga.

One of the many benefits of online TRE® sessions is that they can be taken in the comfort of your own home. When TRE® is practiced in an environment that feels safe, it can support a deep sense of rest, relaxation and ease.

In-person sessions take place at my therapy home, Suffolk Yoga, in Ipswich. I have a beautiful, quiet and peaceful private room with access to bathroom facilities. Suffolk Yoga’s ethos is one that my heart and womb can align with. The entire space and the offerings available are truly centred in a whole person, whole body, holistic somatic approach.

1 Sorrel Horse Mews
Grimwade Street
Ipswich IP4 1LN

Please note that parking is limited. Usually I can organise a space for you directly outside the building. However when this is not possible, parking is available during the day at Fore St Swimming Pool. Cut through St. Clements Church Lane to Grimwade Street and cross the road. We are located in the white building at the front of Sorrel Horse Mews. I will refund your parking payment for the 2 hour session.

Initially you will need to purchase the TRE® Package, which consists of a 1-hour Intake Form Review Call (online), and five 75-minute in-person sessions. Follow-up single sessions can then be purchased at any time within the next 12 months, and I offer a 25% discount on all Follow-up sessions.

Bodywork is, in my experience, very rarely a one-and-done. The TRE® Package affords us time to establish connection with the bodywork that you are in need of, to be guided by your body and truly centre your own pelvic bowl experiences. The more that I deepen in my journey as a bodyworker, the more I begin to orient to the pace of the nervous system, in slow, artful and intentional ways. The sessions are woven with incremental intelligence and body literacy. For me, this way of listening and attuning in direct and receptive relationship makes it simply impossible and unkind to rush you through bodywork in one stand-alone session.

Absolutely! I understand that payment plans are essential for many people. I am committed to making this work available, accessible and equitable. My prices remain the same whether you can pay in full up-front or not. I will not charge you interest for having a payment plan. I offer a 'pay-in-three' monthly installments plan for all therapy packages, which is available to everyone.

Great question! This really depends on what your needs and desires are. Ideally, for most people, TRE® sessions will be scheduled on a bi-weekly basis. Don't worry beautyheart! I've got you! We will co-create a preliminary plan during your Intake Form Review, and will check in with each other at the end of each session and make any adjustments to the schedule as necessary.

Once you have purchased your initial TRE® Package, if you need and desire more bodywork, you can purchase Follow-up sessions at a reduced rate of 25% off for 12 months post your initial sessions.

TRE® alone may be sufficient for you to release, integrate and offer your pelvic bowl the restoration that you need, with love, safety and belonging.

However, for long-term pelvic imbalances, where you may be holding long held trauma and stress patterns, emotional blockages and sexual shame and pain, you may require deepening work to fully unwind, awaken and liberate your pelvic well-being.

My own sexual and pelvic healing journey has absolutely necessitated a multi-layered approach to create the embodied safety that I needed to claim my pelvic bowl as a space of resource, creativity and power.

I have spent the last decade integrating a wide range of sexuality, pelvic and bodywork practices to support your needs and desires. Should you choose, but completely without expectation, you are invited to deepen into a Pelvic Priestess pathway that meets you where you are. This may include coaching, bodywork, sacred sexuality practices, trauma release work. I am continually amazed by the human capacity to heal, and I consider it a privilege to share a thread of that journey with you.

Beautiful! I am so glad to hear that you are ready to answer the call and say yes to your journey. Let’s connect!

You are invited to book your FREE complimentary Pelvic Temple Call with me today, where we can learn a little more about each other, and begin to understand what you truly desire to work on in our sessions with regard to your pelvic and sexual health, addressing your most pressing needs and deepest desires. I will also gently hold space for your questions, and any concerns that you may have. This is a call for you to discover more about working with me. There is no obligation to sign up - I understand that commiting to working with any practitioner is a big decision, and it is imperative that we both feel resonant to work with each other and co-create the transformation, beauty and empowered change that you are desiring.

If we are aligned to working with each other, I will offer you a pathway that feels right for you. Your complimentary Pelvic Temple Call is 60 minutes long, and held over Zoom. You do not need to have your own Zoom account. When you book your Pelvic Temple Call, you will receive a link that invites you into my personal Zoom-womb!

Okay, let's wade through the bullshit that so often happens in these spaces! Quite simply, I believe the way that you identify. I also appreciate that can change and shift in the most beautiful and organic and creative ways possible. I believe in respecting that, which is why I believe you get to language and express yourself as you choose, and I will make every endeavour to support that. I have experienced containers that have injured my experiences and various identities, and I understand that this is a significant issue in sexual and pelvic healing that I intend to challenge on the deepest level.

I am also aware that your various identities, experiences and intersectionalities will not always be a part of my lived experience and vocabulary. I am in the work to dismantle the vestiges of patriarchy, colonialism, sexism, racism, homophobia and ableism. I accept that there will be times that I get things wrong, need to make repair, and ask better questions of myself. I am committed to continue to learn and discover ways to integrate healing the disconnection that systems of oppression have created.

Click the link to view my Diversity and Inclusion Statement.

Personally and professionally, I am continuing to uplevel my education and unpack the embodied politics of race, gender and sexuality in order to become a ‘safer space holder’ for BIPOC, queer, trans, and GE Folk. As a bodyworker, it is never my place to assert that I can hold safe space. Instead, I work on the premise that as a trauma-informed bodyworker, my commitment is to co-creating ‘safer space’ with the openness to learn, repair and grow.

I am also committed to ensuring that pelvic health care begins to language diversity. I am taking action to bring this into my own work and scope of practice. Please know that as a Pelvic-Priestess I am devoted to your embodied-mystery, and I will do my best to meet you in all of your intersectional whole person identities, deeply listening to how you wish to express and be compassionately met.

David Berceli

TRE founder David Berceli, Ph.D. is an international expert in the areas of trauma intervention and conflict resolution. He is also the energetic and creative founder and CEO of Trauma Recovery Services (1998). For the past 22 years he has lived and worked in nine countries providing trauma relief workshops and designing recovery programs for international organizations around the world. Dave has lived and worked extensively in Israel/Palestine, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Yemen, Egypt, and Lebanon. Fluent in English and Arabic, David brings a keen understanding of the intertwining dynamics of religion and ethnic customs and has developed specific processes to enable people to manage personal trauma as well as bring healing and reconciliation between diverse groups. He is the creator of a revolutionary and unique set of Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE®) that help release the deep chronic tension created in the body during a traumatic experience. David continues to be involved in trauma recovery programs not solely for the sake of reducing the suffering caused by trauma but because he has recognized globally that trauma possesses unique possibilities of transformation in the individual if they pursue their recovery process to its ultimate end.

Website: www.traumaprevention.com

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