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I was just listening to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for those non-canucks… ), and heard an RCMP officer saying that it’s not ‘natural’ for a human being to kill.

This is so, so, NOT accurate.

Let me explain.

Example:

1) If a mother was to witness her child being harmed and/or killed (and let’s face it, this DOES happen), her instinct would be to harm and even, yes, potential ‘kill’ the attacker. Typically though, she’d shutdown and go into shock, the opposite of the fight response.

But that instinct to do harm is still sitting in her.

2) Same goes for a victim of rape/sexual assault.

3) Same goes for the emotionally abused person.

Having worked with many people who have survived #2 and #3, I can tell ya the human instinct to kill is real and IS natural.

Our brain wants to protect us and our kin.

Does it mean we should kill? No, of course not.

But that instinct and desire IS there, and it doesn’t just magically go away on its own.

In my opinion, we must accept and acknowledge this.

When a person has survival energies still stuck and living inside of them, over time, it can lead to all kinds of health and well being issues. Things like PTSD, depression, deep sadness, anxiety, fear, pain, chronic illnesses such as fibromyalgia and autoimmune conditions,  trouble moving forward in life, not setting boundaries, addictions, always feeling paralyzed and STUCK etc…

Allowing that person, or more accurately, giving them permission to imagine, fantasize and most importantly SENSE what it would be like to attack, harm and even kill the person who harmed them can be incredibly healing. It can, and often does, restore wholeness back to the person.

Please understand that this is imagination and the feeling of doing it, not actually doing it! (See below for additional articles on how to do this with sanity and self-respect, while still honouring your biology and survival needs.)

So YES. The secret is out. I help my clients annihilate stuff/people/societies that have harmed them in the past so their body is no longer a prisoner of energies never released. When survival energy gets freed up in the nervous system the potential of them actually harming someone else, and often THEMSELVES, in the future, is lessened.

Example:

You’ve probably heard about war veterans coming back from combat and then having episodes wherein they accidentally attack their spouses in their sleep.

Or they wake up and have ‘unexplainable’ attacks of rage and anger to those they love the most.  Sadly, all too often this can end in suicide because they don’t want to harm anyone else and they can’t handle the internal intensity they feel.

This is the killing/anger/rage (energy) coming out because it couldn’t come out during combat, typically because they were being attacked and had to survive, often with a feeling of helplessness or they witnessed their buddies being killed and they couldn’t do anything about it. They’re also in combat, so sometimes, the only choice to survive, is to set aside what’s happening inside and get the job done.

The same goes for those of us who are constantly in self-hatred and self-sabotaging patterns.

Think about this for a second …

If you were harmed in the past (emotionally, physically, sexually) and you couldn’t fight back or flee, that anger can, and often does, turn inwards because you couldn’t release it to those harming you. So you harm yourself with the many addictions and behaviours we use to manage our stored survival energies.

(This is especially true in the family system, especially when the parents have physically harmed a child. But it can also be words that ridicule and put down a child. These can, in my experience, be some of the most toxic forms of abuse.)

This rage/anger/killing, whatever you want to call it…

It is in us.

And it’s OK that it’s IN us!

But we need to learn how to move it OUT!

The Solution?

Everybody needs to learn how to move this energy out in a way that isn’t solely cathartic, going to drive somebody into a dissociated state and isn’t just compassion, calmness, and forgiving energy.

We need to bring WHOLENESS back to the animal within us by respecting and honouring ALL bodily experiences, not just the ones that are easy to feel. All our experiences and survival energies…all our anger, rage and fear.

To dive in further on this topic, be sure to check out these suggested articles. Some are written by myself and two are written by my husband, Seth Lyon, who is also a nervous system specialist and has successfully healed complex PTSD as a result of the kind of toxic/emotional abuse mentioned above.

Anger as Medicine: How to Cure Self-Sabotaging Behaviours

The real deal on fear. And, why we’ve become masters at avoiding it.

For us to heal, we must be willing to not fear, fear.

Healthy Aggression: The Way To Un-frustrate Frustration

This Is When It’s Ok To Annihilate Somebody…

Irene.

PS Bless the *RCMP officer’s heart who had to say this to make a good face on the radio.

(I get it, I really do…)

—-*Royal Canadian Mounted Police.