Magic Happens at The Bridge to Recovery

Magical.

It’s the word we hear so often used to describe The Bridge to Recovery. I suppose that 50 years of healing creates a sort of sacred ground. It is pretty spectacular to feel that feeling, to experience that magic. But in truth, it isn’t magic: it’s a little bit of energy from every client that has traversed our doors.

To understand this energy, you need to understand how trauma works.  When we experience a painful event, that memory, that experience, that moment is stored in our physical being. We try and free ourselves from it by pushing it down – away; we push it out of our peripheral vision. We find things that allow us to do this, like maybe drinking a bit too much, jumping from relationship to relationship, working all the time, controlling others around us, or spending copious amounts of money on things we don’t need.  In that painful moment, it helps. We are free from the pain of our trauma. If even for a short time.

Unfortunately, trauma is sneaky, deeply rooted, unrelenting, and vicious. It comes back time and again, reminding us of our inability to quell the monster it is. And our shame compounds until it spills out to those we love. We pass our shame on, often unintentionally like it was passed to us.

Then we decide we can no longer run from the pain; from the trauma. We find our lives in turmoil, and like a cancer, we must target it, treat it, and recover from it so that it doesn’t continue to metastasize to other parts of our lives. We choose healing.

Because that dirty, sneaky trauma is stored in the body, we must allow ourselves the opportunity to let go. Through intensive experiential work, we allow that release to happen.  We feel and let go of the anger, grief, sadness, hopelessness, pity, sorrow, and most importantly, shame. We find that therapeutic guidance combined with physical acts, such as screaming, crying, dancing, creating, connecting, meditating, stretching, child-like playing, and other forms of movement allow each of us to connect with that unreleased energy in our own way, and subsequently, learn to let go.

This is the energy that every client leaves behind at The Bridge to Recovery. Deep, healing energy, full of pain-turned-joy. And you can feel it. Guests who visit say, “there’s just something about being here.” The 115 acres at The Bridge to Recovery have beared witness to this renewal for 50 years. The deepest of secrets, unrelenting shame, and corrosive pain are left behind so that the soul they were once locked inside can be free again. It is beautiful. Maybe, it is even a bit magic.