In October this year, a group of TRE® practitioners began a six-week group session with 53 ladies from Bonteheuwel, in the so-called “urban war-zone area” of the Cape Flats. Started in 2007 and calling themselves the Bonteheuwel Walking Ladies, they began meeting for informal walks around the Bonteheuwel perimeter.

While they initially started the group for exercise and companionship, it became apparent that, through many conversations, another common ground existed.

These ladies, based on their stories of being in the midst of drugs, poverty, children on the street, gang violence and more, would certainly resonate with the classical definition of ‘trauma’. It is a term used to describe experiences or situations that are emotionally painful and distressing and that has a direct effect on our ability to cope, as human beings. Often, this leaves us with feelings of powerlessness, anger and despair. Trauma has also been described in reference to circumstances and are outside of what we perceive as our “normal” human experience. Trauma can occur frequently and become part of our common everyday experience, without us becoming aware of it as we “just carry on regardless'”

Apart from some of the obvious events in our lives, such as intentional violence or even witnessing violence, a vehicle accident or chaotic life conditions, it may also come as a result of daily or prolonged exposure to more subtle threats: the prolonged grief from the passing of a loved one, discrimination, the serious emotional effects of long-term ill-health (whether ours or a loved ones), ongoing emotional abuse, being under constant pressure to perform, and more.

Whether these circumstances are real or perceived is the anomaly.

After six-weeks of TRE® with the,Bonteheuwel Walking Ladies, this is what some of the TRE® Providers had to say:

“After only three weeks the ladies are experiencing an inner sense of calm, better sleep, less stress and aches in their bodies…feel at one with themselves…they live on the Cape Flats but refuse to be flattened by poverty, abuse, crime and ill health…they take time each week to shake off the burden of their battles…I love their stubborn heats…in the middle of it all, the teach me life.”

The Bonteheuwel Walking Ladies have found a way to manage the release of the heightened levels of stress, by starting on their TRE® journey. Come and see what this simple, completely natural process can do for you.