What is Defining The Moment?
Defining The Moment (DTM) is a healing workshop. It was developed from my own personal journey, my lived experience, to figure out a way to feel better about myself. When I first began the journey, I didn’t know my negative feelings were directly connected to a traumatic boat accident I experienced when I was a child. But that is the nature of trauma.
DTM is an online group workshop that addresses trauma through screenwriting. The goal being, to change the way you feel about yourself by discharging negative energy frozen by trauma. Through this guided workshop, an overwhelming event from childhood is expressed and visualized like a scene from a movie. Through screenwriting you’ll see yourself in a new perspective, as a character in a movie. Approaching trauma through the lens of screenwriting brings safe distance to an event that is too overwhelming to be close to. This allows insight to the impact the event has had on your life, bringing clarity and catharsis to an unhealed moment. And begins the journey of healing, restoration, and forgiveness.
We all want to feel good inside, but so many of us don’t. That was me for most of my life, plagued with feelings of doubt and low self-worth. If this is you, you’re not alone. I believe how we feel emotionally is not an accident. Feelings of fault, disconnection, and not being good enough, are many times the symptoms of traumatic experiences. They can come from experiences as violent as a high speed boat accident, or as quiet as neglect. The end result is the same, uncomfortable feelings frozen from childhood. To change these feelings takes courage, because they are the same feelings you felt as a child, but you’re an adult now. In childhood, when bad things happen, and there is no support, these feelings get pushed away. You may not feel them all the time, but they are very much alive. They stay alive because they are part of our natural survival response (more on that in The Mechanics of DTM). One way to heal these frozen feelings, is to finally go through them. This may be an uncomfortable thought, but that’s why there’s the DTM workshop, a supportive and encouraging place to heal. And once you process these feelings, the moment will not hold the power it once had. It will no longer feel like it happened yesterday.
The only one who can heal these feelings within you, is you. We can deny that there’s anything wrong, we can even try and run from the pain. But in the end, we know the truth, because we can feel it in our bodies. As Bessel van der Kolk said, “The Body Keeps The Score.” These feelings from long ago will not go away on their own. To feel better about ourselves takes conscious effort. Like Dara Marks, the screenwriting guru said, “Transformation is always a conscious choice.”
Through DTM, wounds from childhood are finally addressed, processed and completed. They are no longer alive inside of us. Participants are encouraged to be the conscious adults they are, and reconnect with the frightened child inside them. Some people reading this may say that was the past. Others might say, you have to be strong and not think about those things that hurt you. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know if certain pains are still alive, still unconsciously guiding us. Life is messy, things happen. Our parents did the best they could, and sometimes left us with painful feelings. Defining The Moment is an opportunity to directly address these feelings. We are the only ones who can do anything about how we feel inside. I believe we have a responsibility to ourselves, and to our children. It’s up to us to be the adult and fix what is hurting. There is a saying by Walt Whitman, “Either define the moment or the moment will define you.” Many of us are defined by moments from childhood, moments that haunt us to this day. DTM is an opportunity to safely go back, and define the moment with your own truth.
Everyone loves movies because we are all connected by story. Story goes deep into our bones, deep into our mythology. Through this highly creative and cathartic workshop, a journey begins through the medium of screenwriting. A screenplay is a blueprint for a movie, and reading one is like watching a movie. Participants will be writing about a specific moment from their life. Only they know what moment holds the most power. Through the language of screenwriting, they will express that moment onto paper like a scene from a movie. Knowing how to write is not a requirement, you will learn the basics of screenwriting. The perspective of a screenplay allows one to see themselves from a safe distance, like a character in a movie. It’s the chance to return to an event as an adult, one that was overwhelming as a child. This opens a long closed door, bringing clarity, understanding, and reconnection with oneself and the world around them.
Participants will finish the workshop with a scene personally authored and professionally written in screenplay format. Taking back the power as an adult, power that was unwillingly taken as a child. Finding forgiveness, love, and the beginning of a new journey of healing.
The Mechanics Behind DTM.
There are many ways trauma can happen, many causes. But the pains of disconnection that come from them are similar. Often times these bad feelings are attached to specific moments. Moments that have roots leading all the way back to childhood. Many times these moments are the root cause of our bad feelings. And unless they are healed, they will unconsciously guide us throughout our lives. Because traumatic wounds don’t heal over time. It is believed these moments can create a multitude of symptoms both mental and physical. This very real connection between childhood trauma and symptoms has been identified through ACEs, the Adverse Childhood Experiences study.
When people are faced with adversity they generally have three responses. One is to fight the threat. Two is to run from the threat. And three is to freeze from the threat. We freeze because we are overwhelmed. Freezing is instinctual, it’s a survival response that kicks in when fight or flight is not an option. This is why children are so vulnerable to trauma, because they are so easily overwhelmed. Freezing is a survival response that disconnects us from ourselves. We dissociate, go numb, making a frightening event less frightening. Dr. Peter Levine calls this freezing response the “Immobility Response”. Like a possum playing dead until the danger passes. A gazelle will do the same, and after the danger passes, it will jump around, literally shaking the frozen energy out of their body. However, after humans freeze, we don’t shake the frozen energy out. Humans don’t complete this instinctual survival response. And because we don’t, the traumatic energy from the adverse experience, gets stuck inside our bodies. We then carry this energy, continuing to feel the moment. It’s unfinished business. A child without proper support will carry this feeling into adulthood. Not wanting to feel it, we push it away. Over the years the pain gets buried so deep, it’s almost forgotten. But it’s very much alive. DTM addresses this specific wound, getting to the root cause of this frozen pain.
In the DTM workshop, adults make a conscious choice to go back and heal this frozen moment from childhood. Healing trauma is done by completing the natural “Immobility Response” that got stuck. To heal trauma you need two things. One is a safe space to do it, this is the workshop. A place where you and your body feel safe, and can let your armor down. Once your armor is down, you’re able to let the feelings come up. Once the feelings come up, you need the second thing, a place to put those feelings. This is where the screenplay comes in. You put your feelings onto the pages of a screenplay. Trauma stays alive through silence. And once the truth comes out, it changes how you feel inside. In the workshop participants deal with a specific moment, most often from childhood. A moment that was too overwhelming to deal with as a child. It’s a process of you as an adult, saving yourself as a child. These moments have held great power since it happened. Sometimes the moment that is chosen doesn’t feel that important. This might be because it’s been pushed down, out of survival, so deep so as not to feel the pain, the hurt, the betrayal, the shame. As the workshop proceeds, you begin to see how this moment has been unconsciously guiding you throughout your life. You see how it has affected and is connected to so many things in your life. Releasing this hidden pain can be life changing and life affirming. DTM brings completion to a natural survival response that got stuck inside of you.
DTM is a group workshop with no more than six participants. The small group setting is conducive to healing. Sharing creates connection between people. We see ourselves in each other, and support one another on the journey. Sharing is encouraged, but not required. Speaking your truth, breaks the dark power of secrets.
These painful feelings, hidden for a lifetime, are expressed and given tangible shape through your screenplay. This once elusive power that was held against you, is taken back. The power is now on the pages of your screenplay, held within your own hands. It opens a door that has been locked since childhood. Beginning a new conscious journey of healing, reconnection and restoration.
