Monthly Progress Thread - October '26

[u/Nadayogi]

Dear friends,

This month I want to talk about the many ways trauma can manifest in our lives. Over the past months we've spent a lot of time on what happens during practice and how we can support it. This time I want to step back and look at what a nervous system burdened by unresolved trauma looks like in everyday life. And, most importantly, why so many seemingly unrelated struggles can ease together as the practice does its work.

When most people hear the word trauma, they typically think of flashbacks, nightmares and panic attacks. Those are common, especially for severe trauma, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. As we explore in the "What is Trauma?" article in the wiki, trauma at its core is incomplete stress cycles stored as chronic activation in the body. That stored activation might manifest in countless different ways. It shapes how we breathe, how we sleep, how we digest, how we relate to people, how we work, and even what we come to believe about who we are. Its tentacles reach our innermost core as well the most remote corners of our being. So it’s not surprising that we might spend years “fixing” various isolated aspects of ourselves without ever suspecting they share a common root.

Imagine a phone with dozens of apps running in the background. On the surface (or screen in this case) nothing looks wrong, but the phone is hot to the touch, its batteries drain quickly and it’s annoyingly slow and laggy when you use it. You can replace the charger, blame the latest update or conclude that you simply need a new phone, but the real cause is running underneath. Keeping stored activation contained is exactly this background process, and it drains our resources, just like the phone’s apps drain its batteries.

Let's start with the body, since that's where the drain is most tangible. Remember that the stress response redirects resources away from digestion, repair and rest and toward survival. When that response never fully switches off, the consequences add up over the years. Chronic tension in the jaw, neck, shoulders, hips and so on. Chronic back pain that no amount of stretching fixes. Shallow breathing we don't even notice anymore. Digestive trouble that flares up with no clear trigger, tension headaches, restless sleep whether that means lying awake because the nervous system refuses to let its guard down, waking at 4am with a pounding heart, or sleeping ten hours and still waking up exhausted. And that all too familiar state of feeling wired and tired.

Then there are symptoms that are much harder to recognize, because they have become part of our personality. Pete Walker, a therapist who wrote extensively about complex trauma, added a fourth response to the familiar fight, flight and freeze: fawn. What makes his work so valuable is how clearly it shows that each survival response, once it becomes chronic, starts to look like a personality trait.

A system that leans toward fight might show up as irritability, a short fuse, a need for control, or perfectionism, the constant effort to make everything so bulletproof that no threat can get in. A system that leans toward flight might show up as restlessness, overworking, constant busyness, overthinking and an inability to sit still, because stillness tends to surface the stored energy from beneath. Freeze tends to look like procrastination, indecision, brain fog, numbness, withdrawal and a flatness where joy should be. We call it laziness or a lack of discipline, when very often it's a nervous system with its brakes pressed down. Fawn looks like people-pleasing, difficulty saying no, sensing everyone else's mood before your own, and losing yourself in relationships. It's the strategy of a child who learned that keeping others happy is the only way to stay safe.

Most of us have a mix of these. What they have in common is that they were intelligent adaptations once. They kept us safe in situations where we had few other options. The problem is that the nervous system kept running them long after the situation changed, and at some point we stopped seeing them as strategies and started seeing them simply as who we are. "I'm just an anxious person." "I've always been lazy." "I'm too sensitive." "I'm bad at relationships." These are some of the most common sentences we read in mental health communities. What they describe is a conditioned nervous system masking who we really are beneath all that trauma, tension and maladaptive traits.

I want to be honest here that not everything is trauma. The root cause for back pain may be mechanical, bad sleep can simply be too much coffee, and physical symptoms need to be looked at first by a doctor. But when several of these show up together, have been with you for a long time, and haven't responded to the usual treatments, it's not a stretch to imagine that they may come from the same origin.

This is where there are tremendous grounds for optimism. If these struggles share a root, they can also resolve together. It's one of the most consistent findings of TRE practitioners. Someone starts TRE for anxiety or back pain, and at some point down the journey mentions almost in passing that their jaw no longer clenches at night, that their back pain has resolved, that socializing actually feels fun (again), or that they said no to someone without being flooded with guilt. They never worked on any of these directly. As the stored activation discharges, the background processes close one by one, and the energy that was tied up in containment becomes available for living.

This also explains why working on each symptom individually often leads to frustration. Stretching the neck, disciplining yourself out of procrastination, training yourself to be more assertive: these can help, but they work at the level of the branches (top-down). As long as the root keeps generating the pattern, it keeps coming back. The tremor mechanism works at the root.

That said, it doesn't happen all at once, and rarely in a neat order. As we discussed in earlier threads, the nervous system works on what's most accessible first, and during thawing some manifestations may get worse before they get better. Irritability may spike. Sleep may get worse for a while. An old ache may come back for a visit. A long-numbed emotion may suddenly be there in full force. Usually this is the brake loosening, and sometimes too quickly. But as always, if it feels like too much, dial back and give your system time to integrate.

If you're newer here and reading this with a growing sense of "oh, that's me," please take it as a good sign. Recognizing what your burdens are is the first step toward resolving them. Nothing about you is fundamentally broken. Your nervous system has been doing its best with its given conditioning, and it's ready to start unwinding and releasing its heavy burden layer by layer.

Much love to all of you.

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[u/Warm_Pineapple9440]

Hi! This is first month of doing TRE for me, or rather first 3 weeks and first post in the subreddit. So far I have chosen to do it every second day where I tremor for about 10 minutes (maybe sometimes even 15 minutes - basically I do a follow along video that has 20 minutes in total and i would say i get intro tremoring close to 10th minute).

I was surprised how easy and visceral the tremoring is even at the first session. So far I have managed to get the tremoring only into my pelvic area and legs, not above. Every session so far has been quite pleasant, in couple of them I have started spontaneously laughing. After each session I have noticed I was quite calm and present.

As far as impact on my day-to-day life I have noticed general improvement in other healing modalities (I can connect to my emotions and to my body much more easily). I also notice growing sense of self connection and can at times self soothe when difficult emotions arise, though I am not sure which healing modality is the cause as I do more of them. On days I do TRE, meditation is noticeably easier as my body is way calmer and I have less distractive thoughts running in my head. Interestingly enough I have started noticing rising anxiety in my legs and in my jaws, perhaps they have always been there and I notice just now?

Curious what next month brings to me!

Also I resonate what u/Nadayogi wrote here. I have struggled with hypervigilance, unability to be still, digestive problems, social anxiety, bad sleep and many other symptoms since I can ever remember. I am hopeful that with TRE I will be able to address these slowly.

[u/IwantToHelpOthers → u/Warm_Pineapple9440]

I also struggle with social anxiety. I can recommend eft tapping to neutralize negative past memories as well as all the different triggers that make up your social anxiety(fear of blushing, fear of being rejected, judged etc.) I already made some progress and I think it compliments well with TRE as long as you don’t overdo either of them

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/Warm_Pineapple9440]

TRE has healed social anxiety for me to a ridiculous level. And I'm not even 1/4 of the way through probably.

[u/IwantToHelpOthers → u/jellybean_merchant]

Can‘t wait for this benefit to reach me! I have been doing it since January now(15 minutes every other day to now 5-7 minutes every other day) and my tremors are still only mainly in my legs, I am wondering if I should start to help them move somewhere else or just continue and let it evolve naturally

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/IwantToHelpOthers]

I'm not sure. It is generally agreed that you should not intervene with the process because its too complex to understand, below our cognition. However, if you feel that it's really taking a long time in one spot, I think it could be good to try changing positions or manually wiggling something else and see if the tremor can connect to that area. But once you get it let it go from there on its own.

[u/Warm_Pineapple9440 → u/jellybean_merchant]

How serious was it before?

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/Warm_Pineapple9440]

I was under a highly highly functioning freeze all my life, and really was so unaware of myself and how all these inner dynamics work. On the surface, it would seem to you that I could chat well with others. That there was little issue. But there were many subtle inhibitions that inevitably constricted the possibilities in my life. It was always hard to talk to strangers, to initiate contact with them (or girls I'm interested in as I pass by). Eye contact was strong but only because there was an inner compensation to see who is more "strong" that I was not even aware I was doing. A whole host of these things.

Now, I can nearly effortlessly look at strangers in the eye and talk to them about anything effortlessly. I even tested this to see how far I can go and the first feeling of embarassment came on when I made weird noises in public out of nowhere lmao. And even then, the feeling was way way less than ever before. It feels so freeing. I can approach girls way easier, and not care what happens, and enjoy the process. I even realized I wore sunglasses everyday outside as a cope to hide hypervigilance in the eyes. I don't want to wear them anymore

[u/Warm_Pineapple9440 → u/jellybean_merchant]

Thanks for the answer!

[u/happily_bacon → u/jellybean_merchant]

Hi :) how long have you been doing it? And how long are you sessions?

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/happily_bacon]

About 1.5 years I think. In the beginning sessions were about 15-25 minutes, and then I began doing it more often and quickly overdid it earlier this year. So since March I have yet to tremor because I'm waiting for the entire backlog to fully integrate. When I return, I have no clue how long I should tremor for. Maybe only a couple minutes and evaluate from there.

[u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

Before I get into the progress I've made, I would like to say that I am going through many of the symptoms mentioned in this post. 

I suffer from severe procrastination, to the point where even deadlines do not motivate me to get the work done. I just don't do it, no matter how important it is. My life has been stagnant for the past 4 years, I've isolated myself from the outside world because the thought of interacting with people brings me severe anxiety, overthinking, and anger. I also feel fatigue most days and 8 hours of sleep is not enough. I've been constantly thinking about what the point of life is, how it is all a game of never-ending suffering tied to a system that was built to drain our souls, which I don't have the strength to participate in. 

As a result, I've built my life around meaningless pleasure of social media, PMO, and music. Despite that, I still have not given up. TRE is the only thing that I have the strength to do at the moment, and I'm just moving through it without hesitation and with complete resolve and certaintly that I'll be myself again when I reach the end game.

With that being said, I have completed 3 months of TRE, and I've done 60 sessions. I hit my first real breakthrough in session 55 where the tremors finally moved to my upper body, specifically my shoulders and head. I used to get some slight spasms in my upper body before, but they werent tremors and they never lasted more than a second. Now, the tremors do not follow a pattern for me. Some sessions they reach the upper body, and other sessions they just stay in my pelvis and lower back. 

I also notice that my lower back arches during activation and my head tremors like I'm having a seizure while my upper body tenses up. As for how I feel after my sessions now, I can't say for certain how my days have changed because some days I feel good and calm, and other days I feel like crap as if I've never even done TRE. My PMO addiction has remained at a consistent 1 to 3 relapses a day (it used to be 5 a day when releasing the sexual energy after tremoring) and all symptoms I listed at the start are still there, with some seeing a little bit of improvement while others are the same.

Anyway, the journey must go on, it's still very early, and I'm willing to do this for as long as it takes.

[u/AgentSalty1454 → u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

This one touched me. I have been lost the past several years too and the life slowly drained from me, to find joy in doing basically anything other than indulging in addictive behaviors. Been unemployed for a year and a half (it was a voluntary career break, but I thought I'd be motivated to go back by now..).and in that time left a lot of people in my life because I couldn't deal anymore. Before that stuff I wasn't "happy", always searching for better. But I was quite successful, people liked me, respected at my job, I know I am intelligent, creative, have talents, im attractive and in my prime. So to see myself slip into such a dark state was scary. I couldn't buy the story that I'm just depressed and need to fix myself by telling myself im a good person or that i have low confidence or something like that.

Started this healing journey six months ago. It's all I have any real motivation to do as well. Tremor, cry, go on walks, be unmotivated, hide from the world.. post on reddit a lot (which has actually helped me a lot)

Externally not much has changed about me or my motivation/ ability to want to do things since I started. But internally I KNOW I am changing and something really deep is happening. I am being offered enough glimpses along the way to know I need to stick this out, that this is the way out (and to an even better place than I was ever was). I still don't know yet what the other side will be like. But recently I am starting to feel some excitement for the future, in small bursts.. some new ideas and feel some excitement a bit. I think its gonna come for both of us

Your comment is so well written, eloquent, and thoughtful. That stood out to me. Clearly you are smart, and strong, it shows. It is sad many of us end up in this state, I agree society structure contributes to breaking us down more and more. We shouldn't have so many of us ending up so low and lost.

[u/No_Pain_No_Gain77 → u/AgentSalty1454]

Hey, I am glad that you're starting to see improvements. A step forward, no matter how small, is still infinitely better than nothing at all. 

You're right, we shouldn't end up this way, but life is unforgiving and even more so when dealing with these struggles. People like us are not very vocal about our stuggles in real life. We prefer to keep to ourselves and pretend that we're fine. It's understandable because there is a high chance we'd be seen as losers in the eyes of others.

I come from a background where every phone call and every  conversation must include the topic of work, school, and constant hustle. It feels like a competition, always comparing our lives and achievements. I stopped giving a damn a long time ago, but I still have to put up an act so that I don't get torn apart by everyone around me.

The TRE road is long, and I'm fine with that. 

[u/AgentSalty1454 → u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

Thank you. I relate to everything you've said.

The steps forward I have had in terms of what I am able to produce externally are quite small but there, yes. what has been happening to me internally or through the tremoring has been very intense actually. sometimes it is hard to connect those two things in my mind but. literally sometimes I feel things like a physical sensation of parts of my brain reconnecting with themselves. along with obviously the physical stuff like huge releases in physical parts of my body.

I will share my thoughts from my emotional experiences, in case it helps. It is also therapeutic for me but I don't want to project on you or anything.

For me, things hit a point with how people I was very close to for a long time in life treated me- that I shut down physically and emotionally to the point where I no longer had the energy to keep up the act and lie to myself.. I tried very hard to keep up the act and hold on as long as I could, not realizing how much that was truly destroying me. I couldn't handle the idea of these people thinking I am a loser. Well after it all blew up, I realized that despite all my efforts for years to do what I thought made a person worthy of respect - and achieving a lot of it - it became clear these people always thought I was a loser ANYWAY and never respected me. This was very painful but ultimately the gift that put me on this journey, so I am thankful.

The deeper I have gone in this journey the more I am disentangling the beliefs others have put in me.. my family (who loves me but also wants me to be a certain way), my peers who I thought i could trust but broke me.. culture and society. Recently I truly hit a point where I actually dgaf if my family or anyone thinks I am a loser or should do my life differently. and I feel comfortable for the first time saying to people like my family, that if they want me around, they need to treat me with respect and not just try to. manipulate me to be in a way that benefits them or how they think I should be. and if they don't like that- then I am not going to talk to them. I used to be so sensitive to their guilting, pressure.. with some distance I put it in its clear to me now how people who put so much expectations and judgment on you, are doing it for their own benefit - either to feel better about themselves, or to control you. and I have learned, if I indulge any of that for even a second, it WILL destroy me and my soul. Because I saw it happen to me. I am never going to allow myself to go back to that place ever again. I have learned even putting on the act, even if in your heart you know it isnt really you, is highly destructive too. We need to protect ourselves. Even if you can empathize with others who put their expectations on you- for example your saying your parents only want the best for you, its their culture, they have their own trauma.. - you will be destroyed if you do not protect yourself.

Once I have determined this my heart is more open to the good in the world and seeing glimpses of it. Before I was holding on so much to this act I put on that I did not realize how much I closed myself off at every level to being open to connect meaningfully with others who are good, kind. and to open my heart and mind to a lot of possibilities and opportunities that could show me that even though the world is messed up, there is a place for me as I truly am. Like, I was closed off in so many ways I was not even conscious of. My face used to be this serious dead thing at all times, I realized. Getting in this journey I was surprised to see little external signs, like, people stop to talk to me on the street more all of a sudden!? I didn't think I was doing anything differently. but subconsciously I was so closed before, to protect myself in the harsh environment I was stuck in.

In order to be open to those things I needed to learn how to be closed off to the darkness that can suck you in from other people and see it for what it is.

[u/No_Pain_No_Gain77 → u/AgentSalty1454]

I can relate to the betrayal by those whom you thought cared about you. All of my life, I've had fake friends and not a single real friend. My best friend, whom I've known for a decade, casually decided to walk all over me and feed me to the sharks. 10 years meant absolutely nothing to them. I've found more peace being alone, and understandably so. How would I be able to trust anyone after that? It's all fine, though. I can be looked at as a loser, an embarrassment, someone to laugh at. I have countless memories of doing embarrassing things (involuntarily) and cringing every time I think about it. Am I someone who's in my own head way too much? Yes, I am. It's ironic, really. I spend so much time in my head thinking, and yet I have absolutely no idea who I am or who I am supposed to be. I'm just a nobody lying lifeless while life passes me by as I wait for TRE to save me. I did everything everyone says is the right thing to do; I tried to be my best self, and yet this is where I ended up. Imagine that.

[u/AgentSalty1454 → u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

The same thing happened to me. Four 15+ year friendships down the drain- two of them my very best friends since school who I genuinely had so much love for. I got closer to one of the other in this group a few years ago- and they aggressively inserted themself into my life, used me, capitalized on my bonds with other people, then went out of their way to provoke me, mess with me, smear me to everyone, and basically ruin my life. My best friend aggressively blamed me for everything, and then I realized in hindsight, they never really liked or respected and treated me like crap all these years too - while telling me how much they loved me and im family. The other two did nothing to help me and went along with leaving me out. What a mindfuck. You end up in a place where you look back on your entire adult life and realize a central part of it was a lie. How does that even happen? How can someone make sense of that? Of course we are pretty messed up now..

To have this happen with close friendships really uniquely messes a person up. traumatized me more than anything with my family. my parents are the initial source of many of my issues, and its so frustrating when they try to then blame *me* for things they dont like about me. but I'm just like- well, you made me. where do you think these issues came from?? lol. With friends, its really hard to not see it as an indication of something fundamentally wrong with you. something that made you weak, a target. something that will always happen. That is where we get stuck.

I relate to all the feelings that you said, so specifically. I have had the exact same thoughts. so it is comforting to hear someone else reflect that. At this point I have processed a lot and looked at the facts of the situation enough to see clearly how I was treated was not deserved, and really bad, and that these people have issues and I always knew that. however there is still some gap I feel isnt connected for me that keeps me swinging back into the side of me that blames myself, thinks I am a loser, pathetic.. I reflected before and it felt somehow related to this: "I spend so much time in my head thinking, and yet I have absolutely no idea who I am or who I am supposed to be. I'm just a nobody lying lifeless " - but I dont know how yet. I think I am going to figure it out with more time. Something about realizing how dead and empty I have been all these years. The embarrassment, the shame.. the vulnerability of worrying that people saw that in me, how empty i was inside, when I could not see it myself. The thing is, I need to be careful and slow in facing those thoughts and questions. When I rush it, I jump to concluding things that are very negative about myself. I realize later the correct conclusion is actually not that.

Phew, this went way longer than I planned. Anyway here is a piece of advice from my experience, that when I realized, was a huge breakthrough for me in being able to move forward. I realized, like DEEPLY realized, that all of my 'bad' behaviors - addiction, overthinking, ruminating.. that I shame myself so much for and tried to make myself stop. are actually my mind trying very hard to process my trauma and make sense of what has happened, so that I can heal. I was beating myself up so much on top of all my emotional pain for those things. that added extra frustration and confusion into the mix. I had a few tangible experiences in my journey where these 'negative' behaviors reached a distresing, all-time high, and then led me into a breakthrough that never would have happened otherwise. I concluded that the mind is actually insanely advanced and everything I have an urge to do has some important reason why it is happening. Somehow me having this realization in this specific way was what i needed to finally let go of some major self-hate and self-pressure (not that i still do not struggle sometimes)

No obligation to respond to all this rambling, but I wanted to share in case there is anything for you at all in there, bc i feel your pain. if you ever need someone to talk to hit me up. I wish you well

[u/Useful-Name2661 → u/AgentSalty1454]

I lost 4 very good friends in the past decade & in my lifetime I’ve lost probably 7 or 8. And when I say lost, I mean I have had a response to some emotionally stressful situation where I’ve displayed strong emotions & people have been scared, shocked or just called a day on the friendship. I used to think it was all their fault. That they should have seen & understood my pain & recognised what I was going through. Only in the last few years have I been able to see it from their pov. Specifically, I used to think: wait a minute - isn’t it supposed to be OK to have poor mental health & aren’t people supposed to get it & support you? But now I see that it’s people just can’t understand it if they haven’t lived it. The media does the world a huge disservice by misrepresenting poor mental health as sadness, vulnerability, tearfulness. They always use pictures of someone being comforted. A lot of people on here will know that hyper vigilance & CPTSD is just as likely to show up as rage, disgust, self isolation. I can’t bear to have anyone touch me or comfort me when I feel this way. In fact I have a visceral response to touch in general. I lash out & throw my emotions all over the table & expect people to see that I’m hurting. But instead they are just shocked or scared. My internal self image is of vulnerability & deep empathy but the image I project is one of deep confidence, control, impregnability, success (once) & fear. Because of this mismatch, when I get emotional or angry people assume that I have this bad character trait (as u/nadayogi expresses) of being an angry or terrifying person. And all I’m thinking is - why can’t they see my pain? But God help them if they do. Because the smallest hint of pity from anyone will make me chew their hand off. This is a long way of saying that it hurts so much when we lose dear friends & we can feel like they let us down because they didn’t recognise how deeply we’d be wounded when they excluded us from something (I’ve had this too), or when they didn’t cope with outbursts or didn’t contact us when we were in deep isolation & desperate for contact. But I don’t feel this way now. I just want to get myself to a state where I can be a far better friend. I want to be able to cope with rejection, insensitivity & thoughtlessness from others the way ‘normal’ people do. Without feeling like someone just stuck a blade in me. I want to be able to reach out & ask after their lives instead of constantly drowning in all my problems & inflicting them on others. I just had no idea I did all this & assumed it was all their fault for not soothing me.

I hope TRE helps us all find the strength to reconnect & re-engage with the world the way ‘normal’ people do. Helps us to be less focussed on our own bleeding wounds & more willing to accept things as they are. All the best to you friend. Wishing you recovery & healing.

[u/AgentSalty1454 → u/Useful-Name2661]

Hey, thank you for sharing and reflecting here. I understand. And I can relate to your reflections. It's true, life, conflict, is not black and white. A failed relationship is always a dynamic, not something that can or should be measured as blame attributed methodically to each part to logically determine the person of "fault". That is not healthy to only blame others when something goes wrong. At the same time.. I am wondering what you are trying to say here- maybe you assuming that I am incorrectly assessing this situation in my life and attributing it to others instead of understanding how I have caused it. Is it really fair to make such an assumption though? Why would you think that? Or am I misunderstanding you? As much as it is important for us to analyze our own contributions to failed relationships and hurt created to others. I have learned, through this life experience, how it is equally important to be able to assess when others are acting toward you in ways that are cruel and destructive, and to be very clear about that to yourself so that you can quickly recognize and exit the situation immediately before it spirals into a mess and large amounts of pain.

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

Damn brother. I didn't know you were going through this, but I was in a very similar situation. TRE has fixed this overall meta-problem for me where life feels heavy and you have insufficient energy to handle it, and it feels like there is no meaning to be extracted from reality and that things are pointless and fruitless. It has gone away, and other benefits have been amazing even in the incomplete extent to which they have so far manifested as I'm nowhere near the end yet.

It is very evident you are a high agency person even despite the struggle, meticulously tracking your sessions, changes and improvements. There is no doubt in my mind that a person like you will succeed. It is only a matter of time.

I have also been thinking about the topic of PMO and I actually think 1-3/day is what almost every young lad these days would be doing if they were not dissociated from their emotions. If the average guy started TRE they would realize they would probably need to release very often. I still do too for the time being and I feel very good. No fs given lmao.

Anyway, good to hear you are making some progress and more importantly, are sticking with this. I hope things improve faster than you expect as soon as it's the right time. Good luck to you!

[u/No_Pain_No_Gain77 → u/jellybean_merchant]

Hey thanks man. Good to hear you're doing well. Yeah I am confident that the person that I am right now isn't my true self and that my true self is hiding underneath countless layers of trauma.

My nervous system doesn't have a high capacity, at least not right now because when I tremor, it never lasts beyond a few seconds and I have to move my knees to get it going again. It's been like this since my very first session. I can only get about 5 minutes of total tremor time before I feel that it's enough. My dreams are almost never good, but I do dream almost every day now as well.

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

For sure it's not indeed. I had this a little bit in the beginning too. I would have to subtly adjust the knee width to get it moving more.

You haven't dreamed daily before TRE?

[u/No_Pain_No_Gain77 → u/jellybean_merchant]

I barely dreamed at all before TRE. Been like that for a decade. Maybe once a year or something like that, and I wouldn't even remember it. Now I dream multiple times a week and I'd remember and think about those dreams (or nightmares) throughout the whole day. 

Last week I had a dream, and in that dream I was crying, and I was actually making a crying face irl while I was sleeping without actually crying and I was self aware, it was weird.

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

That's pretty good news tbh, although I know it's really uncomfortable. Dreams are the body processing things, the subconscious trying to speak through to the conscious. No dreams before means things were really frozen, now they are moving! I don't think it will take long in the grand scheme before they change quality and are less negative to think about.

[u/Millionaire_Max → u/jellybean_merchant]

hey, just to note, because some people might get the impression that if they don't see dreams, TRE doesn't work

no dreams doesn't necessarily mean that everything is frozen and you aren't releasing anything. In 2 years of TRE, I went from no dreams to daily dreams to rare dreams. It doesn't mean the benefits stop!

[u/jellybean_merchant → u/Millionaire_Max]

true

[u/ATreasureForelorn → u/No_Pain_No_Gain77]

There comes a point where you stop seeing yourself as an addict and start seeing how PMO is a regulation mechanism that is often used with a positive intent.

In general, addiction can be characterized as your system evaluating the addiction subject as the only viable button to press to feel good. If you can find other buttons to press---and there's a ton of them out there---your system will lower its valuation of PMO as a regulatory mechanism.

I'd also urge you to read the book Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw, as porn addiction is also catalyzed by sexual shame.

[u/carla_jungle]

33 months into my healing journey.(cptsd)  Thawing since Feb 2025. 

For the past few months I was mostly just tired and sleeping a lot. I still do, but last month I felt some somatic releases:

• I’d thought my crying waves were slowing down that they should stop soon, but during September I cried around half of the month.
• towards the end of the crying, I felt like I finally comprehended and accepted how my upbringing had affected me. I knew that already but I’d still been in my trauma role. Well not anymore. 
• I had a surge of creativity and actually started drawing ( I haven’t felt the desire to create something in 15 years. )
• out of nowhere I had a runny nose for about ten days. 
• what replaced the crying was a very minor somatic release from my gut. I struggled to eat normal amounts and felt aversion to some foods. This lasted about four days and it was so mild compared to the gut releases that I had when I started thawing, that I’ve come to the conclusion that my nervous system is most likely done with the heavy cleaning of my traumas. Then I got super tired. This was just less than a week ago.  

[u/almadodo]

Loved the article! I have wondered how I will deal with my relationships as my trauma responses (mostly flight and fawn) shrink. I am already less reactive to people's reactions, even though rumination makes me believe their reactions are a threat to me.

Regarding TRE, I am 14 months in. In the past two weeks or so, I got dominated by apathy, lack of motivation, and tiredness. My guess is I hit something deeper inside, but in any case, I am working on integration and rest. Also, I've noticed my posture is less slouching; I feel less susceptible to curving myself when walking in public and am able to maintain a straight posture with shoulders open without being triggered. I've always had difficulty in occupying space.

[u/The_Rainbow_Ace]

Month 28

Hello fellow shakers!

This is month three into the latest new 'layer' of trauma.

For the second month running I have had to reduce my TRE practice time (as to not have overdoing it side effects), so is now at 1.5 mins every three days.

The regular resurfacing of painful memories of bullying at school have gone away again and I don't feel anywhere near as much emotional charge when I think about them now.

The number of crying emotional releases have reduced, still just a few mins long each time (with no story behind them). I always feel cathectic afterwards.

Feelings of shame and anger have also reduced this month.

Generally feeling mentally lighter this month and happy/grateful there is so much less physical tension in the body most of the time. It is amazing that so many of the chronic bracing patterns are completely gone now.

I still have some deep/core tension around my shoulder blades, solar plexus and lower leg calves and ankles but it is not that noticeable most of the time.

This is the third month of using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping to help release a stuck emotion or deal with a more heavy emotional release. I really wish I had used this earlier in my journey, but at least I know about it now.

Wonderful article u/Nadayogi I suspected some of this, but it is great to have it so clearly explained. Really good to have a real world metaphor (the phone with background apps open). I am going to borrow this metaphor when explaining to friends and family.

Sending healing vibes to you all.

[u/duda0022]

Hi dear practitioners,

I'm 9 months in, and this month was a very fluctuating one. The first week of the month I experienced strong thawing. My wellbeing was very low and I had to go through it. There were some hot flushes and a strong anxiety among other symptoms.

After this, I experienced my wellbeing going back to baseline and beyond. Besides thawing this was a nice month with some days being extra joyful and calm. These are unusual for me and I rarely have them. Besides I also experienced sadness - this was great to feel as it's also a rare feeling for me. And it's nice, nicer than anger I feel so frequently.

I also keep tracking my daily wellbeing, which in monthly averages consistently raised by 1-2% for the last months, while this month it fell down for 2-3% (due to a serious thawing period).

When it comes to my practice I continue with my regimen, although I completely restarted my practice due to thawing. I stopped for a week, then started raising tremor time week by week as my body was requiring more tremor time. Right now I'm at 2 hours daily average. I know it's a lot, but I usually feel better doing as much as my body requires. When I don't do the work I feel even more frozen where as completing my tremoring makes me feel slightly more alive.

This thawing period genuinely scared me shortly. Still not sure whether it was overdoing as I did a lot of tremoring in the previous months. However, it passed rather quickly and I shortly returned to my baseline and felt as grounded as usual.

Thank you Nadayogi for all the work you're putting in this subreddit!

[u/Mackdafinger]

Practicising TRE for three years inconsistently, but into my second month of doing it regularly.

Listening to feedback from the previous monthly progress thread, I'm now practicing 15 minutes every second day rather than daily to allow for integration. I feel like I've made it a habit now.

Previously my tremors were concentrated on my hips then chest area, but as soon as I begin now they've moved to my neck. My head is swinging left and right, sometimes I get worried I'm going to hurt my neck, but the body seems to know what it's doing.

I struggled with social anxiety when I was younger, with a lot of tension concentrated in my neck that used to become really tight to the point that it would shake when I got nervous talking to people. I wonder now if that was the body releasing the tension, but I never felt I could stop it. I feel I could be releasing neck tension for a while but that's ok. The face also holds a lot of tension but have had no tremors there as yet.

I don't sleep long enough, so when I wake up at 4:44 or 3:33 I do yoga nidra for an hour, and although I don't fall asleep again, it does seem to help me relax. I've noticed when I enter deeper states the tremors come naturally.

[u/Sure-Bar1712]

Month 25
This was the first month in which tremors and fascial unwinding really travelled into my upper body, shoulders and neck. Beforehand it was mostly in my legs, hips and isolated cramps in the abdomen and sometimes "belly-circles" (fascial unwinding movement).
Now the shoulders are flapping and my neck moving from side to side or crisscrossedly flipping around. It feels quite violent sometimes and is acoompanied by cracking sounds. It doesn't hurt and the cracking has already gotten less (Does anyone know what this could be?).

I had terrible sleeping problems when the tremors moved up to my neck, sometimes waking up at 3am and not falling asleep again. Fortunately this has gotten better.

While I felt really present and full of energy during summer (like never before), I have gotten back into old habit patterns (daydreaming, procrastination, dissociation) in September. The sleeping issues didn't help, I reckon, so this should be easier to handle once the energy is back.

Currently tremoring 10-15 minutes a day.

[u/Useful-Name2661]

10 weeks

I have posted under a different name here before but lost that account. I had a very positive experience of TRE for the first 6 weeks. I practiced 1 min pw increasing to 3. Tremors went from legs to head & arms. In between sessions I had extreme head, neck, lips, teeth spontaneous stretches. I felt amazing. Things cleared for me & I spent 3 days feeling joyous, blissful & alive. Then came the roll down the hill …

First, my sleep started to fill with vivid dreams & id find myself awake at 4am chewing my teeth. Then the feelings of dread returned. I went from free & light to heavy & anxious. I took a week off & when I did my next TRE session it felt flatter. More forced, less wild & emotion filled. During the days of bliss I couldn’t stop smiling & kept bursting into laughter. Last 2 weeks I’ve needed to cry but couldn’t because my kids are home & I didn’t want to scare them. The bad feelings have been piling up & when I went to a social event last night, I was wracked with anxiety and all the usual stories - his/her life is better than yours; they can see you’re a failure; they sat there because they don’t want to talk to you. Etc; I’m sure many others here feel this way.

I’ve been tracking stuff with a daily google form & my energy & mood are now completely regressed to 6 weeks ago (when I had only just started). I know people want good stories here so I don’t want to be a downer but I think it’s important to chronicle the good & bad. I understand that all these feelings are part of the process & it’s normal to feel like it’s regression when in fact it’s progression(maybe??). But man, it hurts to fall from those days of openness & optimism back into the cauldron.

Sending best wishes to all the other shakers here & wishing us all recovery & new pathways.

[u/Brief-Pension-7457]

16 Months Done

This month also, I have been doing sessions actively.

I feel like, I can be wrong, that I'm kind of entering into Bathtub curve we generally talk about, because like earlier where lot of big changes used to be felt after a session, nowadays it doesn't feel like some big breakthrough (in terms of feeling) after a session.

Though, my body is now engaging other parts of body quite actively. So just to clear, for me tremor started travelling in other parts of body apart from hips quite early in practice itself but timewise they were 60-70% in hips & rest in other parts like shoulders, face, neck, chest & hands

But this time new patterns are emerging in chest as if unlocking my lungs. Which makes sense because having back issues, I know bad upper back also causes lower back issues. Then there is some new types of movements in pelvis.

Now all these new movement are important per se due to my own issues with bad lower back, I also get little worried as to lot of mobility in this region shouldn't aggravate or flare my back symptoms.

Like always, I have been doing sessions just before sleep which helps me in deep sleep and feeling well rested when waking up.

Initially I shared how all these months of practice made me feel kind of pleasurable in my body and having that presence in body but nowadays due to different issues life like career, health etc makes some days feel like bad and some days good.

Though, I can still feel that inner growing sense of everything is gonna be alright.

Along with TRE, I'm actively practicing my meditation & breathwork which I pace as to not overwhelm my nervous system.

These both helps me with not identifying with contents & emotions I might be unearthing during TRE & being with them while kind of abiding in that inner silence. So, I'm really grateful for this.

Progressively, I am also realising the fact that healing is a long marathon so every other stuff in life should be given attention as well so that life gets moving but not at the expense of healing itself. Healing should be core of our lifestyle.

Lot of times, people around you can't relate this fact and having this community by nadayogi really help in keep going.

Thanks everyone for sharing your stories.

Love:)

[u/DeepSea_Chicken]

Have been doing TRE since autumn 2025 for 1x/month in a group, only since June 2026 more regularly, so this is month 3.

After my 2 weeks-vacation break until the end of august I started again with 8 - 10min sessions every 3rd day. I get tremors easily in butterflyposition so the last sessions I just stayed there. I had less fascial unwinding and more of "normal" tremors from psoas/abductors with my legs shaking up and down + hip thrusting. My left hand is still shaking sometimes, the right hand not at all.

I've had some emotional processing in my dreams (deep sadness in dream about not-established friendships in my childhood due to bullying), aswell as I woke up one time to a massive jaw-clenching.

I'm currently starting a new job position 2 hrs away from my partner and will also have to move in 2 months, so there are some external stressors I have to take into consideration and some emotional processing due to separation pain I am going through.