“Courage is grace under pressure,” said Ernest Hemmingway, the great journalist and war correspondent who witnessed young men becoming heroes on the battlefields and frontlines of World War II. As a descendant of one of the brave young men who turned the tide of the war in the greatest battle known to man – D-Day Invasion at Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944, I join America in celebrating the 75^thanniversary of D-Day today. My Grandfather, Ysidro P. Betancourt, 2^nd Battalion Army Ranger on Omaha Beach, was one of 90 survivors out of 225, who crossed enemy lines in the early hours of the morning after going in on a boat hitting the beach of carnage under the crack and fire of cannons and scaled the shear cliffs of Pointe du Hoc to eliminate the enemy and free Europe from the Nazi regime. My Grandpa Sid returned home with two Purple Heart medals. His courage to liberate people from tyranny and rage to survive against the odds lives on in me, pulsing through my bloodline and body. Though, he has passed on, I hear him call me to go in and take down this evil among us now. But this time it is an invisible, pervasive and insidious enemy wreaking havoc on our bodies – in particular the pelvis – the loaded gun raping our boys, girls and young women and men of their lust for life.

This enemy lives among us. And, we keep silent. We turn a blind eye. But, the pelvis doesn’t lie. It holds the crime scene. I detect the aftermath of these violations and shame in the pelvis of children, boys and girls, men and women, fathers and mothers. These sexual violations and moral injuries to the body masquerade as the slew of puzzling diagnoses that plague our nation in pain. The wounded pelvis triggers the trauma posture that I so often see driving chronic pain, autoimmune disorders, addiction, painful sex, inability to maintain healthy relationships, and disorders such as ADHD, bi-polar and OCD. The pelvis tucks inward to contain the secret and protect itself sealing off the life force in the body, while the predators run free to inflict and spread more pain.

Keeping these violations a secret ensures that someone else in your family will fall victim to it. I have seen it time after time where the sexual trauma – body violation – repeats in generation after generation like an evil virus transacting at the exact same age in grandmothers, mothers, daughters and sons. The pelvis is the shock absorber of the body – the center of your creativity, ability to reproduce and inherited survival programs. Yes, the pelvis also contains your roots and imprints of your parents’ and grandparents’ unresolved traumas. This means if their bodies were violated, those memories, emotions and survival responses shape your body.

If you were raped and buried it, your body is trapped in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, hyper-sexuality and hyperactivity whether you are aware of it or not.  If the assault occurred while you slept, insomnia may haunt you. The neck/jaw is a mirror reflection of the pelvis connected by the spinal cord and the Vagus nerve in the body. When the pelvis closes up and tucks to protect itself, the neck and jaw tightens up, freezing the vocal cords making it difficult, sometimes impossible to speak about this body crime. I see girls date raped in college who unlock their earlier body violations buried in childhood and trace the roots of molestations and rapes on their family tree. This takes courage and grace for me to ask the hard questions and become the body detective, while also empowering my clients to see that this didn’t start with them, but they have the power to end it. We have to go in and scale the walls and have real conversations to eradicate this enemy.  I can’t allow myself to hear one more story of the preyed upon pelvis without sharing it with you. It’s crucial that you share it with your children and their children. Tell your friends so they can tell their friends. We have to stop the trickster, the molester, the predator. We have to put an end to the evil lurking from the dark, harming our bodies. The predators can smell the pheromones of their potential victims through insecure posture and paralyzed vocal cords.

Often people especially in the Me Too Movement asked why did I freeze or why didn’t I tell someone? In many cases, your body was violated before that assault possibly when you were a child or potentially someone in your family had a violation imprinting the freeze response in your pelvis. This freeze is part of fight-flight response to trauma in the body. Many boy scouts turned to young men experienced their first sexual encounter as a pre-meditated molestation and/or rape inflicted by their Boy Scout troop leaders. There is a tug of war inside loading their pelvis with shame, seduction, rage, hyper-sexuality and let’s face it vulnerability to fall victim again to predators. Makes it difficult to be intimate in relationships, stepping outside of marriages to live out the hyper-sexuality. The rage and shame can fuel violence to the point of criminal activity and blackouts.  This wound is more pervasive among boys and young men then we have realized. The symptoms of this wound operating in your body or your child’s body pose as anxieties and panic attacks, addictions, depression, sensitivities, mania, allergies and limitations, insomnia and mood disorders. You may be at the end of the line with all the labels and prescriptions and surgeries trying to chase and eliminate mysterious pain in your body. Let’s get to the root.

I urge you to come into the studio because you don’t have to just survive like this, we can excavate the wound from your body. We can go in and take down the evil enemy terrorizing your body and family. You will be liberated and you will liberate and inoculate your sons and daughters from falling prey to the same enemy. I am grateful to my Grandpa Sid and his comrades for ridding our world of the Nazi regime. He has helped me to stand in my power against this insidious enemy that has imprisoned our bodies. It is not easy to shine a spotlight on this darkness, but I know it is the only way forward. If you or someone you know is bound by this invisible wound, let’s break free together.

Make an appointment with me, Gina Calderone, Physical and Energetic Therapist, and Denise Carson, Body Journalist, at Centripetal Force Studio to undercover the crime scene and excavate the roots of your pain. We can reverse the cycle of trauma in your body.